1 20 144 https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/321e5f3e5f2282bdc0343f547ed4fb7f.pdf 28ab5fe11c8220bf6f413c620c81464d PDF Text Text Nuclear waste, obligations to the future, and social choice. The bus example. very long journey. Suppose we consider a bus which, hopefully, is to make a Early in the journey of the bus someone consigns on it, to a far distant destination, a package which contains a highly toxic and explo­ sive gas. This is packaged in a thin container, which as the consigner well knows may well not contain the gas for the full distance for which it is con­ signed, and certainly will not do so if the bus should strike any trouble, for example if there is a breakdown and the interior of the bus becomes very hot, if the bus should strike a very large bump or pothole of the sort commonly found on some of the bad roads it has to traverse, or if some passenger should interfere deliberately or inadvertently with the cargo or perhaps try to steal some of the freight. If the container should break the resulting disaster would probably kill at least some of the people on the bus, while others could be maimed or contract serious diseases. Most of us would condemn such an action. parcel say to try to justify it? What might the consigner of the He might say that it is not certain that the gas will escape and that it is mere speculation to suppose it will, that the world needs his product and it is his duty to supply it, and that in any case he is not responsible for the bus or the people on it. These sorts of excuses however would normally be seen as ludicrous. Suppose he says that it is his own pressing needs which justify his action. The firm he owns, which produces the material as a by-product, is in bad financial straits, and couldn't afford to produce a better container (even if it knew how to make one). If the firm goes broke, he and his family will suffer, his employees will lose their jobs and have to look for others, and the whole village, through loss of spending and the cancellation of the Multiplier Effect, will be worse off. The poor of the village whom he would otherwise have been able to help, will suffer especially. Few people would accept this story even if correct, as justification. Even where there are serious risks and costs to oneself or some group for whom one is concerned one is usually thought not to be entitled to simply transfer the burden of those risks and costs onto other uninvolved parties, especially where they arise from one’s own chosen life style and the transfer of costs creates a risk of serious harm to others (the transfer principle). �2. The nuclear comparison. One of the major problems arising from the use of nuclear power is the disposal of highly radioactive wastes which must be segregated from the biosphere for periods on the order of a million years (Ringwood 78, p.l). The wastes are highly toxic and will be spread around the world if large-scale nuclear development goes ahead as planned. Yet there is no method of packaging them whose safety has been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt and which we can be confident will be generally used. Despite recent ’new strategies for safe disposal of nuclear waste’, it remains true^ that there is at present no generally accepted means by which high level waste can be permanently isolated from the environment and remain safe for very long periods. (Fox Report, p.110). It was presumably largely for this sort of reason that the Fox Report endorsed the conclusion of the British (Flowers) Report ’with respect to nuclear waste’ namely:- There should be no commitment to a large programme of nuclear fission power until it has been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that a method exists to ensure the safe containment of long-lived radioactive waste for the indefinite future (Fox Report, p.189; our italics). - a reliable method, the Report should have added, whose commercial viability and use is assured. example. The need for these further conditions can be seen from the bus The consigner can hardly justify his action as regards the people on the bus, the people of the future, by saying that a better container is too expensive, or that he does have a strategy for producing or theory which will enable him to produce a superior container if he has failed to use the method. It is thus a non sequitur to argue as Ringwood does on the basis of his proposed strategy for the safe disposal of radwastes (i.e. high-level nuclear wastes) that the radwaste problem is no reasonable ground upon which to curtail use of nuclear power: The principle conclusion of this book is that the problem of isolating high level nuclear wastes from the biosphere can be solved. Although there may be other objections to the use of nuclear power, the radwaste problem cannot reasonably be cited in justification of policies to abandon its use (78, Ringwood’s italics). Even if the premiss that the problem can be solved had been established — it hasn’t at all^ - the no-abandonment-of-nuclear-power conclusion in no way follows. There is a large gap between the theoretical possibility of a method of safe storage (hardly an important issue in the nuclear debate) and the availability of a commercial containment method whose reliability has been demonstrated beyond �3. reasonable doubt and whose general use can be reasonably assumed. It is the latter that is required for Ringwood’s no-abandonment-of-nuclear-power conclusion; but of the latter Ringwood’s strategy gives no assurance. There is in fact little reason to believe that nuclear pollution will be treated in a different fashion from other forms of pollution, where the availability of more satisfactory methods of control is by no means sufficient to guarantee their effective employ­ ment, especially if they are expensive. It is methodologically unsound to ignore social, ethical and political factors and to regard the radwaste problem as a purely technological one which can be classed as solved should a theoretical solution with practical application possibilities be reached. The practical likelihood, even given (what we lack) a disposal method proven safe beyond reasonable doubt, remains — that nuclear wastes will not be adequately contained, with the result that nuclear power will impose serious costs and risks on future people who do not benefit. For nuclear fission generates wastes which may remain toxic for a million years, but even with the breeder reactor it could be an energy source for perhaps only 150 years. Thus 30,000 generations of future people could be forced to bear significant risks,'without any corresponding benefits, resulting from the provision of the extravagant energy use of only 5 generations or so. Like the consigner in the bus example, contemporary industrial society proposes, in extricating itself from a mess arising from its own life style - the creation of economies dependent on an abundance of non-renewable energy which is limited in physical supply - to pass on costs and risks of serious harm to others who will obtain no corresponding energy benefits. The solution may enable the avoidance of some uncomfortable changes in the lifetime of those now living and their immediate descendants, just as the consigner’s action avoids uncomfortable changes for him and his immediate surroundings, but at the expense of passing heavy burdens to other uninvolved parties. For these reasons the nuclear energy option is, like the consigner’s action morally unacceptable. What makes matters worse is that present industrial society has clear alternatives to its nuclear choice, which is made essentially to avoid changing wasteful patterns of consumption and to protect the interests of those who profit from them. Obligations to the future. One way of trying to escape the conclusion that present large-scale nuclear development involves serious injustice with respect to people of the distant future is to deny, as the occasional philosopher has, that there are moral obligations to remotely future people. But the view that there are no such obligations, that we are free to do as we like with respect to future people, is a very difficult one to sustain. Would scientists, for example, in the course of conducting an experiment, be entitled to do something, say release a disease-carrying organism with a very long incubation period, which �4. while not affecting the present, could cause death and disease for many future people, for example? Most people would say they certainly are not. Nevertheless ’The future can take case of itself; why should we worry about it, we have enough problems’ is also a common attitude. But it is not as if in the nuclear case we are simp1y leaving the future alone to take care of itself. We are causally influencing it and in doing so acquire moral responsibilities with respect to future people, namely the obligation to take account of people affected and their interests in what we do, to be careful in our actions, to take account of the probability of our actions causing harm, and to see that we do not act so as to rob future people of the chance of a good life — and a satisfactory environment. That there are obligations to the distant future, which follows logically from examples, such as that of scientists who act wrongly in deliberately or carelessly damaging people displaced in time, may be argued, more generally, on the basis of the spatial analogy (that the temporal dimension is like spatial dimensions and remoteness in space does not eliminate, or substantially diminish, obligation), or on the basis of ethical theories, and general principles common to such theories. The main modern theories of obligation, e.g. utilitarian, contractual, intuitionistic, when properly applied, converge to show that there are moral obligations to people in the distant future of the same sort that there are to present people. (Thus the rejection of nuclear development as morally unacceptable does not depend on a particular ethical theory, but uses only ground common to the main theories.) The convergence of theories may be accounted for in terms of conditions of adequacy an ethical theory should meet. The principles of obligation of such a theory should be universalisable or lawlike in that they do not make exceptions for particular times or places or peoples (such as those of contemporary industrial society): to make exceptions would be to accept unfairness, and so injustice. Thus the temporal position of a person cannot affect that person’s entitlement to just and fair treatment; these are the same sorts of general obligations to future people as to present. Engineering and economic comparisons and assessments of different energy options are usually inadequate because they neglect these general features of obligation. Just as the fact that the consigner and his immediate environment will benefit from sending the parcel does not show it is morally acceptable, so arguments for nuclear power based on alleged economic benefits for the present, or a favourable benefit-risk analysis, do not even begin to show that it is morally acceptable. Economics and engineering must (like law) operate within the framework of moral constraints, not determine those constraints. �5. Uncertainty arguments* Elements of uncertainty or indeterminacy in a situation (especially in our knowledge of the situation) provide no exemptions from general obligations, any more than they upset or modify the operation of general physical laws. It is commonly argued, however that we cannot really be expected to take account of the interests of future people, because the damage to the future from nuclear waste is by no means certain, we cannot be sure that future people will not develop a way of coping with the problem or will care about the risk anyway. Aren’t we being asked to forego tangible benefits for the present for the sake of avoiding a merely speculative risk of harm to people we do not even know will exist? This sort of argument may seem initially plausible, but a little reflection on examples, such as the bus example, shows that it is mistaken. It is like the consigner saying that there is nothing wrong in his sending his parcel, since it is not certain the gas will escape, or that there will be anybody on the bus when it does, or that the people on the bus may think of a way of coping with the problem, or may not care anyway. Can he really be expected to forego tangible benefits for himself and his family just to avoid speculative harm to the possibly non-existent passengers? The answer of course is yes. The damage to the passengers does not have to be certain or even probable - it is enough that a significant risk of serious harm is imposed on the unconsenting and uninvolved passengers. In the nuclear case it is clear that a significant risk will be imposed on the future. The circumstances in which nuclear waste disposal could be improper or ineffective are only too easy to envisage, and must be considered real risks with a real evidential basis, not merely idle speculation or science-fiction possibility. And uncertainty about the future is not so great as this line of argument likes to make out - there is uncertainty about many details of little moral consequence concerning the future, such as which girls’ names will be used commonly in 100 years, but we do have good reason to believe, especially if we consider 3000 years of history, that future people will have basic needs and desires rather like our own, that they will need a healthy biosphere for a good life, and that their lives will not be improved by an increased incidence of disease and cancer from increased radiation. written off in this way: Moral conflict arguments. The legitimate interests of future people cannot be These uncertainty arguments are moral cop-outs. The alternative to disputing obligations to the future is to appeal to overriding obligations involving the present (which induce situations where obligations conflict). According to moral conflict arguments, nuclear development does have its morally undesirable aspects, but the only practical alternatives to nuclear development are morally even worse. Observe that such arguments are only satisfactory provided the options presented are �6. genuine and exhaustive, all practicable alternatives being considered and shown to be worse than the option under consideration: this necessary condition is not satisfied.) in the nuclear development case Moral conflict arguments are commonly advanced in favour of nuclear development, some alleging competing and overriding duties to future people, and some analogous duties to present people. The main (and representative) argument of the last class, laying stress on duties to present people, is the Poverty Argument, according to which there is an overriding obligation to the poor, both of the third world and the industrialized countries who, according to the argument, will suffer or be denied the opportunity to reach affluence if nuclear development does not proceed. In neither case does the argument stand up to examination. There is good evidence that large-scale nuclear energy will help to increase unemployment and poverty in the industrial world, through the diversion of very much available capital into an industry which is not only an exceptionally poor provider of direct employment, but also helps to reduce available jobs through encouraging substitution of energy use for labour use. The argument that nuclear energy is needed for the third world is even less convincing. Nuclear energy is both politically and economically inappropriate for the third world, since it requires massive amounts of capital, requires numbers of imported scientists and engineers, and creates negligible employment. Politically it increases foreign dependence, adds to centralised entrenched power and reduces the chance for change in the oppressive political structures which are a large part of the problem something which may help explain why it is attractive to many of the military governing elites of these countries. The poverty argument then — like many modern economic arguments for development which appeal to the way in which development will, allegedly, assist the poor - is a fraud. Nuclear energy will not be used, except incidentally, to help the poor. Both for the third world and for the industrialised countries there are well-known energy conserving alternatives and the practical option of developing other energy sources, alternatives which are morally acceptable and socially preferable to nuclear development, and which have far better prospects for helping the poor. The other, major, moral conflict argument appeals to a set of supposedly overriding and competing obligations to present and future people. We have, it is said, a duty to pass on the immensely valuable things and institutions which our culture has developed. The argument is essentially that without nuclear power, without the continued level of material wealth it alone is assumed to make possible, the lights of our civilization will go out, our valuable institutions and traditions will fall into decay or be swept away. Future people also will be the losers. �The assumptions upon which this Lights-going-out Argument is based are untenable. It appears to assume that existing high-energy consumption society is uniformly and uniquely valuable and that it cannot be directed towards energy conservation or alternative energy sources without utter collapse. But no enormou: reduction in energy use, and perhaps little in real welfare, is needed to obviate the need for nuclear power in the shorter term, and alternative energy strategies to nuclear will have, in any case, to be adopted for the longer term anyway. High rates of energy use may be necessary to maintain the political and economic status quo, but they are scarcely necessary to maintain what is really valuable in our society, much of which we inherited from a past with a vastly lower energy con­ sumption, and much of which might well be better fostered in lower (energy) con­ sumption society with less concentration of political and economic power. Not only are the extravagant levels of energy consumption upon which the "need" for nuclear power is premissed unnecessary to maintain what is valuable, but there is some reason to believe they are positively inimical to doing so. Nuclear develop­ ment may help in passing on to future generations some of the worse aspects of our society, the consumerism, alienation, destruction of nature and latent authori­ tarianism, while many valuable aspects, such as the degree of political freedom and those opportunities for personal and collective autonomy which exist, would be lost or diminished. But it is not the status quo, but what is valuable in our society, presumably, that we have an obligation to pass on to the future, and if possible enhance. Both moral conflict escape routes are closed then, because the arguments depend on false contrasts, ignore practicable alternatives which are not morally worse than nuclear power, and in painting their picture of inevitability, vastly understate the extent of available social choice. It is like the consigner of the parcel arguing that if he does not send his parcel his family and the village will starve, when in fact there appear to be viable, but perhaps less profitable, alternatives he has not troubled to consider or investigate seriously Alternative energy options. The future energy option that is most frequently contrasted with nuclear, that based on coal, is not without ethical problems. Certainly there is no radioactive waste disposal problem, and other important grounds for moral and political concern over extensive reliance on nuclear energy are removed, namely problems arising from the real possibilities of proliferation of nuclear weapons, of deliberate release or threat of release of radioactive materials as a measure of terrorism or of extortion, and of catastrophic releases of radiation or of radioactive fuel or waste into the environment following an �accident such as reactor melt-down, and from security measures adopted to reduce such eventualities. But the coal-based option carries nonetheless serious costs and risks both to the environment and to health — because of the likelihood of severe pollution and associated damaging phenomena such as acid rain and atmospheric heating, not to mention the despoliation caused by extensive strip mining, all of which will result from use of coal in meeting very high projected consumption figures. Such an option would also fail, it seems, to satisfy the transfer principle, because it would impose widespread costs on nonbeneficiaries for some concentrated benefits to some profit takers and to some contemporary users who do not pay the full costs of production and replacement. These are the conventional options and a third is often added which emphasizes soft or benign technologies, such as those of solar energy. However the fundamental choice, such options usually neglect, is not technological but social, and involves both the restructuring of production, and change of consumption, away from energy intensive uses: at a more basic level there is a choice between consumeristic and nonconsumeristic futures.^ It is not just a matter of deciding in which way to meet unexamined goals but also a matter of examining the goals and underlying values. That is, we are not just faced with the question of comparing different technologies or substitute ways of meeting some fixed or given demand or level of nonsumption, and of trying to see whether we can meet this with soft rather than hard technologies; we are also faced, and primarily, with the matter of examining those alleged needs and the cost of society that creates them. It is not just a question of devising less damaging ways to meet these alleged needs conceived of us inevitable and unchangeable. There are solar ways of producing unnecessary trivia no one really wants and of squandering energy, as well as nuclear ways. This is not to deny that softer options may be superior to the ethically unacceptable features of the others. But it is doubtful that any technology however benign in principle will be likely to leave a tolerable world for future people if it is expected to meet limitless and uncontrolled energy consumption and demands. Even the more benign technologies such as solar technology may well be used in ways which create costs for future people and are likely to result in a deteriorated world being transmitted to them. Consider, to take one important example, the effect on the world’s forests, which are commonly counted as a solar resource, of use for production of methonal or of electricity by woodchipping, as already planned by forest authorities in California and contemplated by many other energy organisations. Few would object to the use of genuine waste material for energy production, but the un­ restricted exploitation of forests - whether it goes under the name of "solar energy" or not - to meet ever increasing energy demands would have a very damaging effect on the world’s already hard pressed natural forests. Some of us do not �9. want to pass on - we are not entitled to pass on - to the future a world largely devoid of natural forests and accordingly much impoverished in fauna and flora, any more than we want to pass on one poisoned by nuclear products or polluted by coal products. In short, a mere switch to a more benign technology - important though this is - without any more basic structural and social changes is inadequate. Social options. The deeper social options involve challenging and trying to change a social structure which promotes consumerism and an economic structure which encourages the use of highly energy-intensive modes of production. This involves, for instance, trying to change a social structure in which those who are fortunate enough to make it into the work force are cogs in a production machine over which they have very little real control and in which most people do unpleasant or boring work from which they derive very little real satisfaction in order to obtain the reward of consumer goods and services. A society in which social rewards are obtained primarily from products rather than processes, from consumption, rather than from satisfaction in work and in social relations and other activities, is bound to be one which generates a vast amount of unnecessary consumption. (A production system that produces goods not to meet genuine needs but for created and nongenuine needs is virtually bound to overproduce.) Consumption frequently becomes a substitute for satisfaction in other areas. The social change option is a hard option, but it seems the only way to avoid passing on serious costs and risks to the future5 and there are not only ethical grounds, but ecological reasons for choosing it. Conventional technology-oriented discussions of energy options and of how to meet future energy "needs” obscures the social change option, in part because the option questions values underlying current social arrangements. The conventional discussion proceeds by taking alleged demand (often restated as wants or needs) as unchallengeable, and the issue to be one which technology can be most profitably employed to meet them. This effectively presents a false choice, and is the result of taking needs and demand as lacking a social context so that the social structure which produces the needs is similarly taken as unchallengable and unchangeable. The social changes that the option requires will be strongly resisted because they mean changes in current social organisation and power structure, and to the extent that the option represents some kind of threat to parts of present political and economic arrangements it is not surprising that official energy option discussion proceeds g by misrepresenting and often obscuring it. �FOOTNOTES 1. 2. Some leading proponents of nuclear development admit the absence of satisfactory storage and disposal methods; others do not. Some of the newer strategies for waste disposal, e.g. that promoted by Cohen 77 fail, conspicuously, to meet conditions of adequacy on disposal (see Routley and Routley 78, footnote 1). Ringwood’s new strategy, in 78, was immediately rejected by some of the pronuclear establishment both as too expensive (even allowing Ringwood’s optimistic costguestimates) and as unnecessary, which does not augur well for its use. Yet Ringwood cast serious doubt on the adequacy of alternative disposal strategies, notably immobilisation of wastes in glass and in supercalcine. All Ringwood has shown conclusively is that he can create an artificial equivalent of a uranium one-body (Hallam 79) What Ringwood’s ’strategy for radwaste disposal’ amounts to is a further possible method of treating radwaste, with significant gaps in the argument, a considerable lack of experimental and practical support, no commercial feasibility studies, etc: see Martin 78 and Hallam 79. 3. It depends on several processes whose large-scale commercial viability has very definitely not been shown beyond reasonable doubt, including reprocessing (Fox Report, p.29). It appears to be far too expensive for the nuclear industry, and certainly for poorer nations that have embarked on nuclear power projects. There are moreover reasons for thinking that governments may not want or favour permanent irretrievable disposal methods; they may want to keep open their options for employing waste components either for military purposes or for use in breeder reactors or elsewhere. 4. On alternative technology and softer energy options, see especially Lovins 77; also Lovins 76. For criticism of Lovins’ comparative neglect of social alternatives, see Martin 77 (and Lovins’ reply thereto). 5. The already very serious situation of the world’s forests, especially the wet tropical forests, is not sufficiently widely appreciated. It is a commonplace reflection, however, among rainforest botanists and ecologists that nearly all tropical lowland rainforest and much highlevel rainforest will have been cut over by about the year 2000. Moreover such forests cannot at present be utilised on a sustained yield basis or as a renewable resource (see, e.g. p.219 of Prance and Elias 77). Worse, there are now few forestry operations anywhere in the world where the forests are treated as completely renewable in the sense of the renewal of all their values. In many temperate regions too the rate of exploitation which would enable renewal has already been exceeded. The addition of a major further demand source - that for energy, whether advertised as part of a ’’soft” energy path or otherwise and especially one which shows every sign of being not readily limitable, on top of the present sources is a development which anyone with a realistic appreciation of the conduct of forestry operations, who is also properly concerned about the longterm integrity of the forests and remaining natural communities, must regard with considerable alarm. �6. The transmission principle, that one should not hand the world on to our successors in substantially worse shape than we received it, is a corollary of the transfer principle - applied in the bus example and suggested as a necessary condition on energy options - that to be morally acceptable a course of action should not involve the transfer of significant cost and risks onto uninvolved parties who are not beneficiaries. For if we violated the transmission principle, there would be a significant transfer of costs, contradicting the transfer principle. The transmission principle can be independently argued for, e.g. on the basis of contract (and other) theories of obligation. 7. Thus it is argued by representatives of such industries as transportation and petroleum, as for example by McGrowth of the XS Consumption Co., that people want deep freezers, air conditioners, power boats, ... and that it would be authoritarian to stop them satisfying these wants. The argument conveniently ignores the social framework in which such needs and wants arise or are produced. To point to the determination of many such wants at the framework level is not however to accept a Marxist approach according to which they are entirely determined at the framework level (e.g. by industrial organisation) and there is no such thing as individual choice or determination at all. It is to see the social framework as a major factor in determining certain kinds of choices and to see apparently individual choices made in such matters as being channelled and directed by a social framework determined largely in the interests of commercial and political advantage. 8. This paper draws on material from Routley and Routley 78 and 79 where fuller discussion of many of the topics covered, especially the question of obligations to the future and uncertainty arguments, may be found. �REFERENCES B.L. Cohen, ’The disposal of radioactive wastes from fission reactors’, Scientific American 236 (June 1977) 22-31. Flowers Report: Nuclear Power and the Environment. Sixth Report of the British Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, London, 1976. Fox Report: Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry First Report, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1977. J.R. Hallam, ’Synroc or Cinroc? *, (Wn tetion 4 (2-3) (1979) 4-5. A. Lovins, ’Energy strategy: the road not taken:’, Foreign Affairs 55 (1) (October 1976) 65-96. A. Lovins, Soft Energy Paths, Friends of the Earth, San Francisco, 1977. B. Martin, ’Is alternative technology enough?’, Chain Reaction 3 (2) (1977) 17-21. B. Martin, ’Call for research into Synroc’, The Canberra Times, December 6, 1978, p.15. G.T. Prance and T.S. Elias (editors), Extinction is Forever, New York Botanic Garden, 1977. A.E. Ringwood, Safe Disposal of High Level Nuclear Reactor Wastes: A New strategy, ANU Press, Canberra, 1978. R. and V. Routley, ’Nuclear energy and obligations to the future’, Inquiry 21 (1978) 133-179. R. and V. Routley, ’Some ethical aspects of energy options’, in Energy and People: Social Implications of Different Energy Futures, edited by M. Diesendorf, Society for Social Responsibility in Science (A.C.T.), Canberra, 1979. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Nuclear waste, obligations to the future, and social choice. The bus example. very long journey. Suppose we consider a bus which, hopefully, is to make a Early in the journey of the bus someone consigns on it, to a far distant destination, a package which contains a highly toxic and explo­ sive gas. This is packaged in a thin container, which as the consigner well knows may well not contain the gas for the full distance for which it is con­ signed, and certainly will not do so if the bus should strike any trouble, for example if there is a breakdown and the interior of the bus becomes very hot, if the bus should strike a very large bump or pothole of the sort commonly found on some of the bad roads it has to traverse, or if some passenger should interfere deliberately or inadvertently with the cargo or perhaps try to steal some of the freight. If the container should break the resulting disaster would probably kill at least some of the people on the bus, while others could be maimed or contract serious diseases. Most of us would condemn such an action. parcel say to try to justify it? What might the consigner of the He might say that it is not certain that the gas will escape and that it is mere speculation to suppose it will, that the world needs his product and it is his duty to supply it, and that in any case he is not responsible for the bus or the people on it. These sorts of excuses however would normally be seen as ludicrous. Suppose he says that it is his own pressing needs which justify his action. The firm he owns, which produces the material as a by-product, is in bad financial straits, and couldn't afford to produce a better container (even if it knew how to make one). If the firm goes broke, he and his family will suffer, his employees will lose their jobs and have to look for others, and the whole village, through loss of spending and the cancellation of the Multiplier Effect, will be worse off. The poor of the village whom he would otherwise have been able to help, will suffer especially. Few people would accept this story even if correct, as justification. Even where there are serious risks and costs to oneself or some group for whom one is concerned one is usually thought not to be entitled to simply transfer the burden of those risks and costs onto other uninvolved parties, especially where they arise from one’s own chosen life style and the transfer of costs creates a risk of serious harm to others (the transfer principle). 2. The nuclear comparison. One of the major problems arising from the use of nuclear power is the disposal of highly radioactive wastes which must be segregated from the biosphere for periods on the order of a million years (Ringwood 78, p.l). The wastes are highly toxic and will be spread around the world if large-scale nuclear development goes ahead as planned. Yet there is no method of packaging them whose safety has been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt and which we can be confident will be generally used. Despite recent ’new strategies for safe disposal of nuclear waste’, it remains true^ that there is at present no generally accepted means by which high level waste can be permanently isolated from the environment and remain safe for very long periods. (Fox Report, p.110). It was presumably largely for this sort of reason that the Fox Report endorsed the conclusion of the British (Flowers) Report ’with respect to nuclear waste’ namely:- There should be no commitment to a large programme of nuclear fission power until it has been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that a method exists to ensure the safe containment of long-lived radioactive waste for the indefinite future (Fox Report, p.189; our italics). - a reliable method, the Report should have added, whose commercial viability and use is assured. example. The need for these further conditions can be seen from the bus The consigner can hardly justify his action as regards the people on the bus, the people of the future, by saying that a better container is too expensive, or that he does have a strategy for producing or theory which will enable him to produce a superior container if he has failed to use the method. It is thus a non sequitur to argue as Ringwood does on the basis of his proposed strategy for the safe disposal of radwastes (i.e. high-level nuclear wastes) that the radwaste problem is no reasonable ground upon which to curtail use of nuclear power: The principle conclusion of this book is that the problem of isolating high level nuclear wastes from the biosphere can be solved. Although there may be other objections to the use of nuclear power, the radwaste problem cannot reasonably be cited in justification of policies to abandon its use (78, Ringwood’s italics). Even if the premiss that the problem can be solved had been established — it hasn’t at all^ - the no-abandonment-of-nuclear-power conclusion in no way follows. There is a large gap between the theoretical possibility of a method of safe storage (hardly an important issue in the nuclear debate) and the availability of a commercial containment method whose reliability has been demonstrated beyond 3. reasonable doubt and whose general use can be reasonably assumed. It is the latter that is required for Ringwood’s no-abandonment-of-nuclear-power conclusion; but of the latter Ringwood’s strategy gives no assurance. There is in fact little reason to believe that nuclear pollution will be treated in a different fashion from other forms of pollution, where the availability of more satisfactory methods of control is by no means sufficient to guarantee their effective employ­ ment, especially if they are expensive. It is methodologically unsound to ignore social, ethical and political factors and to regard the radwaste problem as a purely technological one which can be classed as solved should a theoretical solution with practical application possibilities be reached. The practical likelihood, even given (what we lack) a disposal method proven safe beyond reasonable doubt, remains — that nuclear wastes will not be adequately contained, with the result that nuclear power will impose serious costs and risks on future people who do not benefit. For nuclear fission generates wastes which may remain toxic for a million years, but even with the breeder reactor it could be an energy source for perhaps only 150 years. Thus 30,000 generations of future people could be forced to bear significant risks,'without any corresponding benefits, resulting from the provision of the extravagant energy use of only 5 generations or so. Like the consigner in the bus example, contemporary industrial society proposes, in extricating itself from a mess arising from its own life style - the creation of economies dependent on an abundance of non-renewable energy which is limited in physical supply - to pass on costs and risks of serious harm to others who will obtain no corresponding energy benefits. The solution may enable the avoidance of some uncomfortable changes in the lifetime of those now living and their immediate descendants, just as the consigner’s action avoids uncomfortable changes for him and his immediate surroundings, but at the expense of passing heavy burdens to other uninvolved parties. For these reasons the nuclear energy option is, like the consigner’s action morally unacceptable. What makes matters worse is that present industrial society has clear alternatives to its nuclear choice, which is made essentially to avoid changing wasteful patterns of consumption and to protect the interests of those who profit from them. Obligations to the future. One way of trying to escape the conclusion that present large-scale nuclear development involves serious injustice with respect to people of the distant future is to deny, as the occasional philosopher has, that there are moral obligations to remotely future people. But the view that there are no such obligations, that we are free to do as we like with respect to future people, is a very difficult one to sustain. Would scientists, for example, in the course of conducting an experiment, be entitled to do something, say release a disease-carrying organism with a very long incubation period, which 4. while not affecting the present, could cause death and disease for many future people, for example? Most people would say they certainly are not. Nevertheless ’The future can take case of itself; why should we worry about it, we have enough problems’ is also a common attitude. But it is not as if in the nuclear case we are simp1y leaving the future alone to take care of itself. We are causally influencing it and in doing so acquire moral responsibilities with respect to future people, namely the obligation to take account of people affected and their interests in what we do, to be careful in our actions, to take account of the probability of our actions causing harm, and to see that we do not act so as to rob future people of the chance of a good life — and a satisfactory environment. That there are obligations to the distant future, which follows logically from examples, such as that of scientists who act wrongly in deliberately or carelessly damaging people displaced in time, may be argued, more generally, on the basis of the spatial analogy (that the temporal dimension is like spatial dimensions and remoteness in space does not eliminate, or substantially diminish, obligation), or on the basis of ethical theories, and general principles common to such theories. The main modern theories of obligation, e.g. utilitarian, contractual, intuitionistic, when properly applied, converge to show that there are moral obligations to people in the distant future of the same sort that there are to present people. (Thus the rejection of nuclear development as morally unacceptable does not depend on a particular ethical theory, but uses only ground common to the main theories.) The convergence of theories may be accounted for in terms of conditions of adequacy an ethical theory should meet. The principles of obligation of such a theory should be universalisable or lawlike in that they do not make exceptions for particular times or places or peoples (such as those of contemporary industrial society): to make exceptions would be to accept unfairness, and so injustice. Thus the temporal position of a person cannot affect that person’s entitlement to just and fair treatment; these are the same sorts of general obligations to future people as to present. Engineering and economic comparisons and assessments of different energy options are usually inadequate because they neglect these general features of obligation. Just as the fact that the consigner and his immediate environment will benefit from sending the parcel does not show it is morally acceptable, so arguments for nuclear power based on alleged economic benefits for the present, or a favourable benefit-risk analysis, do not even begin to show that it is morally acceptable. Economics and engineering must (like law) operate within the framework of moral constraints, not determine those constraints. 5. Uncertainty arguments* Elements of uncertainty or indeterminacy in a situation (especially in our knowledge of the situation) provide no exemptions from general obligations, any more than they upset or modify the operation of general physical laws. It is commonly argued, however that we cannot really be expected to take account of the interests of future people, because the damage to the future from nuclear waste is by no means certain, we cannot be sure that future people will not develop a way of coping with the problem or will care about the risk anyway. Aren’t we being asked to forego tangible benefits for the present for the sake of avoiding a merely speculative risk of harm to people we do not even know will exist? This sort of argument may seem initially plausible, but a little reflection on examples, such as the bus example, shows that it is mistaken. It is like the consigner saying that there is nothing wrong in his sending his parcel, since it is not certain the gas will escape, or that there will be anybody on the bus when it does, or that the people on the bus may think of a way of coping with the problem, or may not care anyway. Can he really be expected to forego tangible benefits for himself and his family just to avoid speculative harm to the possibly non-existent passengers? The answer of course is yes. The damage to the passengers does not have to be certain or even probable - it is enough that a significant risk of serious harm is imposed on the unconsenting and uninvolved passengers. In the nuclear case it is clear that a significant risk will be imposed on the future. The circumstances in which nuclear waste disposal could be improper or ineffective are only too easy to envisage, and must be considered real risks with a real evidential basis, not merely idle speculation or science-fiction possibility. And uncertainty about the future is not so great as this line of argument likes to make out - there is uncertainty about many details of little moral consequence concerning the future, such as which girls’ names will be used commonly in 100 years, but we do have good reason to believe, especially if we consider 3000 years of history, that future people will have basic needs and desires rather like our own, that they will need a healthy biosphere for a good life, and that their lives will not be improved by an increased incidence of disease and cancer from increased radiation. written off in this way: Moral conflict arguments. The legitimate interests of future people cannot be These uncertainty arguments are moral cop-outs. The alternative to disputing obligations to the future is to appeal to overriding obligations involving the present (which induce situations where obligations conflict). According to moral conflict arguments, nuclear development does have its morally undesirable aspects, but the only practical alternatives to nuclear development are morally even worse. Observe that such arguments are only satisfactory provided the options presented are 6. genuine and exhaustive, all practicable alternatives being considered and shown to be worse than the option under consideration: this necessary condition is not satisfied.) in the nuclear development case Moral conflict arguments are commonly advanced in favour of nuclear development, some alleging competing and overriding duties to future people, and some analogous duties to present people. The main (and representative) argument of the last class, laying stress on duties to present people, is the Poverty Argument, according to which there is an overriding obligation to the poor, both of the third world and the industrialized countries who, according to the argument, will suffer or be denied the opportunity to reach affluence if nuclear development does not proceed. In neither case does the argument stand up to examination. There is good evidence that large-scale nuclear energy will help to increase unemployment and poverty in the industrial world, through the diversion of very much available capital into an industry which is not only an exceptionally poor provider of direct employment, but also helps to reduce available jobs through encouraging substitution of energy use for labour use. The argument that nuclear energy is needed for the third world is even less convincing. Nuclear energy is both politically and economically inappropriate for the third world, since it requires massive amounts of capital, requires numbers of imported scientists and engineers, and creates negligible employment. Politically it increases foreign dependence, adds to centralised entrenched power and reduces the chance for change in the oppressive political structures which are a large part of the problem something which may help explain why it is attractive to many of the military governing elites of these countries. The poverty argument then — like many modern economic arguments for development which appeal to the way in which development will, allegedly, assist the poor - is a fraud. Nuclear energy will not be used, except incidentally, to help the poor. Both for the third world and for the industrialised countries there are well-known energy conserving alternatives and the practical option of developing other energy sources, alternatives which are morally acceptable and socially preferable to nuclear development, and which have far better prospects for helping the poor. The other, major, moral conflict argument appeals to a set of supposedly overriding and competing obligations to present and future people. We have, it is said, a duty to pass on the immensely valuable things and institutions which our culture has developed. The argument is essentially that without nuclear power, without the continued level of material wealth it alone is assumed to make possible, the lights of our civilization will go out, our valuable institutions and traditions will fall into decay or be swept away. Future people also will be the losers. The assumptions upon which this Lights-going-out Argument is based are untenable. It appears to assume that existing high-energy consumption society is uniformly and uniquely valuable and that it cannot be directed towards energy conservation or alternative energy sources without utter collapse. But no enormou: reduction in energy use, and perhaps little in real welfare, is needed to obviate the need for nuclear power in the shorter term, and alternative energy strategies to nuclear will have, in any case, to be adopted for the longer term anyway. High rates of energy use may be necessary to maintain the political and economic status quo, but they are scarcely necessary to maintain what is really valuable in our society, much of which we inherited from a past with a vastly lower energy con­ sumption, and much of which might well be better fostered in lower (energy) con­ sumption society with less concentration of political and economic power. Not only are the extravagant levels of energy consumption upon which the "need" for nuclear power is premissed unnecessary to maintain what is valuable, but there is some reason to believe they are positively inimical to doing so. Nuclear develop­ ment may help in passing on to future generations some of the worse aspects of our society, the consumerism, alienation, destruction of nature and latent authori­ tarianism, while many valuable aspects, such as the degree of political freedom and those opportunities for personal and collective autonomy which exist, would be lost or diminished. But it is not the status quo, but what is valuable in our society, presumably, that we have an obligation to pass on to the future, and if possible enhance. Both moral conflict escape routes are closed then, because the arguments depend on false contrasts, ignore practicable alternatives which are not morally worse than nuclear power, and in painting their picture of inevitability, vastly understate the extent of available social choice. It is like the consigner of the parcel arguing that if he does not send his parcel his family and the village will starve, when in fact there appear to be viable, but perhaps less profitable, alternatives he has not troubled to consider or investigate seriously Alternative energy options. The future energy option that is most frequently contrasted with nuclear, that based on coal, is not without ethical problems. Certainly there is no radioactive waste disposal problem, and other important grounds for moral and political concern over extensive reliance on nuclear energy are removed, namely problems arising from the real possibilities of proliferation of nuclear weapons, of deliberate release or threat of release of radioactive materials as a measure of terrorism or of extortion, and of catastrophic releases of radiation or of radioactive fuel or waste into the environment following an accident such as reactor melt-down, and from security measures adopted to reduce such eventualities. But the coal-based option carries nonetheless serious costs and risks both to the environment and to health — because of the likelihood of severe pollution and associated damaging phenomena such as acid rain and atmospheric heating, not to mention the despoliation caused by extensive strip mining, all of which will result from use of coal in meeting very high projected consumption figures. Such an option would also fail, it seems, to satisfy the transfer principle, because it would impose widespread costs on nonbeneficiaries for some concentrated benefits to some profit takers and to some contemporary users who do not pay the full costs of production and replacement. These are the conventional options and a third is often added which emphasizes soft or benign technologies, such as those of solar energy. However the fundamental choice, such options usually neglect, is not technological but social, and involves both the restructuring of production, and change of consumption, away from energy intensive uses: at a more basic level there is a choice between consumeristic and nonconsumeristic futures.^ It is not just a matter of deciding in which way to meet unexamined goals but also a matter of examining the goals and underlying values. That is, we are not just faced with the question of comparing different technologies or substitute ways of meeting some fixed or given demand or level of nonsumption, and of trying to see whether we can meet this with soft rather than hard technologies; we are also faced, and primarily, with the matter of examining those alleged needs and the cost of society that creates them. It is not just a question of devising less damaging ways to meet these alleged needs conceived of us inevitable and unchangeable. There are solar ways of producing unnecessary trivia no one really wants and of squandering energy, as well as nuclear ways. This is not to deny that softer options may be superior to the ethically unacceptable features of the others. But it is doubtful that any technology however benign in principle will be likely to leave a tolerable world for future people if it is expected to meet limitless and uncontrolled energy consumption and demands. Even the more benign technologies such as solar technology may well be used in ways which create costs for future people and are likely to result in a deteriorated world being transmitted to them. Consider, to take one important example, the effect on the world’s forests, which are commonly counted as a solar resource, of use for production of methonal or of electricity by woodchipping, as already planned by forest authorities in California and contemplated by many other energy organisations. Few would object to the use of genuine waste material for energy production, but the un­ restricted exploitation of forests - whether it goes under the name of "solar energy" or not - to meet ever increasing energy demands would have a very damaging effect on the world’s already hard pressed natural forests. Some of us do not 9. want to pass on - we are not entitled to pass on - to the future a world largely devoid of natural forests and accordingly much impoverished in fauna and flora, any more than we want to pass on one poisoned by nuclear products or polluted by coal products. In short, a mere switch to a more benign technology - important though this is - without any more basic structural and social changes is inadequate. Social options. The deeper social options involve challenging and trying to change a social structure which promotes consumerism and an economic structure which encourages the use of highly energy-intensive modes of production. This involves, for instance, trying to change a social structure in which those who are fortunate enough to make it into the work force are cogs in a production machine over which they have very little real control and in which most people do unpleasant or boring work from which they derive very little real satisfaction in order to obtain the reward of consumer goods and services. A society in which social rewards are obtained primarily from products rather than processes, from consumption, rather than from satisfaction in work and in social relations and other activities, is bound to be one which generates a vast amount of unnecessary consumption. (A production system that produces goods not to meet genuine needs but for created and nongenuine needs is virtually bound to overproduce.) Consumption frequently becomes a substitute for satisfaction in other areas. The social change option is a hard option, but it seems the only way to avoid passing on serious costs and risks to the future5 and there are not only ethical grounds, but ecological reasons for choosing it. Conventional technology-oriented discussions of energy options and of how to meet future energy "needs” obscures the social change option, in part because the option questions values underlying current social arrangements. The conventional discussion proceeds by taking alleged demand (often restated as wants or needs) as unchallengeable, and the issue to be one which technology can be most profitably employed to meet them. This effectively presents a false choice, and is the result of taking needs and demand as lacking a social context so that the social structure which produces the needs is similarly taken as unchallengable and unchangeable. The social changes that the option requires will be strongly resisted because they mean changes in current social organisation and power structure, and to the extent that the option represents some kind of threat to parts of present political and economic arrangements it is not surprising that official energy option discussion proceeds g by misrepresenting and often obscuring it. FOOTNOTES 1. 2. Some leading proponents of nuclear development admit the absence of satisfactory storage and disposal methods; others do not. Some of the newer strategies for waste disposal, e.g. that promoted by Cohen 77 fail, conspicuously, to meet conditions of adequacy on disposal (see Routley and Routley 78, footnote 1). Ringwood’s new strategy, in 78, was immediately rejected by some of the pronuclear establishment both as too expensive (even allowing Ringwood’s optimistic costguestimates) and as unnecessary, which does not augur well for its use. Yet Ringwood cast serious doubt on the adequacy of alternative disposal strategies, notably immobilisation of wastes in glass and in supercalcine. All Ringwood has shown conclusively is that he can create an artificial equivalent of a uranium one-body (Hallam 79) What Ringwood’s ’strategy for radwaste disposal’ amounts to is a further possible method of treating radwaste, with significant gaps in the argument, a considerable lack of experimental and practical support, no commercial feasibility studies, etc: see Martin 78 and Hallam 79. 3. It depends on several processes whose large-scale commercial viability has very definitely not been shown beyond reasonable doubt, including reprocessing (Fox Report, p.29). It appears to be far too expensive for the nuclear industry, and certainly for poorer nations that have embarked on nuclear power projects. There are moreover reasons for thinking that governments may not want or favour permanent irretrievable disposal methods; they may want to keep open their options for employing waste components either for military purposes or for use in breeder reactors or elsewhere. 4. On alternative technology and softer energy options, see especially Lovins 77; also Lovins 76. For criticism of Lovins’ comparative neglect of social alternatives, see Martin 77 (and Lovins’ reply thereto). 5. The already very serious situation of the world’s forests, especially the wet tropical forests, is not sufficiently widely appreciated. It is a commonplace reflection, however, among rainforest botanists and ecologists that nearly all tropical lowland rainforest and much highlevel rainforest will have been cut over by about the year 2000. Moreover such forests cannot at present be utilised on a sustained yield basis or as a renewable resource (see, e.g. p.219 of Prance and Elias 77). Worse, there are now few forestry operations anywhere in the world where the forests are treated as completely renewable in the sense of the renewal of all their values. In many temperate regions too the rate of exploitation which would enable renewal has already been exceeded. The addition of a major further demand source - that for energy, whether advertised as part of a ’’soft” energy path or otherwise and especially one which shows every sign of being not readily limitable, on top of the present sources is a development which anyone with a realistic appreciation of the conduct of forestry operations, who is also properly concerned about the longterm integrity of the forests and remaining natural communities, must regard with considerable alarm. 6. The transmission principle, that one should not hand the world on to our successors in substantially worse shape than we received it, is a corollary of the transfer principle - applied in the bus example and suggested as a necessary condition on energy options - that to be morally acceptable a course of action should not involve the transfer of significant cost and risks onto uninvolved parties who are not beneficiaries. For if we violated the transmission principle, there would be a significant transfer of costs, contradicting the transfer principle. The transmission principle can be independently argued for, e.g. on the basis of contract (and other) theories of obligation. 7. Thus it is argued by representatives of such industries as transportation and petroleum, as for example by McGrowth of the XS Consumption Co., that people want deep freezers, air conditioners, power boats, ... and that it would be authoritarian to stop them satisfying these wants. The argument conveniently ignores the social framework in which such needs and wants arise or are produced. To point to the determination of many such wants at the framework level is not however to accept a Marxist approach according to which they are entirely determined at the framework level (e.g. by industrial organisation) and there is no such thing as individual choice or determination at all. It is to see the social framework as a major factor in determining certain kinds of choices and to see apparently individual choices made in such matters as being channelled and directed by a social framework determined largely in the interests of commercial and political advantage. 8. This paper draws on material from Routley and Routley 78 and 79 where fuller discussion of many of the topics covered, especially the question of obligations to the future and uncertainty arguments, may be found. REFERENCES B.L. Cohen, ’The disposal of radioactive wastes from fission reactors’, Scientific American 236 (June 1977) 22-31. Flowers Report: Nuclear Power and the Environment. Sixth Report of the British Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, London, 1976. Fox Report: Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry First Report, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1977. J.R. Hallam, ’Synroc or Cinroc? *, (Wn tetion 4 (2-3) (1979) 4-5. A. Lovins, ’Energy strategy: the road not taken:’, Foreign Affairs 55 (1) (October 1976) 65-96. A. Lovins, Soft Energy Paths, Friends of the Earth, San Francisco, 1977. B. Martin, ’Is alternative technology enough?’, Chain Reaction 3 (2) (1977) 17-21. B. Martin, ’Call for research into Synroc’, The Canberra Times, December 6, 1978, p.15. G.T. Prance and T.S. Elias (editors), Extinction is Forever, New York Botanic Garden, 1977. A.E. Ringwood, Safe Disposal of High Level Nuclear Reactor Wastes: A New strategy, ANU Press, Canberra, 1978. R. and V. Routley, ’Nuclear energy and obligations to the future’, Inquiry 21 (1978) 133-179. R. and V. Routley, ’Some ethical aspects of energy options’, in Energy and People: Social Implications of Different Energy Futures, edited by M. Diesendorf, Society for Social Responsibility in Science (A.C.T.), Canberra, 1979.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 69, Item 1: Draft of Nuclear waste, obligations to the future, and social choice Subject The topic of the resource Printout of draft, undated. Handwritten on first leaf: Penguin (unpublished). Description An account of the resource Unnumbered paper from collection, item number assigned by library staff. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 69, Item 1 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, <a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. 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Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 102, Item 1: Working of draft of Culture and the roots of political divergence: a South Pacific perspective with emphasis on the Australian/American contrast Subject The topic of the resource Working of draft of Culture and the roots of political divergence: a South Pacific perspective with emphasis on the Australian/American contrast Description An account of the resource Letter redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Unnumbered paper from collection, item number assigned by library staff. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 102, Item 1 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, <a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a>. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [117] leaves + 1 letter. 272.58 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:3a82e56">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:3a82e56</a> Box 102: Culture, Politics, Environment, Economics https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/ff145ea0bd7ac945bc30e5341ef74f59.pdf aa9eea53b0b11981694c3b49a406c07f PDF Text Text THE 'FIGHT FOR THE FORESTS' AFFAIR Authors: Richard & Val Routley. R. Routley has been since 1971 Senior Fellow in the Department of Philosophy, Research School of Social Sciences, A.N.U.; the position is tenured with a 5 year bar, at that time passed more or less automatically. V. Routley is author of a number of published papers both on philosophy and on environmental subjects. Title & Contents: 'The Fight for the Forests' (1st edition 1973, 290 pages) looked at the situation of Australian forests, especially proposed and progressing industrial development of the forests such as in pine and woodchip schemes; it discussed economic, ecological and social aspects of these schemes and of the planning which underlay and justified them, as well as associated issues in the foundations of economics and environmental decision-making. Qualifications to write the book: These were of a reasonable generalist kind. As philosophers we were well acquainted with the theory of scientific methodology~ probability and decision theory, as environmentalists and keen amateur naturalists we had a reasonable general knowledge of the biological and ecological aspects involved. The foundations of economics is also an area of academic research and interest. The local forestry literature is .neither very copious nor very specialised, so that it is fairly easy · to become more or less completely acquainted with it. Most of it is fairly easily understood by people with~ut professional forestry training. 'The Fight for the Forests' laid major emphasis on reasoning and on methodological considerations in planning and prediction, and on \, bringing outunderlying or hidden assumptions - especially value assumptions - in these areas. This is an area in which we were well qualified to w.~ite. Given the very large range of areas involved in discussing forestry as a social phenomenon, rangi n g from scientific methodology and decision theory through sociology, social science, economics and many areas of biology and ecology, our own special areas of academic interest and in-depth knowledge were at least as generally relevant to the issues concerned as most of those involved in a conventional forestry training. Care was taken to provide full references to background work in cases where specialist areas of knowledge were involved, so that no one had to rely simply on our authority for claims made. The book attempted then to present an integrated picture of the forestry situation in Australia on the basis of detailed knowledge of some areas relevant to the field, as the work of foresters themselves often does,* and much of i.t consisted of what is now known as 'applied philosophy'. * These points should help dispel the professionalist myth, propagated commonly by foresters, that only people with professional forestry training are qualified to write about the forests. Often such foresters also advocate a closed decision-making system in which they; as the 'relevant professionals' have sole rights of decision . However, forestry issues raise many questions of social values which are of general concern and shou d be widely discussed. As well, as noted, a very wide range of discipline areas are involved, and some of the most important for the fate of the forests lie right outside (continued on next page) �2. Character of Book: . 'The Fight for the Forests' was not a very radical book politically but apparently offended mainly because it attac~ed cherished programs and because of its strong emphasis on the control of forests by the large forest industries, the close connections of these industries with state forest services who were allegedly employed in the public interest, and the role of professional foresters in promoting ecologically destructive forestry developments which were in the interests of industry. At that time the forestry profession was a sacred cow, virtually beyond criticism, and the book, rather predictably, was the object of intense hostility from professional foresters (including academic foresters). Its main specific contentions, concerning the excessive nature of the pine program and overestimation in planning for this program, the destructive environmental effects and uneconomic nature for the public of pine and woodchip schemes in public forests, were at the time controversial but have been subsequently vindicated by events and by a number of later studies by others. The book tended to receive unfavourable reviews from foresters, but received many favourable, often highly favourable, reviews from non-foresters. What happened: Funds for printing the book were obtained, more or less by chance, from RSSS, which at that time had a substantial end-of-triennium surplus, without going through any refereeing system. After final typing for photo-offset printing WfiS completed and just a few weeks before the book was due to go to the printer, professional foresters and sympathisers within the university appear to have got wind of its likely contents. (An article on pines published the previous year, in Australian Quarterly 1972, had a substantial impact*·* l and provided a good idea of the book's general stance). The then Vice Chancellor, Professor R.M. Williams, suggested that printlng should not proceed unless the book was given to the head of the Forestry School at A.N.U., to be revised in ~ccordance with his comments. (Given the attitudes, beliefs, and connections of professionals in general and this head of Department in particular, this would almost certainly have crippled or destroyed the book.) Footnote p.l continued conventional forestry training. For example, the major and most influential papers underlying the original planning for the pine program in the late sixties (papers which were heavily criticised in our work) were the product of a botanist, Dr. M.R. Jacobs, although they were primarily concerned ~ith qti~stions of planning and decision. But forconsidering these questions (e.g. the popular planning methodology of overestimating future demand and population to 'play safe'), it is more helpful to understand, say, methodology and decision theory than it is to understand, say, the patterns of seeding of various eucalypts. No one complained about Dr. Jacobs going outside his 'area of competence', nor was his work suppressed or subjected to censorship on this ground, because he was covered by the professional umbrella. There are many similar cases, which reveal the arbitrariness with which field restrictions are commonly applied to restrict inquiry. ** 1 After the article appeared there was for the first time parliamentary questioning of the pine p ogram, with some strong speeches against it, and an increasingly critical attitude was taken in the press. �3. Fortunately, the acting-Director of RSSS at the time was Professor G. Sawer, who resisted this suggestion, and also kindly read through the manuscript to check on liability to legal action; (in the fuss preceding publication it had been suggested also that publication should not proceed because of possible liability to such legal action). He suggested a few minor changes of a few lines at one or two points to safeguard against this. Publication proceeded. The first edition of the book in 1973 sold out within a few months, and two further editions, revised and updated, (1974, 1975) also sold out shortly after printing, making it one of the best selling books ever distributed by A.N.U. Press. Harassment from irate professionals and their sympathisers within the university was not over however. We were left in no doubt that the book had been 'an embarrassment to the university'. In 1974 the author with library rights was prevented on order from the acting head of the Forestry School, Professor Carron, from using the Forestry School library. As this contains.most forestry publications and material, this constituted a direct attempt to block further work. This ban was later overturned as a result of intervention from the Biological Sciences Library Committee. Later, RSSS, apparently in response to criticism of certain school publications, set up a committee to review publications procedure. Shortly afterwards we were informed that there would be no funding available for a further edition o f the book or f o r a a reprint o f the book. No reasons were given. We were not informed that the book was the subj e ct of a revi e w (as t he re were at that time no proposals by us for a further edition) . We were given no opportunity to nominate referees, to supply relevant information, or to influence the outcome of the review in any way. Subs e quently the school adopted a different procedural system in which the departments and authors concerned nominate suitable referees. There is little doubt that, had we been given the opportunity to follow the regular system, suitable referees could have been found to provide favourable reports. Meanwhile, orders ~or the now out-of-print book continue to arrive, and it continues to be favourably reviewed and mentioned, both in Australia and overseas. There is little doubt that a further edition or reprint could have been sold. Attempts to prevent publication were, therefore, ult.Lmately successful. As a sequel, the production publications by School presses one - was a major ground used by take over the School presses and For the time being, this attempt of certain unspecified 'controversial' of which our book was, reportedl½ ANU Press in its recent attempt to gain central control over publication. has failed. General comments: The situation in the forestry profession showed, at the time we were working in the area at least, a very high degree of suppression and professional cohesiveness, and an exceptional degree of conformity and absence of critical .voices. This probably is so pronounced because of the great control and influence exerted by a highly restricted body of employers, namely, a few large forest industries and the state forest services. For the same reasons perhaps, there was a high degree of secrecy and control of information. �4. We encountered many severe cases of suppression in the forest~y profession (applyi·n g in a·cademic, research, bureaucratic and state forest service areas) and in related biological areas. This included action by state forest services to terminate the research projects (in state forests) of those who made public statements unfavourable to them, or who supplied information or were associa.t~d with those who did, and many other .- adverse effects on the careers or prospects of potentially critical professionals. The influence of state forest services reached within the university (ANU). Suppression was so regular and pronounced that we believe it is probably true that no one inside the profession or discipline could have, at that time, written a book similar to 'The Fight for the Forests'. Such criticism could only appear where it slipped past :· the usual professional c9ntrol and suppression mechanisms, as our book did. The general suppression mechanism illustrated by this case then appears to be: a combination of indoctrination and intimidation, plus well-developed professional loyalty, ensures that significant criticism does not originate from inside the profession or discipline itself, or does so only in a rare, muted and easily ov~rlooked form; at the same time the professionalism mystique and the discipline system is invoked, as it was in our case, to ensure that no one outside the profession _can make such criticism in a way which needs to be treated seriously (e.g. through publication in a university series), and even to ensure that such criticism ~Y potentially dangerous outsiders is silenced altogether. The fragmentation of knowledge, like the fragmentation of work, is thus used as a method of control. It's a neat system, which nicely protects a particular set of doctrines and interests. R. & V. Routley Research School of so c ial Sciences Australian National University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document THE 'FIGHT FOR THE FORESTS' AFFAIR Authors: Richard & Val Routley. R. Routley has been since 1971 Senior Fellow in the Department of Philosophy, Research School of Social Sciences, A.N.U.; the position is tenured with a 5 year bar, at that time passed more or less automatically. V. Routley is author of a number of published papers both on philosophy and on environmental subjects. Title & Contents: 'The Fight for the Forests' (1st edition 1973, 290 pages) looked at the situation of Australian forests, especially proposed and progressing industrial development of the forests such as in pine and woodchip schemes; it discussed economic, ecological and social aspects of these schemes and of the planning which underlay and justified them, as well as associated issues in the foundations of economics and environmental decision-making. Qualifications to write the book: These were of a reasonable generalist kind. As philosophers we were well acquainted with the theory of scientific methodology~ probability and decision theory, as environmentalists and keen amateur naturalists we had a reasonable general knowledge of the biological and ecological aspects involved. The foundations of economics is also an area of academic research and interest. The local forestry literature is .neither very copious nor very specialised, so that it is fairly easy · to become more or less completely acquainted with it. Most of it is fairly easily understood by people with~ut professional forestry training. 'The Fight for the Forests' laid major emphasis on reasoning and on methodological considerations in planning and prediction, and on \, bringing outunderlying or hidden assumptions - especially value assumptions - in these areas. This is an area in which we were well qualified to w.~ite. Given the very large range of areas involved in discussing forestry as a social phenomenon, rangi n g from scientific methodology and decision theory through sociology, social science, economics and many areas of biology and ecology, our own special areas of academic interest and in-depth knowledge were at least as generally relevant to the issues concerned as most of those involved in a conventional forestry training. Care was taken to provide full references to background work in cases where specialist areas of knowledge were involved, so that no one had to rely simply on our authority for claims made. The book attempted then to present an integrated picture of the forestry situation in Australia on the basis of detailed knowledge of some areas relevant to the field, as the work of foresters themselves often does,* and much of i.t consisted of what is now known as 'applied philosophy'. * These points should help dispel the professionalist myth, propagated commonly by foresters, that only people with professional forestry training are qualified to write about the forests. Often such foresters also advocate a closed decision-making system in which they; as the 'relevant professionals' have sole rights of decision . However, forestry issues raise many questions of social values which are of general concern and shou d be widely discussed. As well, as noted, a very wide range of discipline areas are involved, and some of the most important for the fate of the forests lie right outside (continued on next page) 2. Character of Book: . 'The Fight for the Forests' was not a very radical book politically but apparently offended mainly because it attac~ed cherished programs and because of its strong emphasis on the control of forests by the large forest industries, the close connections of these industries with state forest services who were allegedly employed in the public interest, and the role of professional foresters in promoting ecologically destructive forestry developments which were in the interests of industry. At that time the forestry profession was a sacred cow, virtually beyond criticism, and the book, rather predictably, was the object of intense hostility from professional foresters (including academic foresters). Its main specific contentions, concerning the excessive nature of the pine program and overestimation in planning for this program, the destructive environmental effects and uneconomic nature for the public of pine and woodchip schemes in public forests, were at the time controversial but have been subsequently vindicated by events and by a number of later studies by others. The book tended to receive unfavourable reviews from foresters, but received many favourable, often highly favourable, reviews from non-foresters. What happened: Funds for printing the book were obtained, more or less by chance, from RSSS, which at that time had a substantial end-of-triennium surplus, without going through any refereeing system. After final typing for photo-offset printing WfiS completed and just a few weeks before the book was due to go to the printer, professional foresters and sympathisers within the university appear to have got wind of its likely contents. (An article on pines published the previous year, in Australian Quarterly 1972, had a substantial impact*·* l and provided a good idea of the book's general stance). The then Vice Chancellor, Professor R.M. Williams, suggested that printlng should not proceed unless the book was given to the head of the Forestry School at A.N.U., to be revised in ~ccordance with his comments. (Given the attitudes, beliefs, and connections of professionals in general and this head of Department in particular, this would almost certainly have crippled or destroyed the book.) Footnote p.l continued conventional forestry training. For example, the major and most influential papers underlying the original planning for the pine program in the late sixties (papers which were heavily criticised in our work) were the product of a botanist, Dr. M.R. Jacobs, although they were primarily concerned ~ith qti~stions of planning and decision. But forconsidering these questions (e.g. the popular planning methodology of overestimating future demand and population to 'play safe'), it is more helpful to understand, say, methodology and decision theory than it is to understand, say, the patterns of seeding of various eucalypts. No one complained about Dr. Jacobs going outside his 'area of competence', nor was his work suppressed or subjected to censorship on this ground, because he was covered by the professional umbrella. There are many similar cases, which reveal the arbitrariness with which field restrictions are commonly applied to restrict inquiry. ** 1 After the article appeared there was for the first time parliamentary questioning of the pine p ogram, with some strong speeches against it, and an increasingly critical attitude was taken in the press. 3. Fortunately, the acting-Director of RSSS at the time was Professor G. Sawer, who resisted this suggestion, and also kindly read through the manuscript to check on liability to legal action; (in the fuss preceding publication it had been suggested also that publication should not proceed because of possible liability to such legal action). He suggested a few minor changes of a few lines at one or two points to safeguard against this. Publication proceeded. The first edition of the book in 1973 sold out within a few months, and two further editions, revised and updated, (1974, 1975) also sold out shortly after printing, making it one of the best selling books ever distributed by A.N.U. Press. Harassment from irate professionals and their sympathisers within the university was not over however. We were left in no doubt that the book had been 'an embarrassment to the university'. In 1974 the author with library rights was prevented on order from the acting head of the Forestry School, Professor Carron, from using the Forestry School library. As this contains.most forestry publications and material, this constituted a direct attempt to block further work. This ban was later overturned as a result of intervention from the Biological Sciences Library Committee. Later, RSSS, apparently in response to criticism of certain school publications, set up a committee to review publications procedure. Shortly afterwards we were informed that there would be no funding available for a further edition o f the book or f o r a a reprint o f the book. No reasons were given. We were not informed that the book was the subj e ct of a revi e w (as t he re were at that time no proposals by us for a further edition) . We were given no opportunity to nominate referees, to supply relevant information, or to influence the outcome of the review in any way. Subs e quently the school adopted a different procedural system in which the departments and authors concerned nominate suitable referees. There is little doubt that, had we been given the opportunity to follow the regular system, suitable referees could have been found to provide favourable reports. Meanwhile, orders ~or the now out-of-print book continue to arrive, and it continues to be favourably reviewed and mentioned, both in Australia and overseas. There is little doubt that a further edition or reprint could have been sold. Attempts to prevent publication were, therefore, ult.Lmately successful. As a sequel, the production publications by School presses one - was a major ground used by take over the School presses and For the time being, this attempt of certain unspecified 'controversial' of which our book was, reportedl½ ANU Press in its recent attempt to gain central control over publication. has failed. General comments: The situation in the forestry profession showed, at the time we were working in the area at least, a very high degree of suppression and professional cohesiveness, and an exceptional degree of conformity and absence of critical .voices. This probably is so pronounced because of the great control and influence exerted by a highly restricted body of employers, namely, a few large forest industries and the state forest services. For the same reasons perhaps, there was a high degree of secrecy and control of information. 4. We encountered many severe cases of suppression in the forest~y profession (applyi·n g in a·cademic, research, bureaucratic and state forest service areas) and in related biological areas. This included action by state forest services to terminate the research projects (in state forests) of those who made public statements unfavourable to them, or who supplied information or were associa.t~d with those who did, and many other .- adverse effects on the careers or prospects of potentially critical professionals. The influence of state forest services reached within the university (ANU). Suppression was so regular and pronounced that we believe it is probably true that no one inside the profession or discipline could have, at that time, written a book similar to 'The Fight for the Forests'. Such criticism could only appear where it slipped past :· the usual professional c9ntrol and suppression mechanisms, as our book did. The general suppression mechanism illustrated by this case then appears to be: a combination of indoctrination and intimidation, plus well-developed professional loyalty, ensures that significant criticism does not originate from inside the profession or discipline itself, or does so only in a rare, muted and easily ov~rlooked form; at the same time the professionalism mystique and the discipline system is invoked, as it was in our case, to ensure that no one outside the profession _can make such criticism in a way which needs to be treated seriously (e.g. through publication in a university series), and even to ensure that such criticism ~Y potentially dangerous outsiders is silenced altogether. The fragmentation of knowledge, like the fragmentation of work, is thus used as a method of control. It's a neat system, which nicely protects a particular set of doctrines and interests. R. & V. Routley Research School of so c ial Sciences Australian National University  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 70, Item 1: Draft of The 'fight for the forests' affair Subject The topic of the resource Printout of draft, undated. Paper published, Routley R and Plumwood V (1986), 'The "Fight for the Forests" affair', in Martin B, Baker CMA, Manwell C and Pugh C (eds) Intellectual suppression: Australian case histories, analysis and responses, Angus and Robertson, Sydney. Description An account of the resource Unnumbered paper from collection, item number assigned by library staff. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 70 Item 1 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, <a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a>. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [4] leaves. 702.07 KB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:ae0c908">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:ae0c908</a> Box 59: Nuclear https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/62dfb49e2e6b38d58a9ab61536132136.pdf a12a16b6a5d108e89c5accfaec970ea1 PDF Text Text �28 undiluted anarchism); holistic and tribal means (as, obversely, utterly individualistic ones) are anarchistically admissible. The connections can be made in this way:- If there is no head, top or centre, how are political affairs structured? A standard anarchist response-not essential for mathematical structure, but incorporated in the modem definition of anarchism-is organisation (of course) by acceptable means, by noncoercive, nonauthoritarian organisation, what is typically expanded to voluntary and cooperative organisation. Features of this response will be elaborated in what follows (starting in the next chapter). ~ 5. With in anarkism: green and deep-green anarkism. ~ /\- 1¥ short, a green position or theory is one that reflects sufficient commitment to environmental causes, with that commitment shown in relevant positive action. Even more briefly, what is required for such greenness (gre-eenness) is this: environmental commitment manifested in suitable action. 28 A deep-green theory, is a green theory, that is one reflecting sufficient commitment to environmental causes, which exhibits depth, roughly some items, notably natural items, that do not answer back to human interests are valuable in themselves and human interests do not always predominate. 29 A deep-green political theory is a political theory of this deep-green sort. Deep green agents do not have to attempt anything in an explicitly political direction, even though they have to attempt something for environmental causes. They can live as part of a minority, as many do, watching what they value degraded or destroyed. They are committed, in principle (only), to reform. There is no commitment to radicalism. But if such greens wish to retain enough of what they value, they will have, sooner or later, to become involved in ------- political issues, in more than merely reformist ways. !J..,+ 0 ..ilfvl j\ is a m11fatter of completeness, deep-green theory~is bound to touc~/ at leastj; upon r::'"' -::i:;, /./ow,t,-.J~ polit ical issues. B:a.t,\deep-green theory does not, itsel~ force a particular form of political theory, certainly not anarchoid forms. Rather such forms present appealing options, especially given the deep-green inadequacy of mere small and marginal variations upon prevailing unjustified state arrangements. While some, important changes may be achieved in reformist ways, they are unlikely to do enough. They are for more likely to be, what virtually all •• idence, suggests: too little, too late. 28 A full account of greenness is easily accessible in GE. So the many elaborating details are not spelt out here. An overlapping detail also offered in GI. 29 Again these features have been explained in detail elsewhere, esp OOE, also GE. ,/4 11: �t~ ~ ~ rJjPhc.J.\:r l~~ e,J, k 1 -tt:fo()'l'l,,tiYP... f ~ 0us foc1'J.e..t4), t'.sf-s, - - · ·- 29 sees 1 ----- - - - l;.11n3 .,.,,t. p1~11a -;_/,;,, A popular illusion Jla5 Are political structures as satisfactory, the problem ~ the players who occupy critical niches, a problem that can be solved by rendering these players suitably green. 30 Hence the call for greener politicians, and extensive efforts to green up''those that are ~o/ there. This assumes that the players are independant of the niches they occupy, instead of that the players are partially shaped by the niches they occupy. (Persons can be seen as constitlf.[ted, in important part, by the roles they occupy). Rather to obtain virtuous green policy makers and controllers, changes in political structures into which they ~,,,.- appear / slut necessary. In these terms, present structures are inadequate; significant structural change is part of what is required, again going further than straightforward reform. It may already be evident that the fuzzy reformist/radical divide does not correspond to the shallower/deep distlic tion of green positions and actors. As it happens, leading deep ecologists ;;.. e'i ,,;-shMtJ' who tend not to be enyironmentally deep, are political radical, and in~l~ding Bila committed to I o.l• q) "eco-anarchism" (' 13's "munipal liberterianism"). By contrast some deep-green theorists (myself included) aim both for environmental depth and political radicalness. However deep<le-f,;,i~\, (>,S~c~ l green theory represents a plurallism, of which political radicalism ,.. is,\not an-~··· feature. In any case, radicalism does not exclude judicious reformist activity of support of reformist measures (and it is remotely possible that some regions ~ ould just get very 1i ckm:g in reforms). So too ~ while anarchical investigations are politically radical, a good deal of P1at is this ....... may be of relevance to reformist green theory, both theory and methods. Like most political theory, green theory spans a range from practical, getting things done within prevailing arrangements, to highly theoretical, such as envisaging superior organisation (postponing questions as to how to get from here to there). The present investigations (parallelling my interests) lie in the more theoretical end, partly because (from where I am) prevailing arrangements look, not to overstate things, environmentally hopeless. Whether or not a deep-green approach is limited to reformist practice or not, it is bound to be revolutionary in theoretical impact. For by yirtue of what is meant by deep-green, any such dcw,,E.'~ ro~ approach is bound to reject assumptionsi ntegral to modem political theory. dt\,,;... ... J Political theory ... address the question of which politically variable institutions are normatively satisfactory: in particularly, normatively satisfactory from the point of view of some constituency ... . Modem political theory, at least in the Western tradition, makes two assumptions in giving further specification to the enterprise. The first is the ... [humanist] assumption, that the relevant constituency is human beings, usually the [individual] human beings who are to live under the institutions ... . And the 30 Thus such despairing c\~lls as the following: The environmental movement is exhausted by campaigning on so many fronts; what is needed now is for the decision makers to change their loyalties and priorities-don't just wear the green, think green and act green! I a.. ·tQ 1-e �30 second is the [local egalitarian] assumption, that the arrangements should be normatively satisfactory from the point of view equally, of all relevant individuals ... . These assumptions are almost constituive of Western political thought ....31 Like hi:i;~inent predecessors, Pettit does not offer much argument for these large assumptions, , Jk and what is on offer is quite inadequate. The second assumption, his "universalism" ,whic~ takes as less controversial, obtains only an invalid one-liner: 'If persons are all that matter [a first of various transformations of the humanist assump~o~ ], they surely matter equally, so universialism ton is hard to resist' .32 To emphasis the invalidity, consider a few substitutions: if possessions (species, assumptions, ... ) are all that matter, they matter equally. What is more, when the first assumption is duly broken, the second assumption is commonly abandoned. That when other items than humans do matter, for some other creatures, humans matter more than those others r- (this sort of assumption in fact typifies intermediate, opposed to deep, positions). An easy egalitarianism (which shelves merit distribution issues) tends to become increasingly controversial, and implausible, as constitf e~ es are further varied and widened; witness the bf spheric egalitarianism of deep ecology.33 It is the first assumption, then that deep-green approaches are bound to reject. pettit passes .- upon discussion of the 'challenging' 'objection': 'It is that if political arrangements are devised with a view just to the interests of human beings [note the further transformation] then they are quite likely to be damaging to the rest of nature' (to grossly understate the problematic situation). 34 He cannot resist the observation that as 'the interests of human beings are tied up in great part with those of non-human nature, ... we may hope that in approaching political matters from a personalist standpoint we will not be insensitive to the needs of non-human species and of 31 Thus Pettit, pp 286-7, who provides some selective docmentation for these claims and that these assumptions are made. Pettit, dubiously equating persons with humans, calls the first assumption 'the w sonalist assumption'; but really the l~ ger assumption is that political theory conforms to human chauvinism (for a critical rejection of which see the final section of EE). He calls the second assumption 'the • iversalist assumption', though it is far from universal, as r. ds either temporal or spatial dimensions; for example, states invariably tr~ t foreigners or aliens differently from citizens or constituents, in ways supported by prevailing theory. It is abandonment of the second assumption, which Pettit does not discuss, that distinguishes ancient and nonWestern theory. For slaves, members of lesser castes and tribes and so on, withinf the state were not treated equally (whether they regarded this as satisfactory or not). 32 Pettit. p.287. 33 34 Pettit p.287. Jo ~c f �31 ~~ the bitat that we share with those species' .35 While we share this pious and regularly frustrated . )ha. hope, the feebleness of the observation should not pass unremarked. Evidently there are many types of interrelations where (limited) interests of a dominant party are no reliable assurance of ~ satisfactory treatment of dominated or lesser relatf master-servant, land-self, and so on. While some parties may have treated their slaves and animals well and appropriately, many did not. Nature and its creatures and features are hardly looked after well by present cohorts of humans: insen~ vity dominates. Many humans, especially substantiaii;;lf-interested humans, are not to be trusted; so a majority or like consituency of humans can hardly prove satisfactory. The humanist assumption, part of a pervasive human chauvinism, should be abandoned. It is very doubtful that the two assumptions i ettit p~ ents are anywhere near consitutive of J~ )~ modem Western political thought. Further major assumptions concern the role of the state and the position of individual rights; it is the former that does not enter decisively in tribal and like socie~ ies, and the latter distinctively modem issue that is downplayed or neglected in nonWestem theory. Under present political arrangements, the world is divided up, virtually ex~umiativ ly, into ) h.o..us..t/ a set of exclusive states. None of these states should be accounted green, though there are now very ~ e green tinges to so~ of them. While none exhibit any depth of greenness, there is no reason, theoretical or pgi\tical why some should not. M~ er deep-green arrangements can, in principle, be ensured by political structures that are unacceptable on other grounds. More IV/~ /, technically, deep-greenness, however necessary, does not supply full conditions of adequacy for satisfactory political arrangements, environmental and otherwise: for eucracy. For any arrangements where political control, a ~riing class for instance, proves suitably disposed can ensure greenness of depth. Thus such, independently objectionable, arrangements as: green v ~ (benev,ient) dictatorships, green guardit nships (in the style of an eco-Platonic Green Republic), green foundations, and caste systems even eco-f~p cisms and eco-totalitarianisms. Many such arrangements fall down fnbroadly liberatarian grounds: that they do not allow agents and creatures to govern their own lives and affairs freely. Other arrangements fail on broadly egalitarian grounds, that they undul_y privil~ge some classes or agents at the expense of others. '; - <Arrangements that meet conditions of adequacy, that is that do not so fail yet are deepgreen, are called eucratic. Eucracy means satisfactory political organisation. Green anarkism and, still more, deep-green anarkism offer important fresh political directions and alternatives for sustained green activity, and for the wide green movement more 35 Pettit p.287. Jo �32 generally. They are alternatives very compatible with green ideas and broad ideology, as well as alternatives often implicitly adopted, and certainly heavily borrowed from, by greenr.· There is 0 already a symbi\ tiin relation of sorts. Green and anarchist movements can not only complement each other substantially; in important ways they need each other, and mutual dependence. Anarkism stands in need of a significant driving force, an active directed constituency, which the green movement can apply (or still better, a green movement allied with other alternative forces, such as peace and feminist movements). Conversely, green succesfD slowing or stopping # massive degradation of the Earth, requires very different political directions from those of the present, or of red (state socialist) or blue (liberal capitalist) colour variations on offer, anarchoidal directions, so it can plausible be argued. That isl can be argued, persua\ ively if inconclusively f /s so far, that a genuinely green future cannot be obtained under present political arrangements; for S1.1h.sfa"'helA.:1 l<n~s'tr-C1 ,'ht?J.. example this can be argued, in several ways, from the inbuilt commitment to fairly connectional~ economic growth. Accordingly political structures n\ ed to be changed, but so that important J~ social desiderata that have been more or less achieved over a long and often dark human history are not lost, in particular personal liberty, democra~c procedur~, just practice; Certain types of 4Q 12:.IJU-Qf~ t ~ ,\ green anarchism meet these requirements,36 A··· types, other optiorJdo not satisfactorily. sre~,i i:, Arguments from genuine soerees to • dical change assume the following sort of form: • Human impact on the Earth, on very many of its ecosystems and habitats, is excessive. • Impact will not be significantly reduced under prevailing dominant socio-political arrangements, under what is called the dominant social paradigm. To the contrary, these arrangements obligate growth, which is likely to increase, even if now with some shallow sustainability constraints. 37 Therefore, • Arrangements slwuld be changed ® There are more and less far-reaching ways of attempting to achieve such changes of arrangements, from zero, conservative, through reformist, to radical,c.ulminating in total change. ® There are also more and less authoritarian and coercive ways of endeavouring to achieve such arrangements. (At the more authoritarii n fnd thes~~i~clude green dictatorship, ecofascism, etc.) The further detail Jargument is that these way should be anarchoid. Briefly, ~ matives to anarchoid ways not only infringe basic social and environmental desiderata (including, for instance, noninterfering freedom of choice of individual creatures), but they utterly lack rational 0 ~ 36 Th#se types encouraging relevant organisation, regulation and control-features 8f which certain sorts of traditional anarchism stand opposed. 37 While this is substantial thesis, we shall not stop off to argue for it here. The thesis is argued elsewhere, e.g. GE, GEF. ().II ~uc,'af~ / s �33 justification. The detailed argument for anarchoid directions for radical .green change reveals features of importance concerning the required character of resulting arrangements. For example, what emerges cannot be a free-for-all for some classes of agents, such as developers. Regulation and planning will have to be tighter, while different in character, than what now prevails in most regions. Accordingly a green anarkism like that to be elaborated differs in ma·or respects from most of what has hitherto passed as anarchism. Salient differences tum around the following matters and em~ / h , among others o regulation of social and environmental kinds. o social organisation and political structure, with both bottom-up and also top-down linkages and constraints. o rational organisational and decision practices, including preparation and planning, to ensure adequate outcomes. o reasonable objectives and planning targets, pitched at adequacy, not optimality (or other maximizing goals). o pluralism of arrangements, indeed a plural pluralism, with space for a plurality of cultures and subcultures within various of an appropriate plurality of political structures. Such a plurality could well include structures that did not conform to matters emphasized, not merely inadequate arrangements but adequate ones. For example, with creatures different from the present run of humans, environmental regulation could prove substantially otiose. To be sure, it would be hoped, though certainly not required, that arrangements were uniformly benign; for example that, environmental circumstances permitting, they were evironmentally benign. Correspondingly, socially, it would be hoped that arrangements aimed to conform to fairly basic standards of ethical decency, such as o basic social (as well as environmental) provision. Satisfactory arrangements would supply a subsistence floor, meeting the principle: to each accou~ ing to basic needs. This modified comm unal principle is not confined in scope to fr-d ~ resident humans, but includes other inhabitants. o a presumption of nonviolence, with violence at least not perpt trated against innocent or /e.. uninvolved parties (including again nonhumans). REFERENCES \ J. Burnheim, 'Democracy, nation states and the world system', in NFD pp.218-239. D. Held, and C. Pollitt, New Forms of Democracy, Sage, London 1986; referred to as NFD. _ J.W. Gough, The Social Contract: a critical study of its development, Oxford, Claredon Press, 1936. 'O i~{-tN \I 6J\\y'' ----- - - �/t} �/ln d.Jtit- ~"' J <,ft.d '(r,,. JJ, LI (,'i ~../\) I v ·7,, ~~ ""no...,/ly 1/1""J ./e- ,~ f.,(~ ~ - - - • 7 /rw-«'L/'7'ftl7J - . t . .L ,,:,. ff;_'/~ 1/J.:d~ ,,__~,.... ,S M,-,.. .i.l'fJ I /4 JS ~' ,,I CX.,.;,.,;,.. , -,f ~ ,:;. J,uj<-d,,, J .._ -rh.... ~ 7~-,) ~"t- /iK.JL-~/h· /10Y11-ru!4 ~ ,;,. 1/:f-.,,,-J : ~ ,,.... :i7 (/ .I If~/ -,t"~ ✓ {IL r/ ..t• ~l.r~d <f'i,,.ii_f.J.._ "-f.' ✓,. , ,,,.,-:._ \ J_ I • I 1/e.-.,~l w.1-o --··I=--- '7 tv·~ ( ,~~'~?) .i.-{ I ~ ) .,-/~ ~1 ;-,,:...,..... i ~ ·r f,,,L 1/'I' 7 c.,..,'-,.J ._:,: ; 1,l «, ,.,~ a,J_ r ~~rn-.. JI~ ci~u-.Jt "J 1'1-.._ /~-., ) ,I "' I L---?C:J_ e- 7 ~L 7: •-AMor m.~ I I(~ v--d/ c,: ~ v,JtZ--, ?14_ A j" • ~ /J ,/ /. ,1,-1,4-r\Jt,J,.,,,., /7',,.,,.,,~ , ?~ c____,/~ d, rit<'u- I ,t..- .,_, ,., (1/L_ r ,r-> /6'1,J ;11-, /,., M'fJ • -'>4-: V},'<,.d/--p? , ✓,;.._ <JL /'d,/MLJ~wc~ ;, ,; .1 ~~,.,.J • ~ ar..___1 I , t/.· r~-u-d,, .,_, /ov~ J ,6 ~ ""t.1 NI ) ,L~<:,j,,%,;_ /Vn-" ' /A. ,I l?IJ-._rK~± ,.t:;t:::ij rl o--. A,,,H~, I'\ a...,..4,.,.-c,< 1,vf- ,, A"" f ~ /4-ul n, "/""' ta..... J .__J ,_,"'t.;r-,__ ,.._,; I,,,.,.,, d ,, ) ' k ,) • /t, u~ / ~t_.t,,1,...1 j"" 6:-/-.,,.~ ~ t~ ~ u--,,_lJ. i>.l, /,J_ /LI o..,,Ju, ~h..<.... /'V'V'f-n ,t._,'t- vv . ~ / 1 'ftt ~ * F--- . . , 7fu--t\~ . . V l~t,.,:ti ""'of I~ ~ ~ 1 C,f~ II J..:IG( f-'l. r r f.! . ~ 1 d..,,,..4,11t_~~- 7 ( L •e r ; ( c[-''"rdllt.t,,,1,,,rt'-- ./l1~~)1._,1,t~ J~Jlf_ .pl>MAI /eA..d/;1~-/-,;,- ,._.(),,.,._,//~ Q~ ,( ~;J ~ 17/,, di« 1 ,',,.J t,,;__ t,;~ ::~::,·-;/~~~;;1;; A- t w~f--j i ,1--.~. -t'.J-1~ u~JOtD~ c'IJ·w',.~ ~ k t'/L r ·-,?' i-.rl~/r- J-.o ✓~~01.-- 1~ _glc._ fv-w fJJ.~I~ .-.... ~~ t--f ✓ ~'7>v 1~ 1dL tl- /~ ~,.h..-')\.._~I at~c.~ , �/,.. /!a "-; I ·'T/,,,__,.1 , .i -o/,._.,~ ~.Jh-Ti, 7,,/4 . . s, J ,._,;:_ 7 /,,.,':,,t- lo /1/e,t: /v,~1,,...,/- 11' I V' eA~ ' Jt,Ut.. ,T L" ",.,/_ _,.( f),-1 d//.... /'k,-,N...il r, / ~ ,,-.J ,,{~ / ~cl(tUf~,U:- w- l/~v-,.)l. c--, --~;,__,., °!14'/-r ~" /7'~" .-... I;_,,_• h-rt ~ I r/4 ~~ •. 3/r v-1 n;-t~ ,, /l 1~t ~ -1:. tit (~,,/.-:/...I I,,, 7~ f-o . 7 . / /C...k-;,,. ,. . _ ) • ,t r ,,,,__,.,,(,-, t rl ~ I : JM.rl~ /:.t" r>tl ~= ~ A--.~~ rJ.,_/f , tc,,,,__.,,/ ..,£,.,_ .,t--n I ).U-W r<r A ~ ~ # ~ <>tr-e ,_1'f<v ...,/1-"-- , ~ n . I ,.J -t,/,,7Q:: o-; ~ - f:;, n f) ,••y,r~ll/~/.e--,.!.. ~~ 2 r~ ., /:.,-, 4iC ~~ fL~ ~ ~_./o_r-- .v.ru.,r- O ::, { ~ /1 1 /:, 'c.:.' I I { ~ d ,. - ~ h- k f£ e_ ,'_J ,_,_,,,t ,;_. ,,__ .,_,,,/:_ ~7 ,/ _,{ ,.__,/v~ ':._.{_d /, 1 ~-o,-, ~~ (/4.__ ~ c,.,f /..._,A.;~;,._ d,., J.1 ; r..L /,:~ ~ /.:.; ,._ ~ c: .< ~ ;:t( ~I~.... ,f ~ 1 JJ N (,, cl~ft I' II j 4/4a -7,-1.7 ;;,1,'; ~-u /'/' J2?-J'J(J' 1( ro Jt,fr ,_ J?_._:__~ ,,.(_ rt_'tt~--- . IYr•-' (; tl...;,._,i L,,,._,I, ~,I/JO, f'f ------- ~- - - - /' ~ �The following have been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. • • Cutting, The Economist (19 November 1988) ‘Business bribes’, The Economist, 21-24. (4 pages (2 leaves)) Journal, Raise the stakes: the Planet Drum review, no 7 S2, Spring 1983. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Notes, Correspondences and Marginalia Description An account of the resource In one obituary, Sylvan's handwriting was said to have "looked like the oscilloscope for a patient in intensive care", and thus "not for the timid". Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document 28 undiluted anarchism); holistic and tribal means (as, obversely, utterly individualistic ones) are anarchistically admissible. The connections can be made in this way:- If there is no head, top or centre, how are political affairs structured? A standard anarchist response-not essential for mathematical structure, but incorporated in the modem definition of anarchism-is organisation (of course) by acceptable means, by noncoercive, nonauthoritarian organisation, what is typically expanded to voluntary and cooperative organisation. Features of this response will be elaborated in what follows (starting in the next chapter). ~ 5. With in anarkism: green and deep-green anarkism. ~ /\- 1¥ short, a green position or theory is one that reflects sufficient commitment to environmental causes, with that commitment shown in relevant positive action. Even more briefly, what is required for such greenness (gre-eenness) is this: environmental commitment manifested in suitable action. 28 A deep-green theory, is a green theory, that is one reflecting sufficient commitment to environmental causes, which exhibits depth, roughly some items, notably natural items, that do not answer back to human interests are valuable in themselves and human interests do not always predominate. 29 A deep-green political theory is a political theory of this deep-green sort. Deep green agents do not have to attempt anything in an explicitly political direction, even though they have to attempt something for environmental causes. They can live as part of a minority, as many do, watching what they value degraded or destroyed. They are committed, in principle (only), to reform. There is no commitment to radicalism. But if such greens wish to retain enough of what they value, they will have, sooner or later, to become involved in ------- political issues, in more than merely reformist ways. !J..,+ 0 ..ilfvl j\ is a m11fatter of completeness, deep-green theory~is bound to touc~/ at leastj; upon r::'"' -::i:;, /./ow,t,-.J~ polit ical issues. B:a.t,\deep-green theory does not, itsel~ force a particular form of political theory, certainly not anarchoid forms. Rather such forms present appealing options, especially given the deep-green inadequacy of mere small and marginal variations upon prevailing unjustified state arrangements. While some, important changes may be achieved in reformist ways, they are unlikely to do enough. They are for more likely to be, what virtually all •• idence, suggests: too little, too late. 28 A full account of greenness is easily accessible in GE. So the many elaborating details are not spelt out here. An overlapping detail also offered in GI. 29 Again these features have been explained in detail elsewhere, esp OOE, also GE. ,/4 11: t~ ~ ~ rJjPhc.J.\:r l~~ e,J, k 1 -tt:fo()'l'l,,tiYP... f ~ 0us foc1'J.e..t4), t'.sf-s, - - · ·- 29 sees 1 ----- - - - l;.11n3 .,.,,t. p1~11a -;_/,;,, A popular illusion Jla5 Are political structures as satisfactory, the problem ~ the players who occupy critical niches, a problem that can be solved by rendering these players suitably green. 30 Hence the call for greener politicians, and extensive efforts to green up''those that are ~o/ there. This assumes that the players are independant of the niches they occupy, instead of that the players are partially shaped by the niches they occupy. (Persons can be seen as constitlf.[ted, in important part, by the roles they occupy). Rather to obtain virtuous green policy makers and controllers, changes in political structures into which they ~,,,.- appear / slut necessary. In these terms, present structures are inadequate; significant structural change is part of what is required, again going further than straightforward reform. It may already be evident that the fuzzy reformist/radical divide does not correspond to the shallower/deep distlic tion of green positions and actors. As it happens, leading deep ecologists ;;.. e'i ,,;-shMtJ' who tend not to be enyironmentally deep, are political radical, and in~l~ding Bila committed to I o.l• q) "eco-anarchism" (' 13's "munipal liberterianism"). By contrast some deep-green theorists (myself included) aim both for environmental depth and political radicalness. However deep<le-f,;,i~\, (>,S~c~ l green theory represents a plurallism, of which political radicalism ,.. is,\not an-~··· feature. In any case, radicalism does not exclude judicious reformist activity of support of reformist measures (and it is remotely possible that some regions ~ ould just get very 1i ckm:g in reforms). So too ~ while anarchical investigations are politically radical, a good deal of P1at is this ....... may be of relevance to reformist green theory, both theory and methods. Like most political theory, green theory spans a range from practical, getting things done within prevailing arrangements, to highly theoretical, such as envisaging superior organisation (postponing questions as to how to get from here to there). The present investigations (parallelling my interests) lie in the more theoretical end, partly because (from where I am) prevailing arrangements look, not to overstate things, environmentally hopeless. Whether or not a deep-green approach is limited to reformist practice or not, it is bound to be revolutionary in theoretical impact. For by yirtue of what is meant by deep-green, any such dcw,,E.'~ ro~ approach is bound to reject assumptionsi ntegral to modem political theory. dt\,,;... ... J Political theory ... address the question of which politically variable institutions are normatively satisfactory: in particularly, normatively satisfactory from the point of view of some constituency ... . Modem political theory, at least in the Western tradition, makes two assumptions in giving further specification to the enterprise. The first is the ... [humanist] assumption, that the relevant constituency is human beings, usually the [individual] human beings who are to live under the institutions ... . And the 30 Thus such despairing c\~lls as the following: The environmental movement is exhausted by campaigning on so many fronts; what is needed now is for the decision makers to change their loyalties and priorities-don't just wear the green, think green and act green! I a.. ·tQ 1-e 30 second is the [local egalitarian] assumption, that the arrangements should be normatively satisfactory from the point of view equally, of all relevant individuals ... . These assumptions are almost constituive of Western political thought ....31 Like hi:i;~inent predecessors, Pettit does not offer much argument for these large assumptions, , Jk and what is on offer is quite inadequate. The second assumption, his "universalism" ,whic~ takes as less controversial, obtains only an invalid one-liner: 'If persons are all that matter [a first of various transformations of the humanist assump~o~ ], they surely matter equally, so universialism ton is hard to resist' .32 To emphasis the invalidity, consider a few substitutions: if possessions (species, assumptions, ... ) are all that matter, they matter equally. What is more, when the first assumption is duly broken, the second assumption is commonly abandoned. That when other items than humans do matter, for some other creatures, humans matter more than those others r- (this sort of assumption in fact typifies intermediate, opposed to deep, positions). An easy egalitarianism (which shelves merit distribution issues) tends to become increasingly controversial, and implausible, as constitf e~ es are further varied and widened; witness the bf spheric egalitarianism of deep ecology.33 It is the first assumption, then that deep-green approaches are bound to reject. pettit passes .- upon discussion of the 'challenging' 'objection': 'It is that if political arrangements are devised with a view just to the interests of human beings [note the further transformation] then they are quite likely to be damaging to the rest of nature' (to grossly understate the problematic situation). 34 He cannot resist the observation that as 'the interests of human beings are tied up in great part with those of non-human nature, ... we may hope that in approaching political matters from a personalist standpoint we will not be insensitive to the needs of non-human species and of 31 Thus Pettit, pp 286-7, who provides some selective docmentation for these claims and that these assumptions are made. Pettit, dubiously equating persons with humans, calls the first assumption 'the w sonalist assumption'; but really the l~ ger assumption is that political theory conforms to human chauvinism (for a critical rejection of which see the final section of EE). He calls the second assumption 'the • iversalist assumption', though it is far from universal, as r. ds either temporal or spatial dimensions; for example, states invariably tr~ t foreigners or aliens differently from citizens or constituents, in ways supported by prevailing theory. It is abandonment of the second assumption, which Pettit does not discuss, that distinguishes ancient and nonWestern theory. For slaves, members of lesser castes and tribes and so on, withinf the state were not treated equally (whether they regarded this as satisfactory or not). 32 Pettit. p.287. 33 34 Pettit p.287. Jo ~c f 31 ~~ the bitat that we share with those species' .35 While we share this pious and regularly frustrated . )ha. hope, the feebleness of the observation should not pass unremarked. Evidently there are many types of interrelations where (limited) interests of a dominant party are no reliable assurance of ~ satisfactory treatment of dominated or lesser relatf master-servant, land-self, and so on. While some parties may have treated their slaves and animals well and appropriately, many did not. Nature and its creatures and features are hardly looked after well by present cohorts of humans: insen~ vity dominates. Many humans, especially substantiaii;;lf-interested humans, are not to be trusted; so a majority or like consituency of humans can hardly prove satisfactory. The humanist assumption, part of a pervasive human chauvinism, should be abandoned. It is very doubtful that the two assumptions i ettit p~ ents are anywhere near consitutive of J~ )~ modem Western political thought. Further major assumptions concern the role of the state and the position of individual rights; it is the former that does not enter decisively in tribal and like socie~ ies, and the latter distinctively modem issue that is downplayed or neglected in nonWestem theory. Under present political arrangements, the world is divided up, virtually ex~umiativ ly, into ) h.o..us..t/ a set of exclusive states. None of these states should be accounted green, though there are now very ~ e green tinges to so~ of them. While none exhibit any depth of greenness, there is no reason, theoretical or pgi\tical why some should not. M~ er deep-green arrangements can, in principle, be ensured by political structures that are unacceptable on other grounds. More IV/~ /, technically, deep-greenness, however necessary, does not supply full conditions of adequacy for satisfactory political arrangements, environmental and otherwise: for eucracy. For any arrangements where political control, a ~riing class for instance, proves suitably disposed can ensure greenness of depth. Thus such, independently objectionable, arrangements as: green v ~ (benev,ient) dictatorships, green guardit nships (in the style of an eco-Platonic Green Republic), green foundations, and caste systems even eco-f~p cisms and eco-totalitarianisms. Many such arrangements fall down fnbroadly liberatarian grounds: that they do not allow agents and creatures to govern their own lives and affairs freely. Other arrangements fail on broadly egalitarian grounds, that they undul_y privil~ge some classes or agents at the expense of others. '; - <Arrangements that meet conditions of adequacy, that is that do not so fail yet are deepgreen, are called eucratic. Eucracy means satisfactory political organisation. Green anarkism and, still more, deep-green anarkism offer important fresh political directions and alternatives for sustained green activity, and for the wide green movement more 35 Pettit p.287. Jo 32 generally. They are alternatives very compatible with green ideas and broad ideology, as well as alternatives often implicitly adopted, and certainly heavily borrowed from, by greenr.· There is 0 already a symbi\ tiin relation of sorts. Green and anarchist movements can not only complement each other substantially; in important ways they need each other, and mutual dependence. Anarkism stands in need of a significant driving force, an active directed constituency, which the green movement can apply (or still better, a green movement allied with other alternative forces, such as peace and feminist movements). Conversely, green succesfD slowing or stopping # massive degradation of the Earth, requires very different political directions from those of the present, or of red (state socialist) or blue (liberal capitalist) colour variations on offer, anarchoidal directions, so it can plausible be argued. That isl can be argued, persua\ ively if inconclusively f /s so far, that a genuinely green future cannot be obtained under present political arrangements; for S1.1h.sfa"'helA.:1 l<n~s'tr-C1 ,'ht?J.. example this can be argued, in several ways, from the inbuilt commitment to fairly connectional~ economic growth. Accordingly political structures n\ ed to be changed, but so that important J~ social desiderata that have been more or less achieved over a long and often dark human history are not lost, in particular personal liberty, democra~c procedur~, just practice; Certain types of 4Q 12:.IJU-Qf~ t ~ ,\ green anarchism meet these requirements,36 A··· types, other optiorJdo not satisfactorily. sre~,i i:, Arguments from genuine soerees to • dical change assume the following sort of form: • Human impact on the Earth, on very many of its ecosystems and habitats, is excessive. • Impact will not be significantly reduced under prevailing dominant socio-political arrangements, under what is called the dominant social paradigm. To the contrary, these arrangements obligate growth, which is likely to increase, even if now with some shallow sustainability constraints. 37 Therefore, • Arrangements slwuld be changed ® There are more and less far-reaching ways of attempting to achieve such changes of arrangements, from zero, conservative, through reformist, to radical,c.ulminating in total change. ® There are also more and less authoritarian and coercive ways of endeavouring to achieve such arrangements. (At the more authoritarii n fnd thes~~i~clude green dictatorship, ecofascism, etc.) The further detail Jargument is that these way should be anarchoid. Briefly, ~ matives to anarchoid ways not only infringe basic social and environmental desiderata (including, for instance, noninterfering freedom of choice of individual creatures), but they utterly lack rational 0 ~ 36 Th#se types encouraging relevant organisation, regulation and control-features 8f which certain sorts of traditional anarchism stand opposed. 37 While this is substantial thesis, we shall not stop off to argue for it here. The thesis is argued elsewhere, e.g. GE, GEF. ().II ~uc,'af~ / s 33 justification. The detailed argument for anarchoid directions for radical .green change reveals features of importance concerning the required character of resulting arrangements. For example, what emerges cannot be a free-for-all for some classes of agents, such as developers. Regulation and planning will have to be tighter, while different in character, than what now prevails in most regions. Accordingly a green anarkism like that to be elaborated differs in ma·or respects from most of what has hitherto passed as anarchism. Salient differences tum around the following matters and em~ / h , among others o regulation of social and environmental kinds. o social organisation and political structure, with both bottom-up and also top-down linkages and constraints. o rational organisational and decision practices, including preparation and planning, to ensure adequate outcomes. o reasonable objectives and planning targets, pitched at adequacy, not optimality (or other maximizing goals). o pluralism of arrangements, indeed a plural pluralism, with space for a plurality of cultures and subcultures within various of an appropriate plurality of political structures. Such a plurality could well include structures that did not conform to matters emphasized, not merely inadequate arrangements but adequate ones. For example, with creatures different from the present run of humans, environmental regulation could prove substantially otiose. To be sure, it would be hoped, though certainly not required, that arrangements were uniformly benign; for example that, environmental circumstances permitting, they were evironmentally benign. Correspondingly, socially, it would be hoped that arrangements aimed to conform to fairly basic standards of ethical decency, such as o basic social (as well as environmental) provision. Satisfactory arrangements would supply a subsistence floor, meeting the principle: to each accou~ ing to basic needs. This modified comm unal principle is not confined in scope to fr-d ~ resident humans, but includes other inhabitants. o a presumption of nonviolence, with violence at least not perpt trated against innocent or /e.. uninvolved parties (including again nonhumans). REFERENCES \ J. Burnheim, 'Democracy, nation states and the world system', in NFD pp.218-239. D. Held, and C. Pollitt, New Forms of Democracy, Sage, London 1986; referred to as NFD. _ J.W. Gough, The Social Contract: a critical study of its development, Oxford, Claredon Press, 1936. 'O i~{-tN \I 6J\\y'' ----- - - /t} /ln d.Jtit- ~"' J <,ft.d '(r,,. JJ, LI (,'i ~../\) I v ·7,, ~~ ""no...,/ly 1/1""J ./e- ,~ f.,(~ ~ - - - • 7 /rw-«'L/'7'ftl7J - . t . .L ,,:,. ff;_'/~ 1/J.:d~ ,,__~,.... ,S M,-,.. .i.l'fJ I /4 JS ~' ,,I CX.,.;,.,;,.. , -,f ~ ,:;. J,uj<-d,,, J .._ -rh.... ~ 7~-,) ~"t- /iK.JL-~/h· /10Y11-ru!4 ~ ,;,. 1/:f-.,,,-J : ~ ,,.... :i7 (/ .I If~/ -,t"~ ✓ {IL r/ ..t• ~l.r~d <f'i,,.ii_f.J.._ "-f.' ✓,. , ,,,.,-:._ \ J_ I • I 1/e.-.,~l w.1-o --··I=--- '7 tv·~ ( ,~~'~?) .i.-{ I ~ ) .,-/~ ~1 ;-,,:...,..... i ~ ·r f,,,L 1/'I' 7 c.,..,'-,.J ._:,: ; 1,l «, ,.,~ a,J_ r ~~rn-.. 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I ,.J -t,/,,7Q:: o-; ~ - f:;, n f) ,••y,r~ll/~/.e--,.!.. ~~ 2 r~ ., /:.,-, 4iC ~~ fL~ ~ ~_./o_r-- .v.ru.,r- O ::, { ~ /1 1 /:, 'c.:.' I I { ~ d ,. - ~ h- k f£ e_ ,'_J ,_,_,,,t ,;_. ,,__ .,_,,,/:_ ~7 ,/ _,{ ,.__,/v~ ':._.{_d /, 1 ~-o,-, ~~ (/4.__ ~ c,.,f /..._,A.;~;,._ d,., J.1 ; r..L /,:~ ~ /.:.; ,._ ~ c: .< ~ ;:t( ~I~.... ,f ~ 1 JJ N (,, cl~ft I' II j 4/4a -7,-1.7 ;;,1,'; ~-u /'/' J2?-J'J(J' 1( ro Jt,fr ,_ J?_._:__~ ,,.(_ rt_'tt~--- . IYr•-' (; tl...;,._,i L,,,._,I, ~,I/JO, f'f ------- ~- - - - /' ~ The following have been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. • • Cutting, The Economist (19 November 1988) ‘Business bribes’, The Economist, 21-24. (4 pages (2 leaves)) Journal, Raise the stakes: the Planet Drum review, no 7 S2, Spring 1983.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 13, Item 985: Notes and cuttings on anark Subject The topic of the resource Printout of draft of unknown paper, 6 pages (page 28-33), with handwritten emendations, miscellaneous handwritten notes on scrap paper, cutting from The Economist (1988, November 19), and Raise the stakes : the Planet Drum review, no 7 S2, Spring 1983. Description An account of the resource Verso of scrap papers not digitised. Cutting and journal redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 13 Item 985 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, <a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a>. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [12] leaves + 1 journal. 6.7 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:da4138c">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:da4138c</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Lake George - Floor - Pile 7 Box 13: Green Projects in Progress Lake George House Lake George House > Floor > Pile 7 https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/b93abb21a29ee71974224581d593625d.pdf 4187cb7771143c0b41355dc81b004208 PDF Text Text , II / I I I I, / 1265 )/>\cl/ ) ,8e,rUJ/ t>/4µ..,,,. 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J 1 /1 d 4 IL • 07-.:.f, c,. / ' • J ;_/-, .;, I!. ~~r-,~ c,dl ()-J-!v?'vf,--v,.. ,/ ¥ dL ... __',.,·, .A.. 7 ~' ,:/, j t,-. -j~ . d ,,, ,,,£ /4.e.,, l;t:;, ,.. , a ~t ~ c;;..--r ~ r , , - . ~y._,--,_ , .,-,_ . ,h(_,,_ . 1•1... ,r ~ ~ $r..f t:~/~ LF2---M 1 d--#'1~-£; , 1 /b>v ~ ~~ ~:/lt&J ~tL--r ,· .:r-,.-l....1-4,,,,,,,....c;o,,... llli"II!::~/ ry,. /--0-n,rc- ~ c-._..//'()~  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 17, Item 1265: Draft of Anarchism Subject The topic of the resource Handwritten draft of paper on scrap paper, undated. Handwritten at top of first page: Old script. Description An account of the resource Verso of scrap papers not digitised. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 17, Item 1265 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, <a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a>. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [5] leaves. 3.19 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:7a5fde4">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:7a5fde4</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Australian National University - Bookcase - 1st on Right - 3rd Shelf Down - First Pile Australian National University Office Australian National University Office > Bookcase > 1st on Right > 3rd Shelf Down > First Pile Box 17: Green Projects in Progress https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/8e7daae9baa6742dce79f815f186d6ff.pdf 3cfac978365f5707e5deea901d316501 PDF Text Text ������������������������������������The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Cutting (photocopy), title page and two pages (158-159) from Snell B (1953) The discovery of the mind: the Greek origins of European thought (Rosenmeyer TG trans), Blackwell, Oxford. (3 pages (2 leaves)) ���������The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Cutting (photocopy), 8 pages (476-483) from Jamieson D (1991) ‘Method and moral theory’, in Singer P (ed) A companion to ethic, Blackwell, Oxford. (8 pages (4 leaves) ����The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Cutting (photocopy), 14 pages (268-285) from Broad CD (1967) Five types of ethical theory, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London. (14 pages (7 leaves) ����������������The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Letter (typescript), ? to Richard, 20 Jan 1989 re feedback on draft paper. (1 leaf) ��The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Typescript, Questions for interview with Richard Routley. (2 pages) ������ Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Notes, Correspondences and Marginalia Description An account of the resource In one obituary, Sylvan's handwriting was said to have "looked like the oscilloscope for a patient in intensive care", and thus "not for the timid". Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Cutting (photocopy), title page and two pages (158-159) from Snell B (1953) The discovery of the mind: the Greek origins of European thought (Rosenmeyer TG trans), Blackwell, Oxford. (3 pages (2 leaves)) The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Cutting (photocopy), 8 pages (476-483) from Jamieson D (1991) ‘Method and moral theory’, in Singer P (ed) A companion to ethic, Blackwell, Oxford. (8 pages (4 leaves) The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Cutting (photocopy), 14 pages (268-285) from Broad CD (1967) Five types of ethical theory, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London. (14 pages (7 leaves) The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Letter (typescript), ? to Richard, 20 Jan 1989 re feedback on draft paper. (1 leaf) The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Typescript, Questions for interview with Richard Routley. (2 pages)  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 19, Item 772: Notes and early drafts of Deep-green ethics Subject The topic of the resource Handwritten, typescript and printout notes and early drafts of paper, undated. Includes cuttings. Description An account of the resource Title in collection finding aid: Ring Binder - Foundations Ethics. RS: Deep Green Ethics - Contents - Ts + ms. RS: Many pages of notes - occasional connected passages. Verso of scrap papers not digitised. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 19, Item 772 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, <a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a>. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [84] leaves. [75.85 MB] Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:55c3bc1">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:55c3bc1</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Como - Shelves - Bottom - Pile 2 Box 19: More Green Como House Como House > Shelves > Bottom > Pile 2 https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/9f9cd664a357631422c0407999af2f49.pdf f27e006c59271d6af13259b01440ea8f PDF Text Text THE IRREFUTABILITY OF ANARCHISM 1. GOD, THE CHURCH, AND THE STATE. The State is like God: the anarchist is like the atheist in disbelief and non~ecognition of what is commonly assumed, mostly as a matter of faith, to be needed. The parallel, drawn by Bakunin, has its weaknesses as well as its strengths. While the atheist believes that God does not exist, the anarchist does not believe that there are no states: none are legitimate. on the contrary, there are all too many, though The important parallel is as to arguments. The agnostic does not believe that the arguments for the existence of God succeed, and so adopts a "neutral" stance; similarly the State-agnostic does not believe that the arguments for the State work, and likewise tries to adopt a fencesitting position. Soundly based atheism goes further than agnosticism, not only faulting the arguments for, but taking it for granted that there are arguments, or at least solid considerations, against. So it is with soundly based anarchism, which can both fault arguments for the State and produce a case against the State. A more obvious comparison, appreciated from Reformation on and again emphasised by Bakunin; is that of State and Church. This institutional comparison enables several relevant features of the State to be emphasised; for example, how, as the Church used to, the State assigns to itself many very extensive powers, such as a monopoly on the production and control of the main medium of exchange, currency, and an ultimate monopoly an organised violence, all other internal security arrangements being eventually answerable to its police and military; how it is of the same category as business organisations such as multinationals, which now to some extent threaten it but by and large collaborate with it; how, as again the Church used to, it has nominal support of most of its "subjects", though many of them are little better than Sunday believers, and an increasing number have come to see the State as in many respects evil and inevitably corrupt, but as a necessary evil. Whether the State is inevitably evil or not, it is unnecessary, so it will be argued, in a way parallelling the famous Five Ways of Aquinas designed to prove that God exists. Since the State is unnecessary, as well as costly and typically at least evil in many of its practices and undesirable in other respects, it should be superseded. social arrangements. And it can be succeeded, by alternative �2 2. THE FIRST WAY OF SHOWING THAT THE STATE IS NOT REQUIRED: THE REPLACEMENT ARGUMENT. The core of the argument is simple and persuasive: everything in the collective interest accomplished by the State can equally be accomplished by alternative arrangements such as voluntary cooperation, the remainder of State activity being dispensed with. The argument is not a straight substitution argument, for it is not as if a rational person would want to have everything accomplished by the State replicated by alternative arrangements. There is much the State does or supports that is at best rather indifferent, e.g. sponsorship of pomp and ceremony and of junkets by VIPs; and a great deal of typical State activity is positively evil and not in the collective interest, e.g. graft, corruption, brutality, maintenance of inequitable distribution of wealth, land and other resources, and encouragement or protection of polluting or environmentally destructive industries (e.g. without state sponsorship we should not be well embarked on a nuclear ·. future, without state assistance and subsidization Australia would not be burdened with its extensive forestdestructive pine planting and woodchip projects). The modern State has however many other functions than repressive or damaging ones, functions of community welfare or of otherwise beneficial kind. This does not upset the replacement argument for anarchism. The argument, implicit in the works of the classical anarchists, goes like this:- The functions of the State can be divided into two types, those that are in the collective interest and generally beneficial such as community welfare and organisational functions, and those that are not (but are, presumably, in the interests of some of the powerful groups the State tends to serve). But as regards functions of the first type, the generally beneficial functions which are in the collective interest, no coercion is required. For why should people have to be coerced into carrying out functions which are in their collective interest? Such functions can be performed, and performed better, without the coercion which is the hallmark of of the State, and without the accompanying tendency of the State to pervert such functions to the maintenance of privilege and inequality of power, and to remove power from those it "serves". The detailed argument that such functions can be performed takes a case by case 2 form, considering each function in turn. In each case the function is carried out through alternative arrangements, such as voluntary cooperation by the people directly concerned, which replace State arrangements. Consider, for example, the operation of mutual aid or self help medical services or building programs, or self ma~aged welfare, housing or environment services, or community access communications (e.g. radio), most of which are presently either starved of infrastructure or hindered by the State. Such beneficial services would in general be reorganised so that all the relevant infrastructure became communally �3 held, and those wishing to arrange or use the service would manage the operation themselves, taking the operation into their own hands instead of being the passive recipients of favours meted out to them by professionals and powerful agencies. Coercion is unnecessary because, in more communal types of anarchism, the basic infrastructure and many resources (other than individual labour) are already held by the community, so there is no need to apply coercion to individuals to extract these resources needed for community welfare projects, as there is in the situation where wealth and resources are privatised and coercion is required to wrest resources from unwilling private individuals. As for the second type of functions, those which are not in the collective interest, coercion will normally he required for the performance of those functions, and is thus an essential part of the State's operation. But those functions are better dispensed with, since they are not in the collective interest. In this way, while the good part of the State's operation is retained and improved upon, the bad part - especially the evils of brutality, corruption and other abuses invariably associated with the coercive apparatus is detached. State services that are _concerned with order, in the general sense, may be similarly removed or replaced. These services, which include reduction of violence to persons and redress for such violence, quarantine services, securitt.y, orderly operation of traffic, and so on, have often been said to make for especial difficulties for anarchism, or even to refute it. do not. They Firstly, disputes can be settled and offences dealt with directly by communities themselves without intervention by the State. Secondly, a great many of these problems are created or enhanced by the State, e.g. violence of which the State is the main purveyor and which is often the outcome of 3 the State's propping up of gross inequalities. A community which seriously limits (or dispenses with) the institution of private property and removes grossinequalitiesin the distribution of wealth thereby removes the need for many "welfare" services and the basis for a great many offences involving violence: virtually all those involving violence to private property and many of those involving personal violence. Such a left-leaning anarchism is also quite invulnerable 'to further familiar, but ludicrous, arguments for the State, such as those from the fairer distribution of land, property and wealth that is alleged to be achieved by State enforcement of redistribution. As all too many people are aware, a major function of the State is to maintain and police inequitable distribution. This then is the main classical argument for anarchism. The argument has however been challenged, both by historical �4 and more recent objections, which are designed to show that people cannot act in their collective interest without coercion. 3. THE CASE AGAINST REPLACEMENT FROM PRISONERS' DILEMMA SITUATIONS AND THE LIKE. The main arguments designed to rebut the replacement argument for anarchism and to buttress the State status quo, are based on variants of the Prisoners' Dilemma, to the effect that there are important cases where individuals will not agree or cooperate to provide themselves with (or to maintain) collective goods without coercion, such as only the State can 4 furnish. In such "dilemma" situations each individual will hope to gain advantage, without contributing (or exercising restraint), from others' contributions (or restraint), by freeloading on others (or profiting from others' restraint). The claim is that only the State with its backing of force can resolve such situations: anarchistic replacement cannot succeed. A basic ingredient of a considerable variety of arguments of this type, including Hobbes' and Hume's arguments for the State, the "Tragedy of the Commons" argument, and recent economic arguments for State intervention to secure collective goods, is the single Prisoners' Dilemma game with just two players. 5 Two prisoners, 1 and 2, taken to be accomplices in a crime, have been separately imprisoned. A State representative makes the following offers separately to each: if the prisoner confesses and becomes a State's witness while his or her accomplice remains silent, he or she will be released at once while the accomplice gets 8 years. It so happens that if both prisoners remain silent the State has only enough evidence to impose a 1 year sentence. if both confess they would each receive 4 years. But The "game" can be summarised in the following "payoff" matrix:Prisoner 1 Strategies s S (ilence) C(onfess) -1, -1 -8, 0 Prisoner 2 C o, -8 -4, -4 The game is not intended to present a moral dilemma, that each can only go free at the cost of the others' freedom, but the following dilemma:- It is in each prisoner's private interest to choose strategy C no matter what the other does: strategy C is, in the jargon, each players' "dominant" strategy (and also in fact a minimax strategy). For if 2, for example, remains silent, then 1 goes free by confessing, while if 2 confesses, then 1 halves his or her sentence by confessing. But if both prisoners choose their dominant strategy they obtain an inferior outcome to that which wou:ld have resulted by what is tendentiously called "cooperating", by their both remaining silent .. �5 4. FOILING THE PRISONERS" DILEMMA ARGUMENT. It is bizarre that a dilemma alleged to show the necessity of the State - which is supposed to intervene, forcibly if required, to ensure that the prisoners "cooperate" to obtain an 6 Of course optimal outcome - should be set up by the State's own operative. the State's presence in arranging (or accentuating) some such dilemma.sis inessential, as is much else from the example. But some features of the prisoner's relations are essential, in particular the separability assumption that the prisoners are isolated, and so have no opportunity to communicate or really cooperate. Similarly, in the more general argument, a privatisation assumption is smuggled in in the way the dilemma is formulated, that we are dealing with self contained individuals who, like the prisoners, act only in their own narrowly construed private interests and whose interests -are opposed. The applicability of the dilemma to the human condition is accordingly seriously limited. 7 A cursory aside is often added to the Prisoners' Dilemma to the effect that the segregation of the prisoners makes no real difference. It is claimed that even if the prisoners could meet and discuss and even agreed to cooperate, that would make no difference, since neither could trust (the sincerity) of the other (Abrams, p. 193), 'neither has an incentive to keep the agreement' (Taylor, p. 5). Experimental and historical evidence indicates that this is very often not so - and in a more cooperative social setting than the currently encouraged privatisation of life, the extent of cooperation and trust would undoubtedly be much higher. 8 The argument has to depend crucially then on substantially mistaken assumptions about human propensities in various settings, e.g. that purely egoistic interests are always pursued, backed up by a large measure of scepticism about the reliability of other people (but if people were that - unreliable and devious , many State arrangements involved in providing public goods would not succeed either). That such assumptions are operating can be seen by elaborating the situation; e.g., to bring out the first,suppose the priso~ers have a common bond, e.g., they are friends or they are political prisoners with a shared social commitment, or they are neighbours and face a future in the same community; to bring out the philosophical scepticism involved, suppose the prisoner with a tarnished record offers the other security against default, and so on. The question of the character of human interests and preferences and the extent of their determination by the social context in which they occur is fundamental to the whole question of social and economic arrangements, and also accordingly to arguments for the State on the basis of human propensities. A major assumption underlying prevailing (non-Marxist) economics and associated political theory, is that the interests and preferences, as summed up in a preference ranking or utility function, of each human that is taken to count �6 is an independent parameter, which depends neither on the preference rankings of others nor on the social context in which that human _operates. While the individuals and firms of mainstream economic theory do, by definition, satisfy the independence requirements, and while there is very substantial cultural pressure on consumers to conform (through. advertising, education, popular media), very many humans do not conform, and the extent of cultural pressure towards privatisation itself belies the naturalness of this independence. And having sufficiently many interest-interdependent people in a . small community (which is not thoroughly impoverished) is normally enough, given their social influence, to avoid or resolve, by cooperation, the types of Prisoners' Dilennna situations that appear to count in favour of the State-. 9 5. WHY THE DILEMMA ARGUMENTS CANNOT SUCCEED. What the Dilemma-based case for .the State has to show - what never has been shown·- is that there are outstanding Dilemma situations, which are relevant and important, and also damaging if unresolved, and that they are resolvable by State intervention, and only so (optimally) resolved. Finally it has to be shown that in the course of so resolving these Dilemma situations, worse situations than those that are resolved are not thereby induced. These complex conditions cannot be satisfied, of they can be satisfied at all, in a way that is not question begging. For several of the conditions are value dependent (e.g. what is important, damaging, optional, worse) and involve considerations about which reasonable parties can differ. The selection of Dilemmas itself provides an example of such: after all there are many such Dilemmas (e.g. as to environmental degradation, of overexploitation, of family violence or feuds) which are considered beyond the sphere of the State or not worthy of State attention. There are now grounds for concluding that the conditions cannot be satisfied at all. For many of the arguments using Prisoners' Dilennna games, Hobbes' and Hume's arguments for the State and Hardin's "Tragedy of the Commons" for instance, turn out when properly formalised to consist not just of a single game but of a sequence of · such games, to be more adequately represented by what is called a superg~e. But in many such sequential Prisoners' Dilemma games, rational "cooperation" can occur, even assuming . h pure 1 y egoistic . . interests. . , lO For wh at sequentia . 1 separa t e d payers wit 1 games permit that isolated games exclude, is th.at players' actions may be dependent upon past performance of other players. This dependence effectively removes one extremely unrealistic self-containment assumption from Dilemma situations, that individuals act in totally isolated ways, not learning from past social interaction. In such supergames then, no intervention is required. �7 Undoubtedly some Dilemmas are resolved by "intervention", e.g. by allowing the prisoners to get in touch so that they find they are neighbours or that they can really cooperate. Equally important, and equally independent of the State, is the matter of breaking down the adversary, or game, situation so the prisoners do not act as competitors but are prepared to cooperate. 11 Informational input may also. be important, e.g. news that each prisone_r has J_to agreements a good record of adherin~h or if not is prepared to stake collateral, etc. Nor is force or threat of force required as an incentive to guarantee optimal strategies : a range of other inducements and incentives they be required in recalcitrant cases), and gifts, deprivation, social pressure, etc. is known (should is used even by the State, e.g. But at no stage is the State required to make these arrangements: much as some real Prisoners' Dilemmas are resolved by work of Amnesty International, so voluntary organisations can be formed to detect and deal with Prisoners' Dilemma situations where they are not already catered for. And in fact communal and cooperative organisation did resolve Prisoners' Dilemma-type situations historically, for example in the case of the Commons. In sum, here also replacement works. There are no important Dilemma situations, it seems, where the State is essential. The State has been thought to be essential because of certain influential false dichotomies; for example, that all behaviour that is not egoistic is altruistic (but altruistic behaviour is uncommon, and "irrational"), that the only way of allocating goods, apart from profit-directed markets - which tend to deal abysmally with collective goods - is through State control. 1 2 But it is quite evident that there are other methods of allocation, both economic (e.g. exchange, through traditional markets, based on supply costs) and social (e.g. by cooperatives, clubs). Lastly, introduction of the State to resolve some Dilemma situations 13 · . · . h as very extensive e ff ects, -many o f t h em negative, soth at t h e gains ma d e, any, in so resolving Dilemma 1· f situations, appear to be substantially outweighed by the costs involved. For there are the many evil aspects of the typical State to put in the balance. As regards Dilemma situations, entry of the State with its authority showing may not help but may worsen some situations, and more important, new Dilemmas may be initiated by State activity, as i ri the cas e of the prisone rs,br differently with the State as a further player (since the State . may engage in whaling, have access to a commons, etc.). also to further arguments against the State. These points lead �8 6. THE SECOND WAY: THE ARGUMENT FROM PROBLEM RECURRENCE. The solution by the State to problems of social organisation repeats or generates in more dangerous form the very problems introduction of the State was designed to solve, including new Dilemmas. Suppose, for instance, the secular State ·really were introduced in order to solve Prisoners' Dilemmas - introduced as opposed to inherited from the religious State and the Church, and maintained to prop up privilege and foster objectives that are not in its communities' interests then the array of States generates new Prisoners' Dilemmas, which there is no Super-State to resolve by coercion. Suppose, as the myth has it, the State really were introduced in _the interest of order and stability and to curb violence; then the arrays of States resulting more than negates these advantages, with instability, disorder and violence on a grander scale than before the emergence of modern secular States. 14 7. THE THIRD WAY: THE OVERSHOOT ARGUMENT,FROM THE INADEQUACY OF INSTITUTIONAL CONTROLS ON STATE POWER. Having ceded a monopoly on power to the State, in order to resolve some dilemmas, some of them arising from an inequitable distribution of power, what controls or balances the power of the State? A Super-State. And its power? There is a vicious infinite regress if the reply to the question "What controls the controller?" is "a further 15 The only promising way of avoiding this problem - other routes controller". lead (even more) directly to totalitarianism - is by having the first of these controllers, the State, answer back to those in whose interests it is allegedly established, those of the society or group of communities it controls. implies democratic methods of some kind. This Others go further: 'democracy [is] the only known means to achieve this control, the only known device by which 16 we can try to protect ourselves against the misuse of political power'. In this event, control has mostly failed. Democracy is extremely attenuated, even in those states that claim to practice it. The exercise of power in modern "democratid' states - much increased power reaching deep into peoples' lives, power which has passed to certain political elites and is directed at the attainment of such objectives as economic growth and material "progress" - is often channelled through 'non-elected authority' and 'is not democratic in the traditional meaning of the term' 17 In any case, indirect democratic and other institutional checks are tenuous in as much as they depend ultimately on the toleration of those who have direct control of the forces of the State. Experience seems to show that such toleration will only be shown so long as democratic procedures deliver results that are not too disagreeable, that are broadly in accord with what those who control the coercive power are prepared �9 to accept. (Toleration of such a tamed democracy then brings benefits to those who hold power, especially the cover of legitimation). checks which operate only insofar as a system But institutional acceptable to the powerholders is not seriously challenged, and which depend ultimately upon the toleration of those "checked~' are not really checks at all. The problem of controlling the power of the State, and preventing the State once established from usurping further power and exceeding its mandate, is only satisfactorily solved by not ceding power to the State in the first place. The best way of avoiding the evils of accumulated power is the anarchist way, of blocking its accumulation. 8. THE FOURTH WAY: THE ARGUMENT FROM FREEDOM AND AUTONOMY. responsible for actions deliberately undertaken. A person is This premiss can be derived, if need be, from the notion of a person as a moral agent. Taking · responsibility for one's actions implies, among other things, making the final decision about h;such what to do on eac~A occasion oneself, not acting simply on direction from outside,but determining how to act, what ought to be done, oneself; not handing that decision over to someone or something else. It implies, that is, moral autonomy. Autonomy in turn implies, what responsibility requires, freedom. For the autonomous being, endorsing its own decisions and principles ~ is not subject to the will of another. another so directs. Even if it does what another directs, it is not because In being free, not of constraints (both physical and self-determined), but of the constraints and will of others, an autonomous being is morally free. A necessary feature of the State is authority over those in its territory (under its de facto jurisdiction), the right to rule and impose its will upon them. Such authority backed by force is incompatible with moral autonomy and with freedom. An autonomous being, though it may act in accordance with some imperatives of the State, those it independently endorses, is bound to reject such (a claim to) authority, and therewith the State. In sum, being a person, as also being autonomous and being free, implies rejecting the authority of the State, and so not acknowledging the State; that is, each condition on personhood implies, i f t he argument is sound , anarchism. 18 It is possible to combine autonomy with an extremely attenuated "State", one based on on-going unanimous direct democracy. But such a "State", with no independent authority, is not really a state, since any participant can dissolve it at any time, and so constitutes no threat to anarchism o On the contrary, such direct democratic methods are part of the very stuff of anarchistic organisation. �10 9. THE FIFTH WAY: THE ARGUMENT FROM ANARCHIST EXPERIENCE. The replacement argument enables construction of a model · of a society functioning without the State, of a practically possible Stateless world; which shows that the State is not necessary. But it can always be claimed - even if the claim can seldom or ever be made good - that the modelling leaves out some crucial feature of real world circumstances, rendering it inapplicable. The gap may be closed by appeal to the independently valuable argument from experience, that at various times and places anarchism has been tested and has worked. Examples of such Stateless organisation suffice to show that crucial real world features have not been omitted. There are many examples of nonindustrialised societies which were, or are, 19 anarchistic, there is the rich experience of the Spanish collectives, and there is much localised experience of self-management and small-scale anarchistic arrangements within the State structure. 20 10. THE EMERGING CHARACTER OF ANARCHISM AND ITS ORGANISATION. The arguments outlined, predominantly theoretical, inform the practical, revealing the options open for anarchism, courses of action in superannuating the State and for transition to a stateless Society, and so on. For example, spontaneous anarchism - according to which organisation is unnecessary and social arrangements will arise spontaneously, and will be ushered in during the revolution without any prior organisation-is a position which is not viable and could not endure, because it makes none of the requisite replacements upon which durable supersession of the State depends. The sort of anarchist society which these theoretical arguments delineate will certainly be organised, but the organisation will not be compulsory, and will eschew authoritarian measures (and, by the overshoot argument, will reject transition by any strengthening of the centralised State), relying heavily on voluntary cooperation and direct democracy. The society which emerges will be much as Bakunin and Kropotkin sometimes pictured it. It will be based on smaller-scale decentralised connnunities, for otherwise such arrangements as connnunity replacement of State welfare arrangements, control of their environment, removal of Prisoners' Dilennnas, and participatory democracy, will work less satisfactorily. Connnunities will be federated and control will be bottom-up, not merely by representation and subject to a downward system of command. Within each connnunity there will not be great discrepancies in the distribution of wealth and property, and no highly concentrated economic property and power. community wilt be a rather equalitarian group, sharing in much that is cennnunally owned or not owned at all. A · �11 While theoretical arguments help outline the general shape of social and also economic arrangements they do not determine them completely, they offer no detailed blueprint. Accordingly what emerges is not a particular form of anarchism, for instance anarchist communism, but a more experimental and pluralistic anarchism, such as was instituted in the Spanish collectives. 11. STRATEGIES FOR TRANSITION TO ANARCHIST SOCIETY: THE FOREST SUCCESSION MODEL OF REPLACEMENT BY AN ALTERNATIVE STRUCTURE. The main strategy, emerging. from the First Way, is that of replacement: transition to a new anarchist social order proceeds by replacement or aooption of the more satisfactory State organisations and structures by organisations and structures of a more anarchistic cast, and by removal or phasing out of remaining no longer necessary or unsatisfactory State arrangements. Replacement and supersession suggest a biological model, of such change and succession as occurs where one forest type succeeds another; and such a model is in turn very suggestive. To make the model more definite, and to give it some local colour, consider forest succession where a sub-tropical rainforest replaces a eucalypt forest, as analogous to the case where anarchism replaces a Statist society. There is certainly a marked change in structure, typically from a tall forest with a fairly open canopy to a more compact closed forest with more layers of vegetation, much more local diversity and a richer variety of life forms, especially floral forms. A forest is not merely a set of trees, but trees in structura J arrangement and interdependence, not merely on one another but on other life forms such as pollinating insects, seed-carrying birds and animals, and so on; and the changes in structure include changes in microclimate, in soil moisture levels and humus and bacterial content. The change of forest type may be by evolution, by hastened or induced evolution, or by catastrophe (revolution) as when a eucalypt forest is clearfelled and artificially succeeded by planted rainforest. (Strictly, there is a spectrum of practices and replacement strategies between evolutionary and revolutionary, and various different revolutionary strategies; and the standard evolutionary-revolutionary contrast presents a false dichotomy.) Even reliance on predominantly evolutionary methods, which tend to be very slow by human time scale~ may require some (management) practices, else evolution towards rainforest will not begin or continue. For example, seeds for rainforest species may not be available if adjoining areas have been stripped of suitable seed trees, e.g. by clearing or eucalypt conversion, in which case it will be necessary to introduce seeds (of anarchist ideas, methods, arrangements, etc.). And rainforest evolution may not be able to �12 continue because the area is burnt occasionally, e.g. by State officers, in which case protection against fire will be required: for with burning (suppression) regimes rainforest seedlings are killed and eucalypt dominance perpetuated. Furthermore, evolution can be hastened or induced by intro- ducing seeds, or planting rainforest trees in poorly seeded areas (i.e. setting up alternative social arrangements) under the eucalypt overstorey, or even by some careful culling of eucalypts. But even without culling there will be much for anarchist management to do. As the rainforest cover begins to grow up through the eucalypt forest, the forest begins to change structurally. Younger eucalypt poles die, and their replacement by eucalypts is generally precluded owing to low light intensities near the forest floor (in something the same way conditions for capitalist entrepreneurs to flourish are excluded in an emerging anarchist society). Gradually, as the rainforest grows, only scattered giant eucalypts emerge through the canopy, and in time these fall to the forest floor, to rot and not to be replaced - unless the climax rainforest is subject to catastrophe, such as fire or cyclone. Catastrophic methods, such as clearfalling the eucalypt forest, replanting with rainforest, protecting the new forest, and removing eucalyptus regrowth, are much more problematic. To be applied they require either a large workforce or much mechanical power (so it is with violent revolutions which require a large support basis not available in advanced capitalist and state socialist countries, or else access to means of perpetrating violence comparable to that of the State). There are often similar requirements for success; otherwise the area may be choked by rapidly growing weeds or the rainforest plants may be suppressed by eucalypt seedlings and a pioneer eucalypt stage recur. Moreover, a eucalypt overstorey sometimes affords good conditions for rainforest growth, e.g. plant protection from excessive sun, occasional frosts, and drying winds, better moisture retention conditions,and so on. (_Similarly anarchist organisations can sometimes use the environment afforded by the State to get started.) But under some conditions, such as excessive interference (as happens to alternative arrangements in highly repressive States where local conditions also commonly favour revolutionary succession), there may be little or no alternative t o clearfelling practices. But just as clearfelling the eucalypt forest can create favourable conditions for weeds, so violent revolutions can only too easily create the conditions for a new (State) elite, controlling the concentrated power generated for the overthrow of the older regime. �13 12. APPLYING THE FOREST SUCCESSION MODEL. How to apply the model is not difficult to see in broad outline, and many of the further details have been filled out by work that can be described as indicating how allegiance can be shifted in practice from where we mostly are to alternative social arrangements and life-styles built on self-management and mutual aid.~ The seeds of anarchism should be broadcast or planted, anarchist (nonStatist) arrangements instituted or strengthened, and efforts made to replace or modify vulnerable Statist arrangements, e.g. by democratization of present institutions and development of nonStatist and noncapitalist . alternatives. Some of the practices are familiar: anarchist groups, clubs, pamphlets, broadcasts, newsletters, etc.; (anarchist) cooperatives, exchanges, neighbourhood groups, rural communities, etc. are slightly less familiar: Others avoidance of State influence by arrangements beyond State reach such as costless (or alternative currency) interchanges of goods and services, action directed at removing decision-making from State departments, such as forest services, and into citizen hands, and ultimately, to decentralized local communities. In this sort of way worthwhile State arrangements can be replaced, and power can be progressively transferred from the State, and returned to the community and to people more directly involved. �FOOTNOTES 1. Bakunin on Anarchy (edited S. Dolgoff), Allen & Unwin, London, 1973, especially p. 139. Much else in this paper, e.g. the distinction between the State and Society, also derives from Bakunin. 2. That is, proper elaboration of this argument takes each facet of generally beneficial state activity~ there is only a (relative:1-y small) finite number to consider - and shows how it can be replaced in one way or another. course uniquely determined. Replacement is not of Lines such replacements can tfke are indicated in much anarchist (and self-management) literature, consider especially but not uncritically, P. Kropotkin, Mutual Aid. New York University Press, 1972, and also his Fields, Factories and Workshops, second edition, Nelson, London, 1913, and The Conquest of Bread, Chapman and Hall, London, 1913. 3. On these points see, e.g. Kropotkin_'s Revolutionary Pamphlets (edited S. Baldwin), Dover Publications, New York, 1970, p. 206 ff.; also P.J. Proudhon, Confessions of a Revolutionary. For recent discussion of, and practical examples of, replacements for arbitration and law court procedures (but for right-leaning anarchism), see C.D. Stone, 'Some reflections on arbitrating our way to anarchy', Anarchism, (reprint of Nomos _ XIx),New York University Press, 1978, pp. 213-4. 4. Arguments of this typ.e are sometimes said to represent 'the strongest case that can be made for the desirability of the State' (M. Taylor, Anarchy and Cooperation, Wiley, London, 1976, p. 9). To cover all arguments of the type, and to avoid repetition of the phrase 'variants of' and disputes as to whether certain arguments such as those of Hume and of Olson involve Prisoners' Dilemma situations, 'Prisoner's Dilemma' is used in a wide sense to include not merely single n-person Prisoners' Dilemma games, but for example, games where the payoffs are not merely egoistic (as with both Hobbes and Hume) and where such games are iterated. As the bracketed clauses in the text indicate, there are two types of case, not sharply separated and both of the same logical form - those where people do not contribute to supply themselves with, or with "optimum" quantities of, a "collective good" (e.g. security, order, sewage), and those where people do not restrain themselves to maintain, or maintain "optimum" quantities of, some already available "collective good" (e.g. commons, �2 unpolluted streams, whales, wilderness). That received arguments of all these types involves Prisoners' Dilemma situations (in the wide sense) is argued, in effect, in Taylor, op. cit. and elsewhere. An easier introduction to the material covered by Taylor, which also surveys other important literature, is given in the final chapter of R. Abrams, Foundations of Political Analysis, Columbia University Press, New York, 1980. 5. An important matter the two player game does not illustrate is the relevance of population size in the arguments for the State. But size is not decisive (see, e.g., Taylor, chapter 2), and the issue can be avoided (or relocated) by organisation into smaller communities. The figures given in the matrix are illustrative only; for inequalities which suffice for a Dilemma situation, see Taylor, p. 5. 6. It is similarly bizarre that there should be outcomes that the State alone is said to be able to arrange, but not mere social cooperation, when the State is (as on many theories) the result or reflection of social cooperation. 7. This important point is much elaborated in V. and R. Routley, 'Social Theories, Self Management, and Environmental Problems' in Environmental Philosophy (edited D. Mannison and others), RSSS, Australian National University, 1980. 8. As a result of G. Hardin's "Travesty of the Commons", historical evidence has been assembled which reveals how far Hardin's "Commons" diverges from historic commons; see, in particular, A. Roberts, The SelfManaging Environment, Allison & · Busby, London, 1979, chapter 10, but also Routley, op. cit., p. 285 and pp. 329-332. Similar points apply as regards many other Dilemma situations. 'In the experimental studies of the prisoner's dilemma game approximately half of the participants choose a cooperative strategy even when they know for certain that the other player will cooperate'. Abrams, op. cit., p. 308. 9. Cf. the discus$ion in Taylor, op. cit., p. 93. �3 10. This important result is established in Taylor, op. cit., for a number of critical cases, though not generally; see, e.g. p. 32 but especially chapter 5. 11. Such moves have proved valuable in reducing the State's role in legal prosecution, and in eliminating courtroom procedures, including cases where the State is one of the "adversaries". 12. Both the false dichotomies cited are commonplace, not to say rife, in modern economic and political theorising. Both are to be found in Abram's final chapter, for example, and the first (with an attempt to plaster over the gap with a definition) in Taylor. For a further criticism of such false dichotomies, see Routley, op.cit.,pp.250 ff. 13. For instance, a certain social escapism: one escapes one's social roles and is enabled to concentrate on private affairs or just to laze. Or so it may appear: for in reality anyone who works, works long and often alienated hours to pay for this apparent escapism and to cover the high costs of frequently inadequate State activity. 14. The argument, to be found in Bakunin, is elaborated a little in Taylor, op. cit., chapter 7. A related argument, also in Bakunin, is from the way in which emergence of the State compromises and even closes off nonstate solutions to problems of social organisation in adjoining regions. 15. The question is in effect Plato's question, and the regress is reminiscent of his Third Man argument. 16. K.R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. II. Fourth edition (revised), Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1962, p. 129 and p. 127. The ~vershoot) problem is, according to Popper 'the most fundamental problem of all politics: the control of the controller, of the dangerous accumulation of power represented in the State•, 'upon which' Marxists never had 'any well-considered view' (p. 129). 17. V. Lauber, 'Ecology, politics and liberal democracy', Government and Opposition 13 (1978)., 199-217: seep. 209 and p. 21l. 18. The argument, outlined by Bakunin, is much elaborated in R.P. Wolff, In Defense of Anarchism, Harper & Row, New York., 1970. No argument is however without assumptions, which are open to dispute. argument, for example,is disputed by G. Wall, 'Philosophical anarchism revised' Nomos XIX, op. cit., p. 273 ff. Wolff's �4 19. Documented in The Anarchist Collectives (edited S. Dolgoff), Free Life Editions, New York, 1974. 20. As B. Martin boldly asserts, 'The advantages of _self-management and alternative lifestyles are many and significant. And these alternatives are entirely feasible: there is plenty of evidence and experience to support operates. their superiority over the present way society The obstacles to self-management and alternative life styles are powerful vested interests and institutional resistance to change', Changing the Cogs, Friends of the Earth, Canberra, 1979, p. 6. 21. As sketched in some of the material already cited, for example, Routley, p. 284 ff. �Richard Routley lives and works. in the NSW forest. He is sponsored in pursuit of his research interests - in arguments and theories especially by the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University (a state-supported and state-supporting institution, holding 20,000 shares in the uranium industry). His main published work is in metaphysics and alternative logics and in forestry and environmental philosophy. preparation of this article by Val Routley. He was helped in �The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Cutting (photocopy) Routley R and Routley V (1982) 'The irrefutability of anarchism', Social alternatives, 2(3): 23-29. (7 leaves) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document THE IRREFUTABILITY OF ANARCHISM 1. GOD, THE CHURCH, AND THE STATE. The State is like God: the anarchist is like the atheist in disbelief and non~ecognition of what is commonly assumed, mostly as a matter of faith, to be needed. The parallel, drawn by Bakunin, has its weaknesses as well as its strengths. While the atheist believes that God does not exist, the anarchist does not believe that there are no states: none are legitimate. on the contrary, there are all too many, though The important parallel is as to arguments. The agnostic does not believe that the arguments for the existence of God succeed, and so adopts a "neutral" stance; similarly the State-agnostic does not believe that the arguments for the State work, and likewise tries to adopt a fencesitting position. Soundly based atheism goes further than agnosticism, not only faulting the arguments for, but taking it for granted that there are arguments, or at least solid considerations, against. So it is with soundly based anarchism, which can both fault arguments for the State and produce a case against the State. A more obvious comparison, appreciated from Reformation on and again emphasised by Bakunin; is that of State and Church. This institutional comparison enables several relevant features of the State to be emphasised; for example, how, as the Church used to, the State assigns to itself many very extensive powers, such as a monopoly on the production and control of the main medium of exchange, currency, and an ultimate monopoly an organised violence, all other internal security arrangements being eventually answerable to its police and military; how it is of the same category as business organisations such as multinationals, which now to some extent threaten it but by and large collaborate with it; how, as again the Church used to, it has nominal support of most of its "subjects", though many of them are little better than Sunday believers, and an increasing number have come to see the State as in many respects evil and inevitably corrupt, but as a necessary evil. Whether the State is inevitably evil or not, it is unnecessary, so it will be argued, in a way parallelling the famous Five Ways of Aquinas designed to prove that God exists. Since the State is unnecessary, as well as costly and typically at least evil in many of its practices and undesirable in other respects, it should be superseded. social arrangements. And it can be succeeded, by alternative 2 2. THE FIRST WAY OF SHOWING THAT THE STATE IS NOT REQUIRED: THE REPLACEMENT ARGUMENT. The core of the argument is simple and persuasive: everything in the collective interest accomplished by the State can equally be accomplished by alternative arrangements such as voluntary cooperation, the remainder of State activity being dispensed with. The argument is not a straight substitution argument, for it is not as if a rational person would want to have everything accomplished by the State replicated by alternative arrangements. There is much the State does or supports that is at best rather indifferent, e.g. sponsorship of pomp and ceremony and of junkets by VIPs; and a great deal of typical State activity is positively evil and not in the collective interest, e.g. graft, corruption, brutality, maintenance of inequitable distribution of wealth, land and other resources, and encouragement or protection of polluting or environmentally destructive industries (e.g. without state sponsorship we should not be well embarked on a nuclear ·. future, without state assistance and subsidization Australia would not be burdened with its extensive forestdestructive pine planting and woodchip projects). The modern State has however many other functions than repressive or damaging ones, functions of community welfare or of otherwise beneficial kind. This does not upset the replacement argument for anarchism. The argument, implicit in the works of the classical anarchists, goes like this:- The functions of the State can be divided into two types, those that are in the collective interest and generally beneficial such as community welfare and organisational functions, and those that are not (but are, presumably, in the interests of some of the powerful groups the State tends to serve). But as regards functions of the first type, the generally beneficial functions which are in the collective interest, no coercion is required. For why should people have to be coerced into carrying out functions which are in their collective interest? Such functions can be performed, and performed better, without the coercion which is the hallmark of of the State, and without the accompanying tendency of the State to pervert such functions to the maintenance of privilege and inequality of power, and to remove power from those it "serves". The detailed argument that such functions can be performed takes a case by case 2 form, considering each function in turn. In each case the function is carried out through alternative arrangements, such as voluntary cooperation by the people directly concerned, which replace State arrangements. Consider, for example, the operation of mutual aid or self help medical services or building programs, or self ma~aged welfare, housing or environment services, or community access communications (e.g. radio), most of which are presently either starved of infrastructure or hindered by the State. Such beneficial services would in general be reorganised so that all the relevant infrastructure became communally 3 held, and those wishing to arrange or use the service would manage the operation themselves, taking the operation into their own hands instead of being the passive recipients of favours meted out to them by professionals and powerful agencies. Coercion is unnecessary because, in more communal types of anarchism, the basic infrastructure and many resources (other than individual labour) are already held by the community, so there is no need to apply coercion to individuals to extract these resources needed for community welfare projects, as there is in the situation where wealth and resources are privatised and coercion is required to wrest resources from unwilling private individuals. As for the second type of functions, those which are not in the collective interest, coercion will normally he required for the performance of those functions, and is thus an essential part of the State's operation. But those functions are better dispensed with, since they are not in the collective interest. In this way, while the good part of the State's operation is retained and improved upon, the bad part - especially the evils of brutality, corruption and other abuses invariably associated with the coercive apparatus is detached. State services that are _concerned with order, in the general sense, may be similarly removed or replaced. These services, which include reduction of violence to persons and redress for such violence, quarantine services, securitt.y, orderly operation of traffic, and so on, have often been said to make for especial difficulties for anarchism, or even to refute it. do not. They Firstly, disputes can be settled and offences dealt with directly by communities themselves without intervention by the State. Secondly, a great many of these problems are created or enhanced by the State, e.g. violence of which the State is the main purveyor and which is often the outcome of 3 the State's propping up of gross inequalities. A community which seriously limits (or dispenses with) the institution of private property and removes grossinequalitiesin the distribution of wealth thereby removes the need for many "welfare" services and the basis for a great many offences involving violence: virtually all those involving violence to private property and many of those involving personal violence. Such a left-leaning anarchism is also quite invulnerable 'to further familiar, but ludicrous, arguments for the State, such as those from the fairer distribution of land, property and wealth that is alleged to be achieved by State enforcement of redistribution. As all too many people are aware, a major function of the State is to maintain and police inequitable distribution. This then is the main classical argument for anarchism. The argument has however been challenged, both by historical 4 and more recent objections, which are designed to show that people cannot act in their collective interest without coercion. 3. THE CASE AGAINST REPLACEMENT FROM PRISONERS' DILEMMA SITUATIONS AND THE LIKE. The main arguments designed to rebut the replacement argument for anarchism and to buttress the State status quo, are based on variants of the Prisoners' Dilemma, to the effect that there are important cases where individuals will not agree or cooperate to provide themselves with (or to maintain) collective goods without coercion, such as only the State can 4 furnish. In such "dilemma" situations each individual will hope to gain advantage, without contributing (or exercising restraint), from others' contributions (or restraint), by freeloading on others (or profiting from others' restraint). The claim is that only the State with its backing of force can resolve such situations: anarchistic replacement cannot succeed. A basic ingredient of a considerable variety of arguments of this type, including Hobbes' and Hume's arguments for the State, the "Tragedy of the Commons" argument, and recent economic arguments for State intervention to secure collective goods, is the single Prisoners' Dilemma game with just two players. 5 Two prisoners, 1 and 2, taken to be accomplices in a crime, have been separately imprisoned. A State representative makes the following offers separately to each: if the prisoner confesses and becomes a State's witness while his or her accomplice remains silent, he or she will be released at once while the accomplice gets 8 years. It so happens that if both prisoners remain silent the State has only enough evidence to impose a 1 year sentence. if both confess they would each receive 4 years. But The "game" can be summarised in the following "payoff" matrix:Prisoner 1 Strategies s S (ilence) C(onfess) -1, -1 -8, 0 Prisoner 2 C o, -8 -4, -4 The game is not intended to present a moral dilemma, that each can only go free at the cost of the others' freedom, but the following dilemma:- It is in each prisoner's private interest to choose strategy C no matter what the other does: strategy C is, in the jargon, each players' "dominant" strategy (and also in fact a minimax strategy). For if 2, for example, remains silent, then 1 goes free by confessing, while if 2 confesses, then 1 halves his or her sentence by confessing. But if both prisoners choose their dominant strategy they obtain an inferior outcome to that which wou:ld have resulted by what is tendentiously called "cooperating", by their both remaining silent .. 5 4. FOILING THE PRISONERS" DILEMMA ARGUMENT. It is bizarre that a dilemma alleged to show the necessity of the State - which is supposed to intervene, forcibly if required, to ensure that the prisoners "cooperate" to obtain an 6 Of course optimal outcome - should be set up by the State's own operative. the State's presence in arranging (or accentuating) some such dilemma.sis inessential, as is much else from the example. But some features of the prisoner's relations are essential, in particular the separability assumption that the prisoners are isolated, and so have no opportunity to communicate or really cooperate. Similarly, in the more general argument, a privatisation assumption is smuggled in in the way the dilemma is formulated, that we are dealing with self contained individuals who, like the prisoners, act only in their own narrowly construed private interests and whose interests -are opposed. The applicability of the dilemma to the human condition is accordingly seriously limited. 7 A cursory aside is often added to the Prisoners' Dilemma to the effect that the segregation of the prisoners makes no real difference. It is claimed that even if the prisoners could meet and discuss and even agreed to cooperate, that would make no difference, since neither could trust (the sincerity) of the other (Abrams, p. 193), 'neither has an incentive to keep the agreement' (Taylor, p. 5). Experimental and historical evidence indicates that this is very often not so - and in a more cooperative social setting than the currently encouraged privatisation of life, the extent of cooperation and trust would undoubtedly be much higher. 8 The argument has to depend crucially then on substantially mistaken assumptions about human propensities in various settings, e.g. that purely egoistic interests are always pursued, backed up by a large measure of scepticism about the reliability of other people (but if people were that - unreliable and devious , many State arrangements involved in providing public goods would not succeed either). That such assumptions are operating can be seen by elaborating the situation; e.g., to bring out the first,suppose the priso~ers have a common bond, e.g., they are friends or they are political prisoners with a shared social commitment, or they are neighbours and face a future in the same community; to bring out the philosophical scepticism involved, suppose the prisoner with a tarnished record offers the other security against default, and so on. The question of the character of human interests and preferences and the extent of their determination by the social context in which they occur is fundamental to the whole question of social and economic arrangements, and also accordingly to arguments for the State on the basis of human propensities. A major assumption underlying prevailing (non-Marxist) economics and associated political theory, is that the interests and preferences, as summed up in a preference ranking or utility function, of each human that is taken to count 6 is an independent parameter, which depends neither on the preference rankings of others nor on the social context in which that human _operates. While the individuals and firms of mainstream economic theory do, by definition, satisfy the independence requirements, and while there is very substantial cultural pressure on consumers to conform (through. advertising, education, popular media), very many humans do not conform, and the extent of cultural pressure towards privatisation itself belies the naturalness of this independence. And having sufficiently many interest-interdependent people in a . small community (which is not thoroughly impoverished) is normally enough, given their social influence, to avoid or resolve, by cooperation, the types of Prisoners' Dilennna situations that appear to count in favour of the State-. 9 5. WHY THE DILEMMA ARGUMENTS CANNOT SUCCEED. What the Dilemma-based case for .the State has to show - what never has been shown·- is that there are outstanding Dilemma situations, which are relevant and important, and also damaging if unresolved, and that they are resolvable by State intervention, and only so (optimally) resolved. Finally it has to be shown that in the course of so resolving these Dilemma situations, worse situations than those that are resolved are not thereby induced. These complex conditions cannot be satisfied, of they can be satisfied at all, in a way that is not question begging. For several of the conditions are value dependent (e.g. what is important, damaging, optional, worse) and involve considerations about which reasonable parties can differ. The selection of Dilemmas itself provides an example of such: after all there are many such Dilemmas (e.g. as to environmental degradation, of overexploitation, of family violence or feuds) which are considered beyond the sphere of the State or not worthy of State attention. There are now grounds for concluding that the conditions cannot be satisfied at all. For many of the arguments using Prisoners' Dilennna games, Hobbes' and Hume's arguments for the State and Hardin's "Tragedy of the Commons" for instance, turn out when properly formalised to consist not just of a single game but of a sequence of · such games, to be more adequately represented by what is called a superg~e. But in many such sequential Prisoners' Dilemma games, rational "cooperation" can occur, even assuming . h pure 1 y egoistic . . interests. . , lO For wh at sequentia . 1 separa t e d payers wit 1 games permit that isolated games exclude, is th.at players' actions may be dependent upon past performance of other players. This dependence effectively removes one extremely unrealistic self-containment assumption from Dilemma situations, that individuals act in totally isolated ways, not learning from past social interaction. In such supergames then, no intervention is required. 7 Undoubtedly some Dilemmas are resolved by "intervention", e.g. by allowing the prisoners to get in touch so that they find they are neighbours or that they can really cooperate. Equally important, and equally independent of the State, is the matter of breaking down the adversary, or game, situation so the prisoners do not act as competitors but are prepared to cooperate. 11 Informational input may also. be important, e.g. news that each prisone_r has J_to agreements a good record of adherin~h or if not is prepared to stake collateral, etc. Nor is force or threat of force required as an incentive to guarantee optimal strategies : a range of other inducements and incentives they be required in recalcitrant cases), and gifts, deprivation, social pressure, etc. is known (should is used even by the State, e.g. But at no stage is the State required to make these arrangements: much as some real Prisoners' Dilemmas are resolved by work of Amnesty International, so voluntary organisations can be formed to detect and deal with Prisoners' Dilemma situations where they are not already catered for. And in fact communal and cooperative organisation did resolve Prisoners' Dilemma-type situations historically, for example in the case of the Commons. In sum, here also replacement works. There are no important Dilemma situations, it seems, where the State is essential. The State has been thought to be essential because of certain influential false dichotomies; for example, that all behaviour that is not egoistic is altruistic (but altruistic behaviour is uncommon, and "irrational"), that the only way of allocating goods, apart from profit-directed markets - which tend to deal abysmally with collective goods - is through State control. 1 2 But it is quite evident that there are other methods of allocation, both economic (e.g. exchange, through traditional markets, based on supply costs) and social (e.g. by cooperatives, clubs). Lastly, introduction of the State to resolve some Dilemma situations 13 · . · . h as very extensive e ff ects, -many o f t h em negative, soth at t h e gains ma d e, any, in so resolving Dilemma 1· f situations, appear to be substantially outweighed by the costs involved. For there are the many evil aspects of the typical State to put in the balance. As regards Dilemma situations, entry of the State with its authority showing may not help but may worsen some situations, and more important, new Dilemmas may be initiated by State activity, as i ri the cas e of the prisone rs,br differently with the State as a further player (since the State . may engage in whaling, have access to a commons, etc.). also to further arguments against the State. These points lead 8 6. THE SECOND WAY: THE ARGUMENT FROM PROBLEM RECURRENCE. The solution by the State to problems of social organisation repeats or generates in more dangerous form the very problems introduction of the State was designed to solve, including new Dilemmas. Suppose, for instance, the secular State ·really were introduced in order to solve Prisoners' Dilemmas - introduced as opposed to inherited from the religious State and the Church, and maintained to prop up privilege and foster objectives that are not in its communities' interests then the array of States generates new Prisoners' Dilemmas, which there is no Super-State to resolve by coercion. Suppose, as the myth has it, the State really were introduced in _the interest of order and stability and to curb violence; then the arrays of States resulting more than negates these advantages, with instability, disorder and violence on a grander scale than before the emergence of modern secular States. 14 7. THE THIRD WAY: THE OVERSHOOT ARGUMENT,FROM THE INADEQUACY OF INSTITUTIONAL CONTROLS ON STATE POWER. Having ceded a monopoly on power to the State, in order to resolve some dilemmas, some of them arising from an inequitable distribution of power, what controls or balances the power of the State? A Super-State. And its power? There is a vicious infinite regress if the reply to the question "What controls the controller?" is "a further 15 The only promising way of avoiding this problem - other routes controller". lead (even more) directly to totalitarianism - is by having the first of these controllers, the State, answer back to those in whose interests it is allegedly established, those of the society or group of communities it controls. implies democratic methods of some kind. This Others go further: 'democracy [is] the only known means to achieve this control, the only known device by which 16 we can try to protect ourselves against the misuse of political power'. In this event, control has mostly failed. Democracy is extremely attenuated, even in those states that claim to practice it. The exercise of power in modern "democratid' states - much increased power reaching deep into peoples' lives, power which has passed to certain political elites and is directed at the attainment of such objectives as economic growth and material "progress" - is often channelled through 'non-elected authority' and 'is not democratic in the traditional meaning of the term' 17 In any case, indirect democratic and other institutional checks are tenuous in as much as they depend ultimately on the toleration of those who have direct control of the forces of the State. Experience seems to show that such toleration will only be shown so long as democratic procedures deliver results that are not too disagreeable, that are broadly in accord with what those who control the coercive power are prepared 9 to accept. (Toleration of such a tamed democracy then brings benefits to those who hold power, especially the cover of legitimation). checks which operate only insofar as a system But institutional acceptable to the powerholders is not seriously challenged, and which depend ultimately upon the toleration of those "checked~' are not really checks at all. The problem of controlling the power of the State, and preventing the State once established from usurping further power and exceeding its mandate, is only satisfactorily solved by not ceding power to the State in the first place. The best way of avoiding the evils of accumulated power is the anarchist way, of blocking its accumulation. 8. THE FOURTH WAY: THE ARGUMENT FROM FREEDOM AND AUTONOMY. responsible for actions deliberately undertaken. A person is This premiss can be derived, if need be, from the notion of a person as a moral agent. Taking · responsibility for one's actions implies, among other things, making the final decision about h;such what to do on eac~A occasion oneself, not acting simply on direction from outside,but determining how to act, what ought to be done, oneself; not handing that decision over to someone or something else. It implies, that is, moral autonomy. Autonomy in turn implies, what responsibility requires, freedom. For the autonomous being, endorsing its own decisions and principles ~ is not subject to the will of another. another so directs. Even if it does what another directs, it is not because In being free, not of constraints (both physical and self-determined), but of the constraints and will of others, an autonomous being is morally free. A necessary feature of the State is authority over those in its territory (under its de facto jurisdiction), the right to rule and impose its will upon them. Such authority backed by force is incompatible with moral autonomy and with freedom. An autonomous being, though it may act in accordance with some imperatives of the State, those it independently endorses, is bound to reject such (a claim to) authority, and therewith the State. In sum, being a person, as also being autonomous and being free, implies rejecting the authority of the State, and so not acknowledging the State; that is, each condition on personhood implies, i f t he argument is sound , anarchism. 18 It is possible to combine autonomy with an extremely attenuated "State", one based on on-going unanimous direct democracy. But such a "State", with no independent authority, is not really a state, since any participant can dissolve it at any time, and so constitutes no threat to anarchism o On the contrary, such direct democratic methods are part of the very stuff of anarchistic organisation. 10 9. THE FIFTH WAY: THE ARGUMENT FROM ANARCHIST EXPERIENCE. The replacement argument enables construction of a model · of a society functioning without the State, of a practically possible Stateless world; which shows that the State is not necessary. But it can always be claimed - even if the claim can seldom or ever be made good - that the modelling leaves out some crucial feature of real world circumstances, rendering it inapplicable. The gap may be closed by appeal to the independently valuable argument from experience, that at various times and places anarchism has been tested and has worked. Examples of such Stateless organisation suffice to show that crucial real world features have not been omitted. There are many examples of nonindustrialised societies which were, or are, 19 anarchistic, there is the rich experience of the Spanish collectives, and there is much localised experience of self-management and small-scale anarchistic arrangements within the State structure. 20 10. THE EMERGING CHARACTER OF ANARCHISM AND ITS ORGANISATION. The arguments outlined, predominantly theoretical, inform the practical, revealing the options open for anarchism, courses of action in superannuating the State and for transition to a stateless Society, and so on. For example, spontaneous anarchism - according to which organisation is unnecessary and social arrangements will arise spontaneously, and will be ushered in during the revolution without any prior organisation-is a position which is not viable and could not endure, because it makes none of the requisite replacements upon which durable supersession of the State depends. The sort of anarchist society which these theoretical arguments delineate will certainly be organised, but the organisation will not be compulsory, and will eschew authoritarian measures (and, by the overshoot argument, will reject transition by any strengthening of the centralised State), relying heavily on voluntary cooperation and direct democracy. The society which emerges will be much as Bakunin and Kropotkin sometimes pictured it. It will be based on smaller-scale decentralised connnunities, for otherwise such arrangements as connnunity replacement of State welfare arrangements, control of their environment, removal of Prisoners' Dilennnas, and participatory democracy, will work less satisfactorily. Connnunities will be federated and control will be bottom-up, not merely by representation and subject to a downward system of command. Within each connnunity there will not be great discrepancies in the distribution of wealth and property, and no highly concentrated economic property and power. community wilt be a rather equalitarian group, sharing in much that is cennnunally owned or not owned at all. A · 11 While theoretical arguments help outline the general shape of social and also economic arrangements they do not determine them completely, they offer no detailed blueprint. Accordingly what emerges is not a particular form of anarchism, for instance anarchist communism, but a more experimental and pluralistic anarchism, such as was instituted in the Spanish collectives. 11. STRATEGIES FOR TRANSITION TO ANARCHIST SOCIETY: THE FOREST SUCCESSION MODEL OF REPLACEMENT BY AN ALTERNATIVE STRUCTURE. The main strategy, emerging. from the First Way, is that of replacement: transition to a new anarchist social order proceeds by replacement or aooption of the more satisfactory State organisations and structures by organisations and structures of a more anarchistic cast, and by removal or phasing out of remaining no longer necessary or unsatisfactory State arrangements. Replacement and supersession suggest a biological model, of such change and succession as occurs where one forest type succeeds another; and such a model is in turn very suggestive. To make the model more definite, and to give it some local colour, consider forest succession where a sub-tropical rainforest replaces a eucalypt forest, as analogous to the case where anarchism replaces a Statist society. There is certainly a marked change in structure, typically from a tall forest with a fairly open canopy to a more compact closed forest with more layers of vegetation, much more local diversity and a richer variety of life forms, especially floral forms. A forest is not merely a set of trees, but trees in structura J arrangement and interdependence, not merely on one another but on other life forms such as pollinating insects, seed-carrying birds and animals, and so on; and the changes in structure include changes in microclimate, in soil moisture levels and humus and bacterial content. The change of forest type may be by evolution, by hastened or induced evolution, or by catastrophe (revolution) as when a eucalypt forest is clearfelled and artificially succeeded by planted rainforest. (Strictly, there is a spectrum of practices and replacement strategies between evolutionary and revolutionary, and various different revolutionary strategies; and the standard evolutionary-revolutionary contrast presents a false dichotomy.) Even reliance on predominantly evolutionary methods, which tend to be very slow by human time scale~ may require some (management) practices, else evolution towards rainforest will not begin or continue. For example, seeds for rainforest species may not be available if adjoining areas have been stripped of suitable seed trees, e.g. by clearing or eucalypt conversion, in which case it will be necessary to introduce seeds (of anarchist ideas, methods, arrangements, etc.). And rainforest evolution may not be able to 12 continue because the area is burnt occasionally, e.g. by State officers, in which case protection against fire will be required: for with burning (suppression) regimes rainforest seedlings are killed and eucalypt dominance perpetuated. Furthermore, evolution can be hastened or induced by intro- ducing seeds, or planting rainforest trees in poorly seeded areas (i.e. setting up alternative social arrangements) under the eucalypt overstorey, or even by some careful culling of eucalypts. But even without culling there will be much for anarchist management to do. As the rainforest cover begins to grow up through the eucalypt forest, the forest begins to change structurally. Younger eucalypt poles die, and their replacement by eucalypts is generally precluded owing to low light intensities near the forest floor (in something the same way conditions for capitalist entrepreneurs to flourish are excluded in an emerging anarchist society). Gradually, as the rainforest grows, only scattered giant eucalypts emerge through the canopy, and in time these fall to the forest floor, to rot and not to be replaced - unless the climax rainforest is subject to catastrophe, such as fire or cyclone. Catastrophic methods, such as clearfalling the eucalypt forest, replanting with rainforest, protecting the new forest, and removing eucalyptus regrowth, are much more problematic. To be applied they require either a large workforce or much mechanical power (so it is with violent revolutions which require a large support basis not available in advanced capitalist and state socialist countries, or else access to means of perpetrating violence comparable to that of the State). There are often similar requirements for success; otherwise the area may be choked by rapidly growing weeds or the rainforest plants may be suppressed by eucalypt seedlings and a pioneer eucalypt stage recur. Moreover, a eucalypt overstorey sometimes affords good conditions for rainforest growth, e.g. plant protection from excessive sun, occasional frosts, and drying winds, better moisture retention conditions,and so on. (_Similarly anarchist organisations can sometimes use the environment afforded by the State to get started.) But under some conditions, such as excessive interference (as happens to alternative arrangements in highly repressive States where local conditions also commonly favour revolutionary succession), there may be little or no alternative t o clearfelling practices. But just as clearfelling the eucalypt forest can create favourable conditions for weeds, so violent revolutions can only too easily create the conditions for a new (State) elite, controlling the concentrated power generated for the overthrow of the older regime. 13 12. APPLYING THE FOREST SUCCESSION MODEL. How to apply the model is not difficult to see in broad outline, and many of the further details have been filled out by work that can be described as indicating how allegiance can be shifted in practice from where we mostly are to alternative social arrangements and life-styles built on self-management and mutual aid.~ The seeds of anarchism should be broadcast or planted, anarchist (nonStatist) arrangements instituted or strengthened, and efforts made to replace or modify vulnerable Statist arrangements, e.g. by democratization of present institutions and development of nonStatist and noncapitalist . alternatives. Some of the practices are familiar: anarchist groups, clubs, pamphlets, broadcasts, newsletters, etc.; (anarchist) cooperatives, exchanges, neighbourhood groups, rural communities, etc. are slightly less familiar: Others avoidance of State influence by arrangements beyond State reach such as costless (or alternative currency) interchanges of goods and services, action directed at removing decision-making from State departments, such as forest services, and into citizen hands, and ultimately, to decentralized local communities. In this sort of way worthwhile State arrangements can be replaced, and power can be progressively transferred from the State, and returned to the community and to people more directly involved. FOOTNOTES 1. Bakunin on Anarchy (edited S. Dolgoff), Allen & Unwin, London, 1973, especially p. 139. Much else in this paper, e.g. the distinction between the State and Society, also derives from Bakunin. 2. That is, proper elaboration of this argument takes each facet of generally beneficial state activity~ there is only a (relative:1-y small) finite number to consider - and shows how it can be replaced in one way or another. course uniquely determined. Replacement is not of Lines such replacements can tfke are indicated in much anarchist (and self-management) literature, consider especially but not uncritically, P. Kropotkin, Mutual Aid. New York University Press, 1972, and also his Fields, Factories and Workshops, second edition, Nelson, London, 1913, and The Conquest of Bread, Chapman and Hall, London, 1913. 3. On these points see, e.g. Kropotkin_'s Revolutionary Pamphlets (edited S. Baldwin), Dover Publications, New York, 1970, p. 206 ff.; also P.J. Proudhon, Confessions of a Revolutionary. For recent discussion of, and practical examples of, replacements for arbitration and law court procedures (but for right-leaning anarchism), see C.D. Stone, 'Some reflections on arbitrating our way to anarchy', Anarchism, (reprint of Nomos _ XIx),New York University Press, 1978, pp. 213-4. 4. Arguments of this typ.e are sometimes said to represent 'the strongest case that can be made for the desirability of the State' (M. Taylor, Anarchy and Cooperation, Wiley, London, 1976, p. 9). To cover all arguments of the type, and to avoid repetition of the phrase 'variants of' and disputes as to whether certain arguments such as those of Hume and of Olson involve Prisoners' Dilemma situations, 'Prisoner's Dilemma' is used in a wide sense to include not merely single n-person Prisoners' Dilemma games, but for example, games where the payoffs are not merely egoistic (as with both Hobbes and Hume) and where such games are iterated. As the bracketed clauses in the text indicate, there are two types of case, not sharply separated and both of the same logical form - those where people do not contribute to supply themselves with, or with "optimum" quantities of, a "collective good" (e.g. security, order, sewage), and those where people do not restrain themselves to maintain, or maintain "optimum" quantities of, some already available "collective good" (e.g. commons, 2 unpolluted streams, whales, wilderness). That received arguments of all these types involves Prisoners' Dilemma situations (in the wide sense) is argued, in effect, in Taylor, op. cit. and elsewhere. An easier introduction to the material covered by Taylor, which also surveys other important literature, is given in the final chapter of R. Abrams, Foundations of Political Analysis, Columbia University Press, New York, 1980. 5. An important matter the two player game does not illustrate is the relevance of population size in the arguments for the State. But size is not decisive (see, e.g., Taylor, chapter 2), and the issue can be avoided (or relocated) by organisation into smaller communities. The figures given in the matrix are illustrative only; for inequalities which suffice for a Dilemma situation, see Taylor, p. 5. 6. It is similarly bizarre that there should be outcomes that the State alone is said to be able to arrange, but not mere social cooperation, when the State is (as on many theories) the result or reflection of social cooperation. 7. This important point is much elaborated in V. and R. Routley, 'Social Theories, Self Management, and Environmental Problems' in Environmental Philosophy (edited D. Mannison and others), RSSS, Australian National University, 1980. 8. As a result of G. Hardin's "Travesty of the Commons", historical evidence has been assembled which reveals how far Hardin's "Commons" diverges from historic commons; see, in particular, A. Roberts, The SelfManaging Environment, Allison & · Busby, London, 1979, chapter 10, but also Routley, op. cit., p. 285 and pp. 329-332. Similar points apply as regards many other Dilemma situations. 'In the experimental studies of the prisoner's dilemma game approximately half of the participants choose a cooperative strategy even when they know for certain that the other player will cooperate'. Abrams, op. cit., p. 308. 9. Cf. the discus$ion in Taylor, op. cit., p. 93. 3 10. This important result is established in Taylor, op. cit., for a number of critical cases, though not generally; see, e.g. p. 32 but especially chapter 5. 11. Such moves have proved valuable in reducing the State's role in legal prosecution, and in eliminating courtroom procedures, including cases where the State is one of the "adversaries". 12. Both the false dichotomies cited are commonplace, not to say rife, in modern economic and political theorising. Both are to be found in Abram's final chapter, for example, and the first (with an attempt to plaster over the gap with a definition) in Taylor. For a further criticism of such false dichotomies, see Routley, op.cit.,pp.250 ff. 13. For instance, a certain social escapism: one escapes one's social roles and is enabled to concentrate on private affairs or just to laze. Or so it may appear: for in reality anyone who works, works long and often alienated hours to pay for this apparent escapism and to cover the high costs of frequently inadequate State activity. 14. The argument, to be found in Bakunin, is elaborated a little in Taylor, op. cit., chapter 7. A related argument, also in Bakunin, is from the way in which emergence of the State compromises and even closes off nonstate solutions to problems of social organisation in adjoining regions. 15. The question is in effect Plato's question, and the regress is reminiscent of his Third Man argument. 16. K.R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. II. Fourth edition (revised), Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1962, p. 129 and p. 127. The ~vershoot) problem is, according to Popper 'the most fundamental problem of all politics: the control of the controller, of the dangerous accumulation of power represented in the State•, 'upon which' Marxists never had 'any well-considered view' (p. 129). 17. V. Lauber, 'Ecology, politics and liberal democracy', Government and Opposition 13 (1978)., 199-217: seep. 209 and p. 21l. 18. The argument, outlined by Bakunin, is much elaborated in R.P. Wolff, In Defense of Anarchism, Harper & Row, New York., 1970. No argument is however without assumptions, which are open to dispute. argument, for example,is disputed by G. Wall, 'Philosophical anarchism revised' Nomos XIX, op. cit., p. 273 ff. Wolff's 4 19. Documented in The Anarchist Collectives (edited S. Dolgoff), Free Life Editions, New York, 1974. 20. As B. Martin boldly asserts, 'The advantages of _self-management and alternative lifestyles are many and significant. And these alternatives are entirely feasible: there is plenty of evidence and experience to support operates. their superiority over the present way society The obstacles to self-management and alternative life styles are powerful vested interests and institutional resistance to change', Changing the Cogs, Friends of the Earth, Canberra, 1979, p. 6. 21. As sketched in some of the material already cited, for example, Routley, p. 284 ff. Richard Routley lives and works. in the NSW forest. He is sponsored in pursuit of his research interests - in arguments and theories especially by the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University (a state-supported and state-supporting institution, holding 20,000 shares in the uranium industry). His main published work is in metaphysics and alternative logics and in forestry and environmental philosophy. preparation of this article by Val Routley. He was helped in The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Cutting (photocopy) Routley R and Routley V (1982) 'The irrefutability of anarchism', Social alternatives, 2(3): 23-29. (7 leaves)  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 70, Item 2: Draft and cutting of The irrefutability of anarchism Subject The topic of the resource Typescript of draft, corrections with whiteout and handwritten emendations, undated, with cutting (photocopy) of published version, Routley R and Routley V (1982) 'The irrefutability of anarchism', Social alternatives, 2(3): 23-29. 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[3.01 MB] Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:e525618">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:e525618</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant n/a - not numbered in manuscript finding aid Box 70: Unlisted and Untitled Boxes https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/74d46ccc038115c6bd0d20b0ef9d25e7.pdf 71c8a8c1be80ed4eafc093ea58b583ca PDF Text Text 7t? // /J -Z7 . /^c ^/r 7^-/4' ' 7W^V *^' 77 , ' . . 5? -/? / , .- /^/** ' - 4^ ?/^ /^.'^ " *^/ -! r -7' _.;7'. �*'<K * HORKING DRAFT CULTURE AND THE ROOTS OF POLITICAL DIVERGENCE: a South Pacific perspective with emphasis on the Australian/American contrast A ma.ior function of culture is to regulate and control change,1 Political in the South Pacific, change North, industrial can, in and political principle then, the be grounded in and powered by One organising theme, a corollary of features of local and regional.culture. the from divergence argument, facilitates the transition from principle to practice:- It is that the requisite elements are present in regional cultures, the potentiality is South Pacific region (and Australia the for there, in particular) to proceed in a very different social and political direction from the North (and USA in particular). th" from American arrangements, Given the radical unsatisfactoriness of the 2 in many frequently exposed respects , such a different direction is worth taking - if it can be. serious problem in the way of a But arrangements, from outside or from above. change is imposition of And, political since imposition shades into this is only one of the obstacles impeding change in the South Pacific and elsewhere. Another^forcing more and more peoples, no longer political pressure, sheltered into the same type of socio-political is supposed to derive from human nature itself. Free people are by geographical isolation, arrangements economic people, in pretty much the American mould, so it is claimed. By this route, economic imperialism can replace political imperialism. 1. Nature, theory - one culture, to which A supposedly key question in political and control. we are said to have no satisfactory answer in the absence of a worthwhile theory of human nature (or human natures) - is this:- 1. Thus Abraham p.29ff.; Awa p.30. 2. For a recent trenchant expose, see Cohen and Rogers. 1 �To extent does human nature alloM for alternative political Mhat arrangements? Or, to turn the question around:- in virtue of nature the of much-promoted 6nglo-6merican Enl ightenment, is oMn gain or (including technical knoM-hoM), from 6 the taboos (and Mill (properly) concerned Mi th information 3 free people are basically economic people. but for their shortage of that is to replace one ideology by another. ideology is no longer so Enlightenment of range descended directly are essentially people that is, interests; 6 s ought noM to be evident, the answer , self-centred individuals, become) broad that once freed from systems of myths, superstition, from the "nature" reduce the organisationa! options? HoM does that controls, on humans What restrictions are imposed evident: Mhat But recommends it? Under pressure of this sort, the 6nglo-6merican answer gets transformed to the that the economic picture of human nature is superior, theme and fitting of That 'self-appointed West European superiority'' has in 4 the Romantics. Fortunately, turn been disputed, since the time of Herder and rational creatures. hoMever, the extensive ensuing dialectic can be substantially avoided. For all these questions and ansMers presuppose, to begin Mi th, a certain misplaced essential ism, that there is such an invariant nature common to human beings, Mhich exactly separates humans from other creatures, suitably constant and invariant 5 necessary and sufficient conditions , are legion. They are specify such an essence, attempts to given by and a frequent feature of Enlightenment thought. 611 men are the same because of universal drives [such as to pleasure and the avoidance of pain]. These drives mill operate independently of any location. Chief among those drives Mas that toMards self-preservation - Hol bach, for instance, stipulates: Me shall call nature in man the collection of properties and quali t i es Mhich constitute him Mhat he is, Mhich are inherent to his species, Mhich distinguish him from other animal species or every man feels, thinks, Mhich he has in common Mi th them 3^ These people are also picked out under various alternative (but not strictly equivalent) descriptions, e.g. as acquisitive individuals, possessive individuals. 2 �acts and seeks his oMn Mell-being at all times; these are qualities and properties that constitute human nature ... 6. But this attempt at essentialist definition of human nature fails, Fts it stands, the definition is inadequate; characteristic May. humans seek just their OMn Mell-being alMays; hut f? yoMtc df-e, other commitments.^ L to egoism, by HoMever, replacing ( 'Mell-being' (such as human vegetables, definition, replacing 'every definition is again inadequate; example, in a quite for not all some are altruistic, some have Ct ' suppose Me avoid such familiar counterinstances rendering such internal egoism analytic. examples the by say 'broad Mell-being', thus &nd suppose to avoid other counter- morons and the like), man' by 'every normal human'. Me normalise the then the But for it fails to distinguish humans from, for It applies equally to dolphin nature or, for that matter, dolphins. to qori11 a nature. Of 4. course the definition can again be patched, by appealing to the (From previous page) See Berry, p.30ff., from Mhom the quote is taken, It is Morth spelling out a little the extent of agreement and disagreement Mi th Herder. Hhat is applauded is 1. 'Herder's dismissal of the Enlightenment's conception of human nature as static, acultural and ahistorical' (Berry, p.32), but not. XI. Herder's cultural relativism, that 'each culture ... should be treated on its OMn merits and not judged by some faulty perspective such _ In the as la belle_____ nature ' (p.3U), or from any other perspective. pluralistic framework of the text (Mhich presupposes PPP), a good many cross-cultural judgements are made and defended. X2. Herder's relativisation of human nature to culture, and embodiment of it in cu1ture; for example, 'it is through language that human nature Hi th can be seen to be specifical1y embodied in cu1ture' <p.32). bu t relativisation the notion loses its original theoretical point; Mhile failing in this role, cultural nature is open to many of the same Nor can language bear the Meigh t sorts of objections as human nature. Herder loads upon it. Herder's human chauvisism: '... it is speech and Mi th that reason X3. I1an can choose, man is king' and freedom, that differentiates man. Hild animals are free, can choose, communicate, solve puzzles, (p.36). carry out elementary reasoning; in these respects they surpass and and many other humans. Furthermore, X3 gets Herder into serious chi 1dren not to say inconsistency, Mi th 1. trouble, 5. 6. Abraham, draMing on Hittgenstein, essence, p.23ff. Berry p.17. presents just these conditions for an Berry supplies several other similar examples. 3 �cluster of -features that separate humans from other mammals or anatomical biological specification of homo sapiens. the to normalised But the resulting definition, Mi th its analytical egoism, does little more than such biological definitions of human: it does not supply a nature, does it deliver not superbiological features of political relevance. The notion of human nature -a/"! thus fragments: into the satisfactory enough biological notion of human, and an superbiological (or sociobiological) unsatisfactory nature or essence. addition; What is this further, problematic, nature? that of The Romantics can be read as arguing that there is none, no nature as distinct from culture, only local nature (Herder's term) Mhich coincides Mith culture. excretions and variations in order to reach an essence leaves, cultural off Peeling like Wittgenstein's artichoke, nothing. The notion of human nature is a theoretical item, amid cultural variability, stability a constant bulMark against but designed as Mell to justify (as natural or, failing that, of type particular political provide introduced to economy and legislature, and relativism, as superior) its a imposition 7 fashion, fact and that the is not so easily dissolved, notion by one illustration. is Mritten large in much political but is defective, illustration reveals, such a HoMever the theory, does not shoM that it or the embedding theory is sound. received, not, This resilient notion has been Midely applied in else. everyMhere and is f)nd it is and in its socio-political selectivity it is, as the virtually of a piece Mith human chauvinism (Mhich Mould assign an unduly privileged position to human beings in the ecological scheme of things). In under 7. fact the superbiological notion of human nature begins any attempt to set it doMn, in much the May that attempts to dissolve supporting Hence the Enlightenment program of imposing enlightened Western culture everyMhere, later emphasised by Bentham. The Legislator, knoMing that human nature is ever the same [different countries do not have different catalogues of pleasure and pain), can reform the laMS and even transplant them from one society to another' (Berry, p.18). �doMn something ethically chauvinism 3 disintegrate. The notion of human nature - a nature human there stable or constant social some are features humans about (some special classes of humans excepted perhaps) humans that special - presupposes holding for across different cultures, Mhich are furthermore distinctive!/ human peop!es, features. The presupposition fails, because once cultural variation between shared peoples characteristics remain , Mhich furthermore are shared various by animal cu1tures, such as those of primates. Consider , books, or first, such products or tools of more literary cultures as Since of contemporary cultures as telephones and computers. cultures lacked such items, their possession most distribution or obviously cannot figure as part of Mhat marks out human nature. Consider next, Mhat are commonly taken to be key components of (human) nature, certain then, basic human needs, such as food and shelter. These requirements are far from free of cultural and environmental determinants. as required in the May of shelter, place to place. Mays, common under For look at Mhat is regarded and hoM it varies from cu1ture to culture, (&nd even Mhat is taken as basic can often be met in a myriad Mays.) though acceptably in some cultures only in a feM fixed The denominator is the rather trivial requirement of some sort more extreme conditions - a requirement also of Mombats. The situation This claim concerning human chauvinism is argued in detail in EE. But the claim concerning human nature is only sketchily defended in the text. For ................................. ' t nature, 1 ike the alleged social-arrangement-dictating features of' human determinism, are alleged features of economic or technological simi1 ar insofar as they to be removed especially rather major obstacles supposedly severely and inevitably restrict the character of future societies - than the main business of the present enterprise. For tunately then the claim, that the superbiological notion of human nature is a defective theoretical one Mhich dissolves, is defended elseMhere: not only, ,, in effect, in Mork of Romantics from Herder on, but also in significant recent literature. Foucault, for example, can be read as saying that human nature is an invention of the Enlightenment Mhich dissolves: ''his much discussed ... dissolution of man is nothing more, or less, than the claim that the attempt to establish order upon a scientific understanding of human nature is both profoundly mistaken and italics added). �food, Mith and sex, so on, considerably from race to race, by flourish. Again the somewhat conditions, trivial lowest or more loosely Mhere common tribal denominator Nor are attempts to mark out by some more complex list of jointly necessary nature vary requirements Europeans for example being very inefficient applies also to various groups of animals. human Dietary tribal standards and unable to survive satisfactorily many people is hardly better. by a cluster of natural and features, the sufficient much more successful, or of direct political application without the importation of what is culturally at issue - values. In any case, such vague and general lists as 10 emerge impose little constraint at all on a political direction, since a variety of political arrangements is compatible with such listings. Accordingly, nature as such is not. an important constraint on or a theory of human nature a key ingredient in endeavours 11 work out a political philosophy or political directions . The reason is political to human theory, the reason that determining the conditions for the good life would like not impose a satisfactory constraint on a political theory, namely presupposition 12 failure. Like the meaning of life , the good life fails to demarcate a single thing; there are many styles of good lives. So too there is human *9^ The converse is seen in the extent to which tribal peoples gain weight on European diets, At another level, consider the Haori attitude to, and underlying revulsion by, cooked food: see Alpers, p.7-9. 10. For one such list, which however requires pruning and adjustment, see Nilson, p.22. As it happens, Nilson does not make anything much of this list (which does not supply necessary conditions), immediately presents a parallel list for insect societies - a list which does considerable damage to more traditional claims about human nature - and then proceeds in effect to demolish main criteria that have been used to separate humans from animals and to restrict cultures to human societies (e.g. p.39). For more on contemporary "scientific" efforts to deploy a theory of human nature for social and political ends, see Appendix 2. 11. Nhich is perhaps as well, since we still have so little reliable and unprejudiced information as to what "human nature" amounts to, what its variational possibilities, in different environments, might be, or of the possibilities beyond past terrestrial selections of cultures. 12. On which see Routley and Griffin. 6 �and human nature, nature depending on the culture or social paradigm and on Nature, both human and not, varies uith culture and environment. the setting. Because of this tuo-uay dependence, there is no unique stable superbiological human nature. notion of human is nature the picture of nature as given, as a stable across races and tribes, notion uith culture as a variable There is no such culturally invariant division: The picture is flaued in much the same uay, as perception, top. on culture affects local nature. as the familiar picture of then, stable consisting of given uninterpreted sense data, across (normal) perceivers, uith interpretation imposed on the neutral data. Nor therefore is culture something that can be creamed off the top, so to find real human features or basic nature to speak, Certainly, underneath. be destroyed; however uhat results from removal by destruction of not something closer to real people, but people uith a destroyed it is also uith attempts like Hobbes or Rauls to peel organisation off the the top, in order to locate in a political quasi-analytical or quasi-historical uay, a state of nature underneath or preceding some organised state or other, derived from mistaken flaued picture, questionable or presuppositions, is assumed. Hhat uill be found underneath, or in the original (natural) state, is, it is usually conveniently assumed, a nature that fits the vieu to be developed uith the explai ned and the culture's riqht values very fortunately in-built. is privileged image status quo - position of some of itself, and elements of the as uell dominant as a be serves for economic man, social hardly surprisingly, that for Enlightenment man, 7 dominant Northern fully competitive possessive individualism (much the same model, uhich to or justified is something like present socio-political arrangements paradigm - underlying human nature turns out to be, of Given that uhat for the that is, "rational �etc.) person", myths, to The myth of unique human nature functions, perpetuate other like many or instil particular social arrangements and special pr ivi1ege. Thus too the myth of human nature is linked to other culture-based myths, myths the of predominantly self-interested - to rational) (normal) al 1 bring humans maximizer s no firm starting point in human nature, myths. of myths. None aboriginal peoples comprised their least and as insofar as they are Mith the image of up As there is no underlying hard ground, so there is none in these repeated the Melanesians, associated Polynesians or Australian maximizers; strongly communal lifestyles and after especially, and (at individuals The South Pacific Mas, and remains, rich in cultures Mhich upset these associated indeed aggressive some of the myths bound in urban-industrial humans. contemporary as preparedness a loM sufficiency threshold had been reached, source of criticism from the European cultures Mork stop, to Mas a major that came to dominate the region. forms and types of Even aggressiveness, and approaches to Mar, often taken to be solid ground, are culture and environment dependent, and vary Mi th 13 both parameters . Aggressiveness is often supposed to impose huge constraints on political arrangements. But there is little substance to the claim that humans are naturally aggressive independently of social or cultural setting. The most that appears clear is that circumstances can be through croMding or provocation or cultural arranged, for instance TEh A striking illustration of environmental variation is afforded by the differences betMeen savannah dMelling and forest dMelling tribes of baboons. For a local illustration, consider Maori approaches to Mar (like Mar conventions, a social phenomenon), before European corruption. Thus Best reports that 'an individual, or a Mhole clan, might decline to take part in an engagement on account of some evil omen, and such an action Mould be approved of (p.15). There are several, apparently reliable, stories of Maoris engaged in Mar supplying the opposition Mith equipment or ammunition, or temporarily abandoning their fighting effort to help out the other (British) side, so the battle could proceed proper 1y. relocation, Mhere �of peoples cultures Mill become aggressive familiar more people of other cultures Mill not, in the face of immense brutality. depends Once types. Certainly some arrangements are required to but these can be of a Mide range of shortsightedly again, Mhat is normally as fixed: see certainly, such Mhich components nature human accounted varies Mith culture and environment, and upon perhaps as people often do but Mill just give up, cope Mith or suitably isolate aggression, alternative - and often people as selfishness, cooperativeness, individuality do. Hhat is presently much more important than either culture or nature determining social arrangements is another factor: imposition. social Whatever one from Mithout, through region and neM arrangements imposed, Hith long-standing arrangements, May or another. invariably namely, outside control or arrangements have evolved in a local nature and culture can be overridden, imposition is and the changes in arrangements typically especially, the South Pacific has, in almost involve either violence in their adaption or mass migration of people or both. last tMO hundred years, in In the like much of the been drastically so affected, in a complex May. ^nd the changes, neMer Morld still floMing strongly from the North, continue. He are in the last days of the destruction of old and cultures, economic destruction is noM to a considerable extent by more subtle cultural, and technological Outside direct control can be exercised, economic sanctions, film and television (i.e. earlier times. in many Mays less blatant than such as through introduction of etc., as monetary and loan policies, as through exchange and training programs, magazines, 14. or occur, intervention of one sort or another, neM technologies, Mell means than the cruder methods of slightly the textbooks, through physical advertising and exemplifications of Hi Ison's argument that humans are innately aggressive involves such an invalid move: he looks at the behaviour of Semai men Mhen 'taken out of their nonviolent society' by recruitment in a British colonial army (p.100)! ^s Mell, Hilson's case rests on a dubious redefinition of innateness, and a loM redefinition of aggressiveness to take in forms of mere (nonaggressive) conflict (pp.9?-100). �of process of cultural conversion and erosion; this quieter are unwittingly, part European peoples in the South Pacific are often culture). rather than, victims as well as, now but many of perpetrators (cf. us and Crough Wheelwright). Human communities have been - and many still are - as insensitive to other human cultures as they are to the natural environment (witness Americans and their allies in Vietnam). or beyond redemption. pushed of creation Like an ecosystem, a culture can be destroyed, This is disaster areas proceeds Yet the blatant cases 15 by disruption of culture and lifestyle using violence. There is typically political furthermore, where apace is possible at all, recovery a sometimes of the order of human generations. perhaps well-known. sufficiently production of imperialism, these politically e.g. USA in contaminated Central America, - in recovery long period, Yet there is increasing regions, Israel in especially Lebanon, through Russia in Afghanistan, Indonesia in East Timor and West Papua, etc. In the South Pacific, there are many quieter Northern influences at work, but the strongest now is unquestionably the businessmen, films can academics, American. American companies, tourists and warships, their technology and patents, and television programs, There are the most evident and be various motives and aims (and assumptions) behind the newer behind endeavours such as the American to 16 Granted it everywhere. "free enterprise" philosophy and practice their 17 business and American to American economic supremacy, mostly contributes to and economic imperialism, 15. These disaster areas should perhaps be cordoned off like those by communicable disease, but from continuing disruptive, interference. infected outside What is said about American cultural and politic al imperial ism applies, with adaption, in a lesser way, to imperialism and col onial ism by other nation-states such as USSR, Britain, France and Indonesia. USA has no monopoly on imperialism. US imperialism in the third wor1 dis in part documented and analysed in Chomsky and Herman. 17. Though not invariably as the experience with the Japanese motor industry has indicated. 10 �the transfer of substantial regional wealth and surplus value to the to But national economic reasons are not the only sort of reasons such are pursued; apart t^at many from the side-issue of integrity, USA. policies Americans really do believe in the optimality of their local ideals to the exclusion other of arrangements, there are deeper and somewhat more respectable ideological reasons as wel1. imperialistic The that assumption for nature, be underpinned all human nature is at bottom really political (a technological means. can instance highly economically oriented. distortions economic) endeavours means, way: they by like Thus, descriptive a American human but for political analogue of economic externalities) and lack and other peoples would choose the American (political simply have not really been given the For many peoples this is simply not true; of opportunity or for most other cultures let us hope, or pray, that this is not the case. Alternatively, or as well, a more arrogant prescriptive assumption may be at work, that all human nature ought best, because America not only has the best 18 way of life in the world and mostly the best ways of doing things , but has to be like American nature at its a special hold on rationality. The free-enterprise system (perhaps representative democracy American-style tacked on) is the rational 18. with enterprise Thus, for example, American agricultural textbooks and agricultural spokespeople are fond of announcing that American agriculture is the best in the world; similarly for environmental protection, forestry, technology, university education, and so on. But since they are the best, it is evident that these American ways should be exported, isn't it? Even granting the large assumptions, No, firstly, because that is to neglect important regional and local variations and differences, and secondly because these ways may interfere with other significant features of regional life or culture. It' has not passed unremarked that the high standard of material life in USA depends in part on a very fortunate inheritance (e.g. some of the best and deepest soils) and in part, as in Europe, on a lower standard of 1 i f e and conditions elsewhere, upon siphoning off wealth and especially resources (US currently uses about one-fifth of world resources and 30 X To be sure, economic apologetics of world energy) from other regions. proffer other explanations of American transcendence, e.g. ingenious constructions like that of Olson, built on a sandy logic of economic actors collectively locked into economically determined arrangements, substantially independent of the resource base. 11 �Certainly the system is sometimes peddled, embodied. the American May, it. Mhich Mas often Mith the same evangelism as Christianity, and presented as the rational religion, seen by genuine believers in at least before science got at science hasn't got at the free-enterprise religion yet, but on the Hell, noM has a social division heavily devoted to its justification and 19 furtherance. HoMever some philosophy has got at the system, sufficiently to contrary that it is no unique embodiment of rationality - there is none such reveal but a decidedly irrational practice in many circumstances. is irrational if local goals are to preserve local especially Thus, it environments is and cultures, as much experience helps attest. is aspects of the false descriptive assumption, It Mith emerge rejection,that are a main focus in Mhat folloMS (though various its the reasons for rejecting the prescriptive assumption recorded). broader and Mhat can important An basic nor in substan t i al 1y of Mill also emerge or get underlying theme Mill continue to be that nei ther varies human Mays that are highly political relevant - relevant to the frameMork a society adopts. In imposed upon from outside or above, the variation can be through cultural variation alternative assumptions, is part of "nature", again "human nature" variations; (Mhich but in turn depends on environment,etc) are then, those of cultural pluralism, that shaping in particular local human nature. Of course once can be pared back and back to try to in this May Mhat are taken to be important remove cultural superbiological features of human nature for political theory are also excised (e.g. that The make prisoners' dilemmas and commons' tragedies come out one May features rather than another). 19. In elaborating on hoM modern societies control their citizens, Foucault has explained various extensive types of social control exercised and licensed through received social sciences, by May of approved standards of normality, health, stability, adequacy, rationality, etc.: see Philp, p. 15. 12 ��Just as different cultures can mean different social arrangements, so in a larger setting they can imply different political organisation and different directions. political Where do requisite differences not occur, because incongruous arrangements have been imposed, cultural differences can be a "A powerful force for change. Likewise developing elements of cultural difference can a potent base for social change - or resistance to imposed be (especially) in communities where other more orthodox as economic incentives or penalties, have change bases for change, become inoperative or - such failed, or used, but are not available. Culture is however a double-edged instrument, resisted. example, For though not only to be indigenous leading features of Pacific cultures are to be reactivated, as forces for change, some these cultures are to be resisted (such as male domination), features Features of culture are thus modern Western cu1tures. of along with and confront undesirable (implanted or imported) sources resist many used to culture; of excessive consumerism, persuasive such as, inequitable political arrangements, advertising media and loaded news systems, structures, etc. for sol id foundation - but also This reasons is as true for American culture as Antipodean. Mhy job forth, is to antagonistic One of the so mainstream American culture so encouraging prime sources of up resistance against, and culture. alienating It is important not only to build and design alternatives - which elements of di sman tie, chief holloa suburbia, that movements offering or and alternatives have been repressed by the dominant corporations the state apparatus (see especially Goldstein). 2 The Why work with such an unfavourable contrast case as Australian—society regional and environmental orientation.' in defence of themes concerning 1*' 'yV 4" cultural variation and their force for change, contrast US it would no doubt be easier to culture with some other culture which diverges 13 more strikingly �Mith some Pacific society poised for revolutionary change, such as perhaps the Then there are conspicuous differences, Philippines. as the following table begins to reveal:- SOME WESTERN CULTURAL THEMES CONTRASTED HITH THIRD HORLD Fi1i pi no [Melanesian J North American [AustralianJ Individual autonomy encouraged; Mithin paradigm, individual should individualize, solve oMn problems, develop OMn opinions Dependence encouraged; point of reference is authority, older kin folk Competition [aJ primarymethod of motivation Community reduces or excludes incentive to excel over others Relations Mith others informal and direct Relations Mith others more formal; social interactions more structured Clear distinction betMeen public and private property Public property divertable unguililty into private [Much "property", e.g. 1 and, is communal J Materialism a dominant value Spiritual, religious things matter as much or more than material. Evident trouble culture Mith the choice of Australia as contrast is that is not only much influenced (like all Australian accessible cultures) by parts of American culture, but is very similar in many respects, including evolution and comparative stability. similarities are often sought, to that in broad outline, explanations of the and it is debated Mhether the similarities are by imitation or through similar evolution. explained debate is, is so similar It simple: namely, The ansMer to the as Mill appear, both types of mechanism have played a role. There are, as a main contentions so hoMever, contrasting several reasons for Morking Mith Australian culture case Mith American. A lesser one is that if regarding differences can be made good in =uch a case it Mill much the easier Mhere more conspicuous differences occur. But the aim the be is not to make a difficult argumentative task more difficult. Rather it is to try 207 This table, adapted from AMa more discussion is given. p.30, 14 is draMn from SteMart, Mhere much �to clear the May for a different philosophy and different political positions in Australia, and Pacific, more comprehensively in the South than those slavishly adopted from the North, to clear the May for political arrangements, grounded in the elements of local culture, Mhich are more benign, both to the environment and to other cultures, than those imported from the North. in several respects, Australia is, named from Europe the Antipodes, a (bordered the north by the Hallace line). There is some prospect that this region 21 a meaningful sense. That in turn encourages the Mill become nuclear-free,in or be induced in the faint hope that other socio-political changes may occur, - a region notably moving aMay from the dangerous and nuclear poMer and nuclear Meapons. independence comes from the USA. Antipodean exploitative main The damaging pattern, (and significant and perhaps this The USA Mould impose significant generally it aims to include the region under its that to opposition components of its Mar system, including nuclear Meapons, more attitudes so Mell exemplified in technological things nuclear, of the North, practices If includes Mhich biological and geophysical region of the South Pacific distinctive in region inexact rather the most important component of that capitalist is already Mell established, the main) resistance upon the region; and to broken, be eventually must hegemony. come from Australia. countries Smaller have resisted Marships; first Vanuatu and recently, genuinely nuclear-free suit. And politically 21. if and the the imposition environmentally American initiative is deeper, to Australia broaden tied to a more nuclear NeM Zealand. If a more significantly, South Pacific is to emerge, nuclear-free of must into profound folloM something regional This is just one reason Mhy the recent fashion of trying to count Australia as part of Asia, Mhich it is not, or as Mithin the (excessively large) Asian-Pacific region, Mhich it analytically is, should be resisted. No doubt looking at the larger region is convenient for economic and some defence purposes, for trade and aid; but it is narroM economically-focussed, nation-state thinking, Mhich discounts huge geographical, biological and cultural differences. 15 �independence and then militarism, leaders. Australia the Hence free self-reliance, from of components the must not merely follow, but be there interest in American/Australian cultural American Mith the differences, especially those relevant to socio-political divergence. The main cultural groupings of the Antipodean region can be developed from the following diagram: Aboriginal peoples Australian Polynesian Melanesi an Anglophi1e Main Colonial Powers ///// Francophi1e poli tical1y entirely dominated Poli tical1y subordinate Largely independent politically* The independence struggle continues in NeM Caledonia Cohere it Mill probably succeed soon) and in West Papua (Mhere there appears little prospect of success against the Javanese without outside support). The situation in Fiji is complicated as a result of the colonially-organised immigration of East Indians (so typical a legacy of British control). % Apart from the Indonesian intrusion, there is American penetration Samoa, and the French remain, most notably in Society Islands. There are Antipodes, Zealand). tMO essentially major independent Melanesian and Anglo-Australasian (i.e. White in the Australian and NeM groupings The latter is the important group from the point of vieM of present for the usual politico-economic reasons: comparative change in the Antipodes, numbers, poMer, influence, Meal th, resources, etc. cultural features matter, be cultural in obtained significantly, in such a It is Mi th this group that and Mill make a difference, assuming difference can May. For Melanesian culture for the most part in the right sorts of Mays, American culture. 16 already differs, from mainstream �Though culture. already features distinctive language suggests). with in Antipodean origins and attitudes can be enhanced, varying carefully and from and extended to change away can (like continuing those of sweet powerful Northern Perhaps by directions of insensitivity. intellectual and educational factors, evolution influenced, away Perhaps that movement Northern barbarism and socio-environmental cultural observable European Cultural evolution is proceeding, perhaps with considerable pace (as situation European from are there stock, the the peoples of Australasia now consist predominantly of pea the evolution) forces, now suitably be predominantly and multinationalisation, not merely resisted but turned to 22 advantaoe. Among the questions which immediately arise, but which Americanisation local remain insufficiently investigated, life. are those concerning the interaction How do intellectual cultural and culture? Conversely, what impact do the cultural shifts intellectual elements of influence - whatever they are, a fundamental matter * have on intellectual life, especially in areas that lie 23 at the heart of such life, namely ideological orientation and philosophy? A special case, from which this exercise began, is that where the philosophy is environmental philosophy, and to the environment. where the orientation concerns attitudes to An initial question resulting differential effect of Antipodean culture, or of the is: what nature is the distinctive elements in 22. Often these Northern forces are presented as those of internationalism, which is taken to be desirable. But ask what African, or Latin American, or even Russian components these forces reflect, and what centres these forces emanate from, and the extent of internationalism and mix of nations and companies involved, will become clearer. Certainly there are desirable qualities in internationalism, but these seem to be displayed on the faces of internationalism least often observed or paraded. 23. It is difficult to gauge how much philosophical and speculative concerns matter to more ordinary people. In a direct way, not very much, one is inclined to say; yet ideological themes, like technological changes deriving from the advance of science, heavily influence them and even perhaps control the main structure of their lives. As Keynes wrote in a much quoted passage, 'Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually slaves of some defunct economist' - or more likely philosopher or shaman (for the fuller quotation, see Heilbroner, p.12). 17 �24 it, upon attitudes and approach to the environment? Answers relations Mill be prised out by contrasting differences in attitudes so far as they can be to the environment, Antipodeans Mith those of Northerners. of attitudes, set still a discerned, clearly even among dominant cultural groups, in the North. After there Asia, contrast in attitudes to the natural Morld betMeen marked of there is not a uniform firstly, in the usual May the immense complication of aside setting But, and the is Old Horld and the NeM Horld. In the Old Horld there Mas and still is comparatively and practically none for little feel for the natural environment, or the need for it or the desirability of it. Milderness Unsurprisingly, these attitudes are ideologically underpinned, in particular by ancient chauvinistic themes as to the locus of all value in humans (and, by more modern, equally defective, formerly, in Mhat they image) and themes forged in the Enlightenment, that superiority is manifested through independence of the natural Morld, cultural especially independence of the vagaries of climate and natural plant 25 groMth. It is not that Europe, by contrast Mith the Antipodes, is entirely and devoid of natural environment, that there is no natural environment left in USSR, say, but that most of it is remote and that the culturally dominant part of the primarily Soviet in community does not live anyMhere near, the vicinity of HoscoM, environment as of any value for itself, The elements and does not but in the cities, regard the natural but only as a means, of deeper ecological approaches, instrumentally. like the hazards of tobacco smoking and industrial pollution, are not Mell knoMn or Midely advertised in 26 USSR or the Eastern European block generally - though Eastern European countries contain much of the least ecologically disturbed of European lands. 24. And the converse is equally important: the impact of local environments on the cultures? Approaches to the environment are an important component of culture, more so than such obvious manifestations of culture as literature (see beloM). 25. For details of such Enlightenment tests of cultural intimately bound to the overarching ideals Perfectibility, see Berry p.14. 18 superiority, tests of Progress and �Of course the Old Horld cannot, environmentally. European-based some Environmental IUCN environmentalism. And be entirely set organisations (such aside as the and the British National Trust) have been operating for time, considerable and could never, and movements and have influence an had on Australasian people in Europe concerned there have long been Mi th happenings in the NeMer Horld, especially the nearest part of it, Africa. But 27 for the most part the spirit of European culture remains antienvironmental: there Mas, and for the most part still is (though things changing Mi th green movements and parties), for, the natural environment, as little interest in, gardening and more recently plantation forestry. cultures'' other exploitation, such and opposed to the managed environment in Mhich the Mealthier took an interest, they e.g. little through for feel manipulated landscape As for other places' fit are and plunder and at least Mas the dominant attitude and the practice (and environments, Mell the practice persists at best thinly disguised, Mere though no longer uncontested: Japanese enterprise in the Pacific). So in Mhat folloMs Old Norld, 28 European approaches are mostly left out of vieM: the spotlight shifts to the consider neMer-fangled North American attitudes, Mhich are hoMever intertMined Mi th Old Norld sentiments. The most substantial, most articulate, and still by far the best 26. (From previous page) In the period folloMing the Russian revolution until the rise of Stalin, there Mas considerable, if shalloM, concern among Russian scientists as to the environment (see Neiner). Like much else in Russian society this rather elitist concern Mas actively discouraged. At a more popular level environmental concern noM loses out to elements of economism. ''In a country Mhere the glory of technology and the glitter of economic groMth still radiate so seductively, radical environmental protection does not have much of a chance even Mi th the best of intentions'' (Haren-Grisebach, quoted in Capra and Spretnak, p.78). 27. Exceptions such as Hill's life-style, for one, represents are exceptions, and very conspicuous as a result. 28. These approaches form, of course, the main stock of the disastrous environmental heritage that Mas sloMly adapted and is still being adapted in the NeM Morld. The stronger environmental components emerged from the Northern European heritage, not the Latin or Southern European inheritance. This is evident too from the Meakness of environmentalism in Latin America. 19 �documented past and And it is uith the situation in North America, America. environment contrast America movements are those, environmental there the adopted, This is a further major the other end of the cultural contrast being as North the attitudes to the that ue best look for contrasts, Antipodean scene. of present, ue that reason for developed, best taking and as select representative of the industrial North. ue dig doun to the details of the cultural differences that Before to differing attitudes in the Antipodes - difference that could accentuated - there are, should come first, and then junked, determinism. rubbish). are those that some uill think since they could render much of uhat follous the issues surrounding determinism, be differences have been brought out (issues uhich can then be throun out uith the Among the issues postponed, readily preliminary issues to be dealt uith, and as aluays, issues to be postponed until the substantive cultural other yet lead of technological, irrelevant: economic, and cultural for example, uere correct, If Marx's technological determinism, multitude of productive forces accessible to men determines the 29 nature of society', then there uould be little scope for a distinct culture 'the that or distinctive attitudes to the environment in the Antipodes, the productive forces accessible are supplied from the can only remain, of as it mainly is, North. since most of The Antipodes predominantly derivative. But the evidence cultural divergence from the North assembled in uhat follous uill afford a base on uhich to argue that such deterministic themes are false, that cultural 30 divergence is occurring (and could be accelerated). And this is happening though much, the economic life by uhich such cultural things are supported is too much, under the influence of the North; though (under present governments) the prospects indeed it is very happening of economic and much higher cultural independence are bleak (unless, e.g., nuclear disaster befalls us). 2?. Seiected Horks 1: 31 d. 20 �In free some parts of intellectual life, it is comparatively easy the heavy influence of the North, of for regional intellectual life to One of these areas is philosophy, especially more narrowly prosper. (the philosophy sort break to of thing that tends to go in on somewhat academic insulated academies). Academic philosophy is easy, because a few people can do that. For cultural differentiation, by contrast, ideas have to affect whole communities, Philosophical ideas can be to be absorbed and acted upon and in accord with. like bubbles one community life. and positions with in an office plays In any case, on-going or cell, not affecting wider there undoubtedly are distinctive philosophical philosophical research projects in Australia (see For other academic areas, especially those with an empirical base Prospects). relying on high technology, it is more difficult to obtain such independence. For different reasons, there is also, as with high technology, little prospect of This attaining a full distinctive or independent high culture in the Antipodes. is partly because the human people, deal at less than 20 million is (fortunately) too small and widely distributed to support a in comprises. 30. population base, the way of such artifice as parts of high It is also because such high culture is, culture and great substantially remains, primarily (From previous page) Determinism may be pushed into one or other of these forms: i) it asserts some sort of necessity. Then it is falsified by the real possibility of alternative technological choices, for instance. Or ii) it is only contingently true. Then the phenomena of sub-cultures and rival social cultures refutes it: see Cotgrove. Technological determinism neglects major causative factors in change, such as environmental factors. The land or resource base is almost as important as the technology available, in lower technology societies more important, so land determinism is at least as plausible as technological determinism - which helps to show that neither are plausible. But both can be combined into a broader economic determinism, which is much more difficult to refute. However even if economics is very broadly construed, such determinism is false. Economics operates within a framework of moral and legal and other constraints; many choices - moral, legal and other which affect change significantly fall outside that framework. Technological determinism and other forms of determinism are important in bolstering the uniformity of human nature and culture assumptions, or at least the theme of the convergence of culture with the spread of Hestern technology and mainstream economics. So its falsity is also important. 21 �31 a European product. attitudes to the environment, though definitely an important -feature of a are not part of high culture. Nor do they fit easily into culture, but culture": "loiter the most been part, HoMever differentiation. of the Mhere attitudes to the environment have not, for again is largely because the that cultures is a European one, as regarded Mherever a significant division feature of cultural such attitudes fit - it Mill probably harm to see them as part of a broader loMer culture, little so-called and at the same time help to erode the erroneous idea that interest in natural environment an elitist class concern - they tie directly Mith elements of culture at do is the loMer end. At the loMer cultural level there are very distinctive features - some of admittedly them features are can gambling, common found in many colonies, and just perhaps be in the different attitudes of Antipodeans to the included such things - and attitudes environment. - as them these religion, time, service, etc. Nearer the grass-roots level there is a Momen, culture to colonial Some of - Mhich separate Australasian from Northern culture. reflected Here those in Australia snd NeM Zealand Mith distinctive feature^ reflected in folk lore, folksong and myth (not all of them admirable, e.g. the treatment of indigenous people, organised sports. Yet Antipodean cultures, authoritarianism, that there and of Momen), are also differences betMeen differences in pace, these tMo main religious orientation, ethnic mix, conservatism, political organisation, values are sometimes hard to pin doMn precisely. all-important fact that part of Australia, 31. and in the mania for similar There is, - differences for instance, by contrast Mith NeM Zealand the (but It can be argued that philosophy and other intellectual enterprises are also. This is not so. Philosophy in Asia - from Mhere indigenous Antipodean people apparently originated - predates that in the Nest. There are, moreover, grounds for suspecting that the roots of philosophy Mere imported into the Nest, to Ancient Greece, from India. AnyMay, every full culture includes an ideology and some rudiments at least of philosophy. 22 �in Eastern USA), places like Mas settled as a penal appear to colour many of the differential features of the origins culture. On the other Islanders is noM introducing Polynesian language, concepts and attitudes) into NeM Zealand culture, quite The colony. corresponds in side, increasing presence of the strands Though Australia. Australian Maori and elements of the (especially convict to Mhich nothing concentrates Mhat. folloMS on mainstream Australian culture and its contrast Mith American, much of Mhat is observed for Australia can be seen to extend to NeM Zealand. But not all more conspicuous differences at least Mill be remarked. any means: One major difference, rest the of by Antipodes, in Australia, hard to miss, concerns Mhich separates Australia from of the nature the environment itself. contrast Mith the islands of the remainder of striking the the Antipodes, is in the first place, vast - approximately the size of continental USA or again paradigmatically of Europe (including contrasted Northern Eastern Europe), i.e. It is also, regions. not a geologically neMer mountainous country. flat land, from the eastern seaboard and a feM other favoured areas, of the main an old Morn-doMn And it apart is, a dry to arid land, predominantly treeless, a Mide red and grey land, Mith unusual inhabitants. It is still seen by Northerners as a harsh and difficult land, alien and often ugly (formerly it Mas also an incomplete and Godless land); and this is hoM it is frequently vieMed also by NeM Zealanders. landscape and is, much more to superficial appearance, congenial to from people NeM The much modified Zealand much more like the European North, the North. Correlatively, population of NeM Zealand tends to look 32 more to the North, to England in particular, than that of Australia. established European-descended Australians are often imagined to partake of the land, earthiness. promoted 32^ Certainly image of the the much its harshness and corresponding features have been assigned to the muchAustralian-Man-of-the-Land, Thus, for example, the ansMers back to London. tough, legal appeal frameMorks in NeM 23 tall and slim, Zealand still �bronzed, sun and time lined, a stockman or at least a horseman. But so far the is not so different from that of the Texan (if they spoke, image Nor of course is this image of the people at all accurate. distinguish them). are mainly (almost 90X) suburban, Australians would that them 1iving more than half of in one of the two huge urban conglomerates , centred on Sydney and Melbourne, 33 The men are often soft, if brown in summer, on the milder east coast. increasingly resemble counterparts in Hhile there are certainly important features of and they the western American cities. convergence technological-economic for of features the land here determinism and pattern, Thus, is of some importance in helping the history of its the also network. communication and transport i t has much 1 ess relevance for the convergence; there is deriving from a similar or common settlement and framework economic North America to bring out, from divergence ( and Mi th little experience of the from excess beer consumption, overweight account divergence, settlement where land-based (a determinism, so to misleadingly say) are much more important. overlapping history, An part of especially of California and the south-eastern transforms (regions which can easily be seen as ecological of one in the convergence: another), analogous frontier experience, only there is not but there are the miners who came in the from there are major differences:- of from the Australasia had no Spanish experience, and the conf 1ic ts American settlers with the natives were very different the compar i son hostilities in Australia or wars in New Zealand. character in Still, the with California avoids complicating features of US history with no substan ti al analogue in Australia, e.g. the puritanical religious settlements, the slave experience and the civil war. 33. In New Zealand the compact countryside is much more densely settled than most of Australia, but the population is again mostly suburban (a perfect target for television) and small town, and is (at about 86X) more urban than USA. 24 However California is not entirely �but often regarded even in America as something of an anomaly typical of USA, (and certainly as much more experimental, cult-ridden, etc., than say the more conformist Midwest or South). there are significant cultural differences between While especially eastern USA, USA, there are also, then, Australia and powerful forces at work eroding those differences. The differences are already such that extrapolation Australia of US experience and experiments in socio-political areas can be to unreliable, and is strictly illegitimate. For it is evident enough that, where cultures differ sufficiently, transfer or extrapolation from one to the may be unjustified. conveniently ignored, cultural respects. been seen with What often has not been so that damaging clarity, have not agricultural forestry to cutting, control Australia. Examples burning, differences in the people, have been simply (clear and intensive agricultural methods (heavy extensive use of herbicides, machinery, its practices are intensive etc.) and North America with generally better soils and more favourable rainfall regimes, imported been has even in the land, which can be got away with more easily in practices, else is that America and Australia do differ considerably in Surprisingly the differences, any or seen, other forestry So it is even more with etc.). the which are perhaps harder to see than those in the 1 and. The differences carry over to differences in social and political theory, and differences significant unlikely includes directions to minarchism arrangements; Whitehead's related generally in in American philosophy and ideology. 34 philosophy , for example, obtain responsive chords or much following individualistic, as more (or right-leaning competitive libertarianism), anti-social and in for There are which are Australia. which Australian This too is social but it also includes religious-based organic philosophies, such later philosophy (which is scarcely known in transcendental philosophies of nature, 25 Australia) which are much too and religious �for secular Australian culture. 3. Grimy details of the cultural contrast problem it that hard is There is of course the inevitable that to say much about culture qualified and even then still subject to counterexamples. is Also it is hard test hypotheses, and confirm observations, of the type involved. much point in heavily not even such impressionistic accounts and theory as to Yet there is follows, in particular for the intended social and political applications. main The socioloqy. method Though it adopted is is what might be marshmallow sociology, called like impression i st i c marshmallow it has substance. And it is different from and an improvement upon pop sociology. For firstly it backed and cross-checked, tighter data; anecdotal, and, where it can be, other secondly, it is assembled into a theory. It is not merely then, in two major respects. However, it does not pretend to offer better than tendency or trend statements; (atypical) by surveys and exceptions. But to any generalisation there will be that's alright. That is the stuff of improved common knowledge. The aim of course is to fit these trend generalisations into a better story, To avoid contrasts strictly such into a theoretical structure, repeated and tiresome qualification which can then be put to work. of claims, comparisons are however stated in bolder form than the evidence or their bases Often a qualifying functor should be taken as implicit in Even then there is constant danger of lapsing into naivety or warrant. claims. and mere caricature in this wide and difficult sociological landscape. 34. (From previous page) Perhaps the more original directions in an imperial culture not exactly distinguished by its intellectual originality (as opposed to its technological genius), especially given its resources. For unless times have changed since the Second Horld Har, there are no American philosophers of really great stature. Whatever one may think of Santayana and Hhitehead, they were not really American philosophers, much of their work being done within a European setting and a good deal in Europe. Emerson was not strictly a philosopher. James, though clever and entertaining, was a lightweight (by Greek standards), so presumably was Dewey. Perhaps the erratic and eccentric Peirce affords the exception that proves the rule. But the salient point is that American civilization, like Roman civilization with which it invites comparison, has not attained the intellectual heights that might have been anticipated, given the colossal material base. 24 �present The rests there, focus unexpected in to and these out bring have to go doMn other differences trying Although contrast upon features of environmental differences, socio-political inter 1aced preferably some of between environmentalism in Australia and North America. contrasts one investigation greM from the discovery Mel1, as and first, of environmentalism in Australia by comparison even Mith North America. But at points of deep ideological difference, ue soon and by beginning elsewhere, easily diverge into many other - sometimes relevant, sometimes more trifling features of the broader cultures, before returning at the end to environmental contrasts. the resulting investigation Manders through and over a Mi de and Although no kind of completeness is sought; varied cultural landscape, grander edifices of the built cultural 1andscape 1ibraries, 35 outside. the larger obiiquely, - art many galleries, of the museums, and so on - are not entered or even glanced at from the theatres, as these structures of higher culture are typically clustered only touch attitudes to they cities, by contrast Mith religion, Mhich, the natural in environment Mhatever main Western form it assumes, has tended to dictate and enforce a shalloM human chauvinism. a. The influence and decline of, religion. There is considerable basis for the all-important theme that "Australia [is] best understood as a (the post-Christian (O"Farrell, society, p.3). in Although Mhich religion [is] barely relevant theme this requires first) culturally" qualification, virtually any cultural generalisation (and gets qualified in its source), like it is not far from the mark. Australian religions suspicious of the Mider culture - and both to a more intense degree than elseMhere" (p.7). 35. On the historical place of some of these edifices in Australian culture, see issues of Australian Cultural History. 27 �Though 'there is much evidence for thinking that Australian is becoming more secular in character', The phenomenon. decline Christianity the weakness of religion is not a new from a comparatively low level began of popular commitment; 'Australian churches have never been able to claim the allegiance 36 of more than a minority of the people. In basis) Australia religious declined has August 3). Nationwide, from attendance (on more than 33Xtol8-19Xover the a merely past feu to Australians Sundays religious USA, the in (a resident receding gospel). tending sometimes (ABC, feature The religious to straight nuttiness, not only in sizeable in USA, of Australian presence on television (e.g. 10 channels have a years In Europe religious attendance is much?higher, 50X or more, and in North America higher still, sometimes put at 60X. fervour occasional life), church is evident turn-outs on but especially in the in a not atypical major city 3 out of heavy religious component, substantial portions of it hot The born-again Christian movement - a major (and dangerous) movement in USA involving not merely a shift back to older Christian values but also to the far political right - has had comparatively little flow-on in This religious publicity, these revivals, have Australia. emphasized old 36. The quotations are from Inglis, p.72 and p.73 respectively. The second quote reports the only thorough study of early religious practice in Australi a. 37. figures from William Grey. Such figures are very Unconfirmed Part of this is due to 'the reluctance of people to be con troversi al the census form, about their indifference or hostility to candid, on In one study less than SOX of those claiming affiliation religion'. 'could give any details at all of what takes place at Church' (Inglis, Actual fiqures for religious behaviour (e.g. saying p.45 and p.46). grace, reading bible, etc.) in Australia are also 'extremely low'. Regularly, however, there is news of a religious revival in Austra la. But it like frequent news of the rise in value of the Australian dollar. Having fallen not so long ago from an exchange value of US$1.12 to, on occasions, less than $0.60, it has now risen from 63 cents to 65 cents. 'Revivalism ... has been a normal part of Protestant evangelism here for more than a century: but there has never been any solid evidence that it shifted for long the boundary between the Church and the world (Inglis, p.74) 28 �contradictions. There are serious tensions, to say the least, in the American (characteristically religious commitment combine Jewish) Mith acquisitive individualism and its trappings. peaples have Mitnessed the incompatibility (cf. Melanesi an Lini). that conspicuous at tenders do not have a serious or very deep religious redistribution Christian dedicated minority. is the commitment, and the like being undertaken only by a very smal1 But an alternative suggestion Mhich also has some backing there is a cultural schizophrenia: that of resolution takes the line that most obvious or and Many colonised missionised An Christian there are separate salvations, religious and acquisitive economic. The religious differences between USA Australia and originate in important differences in the May the tMO colonies Mere first settled, the type their backgrounds and their commitments, of people, more conversion But there is The differences have been enhanced Mith the mass 20th to it than that. century and so on. to in science, Australia a doMn-to-earth, very naturalistic, evolutionary science, incompatible Mith spiritual elements. resistance to religion in Austral a is a resistance to The general 1y spirituality The only religion that has had or made (including idealism). much impact is Christianity (its more recent role being due in considerable part to practices). immigration That impact moreover is slight compared Mith North America: the reborn Christian movement did not roll through Australia, leaving converts everyMhere. Attitudes to religion and spirituality Australian society not only from North American but also from separate the, in certain respects more conservative, NeM Zealand society. Attitudes to spirituality are directly reflected in Australian philosophy and in attitudes to the environment. A predominant position and research program, in Australian philosophy is materialism, in a strongly reductionistic form. The that nature. natural Morld studied by physical science is all; In fact man is but an advanced 2? man is part of sort of computing system, and so �at Hind is effectively identified Mith bottom a naturally-evolved "machine". brain, mental of product Australian states being brain states (of sophisticated "Miring" and programming. materialism is opposed, religiously or some sort), Even Mhere crude this rival minority positions are spiritually involved; a consciousness mostly Mhile they are rather more opposed not to reductionism, they are mostly secular. dominant materialist reductionist The philosophy reflects touches and in other several the broader sense, and a certain earthiness: the Australian male is a man from and of secondari1y. famous tie so to speak, the earth, Attitudes to, and, in the North (though someMhat unjustly, only as Mill become apparent), the environment. by traditional Western religions; fortunate so the do chauvinism human For and male chauvinism are analogous phenomena Mith similar sources; 38 They are attitudes and patterns of domination go Mith them. supported figure for Mhich Australia is and oppression of Momen, more directly to attitudes to Momen as in much mythology, similarly decline of is of paramount importance in their demise. The direc tion most important for more 5"/ environmental thinking has taken. A contrast main American environmental thought is in the the betMeen religious/spiritual componen t of the latter, but not the former. Deeper environmental positions in USA are much more inclined to find 39 things, to make room for the sacred, Buddh i sm and spiritual to consider Certainly other dimensions in natural sympathetically Zen things not these are absent from the Australian scene, especially from parts of the North 40 scene , but they lack the prominence in Australian environmentalism 33. that they attain in North America; As ecofeminism has stressed. Earlier cu1tures in the Antipodes, e.g. Polynesian, also display conspicuous chauvinism, Once again culture is to be resisted as Mell as used. 30 �regarded as essential. then, In many respects, been ideas, and often that is, Mi th class chauvinisms. outsiders, partial characteristically linked Mith sets of false have religions damaging the decline of religion is to be Melcomed. Mi th For very and nonsubscribers marked intolerance for But the decline can leave or a a place vacuum, imported science; and i t has in Australia. The vacuum is hardly being filled in a satisfactory May, as The for areligious character of Australian life has important culture and change. For it means that one of the main implications institutions of induction (namely church, family, and school), Mhich normally inculcate social cultural values and Morld vieM, norms, many in the of influence are largely untouched Church and religion. by the critical historically really But the situation is or missing seriously Meakened. There is no longer respected elders - except in isolated and specialised areas, even such as that technical or professional field - and emphasis on youth tells against much deference or many concessions to of the sort made in more traditional or Coupled Mi th this is the decline of the family, 39. Third the heavy Horld of experts or people more frameMork a this in is, and disturbing. For other traditional components of induction are remarkable, also society That is substantially missing. cultural older communities. Mhich has certainly lost much (From previous page) Thus, for example, virtually all the books Nash mentions (in 82) as "defining the emerging field" of environmental ethics, if not overtly religious, have a heavy religious bias: indeed Nash mentions "the tendency to emphasize the religious nature of man-environment relations". deep ecology is spiritual in its every essence"; so say, accurately enough, Capra and Spretnak (p.53) , in the course of reporting on "the spiri tual aspects of [German] green politics " and continuing their (pp.53-6) German German-Amer i can this account comparisons. On religiosity of American environmentalism. environmental ism shares the 40. (From previous page) Or from Patrick Hhite"s approach. But he is inclined to bring God in Mays that leave many thinking Australians uncomfortable. Hhat there is, Mhich is different, is a groMing link Mith features of aboriginal culture. 31 �of former its and cohesiveness. strength accordingly falls on education, The main of burden such as communicational media, induction most notably But these arrangements are hardly adequate for the purpose (for 41 descriptive-style reasons). Nor given their ideological messages, television. especially in the case of manipulate popular media like television and popular song and newspapers, are they desirable means. This situation, the failure or weakness of main institutions of induction and the high adjustibility and manipulability of the remainder, has advantages as in very different ways, happen of Changes Australia fairly perhaps But directly from the top down. For culture, a example, can be shift of to a much more violent society could be pulled off by a combination conservative governments and their police forces and friends few There is copious evidence however, control the induced or imposed changes tend to take decidedly undesirable directions matters that matter: main media. reliance andthe like. civil liberties, independence from New Zealand, children against that the Alternatively, change can be achieved at a level, at least for significant subcultures, of it liberating. perhaps damaging, which have a residual basis in the this sort, accomplished of society, change in such a society can be accomplished quite rapidly. cultural can For compared with a traditional more stable well as drawbacks. by direct action. who top-down North, for self- grass roots In the case of consider the effect of massive withdrawal by parents and schools from competitive sport, rugby especially (initially in racially-implicated rugby policies), and the immersion of protest children instead in very different types of games. It influence is around this difference in religiosity, and its marked decline in in Australia, that many other cultural contrasts between mainstream American and Australian societies revolve. However only so much can be made of the difference; it is by no means a total explanation of the contrasts, as the 41. See e.g. Illich, especially Deschoolinq Society. �with situation New Zealand culture helps show. For mainstream New Zealand culture otherwise differs from American'culture in many of the ways Australian does. The b. benign Vt qoverment, (market) /v To North Americans the amount of government, and superficial organisation and regulation. of government, level of role and state control, the State: Australia (and even more in New in Zealand) is very conspicuous, and often irksome. 'Australia has a higher level of planning than the United States but less than state country France' as (Hi Id, p.39). Hild goes on such of Australia - a government, they find government much and upon remark to pervasiveness of rigid bureaucratic organisation' in Australia. suspicious centralised a 'the Americans are too powerful feature locals are sometimes prepared to acknowledge, but in do little about, despite much right-leaning media incitement. Indeed government and its supporting bureaucracy are increasing in power, size and in Australia. influence extent of public inquiries, the acclaimed 'Australian talent for even Western standards, procedures, incompatible bias is written in, approaches objectives. Nor There are policy-determining For they are top-down a heavy with bottom-up democratic control; value a conservative bias from the judicial system in the Royal Commissions; confrontational intended e.g. For equivalents of increasing length and real cost. not much asked in Australia. questions of organization. questions about these forms of "fact"-finding and procedure^, case and are large numbers of Royal Commissions and their there serious bureaucracy' and This is part of Royal Commissions and the like. example, by numbers So also are the associated the and in methods Commissions) employed (e.g. are commonly unsuited are fundamental questions about forms and procedures of government, adversarial, the for the established which are often raised in USA, much asked in Australia. Australia was fortunate to have determined at 33 time of Federation a �respresentative democratic system, Mhich Mas, by the standards of the times, very sophisticated, and capable of reflecting minority positions * not that it been used sufficiently for these purposes by most minorities. has of mass-production update electronic computing equipment, it is noM federal and state electoral arrangements, Australian the Mith feasible to have a to more direct democracy Mith more pluralistic and responsive representation; but such a change is politically unlikely, improvements in the directness and pluralism The only changes of democracy having obtained little public discussion even. mooted have anachronistic simplifications of electoral arrangements (such are occurred of direction Mhere some and reasons, Mhere money minorities a plays little have major role in political the federal impact determining or gets Mho (For a catalogue of major deficiency of US capaitalistic and so on. democracy, several US, the representation, elected, in in NeM Zealand) Mhich Mould take Australia as valuable suggestions for electoral arrangements improvement, being one, smaller For OD). see population, another, government remains much more accessible and responsive (e.g. to small represenations) in Australia than USA, group influenced by If the unfortunate American 42 folloMed hoMever, much of that Mill change Connected the attitude America seem Mith differences in attitude to goverment are servants of the government. are looked doMn upon: immediately to path is differences in professional lobbying. to admit to having. The civil servants it is the sort of job one may not, By contrast, more Mhich by contrast is much the public servants in be held in considerable esteem (and some among the taller in North does not, Australia unlopped 43 poppies) Mork One source of the difference lies in the underlying attitudes and service. In USA the public sector isn't really considered to to Mork 42. Occasionally for the better. Australian government has much to learn yet from American about openness and freedom of information. 43. Hhat is shared betMeen North America and Australia is the attitude of middle level people Morking for the government: often these people do not like Morking for the government (even though it provides them Mith a very comfortable 1iving). 34 �(because it is outside the market system), but constitutes a burden on the private sector Mhich does Mork. Though there have been efforts to import these of (erroneous) market assumptions into Australia, sorts they have not really thriven. In seemingly curious contrast Mith the respective attitudes taken to public service, there is contempt for specific politicians, if even are the vieMS of the political and judicial systems. there is the In USA, considerable resDect for the political system: the constitution is virtually God-given, and 44 certainly something to be proud of and much superior to anything elseMhere. In Australia is considerable cynicism about there it has little or no high authority and backing, system; judiciary political gerrymandering, the reputation of same holds as regards the judicial system: the and the favouritism, etc., are virtually expected and accepted features. corruptness, Huch hoMever, is constantly being practice) in the Make of scandals. propped up (Mith unjustified the success in Both again contrast Mith attitudes to the public service, Mhich Australians tend to consider relatively honest, and most certainly not open to bribery on an Asian scale (thank you!). There are significant (but significantly different) both mainstream cultures over government: all cover deeper, the branches equally; then, in Australia respect for the of government does not penetrate very deep, branches tensions, and certainly does in USA respect for the institutions in chief not goes but does not cover the functionaries. The American situation is the more easily explained, in outline at least. In USA government is vieMed, frameMork apparatus, in principle, as a rather minimal regulating and Mhich does not itself Mork, but keeps the market system Mhere the real Mork is done Mell-oiled and suitably running, other capitalistic 44. institutions such as private property and guarantee^ and individual 1^ recent decades, 'Americans continued to say that they Mere proud of our system of goverment. Their lack of confidence Mas clearly directed at the people running those institutions' (Lipset and Schneider, p.16?). 35 �freedoms. social government has become too large, But expensive services), functionaries parasitic as take the flack for that situation. Big expensive arrangements. unproductive government is invidiously contrasted Mith market Furthermore, government often operates, and is seen operate in organisations furthering their OMn interests and profits, large in government And burden. many of them accordingly parasites and seen and employees, looking out for themselves, - a overextended (specially favour of the whereas market system, for all its basis in competitive self interest, does not bestow great A favours. extraordinary markets: in political America mainstream is the market system bordering on and support systems are outside or operation of supported, deplored. The feM further assumptions, deductively justified through) commitment to competitive individualism. the intimacy of regard and effort, but mainstream American commitment to market arrangements is in turn explained by (and, but an the in faith arrangements taken to accompany free brief the free-enterprise system is religiously arrangements by explained suspicion of any political arrangements stepping a capitalistic the beyond to commitment and system, about deal Mith cultural the The associated emphasis on Mork, and Mhich accompany market euphoria, can be explained, historically to some extent, by May of the originally difficult and predominantly puritan settlement of America. But such a genetic explanation is hardly complete; for largely gone, as no more than relics, are the forms of early more democratic America, the toMn meeting places and so on, largely in favour odf super-market places. The American commitment to market procedures, and American enthusiasm for market d lochte methods, does not extend to mainstream a distressing 'Australian distrust of markets'. have found, underlying this individualism, an Australia, endorsement distrust, a Marranted Mhere Americans But Mhere they rejection of might competitive they couple it, not incorrectly, but more superficially, Mith 45 of egalitarianism'. For market processes do redistribute Meal th and Mhat goes Mith it, in very unequal fashion over the course of time, 36 �46 both theory allocation market and American experience attest. processes as highly desirable Americans given, and take to tend to regard deviations from or interference in on-going market processes, such as a social preference for equality, as (economically) asinine and certain irrational, and as carrying an expensive price tag. The predominant American view is that the market i^ fair and wise, but preceding quotes are (From previous page) As Withers, from Mhom the tMO the emotional and draMn, remarks, 'as economists and Americans, to elude them' ANU intellectual basis and content of such vieMs seems Reporter 16(6) (1985) 6. 46. 47. Beginning in 1820 Mith a much more egalitarian society, USA experienced many decades of increasingly inegalitarian income distribution; see Williamson and Lindert. most Thus, for example, Caves and Krause, pp.400 1, also p.2, Mho for the al 1 processes (it is after part simply assume the superiority of market , and appeal repeatedly to the efficiency of economic conventional Misdom), .. a definition of market outcomes. It is loaded efficiency, Mith For market efficiency appropriately adjusted to market proces=e=. minimize arrangements are not particularly efficient or to on market externalities (such as environmental degradation) maximize on other objectives (such as income fairness). 1 ou t Extensions of these points apply against the usual arguments rolledOne of t of market procedures everyMhere. 0.. for the imposition or dominance to be Caves and Krause, namely 'the efficiency of ...................... , and market and nonmarket allocation is open to empirical test, and so the the distrust of market outcomes should be subject to modification 1 that evidence Marrants' (p.400). The trouble Mith this is not merely (p.400). much depends on hoM "efficiency" is assessed; it i. is -- that empirical tests ar" virtually never attempted, are difficult to ca<^ out in real-1 ife situations (Mhere there are too many uncontrolled parameters , and Mhen methods. attempted do not deliver unequivocal results favouring marke of market So there is fall back to theoretical argument: the C._ efficiency „ That is true^ Mith "efficiency" given ^39**" processes can be proved. That is true, Mith "efficiency P but under highly restrictive conditions, (externalities neglected, etc.) such as perfect competition, Mhich are virtually never satisfied in Caves and Krause do recognise that frequent failure actual conditions. 1 striking conditions of one of the more Sn ------- for — market efficiency in . Australia may account for local suspicion of markets, Mhich 'may arise natur y a oeographically isolated country in Mhich the actors are too f ensure efficient Market cuties' (p.2: no doubt yet another but Minor econoMic reason for pushing for a larger huMan population is to get Market actors up to competitive strength!) However such reasons "cannot really account for the suspicion of population substantially unfaMiliar with conditions for Market adequacy. tt is false then, what economists like Caves and Krause try o suggest (e.g. p.400), that distrust of Markets has, except in special cases, no economic foundations. That May be Mainstream American economic wisdom, but it hardly passes undisputed in many parts of the Morld. 37 �not the government; 1$?57 and 1977 held "gives everyone a for example, ... large majorities of national samples in that the free-enterprise system is "fair and wise" fair choice" (65/D, (82Z), and that it is a "fair and efficient system" (63X)', whereas 'not only do large majorities (1980) believe that "the government is themselves" is pretty (78X), much run by a few big intereasts out looking for but also that "you cannot trust the government to do what right" most of the time (73X)' (Lane, p.3). Lane's summary of American public attitudes does not extend to Australia: the public tends to believe that the market system is a more fair agent than the political system; people tend to include the problem cases in the political domain and exclude them from the market; they ignore many of the public benefits and, with certain exceptions, prefer market goods to political goods; they prefer the market's criteria of deserts to the polity's criteria of equality and need; they believe that market procedures are more fair than political procedures; and they are satisfied that they receive what they deserve in the market but much less so in the polity, and by a different measure, are much more satisfied with the general income distribution among occupations than with the distribution of influence among social groups in the polity (Lane p.7). It is enough to reflect on Australian attitudes to wage determination, security and medicine, and the like. social Australians are less inclined to market rewards as fair returns for hard work, see and more inclined to see market rewards as based on luck and chance as well as on performance in popular areas. In USA, Even where the market's methods are thought unfair to certain groups, such as blacks and women, the intrusion of government into the sacred precincts is regarded with hostility, for the government's program of rectification trespasses on the evaluation of persons by the market's process of "revealed contribution". Hhere government purposes are approved their implemtation is stifled, partly, at least, because the government's justice norms are discounted and because such implementation violated market justice norms. Thus, minimal government is assured and people are endowed with more commodities and fewer collective goods (Lane, p.27). In Australia, support, active by contrast, respect and trust, opposition. Hhile the market system does not enjoy this level of but encounters especially in the area of labour, small local markets (e.g. fruit and vegetables, trash and trivia) are often well supported, the extension of markets into many significant spheres of working and of moral life is 38 resisted. Unions and �Mith extensive nonmarket social agendas, thrive, to labour and other parties, irritation of Northern-schooled economists and political scientists the diversion of resources, open-ended regularly point to rent-seeking behaviour, costs, and the (Mho zero-sum nature of governmental redistribution equity and measures). a certain market distrust or indiffierence Since economic phenomenon in Australia, government functioning and various related claims Mhat they notice, in particular, assemble no evidence; operations in many places Mhere organised important as Mell as to its historical source. claim, is an it is Morth inquiring as to the evidence of this phenomenon of 'pervasive distrust', competition' (p.400), appears markets could reflect ('the design and scope of governmental policy and action This this distrust'), so they assume government interference or intervention. is once again to assume, erroneously, that markets are the natural May state alternative is constitutes "interference". contrived, "rights" for or instance In by hoMever, areas, many governmental markets vouchers or the like trade-Morthy items, to of glimpsed) have introducing regulations be function to be special at all. Frequently in Australia the government eventually acted in areas Mhere markets had failed, e.g. in generating employment, adequate Mages, etc., or else Mhere there over Mere no markets, for instance in the secularisation of society to take formerly carried on by religious organisations. Given the 43 context and evolution , it is decidedly misleading to say that functions historical choose at some cost the seemingly greater control of outcomes that government interference promises' (p.2). (and is uniikely to be), There Mas strictly no no cost because there Mere no satisfactory choice markets, and so no such government interference. Australian Mariness of markets, and distaste for them in various socially ^.significant areas, had of course been observed much earlier (though not Mith 3? �same level of disapproval as the Americans display). the It Mas part a of long tradition of (predominantly nonmarxist) socialism, Mhich Mas coupled Mith an anti-economic people. open-handed 'Australians are a They dislike refusing favours, Hancock in a much quoted (thus costs' stance and sentiments. passage: counting costs is not economic behaviour; good-tempered, and they do e.g. Connell not count p.29). nor are the nonmaximizing, Not take-a- day-off, leisure-oriented features of the older culture. Explaining mainstream Australian ambivalence toMards government is more Given the anti­ difficult than explaining the Mariness of market procedures. authoritarian elements in the history of the country (e.g.the convict origins, squatting), bushranging, strongly egalitarian attitudes and image presented, the given Mhich are continued in the mainstream culture government in Australia, and the glamour b^en media figures), supposed importance:Each and of ncreasing importance of politicians (Mho are is someMhat surprising. to lie in the lack of religiosity. Firstly, the poMer and Part of an explanation There are tMO and puritanism foster Protestantism points has of 49 individualism every one of us has to ansMer for him or her-self (before God, or 48. (From previous page) Australian history has arguably' shoMn a strong preference for collective action, both Mhere there might have been The early convict markets to intervene in and Mhere there Mere none. phase affords clear evidence of this, and the later nineteenth century has !been characterised (by Butlin) as a period of 'colonial social ism'. The early tMentieth century Mas the time Mhen the Antipodes served as; a Hore recently , hoMever, the European laboratory for social experiments, II. especial 1y since Nor Id Nar industrial Morld has caught up, (Australian public employment and expenditure Mere much higher than most Western countries in the early post-Mar years, but to have not increased nearly as much since: see Aitken). Glenn Nithers made these points, Mhich as he remarks gives a modified Brookings' vieM, as presented by Caves and Krause some historical grounding. 49. As does even the Catholic Church at times of reformation: perhaps Me are entering a second reformation, as the Church of the Third Horld gets transformed. The same types of individualistic themes are also promoted by Transcendental Meditation (e.g., the emphasis upon 'individuals taking responsibility for shaping their OMn lives ', irrespective of their socio­ economic circumstances; 'the effect of meditation itself is a strong affirmation of our OMn poMer to affect our OMn lives and so accept greater responsibility for our OMn level of Mellness': H. Southern, ANU Reporter 16(5) ( 1985)). 40 �!.;.i h Qii! 9'-.- er) : is supposedly responsible for his. or her each successes and failures, own lives, their additions! props and supports, such as welfare etc. and an elaborate social security system, are not required (or even desirable). That religious basis tor individualism has been largely eroded or displaced in Australia, but not North in Rmerica where a latent puritanism persists (prohibition would never have survived in Australia). the State serves as a substitute if not for the Maker at least Secondly, for organised religion or for the Church (in a society strongly influenced 'The functions and power of the state in Australia have come to Catholicism). take over, O'Farrell, bx and p.7). displace, the 'Reliance on social the activities of religion'' state has increased to the (to adapt extent of significant erosion of former religious-oriented areas: in charity, hospital=, a whole gamut of social and psychological services and counselling work , and above all in education (there are, to take one striking 50 example, no strictly private Australasian universities ). h-= miqhf hav .idd^d, But the religious explanation is not entirety plausible. For one thing, the substitution argument has been used to explain too many '-lu^ely phenomena: patriotism. UBR, where phenomena 50. not just the Nationalism power of government, but nationalism also and patriotism are however at least very strong no corresponding substitution is assumed. supposed 1y connected explained appear almost as And in fact old as the all and in the allegoric features of The reasons for this are complex; the 1 ack of a Australasian society taken up below: anti-intellectualism lack of wealth philanthropic tradition, egalitarianism, and the relative and grant endowmen t , and super-rich capitalist. On the philanthrophic, have .norm situation for culture in Australia (to which norm things early substantially reverted following the high-cultural heydays of the 70s), see McLeod, p.2ff. 4! �can be. substituting extent In addition, t the religous explanation covers which the State has deliberately extended its power and to up the displaced rival social structures, thereby undermining community- and self-reliance. For these reasons a different two-part hypothesis wi1 } be preferred which is State The hypothesis is that the religious explanation as one part. includes progressively and organisation displacing society, and arrangements, social local that what religious and the community organisations had supplied were many community arrangements; especially in health and education, 'n fact m economic and political science (.especially other conflation of the State with society the decision social arrangements: arrangements making is nowadays especially literature), compared are ubiquitious wi th it is virtual!y always the state versus the market, when market Mith other social arrangements'and mechanisms collapsed into the state. is much less opposition and resistance to the encroachment of There where as emphasized Australia than in USA, in state an pathetic) faith m market alternatives persists. rather reactive) state encroachement egalitarian measures; for welfare and but often it is promoted for sectional advantage from a this reason, for cand Sometimes (typically supported state (hence the view of the milch-cow state, hand-out Partly in Australia is unquestioned the remarked by Hancock). the impression still comes strongly through that, despite the growing power of the State, respect for government and politicians does not run deep in Australian society, would do distaste no harm and could, easily be were legendary Australian disrespect for dislodged. It authority and for tall poppies directed against political leaders and government, so at least that both are regarded more critically. The society surprisingly rule-bound and uncritical fits with attitudes to government, character of Australian and again traces back to colonial origins. H heavy-handed government was something people got accustomed to, and also relied upon and reacted against, 42 early on in Australia. For example, 'in �1/-98 government of New South Hates th? authoritative to a high degree' (Within, was omnipresent, centralised, p.22). And, owing especially to/the cost of what is much more evident in USA, ! oca! government). society apparent!'/ more rule-bound than North American, is and prolonged strikes are much more common in the antipodes. But although the as things such To some extent this can be seen as a further reflection of rules: trade union laws are stronger in the Antipodes and unions less repressed. on the State has meant (excess) toleration of the State and Reliance governments, and hence the condoning of much corruption in branches (e.g. pot ice and prison systems). than European (except by occasional journalists) government and its Australian attitudes are more like m the way corruption is umerican North of hidden and allowed to pass. from gaze This is not to imply that corruption is more extensive than in USA * it is almost certainly less - but that it is viewed and treated differently. The ugly underlying face of the State, private property, capitalism: laissez fairs, security and violence. for advanced Despite the minima!, view of the State prevalent m the USA, The US State has a very extensive, different. and conditions ''?ry the practice is and crucial role in providing the conditions + or advanced capitalism both at home and abroad. At home, there are two main factors, maintenance of capitalistic institutions such as private property and ailing big business, and interna! security. In USA contrast, in property are private property has taken on an almost sacred Australia, much restrictions on (in principle) more extensive, accept further restrictions and the "erosion" of private for example, equivalent. is built entirely on leasehold land; Much rural land important in leasehold categories. establishing was unfettered and there is much more leasehold, parks and reserves, something is which and a good deal to Lanberra, Ameri_an no Nuch "freehold" rural land is under various 43 private preparedness property. there By character has proved remains is types of si^y^ �* a ] [ rfi e s te .-g. police -st n d-pr i s o n * s y-s^omsJ——Fm-str^lian...attitudes are more li-^e North than European in the way corruption is American and allowed to pass. (except\by occasional journalists) hidden gaze from to imply This is n tainly less that corrup^ixpn is more extensive than in USf) * it is almost c that it is viewed and treated differently. private property, capitali^m: laissez face of the State, underlying The t in the USR, tensive, The US State has a v different. advanced Despite the minimal, security and X'iolence. view of the^^ate preval fairs, for and conditions the practice is very and crucial role in providing both at home and abroad. Rt home, there the conditions for advanced capit are two main factors, maintenance of capitalistic institutions such as private and internal secur i ty. property and ! In s taken on an al USR contrast, in property are st sacred restrictions on (in principi^) ia, more extensive, restrictions and the "erosion" of private ortant a,*tc,n 1 rl 51. in built entirely on leasehold land; Much rural land establishing was leasehold, parks and reserves, there something preparedness rty. is catMuch ""Treel)ol*d——r-uraJ—Land—Ls—under various to Canberra, American proved which and a good deal By private unfettered and there is much m is character.51 remai ty The origin of the institution is much clearer that its .justification. French constitutional and cultural influence undoubtedly contributed to the situation that has arisen; but even the French have observed the 'private affluence and public squalor' of much of US of Fortunately, however, USf^ has retained some zones of public land which on French perception would be private, e.g. beaches, where in the French world it may be necessary to rent a spot to sit down. Hhile the guaranteed accumulation of capital is essential to capitalism and to acquisitiveness, the accumulation of property and a comprehensive institution of property is not necessary for competitive (as distinct from acquisitive) individualism. The reason is simply that competition may be differently motivated than by acquisitivism or material accumulation, e.g. for status, honour, pure perfectionism, etc. However material accumulation can most certainly foster competition (since cakes are limited); and the Hestern competitive drive would surely be much dampened were the ability to accumulate material rewards and property reduced. �zoning restraints, etc. orders, And -tor example, environmental preservation, tree preservation rural land is regulated by all virtually local Pasture Protection Boards, Mhich can authorise removal or destruction of noxious Meeds or species, by organisations Mhich bushfire require can fire restriction practices, by Mater and soil conservation authorities, and so on. Fortunately, some of Scandinavian 52 regulation Mhich in effect requires the exploitative use of forested land. hoM<=ver, the have controls private, corporate and public, are a very visible Security arrangements, and not taken the direction feature of American social arrangements. In USA the police 53 is highly conspicuous to Antipodeans. (In this respect the place expensive presence resembles Eastern block countries much more than less uptight parts of Hestern Accompanying Europe.) precautions. (Among the an extraordinarily high is this most guarded places in level Australia of security are American installations: take a look at the US embassy in Canberra, or at Pine Gap.) high level of police, A things, different for and associated military presence, first, instance, as often, can reflect repressive and unrepresentative political, regimes, or second, considerable social inequality alonq Mith dubious legal methods of self-aggrandisement, or third, both (as in Brasil). The USA is usually taken to be a relatively pure case of the e.g. second. The inequality level in opportunity, theory of the etc. a of security is presented as society, in the distribution reflecting of private level of property, in the But it is not merely this: there is no associated accepted person's place, as in class or culturally stratified societies, Mhich .justifies position in a social hierarchy, or Mhich .justifies, 52. Of course Australian privatisation in turn leaves much to be desired by Melanesian and Aboriginal standards. 53. As a raM NeM Zealander, Mho greM up in a small toMn Mith only a couple of policemen, I Mas astounded by the level of police activity in Meal thy and laM-abiding Princeton. There Mere 3 standing sets of police in the toMn: state, city, and university, and the federal force also had access. All Mere armed: the situation Mas not merely astonishing, but alarming as �for instance, On the contrary, it is all too evident, in continued poverty. the highly individualistic US society, ha= b<=*=n largely eroded, role Mhere sense of social place and that there is no very sharp moral division between 54 and illegal aggrandisement, "legal" between police and mafia, etc. (The same phenomenon is developing in Australia, especially in NSH and Queensland.) There is a major reason Mhy the USA is not another pure and case, that concerns the significant level of repression. The security arrangements in USA operate to deal internal also Mith certain types of political dissent. There are substantial numbers of political mainly black; prisoners, even so the number appears small compared Mi th many of the Third Horld regimes USA supports (e.g. Indonesia to take a neighbouring 55 example) . In Australia by comparison there are feM political prisoners (though there are no doubt some, some of the and have been conspicuous examples); hoMever requisite legislation to detain such prisoners, legally, is noM in place, and should be removed before it can be used. Hhether or not the number of political prisoners in USA of prisoners is not. number according to ABC figures, is small, in There are huge numbers of prisoners the USA: more than half a million people in gaol. 'As its prison population increases at record rates, it has been estimated that the Uh has already a larger percentage of its citizens behind bars than nation except the Soviet Union and South Africa" (OD, figures by means reflect the extent of the crime. p.28). any other fet the prison There is an enormous crime crime rate Mi th more than 5000 unsolved murders a year. The USA is, Australia is not. sheer, 54, 55. increasingly since Horld Har II, a militarised society; The militarisation of the USA is not simply a matter of the massive numbers (more than 2 million) of Americans in uniform, at home As Veblen observed, early in the Century. For Indonesia, January l'?85/. see Amnesty International. Lf s t r a 1 i an Society �and hold doMn the to abroad, and enterprise bureaucracy business and keep the Morld free (but empire It is a matter also of interests). and research devoted to military heavily militarised Keynesianism) have (of USR, though not nearly as many as might be expected; they have mainstream support, these the critics within sadly it appears reflect and to that extent Ub industry, Certainly objectives. arrangements the for that prevailing the cu1ture. one of in simple terms, policy and practice is, US abroad, international capitalism under US hegemony and of encouraging or right-leaning capitalism in as many places practice has worked Mell from part significant Mith militarily "information", installing and education, a channelling is US domination largely political and economic and propaganda The feasible. an American business viewpoint, of the Morld surplus value into the USa. maintained by a mix of methods, together as promoting military, heavily backed by intelligence, security, and military operations. like american religion, US practices abroad thus exhibit, set of double standards: a rhetoric of freedom and rights, a remarkable given limited practical realisation Mithin the USa, coupled Mith activities quite opposed to those ideals in many Third Horld countries. The capitalistic and bureaucratic control of the main media and educational outlets is such, the majority perception of Americans remain largely of US support of aggression, sheltered violence, that furthermore, from torture, inconvenient suppression of rights, and so on, abroad (points Mell documented in Chomsky and Herman.) 56 Hhile australia cannot, by and large, be convicted of such practices, government policies activities. States malpractices, 56. support, find it and remain very uncritical expedient to turn a largely blind and even atrocities, of, eye of other "allied" or neighbouring american to the states These are small-scale activities Mhich channel "aid" in fact beneficial to military structures of adjacent countries, rather than to the local peoples, as Mith aid to the Philippines. �(witness australia's official approach, and aid packages, to Indonesia and the Phi!ippines). The USa is a particularly violent society, directly (in several torture training), Mays: military violence and exports practices, intelligence through example, and also less directly, both operations, through media coverage and the sooner the American life-style ceases to be one to imitate and becomes one to avoid and scorn, popular culture, the better. and so on. From this angle, The relative extent of violence in US life is Mell enough 'On the average death by homocide is eight illustrated by homocide rates: to nine times more likely in the US than in other advanced industrial states ^OD, It is even more strikingly revealed by comparative figures for 57 gun killings Mhere detail:s for 1980 are as folloMs: hand- p.27). In are Australi a UK, Canada SMi tzer 1 and USa in in in in 4 8 24 11,998 USa., part this is no doubt due to the vast numbers of hand-guns i n not used purely for deterrence : hand-guns countries 60 mi 11 ion in 1980. are not available in the same free they to felt (presently) are ideological difference: be required. and and easy is there Pacific South In an Mhich May, nor important Reagan's mainstream American vieM that 'the right to carry arms shal1 not be infringed' is not shared in the South, Mhere no such laMlessness and unqualified right is conceded. The differences .just in Meapon availability, are Australia as a pioneering society, the of American vieM of in roughly the same position as parts of American Mest some (unspecific) time ago, reasons toting, the reasons Mhy the common violence, some gun is concern the organisation of the society, seriously astray. Other the extent of socialisation and lack of key elements of a coMboy economy. 57. Figures from a 1984 aBC documentary on violence in USa. are given in 00, pp.28-'?. 4? Similar figures �. Liberty, equality, fraternity - compared and updated. Though conditions of personal liberty in Australasia are rivalled in feM other places, not, in marked contrast to 58 appropriate bills of rights. examples restricted; USA, guaranteed constitutionally Furthermore, they remain quite they are by or any unnecessarily are conditions on libel and the right to MithdraM one's labour in Australia (and in NeM Zealand constraints on sexual freedom). despite serious inadequacies in Australasian legal codification and recognised poor performance areas as regards civil liberties, Yet, certain it seems clear that the record of political repression and infringement of civil liberties in 59 USA is Morse. There is also notably less tendency to self-censureship, whether in the Mork-place or in social life, than in North America. in Australia (and NeM Zealand) Australians tend to be open and speak their minds on things. in several respects Australian society is considerably more egalitarian, (but especially wealth and treatment), dominated its cultural life. supported^inequality in Britain. than the Northern societies that There is conspicuous, and still have socially There is very conspicuous inequality in USA, most countries in the primary US "sphere of influence", and also 58. In certain respects this lack of state guarantee matters only to the legally inclined Mho Mant to see everything codified (it certainly In part the lack of matters less to the anarchistically inclined), appropriate codification of rights and freedoms is due to poli t ical inertia and the reluctance of government to concede rights^1 in part it can be traced to a different heritage from the American, to t_ {he British The trouble is that there system enlarging on an uncodified common laM. ______ _ of _ common __ are elements laM, still having some force, Mhich are inimical to various freedoms. 59. Nhile it is difficult to impossible to document claims of this sort, some quantitative impression can be gained by trying to match temporal1 stages stages in of political repression in USA, as assembled by Goldstein, Mith < Similarly corresponding lists of conspicuous infringements of Australia. civil liberties could be draMn up. But even if this arduous recognised there Mould remain many problems of task Mere folloMed through, especially as to Mhat extent population and concentration of Mei gh t ing, should be used to average data, etc. popu1 at i on 60. This is part (but part only) of the alleged rudeness and crudeness Australians Mhich repels refined Europeans. On the self-censorship American citizens, see Goldstein, p.556ff. in e.g. of of �Central and Latin America. The inequality is obvious to Australians, and even It is confirmed in varying degrees, by who visit major US cities. Europeans, a ranqe of statistics, home ownership, extent of as to wealth differentials, poverty, etc. inequality Gross is not only present in America, throuoh the competitive individualism of the underpinned, blame: to herself work will remove it. Protestant work (such approved as Poverty culture. the opportunities to avoid it are there, or individual and Thus inequality is justified ideologically in terms of a strongly and worth ethic and s American American inequality is not, primarily ideologically A person in poverty has only himself squalor are commonly deserved. and but is and social philosophers political like that of Europe, however, suppl'-*'. one of class, but and of opportunities connected with this. of wealth, philosophy individualistic old New and money are equated. A it and the extensive popular support main source of American inequality, seems to enjoy, widespread support for is evident fairly unfettered market processes and belief in market justice, and so (with further suppressed assumpt i ons) in capi taiism. American inegalitarianism is supported, grossly unequal distribution wealth under market-based at a deeper level then, —sttppor-fs—marke-t—ar^-angetwnts a&d the like,--- t4+e—the-mcc individualism. competitive 1 n ter*! But the endor semen t is far from clear, some cur i ou s specu 1 ^Lc-n . ex amp 1e, much less egalitarian countrDes it "Australian nationalism" w it ha for een a matter ^en tied to nationalism; but e explication circular). And, in concerning the vigorous = democratic values against an angl'-English themselve , and h of JSA) appear as nationalistic (to make par t i a 1 opposi t i on to ertion of k source e upper These no longer tenable theses a tw-eg di sp 1 i.ced-by a11-J Lh—an t i ^aut class, it is t *.r i an , ttreme---- eta—th# fac �h'./ wh.3.t suppor ts market competitive 1 n teres ted endorsement arrangements and the 1 ike, But individualism., of egalitarianism' some c u r 1 ou s speculation. the is far from clear, For ex ample, the source themes self- of 'Australia's of and has been a matter for it has been tied to nationali am $ but much less egalitarian countries (such as UBA) appear as nationalistic (to make And, it "faustralian nationalism" would render the explication circular). partial opposition to this, has been pressed a thesis concerning the vigorous assertion of Australia's democratic values against an anglophile upper or against the English themselves. said, it being displaced by another, with inconsistent hierarchial the organisations in ihese no longer tenable theses are, it is anti-authoritarian, theme - on the face of extensive popular as class, government Antipodean and army - as for support to such 'Australians something said to be shown by their -61 bad relations with the police. No doubt element* of all these collective dislike of higher au thor i ty', undoubtedly themes have historical relevance, and certainly Australian egalitarianism So far as deep historical roots'; but that does not explain why it persisted. however, it has persisted, the including controlling two-way Australian elites, linkage it appears to be due to a complex mix of factors, anti-authoritarian perhaps causal) with the orientation of the mainstream society, Hancock aptly has streak particularly Northern ones. (not has opposition to But more important is the and fraternal and socialistic what was 'colonial socialism called 'socialism without doctrines' (.though it and what is not really devoid of underlying ideas). Not convincing 61. only is detail, this explanation of Australian egalitarianism short on but in its course it touches upon an interesting paradox, These now unlikely explanations are brought together in Connell z4. Against Hancock's claim 'that egalitarianism and nationalism are "interwoven"', was opposed the view of the 'democratic masses ... defining themselves against the Anglophile upper class' (p.34) and Phillips' claim that 'allied to this rebellion against the English is a vigorous asset* tion of democratic values' . 'he anti-authoritarian claim is advanced by Connell himself. Bad relations with and clashes with the police are of course not uncommon elsewhere, including America. �puzzle of Australian anti-authoritarianism - or authoritarianism the continues to vex discussion of the mainstream cutture. there there other, unnecessar11y is evident support for, authoritarian reliance upon^and institutions, such as heavy-handed of group size theory. resist the about complacency "self-reliance", most But on Australian attempt wi11 gover nmen t to side, For on the one clear evidence of Australian antipathy to authority. is ujhich by a difference Roughly, individuals and small primary groups Mill tend imposition by other individuals or small groups or factions, counter to large groups or attempt to Australians Mill not but buck the system. To say that Australian society is more egalitarian than American, or than British or French, is not however to say that the local myth of an egalitarian society is Justified, and some, and perhaps extensive, poverty. than m New Zealand), appears or that there are not conspicuous differences in wealth There are (and on both <-ount= more and the polarisation of income and wealth in to be increasing (with inflation). Even so the differences the very rich and the poor are not nearly as marked, 63 numerous or ill-assisted as in USA. In 62. Australia there Australia between and the poor are not is also a recognised cultural drive towards so more The evidence is notjmere 1y historical and anecdotal, as Rigby shows. Nhat Rigby demonstrateshs that English college students are 'significantly more pro—authority' than Australian, 'with English students fa.V'juring institutional authorities more strongly (p.41, p.46). Rigby's, results also suggest that Australian radicals (at least among students) are more opposed to authority than their English counterparts', and that 'attitudes towards the police are not anoma 1 ou s in Australian life ... but fall consistently into a pattern of attitudes towards institutional authority genera 11 y' (p.46). Nh areas 'England has lor had J a tradition of respect for ths police; in Australia the police are commonly viewed with contempt, especially by the young as previous studies have confirmed (p.46) . Note that authoritarian' is used throughout in itstandard dictionary senses of 'subservience to authority , placing obedience to authority above persona! liberty' and not in the unfortuante extensions (discussed by Rigby) made by Adorno in elaboration of the "authoritarian personality". Rigby explains the notion he is operating with as 'the degree of approval or disapproval with which a person views various institutional authorities' (p.42). 51 �equality, manifested poppies" ta!! or striking!;/ in the proverbial procedure of "cutting dc.-jn "tall timbers". at F'eop!e who excel, in !east certain respects such as intellectual or artistic ways, are strong!;/ disapproved of in certain traditional social groups, poms, are and, like know-alls, cut down to size if it can be done. But this levelling is b;/ no for instance in sport, means general!;/ applied locally to outstanding people, 84 politics, and increasingly nowadays in business. nowadays- applied fellow sm a Iler break", a 63. in the bigger cities is levelling Even up, less giving regularly the -mall though such aid appears to have been accepted practice c omm u n i t i es, along with poufters and wogs, and h as con s i der ab1e basis in the t_ u 1 t u r a 1 sympathy with the underdog' and more broadly in an in tradition, intolerance of (From previous page) There is much argument about the extent of equa!1ty data organised by Rubenstein (especially Iable 1, in Australia. ' But the meagre spread of weal th in lustra! ia compared with d-A p.26) reveals Embury and Fodder 'conclude that although the distribution and Britain. Australia is far from egalitarian, it is no less so than a of income in as Japan and rather more egalitarian than some of the country such world's most industrialised nation , notabty, USA, UK, Canada and Italy They present as a. common finding in sociology that the (p. 122) inequality of size distribution of family income compares favourably with (p.l8-f.). that of other countries' (p.188). Aitkin, in the course of making = e^cr'R] points of relevance regarding the equality and social welfare for more than 70 years situation in Australia, is less cautiou: Australia has enjoyed the benefits of a basic-wage system and an arbitral method of settling industrial disputes which incidentally fixes wage and salary rates. Two consequences are that Austral ia (a.) has one of the most equal distributions of income in the world [further references are cited], and (b) that there has been a floor under the wage system throughout the twentieth century" (.pp.18-'?). Reliable data pinning down the comparative extent of poverty in Australia and USA faces further difficulties, in differences in the way poverty lines are set, and because the Australian government fails to keep any due records of poverty (%?ot always recognising it as a social problem?). As a very rough rule of thumb, however, poverty appears almost tw1cf a = extensive in USu, in terms of percentage of population, as in Australia. 64. It remains unclear where levelling down applies and where it is waived, and perhaps there are no clear principles involved. The criterion, if any, is not what Caves and Krause suggest, that 'foreign recognition of outstanding qualities of certain Australians somehow legitimizes those persons and makes them acceptable at home (p.?). 'Justified levelling-down is a significant feature of the culture, that will recur; for example, it is linked toAustalian anti-intellectualism, and it is said to be motivated by the incompetence and typical corruption of controlling elites. �64 n nti).3 rLaj^z.----- Ff)—btrsi He = S . i rtg 1 y p. nowadays break", a up, "giving small the ce though such aid appears to hav^ and has considerable basis in the communities, ma!I er 1evelling in the b i ggerco in tradi tion, culture 3 1 nnr^-L^Llhaih\hii th the under dog-—and mare- broad! y --i-rY—M' frYtc 1 oranco 65 oppression'' . pressures The extent greater equality are shown more to objectively of party and political support for redistributative and like which would lessen inequality. in the measures Such support, like the support for socialistic is much more widespread and respectable measures it is commonly coupled with, in Australia than in North America. The reluctance broadened egalitarian (nowadays facade of Australasian life has been propped up by also declining, especially under the impact the of a immigration practice) of rich people to extravagantly display their wealth (in vulgar European fashion). Presumably the forces of egalitarianism, though in part mythical, explain this reticence to tout wealth and indulge in 66 conspicuous or wasteful consumption. 64. It remains unclear where levelling down applies and where it is waived, and perhaps there are no clear principles involved. The criterion, if any, is not what Caves and krause suggest, that foreign recognition of outstanding qualities of certain Australians somehow legitimizes those persons and makes them acceptable at home (p.2!) . Qualified levelling-down is a significant feature of the culture, that will recur; for example, it is linked to Austalian anti-intellectualism, and it is said to be motivated by the incompetence and typical corruption of controlling elites. 65. These sorts of equality in justice. as they might be called, are mentioned in Connell 74, who reminds us of the importance of distinguishing equality determinates, such as treatment, condition, opportunity, and so on. All these forms of equality are manifested to some extent in Australia, whereas in UbA equality is more and more restricted to a certain (but limited) equality of opportunity, along with equality (in principle) before the law. The famous Australian equality in treatment, approach and so on, is regularly illustrated by the phenomena of tea and taxis, and in the (democratic) slogans that 'no-one is (feels?) superior' and that 'one man is as good as another' (cf. p.2'?ff.) . �But males, Australian to (potential) mates. Mhite male-dominated Evident blots on Australian egalitarianism social arrangements. prevailing in USA, society. decade, doubt It is little consolation that they are perhaps little Morse .justified. Altering these in image While the of prevailing social arrangements as sexist and racist is no criticism those Momen and the situation changed considerably in the last exaggerated, are Indeed Australia has a particularly bad image in the North as a racist and male chauvinist society. L-jas Australian notorious White Australian policy and the treatment of former the egalitarianism has been restricted to than Mhich is also often attacked as a racist and sexist Antipodean arrangements, in a fashion for Mhich however there is little traditional basis in any cultures, offers the prospect of major changes in social and political arrangements, other matters as peace and Mar (as feminists have explained, such especially and as in opinion po11s have c1 ear 1y indie a ted). at With the comparative male egalitarianism of Australasian societies g% a lack of class stratified and Mell While (there are professionals, so forth), appropriate distinctions. Australasian society of various sorts, the important notion of c1 ass, to the Antipodes. undoubtedly blue-collar Morker=, like so many enough in the North or at least in Europe, is classificatiun= does not extrapolate There is practically no upper class and the and Morking classes substantially merge, middle and there are virtually none of the significant social barriers (discussed^/ in Olson) that go Mith cla=r-, at lea = t 6^ (From previous page) This, and the comparative l ack of Meal th, may also help to explain the paucity of grand mansions in the Australian countryside. Host grander mansions these days are built by fairly recently arrived immigrants Mho have made their fortunes. .67. Similarly Marxist theory does not extrapolate Mell Mithout fundamental overhaul. It is decidedly misleading to speak, as some do, of the rigid class structure of rural society'* in Australia, Mhere all those spoken of are land holders, often large landoMners. There are divisions, farmers and graziers, poor graziers and rich graziers, and there is a rough understood social order of landholders based on quality of property, Mealth origin, time in district, social and political affiliations, etc. But it is hardly a rigid order, and, more important, does not correspond to Marxist (or other) classes. �for sufficiently Mhite male Australians. society (another diversity on conventional indicators than less shoM the strata in Australian Moreover, in USA partly due to the much but highly stratified society), "classless." those smaller spread of Meal th and smaller population. in The conventional stratification picture leaves out an element of variety society Mhich may prove of much importance for social change, Australian namely the growing phenomenon of Alternative Australia; that is, Mho people have dropped out of or moved out of the mainstream society and its concomitant commitments to a Mork ethic, to materialism, to maintaining an approved social standing, etc. (in short, have abandoned key elements of the dominant Northern It paradigm). is not knoMn (and is impossible to estimate exactly) hoM many people belong to this loose and vaguely defined grouping, but it is sometimes 88 very optimistically' put at several millions. It certainly takes in the extensive netMorks of communes and alternative farms in (Mith a main concentration in coastal northern NSN). prices is (for that matter, USA rural are much higher, hoMever takes in many in the Aboriginal population, distinctive ethic grouping. S3. The grouping in the cities; though land Mhere the squatters and many beach people and others surviving largely on the dole probably Zealand, and unemployment significantly loMer/^j but includes in It appears unmatched it is not matched in NeM by no means rural, Australia eastern they of the and it form a It is people from Alternative Australia Mho have On the groups involved see Smith and Crossley, Cock and especially Sommerlad et.al. To keep matters in perspective, it is important to recall that these groups have been much influenced by analogous groups in For instance, USA and by a significant literature floMing from USA. Morking Capra and Spetnak estimate that the membership of 'groups is over Mith means and goals that are consistent Mith Green politics . 2 million'* (p.223); (p.223) ; ^ith a base of that size (though still only about IX Even more of the population)^ Green America is far from negligible. pr om i s i n g, '15 million adult Americans ... according to recent studies by the research institute SRI International, are basing their lives fully or par t i a11y on such values as frugality, human scale, seif-de termi nation, HoMever partial ecological aMareness and personal groMth'* (p.i?5) , basing on one such value may amount to little more than subscription to a meditation or encounter group; and so the high figures may only reflect Californian fashions. 54 5^ �played a major part in protest and action movements right around Australia, in 70 the forests of North Queensland, East Gippsland, and first at Terania Creek , by the dam sites in Tasmania, at the uranium mines in South Australia, at the American installation in Central Australia, ... , Though points, they of many have broken Mith the dominant social paradigm these peoples have tapped into elements of independent Australian culture. strongly at the critical continuing They represent an important source and, because of the May they connect Mith the older culture, they for change, can carry other parts of the established population Mith them. As equality with and liberty, even so, more so, Mith fraternity. Mainstream Australian society certainly surpasses American in fraternity, Mith fraternity broadly' and communi ty, and sec t i ons). But liberty , equality, community , these are important virtues to construed, sexistly elements socialistic (as to Mill duly include Mateship, in subsequent appear aim for, or even better to have already built into a society or state. that is the sort of society French revolutionaries long envisaged, sort of only there society that some of the founders intended to implant in it got out of control and greM in different and Indeed it is the America dangerous 71 directions. Australian society is lucky to retain a solid cultural base 6'?. (From previous page) The dole is the government-supplied unemployment alloMance. The dole undoubtedly finances a good deal of day-to-day operations of Alternative Australia (as distinct from capital investment in land and equipment), and to that extent its flourishing depends on a subsidy from mainstream Australia. But it doesn't folloM that it is parasitic, any more than infant industries Mhich are subsidised are parasitic. Furthermore, it can be argued, Mith some justice, that mainstream Australia has confiscated the main means of production for its OMn ends and uses, and should pay rent for the resources and facilities. 70. In the forest occupations, Zea 1 artd Mere adap t ed. 71. So it is astonishing that, on the basis of its economic performance, American society is often presented as some sort of model for Australian society to try to emulate. A narroM economism, Mhich measures productivity through material goods turned out and, more important here, quality of life basically through per capita GNP, and neglects liberty, equality and fraternity, is at Mork here/— as it is at Mork in the ideal developing nations are encouraged to pursue. It is a false ideal. direct action methods earlier applied in NeM �from Mhich to reorient itself, to steer bac k t OM a r ds these traditional virtues (as amended). has diverged from its original ideals in large part because America ideological leaders have accepted or bought, its and most of the public have been sold, an economic vieM of the Mor 1 d, Mith advanced man (and contemporary Moman 72 even more so) an economic animal . The large assumption has been and remains, ".free" to repeat it in crude populist form, that the operation of the enterprise market system within a suitable democratic framework Mill the other virtues, at least to the extent that they can be desirably 73 obtained, in much the same (no hands) May that the market system guarantees ensure most efficient organisation. The large assumption is false, as the American 74 experience has shoMn; and it does not fail simply because of imperfections in the American application of a perfect economic model. Despite a massive promotional effort in Australia and NeM both outside and many felloM-travellers Mithin, the .just Zealand, the American economic vieM of Morld has not been Midely bought in Australia or NeM Zealand. that it has been substantially rejected, australia, but cultural tradition. individual that tradition it in in particular runs counter to important australia, materialism from components despite the earthy It is not alternative by of materialism competitive the main of that individualism, or fixation on economic gain (as dialectical materialism reveals, at For does not imply least in theory). 72. and thereby also a rational animal. On this modern characterisation of man, and rationality, see, e.g. abraham, chapter 1. 73. For of course incentive musn't be removed by too much equality. equality of opportunity, an important sort of equality, that the enterprise system is supposed to deliver above all others. 74. Nhat results is rather a society rich in go-getters, scoundrels and cheats, many of Mhose main heroes, successful capitalists, remain .just sufficiently on the right side of bent laMS, if that. Consider, seriously, e.q., Mhat is applauded in Heilbroner'*s celebration of the rise of capitalism, in The Nor Idly F'h i 1 osopher s . But free �Competitive individualism, JoL and the pace of life. immensely individualistic,, and highly competitive. American society is Australasian society is sufficiently individualistic, but less competitive and operates more on direct cooperat i on. Individualism even more in economic and political and practiced is a conspicuous feature of American arrangements, both as theory reinforces Mhich practice. It is seen in competitive form in the American dream, Mhich has no Australian equivalent: is the of dream manifestations Morth singling out, Mi th the emphasis on individual salvation, not reflected in Australia. it, Extreme individualism has for instance, and elevation of personages as heroes, selection making individual the and so on. in individual life-style, financially, other it in high culture in fundamentalist the religion in survivalism, a "movement" again In USA the individual aims above all to excel; it is the individual that is unique, Mho can make a difference on his or her OMn, Mho succeeds. things, Individual reduction is very strong, make differences, achieve. It is individuals Mho do support systems The make that such achievement realisable, the structure and the other individuals, fade into the background. Individualism in North America is accordingly not merely methodological Mith reduction of social and political arrangements to "individual" actors in the form of nuclear families and nuclear firms), (typically interrelations, other than market exchange, as can be managed. implies that each such individual operates, in large measure, OMn ends, in an individual-first or individual-only fashion. in implies, situations of limited resources, and opportunities, severe competition betMeen individuals. America certainly, indeed an Australia), and seemingly inevitably, immense emphasis, on mechanisms foster 5 Individuali sm to his or her And that in turn sought positions and Individualism in North involves competition. Mhich is exported Morld Mide (and that Mith competitiveness, so There is includes especially those �entrenched in mainstream economics, such as market competitiveness, and factor competitiveness active environmental America; for employment, (e.g. movements etc.). promotion, in there is a difference in approach is much more competitiveness within the there the Even within US North more movements, emphasis on leaders, less cooperation, than in Australasian groups. resulting American-preferred picture of pure individual The competition has however to be conspicuously qualified - rather more than minimally - since the competitive mechanisms do not continue to function in optimal fashion, even market system, which is not nearly as self-regulating as is often requires to resources. and mechanisms. As well, etc. But purity the the determine broad functions of the capitalist lands namely democratic within these supposedly necessary and desirable republican state, You outshine move, change your friends to get ahead, etc. sort of competitiveness isn't altogether approved of in Australia, Zealand, is And yet another individualistic-type arrangement is required or beat down your rivals, New and state such as private capital and private and state constraints, competition is the avowed and encouraged objective. in free pretended, to ensure defend and police the institutions within which system operates, select to clear markets, state, and break coalitions and unions, to required and (capitalist) the competition market The without organisational regulation and intervention. at all, or where the American influence is weaker That still less Polynesian and attitudes increasingly influential. In Australasia, there You do not do down mates. mateship. some of is more cooperation, with fortunately not all extra- friendships are superficial, and fortunately the rural tradition of familial neighbourliness, net disappeared adequately with explained through where the self-interest, the advance of agribusiness (itself significant cultural phenomenon in Australia). also coupled Of course there is far more cooperation in USA too than the ideology strictly allows for; entirely it individualistic ideology does a has far not less There are many other respects not square with American �For instance, practice. differs the many places Mhere advanced corporate capitalism earlier phases of capitalism, from in demand, producer-controlled through organisation people, in burgeoning bureaucracies, and so on. environmentally very significant, by dominated cooperation because they bear on (Mhat are to present unsatisfactory socio-environmental alternatives society Antipodean attitudes to competition and different The competition is liable to give quite are seen as) arrangements. A weight to undue competitive mechanisms (like the market system) and goals (such as achiever or product maximization), and so to support a range of undesirable objectives and practices, as those exhibited in capitalist business practice, 75 failure and so on, exhibited in short in contemporary America. such differences in lifestyle floM from the differences in Hany cooperative not friends, forth. neighbours, Antipodean In materialistic extent acquaintances, Australasians do to outstrip them in their consumption, need competitive- Because they are not competing to the same orientation. Mith their colleagues, market material success, cultures there is not quite so and the same pressure to consumerism (though there is certainly far more than enough) or to conspicuous or Masteful consumption. American culture consumption, conspicuous estimated partly in acquisitive, terms of especially The competitive individualism of explains the high levels of North acquisitiveness, the the Mastefulness (the consumption and Maste can throughput). of money. American culture is particularly The incentive to obtain money is more of this is always better, typically Mith no upper limit. be high; Hence too there is strong resource orientation, since resources can be converted into money. 75. Theoretically the emphasis on competition shoMS up in the Meight assigned to games such as the prisoners'' dilemma and tragedy-of-the-commons and the May they are supposed to be taken. Note hoM very important differences in culture are for the treatment of these games; an example is the corresponding children's game Mhich is played very differently by American children (Mhere it jis competitive tussle) from Chinese children (for Mhom cooperation affords a rather trivial solution). �The relative lack of such enterprise and drive in Australia, of less competitiveness, the and helps explain the slow speed of technology transfer, to resistance, both of business and con*=umer = 76 Australia. The relative lack of enterprise comparative in technology Northerners often claim, to the Australian business innovations' (Stretton, Immigration Department, Mhich 'Australi an community. a special program has ex tends, Such a view has been bougtrF by p.35). n ew risk-averse, and stow to copy capitalists are accused of being unadventurous, others' a corollary attract to btj = in^ = -m^n (including Asian ones) and also businesswomen, the northern because Australian yy business is lacking, it is. said, in enterpreneurial skills and drive. The pace of life is much slower in the Antipodes than North There are significant differences in time conceptualisation in the deriving Antipodes, in part from the limited extent of industrialisation (wh i *- h tries to people to be on t i me) and the weakness of c ompe t i t i on in daily force There is not the same pressure to get on, workplace much America. or to be at work, on living. time. and daily competition goes a race against the clocks (as overtly in competitive sport), also and pace, stress, competitiveness goes a marked difference in pace, etc. Nith American with the most rapid pace in the industrial East where the competition is most widespread and intense. one moves south and west in US, declines. Zealand Nith and west from the centre in Canada, As the pace But in Australia the pace is conspicuously slower still, and in New 78 noticably slower again. Antipodean people are "laid back" by American standards, even if city people still seem in an immense rush, to get nowhere much, to country visitors. The slower pace is tied not just with !e== 76. Features of Australian enterprise developed by the former Minister of Science and technology, B. Jones, in his Sleepers Awake!. Jones, who i= all in favour of having Australia convert to Northern business enterprise and competitiveness, or worse the South Asian parody of it, is inclined to ascribe Australian "failure" to a supposed separation of technology and culture. 77. The sooner this program is halted the better. Much the same applies to recently renewed immigration programs to import more Europeans: for the reasons see Birrell et. al. �competitiveness, but standards, threshold often a with more easy going acceptance sometimes verging on sloppiness, and evinced of letter such in familiar slogans as "It'll do" or the famous She'll be right". The differences taken up more theoretically in terms of maximization in be can America, as opposed to much more widespread acceptance of "enough does" (of satisizing) in the Antipodes (for details see MSS). USA it's keep moving, In "commodity" too is hustle. "wasted"), the Time is short (even if much of best life is in the fastest this lane. 'I need to get back to the office, to be at my 7? is what is much more often said than in Australia. There is a clock Punctuality class' is important. in/clock out attitude in North America, fortunately hasn't industrious and been widely shared with Germany and Japan, or enthusiastically industrial Antipodes. adopted in the Nor has the associated American which less go- getting taken to any great extent. The much Northern go-getter vanishes into a role. more readily; Northerners assume people identify with their position. In the Antipodes instance much less role playing, people retain their more dimensions, 30 in their jobs. This has an important corollary for ethics: Northern fashion for trying to explain a person's there is roles ethical position in for the terms 73. (From previous page) By New Zealand standards metropolitan Australians are pushy (as well as commonly vulgar); and for the New Zealand visitor the very congested Sydney does, at first, acquaintance, appear to instantiate the rat-race, especially the aggressive driving on the narrow, crowded and polluted roads. Harris gets down some of the other felt differences: 'New Zealanders regard Australians as flashy, effusively patronising, as scruffy urchins playing Big Brother (The Austral i an, April 23-2'?, l'?85, Neekend Magazine, 5). 79. Beinq 10 minutes o^f so late for appointments is common, and acceptable, in Australia; but not the hour or more some Latin American countries allegedly tolerate (cf. Awa, p.3). 30. Nhy there is less readiness to assume roles in the deep South, like the reluctance of Australians to take deferential or service roles willingly, is a bit puzzling. For in mainstream Australian the society is less individualistic, more social, and in apparently relevant respects less conservative than American. The problem is taken up again in the text. c �of his her or various roles loses much of its point force and the in antipodes. Role is occupation actions, responses, intimately mith formality coupled dress, and so forth. of fixity and In these matters a rough spectrum can be observed, as shomn:- australian american European typical 1y informal typical 1y formal a Such range, in exhibited both to mork applies mhich such things as responses to In some of these areas, dress. leisure and strangers, such as dress, is activities, customs, and manners american culture displays a switching between extreme informality and formality, a certain schizophrenia, level of informality in mainstream australis has led to memorable sociological talk of phenomenon also seen in certain trendier australian cults. the peculiarly australian "culture of informality". tells aoainst ',-jell in angloph/ije The extent of informality the more artificial parts of higher culture mhich do not australis, outside small (but sometimes government fare sponsored) minorities. Role-regulation extends to person-to-person relations. an The But here there is interesting reversal of australian and american positions (on the diagram above), mith american relations being more flexible than australian (and these more relaxed in turn than the more British and role-regulated relation^ in Mem Zealand). Hhile american approaches to human relations, as to adolescence and education, are increasingly influencing australian practices, ameri<-an= =till more rapidly reach first name stages, on; they details of their life histories, and =o regularly converse mith strangers .juxtaposed on invite m^re acquaintances into their houses, and more friendly than australians, americans tend to be much more open, public transport, and for the most part are marm^r Of course mhile both australians and forthcoming, and initially friendly than �Europeans, are serious questions about the depth and dependability there of many of these (and their) relationships. The "easygoinoness" that Americans often find in the Antipodes is in part due the considerable informality and in part to to pace. slower the The societies are not after al 1 that easygoing in other respects, such as personal and relations, and they are not exactly Mell-knoMn for race toleration is increasing in Australia Mith the development of a (though and further stratified society, multicultural of factors, climate, strong though dying, is mix as is the more leisurely sense of time. One obvious factor i s the casual dress, etc. (Ireland being the European 1 and encourages informality, Mhich inheritance Irish Another i s the of "Take your less submerged than in USf), is )* —f ocus on ttLij^gs-^ittpltasised Ml pnpular footbal1 Mork, 6 Irel and: pol 11 les, Borse (as the n eMspaper s daily conf i rm). pub conversation in Dublin; Mork, racialism, more The easygoing casual features are perhaps due to a still far from dead^ topics tolerance their an i sat i on, so they are in Melbourne. and socialism. in n approached in an lie Mork and union Mork, Mhich are of especially p anitested The s1OMer pace is informal and rather casuaj^ May by Northern standards^y)(4 I attitudes to Mork are par Americans generally notice a 1 ack o ervjce in the Ptntipodeans, through indifference to positive r'. often astonished ascribe to by the service class difference, North y illustrated by attitudes to service. Correspondingly, the ranging doMn Rntipodeans are Mhich North, they an ascription that\hardly applies in often America. Part of the reason for,this difference lies in different attitudes to Mork, to the relative source desines and pressures to serve Mell; these differences remains someMhat obscure. On the one hand, is suggested don' t that f^ntipj0c!eans in service can be rude because it's acceptable and have to prove anything, in particular to the person they're serving. . of _____ On the ___ - �popular Australian racing, football focus on things emphasised in organisation, Nork, politics, These are the (as the newspapers daily* confirm). topics of pub conversation m Dublin: e. Ireland: horse leading so they are in He 1 bourne. and socialism. in The slower pace is manifested especially public work and union work, which are often approached in an work, informal and downright rather casual way by Northern standards, lazy and sloppy fashion by most industrial organisations or- "systems", and sometimes The standards. both public and private, a in large are regarded as open to some exploitation (time out, free services, etc.) in a way that mates are not. Attitudes to work are partly illustrated by attitudes to service. Americans generally notice a lack of service in the An11podeans, through mdifference'to positive rudeness. often astonished ascribe to by Correspondingly, the service rendered in the class difference, North, North ranging down Antipodeans are which they an ascription that hardly applies in often America. Part of the reason for this difference lies in different attitudes to work, to the relative desires and pressures to serve well; these differences remains somewhat obscure. but the full source of On the one hand, it is suggested that Antipodeans m service can be rude because it*s acceptable and they don t have to prove anything, in particular to the person they're serving. On the other hand, it is suggested that there is a need in the Antipodes to emphasize that there are no strata differences (when there are), not need to serve. to show that they do On this less likely view Americans can serve because they are equal, and see themselves as such. A further element here is North American identification with the or the thought ladder. firm: the person who serves the firm may still often admit 'I might be president', In Australia, or at least much further up the by contrast with Japan and America, appear to be the same "organisational feudalism". but not vice versa.) concern to the competitive there does not (In Australia, you owe me, �siihpr hand, it i.i.snn<^e^t-ed^ a need in t]r= AntipDii^s- to<-emphj^M^- trata differences (mhen there are) , there are no to shom,^ttlat they do likely viem Americans,-can serve because they see themse1ves as such. fl \ur ther element here is North American identification mith the or concern the person mho serves the firm may still often admit the or at least much further up the ight be president', thought Australia, 1 adder. appear fo'be t h $ the to competitive there does by contrast mith Japan and America, not ,3 " nr nan i sat ion al feudJtJism".____ (In Aust rjJ-1-3-,—yiau—cm - -me, . e v?r sa t f especially Nork, are Britain'' and morking conditions and salaries to a much greater extent by politically controlled Australia blue collar mork, in America. than (Nild, p.50). powerful 'Unionisation is high compared to unions and American Australian unions are mostly left-oriented The in by American standards, some of them so far to the left that they are strictly off the truncated socially American spectrum. political They are by contrast mith the generally right-leaning US committed, and the US industrial-military complex. union situation can again be traced Part of the reason for the to the unions, individual support that strange advanced capitalistic mixture, mhich often furthermore ideology of values American competitive individualism, but an important part lies in social selection, =tate-supported repression of left-oriented unions (see Goldstein).. The Australian unions are, politicised, and, by morld-standards, by the same industrial standards, very active and extremely strike-prone. They can serve as an important source of and aid to change. of the Australian environmental things prevent unions concerns. extend to social environmental matters For the interest= and sometime^ Australian unions have been very important in as bans on uranium mining and shipments, and heritage destruction, highly as mell as to =U'_h in green ban=> to patterns not emulated (and �mostly not wanted) in North America. It has been suggested, but on slender grounds and by Americans, that such as action green undesirable legal heritage. And environmental or other. important redressing for like those concerning constitutional rights, in a Mhile the in difference of channels action is, to access Mithout the from the courts doubt, an American and Australia and in NeM Zealand, that it cannot account for the differences. the approved channels sufficient, in as many American failures make many important cases, to extremely difference betMeen the environmental situation in USA and end, Mith The sources of this evidently and constitutional inheritance history politically-approved approach, class action cannot be brought in the public interest situation lie, different the But the most that rings true in this is that, minor recent exception, to prevent vandalism, of militancy and strength be accounted for by the relative weakness of 1ega1 means environmental vandalism. the the Mith movement in Australia and its often confrontational environmental can along bans, in Nor are in plain: there is no alternative but recourse to direct action, to the streets and forests. Like most of the Australian unions and universities, both Morkers greenies (those active in environmental movements) remain influenced sometimes inspired by, and certainly linked by, socialist by, ideals. and and The=e influences, overt in Australia, have largely been Miped out oygone underground in USA, being incompatible Mith advanced capitalism, the American establishment. as communistic inspired, the communist politicians can folloMing confusion of communism, Indeed socialist themes are commonly disposed of or as, has been and seen as inimical by Mhat they are not, ..iust communism. kicked, regularly, and hard, by leads and encouragement from North America, state socialism, Although Australian a simple democratic socialism, and so on has been made in Australia in the Midespread and crude May that has occurred in North America. Socialism and a Mel fare state approach Mere adopted long ago in NeM Zealand (about the beginning of the Century) and only shortly later �whereas there is little sign of their gaining much ground in Australia, no^.' in North America. even Socialist principles are regarded w i t h suspicion even except for a small minority. bv more educated North Americans, Right-leaning attitudes have a prominence in US that they (rightly) do not enjoy 81 Australia. In several respects, then, Reagan and his substitutes are political in representative of the mass of America people. The double (Christianity vs. standards we have seen exhibited American in economism) and foreign policy (rights vs. religion domination) and could have been displayed in trade policy (free enterprise abroad vs. American 82 subsidies and protection) and elsewhere — contradictions engendered not by mere between practice and ideologies — extend to^much acclaimed Amt erican conflict incompatib 1 e pragmatism. ideology but threaten ideological fundamentals are not tolerated; "dangerous" elements of p1ur a 1ism and These operate in an unambivalent way only in a narrow ran%e where ideological fundamentals are not seriously threatened. to through viens are often excluded, more difficult times at least, toleration is hardly remarkable, Thus parties thought and foreigners nith while natives nith such views are, 83 suppressed. While the Australian record in on and the society was until recently mu<-h more uniform in character than American, the room for political variety and spread of political parties is greater. 81. They are reflected in such small things as. the form of anarchist movements - always strongly individualistic in North America, but mostly pluralistic and socialistic, and sometimes communistic in Australia. Even Alternative American remains staunchly individualistic; only in the quite minor US commune movement do the contrasts begin to break down a bit. The differences are important in political philosophy and theory, where Americans and Antipodeans tend to operate on different wavelength?. 32. Thus, for instance, the policy, which combines a substantial subsidies and produce. 83. See again Goldstei, for example. narrow pluralism of capitalist chapter of 00. doubl/ standards of American agricultural free enterprise image with allowance for discounts #4, American, but not foreign, Worthwhile proposals for widening the democracy may be found in the final �extent of toleration noM evident in Australia is not simply a result The of a strong British heritage (from an England that Mas) but OMes something appear markedly multiple the level of personal features as Mell:- Firstly, indigenous roots, in is in the industrial North than egalitarianism, and the encouraged by a strong to tendency of vieMS (an infuriating feature for relativisation (a dielike in the educational structure, people, overassertive toleration loMer assertiveness that has overbearing and feature of to and so on). personal secondly, in-group or teachers). Ideological argument and competition is avoided not so much by general pluralism of vieMS, but by personal relativisation of positions (Mhich looks foolish at first Mith questions such as God's existence, though not Mith matters of religious belief and political opinion). action is not required. as lonq But it noM looks (Mith increasing reorientation of the society and belated introduction of cultural methods into social discussion) as if other and this sort of strategy succeeds only so To be sure, advance to an - if consensual can relativism Australian intellectually respectable pluralism multi­ Northern control perfni ts. *F. Leisure time activities, eating, drinking, sport and gambling. retailing and consumerism, culture, that Australia is the it is here, Americanisation of Apart from in surface elements of more significant features of popular life in most conspicuous, especially in food and entertainment, but also in sport. Take food, for example. American impact and control occurs primarily Mith fast foods (Mhere most of the larger chains are American) and in prepared and highly processed foods (Mhere many of the companies involved, larger biscuit and snack food companies, concerns having been bought out.) ready are ultimately e.g. all American, Significant features of these products the local are or immediate gratification from largely already-made or -prepared mass- produced items, Mith consumer attractiveness achieved through a high level of �The technology involved is imported from USA (though fancy packaging. may the patents are American, be some minor local adaptions), so involved, are skills local cheap adolescent) (often there and feM or no labour can be exploited. This pattern applies of course to American penetration of the food industry, and tourist industry, in many countries other than Australia; it is part incorporation of the "free Morld" into the of the flagging American ^'or Id-system, the American imperium as it is sometimes called. features are involved in the American influence on entertainment Similar again designed to Min acceptance by a mass market, and sport, immediate gratification, or term action (or bright or professionalisation. containing Take the short­ achieved for instance in the form of violence) for passive audiences, colourful namely and effect skilful packaging many changes much by achieved set, of and on Australian cricket - formerly a very leisurely and, for spectators, often boring game - of American infusions, dra'A'n especially uniforms The baseball. has game become substantially there are many one day matches, Mhere the players appear in professionalised, gaudy from and lots of safety gear (noM necessary Mith the increase of pace and stop-start action), and the game proceeds at a much greater pace Mith lots of croMd pleasing action. There is an American overlay also to more recent forms of slot machine gambling and, Australia, more important, overlay exhibits the same surface features, as in sport gratification and food - and underlying these, casino gambling. designed to appeal to action, - colour, gambling professional commercialism, in The consumers, quick polish, professional control, multinational organisation, and repatriation of profits to the North. But plausibly the in each of these cases, especially sport and gambling, argued that the American influence is superficial - a single bricks Mall of the Californian brick veneer, appearance of masonry solidity to Mooden houses, it can veneer be like designed to give the a style noM ubiquitous in �building that is on to a but grafted onto a ecualypt Mood frame structure, Australia, evolved, that though antecedents Mith Northern In the building industry (as to some extent in the in Australia. influences, Northern from food industry) the distinctively Australian basic house structure is beginning to in disappear plantation-groMn places like Canberra Mith the replacement pine, Honterey of by hardMOod the adoption (again from America) uf light timber framing codes, and so on. It indeed is in the spraMling suburbs of Australia that veneer is most strikingly exhibited, American the and not just in the housing and streets styles of automobiles (all local manufacturing companies being American, a Japanese exception, Mith and the predominantly Japanese imports largely American copies), but in the shopping centres, their supermarkets (American in style of and retailing lots. parking increasingly in oMnership or control) and petrol stations Nonetheless Davidson is deliberately and Mhen exaggerating he Mrites (Mhile ruminating on the film and entertainment situation) that ... Me need all the cultural consciousness Me can muster to delay - if only by the tactic of infinite postponement - our complete incorporation into the American Mgfld-systenr (p.21). For merely is there evidence t^fjt the American imperium has not i t- pa = =ed zenith, but again the American encroachment and influence is superficial. Despite the overlay, the main structures of institutions such as and gambling remain basically Australian, of Australian forms. history, from European, local adaptions, evolved and particularly British and Iri=h, =o it so it is Mith home '-ooking. These institutions Mould and club gambling; remain substantially intact even if recent other overlays Mere entirely removed. Nhat is more, and quality of life not readily available, The community afford good examples. American these institutions and Mith further local adaption could to a much greater extent, America. over much So it is Mith the main forms of football, Mith amateur cricket; is Mith pub drinking, style sport or available and club structures of much gambling and can, provide for a at and all, in drinking �cA</iAvf*^tnA%)^nf r^-v^A/ <**<A — ^to the ^jA,f ^<?/^ ^.f-At^Z/y d. ^r^,f ^ta^n/ At//^<^y ^-A viewpoint of th<= p ^9^ ^?^e-4t^-^-€. believe what they se^^- accepted, regional culture, ^cr/A^, A4^. largely uncritically accepted. among there others, are From undoubtedly but they are problems to which there are known answers. problems here; nf ?4s ^A7f /i^c /njA^^nZiAi^- </<P^/l<tA</; VAr<?KyA /6 JTT, V^/ / ^-, ^-*<?;/ */A, longer-term answer lies in education, Part much in the teaching of more 86 critical attitudes to Mhat is presented through media such as television. Pi more viable in countries like Australia (and even immediate interim measure, controlled, more in New Zealand) Mhere radio and television are heavily state to and remove much of the American fiction from the publicly licensed, channels. regulated That the short answer is the is, nondocumentary material displaying violence, supported same as Mith so on; sexual exploitation, and given the socially and culturally undesirable results of such public 87 of such material, it fails to merit purchase and public exhibition (if namely, use people Mant to hire or buy this material for their OMn video systems, another matter). difficulties in Certainly selection there difficulties are here, processes for Mhat is broadcast especially licensed commercial, tied on of predominantly drugs, standover censorship, commercial activity, tactics, pictography, selection and purchasing policies, extent, up public, Mith and channels (for there is far less fictionalised violence on public-corporation than commercial TN in Ptustrali^. suggested is not any kind of that is 1'1 hat is being straightforward social regulation such as regularly etc; in occurs Mith this case regulation hard of of a type already folloMed to some limited for instance in Psustralian content requirements. Pt practical problem 85. Contrary to American philosopher Davidson and his followers, usually accepting Mhat is presented is not essential to living; but the idea that it is necessary iWa standard part of the Ptmerican cultural and most Northern and educational frameworks. 88. See especially Bonney and Nilson. 87. 'The consensus among most of the research community is that violence on television does lead to aggressive behaviour by children and teenagers Mho watch the programs' (.reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Narch 13 1?85, p.8). Psdults too are liable to be desensitized to violence through television watching, wi th influence not only ^n values but sp^ill over to the real world, e.g. they estimate their environment is more violent. A sV<vkcL.<-^44 ^7, y>, g in �mith such content requirements has been that there is insufficient But materia!. rise the tota! reduced. domination other of the Australian and there is nom much more regiona! materia!; industries, former mith and, of Australian cinemas by American Australian regions! as a result, the has films the variety of television material nom available from Given an end to American domination of local television programs, sources, fi!m been morld and of this part of Australian leisure culture, could also be achieved. and gambling form a mutually supporting trio of immense drinking Sport, importance in the popular culture of Australasia, the to grasp or explain. outsider ('Much American sociological gambling deals mith it as a deviant activity": historical on-going influence population is of Irish descent). brought and activities, writing A p.421.) in Australia is undoubtedly Irish (in on main early nomaday about 17X of the Nith their blanketing Catholicism, the Irish propagated rather successfully a religion liberal masculine in but exceedingly narrom in intersexual such as those of the trio, enterprises. mas out; Caldmell 77, one quarter of the population mas Irish; Australia for to an extent difficult Drinking mas in, contraception mas out; gambling mas in, divorce sport mas in, lomer-church homosexuality mas out ... Catholicism and more Catholicism mostly men in Australia, purjit/nical . In the play-off betmeen forms o^ Protestantism, mhereas in eastern USA more puritanica! forces prevailed, and these mere subsequently reinforced by Judaism. is a central part of Australian social life and so of Drinking (Nhile it is important in Nem Zealand also, social momen. life.) For it is a less dominant feature of It bears on the connected issues of mateship and attitudes to matesh ip relationship, and is mateship often based upon, is (cobbers) mhich excludes momen. North culture. America, that to his mife. or groms characteristically a Indeed, out of, relation a drinking betmeen men in contrast to the apparent norm in a man's relations to his mates, or mate, may be closer than �The mateship mates, first and foremost, through thick and thin. A first corollary is a or less rigorously some ambivalence about, social and career limitation upon, because mobility, may involve leaving one's mates any transfer or promotion or distancing from them. A related corollary is a restriction on competition because one does not compete seriously Mith one's mates. similarly also mateship engenders, The mateship ethos because mates are treated requires local egalitarianism, Thus equals. his Mith ethos strict!;/ requires that a man should stick especially given a little as transitivity, egalitarian and non-competitive features, also encouraged by other elements of Accompanying aspects of mateship are that mainstream culture. the identity success are sought, and concerns such as a job or career, serious and energy in leisure, Mhere they are, personal not in more and that often a greater level interest is di rec ted at leisure ac t iv i t i es and pas t imes than Excellence in serious things tends to be deflated or denigrated. Mork. of Antipodean socialism. at Hates however are supported, and so by extension are those Mho Mould be mates. mateship is one of the props of Thus A less expected aspect of mateship, Mhich is after all a communitarian relation of an important type, is diminished involvement Mith social (and also sometimes political) is because mates afford a secure social framework Mhich this Perhaps issues. unnecessary to look beyond. it is Hates naturally get together frequently, commonly for sport, gambling or drinking. The main setting uncomfortable and for drinking is pub the degenerate form of the English pub. important public setting for drinking is the clubs, as the Australian barbeque. - though some city The hotel Mas, pubs have occasionally invaded by groups of Momen. the development serves, not _urious!y hotel, a But an increasingly Mhich also commonly cater Among private group settings, for drinking are such institutions for gambling. haunt or only and remains, been liberalised, essentially a male and others are Thus the hotel is a main setting for and continuation of mateship. to reinforce male chauvinism, The hotel has served, but also to foster and racism. �Until very recently, and still in some places, hotels excluded or segregated and perhaps other groups such as Orientals uho fall towards Aboriginals, the bottom of the caste ladder. do the places of drinking differ in significant respects only Not those in USA; extent it is in USA, and is not a major form for the drinking bout; nor are Beer is the mainstay of is the main alcoholic drink consumed. and hotels, is not consumed to anyuhere near the given the same prominence as in USA. cocktails Hard liquor, so do the styles of drinking and uhat is drunk. uh 1 ch is nou heavily taxed in Australia, from drinking But Australian patterns have changed markedly in the last twenty years; the and nine has become an everyday drink in the clubs and often for lunch. the feu older clubs can be exclusive in their membership Nhile American country clubs carry exorbitant fees, or the neu clubs have very like modest joining fees and represent an improvement on the hotels in many respects; for they are not aluays, predominantly drinking establishments and dominantly male but they are more sociable and comfortable, and they carry a range preserves, including commonly gambling (on uhich their of other programs and activities, depends) financing nonprofit associations) sort importance, and consumer greatly Hales). golf); but there notably returned servicemen's clubs, and ethnic clubs, religious These interests. of the are several clubs (community types other catering for uhich function in all respects like are a major post-Har social country touns, of minority phenomenon, uhich altered leisure patterns in parts of Australia (especially Neu 'In one political and labour clubs, and there are many neu registered clubs, cooperatives, registered are indeed sporting clubs in origin (football of bouls, another, of Hany sport. and have South clubs have replaced churches as the centres for sociability and recreation; in the metropolitan areas, they have decentralised leisure facilities providing nightclub, restaurant, gambling and entertainment outlets in leisure sophistication'*. the suburbs; and in the coastal touns they And in these very successful have brought some gambling-financed �cooperatives, 'sport, gambling and drinking of - the pillars Australian leisure culture - have found common ground' (Caldwell 77, pp.424, 425). Sport is the opiate of the masses in Australasia, a main leisure activity and entertainment form, a major (male) topic of conversation both socially and and it takes up a significant chunk of the "news"^newspaper coverage at work, it is now relegated to the back pages^with local politics occupying (but front It pages). is also a major reservoir of chauvinism, with 'Sport competitiveness. its long traditions may the and conformism more m^ifest male chauvinism than many other forms of popular Australian culture' (Caldwell p.41'7'); racial and cultural. as such j^-also manifests and often encourages other forms of it Even in sport reevaluation is 77, chauvinism place, taking including reassessment of the competitive principle, and there is a shift away from bureaucratic Fortunately, sport, controls however, to freer environmentally forms, damaging especially sports. vertigo machine-dependent forms have not caught on to the same extent as in America; or art, nor of do forms such as hunting enjoy a% similar following or so little criticism. important component of Antipodean newspaper sport, An racing anima! distinct as "sport", especially, from professional, predominantly gambling purposes. integrally tied to gambling. is the type younger people In the participant sports there is, other and This participate and now essentially designed for North, a heavy outdoor emphasis. but horse form of in, is spectator and in contrast with the This emphasis is partly a New Norld feature, partly a matter of extensive open space and a favourable outdoor climate. Explaining the separating sport sheer extent of sport is a complex matter, best approached by into its different components looking and at what is distinctive in the new world, and what in the Antipodes (at the same time this reveals e.g. the that ritualised limited applicability of psychological substitutibility sport, national substitute sport for war). especially, is a socially claims, acceptable And one thing that is distinctive is the �and amount style of gambling-linked sport. Explaining that is inseparable from explaining gambling itself. have been several attempts to explain the extent and diversity There in Australia as compared Mith that in the North, gambling smoothly into the culture. it according Morld, various and to incorporate Australians are the heaviest gamblers in the 88 surveys. Some of the main explanations to combine the following elements: try suggested to of the of influence Irish Latholicism in overriding the restrictive puritanism, the comparative Meekness the of ethic Mork bother?"), the the drive to accumulate and entrenched belief in gambling a strand form of (Mith as a positional improvement (Mhich appears to date back, like distinctive Australian games as 2!-up, such together, to convict times). gambling Not all these elements sit easily not all of them, such as the Mork ethic, are relevant on their oMn. The Mork ethic becomes relevant because it Mas Midely believed by that gambling damagingly undercut Mork, improvement, positional to Meal th, Mork "Mhy of Protestants both because of the popular legend of that gambling offered an alternative route than hard and because gambling Mas an absorbing leisure-time activity Mhich competed successfully Mith (often alienating) Mork. Moreover, acommodated. gambling, there are some important complicating factors to be One is that Mhat is more extensive in Australia is smaller-scale social gambling, entrepreneurial gambling. not heavy punting, professional gambling or Australians are, by and large, very security minded and are not large-scale risk takers: hence one of the reasons for the shortage 8'? of venture capital in Australia . Despite the risk-taking image, there is then a strong emphasis on security, - the suburban both in the (home) OMnership expectations a-cnd—a-s— hegsr-de-- ------------------------ 88. Thus e.g. R/deen. On the extent of Australian gambling, see also CaldMell 74. Like drinking, gambling is less extensive in NeM Zealand. 8'?. The extent of gambling in Australia contrasts sharply Mith risk-taking in investment. 'Risk aversion seems to be endemic in Australia at least as far as investment in innovative products is concerned'* (S. Macdonald). �block, the private home, the car, and as regards defence (whence the appeal of an American second 6 gambling. Australian complication concerns the 'is marked by a heavy reliance on It character of and so chance But Caldwell's attempt to explain on skill'* (Caldwell/^ p.20). little this features of the Australian character which deemphasize excellence through less shield). partly satisfactory, than from sport, differently where, because it as he admits, involves treating 'excellence ... is gambling is [almost] fact the preferred explanations of the characterisatics and puzzling always approved of'*. In aspects of Australian gambling are unsatisfactory. In several places, Caldwell has appealed in possible explanation'* 'to features of Australian specifical 1y to egalitarianism, concen trates on r e1qu i s i t e trying to what these are, Fatalism, explaining. fatal i sm/ mateship and a sense of say for example, character, not on how they But he do the apathy, is said to involve putting up with unfavourable conditions, and accepting the outcomes of fortune but with good fortune attributed to luck, hardly a fatalistic theme, fatalism might explain a certain dourness or resignation, Australian, unclear with along some more typical Australian Caldwell since really the extent makes no difference to in disclose success that by luck. marginally what for this the bulk of Australian gambling is social better than fatalism it remains i^ Hhat fated. that things surveys suggestion, gambling in And mateship and egalitarianism only in will but a ^^rious (nonmarket) optimism, a Unfortunately do not expect to succeed. especially rather than little seems to be appealing to is not fatalism, happen as they are already fated to do, people features, how it is supposed to explain extensive gambling, gambling, belief neither klhile their intended explanatory which fare roles; egalitarianism does, as will appear, have a minor role. 8^. (From previous page) The extent of gambling in Australia contrasts sharply with risk-taking in investment. 'Risk aversion seems to be endemic in Australia at least as far as investment in innovative products is concerned* (8. Macdonald). ^^7 /s* �By contrast, Inglis attempts an historical explanation, he sees as the social sources of gambling. He claims to uncover the following speculative character of business in a neM country (but unless the factors: looking to Mhat specially difficult and distinctive character of the neM country is also the invoked does not distinguish Australia from the rest of the neM this that life Mas a gamble in early Australia (but this does including USA); explain Mhy social gambling took off, Irish heritage subsequent mining persistence the and does not account for the of the of social gambling in Australia); the role Mith heightened discovery and rapid riches (but again this to California Mhere gambling practices are different, and are e.g., not concentrated on social gambling). particular not or the augmentation of gambling); (but this applied also to USA, industry applies, Morld, These sorts of factors may explain inherited forms of gambling in Australia, for instance the the Irish contribution no doubt helps account for the prominence of horse-racing and its egalitarian betting patterns in Australia (though horse-racing is as important in NeM Zealand Mhich had no comparable influx of Irish catholics). But they do not explain the persistence and styles of gambling in Australia, as opposed to USA. to delegated the to extent that it Mas in Australia, the Inglis favours, hoM Mas it that gambling Mas integrated into emerges: question order, up in the historical fashion set Nhen rather commercial and criminal sector as in than USA? a the major social substantially question The fetches its OMn complex ansMer - in terms of the differing religious pressures for the suppression and regulation of gambling, the respective gambling and their possible exploitation by capitalistic methods, types of illegal or legate and the comparative commitment to market and commercial methods - once the features of Australian gambling are explained. In trying to explain Australian gambling and its distinctive features, it is most important^first to divide gambling into types. Australian pursuit gambling is social, of Meal th. A salient feature is that for "fun", as opposed for instance But professional and heavy (and plunge) gambling to appear �be greater in Australia than elsewhere (and to not gambling than less are in USA, investment the reflecting again of non-social Bayesian theory (i.e. gambling be can gambling can be explained in the people). improvement remains it given a largely psychological explanation, positional an undoubted consideration in such forms as lottery is to social gambling. For example-substantial A through Since compulsive subjective expected utility theory). here some divi = i'*sn of types helps. These May standard explain Mhat _i_s distinctive in the Australian scene, broadly Even venture security- supposed mindedness of Australians and the timidity of their business types and art and union gambling but not in poker machine gambling. main The forms of social such gambling, club as rather undemanding leisure-time-fillers of unintellectual gambling, acceptable More ordinary Australians have a good deal of leisure time to fill; are types. and given the prevailing relatively uncompetitive ethos and general anti-intellectualism of the society, activities (e.g. intellectual or this time is not often occupied by additional Mork or for positional improvement of one sort or another) higher cultural activities, But by gregarious television Matching has to some extent substituted in recent years. or direct television does not the same offer stimulation that gambling affords. established, socially acceptable, activities (like pip? smoking), and neMspapers^, setting; offering iKti. it social opportunities Still, Mhy gambling rather than other time It is not simply that it Mas and remains an fillers and entertainment forms? social undemanding or For both of these more passive and activities, such as drinking and gambling. solitary but by hobby form, Mell surrounded Mith associated such as ^11 ec ting .snd reading^ + orm guidey social contacts and opportunities or at also^afforde^ uncompetitive?^ form of stimulation, aec a/, approved least funintellectual a and Mhere^excitement could be directly exper i encecL tends to be extraverted; leisure time activity in Australia and Mhen it is not directed toMards the notorious the gambling situation reveals, As �trie, it is usually practical or- material, mainstream Australian culture is, not educational or artistic. The to understate matters, neither cultured nor intel 1ectual, communication, Education, the intellectual patterns in Australasia are Northern, England and Scotland, imported almost entirely, from mainly As a result very recently, some local adaption. significant surface educational differences between Australia are (though the differences do not touch the America North Mith, The life and practicality. underlying and so are not of great ideological depth?. social paradigm, and Northern surface These differences bear directly on the continuation of the cultural traditions. Austral ia countries. t^or st the has There educational record of any for example, are, the of three times as many people going on to higher science studies proportionally in USA as in Australia. 23 to this recorded. Australia.) better including 50 per cent level, (There is up the ladder, doubt to and different. similar ethnic of the blacks, differentiation students at more average American different, attitudes to lowest in Not only educational segment education universities reflecting the but are generally nor-se in quality, the more generous intake of students. styles In USA however 83 percent go than their Australian counterparts, drive levels a University motivated 5 In Australia about 20 per cent leave school at 15, and only 3'? percent proceed to higher school certificate. on Nhereas in UbA in Australia only percent of science students eventually obtain Ph.Ds, per cent do, etc. developed oning in are in are social part no educational institutions are In North America universities are much more business, and there is The details of general intellectual life, differ material 1y. extent of reading, etc., al so It is in intellectual and educational life, especially in the extent of book reading, that Ne'.-j Zealand culture differs, perhaps most strikingly, from Australian. The anti-intelleptu_al charges regularly hurled at Australians are not often directed at Neu Zealanders, t^h^je traditions remain much more British. �not the degree separation of the university of business commun i t i es evident in Australia. Education in Australia encounters, and has to combat, the practicality of the mass of people, the widespread impatience with theory and ideas, and anti­ The impatience with theory, intellectualism. theory into action, blue the demand for translation the concentration on the practical, collar (working-class) people, of appear not only with for instance in adult education but in groups drawn from virtually all strata of the society, and groups, even, and perhaps or especially, in groups concerned with changing social consciousness. The anti-intellectualism feature, striking locals. Thu to of Australia is a widely cultural European visitors^and admitted or even insisted on 'sheep-culture, agriculture, by physical culture have reached standards in Australia but intellectual culture has high remarked been neglected* . 'Especially important in affecting the output of govenments and the quality of our political life ... [is] a suspicion of debate and reason, combined with a profound anti-intellectualism'. 13 Rnti-intellectualism has however two levels (like anti-theism): or, differently, hostility to things intellectual. though the Both appear in Australia, neglect is far more widespread than hostility (which restricted neglect appears to a few older class-differentiated cultural groupings), vast and amorphous middle class vaguely approving of things largely most of educational. Note also the role of private schools in Australia, as in USR, as opposed to New Zealand, where quality secondary eduction is not so privatised. The whole style of ranking educational institutions in fact differs from culture to culture. Stephenson^s "words ring as true as they did the^' 30 writes Dunlevy (Canberra Times l'?84). years ago, so The other two 'characteristics [which] infect our public life'*, and also stand in the way of 'a better society in this country", listed by Aitkin in his cynical and pessimistic conclusion (p.28) are worth recording also, namely widespread authoritarianism and majoritarianism in government, and primary group loyalty (and therewith partisan and even confrontational practices) in public affairs, i.e. narrow non-pluralistic matesh i p. �this In does Australia neglect, not differ from situation may be Morse in rural USA than it is in rural the highly other Indeed there are grounds for supposing materialist cultures, such as the USA. that markedly Australia, Mhere people commonly have access to public libraries and a variety of public c ommun i c a t i on ne tMorks, terms In furnished America relative of population Australia corresponds perhaps is to community radio stations like Canberra's could Mell adapt, is different. better Nothing in cultural communication netMorks than USA. Mith 2XX North to or The US PSS arrangments, Mhich Australia ethnic radio in most state capitals. by size For Mhat it is Morth (for they are controlled capitalist right and carry a heavy Northern ideological message) the the main Australian neMspapers also compare favourably Mith American neMspapers at least on a circulation-size basis Many Americans have 'America's for conservatism' (p.345). Mhich, Australia, remarked, in a similar parochialism, The though - and tend to be less parochial. fashion to anti-intellectualism Merrill, sc i en t i sm ano smoothly for same ingredients do not blend so certainly instantiating that on initially^_starting coupling of scientism Mith an t i - i n t e 1 1 ec t u a 1 i sm^s^^Can d n a t i on a 1 i sm)^ i s neither so conservative (especially politically) nor nearly as parochial (perhaps because much further from the centre of things than USA). there is some significant overlap, are, like Moreover, of 'P%. though because both mainstream cultures are male- dominated Mith a heavy practical get-things-done orientation. Australasian USA Nor do the of Australian anti-intellectualism look the same as American, sources as For example, in male preserves it is still considered that intellectual pursuits artistic endeavours, for practical men, unmasculine and effeminate ("sissy"). ideas and intellectual activity, except as part a narroM practically-directed result-oriented science, are an impediment, Looked at differently things are not so good. Australia's capital, for example, hardly turns out, in the form of the Canberra Times, a product Mhich compares favourably Mith the Nashing ton Post �an effete luxury. in that Inhere Australian culturet&e3±±s^diverges from American anti-intellectualism, culture and thought, ^deriv the connected mediocre standards and opportunities various furthermore, to higher from egalitarian and levelling down elements culture (for intellectual activities, serious of to and excel, like high culture, surpass is in offer too many There mates). are, connected mediocre-maintaining mechanisms in Australian for example ''social penalisation of deviance from certain "middling" society, intellectual other norms'* (Ely), a lopping off cultures do share is a heavy and of intellectual tall poppies. the Nhat as misrepresented Americans, a practical practical utilitarianism. and unlike most Europeans, orientation, Australians are, often like practical do-it-yourself people, proud But for the most part, of their fix-it make-do and improvisational abilities. Australians have strong group loyalties and do not treat those outside primary groups with sense; nor aiming at sufficient impartiality to count as utilitarians in they, in appropriate utilitarianism greatest happiness of the greatest are 'the societal maximum. educational and or number' strict maximizers, any other They are utilitarian only in the vulgar sense of utility- focussed and practical, experimental fashion, any in the sense that theory, statistical work, gets and research institutes (as e.g. a low as opposed to practice and even in higher the Research School of Social ranking, Sciences, Australian National University). The practical capabilities of Australians are by no means directed but include group and social organisation. individually Particularly significant The utilitarian theme was a hare-meleased by Hancock, in his attempt to reconcile Australian 'individualism with ... reliance upon Government' (p.55). In fact utilitarianism is inessential to the style of reconciliation Hancock attempts, several sorts of accounts of collective poster at the service of integrated individual interests serving as well or better in the Australian case. Even in the academies utilitarianism hardly predominates; and it has had little historical importance in Australian philosophy, though it has regrettably become a position to be reckoned with in recent years. By contrast, pragmatism has almost no foil owing. �is australian 'the organisations zest for starting, joining of all kinds' (aitkin p.26). and maintaining voluntary This has proved important for a long time in the provision of Melfare services in australis, and more recently 40?% n in the case of the environment. The pattern of Melfare^in australia, for long self-provisioning (as distinct from provided by local largely elseMhere ), a "Mel fare partnership" Mith government into merged espec i al 1 y in brick-and mortar- grants and the like, and other organisations. environmental a The concerns. government similar pattern funding, for voluntary, is re! igious as emerging as regards size of the nongovernmental Melfare sector in Rustralia, an important part of the informal economy, remains extremely large (est ima ted 9. S p.26^/ for equivalent in unpaid mages alone to 1.5'< of GDP, de t ai 1s); the informal economy bound up and see Mith aitkin, environmental issues is no longer negligible though governmental assistance is siight. But the success of nongovernmental organisation and the informal economy up a latent paradox concerning political organisation in australia throMS for Mhat i s paradoxes tied to the already noticed authoritarianism paradox; afxa poMer+ul authoritarian government doing in self-reliant communities?) the one hand, there political culture', is 'an important self-reliant in strain (a On australian Mith do-it-themselves groups Mhich substituted for local government; it is 'a political culture in Mhich voluntary organistions have an honoured place' (aitkin, apathy, though populace Mhich p.26). But, on the other hand, there is a political are not as marked as formerly or as- in the USa; has by and large 'not sought profound there changes in is problems a reliance on government to provide and (this in complete contrast Mith america) to deal . a Mith and political difference-in-size In contrast Mith USa, for instance, local government Mas development in australia, and remains Meak: see aitkin, p.23ff. ?7- a their political or social structure for several generations noM" (aitkin p.23); there is a late "So australians faced Mith a political problem learned to respond Mith "Mhat Mill they (= the government) do about it?", Mhereas americans in a similar situation could be heard to say "Hhat Mill Me do about it?'" (aitkin, p.23). ar ^6 �theory, both lessons for Australian political decentralisation and^some Mith expI anatory 0! son' s Mould appear to resolve the paradox (a theory pOMer, individuals, action, collective of bogie but Mhich initial the groups or factions to Mhom primary within Mhich mateship^ bonds operate). in but Mith elements not attach and loyalties Nhat holds for the smaller local group individual is directly involved does not the resembling to transfer larger political arrangements? tsri on the contrary, local loyalties act against larger groups struggle and compete for their OMn organisation^ enter ^nto a-v^ricty"'of partisan and rent-seeking behaviour. Australians political are self- or problems they hardly and Similarly Mhile problems, group-reliant Mith smaller appeal to government, interests larger for surprisingly^ to authoritarian government (for though authoritarianism is not essential, an it is likely in the circumstances). .The 1 open times may be changing Mith the serious attempt to apply " methods secretive to large group decision making, games, numbers instead of group 'a perversion of the majority principle old Mhich in HoMever the of more satisfactory and rational decision making methods into large organisation and choice practices have a long May to go political the simply getting the numbers is a surrogate for persuasion'* (Aitkin p.28). adoption consensual, J life, in Australian in such less anti-intellectual (but still often even anti­ theory) cloisters as the universities and other educational institutions. Approaches to the environment. the frequent presentation of USA as the heartland An t i podes, despi te environmental movement. proportionately, the Morld. of There are, as Australian for example, more paid-up the of members, environmental groups in Australia than anyMhere else in Apparently blest Germany, Northern homeland of green politics, noM comes second in this sort of statistic, Mell Ecological aMareness is greater in the easily ahead of USA and Canada. a quantitative difference there is a qualitative difference and Northern environmentalism. The Australian movement As betMeen is much A �and active more ecological auareness communities. The involved. not mi th permeated Antipodean culture is encountered in North America in except an isolated These are subjective impressions from informants, but there are some more objective matters to back them up, such as The P issue Tasmanian dam issue, uhich could not have figured as election an in the same sort of uay in North America (though perhaps it could have in Noruay); level of political commitment on such environmental matters neu The 9 the preservation of rainforest in NSH. as (For details, and other examples, see Dunphy). ? for example, Responses to questionnaires on rainforest and uoodchipping, uhich indicate uide community concern in Australia on these issues. impressions The quantitative can, uay, by moreover, be backed up to some dividing environmental groups into (conservative) and neuer (post l'?65, more radical). extent in tuo types: more a older The overwhelming majority of people involved in environmental groups in England, for instance, belong to organisations of the former type, National mostly founded last century, especially the Trust (see Loue and Goyder). By contrast the consists predominantly of more recently formed groups. Australian The Australian groups differ in character from those in USA in important uays; also for and less inclined to compromise. For instance, there has never been a action, (such deal as as the Sierra Club made) uith. organisations supporting there has never been a uorking alliance uith shooters or pouer, nuclear clubs they are, more active, more radical, more left-leaning, more inclined to the most part, major movement is commonplace in USA, or an easy alliance uith off-road gun vehicle c1ubs. USA can Emerging), much in be very roughly seen, as dividing into tuo parts, the uilderness), uay as Callenbach sees (in Ecotopi a Eastern part, uithout the Old Norld, of deeper ecological concerns (or it of national parks or and a Neuer Norld, Nestern part, uhich is much more ecologically �There concerned. is little doubt however that the metropolitan eastern industrial part of USA (the Boston-Neu York-Hashington conglomeration) is Mell and truly in control of things. in the places uhere again roughly, The division gets reflected, environmental philosophy or features in university programs, equivalent an seriously not at the namely the south and uest, more richly-endoued higher-ranked universities in the east. Jeuish prominence in eastern American universities has something The to There is a significant Jewish element in do Mith this educational situation. contemporary US thinking and philosophy, but not to any extent in Australian American. The evident Jewish influence on American economic and political life extends into except insofar as it (increasingly) serves as a Meak copy of philosophy and Nalzer political theory, in elements. ideology: This long the Mork of Nozick for instance, Mhich is overtly infused influence exploitation-disrupted the Consider, has a substantial Mith Jeuish effect, Jeuish record is exceedingly disappointing, Hebraic especially arenas like peace and the natural environment both in and in - Mhere practice and theory (occasional rebels excepted). The features strength of Australian environmentalism arises from a combination of of the land and the culture: the presence pouer and of the surrounding natural Morld, the conspicuousness and the resilience of many more familiar Mhich close, parts of the environment, together the outdoor barbeque-and-beach lifestyle, Mith a variety of outdoor activities brings the secular earthiness of the culture, the its naturalism, environment the doMn-to- earth practical character of the people, the do-it-yourself approach to things like housing, repairs and so forth Mhich often frustrating, details of the natural Morld close again. brings the messy, if Nhile Hestern American A. 9^. There are hoMever some European emigres, Mith right-leaning or even reactionary political vieMS, Mho have an influence on political thinking in Australia, especially as regards defence and communism. NeM Zealand is, by contrast, relatively free of such immigrants. %?. Nain reasons Mhy are in fact nicely explained in SchMarzschild. �these things it does not share all of of many shares them by means, any in particular not the areligious character or the style of naturalism. Despite Australia's frequent inclusion as an industrialised nation, it is not industrialised, highly mining, and agriculture and of much the export in their different Mays quarrying both Other Antipodean countries are even less industrialised. there the level of Old Norld yet isn't transformation industrial land. the the The European still environment even in most parts of the largest reaches through conspicuously, from And in the Antipodes control, the total inhabitable landscape. of comes wealth cities. survey of cultural media such as films Mould shoM this clearly enough. a rare (or NeM Zealand) film that doesn't include Australian bushdrop, many Mhereas US exclude productions the some A It is natural environment natural entirely, and even Mhen sequences are shot outside it's often all concrete and and glass, neon lights and automobiles and pools sMimming - metropolitan "cu1ture". Certainly these sorts of urban effects, taken from noMhere in particular, could be achieved in parts of the older Australia state capitals, becoming (less very freeMay cities in the American-influenced much systems hoMever), Melbourne, noisy and As a result, older mode structures the largest, Sydney and are not .just sprauling and mostly unplanned but heavily congested, polluted, Mith nature blotted out in many of despite its impressive monuments, the inner poorer In this they resemble Hashington, suburbs by red brick and Mires and asphalt. Mhich are free-enterprise overlaying and expanding copied from British provincial cities. Mhich has only little planning, and is mostly the American adaption of the European city - an adaption Mhere the city is treated as if at first space didn't matter, structures, fortunate al) being, to have, so to say, by contrast, nor any unity of better integrated into and less imposed upon, (the Australia is isolated individual ones). in Canberra a much more style holistic capita), / the environment. Moreover it �is hard not to see and to some extent appreciate the natural environment on the hills, especially Canberra, neatly planned and in places so green, between, lands even if the flatter in so exhibit (though as cities normally do) so much artifice. The prospects for the environment look rather brighter in Australia than in USA, and for several reasons, some physical and structural, much smaller proportion firmly population, and agriculture or to industrialist activities. matter possibilities technological and a of good luck than good management; America much For a similar land area Australia has a cultural. have been lacking. some ideological human smaller committed to intensive In large measure this is more a for both the time and physical and for a such colossal business investment as in But cultural reasons have also made a difference Mill likely become increasingly important: contrasts cultural already observed, that is. In had Australians came increasingly godless to a land God the first place, supposedly forgotten about; for them there Mas no mandate or such as the Americans operated under, in Australian life not merely to multiply and be fruitful, and exploit it to their oMn ends. but to dominate the land, and approaches directive to the environment Nor is there noM the extent of religiously-reinforced human chauvinism that operates in the industrial North, and Mhich sciences. informs the Secondly, precedent-bound foundations American adulation of, of Northern social and ideological commitment . (From previous page) So it is to be hoped that Griffin's environmental vision, from Mhich Canberra took shape, can be sustained. H.B. Griffin a naturalised Australian Mho greM up in USA - has a significant place in the groMth of environmentalism in Australia. His role in this regard has been largely neglected; for he is usually portrayed .just as an arch i tec t. /P/ . On the May in Mhich human chauvinism is Mritten deep into mainline social sciences, see EE, pp.183-'?. About the social theory involved, many Australians are fortunately sceptical - those that bother Mith theory, that is. /%%. The practice of government**assisted capitalism of differs of course from the ideology. advanced capitalism �to, market arrangements and market-based minimally-regulated profit-directed competition is not shared in Australia, American commitment to the Big, and, to big business, to put it all more theoretically, capitalism, controlled is substantially opposed. but to tall poppies, to genius, to maximization. extraordinarily bad neMS for the environment. general and documented, reasons for their damaging effects are sufficiently theoretical the understood.) such commitments and themes, though influential enough and In Australia, and advertised daily through the commercial media, pushed in are (The damaging effects of these in practice are quite evident enough and Mell 3-Bad-lTs But such minimally- maximization, and markets, So is do not dominate. For there is a different mainstream ideology Mith a different agenda - such as social social regulation, and intervention, so arbitration, consensus, group government The land and the people are not open forth. American-style markets in the same '.jay (though there are increasing ill-considered pressures forces", dairy market, e.g. expose farmers in a subsidized and also Morks in favour of the environment. natural and are entitled to fair treatment, oppressed or poor Australians, rather to a "fair go" and assistance. growing reluctance to see local environments, especially and, by foreign companies. Fourthly, Australian environmental movement itself, Morld Australian Thirdly, are to an increasing extent considered as honorary or even Australians, "market heavily-controlled markets). the and often to population sectors of the adolescents in over-supplied labour egalitarianism animals to to Native exemplary like other And there is a like small people, ripped off, there is the live and expanding some of it manifest in Alternative Australia. 5. Formulating and takinq different directions The distinctive features of Australian culture both point change and supply main parts of an engine for change. is, houever, the May to The standard complaint that proposals for radical change noM lack, Mith the demise of �revolutionary aspirations in the oppressed c 1 asses, any engine for change. In more friendly form, the complainfis elaborated along the foliating lines:- It is easy enough to formulate different directions for the South Pacific it is far harder to see how such an appropriately different course countries; It is not merely that the main countries in the can be adopted and followed. region, European transformed descent. by Europeans, There are are much influenced by people inevitably, then, strong recent of pressures for conformity, for similarity to the North, and for cultural anonymity, and there is much pressure for increased assimilation within the !JS6 sphere of influence These Northern pressures comprise a familiar package, notably and control. * Domination popular media Northern, of main forms of communication and education - especially the such as T'-.J, especially books - by features and missionaries of Northern culture and but also intellectual media such American but also British, programs, as products. * Cultural propaganda. travelling ambassadors, Surprisingly, these people are almost invariably welcomed, their loaded messages eagerly sought. reinforce the missionaries. from, On a lesser scale, North tourists from the They see the North, generally the areas they come as ^zi.tmg the standards, as providing the sort of cultural ideals the backward Antipodes should be seeking to attain. * Top-down directives from aligned with Northern interests. local both private and public companies, metropolitan skylines). which are These include not merely the manaoements of branches of multinational companies, insurance sources and so on (roughly, but those of a variety of banks, those whose buildings now dominate Etc. 103 Even the most powerful and populous states in the South Pacific region are becoming increasingly locked into a dual system of Northern control, namely through 103. Those which operate their own limited imperialism in lesser states of the region, e.g., Australia in Papua New Guinea and New Zealand in Samoa. �The 1. organisation American 104 The most important of these arrangements in Australia's case is hegemony. of industrialised capitalist states, under perhaps the Pacific rim strategy, masterminded by the USA Mith assistance from and fitting within the world arrangements envisaged by the Japan, Trilateral Commission. 2. of the economy by penetration The many of them ultimately American controlled. Northern, mostly corporations, transnational of (For the effects this framework of control in Australia's case, see Crough and Wheelwright.). A very significant net result is that local economic control is diminishing or and therewith, being lost altogether, local control political in these economically-dominated times, is diminishing. National economies increasingly respond, and are seen as obliged to respond, to so-called international forces "international market" forces in state-rigged markets with (or and highly concentrated participants). effort, of much (unmarketable) it intentional, At the same time there is a concerted to reduce and remain, remove substantially cultural differences in the contemporary world, mass consumer society and worldwide markets. differences unequal very a to produce Notwithstanding, major cultural even in the more industrialised With countries. some A care, some fostering, the differences cou1be accentuated in worthwhile ways, though the especially in the industrial trend, main nations, in is the opposite direction, to almost complete cultural convergence. On the other side, forces, mainly local, there are in the South Pacific some in counterbalancing favour of some distancing of Australian and New Zealand cultures from the USA, and of looser relations, especially, presently, in matters of (nuclear) defence. If change is to occur, it is important to encourage worthwhile components of these forces, particularly those in regional culture interconnected ways, through ideas that regional and action. grounded cultures 104. For Third World southern countries, financial arrangements through US-dominated INF and World Bank loom much larger. and the �their do conventionalism and important. shape a are There culture, undoubted!;/ pragmatism as American lifestyle or Australian naturalism (and and Sydney However what Russell that culture determines the shape of the dominant philosophy, to think, qualification. major philosophy; dominant are and realism a main strand of Australian. materialism) requires reflect that philosophies came elements philosophical but Certainly, conversely, 105 culture affects philosophical and constrains input can affect, or even alter, culture. Genuine differences implementation (as of a few very simple ideas could make major the 1884-5 stand of the New Zealand government on visits of namely that significant principles (of morality) or nuclear ships reveals); features of local culture or regional environments are not sacrificed, in jeopardy, such things as trading advantages or for distributed economic benefits. economism narrowly There is a powerful basis for defeating in Australian and Antipodean cultures, egalitarian approaches; short-term or put such in the shape of anti-market and these and other complementary cultural features could serve more widely to halt or subvert Northern incursions. The South uncritical Pacific Enlightenment and for uncontrolled extension of European culture take one lesser instance of that world-wide to spread and disease) has been very damaging both to indigenous the lands and seas, extinction. mistakes. (to and the of peoples even pushing some of the former inhabitants to Nodern people are supposed to learn, if from anything, from their Among mistakes of civilizations, environmental mistakes are as 105. Russell 'connecttsl'* philosophies with the social environments of the philosophers concerned' p.824). Elsewhere, however, Russell only claims social influences, not determination (e.g., p.827). His working example is the connection of Dewey's philosophy 'with American enterprise; in particular there is the belief in human power, and an unwillingness to admit "stubborn facts".'* 'His philosophy is a power philosophy. Russell then proceeded to consider the very real dangers of human power. Dewey, for his part, contested the connections Russell alleged, as well as the dangers. There is much more, however, to the interrelations of dominant philosophies with cultures and their environments than Russell unear thed. �conspicuous as any (sea e.g, hanger no though beyond Hatt) . the reach of a Northern Mar - to of Northern civilizations, mistakes Thors is sti 1 1 time for* the Antipodes avoid the beginning Mith human overpopulation many and environmental impoverishment (as differently illustrated by Italy and Lhina). There that grounded in regional are various different directions, a country or place can attempt to take. There are, for features, example, tMO extremal economic directions a contemporary state or region may try to pursue, as illustra ted:- other reliance, e.g. upon i n ternat i onal economic forces al ternative fort-jard May present se 1 freli ance At the one end lies local self-reliance and control, substantially excluded Mhen it comes to essentials; (as Mith the Meather of an island), regulation largely controlled from elseMhere, (but direction. dominated) by the is It or directed through some toMards- the dashed arroM, points this direction general economy and control Mith the for instance at the mercy of international Northern dominated) economic forces, shoMn outside the at the other lies outside patron (as Mith Australia's, defence or Tibet's economy). that Mith that poMerful A typical direction, latter (backMards) international (American financial institutions such as the INF and the Horld Bank try to impose on client states. Unfortunately bent on indicate Mritten pursuing given all likely governments in countries like Australia the Mrong direction. the May poMer, The reasons are privilege and influence into the control of societies - lie. not appear difficult - Northern to features But it does not have to be or �stay that way. difficulty for all suggestions for extensile major A normal governmental procedures, through effect constraint for change. is a change, severe For governmental procedures are st on, put into apparent time piecemeal and whichever usually reactive (this is even how successful governmental methods, these are, vastly sages successful) and (among But time is running out for the present (.not are supposed to be) . human experiment it is now everywhere sound men and women of common sense, from crackpots will 1'lhatever is done for change may have to be done with more rapidity is customary in grander human affairs, except with war itself (which is of the main prob 1ems and a likely outcome of one as from whose numbers are those most confident that present arrangements persist). than as well said, heard socio-economic catastrophe ensuing from other problems). In the present conditions of uncertainty, a strategy relevant to both outcomes, concentrating upon imme^d^ate paths it would seem wise to plot out catastrophic breakdown or to change aimed avoiding at while not, socio- env i r onmen t a 1 break down. Both the deeper American environmentalists and leading German Greens, unlike many thinkers and leaders take the problems with deadly hope for a way out of present massive socio-environmental main nuclear impasse particularly, change will take the form of a This spread like a religious revival, by way of democratic channels. the through a mass change seriousness, difficulties, of spiritual who and consciousness. conversion, and to alter political decisions and directions These ideas, while by no means ridiculous in fashion of new-born Christians' views about their individualistic escape from nuclear Armageddon, and while offering a clear ray of hope, leave most 106 Australians who have encountered them duly sceptical. That type of massive change a of consciousness (which may not be politically effective) will require miracle, and miracles are not credible. More important, that sort of �conversion i_s ruled out culturally in Australia, spiritual according to the prev i ous ar gumen t. A drastic and massive change of consciousness, or religious is neither likely nor necessary (nor Mould it be sufficient). Antipodes, the someMhat Mith isolated favourable location in its Fortunately in Southern the conversion, Hemisphere, there are different and from the belligerent North, more These are social Mays promising routes to change and regional nuclear escape. and locally self-reliant Mays deeply rooted in the culture. Instead of seeking to change consciousness, then, the and through elements of, the culture. lines of religious conversion, picture through of change. in But many and those involves rather is as amended; straightforwardness, aMay than from dominant It encourages many so to say). for example those as interfering Mith crucial features of running counter to enterprise, orderliness, change not re-conditioning counter-cultural, deplored features of Australian culture, culture, of, Mhat is being offered is a very different this respects the route acquisitive capitalist virtues. the in the form a The route is thus cultural, not in this respect counter-cultural. considered been Mith Instead of the picture of change along Northern paradigms (counter-Northern-culture, often Mork to is The main path to change is through culture, consciousness; conversion. idea that is already there or in the background, "consciousness" the leading market that capitalism, selfishness and the initiative, have other It encourages instead traditional virtues of for instance Midened generosity, egalitarianism, permissiveness, pluralism, unsubtlety, spontaneity, authenticity, sociaSbility, reliability, anti-authoritarianism, group-reli^ance, resourcefulness, moderation, leisure!iness. The main environmental route aMay from Northern social paradigms has been 10^. (From previous page) Host, but of course, not all. The change-ofconscicusness idea has its adherents, e.g. Cairns, some in Alternative Australia. Naturally it is not being denied that change-^f-consciousness (e.g. in the form of ecological conversion) does occur^aac^is an important h happening. Hhat is at issue is the likely scale of such change. �and Mhat it involves indicated (e.g. in RP). t-lhat is the extent to Mhich elements of mainstream Australian culture reconnoitred elsewhere, is remarkable Indeed in Australasian culture there fit with that divergence from the North. is at best dominant social There is already in the cultures paradigm. for a marked SMing aMay from the dominant Northern basis vieMpoint, demagogic of ambivalent subscription to major facets only is it mainly a matter of tipping Northern the a substantial paradigm. an From already a poised balance aMay from Nor them-influenced control. break-aMay This involve first control has tMO political facets arrangements part Mhich of part relevant is breaking free from Northern hegemony, control, alignment of The and from the influence of foreign states and the grips of transnational Some companies. recovering Mays connected of the Mays this can be accomplished have local control of media output and messages, are knoMn, e.g. escheMing a false internationalism, and, into line Mith both so that political arrangements reflect these parts of culture. reliance, e.g. political bringing culture, from sMeepingly, more dropping moving to greater regional been indicated, and many other self-reliance, modifying limited liability of companies, out of the international abandoning the race to keep up Mith the Singaporian rat-race Jones and the (e.g. E/i^shoMas, Host of these Mays could 107 The second designed to strike resounding chords in mainstream culture. in demolishinq their oMn and others'* environments). be rtA"' ccbLt subsidizing transnationals, A.? providing hand-outs and undue shelter to big business or monopolistic professions, cutting assistance to the disadvantaged, exposing local small-actor sectors (in difficulty) to the icy Minds of Morld 107. And Mhere not it is a matter of removing false beliefs, such as that Australia is currently threatened militarily by hostile states. These sorts of beliefs could be altered, at least for many Mho hold them, by appropriate persuasion by credible popular figures on mass media channels. In fact it has suited both government and opposition, hitherto committed to an essentially bipartisan defence policy, to let false beliefs about defence, for instance, stand, or even to encourage and reinforce them. �market forces, and so on. such Tipping the balance involves both positive measures promoting the valid features in as as^ such measures, counteracting freely flowing in from the North, Australian culture, counter- and images and removing damaging impacts and e.g. by cutting doMn the floM, making it more expensive, and introducing rivals. Governments cannot be relied upon even Mhere motivated to do so (e.g. as Mith defence they may support, because of false beliefs). rolehas never to make requisite changes on their OMn, been active in lack popular Apparently, and surprisingly, the State's Australia, but a 1 Mays reactive. State intervention and regulation is and has alMays been in reaction to Mhat 108 happens. Since governments can not be relied upon to initiate action, it is important to move for change, for such possible, change early and Mhere possible to obtain popular support 10? on in movements. It is important also, Mhere to bypass government, building alternative social arrangements and enlarging the informal economy (see e.g. Nartin). There is further a component to be exploited in tipping the balance from the mainstream dominant Northern paradigm, apart from the Australian authoritarianism, culture (as e.g. components egalitarianism, of anti­ anti-marketism, satisization, environmentalism, and so on). That is anti-Americanism. There developed leading aMay The attitude in the Antipodes to USA is ambivalent. is a love-hate relationship in Australia (e.g. mutual admiration from perceived cultural similarities, gratitude from older Australians for American 108. This major theme is advanced, illustrated, and defended in Gilbert, p.?ff. One important example concerns squatting, other aspects of social Melfare. But the theme is liable to be contested, e.g. by Aitkin, Mho sees 'nearly tMo centuries of reliance on ... omnicompetent initiating goverment behind us' (p.27). HoMever Gilbert seems to be correct; Australian governments are hardly omnicompetent or 'omnipresent'*, and they rarely appear to initiate. 10?. That support may be enlisted from culturally unexpected sources, e.g. Momen in the case of the peace movement, as opinion polls clearly reveal. The peace movement has not undertaken sufficient political foot-uork, e.g. grass roots activity such as door knocks, in increasing and mobilizing this potential support. �in Morld Mar II; action ugly American abroad). dislike of American blustering, the Antipodes. independence, trying to The distaste for being visibly pushed around is strong in A striking feature of established Antipodean peoples is their elements or to be unwillingness to put up with nonsense, their manipulated^ especially by foreigners. cultural There is now much anti-US- in New Zealand since USA made the tactical error of New Zealand. bully the There is much anti-Americanism in Australia as well as widespread opposition to the American government. governmentism opposition to as pushed* Ao Of course, the tactic of appeal ingj^such practices opposition to the American political is a dangerous one, owing in part to politicians' dishonest penchant for conflating opposition to a foreign government with opposition to people that goverment is supposed to represent (or perhaps on rare occasions does), easy the by above). neutralised. practice ambiguity of terms like anti-American (an ambiguity The tactic opens the way to charges of racism, and the like. a But the charges, For it is on national chauvinism, if they can be got at, are straightforwardly largely a matter of removing institutions (and cultures) to their individual members, institutions devolves, traded made fallaciously, into criticism of crude reduction of so that criticism of each and every one of the members. no Richard Sylvan 110. This paper had a long and difficult gestation and growth period, before ye'idling a result that still leaves its author uneasy most days. He cehtainly hopes that those who commented on the paper or assisted on the labour in its earlier days now only dimly recognise it. Among those to be thanked are Brian Hartin, Jean Norman, Louise Syvlan (who was responsible for the monster in the first place), David Bennett, ... . �On the notion of culture and cultural pluralism APPENDIX 1: unfortunately, with very few exceptions, Definitions of culture abound; Hany are too narrow, are bad. all for example chauvinistically restricting culture to human groups (as Kamenka's appalling motto, 'nothing human is alien p.7.); some are too broad, for example making any sort of organisation to me', as a trade union or a local brass band.) a culture. such serve to connect problems:- High redefinitions of cu1ture with [a peoples'] artistic achievement or, even more 111 with (their) literature. This is h1 on culture, at least insofar culture LaJ narrowly, as the types of indicate Pt fen examples will what is included is class restricted, to certain class-approved products and performances (e.g. opera, ballet, drama as opposed to reggae, punk, etc.). Hhile high redefinitions let in too little, So is with the definition of culture as 'the transfer of it behavioural means, (Bonner with low redefinitions admit too much. p.ltj), culture. information most particularly by the process of teaching and learning* because that includes much that has nothing especially to For by example, number of bricks on a site, relaying a weather forecast or passing on transfers information by behavioural means, do the but information of no particular cultural relevance. By contrast, culture. For Herskovits: most definitions mark out something which roughly overlaps example, culture Awa 'settletsJ for the offered definition is "the man-made part of the environment" ...' by (p.2'?). Not only is this inadmissibly anthropocentric, excluding animal cultures (such as Bonner writers studies) imagine); and extraterrestrial cultures (such but worse, as science-fiction this twisted definition appears to render a ill. Thus, for example, Stephenson throughout his iconoclastic book on Australian culture. The equation, with literary texts, like that of a paradigm with central texts, is useful in offering a materia! representation of a culture. For there is something solid that can be grasped and presented. Similary, money, newspapers and motor cars, afford material artefacts and museum exhibits of wider popular cultures. �deserted town or ancient ruins a culture (rather mining of manifestation a past culture) while excluding a system physics! the than and beliefs of values as a culture (.unless an erroneous theory of systems of propositions In invoked). is latching onto the physical exemplification it is moreover like Kuhn' s identification of a text-book with a paradigm. there is much m common between the notion of culture and Indeed libera! extension of the notion of paradigm, one of uh 1 ch gained currency &ng!o-ffmerican thought about a hundred years Later than the other. have in Both terms been used to cover an apparently diverse range of things (and criticised dismissed for doing just that), or Kuhn's and both do this in rather simitar because both attempt to capture types of conceptual schema. parallels suggest - certainly once the usefu! notion of a widely adopted in sociology, Mays, Nhat is more the paradigm, soc1 a 1 been encountered and worked Mith - a common has notion. Mith but little reflection, from advantage of this definition, involved and para!tel in a rather different account of culture the run of anthropologies! definitions straightaway emerges:- P) cu!ture, or more exact!y a pure culture, BP) then, P great is that the hard and part of its appeal, thus does not have to be repeated; the supplied a logical sense; generous by but the c!ean-up Mould that is, an elaborate interpretation relational structure. it is function Naturally it is a contrast to a scientific paradigm, propositional structure delivered, is many that of a social group. sketched take theoretical on a required f aithfu1 to Mhat (the social forms, activities and so on) it models. in in Recall that a paradigm is explicated as a model, form for culture. system, i.e. on paradigm, Mork in rectifying the notion of paradigm has already been done (e.g. precisely structure is a comprehensive socia! paradigm. is a paradigm genera! to be 6 social where the the political themes and value judgements, Group cohesiveness in fact is guaranteed in examples of such social paradigms (several reproduced in the RP) because actual groups with distinctive cultures are taken; but the theoretical �explanation goes structure. The and deeper depends on features of the of propositions! structure delivered types mode! underlying in shoMn, are capsule form, in the first table of this paper contrasting parts of mainstream American and Philippine cultures; other more detailed examples are reproduced in theoretical Mork on social paradigms (e.g. RP, CPE, Cotgrove and references cited therein). dust the as of explication May by paradigm of enabled models a clarification and unification job to be done on the giant conceptual mess that the of paradigm had become, notion facilitates a pleasing and simplifying synthesis. the hc"-j complains diffusion by pointing to the about complaint his Consider, about, in definitions of culture to similes and metaphors, desperation, as ... a map, as a sieve, resort cu1ture illustrate, to Kluckholn Geertz Minds but in anthropology more generally, can be reduced. especially, up Geertz diffusion' 'theoretical of so the parallel explication in attempted to the analogies 'perhaps in and as a matrix', before a mere paragraph later, offering his OMn metaphor of culture as a. Meb of significance or interpretation (and mode 1 too, its in metaphor), roots though here an exact technical notion, Prs it happens, Geertz's account is not too has bad a picture of the sort of logical model involved, that is of a system, a Meb**l ike structure, Mith an interpretation matrix The other similes are hoMever more exact: on it. imposed, can function, supplying significance or meaning models (though not as function usually both a map and a social ones), a map typically modelling a landscape. take up Kluckholn's elaboration on culture (not to Furthermore, really ^definitions' as Geertz suggests), a model is indeed '(4) "an abstraction from Mhich, behaviour"', feeling thinking, hoMever is not prescript i v e 1 y Mhere and it is a social paradigm, believing"'* in terms of items merely descriptive, as, supplies '('?) "a validated. but Mill be applied mechanism for the (3) "a May of and normative can The model be regulation read of �(ID? "a set of techniques for adjusting both to the externa! and behaviour"' environment and to other men"'. Such a mode!, which does correspond to '(5) "a the part of the anthropologist about the '..'jay in which a on theory peop!e in fact behave"' and their view of the wor!d, orientations, Since the social paradigm evolves over time, '(11) "a precipitate of history'", of certainly affords '(6) a structure of pooled learning"' and '(7.) "a set of standardized to recurrent problems" . group it is and it does record '(2) "the social legacy the individual [in the society] acquires from his group"'. three parts or levels of a culture that Conga!ton and David The *--P*22 ff.) are similar to those Kuhn includes within a paradigm, readi1y supplied by a model. They are, first, the discern and likewise genera! rules and procedures characterising and controlling the behaviour of adherents; secondly the ideas and vatues.behind these beliefs and procedures; thirdly the products materia! and exemplars resulting, e.g. textbooks, interpretation function validates both themes and ru!es; domains as wel! it including values and ideas (on both see of objects, connection with exemplars and artefacts is less direct, The The newspapers. RP, delivers pp.12-16). and of more than textbook may present a paradigm or, more likely, part of one; or 112 it may, like an artefact, supply or be a partial modelling of the paradigm. one kind. remaining The to order culture reflect has life-forms done. Ihus to of qualifying term comprehensive is some of the slackness of the deliberately notion of Abraham, styles there are varying degrees to which this for one, can 112. and be explains various inclusive levels of culture (PP* 12-13) before opting for the most inclusive, under which 'culture is 113 common life of the people and 'includes the whole of the knowledge, arts, in Hhile culture. cover a sufficiently comprehensive part of life a community, vague th<= the science, technology, religions, morality, ritual, politics, literature, theory normally has many models, some exact and canonical, some of which bring out al! that holds in the theory but not only what holds there; and, more sweepmgly still, it has partial models, which accurately depict part of the theory. �etiquette even compr eh ensi ve, includes use of t he.t erm hot'je ver mastery a sculpture, . of a seventeenth (p. 12) 114 ..." -fashions Under a all of process literature, Abraham (p.13). of and could knoM (p.13). history, culture!, music, pauperisation of Mhat the culture and painting conjectures that this use evolved and eighteenth centuries, ! ess narroMer, cu 1 ture i s limited to Mhat are called In this use [that again of "higher" of the mind. things result and educated the age of enlightenment, man 'as in a the stood for', Such a person could reflect the Mhole culture in the more comprehensive use. The European vieM of culture, Mhich tends to concentrate on high culture, is insufficiently comprehensive, leaving out a crucial aspect of culture, so it has been argued, namely attitudes to and approaches to the environment, and so natural environments largely devoid of man-made features and influences particular. in fuller picture of environmentally-sensitive culture looks like this:113. (From previous page) See p.21. Accounts of culture of this very inclusive, but still unnecessarily anthropic, form are common in the literature. Thus, for example, Harris: 'f) culture is the total socially acquired life-May or life-style of a group of people' (p.144), their patterns of behaviour and thought. Thus, Mith even less qualification, the first of Kluckholn'-s eleven definitions of culture (as listed in Geertz pp.4-5), 'the total May of life of of a people', a definition repeated in Conga)ton and David, p.22. The intended model accordingly provides a complete representation of life-Mays of members of the c u 1 t u r e. 114. H fuller and better account Mhich gets very close to the model-theoretic analysis, is Kumer's analogous definition of culture: The shared symbolic system Mhich gives meaning to human interactions in a society. It refers to a society's May of perceiving, interpreting and expressing things ... it includes knoMledqe, belief-systems, values, norms and ideologies Mhich enable the members of a society to perceive, organise and interpret reality ... reality is alMays perceived Mi thin an evaluative frameMork. Similar too is Tylor's definition of 'culture' in terms of a structure again: 'Culture or Civilization ... that complex Mhole Mhich includes knoMledge, belief, art, morals, la.M, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society'. (Primitive Culture vol. 7, p.7). So all human societies have a culture, a generalised paradigm. It is better to separate out civi1ization, hoMever, and link it to its 'root meaning of living in cities'. �PRIMARY CULTURE DlnGFWl sense 'culture', of and intellectual sociology, in Mhere order culture. artistic the practice dictionaries, takes up the primary namely Con c i se En q1i sh D i c t i on ary), consists in put] of and as presented culture of a society is said to comprise a given culture, state 'the as it is lor development, of a in shared 'the It is important to separate off - in or people Mith, and the education-derived sense, the training or discipline in or group- particular, the in Mhich the culture comprises the community, leading in Mhich the to Evidently the explication, Mhich makes the product primary a given reverses the culture. like agriculture, viticulture, and 115 Mas first and foremost a process , a "cultivation" of intellect and the historical order, so on, in to set aside - some derivative senses, sharing, culture offered values and beliefs' of the society. derived sense, or as or people' (cf. community norms, through social paradigms, explication so far, The Mhere 115. Pts Hilliams explains, the ear 1 y meaning of 'culture' Mas as a process; and the 'culture of the mind' Mas vieMed as a process rather than a product or achieved state. In (early) modern use 'culture' became, like 'civilized', a condition. Only Mith the 'fourth modern development did culture appear as ' the Mho 1e May of life, material, intellectual and spiritual of a given society' (p.273), i.e., as a comprehensive social paradigm. The other forms, the first three developments, Mere restricted versions of this, to respectively the individual, intellectual and moral parts, and arts and intellectual areas. To invert the ahistorical explanatory patte^, so to say, the inherited cu1tures of science? scientific paradigms are, �However the reversal makes it easier to qet some grip on art and technology. the very rich process-product complex that a culture comprises. example, goes astray in settling for a process definition of Bonner, for 'culture'* allied to the education-derived sense: 'By culture I mean the transfer of information by most means, behavioural by the process particularly of teaching and Hhile the definition certainly achieves its intended objective of learning*. including animal culture^, it is, as already remarked, a quite excessively low redefinition, such accounting things as semaphoring between boy scouts as c u 1 t u r e. There is a further dimension of complexity so far largely omitted through restriction pure most contemporary states are far from culturally pure, comprising a cultures, mixture 1-lhile tribal groups may have relatively to pure cultures. of peoples.and cultures. represented More generally, an n-cultural society by a system of n paradigms adhered to in the society. 6 multi­ 6 multi­ cultural society is thus an n-cultural society where n is cultural society may simply Australia, not include however be very many. it pluralistic; may, groups of people from different cultures under some dominant culture which controls in one region together is as in brought the main Much depends then on the type of system of paradigms political institutions. involved, on how the paradigms are themselves interrelated and structured. Ft society nil! function (cf. Abraham, p.lbff., incompatible with extreme individualism'). a variety of subcultures. Mhich is not Characteristically and commonly For culture is the glue of a group; competing cultures. integrative always have a culture, several perhaps it has an important who remarks that 'culture is Ft society wi 1 1 also typically have f) subculture is a paradigm, included in a culture, sufficiently subcultures comprehensive to rank as a share norms and assumptions with some culture. larger culture except where they diverge. The dominant cultures in countries like Australia and America can be �as having tree structures. represented a is there Subcultures mainstream century gentry Protestant many subcultural long played significant parts in have last example, Mi th culture, differences the terms, 116 tributaries. Transposing to river-network between Catholic, extensive immigration program, substantial social tolerance, with and chai 1enged. Alternative critical important an As a result assumptions along and that is, the cultural streams remain of the mainstream culture are not those of Australia) do however is to criticise and challenge themes of the accommodate, These within too a pluralistic (a plural paradigm) society provided the social paradigms present limits, no can real to overarching socio-political arrangements and the prevailing type of threat structure (if they should however things would have to give or power of complex permit the relatively easy formation rival and al ternative social paradigms (such as Hhat culture. dominant and Australia now boasts a much more persistence of subcultures - so long as, subcu1tures Protestant Flexible multi-cultural arrangements, of ethnic subcultures. pattern for of Australian colonial culture had streams bearing on leisure activities such as gambling (see Inglis). its history; Australian change; rival river networks are bound to alter the cultural landscape). like Cultures, explaining illustrated that and paradigms, social inducing social change. explanatory roles. repudiation nature', important role on the that is, For example, in RP). It is worth that it noticing to Philp criticises for Foucault prevents him from consistent explaining in and human culture can replace nature of the human subject and the denial of a ground both So much has already been shown as regards social paradigms (e.g. nature have been supposed mandatory; 'his an can also afford explanatory roles in cases where appeal they social have in for human directed 116. A subculture of a given culture is itself a culture (i.e. a comprehensive social paradigm) applying to a subgroup of the given wider culture, which agrees with the wider culture on characterising (paradigmatic) features but which may diverge, and typically does, by virtue of further cultural features, i.e. features in its paradigm. A subculture stands then technically to a culture as a subalgebra stands to an algebra, etc. 4^ �resistance or social struggle for the better. explain a and justify such resistance 'requires that Me make some commitment to conception of the human good and this usually rests on some vieM of nature and human subjectivity'*. the to social good as human a.May; The modifier 'usually' gives the game route can circuit through culture. justificatory directed Accordingly to Philp t.p.17.!, to discerned under a The struggle regional can paradigm; be the commitments can be cultural. The main real Mork of this paper, descriptive some attempt of relevant features of the different cultures at explanation has been contrasted, Mith like much Mork on culture, of more unexpected features of the cultures, concerned, some criticism, and some attempt to explain some cultural traits in terms of others. enterprise, cultures only This, like the modelling account, points to a more difficult broached: investigated, namely, the task of providing theories of and so perhaps explaining Mhat pulls them the together, makes them tick, gives them their distinctive shape and grip, and so on. �APPENDIX 2: Contemporary scientific redeployment of human nature attempts of this sort are based on the modern evolutionary synthesis, and in appear extreme most form in sociobiology. t'jas it However quickly recognised that (opportunistic) sociobioligical attempts, such as Nilson's, to to rule out significant political 117 narrow social alternatives fail. redeploy nature human underlying characterisation of human nature is Nilson's from the main socio-political tradition. the [is! of set full behavioural possibilities innate Li.e. very and different 'In the broader sense, human nature genetic or genetically-determined] predispositions that characterise the human species; and in the narrower sense, those predispositions that affect social behaviour' t.pp.217-8, mith It is not constant or static, rearrangement). It is certainly ahistorical, (sub)species read disease patterns conjunctively however the ambiguity in the characterisation of is resolved. nature - hardly a set, disjunctively it only n'ill include the full humans since genes may mutate. are liable to set suffer; For if the definition of if is genetically-determined read, those every (normal) human is bound to less undergo plausibly, at some stage. In any event, such sets are remote from Enlightenment political concerns, thouph, like health and disease more generally, socially relevant enough; they hardly alternatives. appear to Moreover, impose they significant offer constraints on no bulwark against racial or and political cultural and since by no means 118 everything is determined genetically e.g. languages of some cultures. relativity, since races have separate gene subpools, 117. f^s this is a commonplace vie^j, Singer and especially Pigden. there is no need to labour it: see Ruse, determinism is simply one, and perhaps even the weakest, of forms of determinism intended to vastly reduce cultural variability. Nilson does not rely on that form exclusively, but helps himself to other incompatible forms of determinism as suit^: see p.207. 118. Genetic �REFERENCES W.E. Abraham, The Mind of Africa, University of Illinois Press, Chicago, 1362. D. A. Aitkin, 'Where does lustra 1ia stand?', in Pothers, pp.13-31. A. 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Sylvan (eds.), Gambling in F. Capra and C. Spretnak, Green Politics, Hutchinson, London, 1384. R. E. C a v e s and L . B. Krause, The Australian Economy: George Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1384. N. Chomsky and E, Herman, Press, Boston, 1373. A L'iew from the North , The Political Economy of Human Rights, South End P. Cock, Al ternative Australia, Quartet Books, Melbourne, 1373. J. Cohen and J. Rogers, On Democracy, Penguin, New York, 1384. A.A. Congalton and A.E. 1378. R.W. Connell, 'Images of Australia'* in Social Change in Australia Edgar), Cheshire, Melbourne, 1374. David, The Individual in the Making, Wiley, Sydney, (ed. R. W. Connell, Ruling class, ruling culture, S. Cotgrove, Catastrophe or Cornucopia, Wiley, blew York , 1382. G. Crough and T. Wheelwright, Australia: A Client State, Penguin, Australia, D. �1'7'82! . E , C/t 1 er,bach , Ecotopia Emerging, A.F. Davies 1765. and S. Encel (eds.), Au s t r a 1 ian Seei e t y, Melbourne, Cheshire, A.F. Davies, 8. Encel and M. 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Heilbroner, The Morldly Philosophers, Schus t er, New Yor k, 1767. 3rd revised The Progressive edit., Simon and T. Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. M. Oakeshott, Oxford, 1746, I. Illich, Deschooling Society, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1771. K.S. Inglis, 'Religious behaviour'*, in A.F. Davies and S. Australian Society, Cheshire, Melbourne, 1765, pp.43-75. Encel (eds.), K.S. Inglis, 'Gambling and culture^ in Australia' in Caldwell et.al. B. Jones, S1 eeper s Awak e! , Ox f or d Un i ver si t y Press , 1 '782. E. Kamenka, 'Culture and Australian culture', (1784) 7-18. Australian Cultural History 3 T.S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Second edition, Un i v e r s i t y of Chicago Press, 1770. K. Ku m a r , The Social and Cultural Impact of Transnational Enterprises, Norking Faper No. 6, %tRF, University of Sydney, 1779. R.E. Lane, 'Market .justice, political justice', Hugo Holfsen Memorial Lecture, He1 bourne, May, 1935. N. Lini, Keynote address,. 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Nash, 'Rounding out the American revolution: ethical extension and the neuj environmentalism', typescript, 1382. P. 0 Farrell, "!*he cultural ambivalence of Australian Cultural History 1 (1382) 3-8. M. 01s c n , The Rise and Decline of Nations, 1382. M. religion', Au stra 1 ian Y a 1 e U n i v e r s i t y Pre s s, N e^j H a v e n , Philp, 'Disconcerting discourses. The return of Grand Theory II: Michel Foucault' Australian Society 4 ( 1385) 15-17. C. Pigden, 'Notes o/ sociobiology", typescript, Canberra, 1384. J. Ratals, A Theory of Justice, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1371. k. Rigby, 'The attitudes of English and Australian college students towards institutional authority'. Journal of Social Psychology 122 (1384) 41-48. R. Routley, 'Roles and limits of paradigms in environmental thought and action', Environmentai Phi1osophy (ed. A. Gare and R. Eliott), University of Queensland Frees 1383; referred to as RP. R. Routley, 'Maximizing, satisficing, satisizing: the differences in real and rational behaviour under r i v a 1 par a d i gm s', Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1384; referred to as HSS. R. and 'J. Routley, 'Human chauvinism and environmental ethics' in Hannison; referred to as EE. U. and R. Routley, 'Social problems', in Hannison. theor i es, self management R. Routley and N. Griffin, 'Unravelling the meanings of Papers in Environmental Philosophy # 3, Research //y and environmental 1i f e ?', Discussion Schoo! of Social �Sciences, Australian National University, 1982. N.D. Rubenstein, ''Men of wealth'', Australian Cultural History 3 (1984) 24-37. M. Ruse, Sociobio1ogy: Sense or Nonsense K. Rudeen, 'The global gamble'', Sports Illustrated, August 4, 1958, pp. 10-13. B. Russell, Hist or y of Hee tern Philosoph y, Allen and Unwin, London, 1947. S.S. Schwarzschild, 'The unnatural Jew'*, Environmental Ethics 6 ( 1984) 347- P. Singer, (booRon Sociobiology) M. Smith and 0. Crossley, (eds.) The Nay Cut: Austral i a, Lan sdown e, Me 1 bcume, 1975. Radical Alternatives in Snyder, E.A. Sommerlad, P.L. Dawson and J.C. Altman, Rural Land Sharing Communities^ An Alternative Economic Model? Bureal of Labour Market Research, Monograph Series No. 7, Australian Government Printing Service, L'angerra, 19851 P.R. The Foundations of Lui tune, N. J. Mi 1 es, Sydney, 193*5. St ewar t, American Cultural Patterns: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1971. E. H. Stephensen , Stretton, 36. A Cross-Cultural Perspective, 'Hhere does Australia stand?: A Discussion', in Hithers, pp.32- R. Sylvan, 'Prospects for regional philosophies in Australasia', Australasian Journa 1 of Philosophy S3 ( 1985) 188-204. R. Sylvan, 'Philosophy, politics and pluralism. I. Relevant modellings and arguments', Research Series in Logic and Metaphysics, No. 2, Rese a r ch Schoo! of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1985; referred to as PPP. R. Sylvan, 'Culture, philosophy, and approaches to the natural environment an Australian perspective'', in Ethics, Environment, Ecology (.ed. D. Bennett), Australian National University, 1985; referred to as CPE. E.B. Tyl^r, Primitive Culture, Vol. 7., London, 1871. T. Veblen, An inquiry into the Nature of Peace, Viking, New fork, 1945. T. Vinson, 'Crime'*, in Davies et.al. E. Matt, [Latest environmental book! D.R. H i1d R. Heiner, 'The historical origins Envi ronmen t a 1 Revi ew 6 ( 1982) 42-61. of Soviet environmentalism', [soc i o1ogy book J Hilliams, 'Culture and civilization", in Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (ed. P. Edwards), Macmillan, London, 1967, vol. 2, pp.273-362. �R. Williams, Keywords, Fontana, London, 1976. J.G. Williamson and P.H. Linder t, American History, Academic Press, Ne^' York, 1980. E.O. Hi1son, 1973. On Human Nature, Inequality: Harvard University Press, 0. Withers (ed.), Bigger or Smaller Government?, Papers Symposium of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Canberra, 1983. A Hacroeconomic Cambridge, from the Australia L. Wittgenstein, Phi1osophica 1 Investigarions, Blackwell, Oxford, 195x. Nass., Sixth 1982, �1 On the notion of culture and cultural pluralism APPENDIX 1: Definitions of culture abound; all unfortunately, with very few exceptions, Many are too narrow, are bad. for example chauvmistica! ly restricting culture to human groups (as Kamenka's appalling motto, 'nothing human is alien p.7); some are too broad, for example making any sort of organisation to me' , as a trade union or a local brass band) a culture, such to serve connect problems:- High redefinitions of cu1ture with [a peoples'] artistic achievement or, even more lil with (their) literature. This is nion culture, at least insofar culture EaJ narrowly, as the types of indicate A few examples w 11 1 what is included is class restricted, to certain class-approved products and performances (e.g. opera, ballet, drama as opposed to reggae, punk, etc.). Mhile high redefinitions let in too little, So is with the definition of culture as 'the transfer of it behavioural means, (Bonner Mi th low redefinitions admit too much. p.l'J), culture. information most particularly by the process of teaching and learning' because that includes much that has nothing especially to For by example, number of bricks on a site, relaying a weather forecast or passing on transfers information by behavioural means, do the but information of no particular cultural relevance. . By contrast, For culture. Herskovits: most definitions mark out something which roughly overlaps example, culture Awa settleEsJ for the definition is "the man-made part of the environment" offered ...' by (p.2'?). Not only is this inadmissibly anthropocentric, excluding animal cultures (such as Bonner writers studies) imagine); and extraterrestrial cultures (such but worse, as science-fiction this twisted definition appears to render a ill. Thus, for example, Stephenson throughout his iconoclastic book on Australian culture. The equation, with literary texts, like that of a paradigm with central texts, is useful in offering a material representation of a culture. 'For there is something solid that can be grasped and presented. Similary, money, newspapers and motor cars, afford material artefacts and museum exhibits of wider popular cultures. �deserted toMn or ancient rums a culture (rather mining of manifestation a than past culture) Mhile excluding a system the of physical and beliefs values as a culture (unless an erroneous theory of systems of propositions invoked). In is latching onto the physical exemplification it is moreover like Kuhn's identification of a text-book Mith a paradigm. there is much in common between the notion of culture and Indeed liberal extension of the notion of paradigm, one of Mhich gamed currency ^nglo-Psmerican thought about a hundred years later than the other. have in Both terms been used to cover an apparently diverse range of things (and criticised dismissed for doing just that), or Kuhn's and both do this m rather similar because both attempt to capture types of conceptual schema. parallels suggest - certainly once the useful notion of a Midely adopted m sociology, Mays, Nhat is more the social paradigm, been encountered and Morked Mith - a common has notion. Nith but little reflection, from then, a rather different account of culture the run of anthropological definitions straightaMay emerges:- & culture, or more exactly a pure culture, advantage of this definition, is a comprehensive socia! paradigm. and part of its appeal, R great is that the hard Mork involved in rectifying the notion of paradigm has already been done (e.g. RP) thus and parallel m the supplied system, i.e. on a logical sense; generous by but the clean-up Mould that is, an elaborate interpretation relational structure. it is function Naturally it is a theoretical on a required fai thfu1 to Mhat (the social forms, activities and so on) it models. paradigm, m contrast to a scientific paradigm, propositional structure delivered, is many that of a social group. sketched take Recall that a paradigm is explicated as a mode!. form for culture. precisely structure does not have to be repeated; m is a paradigm general to be Ps social Mhere the the political themes and value judgements, Group cohesiveness in fact is guaranteed in examples of such social paradigms (several reproduced in the RP) because actual groups Mith distinctive cultures are taken; but the theoretical �explanation goes structure. The deeper and depends on features of underlying the of propositional structure delivered types are model in shoMn, capsule form, in the first table of this paper contrasting parts of mainstream other more detailed examples are reproduced American and Philippine cultures; in theoretical Mork social paradigms (e.g. PP, CPE, Cotgrove and references cited therein). Just expl 1 cat ion the as of paradigm of May by models enabled a clarification and unification .job to be done on the giant conceptual mess that the of paradigm had become, notion facilitates a pleasing and simplifying synthesis. how complaint his Geertz to Consider, about, complains diffusion by pointing to the about in definitions of culture to similes and metaphors, desperation, as ... map, a resort Kluckholn Geertz Minds in attempted to the analogies ''perhaps in mere before a and as a matrix'*, as a sieve, cu1ture illustrate, but in anthropology more generally, can be reduced. especially, up diffusion'* 'theoretical the of so the parallel explication paragraph later, offering his OMn metaphor of culture as a web of significance or interpretation (and model too, its in metaphor). roots though here an exact technical notion, Rs it happens, Geertz"'s account is not too has bad a picture of the sort of logical model involved, that is of a system, a Meb-like structure, Mith an interpretation imposed, matrix both a map and a The other similes are hoMever more exact: on it. function can function, supplying significance or meaning as models (though not usually social ones), map a typically modelling a landscape. Furthermore, take up Kluckholn'* s elaboration on culture (not to really 'definitions' as Geertz suggests), a model is indeed '(4) "an abstraction from behaviour'"', thinking, hoMever Mhich, and feeling is not prescriptively Mhere believing'" in terms of items merely descriptive, as, supplies '(3) "a May of it is a social paradigm, '*('?) "a validated. but Mill be applied mechanism for the and normative can The model be regulation read of �and "(10) "a set of techniques -tor- adjusting both to the externa! behaviour'"' environment and to other men"''. Such a mode!, which does correspond to '(5) "a theory the part of the anthropologist about the way in which a on peop!e m fact behave'"' and their view of the world, orientations, it is . Since the social paradigm evolves over time, '(11) "a precipitate of history'"', of certainly affords '(6) a "structure of pooled learning'"' and '(7) "a set of standardized to recurrent problems'". group and it does record '(2) "the social legacy the individual Ein the society! acquires from his group"'. three parts or levels of a culture that Conga!ton and David The (p.22 ff.) are similar to those Kuhn includes within a paradigm, by supplied readily a model. They are, first, the discern and likewise general rules and procedures characterising and controlling the behaviour of adherents; secondly the ideas and values behind these beliefs and procedures; thirdly the products and exemplars material resulting, e.g. interpretation function validates both themes and rules; of objects, domains The The newspapers. textbooks, as well it including values and ideas (on both see connection with exemplars and artefacts is less direct, RP, delivers pp.12-16). and of more than Pt textbook may present a paradigm or, more likely, part of one; or 112 it may, like an artefact, supply or be a partial mode!ling of the paradigm. one kind. The order culture remaining reflect to has life-forms done. Thus to of qualifying term comprehensive is some of the slackness of the notion of culture. cover a sufficiently comprehensive part of life a community, Abraham, vague deliberately for one, klhile styles there are varying degrees to which this can and be explains various inclusive levels of culture (pp.12-13) before opting for the most inclusive, under which 'culture is 113 common life of the people'* and 'includes the whole of the knowledge, arts, in the the science, technology, religions, morality, ritual, politics, literature, 112. 6 theory normally has many models, some exact and canonical, some of which bring out all that holds m the theory but not only what holds there; and, more sweepingly still, it has partial models, which accurately depict part of the theory. �even etiquette and of the mind. includes le narroMer, In this use [that again of "higher" mastery a '* scu1pture, a seventeenth a Under use of the term however ''culture is limited to Mhat are called comprehensive, things (p.12)114 ' -fashions Abraham (p.13). process of conjectures that this use evolved pauperisation of Mhat and eighteenth centuries, and could knoM (p.13). the educated the age of enlightenment, man 'as in a the stood for', Such a person could reflect the Mhole culture in the more comprehensive use. The European vieM of culture, Mhich tends to concentrate on high culture, is insufficiently comprehensive, leaving out a crucial aspect of culture, so it has been argued, namely attitudes to and approaches to the environment, and so natural environments largely devoid of man-made features and influences particular. in & fuller picture of environmentally-sensitive culture looks like this:- 113. (From previous page) See p.21. Accounts of culture of this very inclusive, but still unnecessarily anthropic, form are common in the literature. Thus, for example, Harris: ''Ft culture is the total socially acquired life-May or life-style of a group of people (p.144), their patterns of behaviour and thought. Thus, Mith even less qualification, the first of Kluckholn's eleven definitions of culture (as listed in Geertz pp.4-5), 'the total May of life of of a people', a definition repeated in Congalton and David, p.22. The intended model accordingly provides a complete representation of life-Mays of members of the culture. 114. Ft fuller and better account Mhich gets very close to the model-theoretic analysis, is Kumer's analogous definition of culture: The shared symbolic system Mhich gives meaning to human interactions in a society. It refers to a society's May of perceiving, interpreting and expressing things ... it includes knoMledge, belief-systems, values, norms and ideologies Mhich enable the members of a society to perceive, organise and interpret reality ... reality is alMays perceived Mithin an evaluative frameMork. Similar too is Tylor's definition of 'culture' in terms of a structure again: 'Culture or Civilization ... that complex Mhole Mhich includes knoMledge, belief, art, morals, laM, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society'. (Primitive Culture vol. 7, p.7). So all human societies have a culture, a generalised paradigm. It is better to separate out civiliza11on, hoMever, and link it to its 'root meaning of living in cities'. �PRIORY CULTURE DIRGRRH sense of "culture"', and intellectual where sociology, in order culture. artistic the practice takes up the grimary namely dictionaries, Concise English Dictionary), consists in putJ of and as presented culture of a society is said to comprise a given culture, state the as it is tor development, ' the of a in shared It is important to separate off * particular, the in in which the culture comprises the community, and the educa11on-der1ved sense, the training or discipline in or groun­ or people with, leading in which the to Evidently the explication, which makes the product primary the historical order, so on, in to set aside - some derivative senses, sharing, culture offered values and beliefs' of the society. der ived sense, or as or people' (cf. community norms, through social paradigms, explication so -far, The a given reverses the culture, like agriculture, viticulture, and 115 was first and foremost a process , a "cultivation" of intellect and where 115. Rs Williams explains, the early meaning of 'culture'' was as a process; and the ''culture of the mind' was viewed as a process rather than a product or achieved state. In (early) modern use 'culture' became, like 'civilized'', a condition. Only with the 'fourth modern development did culture appear as 'the whole way of life, material, intellectual and spiritual of a given society* (p.273), i.e., as a comprehensive social paradigm. The other forms, the first three developments, were restricted versions of this, to respectively the individual, intellectual and moral parts, and arts and intellectual areas. To invert the ahistorical explanatory patten^ so to say, the inherited cu1tures of science. scientific paradigms are, �art and technology. However the reversal makes it easier to get some grip on the very rich process-product complex that a culture comprises. example, goes astray in settling for a process definition of Bonner, for allied 'culture to the education-derived senses ''By culture I mean the transfer of information by behavioural particularly most means, of by the process teaching and Nhile the definition certainly achieves its intended objective of learning*', it is, as already remarked, a quite excessively low including animal culture^ accounting redefinition, such things as semaphoring between boy scouts as culture. There is a further dimension of complexity so far largely omitted through restriction pure most contemporary states are far from culturally pure, comprising a cultures, mixture Mhile tribal groups may have relatively to pure cultures. More generally, of peoples and cultures. represented an n-cultural society by a system of n paradigms adhered to in the society. & multi­ ft multi­ cultural society is thus an n-cultural society where n is cultural society may simply Australia, not include however be very many. pluralistic; it as may, groups of people from different cultures under some dominant culture which controls in one region together is in brought main the Much depends then on the type of system of paradigms poli tical institutions. involved, on how the paradigms are themselves interrelated and structured. Ps society will function (cf. Abraham, p.lbff., incompatible with extreme individualism'). a variety of subcultures. which is not Characteristically and commonly For culture is the glue of a group; competing cultures. integrative always have a culture, several perhaps it has an important who remarks that culture is society will also typically have R subculture is a paradigm, included in a culture, sufficiently subcultures comprehensive to rank as a share norms and assumptions with some culture. larger culture except where they diverge. The dominant cultures in countries like Australia and America can be �is there Subcultures with many century gentry the differences terms, 11.S tributaries. subculture! hong played significant parts in have last Protestant culture, mainstream a example, Transposing to river-network as having tree structures. reoresented between Catholic, extensive immigration program, pattern of ethnic subcultures. important As a result complex accommodate, and that is, the cultural streams remain of the mainstream culture are not those of These within too a pluralistic (a plural paradigm) society provided the social paradigms present limits, can no real to overarching socio-political arrangements and the prevailing type of threat structure (if they should however things would have to give or power along permit the relatively easy formation assumptions of Australia) do however is to criticise and challenge themes of the culture. dominant an rival and alternative social paradigms (such as k-lhat chai 1enged. Al ternative critical and and Australia now boasts a much more persistence of subcultures - so long as, subcultures Protestant Flexible multi-cultural arrangements, substantial social tolerance, with for of Australian colonial culture had streams bearing on leisure activities such as gambling (see Inglis), its history; lustra!ian change; rival river networks are bound to alter the r*.;Xural landscape). Cultures, explaining and illustrated that like paradigms, social inducing social change. explanatory roles. repudiation nature", important role on the that is, For example, in RP). It is worth that it noticing to Philp criticises for Foucault prevents him from consistent explaining in and human culture can replace nature of the human subject and the denial of a ground both So much has already been shown as regards social paradigms (e.g. nature have been supposed mandatory; 'his an can also afford explanatory roles in cases where appeal they social have in for human directed IIS, A subculture of a given culture is itself a culture (i.e. a comprehensive social paradigm) applying to a subgroup of the given wider culture, which agrees with the wider culture on characterising (paradigmatic) features but which may diverge, and typically does, by virtue of further cultural features, i.e. features in its paradigm. A subculture stands then technically to a culture as a subalgebra stands to an algebra, etc. �resistance or social struggle tor the better, explain a and justify such resistance 'requires that ^e make some commitment to conception of the human good and this usually rests on some vie^j of human The modifier 'usually* gives the game a^ay; nature and human subjectivity'*. the route can circuit through culture. justificatory directed accordingly to Philp (p.17), to to social good as under discerned a The struggle can paradigm^ regional be the c ommitmen t s c an be cultural. The main real ^ork of this paper, descriptive some attempt like much Mork on culture, of relevant features of the different cultures at explanation of more unexpected features has been contrasted, ^ith of the cultures concerned, some criticism, and some attempt to explain some cultural traits in terms of others. enterprise, cultures only This, like the modelling account, points to a more difficult broached: investigated, namely, the task of providing theories of and so perhaps explaining ^hat pulls them the together, makes them tick, gives them their distinctive shape and grip, and so on. �Contemporary scientific redeployment of human nature APPENDIX 2: attempts of this sort are based on the modern evolutionary synthesis, and most in appear extreme form in sociobiology. However it Mas quickly recognised that (opportunistic) sociobiol^gical attempts, such as Nilson's, to nature human to rule out significant political 117 narroM social alternatives fail. redeploy underlying characterisation of human nature is Nilson's from the main socio-political tradition. [is] of set full the possibilities [i.e, innate very different 'In the broader sense, human nature genetic genetically-determinedJ or predispositions that characterise the human species; behavioural and and in the narrower sense, those predispositions that affect social behaviour'* (pp.217-8, Mith It is certainly ahistorical, read disjunctively it disease hoMever the ambiguity in the characterisation of nature - hardly a set, (sub)species patterns conjunctively only since genes may mutate. It is not constant or static, rearrangement). Mill include the full humans For if the definition is resolved. are liable to set suffer; of if is genetically-determined read, those every (normal) human is bound to less undergo plausibly, at some stage. In any event, such sets are remote from Enlightenment political concerns, though, like health and disease more generally, socially relevant enough; they hardly alternatives. appear to Moreover, impose they significant offer constraints on no bulMark against racial or and political cultural and since by no means 118 everything is determined genetically e.g. languages of some cultures. relativity, since races have separate gene subpools, 117. Fss this is a commonplace vieM, Singer^, and especially Pigden. there is no need to labour it: see Ruse, 118. Genetic determinism is simply one, and perhaps even the Meakest, of several forms of determinism intended to vastly reduce cultural variability. Nilson does not rely on that form exclusively, but helps himself to other incompatible forms of determinism as suit^: see p.207. �REFERENCES W.E. Abraham, Ths Mind of Africa, University of lilinois ess, Litica^o, i-S2. D, A. Aitkin, ''Mhere does Australia stand?', in Withers, pp.18-31. Pipers, Maori Myths and Tri ba' Legends, Longman Pau], Auckland, 1984. N.E. Awa, '"Culture and credibility'", Ceres 16 (5) (1983) 28-38, E. Best, The Maori, Vol, 1, Tombs, Wellington, 1924, R. Birrell, D. HiH Sydney, 1984. J.T. Bonner, 1980. .^nd J, Neville, Populate and Perish?, Fontana/AFC, The Evolution of Culture in animals, Princeton University Press, B. Bonney and H. 1983. Australia's Commercial Media, Macmillan, Melbourne, Wilson, 8.J. Berry, Human, Hegel and Human Nature, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1982. J. Cairns, The Quiet Revolution. Widescop^e.^Camberw.elJ^J-Jiotg^^a. 1975^. 8.T, jCald/wel.l., '"The gambling AustraTian.'L^_in Change in Australia (ed. Edgar), Cheshire, Melbourne, 1974. D.L. G.T. Caldwell, '"Leisure', in Davies et.al., pp.410-439. G.T. Caldwell, '"Some historical and sociological characteristics of Australian gambling', in Caldwell et.al. G.T. Caldwell, M. Dickerson, B. Haig and L. Australia, Croom Helm, Sydney, 1985. Sylvan (eds.), Camb' ing—ijl F. Capra and C. Spretnak, Green Poli tics, Hutchinson, London, 1984. R.E. Caves and L.8. Krause, The Australian Economy: George Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1984. N. Chomsky and E. Herman, Press, Boston, 1979. A M1ew from the North, The Political Economy of Human Rights, South c.nd P. Cock, Alternative Australia, Quartet Books, Melbourne, 19/9. J. Cohen and J. Rogers, On Democracy, Penguin, New York, 1984. David, The Individual in the Making, Wiley, Sydney, A.A. Congalton andA.E. 1976. R.W. Connell, 'Images of Australia in Social Change in Australia Edgar), Cheshire, Melbourne, 1974. (ed. R. W. Connell, Ruling fl ass, Ruling Culture, S. Cotgrove, Catastrophe or Cornucopia, Wiley, New <ork, 1?87. G. Crough and T. Wheelwright, Australia: A Client State, Penguin, Australia, D. �1982. E. C^llenbach, Ecotopia Emerprng, A.F. Davies 1985. and S. Encel (eds.), lustra Han Society., Melbourne, Cheshire, A.F. Davies, S. Encel and M. Berry (eds.), lustra!!an Soci e t y. Third Edition, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 19777. M.J. Dunphy, Alternative Thoughts, Total Environment Centre, Sydney, 1984. R. Ely, 'Australian Historians on "Tall Cultural History 3 (1984) 104-128. Poppies": a survey'', Austra - i an B.L. Embury and N. Fodder, ''Economic Welfare in Australia' in Austral i an Social Issues of the 70"s, (ed. P.R. Nilson), Butterworths, Sydney, 1972. G. Gaus, The Modern Liberal Theory of 'Man. Croom Helm, London, 1983. A. Gilbert, 'The state and nature in Australia, Australian Cultural History 1981, (eds. S. Goldberg and F.&Smith), Canberra, 1982, pp.9-28. R.J. Goldstein, 1978. Political Repression in Modern America, N.K. Hancock, Austra! ia. E. 3^.^^ G.K. Hall, Boston, , London, 1930. M. Harris, Culture, People, Nature. Second edition, Cromwell, 1975. Hays, Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: Conservation Movement. 1390-1920. Cambridge, MA, 1959. R. Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers. Schuster, New York, 1987. 3rd revised The Progressive edit., Simon and T. Hobbes, Levi athan( ed. M. Oakeshot^, Oxford, 1948. I. Illich, Des-z h co ling Soc i e t y, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1971. K.S. Inglis, 'Religious behaviour'*, in A.F. Davies and S. Australian Society. Cheshire, Melbourne, 1985, pp.43-75. Encel (eds.), K.S. Inglis, 'Gambling and culture^ in Australia'' in Caldwell et.al, B. Jones, SIeepers Awake'. Oxford University Press, 1982. E. Kamenka. 'Culture and Australian culture', (1984) 7-18. Australian Cultural History 3 T.S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revo1utions. Second edition, University of Chicago Press, 1970. K. Kumar, The Social and Cultural Impact of Transnational Enterprises, Horking Paper No. 8, ?tRP, University of Sydney, 1979. R.E. Lane, "Market .justice, political justice'', Hugo Nolfsen Memorial Lecture, Melbourne, May, 1985. N. Lini, Keynote address, Australia and the South Pacific. Proceedings of a Conference held at the Australian National University, 1982. //3 �The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Letter, Alan? (Department of Philosophy, University of Alberta) to Richard Sylvan, 9 Jun 1988 re feedback on paper. (4 pages) �%/,y 7 Ch / <^/ ' C2< *1- 7 — ���On the notion of culture and cultural pluralism APPENDIX 1: unfortunately, with very + ew exception s, Definitions of culture abound; y all Many are too narrow, 3re bad. cu1ture to human groups (as Kamenka's p.7) ; some are too broad, , brass band) a culture. as a trade union (such problems:- High serve connect EaJ as redefinitions with Ea peoples'] artistic achievement culture with (their) literature. narrowly, A few examples will of cu1ture even or, more This is high culture, at least insofar what is included is class restricted, to certain class-approved products and performances (e.g. opera, ballet, drama as opposed to reggae, punk, etc.). low redefinitions admit too much. "the transfer of information by process of teaching and learning' (Bonner p.10), because that includes much that has nothing especially to do the number of bricks on a site, transfers information by behavioural means, but information of no particular cultural relevance. By contrast, most definitions mark out something which roughly overlaps Awa 'settleEsJ for the definition by (p.2?). "the man-made part of the environment" Herskovi ts: offered this inadmissibly anthropocentric, excluding animal cultures (such Bonner as writers -f&sl studies) imagine); and extraterrestrial cultures (such but as science-fiction this twisted definition appears to worse, LL't......... render throughout his iconoclastic book o L Thus , for t example, Stephenson Australian culture. The equation, with literary texts, like that of paradigm with central texts, is useful in offering a materia representation of a culture. For there is something solid that can b grasped and presented. Similary, money, newspapers and motor cars afford material artefacts and museum exhibits of wider popular cultures. ?5 a �deserted town or ancient ruins a culture (rather mining of manifestation a than past culture) while excluding a system physical the of beliefs and values as a culture (unless an erroneous theory of systems of propositions invoked). In is latching onto the physical exemplification it is moreover like Kuhn's identification of a text-book Mith a paradigm. Indeed there is much in common between the notion of culture and Kuhns one of which'gained currency Both terms Rnglo-&merican thought about a hundred years later than the other. have or in been used to cover an apparently diverse range of things (and criticised dismissed for doing just that), and both do this in Nhat is more the because both attempt to capture types of conceptual schema. paradigm, a common been encountered and worked Mith noti on. then, from the run of anthropological definitions straightaway emerges advan tage of this definition, i nvo1ved and paral1 el in and part of its appeal, is that the hard work would take in rectifying the notion of paradigm thus does not have to be repeated; form for culture. precisely structure 6 great is a comprehensive social paradigm or more exactly a pure culture. RP) a rather different account of cu1ture but c1ean-up Recal 1 that a paradigm is expli cated as a model, is it the supplied the by an elaborate interpretation function is a theoretical on required faithful to what (the social forms, activities and so on) it models, paradigm, in contrast to a scientific paradigm, proposi tional structure delivered, is many that of a social group. sketched general a is a paradigm to be & social where the the political themes and value .judgements, Group cohesiveness in fact is guaranteed in examples of such social paradigms (several reproduced in the RP) because actual groups with distinctive cultures are taken; but the theoretical 96 �explanation goes structure. The deeper depends on features of and of propositional structure delivered types model underlying the are in shoMn, capsule form, in the first table of this paper contrasting parts of mainstream other more detailed examples are reproduced American and Philippine cul bares; in theoretical Mork on social paradigms (e.g. RP, CPE, Cotgrove^and references cited therein). Just as the of explication by paradigm May of models enabled a clarification and unification .job to be done on the giant conceptual mess that the of paradigm had become, notion so the parallel explication in abou t, but in anthropology more generally, can be reduced. especially, up his c^.\tu,rg. Kluckholn Geertz Minds attempted in resor t diffusion by pointing to the about complaint of and^r metaphors, to the analogies 'perhaps in as desperation, a map*, and as a matrix', as a sieve, before a mere paragraph later, offering his OMn metaphor of culture as a Meb of significance ' ' too, ' , though here an exact technical notion, has or interpretation (and model its roots in metaphor]^ Rs it happen^Geertz^/ account is not too bad a picture of the sort of logical model involved structure^Mith an interpretation imposed, typically on it. that is of a system, a Meb-like function, supplying signifi'-arn.e -r meaning The other similes are hoMever more exact: modelling a landscape. Furthermore, elaboration of) culture (not really 'definitions is indeed '(4) "an abstraction from behaviour"', paradigm, supplies '(3) "a May of thinking, of items validated. to take ooth a map and a. up as Geertz suggests), a model Mhere it is a social Mhich, feeling and believing" The model hoMever is not merely descriptive, applied and can be read prescriptively as, Kluckholn s in rerm=. but Mill be ('?) "a mechanism for the normative regulation of behaviour"' and '(10) "a set of techniques for adjusting both to the external environment and to other 97 men'". Such a model, Mhich does 2 �to '(5) "a theory on the part of the anthropologist about the correspond in group of people in fact behave'" and their vieM a Mhich '*(4) a "structure of pooled learning'"' and affords certainly of standardized orientations, to recurrent problems'"'. ^ay Morld, the (7) "a set of Since the social paradigm it does 1egacy the individual [in the society] acquires from is ''(11) "a precipitate of history'", and his group'" discern of a culture that Conga!ton and David three parts or The Kuhn includes readily supplied They a model. by are, procedures characterising and controlling the behaviour of adherents; secondly procedures; thirdly the products and exemplars material resulting, e.g. interpretation function validate^! both themes The connection Mi th exemplars and artefacts is^e^^ direct, RP, The delivers as Mel lit including values and ideas (on both see of objects, domains neMspapers. textbooks, pp.12-16). and of more than 3 textbook may present a paradigm^^or^more likely, part of one; or on^ kind. it may, like an artefact, supply or be a partial modelling of the paradigm. remaining The culture life-forms done. to has Thus of qualifying term comprehensive is cover a sufficiently comprehensive part of life a community, Rbraham, vague deliberately styles there are varying degrees to Mhich this for one, can and be explains various inclusive levels of 7 ' (pp.12-13) before opting for tbe most inclusive, under Mhich 'culture is If§' and 'includes the Mhole of the knoMledge, common life of the people arts, in the the science, technology, religions, morali ty, ri tual, politics, literature, ttTP*. & theory normally has many models, some exact and canonical, some of __ Mhich bring, out all that holds in the theory but not only Mhat holds i s i ngTy stil Impartial models, Mhich ac-e a'-'_urately there; and, more surpr -----depict part of the theory. ) 98 �ULk etiquette fashions ...' of eighteenth pauperisation centuries, Such (p.13). narrower, a Under In this use [that again of "higher" of the mind. includes a mastery of all literature, process (p.12) ^ess use of the term however 'culture is limited to Mhat are caned comprehensive, things and a of Mhat the educated man in cou 1 d culture history, music, painting and sculpture, the age of enlightenment , person culture], reflect the the s even teen th stood for', Mho i e culture and and could knoM in the more c ompr eh en s i ve u se. The European vieM of culture, Mhich tends to concentrate on high t.u = ture, is insufficiently comprehensive, leaving out a crucial aspect of culture, so it has been argued, namely attitudes to and approaches to the environment, and so natural environments largely devoid of man-made features and influences particular. in R fuller picture of environmentally-sensitive culture looks like this:11^-. (From previous page) See p.21. Accounts of culture of .;!i= very inclusive, but still unnecessarily anthropic, form are common in the . __ literature. Thus, for example, Harris: 'A culture is the total socially acquired life-May or life-style of a group of people* (p.144), their patterns of behaviour and thought. Thus, Mith even less qualification, the first of Kluckholn's eleven definitions of culture (as listed in Geertz pp.4-5), 'the total may of life of of a people', a definition repeated in Congalton and David, p.22. The intended model accordingly provides a complete representation of life-Mays of members of the cul tur-e. 111^ Ft fuller and better account Mhich gets very close to the model-theoretic analysis, is Kumer's analogous definition of culture: The shared symbolic system Mhich gives meaning to human interactions in a society. It refers to a society s May of perceiving, interpreting and expressing things ... it in'„lude=> knowledge, belief-systems, values, norms and ideologies Mhich enable the members of a society to perceive, organise and interpret reality ... reality is always perceived Mithin an evaluative framework. Similar too is Tylor's definition of 'culture' in terms of a structure again: 'Culture or Civilization ... that complex MholeMhich includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, laM, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society'. (Primitive Culture vol. 7, p.7). So all human societies have a culture, a generalised paradigm. It is better to separate out civi1ization, however, and link it to its 'root meaning of living in cities . �religions, morality, ritual, politics, literature, even etiquette and fashions is 'culture use limited to Mhat are called things of mind. the In this [that history, con.jec tures that music, this painting and sculpture,/^..' (p.13), use evolved 'as a result of Rbraham^. of a / process ^7 /J cen turles, he age of enlightenment, stood for'', and could knoM (p.13). Such a per son could reflect the Mhole culture in the more comprehensive use. The European vieM of culture, Mhich tends to concentrate on high culture, is insufficiently comprehensive, it has been argued, natural environments leaving out a crucial aspect of culture, namely attitudes to and approaches to the largely devoid of man-made features and so environment, influences in /Recounts of culture of this very inclusive form but still unnecessari an thropic form, are common m the literature* ^hus^for example^Harris: <R culture is the total socially acquired life-May or life-style of a group of people' (p.144), their patterns of behaviour and though t. Thus, Mith even less qualification, the first of Kluckholn's eleven definitions of culture ^listed m Geertz pp.4-5), the total May of life of a peopled a definition repeated in and David^p.22. lhe model ^provides a complete representation o+ life-Mays of members of the R fuller and better account^Mhich gets very ejase to^ the model-theoretic analysis^ ig Kiernan's analogous definition of jculturq: The shared symbolic system Mhich gives meaning to human interactions in a society. It refers to a society's May of perceiving, interpreting and expressing things ... it includes knoMledge, belief-systems, values, norms and ideologies Mhich enable the members of a society to perceive, organise and interpret reality ... reality is alMays perceived Mithin an evaluative frameMork. Similar too is Taylor's definition of 'culture' in terms of a structure again: 'Culture or Civilization ... that complex Mhole Mhich includes knoMledge, belief, art, morals, laM, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society'. (Primitive Culture vol. 7, p.7). So al 1 human societies have a culture, a generalised paradigm. It is better to separate out c iyi l,i zat 1 on, hoMever, and i-t—nc-sep%'e/. +<sf? its 'root meaning of living in cities'. �PRIMARY CULTURE DIAGRAM sense of "'culture'', intellectual sociology, in and mhere order culture. artistic the , * practice takes up the primary namely lor development, Con c i se English 0 i c t i on ary) , in -state put] in a in shared "the particular, the group- or people mith, and the education-derived sense, leading in mhich the to Evidently the explication, mhich makes the product primary a given reverses like agriculture, viticulture, and the culture, mas first and foremost a process of It is important to separate off - the training or discipline in or mhere of and as presented culture of a society is said to comprise a given culture, consists "the as it is in mhich the culture comprises the community, the historical order, so on, dictionaries, in to set aside - some derivative senses, sharing, culture offered values and beliefs"' of the society. derived sense, or as or people"' (cf. community norms, through social paradigms, explication so -far, The , a "cultivation" of intellect and 11^ As Mi 11 iams explains, the ear 1 y meaning of "culture"' mas as a process; and the "culture of the mind" mas viemed as a process rather than a product or achieved state. In (early) modern use "culture" became, like 'civilized"', a condition. Onlp^the "fourth modern development" did culture appear as "the mhole may of life, material, intellectual and spiritual of a given society"' (p.273), i.e., as a comprehensive social paradigm. The other forms, the first three developments^mere restricted versions of this, to respectively the individual, intellectual and moral parts, and arts and intellectual areas. , r. To invent the ahistorical explanatory pattern, scientific paradigms are, so to say, the inherited cu1tures of science. 100 �However the reversal makes it easier- to get some grip on art and technology. the very rich process-product complex that a culture comprises. example, goes astray in settling for a process definition of for Bonner, allied 'culture to the education-derived sense: "'By culture I mean the transfer of information by means, behavioural by the process particularly most of and teaching Hhile the definition certainly achieves its intended objective of learning'. including (cultures'^ an7maC^g%p&, excessively it is, as already remarked, a accounting such things as semaphoring loM redefinition, quite between boy scouts as culture. There is a further dimension of complexity so far largely omitted through restriction pure most contemporary states are far from culturally pure, comprising a cultures, mixture Nhile tribal groups may have relatively to pure cultures. of peoples and cultures. represented More generally, an n-cultural society by a system of n paradigms adhered to in the society. & multi­ & multi­ cultural society is thus an n-cultural society Mhere n is cultural society may Australia, simply not include however be very many. it pluralistic; as may, in brought groups of people from different cultures under some dominant culture Mhich controls in one region together is the main Much depends then on the type of system of paradigms political institutions. involved, on hoM the paradigms are themselves interrelated and structured. Pt society Mill function (cf. Ptbraham, p.l5ff., incompatible Mith extreme individualism ). a variety of subcultures. is Mhich not Characteristically and commonly For culture is the glue of a group; competing cultures. integrative alMays have a culture, several perhaps it has an important Mho remarks that culture is Pt society Mill also typically have Pt subculture is a paradigm, included in a culture, sufficiently subcultures comprehensive to rank as a share norms and assumptions Mith some culture. larger culture except Mhere they diverge. The dominant cultures in countries like Australia and Ptmerica 101 can be �as having tree structures. represented a is there Subcultures century gentry Protestant many the between differences terms,. 1 1^ tribu.ari!=''=. subcultural long played significant parts in have last example, with culture, mainstream Transposing to river-network Australian L-athoXc, extensive immigration program, of ethnic subcultures. pattern with critical challenged. and an o? As a result complex aiong permit the relatively easy formation assumptions and that is, the cultural streams remain of the mainstream culture rival and alternative social paradigms (such as Plhat important Australia now boasts a much more persistence of subcultures - so long as, and Protestant Flexible multi-cultural arrangements, substantial social tolerance, subcultures f'-tr of Australian colonial culture had streams bearing on leisure activities such as gambling (see Inglis?. its history; are n^t those of the Al ternative These culture. dominant accommodate, within too a pluralistic (a plural paradigm) society provided the social paradigms present limits, r^m no to overarching socio-political arrangements and the prevailing type of threat structure (if they should however things would have to give or P'Ower tan t-ha^ge, rival river networks are bound to alter the cultural landscape). Cultures, explaining and illustrated that like they social paradigms, inducing social change. 'his important role in RP). It is worth can also afford explanatory roles in cases where appeal explanatory roles. repudiation nature', an on the that is, For example, that it noticing to Philp criticises for Foucault prevents him from i_on = i = .en. explaining in and human culture can replace nature of the human subject and the denial of a ground both So much has already been shown as regards social paradigms (e.g. nature have been supposed mandatory; social have in for numaf; directed 11^). A subculture of a given culture is itself a culture (i.e. a comprehensive social paradigm) applying to a subgroup of the given wider culture, which agrees with the wider culture on characterising (paradigma.i'-) \ features but which may diverge, and typically does, by virtue of further cultural features, i.e. features in its paradigm. A subculture stands 102 �resistance or social struggle for the better. explain a and .justify such resistance 'requires that Me make some commitment to conception of the human good and this usually rests on some vieM of human The modifier "usually"' gives the game aMay; nature and human subjectivity"'. the Accordingly to Philp tp.i7), to route can circuit through culture. justificatory directed social to as good discerned under a The struggle can paradigm; regional be the commitments can be cultural. has been descriptive of relevant fea^f tures of the different cultures contrasted. Mi th some of The attempt concerned, in main terms A Mork at this paper, of explanation like much Mork on culture, of more unexpected features the cu1tures some criticism, and some attempt to explain some cu1tural of others. This, like the modelling account, points to a more difficult enterprise, only broached: namely, the task of providing theories of the cultures formufsrfed, and so perhaps explaining Mhat pulls them together, makes them tick, gives them their shape and grip, and so on. A 103 �/ .< / / Contemporary scientific redeployment of human nature APPENDIX 2: Attempts evolutionary of this sort are based on the moder^tn synthesis, and appear in most extreme form in sociobiology. r /e cc^"i A r ) % Sociobioldoical attempts, such as Nilson's, to redeploy human nature to A j ' 1 a]t I er natives fail. rule out ^political possibilities and narroM social ajtli, A underlying Wilson's characterisation of human nature is very different the main socio-political tradition. the full set of innate Ei.e. those sense, and in nature.*- hardly set.' a the hoMever is (pp.217-8, For the definition if socially relevant b5t subpools, and or since cultural relativity, since stage.J^ In any though, like health more they hardly significant constraints on political alternatives. racial disease less plausibly, conjunctively if read, enough; of read is Mill inclue the full set of genetically-determined it It is characterisation ^b^Vare remote from Enlightenment concerns, against Mith the those every (normal) human is bound to undergo at some generally, narrower ambiguity in resolved. patterns humans are liable to suffer; event, the It is not constant or static, since genes may mutate. ahistorical, only behavioural genetic or genetically-determinedJ predispositions that affect social behaviour' rearrangement). disp^M^tively '* In the broader- sense, human nature Ei-sJ characterise the human species; that predispositions from appear to impose Moreover, i*t—is no bulwark races separate have by no means everything is determined gene genetically^ e.g. language^of some culture). there is no need to labour it: see Ruse, '*1- As this is a commonplace vieM, Singer and especially Pigden. 11^ Genetic determinism is simply one, and perhaps^ the M^kest, of several forms of determinism intended to vastly reduce cultural variability. Nilson does not rely on that form exclusively: see p.207. AtPijol/ /o ) 104 y * y o �situation of certaintg such as the eLementarg choLce situationi affords, expectation vaLues drop out. Then, as under the maximaLLtg criteri^, R is the rat LonaL choLce under this utiLitg criterion; B cannot be^a rat LonaL oho Lee, it is^)-------------------- The same argument, Lf correct, ref'ute^Bages^anism. For, as Suppes c La Lms, the Bayesian posLtLon Leads to the oversLL sLngte prLncLpLe of ra t Lona L i tg, the principLe of maximizing expected utLLLtg: One action or decision shouLd be chosen over another Lf^ the expected utLLLtg of the fLrst Ls at L'east as great as that of the second, ... (p.178).^ _ (p.178)." ((The arguments aLso eawt&r princ ip Les, such as that criter ia^ of sure thing, appeaLed to in derivations of maximization Satisizing, doLng-MLth-enough, counters the orthodox rat LonaLitg axioms; satisficing, doing-as-Meii-as-can-be-in-the-circumstances, does not. Satisficing is constrained maximization; the satisficer, organisation man on bimon s picture, aiMags chooses the maximum from among aLternatLves aireadg enumerated, and so in the eLementrg diagram chooses R, not B (as satisizers mag), inere is aLready a Literature at pains to point out that satisficing does not int^ fer^ Mith the rationatitu axioms.— though that it does not Mas^ cLear enough from Limited rationaiitg^ Thus, for exampLe, Riker and Ordeshook turn^g criticisms of the principle of maximizing expected utiLitg on satisficing qrounds, ^d bu arguing (incorrectLg) that in aLL pr^cticaL cases maximizing snd satisficing r^^ease identicai^ appeat tMice to Simon s authoritg: MhLLe some enthusiasts have misinterpreted hLs argument as antiratLonaL, Ln fac*^ Professor Simon does not suppose that, Mhen better or Morse aLternatives are cieartg avaiiabie to the chooser, ne mag reject the better for Morse, just because the worse H sat^factory (pp.21-2). ... CertainLg Professor Simon is not asking for thLs, because even Ln hLs termf, Lt Ls LrratLonaL to reject better for Morse. be expected to occur Os an LrratLonaLLtg satisficing cannot then (p-23). Ue need not the enthusiasts; but Me are supposLng Mhat S'^mon ded no t. 7 ........................... Various Ln ./rat LonaL ^9.. Impact on paradoxes and on ratLonaL behaviour.. L — ---- paradoxes ]——— r* A—t------------------------------- - ——----------- ;--------7-7%-------_______________________________ A cases paradox disapp dLSappearaag choLce theorg appear Ln a neM Light; in many peases atftytt7H5etgcr> For the aLr o^ paradox derLves from competLng maximization crLterLa. R good exampLe is provided bg NeMComb's paradox, Mhich is supposed to arise in the foLLoMing situation^: There are tMO boxes before gou: one transparent and one opaque. You can see that there is $1,000 in the transparent box, and gou knoM that there is either $1,000,000 or nothing in the opaque box. You must choose betMeen the foLLoMing tMO acts: take the contents onig of the opaque box or take the contents of both boxes. Furthermore, there is a being in Mhose predictive poMers gou have enormous confidence, 3nd gou knoM that he has aLreadg determined the contents of the opaque box according to the foLLoMing ruLes: If he predicted that gou Mouid take -9- A ��Take the list of characteristics Gilson considers for instance (Mhich forms in a curious May part of his attempt to rehabilitate a particular partisan of humans on the strength of sociobiology: p.22). The list has to be pruned if"it is to cover the spread of knoMn human races and cultures, vaguer and less question-begging (e.g. removed); but then vieM and rendered Mith reference to relations to numan-=> it ceases to separate tribes of humans from tribes primates or other nonhumans. [Detail and adjust.] /f2' 7 o+ �The NeM Zealand comparison: APPENDIX 3. Preliminary notes towards or New qualitative rating of mainstream New Zealand culture, A Zealand data, as against an Australian (and sometimes other) goes as follows:but still high for Angloceltic world (presumably per capita less, Drinking: patterns similar except for club phenomenon in Australia, figures available); and dry areas and prohibition proclivities in New Zealand. Gambling: significantly but less, for patterns similar except important matters of clubs and casinos. Sport: but less variety in New Zealand, owing to greater similar addiction, New Zealand emphasis on tramping, uniformity of culture. trail systems, not matched in Oz. Permissiveness: variety. less, markedly especially concerning sexual issues and But Polynesian alternative increasingly influential in New Zealand. Plural ism: a less, more uniform society, with few ethnic groupings and strata. stronger, but still less so than UK. Authori tarianism: It is hypothesized by Sinclair that older authority patterns in New Zealand arise from child rearing especially techniques, in Oz. counterpart are, the famous Plunkett method, The result was a rather up-tight the suggestion is, more laid-back, easy-going. which no had product. real Australians Vet the matter is not =o simple, as the next items reveal. Policing and opposition among the younger in New Zealand. increasing bushrangers, cultural Long-standing opposition to police coercive methods: etc., mythology. in New Zealand, in Oz, But no adulation of and no Eureka Stockade Violence perhaps less in New Zealand, or associated though (at home) neither society is very violent by American standards. Egali tarianism: slightly more in New Zealand, despite the Australian image. In both Jack is as good as his master. Pace of Life: slower in New Zealand. 1 �less in NeM Poverty: in NeM Zealand. Distrust of markets simi1 ar less than Oz Fraternity and mateship: Hale chauvinism: margina11y less (?) Unionisation: Mith no environmen tai actions. Environmen t: communi ties mixed Extensive NeM Zealand to many i ssues in even sympathy, public among rural the An issue breakdoMn is required here: better Chemicals and Maste management: Parks and reserves: National ism: (Inglis) margina11y better, excessively in Morse both places strong in both It is taken as validating consider the many memorials Mith 'they their country' scattered around small toMns. national ism (or stateism) as a means and Hi th by political leaders). It can be Mar and sport of social and national cohesion, purpose (e.g. died It is sometimes suggested is the neM secular religion operation in those tMo related enterprises, death for that seen in Both have served and have been used for that (Hars Mere a common method of obtaining maintaining integration of large states, improved communications perhaps fall into disuse) and propaganda netMorks, that method Divisive national sport is interesting from could this angle also. Federalism and Australian idea federation: of adding No experience in NeM NeM Zealand as a further sympathetic consideration in NeM Zealand. 2 Zealand. state The obtains frequent little There Mas, and is, no loyalty to an �Australasian nation. Communications: Broadcasting less commercialised in Ne^j Zealand. As a result less H) violence, etc. Reading: more in Neu Zealand. Education and Research: opposition to theory. (HoM much more?) Little research done in Ne^ Zealand, but less mixed. Public school system better. 3 �The following have been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. • • Letter, Alastair (University of Waikato) to Richard Sylvan, 17 April 1985 re feedback on paper. (4 pages (2 leaves)) Letter, Tom (Philosophy Department, Massey University) to Richard Sylvan, 10 Jul 1985 re feedback on paper. (3 pages (2 leaves)) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document 7t? // /J -Z7 . /^c ^/r 7^-/4' ' 7W^V *^' 77 , ' . . 5? -/? / , .- /^/** ' - 4^ ?/^ /^.'^ " *^/ -! r -7' _.;7'. *'<K * HORKING DRAFT CULTURE AND THE ROOTS OF POLITICAL DIVERGENCE: a South Pacific perspective with emphasis on the Australian/American contrast A ma.ior function of culture is to regulate and control change,1 Political in the South Pacific, change North, industrial can, in and political principle then, the be grounded in and powered by One organising theme, a corollary of features of local and regional.culture. the from divergence argument, facilitates the transition from principle to practice:- It is that the requisite elements are present in regional cultures, the potentiality is South Pacific region (and Australia the for there, in particular) to proceed in a very different social and political direction from the North (and USA in particular). th" from American arrangements, Given the radical unsatisfactoriness of the 2 in many frequently exposed respects , such a different direction is worth taking - if it can be. serious problem in the way of a But arrangements, from outside or from above. change is imposition of And, political since imposition shades into this is only one of the obstacles impeding change in the South Pacific and elsewhere. Another^forcing more and more peoples, no longer political pressure, sheltered into the same type of socio-political is supposed to derive from human nature itself. Free people are by geographical isolation, arrangements economic people, in pretty much the American mould, so it is claimed. By this route, economic imperialism can replace political imperialism. 1. Nature, theory - one culture, to which A supposedly key question in political and control. we are said to have no satisfactory answer in the absence of a worthwhile theory of human nature (or human natures) - is this:- 1. Thus Abraham p.29ff.; Awa p.30. 2. For a recent trenchant expose, see Cohen and Rogers. 1 To extent does human nature alloM for alternative political Mhat arrangements? Or, to turn the question around:- in virtue of nature the of much-promoted 6nglo-6merican Enl ightenment, is oMn gain or (including technical knoM-hoM), from 6 the taboos (and Mill (properly) concerned Mi th information 3 free people are basically economic people. but for their shortage of that is to replace one ideology by another. ideology is no longer so Enlightenment of range descended directly are essentially people that is, interests; 6 s ought noM to be evident, the answer , self-centred individuals, become) broad that once freed from systems of myths, superstition, from the "nature" reduce the organisationa! options? HoM does that controls, on humans What restrictions are imposed evident: Mhat But recommends it? Under pressure of this sort, the 6nglo-6merican answer gets transformed to the that the economic picture of human nature is superior, theme and fitting of That 'self-appointed West European superiority'' has in 4 the Romantics. Fortunately, turn been disputed, since the time of Herder and rational creatures. hoMever, the extensive ensuing dialectic can be substantially avoided. For all these questions and ansMers presuppose, to begin Mi th, a certain misplaced essential ism, that there is such an invariant nature common to human beings, Mhich exactly separates humans from other creatures, suitably constant and invariant 5 necessary and sufficient conditions , are legion. They are specify such an essence, attempts to given by and a frequent feature of Enlightenment thought. 611 men are the same because of universal drives [such as to pleasure and the avoidance of pain]. These drives mill operate independently of any location. Chief among those drives Mas that toMards self-preservation - Hol bach, for instance, stipulates: Me shall call nature in man the collection of properties and quali t i es Mhich constitute him Mhat he is, Mhich are inherent to his species, Mhich distinguish him from other animal species or every man feels, thinks, Mhich he has in common Mi th them 3^ These people are also picked out under various alternative (but not strictly equivalent) descriptions, e.g. as acquisitive individuals, possessive individuals. 2 acts and seeks his oMn Mell-being at all times; these are qualities and properties that constitute human nature ... 6. But this attempt at essentialist definition of human nature fails, Fts it stands, the definition is inadequate; characteristic May. humans seek just their OMn Mell-being alMays; hut f? yoMtc df-e, other commitments.^ L to egoism, by HoMever, replacing ( 'Mell-being' (such as human vegetables, definition, replacing 'every definition is again inadequate; example, in a quite for not all some are altruistic, some have Ct ' suppose Me avoid such familiar counterinstances rendering such internal egoism analytic. examples the by say 'broad Mell-being', thus &nd suppose to avoid other counter- morons and the like), man' by 'every normal human'. Me normalise the then the But for it fails to distinguish humans from, for It applies equally to dolphin nature or, for that matter, dolphins. to qori11 a nature. Of 4. course the definition can again be patched, by appealing to the (From previous page) See Berry, p.30ff., from Mhom the quote is taken, It is Morth spelling out a little the extent of agreement and disagreement Mi th Herder. Hhat is applauded is 1. 'Herder's dismissal of the Enlightenment's conception of human nature as static, acultural and ahistorical' (Berry, p.32), but not. XI. Herder's cultural relativism, that 'each culture ... should be treated on its OMn merits and not judged by some faulty perspective such _ In the as la belle_____ nature ' (p.3U), or from any other perspective. pluralistic framework of the text (Mhich presupposes PPP), a good many cross-cultural judgements are made and defended. X2. Herder's relativisation of human nature to culture, and embodiment of it in cu1ture; for example, 'it is through language that human nature Hi th can be seen to be specifical1y embodied in cu1ture' <p.32). bu t relativisation the notion loses its original theoretical point; Mhile failing in this role, cultural nature is open to many of the same Nor can language bear the Meigh t sorts of objections as human nature. Herder loads upon it. Herder's human chauvisism: '... it is speech and Mi th that reason X3. I1an can choose, man is king' and freedom, that differentiates man. Hild animals are free, can choose, communicate, solve puzzles, (p.36). carry out elementary reasoning; in these respects they surpass and and many other humans. Furthermore, X3 gets Herder into serious chi 1dren not to say inconsistency, Mi th 1. trouble, 5. 6. Abraham, draMing on Hittgenstein, essence, p.23ff. Berry p.17. presents just these conditions for an Berry supplies several other similar examples. 3 cluster of -features that separate humans from other mammals or anatomical biological specification of homo sapiens. the to normalised But the resulting definition, Mi th its analytical egoism, does little more than such biological definitions of human: it does not supply a nature, does it deliver not superbiological features of political relevance. The notion of human nature -a/"! thus fragments: into the satisfactory enough biological notion of human, and an superbiological (or sociobiological) unsatisfactory nature or essence. addition; What is this further, problematic, nature? that of The Romantics can be read as arguing that there is none, no nature as distinct from culture, only local nature (Herder's term) Mhich coincides Mith culture. excretions and variations in order to reach an essence leaves, cultural off Peeling like Wittgenstein's artichoke, nothing. The notion of human nature is a theoretical item, amid cultural variability, stability a constant bulMark against but designed as Mell to justify (as natural or, failing that, of type particular political provide introduced to economy and legislature, and relativism, as superior) its a imposition 7 fashion, fact and that the is not so easily dissolved, notion by one illustration. is Mritten large in much political but is defective, illustration reveals, such a HoMever the theory, does not shoM that it or the embedding theory is sound. received, not, This resilient notion has been Midely applied in else. everyMhere and is f)nd it is and in its socio-political selectivity it is, as the virtually of a piece Mith human chauvinism (Mhich Mould assign an unduly privileged position to human beings in the ecological scheme of things). In under 7. fact the superbiological notion of human nature begins any attempt to set it doMn, in much the May that attempts to dissolve supporting Hence the Enlightenment program of imposing enlightened Western culture everyMhere, later emphasised by Bentham. The Legislator, knoMing that human nature is ever the same [different countries do not have different catalogues of pleasure and pain), can reform the laMS and even transplant them from one society to another' (Berry, p.18). doMn something ethically chauvinism 3 disintegrate. The notion of human nature - a nature human there stable or constant social some are features humans about (some special classes of humans excepted perhaps) humans that special - presupposes holding for across different cultures, Mhich are furthermore distinctive!/ human peop!es, features. The presupposition fails, because once cultural variation between shared peoples characteristics remain , Mhich furthermore are shared various by animal cu1tures, such as those of primates. Consider , books, or first, such products or tools of more literary cultures as Since of contemporary cultures as telephones and computers. cultures lacked such items, their possession most distribution or obviously cannot figure as part of Mhat marks out human nature. Consider next, Mhat are commonly taken to be key components of (human) nature, certain then, basic human needs, such as food and shelter. These requirements are far from free of cultural and environmental determinants. as required in the May of shelter, place to place. Mays, common under For look at Mhat is regarded and hoM it varies from cu1ture to culture, (&nd even Mhat is taken as basic can often be met in a myriad Mays.) though acceptably in some cultures only in a feM fixed The denominator is the rather trivial requirement of some sort more extreme conditions - a requirement also of Mombats. The situation This claim concerning human chauvinism is argued in detail in EE. But the claim concerning human nature is only sketchily defended in the text. For ................................. ' t nature, 1 ike the alleged social-arrangement-dictating features of' human determinism, are alleged features of economic or technological simi1 ar insofar as they to be removed especially rather major obstacles supposedly severely and inevitably restrict the character of future societies - than the main business of the present enterprise. For tunately then the claim, that the superbiological notion of human nature is a defective theoretical one Mhich dissolves, is defended elseMhere: not only, ,, in effect, in Mork of Romantics from Herder on, but also in significant recent literature. Foucault, for example, can be read as saying that human nature is an invention of the Enlightenment Mhich dissolves: ''his much discussed ... dissolution of man is nothing more, or less, than the claim that the attempt to establish order upon a scientific understanding of human nature is both profoundly mistaken and italics added). food, Mith and sex, so on, considerably from race to race, by flourish. Again the somewhat conditions, trivial lowest or more loosely Mhere common tribal denominator Nor are attempts to mark out by some more complex list of jointly necessary nature vary requirements Europeans for example being very inefficient applies also to various groups of animals. human Dietary tribal standards and unable to survive satisfactorily many people is hardly better. by a cluster of natural and features, the sufficient much more successful, or of direct political application without the importation of what is culturally at issue - values. In any case, such vague and general lists as 10 emerge impose little constraint at all on a political direction, since a variety of political arrangements is compatible with such listings. Accordingly, nature as such is not. an important constraint on or a theory of human nature a key ingredient in endeavours 11 work out a political philosophy or political directions . The reason is political to human theory, the reason that determining the conditions for the good life would like not impose a satisfactory constraint on a political theory, namely presupposition 12 failure. Like the meaning of life , the good life fails to demarcate a single thing; there are many styles of good lives. So too there is human *9^ The converse is seen in the extent to which tribal peoples gain weight on European diets, At another level, consider the Haori attitude to, and underlying revulsion by, cooked food: see Alpers, p.7-9. 10. For one such list, which however requires pruning and adjustment, see Nilson, p.22. As it happens, Nilson does not make anything much of this list (which does not supply necessary conditions), immediately presents a parallel list for insect societies - a list which does considerable damage to more traditional claims about human nature - and then proceeds in effect to demolish main criteria that have been used to separate humans from animals and to restrict cultures to human societies (e.g. p.39). For more on contemporary "scientific" efforts to deploy a theory of human nature for social and political ends, see Appendix 2. 11. Nhich is perhaps as well, since we still have so little reliable and unprejudiced information as to what "human nature" amounts to, what its variational possibilities, in different environments, might be, or of the possibilities beyond past terrestrial selections of cultures. 12. On which see Routley and Griffin. 6 and human nature, nature depending on the culture or social paradigm and on Nature, both human and not, varies uith culture and environment. the setting. Because of this tuo-uay dependence, there is no unique stable superbiological human nature. notion of human is nature the picture of nature as given, as a stable across races and tribes, notion uith culture as a variable There is no such culturally invariant division: The picture is flaued in much the same uay, as perception, top. on culture affects local nature. as the familiar picture of then, stable consisting of given uninterpreted sense data, across (normal) perceivers, uith interpretation imposed on the neutral data. Nor therefore is culture something that can be creamed off the top, so to find real human features or basic nature to speak, Certainly, underneath. be destroyed; however uhat results from removal by destruction of not something closer to real people, but people uith a destroyed it is also uith attempts like Hobbes or Rauls to peel organisation off the the top, in order to locate in a political quasi-analytical or quasi-historical uay, a state of nature underneath or preceding some organised state or other, derived from mistaken flaued picture, questionable or presuppositions, is assumed. Hhat uill be found underneath, or in the original (natural) state, is, it is usually conveniently assumed, a nature that fits the vieu to be developed uith the explai ned and the culture's riqht values very fortunately in-built. is privileged image status quo - position of some of itself, and elements of the as uell dominant as a be serves for economic man, social hardly surprisingly, that for Enlightenment man, 7 dominant Northern fully competitive possessive individualism (much the same model, uhich to or justified is something like present socio-political arrangements paradigm - underlying human nature turns out to be, of Given that uhat for the that is, "rational etc.) person", myths, to The myth of unique human nature functions, perpetuate other like many or instil particular social arrangements and special pr ivi1ege. Thus too the myth of human nature is linked to other culture-based myths, myths the of predominantly self-interested - to rational) (normal) al 1 bring humans maximizer s no firm starting point in human nature, myths. of myths. None aboriginal peoples comprised their least and as insofar as they are Mith the image of up As there is no underlying hard ground, so there is none in these repeated the Melanesians, associated Polynesians or Australian maximizers; strongly communal lifestyles and after especially, and (at individuals The South Pacific Mas, and remains, rich in cultures Mhich upset these associated indeed aggressive some of the myths bound in urban-industrial humans. contemporary as preparedness a loM sufficiency threshold had been reached, source of criticism from the European cultures Mork stop, to Mas a major that came to dominate the region. forms and types of Even aggressiveness, and approaches to Mar, often taken to be solid ground, are culture and environment dependent, and vary Mi th 13 both parameters . Aggressiveness is often supposed to impose huge constraints on political arrangements. But there is little substance to the claim that humans are naturally aggressive independently of social or cultural setting. The most that appears clear is that circumstances can be through croMding or provocation or cultural arranged, for instance TEh A striking illustration of environmental variation is afforded by the differences betMeen savannah dMelling and forest dMelling tribes of baboons. For a local illustration, consider Maori approaches to Mar (like Mar conventions, a social phenomenon), before European corruption. Thus Best reports that 'an individual, or a Mhole clan, might decline to take part in an engagement on account of some evil omen, and such an action Mould be approved of (p.15). There are several, apparently reliable, stories of Maoris engaged in Mar supplying the opposition Mith equipment or ammunition, or temporarily abandoning their fighting effort to help out the other (British) side, so the battle could proceed proper 1y. relocation, Mhere of peoples cultures Mill become aggressive familiar more people of other cultures Mill not, in the face of immense brutality. depends Once types. Certainly some arrangements are required to but these can be of a Mide range of shortsightedly again, Mhat is normally as fixed: see certainly, such Mhich components nature human accounted varies Mith culture and environment, and upon perhaps as people often do but Mill just give up, cope Mith or suitably isolate aggression, alternative - and often people as selfishness, cooperativeness, individuality do. Hhat is presently much more important than either culture or nature determining social arrangements is another factor: imposition. social Whatever one from Mithout, through region and neM arrangements imposed, Hith long-standing arrangements, May or another. invariably namely, outside control or arrangements have evolved in a local nature and culture can be overridden, imposition is and the changes in arrangements typically especially, the South Pacific has, in almost involve either violence in their adaption or mass migration of people or both. last tMO hundred years, in In the like much of the been drastically so affected, in a complex May. ^nd the changes, neMer Morld still floMing strongly from the North, continue. He are in the last days of the destruction of old and cultures, economic destruction is noM to a considerable extent by more subtle cultural, and technological Outside direct control can be exercised, economic sanctions, film and television (i.e. earlier times. in many Mays less blatant than such as through introduction of etc., as monetary and loan policies, as through exchange and training programs, magazines, 14. or occur, intervention of one sort or another, neM technologies, Mell means than the cruder methods of slightly the textbooks, through physical advertising and exemplifications of Hi Ison's argument that humans are innately aggressive involves such an invalid move: he looks at the behaviour of Semai men Mhen 'taken out of their nonviolent society' by recruitment in a British colonial army (p.100)! ^s Mell, Hilson's case rests on a dubious redefinition of innateness, and a loM redefinition of aggressiveness to take in forms of mere (nonaggressive) conflict (pp.9?-100). of process of cultural conversion and erosion; this quieter are unwittingly, part European peoples in the South Pacific are often culture). rather than, victims as well as, now but many of perpetrators (cf. us and Crough Wheelwright). Human communities have been - and many still are - as insensitive to other human cultures as they are to the natural environment (witness Americans and their allies in Vietnam). or beyond redemption. pushed of creation Like an ecosystem, a culture can be destroyed, This is disaster areas proceeds Yet the blatant cases 15 by disruption of culture and lifestyle using violence. There is typically political furthermore, where apace is possible at all, recovery a sometimes of the order of human generations. perhaps well-known. sufficiently production of imperialism, these politically e.g. USA in contaminated Central America, - in recovery long period, Yet there is increasing regions, Israel in especially Lebanon, through Russia in Afghanistan, Indonesia in East Timor and West Papua, etc. In the South Pacific, there are many quieter Northern influences at work, but the strongest now is unquestionably the businessmen, films can academics, American. American companies, tourists and warships, their technology and patents, and television programs, There are the most evident and be various motives and aims (and assumptions) behind the newer behind endeavours such as the American to 16 Granted it everywhere. "free enterprise" philosophy and practice their 17 business and American to American economic supremacy, mostly contributes to and economic imperialism, 15. These disaster areas should perhaps be cordoned off like those by communicable disease, but from continuing disruptive, interference. infected outside What is said about American cultural and politic al imperial ism applies, with adaption, in a lesser way, to imperialism and col onial ism by other nation-states such as USSR, Britain, France and Indonesia. USA has no monopoly on imperialism. US imperialism in the third wor1 dis in part documented and analysed in Chomsky and Herman. 17. Though not invariably as the experience with the Japanese motor industry has indicated. 10 the transfer of substantial regional wealth and surplus value to the to But national economic reasons are not the only sort of reasons such are pursued; apart t^at many from the side-issue of integrity, USA. policies Americans really do believe in the optimality of their local ideals to the exclusion other of arrangements, there are deeper and somewhat more respectable ideological reasons as wel1. imperialistic The that assumption for nature, be underpinned all human nature is at bottom really political (a technological means. can instance highly economically oriented. distortions economic) endeavours means, way: they by like Thus, descriptive a American human but for political analogue of economic externalities) and lack and other peoples would choose the American (political simply have not really been given the For many peoples this is simply not true; of opportunity or for most other cultures let us hope, or pray, that this is not the case. Alternatively, or as well, a more arrogant prescriptive assumption may be at work, that all human nature ought best, because America not only has the best 18 way of life in the world and mostly the best ways of doing things , but has to be like American nature at its a special hold on rationality. The free-enterprise system (perhaps representative democracy American-style tacked on) is the rational 18. with enterprise Thus, for example, American agricultural textbooks and agricultural spokespeople are fond of announcing that American agriculture is the best in the world; similarly for environmental protection, forestry, technology, university education, and so on. But since they are the best, it is evident that these American ways should be exported, isn't it? Even granting the large assumptions, No, firstly, because that is to neglect important regional and local variations and differences, and secondly because these ways may interfere with other significant features of regional life or culture. It' has not passed unremarked that the high standard of material life in USA depends in part on a very fortunate inheritance (e.g. some of the best and deepest soils) and in part, as in Europe, on a lower standard of 1 i f e and conditions elsewhere, upon siphoning off wealth and especially resources (US currently uses about one-fifth of world resources and 30 X To be sure, economic apologetics of world energy) from other regions. proffer other explanations of American transcendence, e.g. ingenious constructions like that of Olson, built on a sandy logic of economic actors collectively locked into economically determined arrangements, substantially independent of the resource base. 11 Certainly the system is sometimes peddled, embodied. the American May, it. Mhich Mas often Mith the same evangelism as Christianity, and presented as the rational religion, seen by genuine believers in at least before science got at science hasn't got at the free-enterprise religion yet, but on the Hell, noM has a social division heavily devoted to its justification and 19 furtherance. HoMever some philosophy has got at the system, sufficiently to contrary that it is no unique embodiment of rationality - there is none such reveal but a decidedly irrational practice in many circumstances. is irrational if local goals are to preserve local especially Thus, it environments is and cultures, as much experience helps attest. is aspects of the false descriptive assumption, It Mith emerge rejection,that are a main focus in Mhat folloMS (though various its the reasons for rejecting the prescriptive assumption recorded). broader and Mhat can important An basic nor in substan t i al 1y of Mill also emerge or get underlying theme Mill continue to be that nei ther varies human Mays that are highly political relevant - relevant to the frameMork a society adopts. In imposed upon from outside or above, the variation can be through cultural variation alternative assumptions, is part of "nature", again "human nature" variations; (Mhich but in turn depends on environment,etc) are then, those of cultural pluralism, that shaping in particular local human nature. Of course once can be pared back and back to try to in this May Mhat are taken to be important remove cultural superbiological features of human nature for political theory are also excised (e.g. that The make prisoners' dilemmas and commons' tragedies come out one May features rather than another). 19. In elaborating on hoM modern societies control their citizens, Foucault has explained various extensive types of social control exercised and licensed through received social sciences, by May of approved standards of normality, health, stability, adequacy, rationality, etc.: see Philp, p. 15. 12 Just as different cultures can mean different social arrangements, so in a larger setting they can imply different political organisation and different directions. political Where do requisite differences not occur, because incongruous arrangements have been imposed, cultural differences can be a "A powerful force for change. Likewise developing elements of cultural difference can a potent base for social change - or resistance to imposed be (especially) in communities where other more orthodox as economic incentives or penalties, have change bases for change, become inoperative or - such failed, or used, but are not available. Culture is however a double-edged instrument, resisted. example, For though not only to be indigenous leading features of Pacific cultures are to be reactivated, as forces for change, some these cultures are to be resisted (such as male domination), features Features of culture are thus modern Western cu1tures. of along with and confront undesirable (implanted or imported) sources resist many used to culture; of excessive consumerism, persuasive such as, inequitable political arrangements, advertising media and loaded news systems, structures, etc. for sol id foundation - but also This reasons is as true for American culture as Antipodean. Mhy job forth, is to antagonistic One of the so mainstream American culture so encouraging prime sources of up resistance against, and culture. alienating It is important not only to build and design alternatives - which elements of di sman tie, chief holloa suburbia, that movements offering or and alternatives have been repressed by the dominant corporations the state apparatus (see especially Goldstein). 2 The Why work with such an unfavourable contrast case as Australian—society regional and environmental orientation.' in defence of themes concerning 1*' 'yV 4" cultural variation and their force for change, contrast US it would no doubt be easier to culture with some other culture which diverges 13 more strikingly Mith some Pacific society poised for revolutionary change, such as perhaps the Then there are conspicuous differences, Philippines. as the following table begins to reveal:- SOME WESTERN CULTURAL THEMES CONTRASTED HITH THIRD HORLD Fi1i pi no [Melanesian J North American [AustralianJ Individual autonomy encouraged; Mithin paradigm, individual should individualize, solve oMn problems, develop OMn opinions Dependence encouraged; point of reference is authority, older kin folk Competition [aJ primarymethod of motivation Community reduces or excludes incentive to excel over others Relations Mith others informal and direct Relations Mith others more formal; social interactions more structured Clear distinction betMeen public and private property Public property divertable unguililty into private [Much "property", e.g. 1 and, is communal J Materialism a dominant value Spiritual, religious things matter as much or more than material. Evident trouble culture Mith the choice of Australia as contrast is that is not only much influenced (like all Australian accessible cultures) by parts of American culture, but is very similar in many respects, including evolution and comparative stability. similarities are often sought, to that in broad outline, explanations of the and it is debated Mhether the similarities are by imitation or through similar evolution. explained debate is, is so similar It simple: namely, The ansMer to the as Mill appear, both types of mechanism have played a role. There are, as a main contentions so hoMever, contrasting several reasons for Morking Mith Australian culture case Mith American. A lesser one is that if regarding differences can be made good in =uch a case it Mill much the easier Mhere more conspicuous differences occur. But the aim the be is not to make a difficult argumentative task more difficult. Rather it is to try 207 This table, adapted from AMa more discussion is given. p.30, 14 is draMn from SteMart, Mhere much to clear the May for a different philosophy and different political positions in Australia, and Pacific, more comprehensively in the South than those slavishly adopted from the North, to clear the May for political arrangements, grounded in the elements of local culture, Mhich are more benign, both to the environment and to other cultures, than those imported from the North. in several respects, Australia is, named from Europe the Antipodes, a (bordered the north by the Hallace line). There is some prospect that this region 21 a meaningful sense. That in turn encourages the Mill become nuclear-free,in or be induced in the faint hope that other socio-political changes may occur, - a region notably moving aMay from the dangerous and nuclear poMer and nuclear Meapons. independence comes from the USA. Antipodean exploitative main The damaging pattern, (and significant and perhaps this The USA Mould impose significant generally it aims to include the region under its that to opposition components of its Mar system, including nuclear Meapons, more attitudes so Mell exemplified in technological things nuclear, of the North, practices If includes Mhich biological and geophysical region of the South Pacific distinctive in region inexact rather the most important component of that capitalist is already Mell established, the main) resistance upon the region; and to broken, be eventually must hegemony. come from Australia. countries Smaller have resisted Marships; first Vanuatu and recently, genuinely nuclear-free suit. And politically 21. if and the the imposition environmentally American initiative is deeper, to Australia broaden tied to a more nuclear NeM Zealand. If a more significantly, South Pacific is to emerge, nuclear-free of must into profound folloM something regional This is just one reason Mhy the recent fashion of trying to count Australia as part of Asia, Mhich it is not, or as Mithin the (excessively large) Asian-Pacific region, Mhich it analytically is, should be resisted. No doubt looking at the larger region is convenient for economic and some defence purposes, for trade and aid; but it is narroM economically-focussed, nation-state thinking, Mhich discounts huge geographical, biological and cultural differences. 15 independence and then militarism, leaders. Australia the Hence free self-reliance, from of components the must not merely follow, but be there interest in American/Australian cultural American Mith the differences, especially those relevant to socio-political divergence. The main cultural groupings of the Antipodean region can be developed from the following diagram: Aboriginal peoples Australian Polynesian Melanesi an Anglophi1e Main Colonial Powers ///// Francophi1e poli tical1y entirely dominated Poli tical1y subordinate Largely independent politically* The independence struggle continues in NeM Caledonia Cohere it Mill probably succeed soon) and in West Papua (Mhere there appears little prospect of success against the Javanese without outside support). The situation in Fiji is complicated as a result of the colonially-organised immigration of East Indians (so typical a legacy of British control). % Apart from the Indonesian intrusion, there is American penetration Samoa, and the French remain, most notably in Society Islands. There are Antipodes, Zealand). tMO essentially major independent Melanesian and Anglo-Australasian (i.e. White in the Australian and NeM groupings The latter is the important group from the point of vieM of present for the usual politico-economic reasons: comparative change in the Antipodes, numbers, poMer, influence, Meal th, resources, etc. cultural features matter, be cultural in obtained significantly, in such a It is Mi th this group that and Mill make a difference, assuming difference can May. For Melanesian culture for the most part in the right sorts of Mays, American culture. 16 already differs, from mainstream Though culture. already features distinctive language suggests). with in Antipodean origins and attitudes can be enhanced, varying carefully and from and extended to change away can (like continuing those of sweet powerful Northern Perhaps by directions of insensitivity. intellectual and educational factors, evolution influenced, away Perhaps that movement Northern barbarism and socio-environmental cultural observable European Cultural evolution is proceeding, perhaps with considerable pace (as situation European from are there stock, the the peoples of Australasia now consist predominantly of pea the evolution) forces, now suitably be predominantly and multinationalisation, not merely resisted but turned to 22 advantaoe. Among the questions which immediately arise, but which Americanisation local remain insufficiently investigated, life. are those concerning the interaction How do intellectual cultural and culture? Conversely, what impact do the cultural shifts intellectual elements of influence - whatever they are, a fundamental matter * have on intellectual life, especially in areas that lie 23 at the heart of such life, namely ideological orientation and philosophy? A special case, from which this exercise began, is that where the philosophy is environmental philosophy, and to the environment. where the orientation concerns attitudes to An initial question resulting differential effect of Antipodean culture, or of the is: what nature is the distinctive elements in 22. Often these Northern forces are presented as those of internationalism, which is taken to be desirable. But ask what African, or Latin American, or even Russian components these forces reflect, and what centres these forces emanate from, and the extent of internationalism and mix of nations and companies involved, will become clearer. Certainly there are desirable qualities in internationalism, but these seem to be displayed on the faces of internationalism least often observed or paraded. 23. It is difficult to gauge how much philosophical and speculative concerns matter to more ordinary people. In a direct way, not very much, one is inclined to say; yet ideological themes, like technological changes deriving from the advance of science, heavily influence them and even perhaps control the main structure of their lives. As Keynes wrote in a much quoted passage, 'Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually slaves of some defunct economist' - or more likely philosopher or shaman (for the fuller quotation, see Heilbroner, p.12). 17 24 it, upon attitudes and approach to the environment? Answers relations Mill be prised out by contrasting differences in attitudes so far as they can be to the environment, Antipodeans Mith those of Northerners. of attitudes, set still a discerned, clearly even among dominant cultural groups, in the North. After there Asia, contrast in attitudes to the natural Morld betMeen marked of there is not a uniform firstly, in the usual May the immense complication of aside setting But, and the is Old Horld and the NeM Horld. In the Old Horld there Mas and still is comparatively and practically none for little feel for the natural environment, or the need for it or the desirability of it. Milderness Unsurprisingly, these attitudes are ideologically underpinned, in particular by ancient chauvinistic themes as to the locus of all value in humans (and, by more modern, equally defective, formerly, in Mhat they image) and themes forged in the Enlightenment, that superiority is manifested through independence of the natural Morld, cultural especially independence of the vagaries of climate and natural plant 25 groMth. It is not that Europe, by contrast Mith the Antipodes, is entirely and devoid of natural environment, that there is no natural environment left in USSR, say, but that most of it is remote and that the culturally dominant part of the primarily Soviet in community does not live anyMhere near, the vicinity of HoscoM, environment as of any value for itself, The elements and does not but in the cities, regard the natural but only as a means, of deeper ecological approaches, instrumentally. like the hazards of tobacco smoking and industrial pollution, are not Mell knoMn or Midely advertised in 26 USSR or the Eastern European block generally - though Eastern European countries contain much of the least ecologically disturbed of European lands. 24. And the converse is equally important: the impact of local environments on the cultures? Approaches to the environment are an important component of culture, more so than such obvious manifestations of culture as literature (see beloM). 25. For details of such Enlightenment tests of cultural intimately bound to the overarching ideals Perfectibility, see Berry p.14. 18 superiority, tests of Progress and Of course the Old Horld cannot, environmentally. European-based some Environmental IUCN environmentalism. And be entirely set organisations (such aside as the and the British National Trust) have been operating for time, considerable and could never, and movements and have influence an had on Australasian people in Europe concerned there have long been Mi th happenings in the NeMer Horld, especially the nearest part of it, Africa. But 27 for the most part the spirit of European culture remains antienvironmental: there Mas, and for the most part still is (though things changing Mi th green movements and parties), for, the natural environment, as little interest in, gardening and more recently plantation forestry. cultures'' other exploitation, such and opposed to the managed environment in Mhich the Mealthier took an interest, they e.g. little through for feel manipulated landscape As for other places' fit are and plunder and at least Mas the dominant attitude and the practice (and environments, Mell the practice persists at best thinly disguised, Mere though no longer uncontested: Japanese enterprise in the Pacific). So in Mhat folloMs Old Norld, 28 European approaches are mostly left out of vieM: the spotlight shifts to the consider neMer-fangled North American attitudes, Mhich are hoMever intertMined Mi th Old Norld sentiments. The most substantial, most articulate, and still by far the best 26. (From previous page) In the period folloMing the Russian revolution until the rise of Stalin, there Mas considerable, if shalloM, concern among Russian scientists as to the environment (see Neiner). Like much else in Russian society this rather elitist concern Mas actively discouraged. At a more popular level environmental concern noM loses out to elements of economism. ''In a country Mhere the glory of technology and the glitter of economic groMth still radiate so seductively, radical environmental protection does not have much of a chance even Mi th the best of intentions'' (Haren-Grisebach, quoted in Capra and Spretnak, p.78). 27. Exceptions such as Hill's life-style, for one, represents are exceptions, and very conspicuous as a result. 28. These approaches form, of course, the main stock of the disastrous environmental heritage that Mas sloMly adapted and is still being adapted in the NeM Morld. The stronger environmental components emerged from the Northern European heritage, not the Latin or Southern European inheritance. This is evident too from the Meakness of environmentalism in Latin America. 19 documented past and And it is uith the situation in North America, America. environment contrast America movements are those, environmental there the adopted, This is a further major the other end of the cultural contrast being as North the attitudes to the that ue best look for contrasts, Antipodean scene. of present, ue that reason for developed, best taking and as select representative of the industrial North. ue dig doun to the details of the cultural differences that Before to differing attitudes in the Antipodes - difference that could accentuated - there are, should come first, and then junked, determinism. rubbish). are those that some uill think since they could render much of uhat follous the issues surrounding determinism, be differences have been brought out (issues uhich can then be throun out uith the Among the issues postponed, readily preliminary issues to be dealt uith, and as aluays, issues to be postponed until the substantive cultural other yet lead of technological, irrelevant: economic, and cultural for example, uere correct, If Marx's technological determinism, multitude of productive forces accessible to men determines the 29 nature of society', then there uould be little scope for a distinct culture 'the that or distinctive attitudes to the environment in the Antipodes, the productive forces accessible are supplied from the can only remain, of as it mainly is, North. since most of The Antipodes predominantly derivative. But the evidence cultural divergence from the North assembled in uhat follous uill afford a base on uhich to argue that such deterministic themes are false, that cultural 30 divergence is occurring (and could be accelerated). And this is happening though much, the economic life by uhich such cultural things are supported is too much, under the influence of the North; though (under present governments) the prospects indeed it is very happening of economic and much higher cultural independence are bleak (unless, e.g., nuclear disaster befalls us). 2?. Seiected Horks 1: 31 d. 20 In free some parts of intellectual life, it is comparatively easy the heavy influence of the North, of for regional intellectual life to One of these areas is philosophy, especially more narrowly prosper. (the philosophy sort break to of thing that tends to go in on somewhat academic insulated academies). Academic philosophy is easy, because a few people can do that. For cultural differentiation, by contrast, ideas have to affect whole communities, Philosophical ideas can be to be absorbed and acted upon and in accord with. like bubbles one community life. and positions with in an office plays In any case, on-going or cell, not affecting wider there undoubtedly are distinctive philosophical philosophical research projects in Australia (see For other academic areas, especially those with an empirical base Prospects). relying on high technology, it is more difficult to obtain such independence. For different reasons, there is also, as with high technology, little prospect of This attaining a full distinctive or independent high culture in the Antipodes. is partly because the human people, deal at less than 20 million is (fortunately) too small and widely distributed to support a in comprises. 30. population base, the way of such artifice as parts of high It is also because such high culture is, culture and great substantially remains, primarily (From previous page) Determinism may be pushed into one or other of these forms: i) it asserts some sort of necessity. Then it is falsified by the real possibility of alternative technological choices, for instance. Or ii) it is only contingently true. Then the phenomena of sub-cultures and rival social cultures refutes it: see Cotgrove. Technological determinism neglects major causative factors in change, such as environmental factors. The land or resource base is almost as important as the technology available, in lower technology societies more important, so land determinism is at least as plausible as technological determinism - which helps to show that neither are plausible. But both can be combined into a broader economic determinism, which is much more difficult to refute. However even if economics is very broadly construed, such determinism is false. Economics operates within a framework of moral and legal and other constraints; many choices - moral, legal and other which affect change significantly fall outside that framework. Technological determinism and other forms of determinism are important in bolstering the uniformity of human nature and culture assumptions, or at least the theme of the convergence of culture with the spread of Hestern technology and mainstream economics. So its falsity is also important. 21 31 a European product. attitudes to the environment, though definitely an important -feature of a are not part of high culture. Nor do they fit easily into culture, but culture": "loiter the most been part, HoMever differentiation. of the Mhere attitudes to the environment have not, for again is largely because the that cultures is a European one, as regarded Mherever a significant division feature of cultural such attitudes fit - it Mill probably harm to see them as part of a broader loMer culture, little so-called and at the same time help to erode the erroneous idea that interest in natural environment an elitist class concern - they tie directly Mith elements of culture at do is the loMer end. At the loMer cultural level there are very distinctive features - some of admittedly them features are can gambling, common found in many colonies, and just perhaps be in the different attitudes of Antipodeans to the included such things - and attitudes environment. - as them these religion, time, service, etc. Nearer the grass-roots level there is a Momen, culture to colonial Some of - Mhich separate Australasian from Northern culture. reflected Here those in Australia snd NeM Zealand Mith distinctive feature^ reflected in folk lore, folksong and myth (not all of them admirable, e.g. the treatment of indigenous people, organised sports. Yet Antipodean cultures, authoritarianism, that there and of Momen), are also differences betMeen differences in pace, these tMo main religious orientation, ethnic mix, conservatism, political organisation, values are sometimes hard to pin doMn precisely. all-important fact that part of Australia, 31. and in the mania for similar There is, - differences for instance, by contrast Mith NeM Zealand the (but It can be argued that philosophy and other intellectual enterprises are also. This is not so. Philosophy in Asia - from Mhere indigenous Antipodean people apparently originated - predates that in the Nest. There are, moreover, grounds for suspecting that the roots of philosophy Mere imported into the Nest, to Ancient Greece, from India. AnyMay, every full culture includes an ideology and some rudiments at least of philosophy. 22 in Eastern USA), places like Mas settled as a penal appear to colour many of the differential features of the origins culture. On the other Islanders is noM introducing Polynesian language, concepts and attitudes) into NeM Zealand culture, quite The colony. corresponds in side, increasing presence of the strands Though Australia. Australian Maori and elements of the (especially convict to Mhich nothing concentrates Mhat. folloMS on mainstream Australian culture and its contrast Mith American, much of Mhat is observed for Australia can be seen to extend to NeM Zealand. But not all more conspicuous differences at least Mill be remarked. any means: One major difference, rest the of by Antipodes, in Australia, hard to miss, concerns Mhich separates Australia from of the nature the environment itself. contrast Mith the islands of the remainder of striking the the Antipodes, is in the first place, vast - approximately the size of continental USA or again paradigmatically of Europe (including contrasted Northern Eastern Europe), i.e. It is also, regions. not a geologically neMer mountainous country. flat land, from the eastern seaboard and a feM other favoured areas, of the main an old Morn-doMn And it apart is, a dry to arid land, predominantly treeless, a Mide red and grey land, Mith unusual inhabitants. It is still seen by Northerners as a harsh and difficult land, alien and often ugly (formerly it Mas also an incomplete and Godless land); and this is hoM it is frequently vieMed also by NeM Zealanders. landscape and is, much more to superficial appearance, congenial to from people NeM The much modified Zealand much more like the European North, the North. Correlatively, population of NeM Zealand tends to look 32 more to the North, to England in particular, than that of Australia. established European-descended Australians are often imagined to partake of the land, earthiness. promoted 32^ Certainly image of the the much its harshness and corresponding features have been assigned to the muchAustralian-Man-of-the-Land, Thus, for example, the ansMers back to London. tough, legal appeal frameMorks in NeM 23 tall and slim, Zealand still bronzed, sun and time lined, a stockman or at least a horseman. But so far the is not so different from that of the Texan (if they spoke, image Nor of course is this image of the people at all accurate. distinguish them). are mainly (almost 90X) suburban, Australians would that them 1iving more than half of in one of the two huge urban conglomerates , centred on Sydney and Melbourne, 33 The men are often soft, if brown in summer, on the milder east coast. increasingly resemble counterparts in Hhile there are certainly important features of and they the western American cities. convergence technological-economic for of features the land here determinism and pattern, Thus, is of some importance in helping the history of its the also network. communication and transport i t has much 1 ess relevance for the convergence; there is deriving from a similar or common settlement and framework economic North America to bring out, from divergence ( and Mi th little experience of the from excess beer consumption, overweight account divergence, settlement where land-based (a determinism, so to misleadingly say) are much more important. overlapping history, An part of especially of California and the south-eastern transforms (regions which can easily be seen as ecological of one in the convergence: another), analogous frontier experience, only there is not but there are the miners who came in the from there are major differences:- of from the Australasia had no Spanish experience, and the conf 1ic ts American settlers with the natives were very different the compar i son hostilities in Australia or wars in New Zealand. character in Still, the with California avoids complicating features of US history with no substan ti al analogue in Australia, e.g. the puritanical religious settlements, the slave experience and the civil war. 33. In New Zealand the compact countryside is much more densely settled than most of Australia, but the population is again mostly suburban (a perfect target for television) and small town, and is (at about 86X) more urban than USA. 24 However California is not entirely but often regarded even in America as something of an anomaly typical of USA, (and certainly as much more experimental, cult-ridden, etc., than say the more conformist Midwest or South). there are significant cultural differences between While especially eastern USA, USA, there are also, then, Australia and powerful forces at work eroding those differences. The differences are already such that extrapolation Australia of US experience and experiments in socio-political areas can be to unreliable, and is strictly illegitimate. For it is evident enough that, where cultures differ sufficiently, transfer or extrapolation from one to the may be unjustified. conveniently ignored, cultural respects. been seen with What often has not been so that damaging clarity, have not agricultural forestry to cutting, control Australia. Examples burning, differences in the people, have been simply (clear and intensive agricultural methods (heavy extensive use of herbicides, machinery, its practices are intensive etc.) and North America with generally better soils and more favourable rainfall regimes, imported been has even in the land, which can be got away with more easily in practices, else is that America and Australia do differ considerably in Surprisingly the differences, any or seen, other forestry So it is even more with etc.). the which are perhaps harder to see than those in the 1 and. The differences carry over to differences in social and political theory, and differences significant unlikely includes directions to minarchism arrangements; Whitehead's related generally in in American philosophy and ideology. 34 philosophy , for example, obtain responsive chords or much following individualistic, as more (or right-leaning competitive libertarianism), anti-social and in for There are which are Australia. which Australian This too is social but it also includes religious-based organic philosophies, such later philosophy (which is scarcely known in transcendental philosophies of nature, 25 Australia) which are much too and religious for secular Australian culture. 3. Grimy details of the cultural contrast problem it that hard is There is of course the inevitable that to say much about culture qualified and even then still subject to counterexamples. is Also it is hard test hypotheses, and confirm observations, of the type involved. much point in heavily not even such impressionistic accounts and theory as to Yet there is follows, in particular for the intended social and political applications. main The socioloqy. method Though it adopted is is what might be marshmallow sociology, called like impression i st i c marshmallow it has substance. And it is different from and an improvement upon pop sociology. For firstly it backed and cross-checked, tighter data; anecdotal, and, where it can be, other secondly, it is assembled into a theory. It is not merely then, in two major respects. However, it does not pretend to offer better than tendency or trend statements; (atypical) by surveys and exceptions. But to any generalisation there will be that's alright. That is the stuff of improved common knowledge. The aim of course is to fit these trend generalisations into a better story, To avoid contrasts strictly such into a theoretical structure, repeated and tiresome qualification which can then be put to work. of claims, comparisons are however stated in bolder form than the evidence or their bases Often a qualifying functor should be taken as implicit in Even then there is constant danger of lapsing into naivety or warrant. claims. and mere caricature in this wide and difficult sociological landscape. 34. (From previous page) Perhaps the more original directions in an imperial culture not exactly distinguished by its intellectual originality (as opposed to its technological genius), especially given its resources. For unless times have changed since the Second Horld Har, there are no American philosophers of really great stature. Whatever one may think of Santayana and Hhitehead, they were not really American philosophers, much of their work being done within a European setting and a good deal in Europe. Emerson was not strictly a philosopher. James, though clever and entertaining, was a lightweight (by Greek standards), so presumably was Dewey. Perhaps the erratic and eccentric Peirce affords the exception that proves the rule. But the salient point is that American civilization, like Roman civilization with which it invites comparison, has not attained the intellectual heights that might have been anticipated, given the colossal material base. 24 present The rests there, focus unexpected in to and these out bring have to go doMn other differences trying Although contrast upon features of environmental differences, socio-political inter 1aced preferably some of between environmentalism in Australia and North America. contrasts one investigation greM from the discovery Mel1, as and first, of environmentalism in Australia by comparison even Mith North America. But at points of deep ideological difference, ue soon and by beginning elsewhere, easily diverge into many other - sometimes relevant, sometimes more trifling features of the broader cultures, before returning at the end to environmental contrasts. the resulting investigation Manders through and over a Mi de and Although no kind of completeness is sought; varied cultural landscape, grander edifices of the built cultural 1andscape 1ibraries, 35 outside. the larger obiiquely, - art many galleries, of the museums, and so on - are not entered or even glanced at from the theatres, as these structures of higher culture are typically clustered only touch attitudes to they cities, by contrast Mith religion, Mhich, the natural in environment Mhatever main Western form it assumes, has tended to dictate and enforce a shalloM human chauvinism. a. The influence and decline of, religion. There is considerable basis for the all-important theme that "Australia [is] best understood as a (the post-Christian (O"Farrell, society, p.3). in Although Mhich religion [is] barely relevant theme this requires first) culturally" qualification, virtually any cultural generalisation (and gets qualified in its source), like it is not far from the mark. Australian religions suspicious of the Mider culture - and both to a more intense degree than elseMhere" (p.7). 35. On the historical place of some of these edifices in Australian culture, see issues of Australian Cultural History. 27 Though 'there is much evidence for thinking that Australian is becoming more secular in character', The phenomenon. decline Christianity the weakness of religion is not a new from a comparatively low level began of popular commitment; 'Australian churches have never been able to claim the allegiance 36 of more than a minority of the people. In basis) Australia religious declined has August 3). Nationwide, from attendance (on more than 33Xtol8-19Xover the a merely past feu to Australians Sundays religious USA, the in (a resident receding gospel). tending sometimes (ABC, feature The religious to straight nuttiness, not only in sizeable in USA, of Australian presence on television (e.g. 10 channels have a years In Europe religious attendance is much?higher, 50X or more, and in North America higher still, sometimes put at 60X. fervour occasional life), church is evident turn-outs on but especially in the in a not atypical major city 3 out of heavy religious component, substantial portions of it hot The born-again Christian movement - a major (and dangerous) movement in USA involving not merely a shift back to older Christian values but also to the far political right - has had comparatively little flow-on in This religious publicity, these revivals, have Australia. emphasized old 36. The quotations are from Inglis, p.72 and p.73 respectively. The second quote reports the only thorough study of early religious practice in Australi a. 37. figures from William Grey. Such figures are very Unconfirmed Part of this is due to 'the reluctance of people to be con troversi al the census form, about their indifference or hostility to candid, on In one study less than SOX of those claiming affiliation religion'. 'could give any details at all of what takes place at Church' (Inglis, Actual fiqures for religious behaviour (e.g. saying p.45 and p.46). grace, reading bible, etc.) in Australia are also 'extremely low'. Regularly, however, there is news of a religious revival in Austra la. But it like frequent news of the rise in value of the Australian dollar. Having fallen not so long ago from an exchange value of US$1.12 to, on occasions, less than $0.60, it has now risen from 63 cents to 65 cents. 'Revivalism ... has been a normal part of Protestant evangelism here for more than a century: but there has never been any solid evidence that it shifted for long the boundary between the Church and the world (Inglis, p.74) 28 contradictions. There are serious tensions, to say the least, in the American (characteristically religious commitment combine Jewish) Mith acquisitive individualism and its trappings. peaples have Mitnessed the incompatibility (cf. Melanesi an Lini). that conspicuous at tenders do not have a serious or very deep religious redistribution Christian dedicated minority. is the commitment, and the like being undertaken only by a very smal1 But an alternative suggestion Mhich also has some backing there is a cultural schizophrenia: that of resolution takes the line that most obvious or and Many colonised missionised An Christian there are separate salvations, religious and acquisitive economic. The religious differences between USA Australia and originate in important differences in the May the tMO colonies Mere first settled, the type their backgrounds and their commitments, of people, more conversion But there is The differences have been enhanced Mith the mass 20th to it than that. century and so on. to in science, Australia a doMn-to-earth, very naturalistic, evolutionary science, incompatible Mith spiritual elements. resistance to religion in Austral a is a resistance to The general 1y spirituality The only religion that has had or made (including idealism). much impact is Christianity (its more recent role being due in considerable part to practices). immigration That impact moreover is slight compared Mith North America: the reborn Christian movement did not roll through Australia, leaving converts everyMhere. Attitudes to religion and spirituality Australian society not only from North American but also from separate the, in certain respects more conservative, NeM Zealand society. Attitudes to spirituality are directly reflected in Australian philosophy and in attitudes to the environment. A predominant position and research program, in Australian philosophy is materialism, in a strongly reductionistic form. The that nature. natural Morld studied by physical science is all; In fact man is but an advanced 2? man is part of sort of computing system, and so at Hind is effectively identified Mith bottom a naturally-evolved "machine". brain, mental of product Australian states being brain states (of sophisticated "Miring" and programming. materialism is opposed, religiously or some sort), Even Mhere crude this rival minority positions are spiritually involved; a consciousness mostly Mhile they are rather more opposed not to reductionism, they are mostly secular. dominant materialist reductionist The philosophy reflects touches and in other several the broader sense, and a certain earthiness: the Australian male is a man from and of secondari1y. famous tie so to speak, the earth, Attitudes to, and, in the North (though someMhat unjustly, only as Mill become apparent), the environment. by traditional Western religions; fortunate so the do chauvinism human For and male chauvinism are analogous phenomena Mith similar sources; 38 They are attitudes and patterns of domination go Mith them. supported figure for Mhich Australia is and oppression of Momen, more directly to attitudes to Momen as in much mythology, similarly decline of is of paramount importance in their demise. The direc tion most important for more 5"/ environmental thinking has taken. A contrast main American environmental thought is in the the betMeen religious/spiritual componen t of the latter, but not the former. Deeper environmental positions in USA are much more inclined to find 39 things, to make room for the sacred, Buddh i sm and spiritual to consider Certainly other dimensions in natural sympathetically Zen things not these are absent from the Australian scene, especially from parts of the North 40 scene , but they lack the prominence in Australian environmentalism 33. that they attain in North America; As ecofeminism has stressed. Earlier cu1tures in the Antipodes, e.g. Polynesian, also display conspicuous chauvinism, Once again culture is to be resisted as Mell as used. 30 regarded as essential. then, In many respects, been ideas, and often that is, Mi th class chauvinisms. outsiders, partial characteristically linked Mith sets of false have religions damaging the decline of religion is to be Melcomed. Mi th For very and nonsubscribers marked intolerance for But the decline can leave or a a place vacuum, imported science; and i t has in Australia. The vacuum is hardly being filled in a satisfactory May, as The for areligious character of Australian life has important culture and change. For it means that one of the main implications institutions of induction (namely church, family, and school), Mhich normally inculcate social cultural values and Morld vieM, norms, many in the of influence are largely untouched Church and religion. by the critical historically really But the situation is or missing seriously Meakened. There is no longer respected elders - except in isolated and specialised areas, even such as that technical or professional field - and emphasis on youth tells against much deference or many concessions to of the sort made in more traditional or Coupled Mi th this is the decline of the family, 39. Third the heavy Horld of experts or people more frameMork a this in is, and disturbing. For other traditional components of induction are remarkable, also society That is substantially missing. cultural older communities. Mhich has certainly lost much (From previous page) Thus, for example, virtually all the books Nash mentions (in 82) as "defining the emerging field" of environmental ethics, if not overtly religious, have a heavy religious bias: indeed Nash mentions "the tendency to emphasize the religious nature of man-environment relations". deep ecology is spiritual in its every essence"; so say, accurately enough, Capra and Spretnak (p.53) , in the course of reporting on "the spiri tual aspects of [German] green politics " and continuing their (pp.53-6) German German-Amer i can this account comparisons. On religiosity of American environmentalism. environmental ism shares the 40. (From previous page) Or from Patrick Hhite"s approach. But he is inclined to bring God in Mays that leave many thinking Australians uncomfortable. Hhat there is, Mhich is different, is a groMing link Mith features of aboriginal culture. 31 of former its and cohesiveness. strength accordingly falls on education, The main of burden such as communicational media, induction most notably But these arrangements are hardly adequate for the purpose (for 41 descriptive-style reasons). Nor given their ideological messages, television. especially in the case of manipulate popular media like television and popular song and newspapers, are they desirable means. This situation, the failure or weakness of main institutions of induction and the high adjustibility and manipulability of the remainder, has advantages as in very different ways, happen of Changes Australia fairly perhaps But directly from the top down. For culture, a example, can be shift of to a much more violent society could be pulled off by a combination conservative governments and their police forces and friends few There is copious evidence however, control the induced or imposed changes tend to take decidedly undesirable directions matters that matter: main media. reliance andthe like. civil liberties, independence from New Zealand, children against that the Alternatively, change can be achieved at a level, at least for significant subcultures, of it liberating. perhaps damaging, which have a residual basis in the this sort, accomplished of society, change in such a society can be accomplished quite rapidly. cultural can For compared with a traditional more stable well as drawbacks. by direct action. who top-down North, for self- grass roots In the case of consider the effect of massive withdrawal by parents and schools from competitive sport, rugby especially (initially in racially-implicated rugby policies), and the immersion of protest children instead in very different types of games. It influence is around this difference in religiosity, and its marked decline in in Australia, that many other cultural contrasts between mainstream American and Australian societies revolve. However only so much can be made of the difference; it is by no means a total explanation of the contrasts, as the 41. See e.g. Illich, especially Deschoolinq Society. with situation New Zealand culture helps show. For mainstream New Zealand culture otherwise differs from American'culture in many of the ways Australian does. The b. benign Vt qoverment, (market) /v To North Americans the amount of government, and superficial organisation and regulation. of government, level of role and state control, the State: Australia (and even more in New in Zealand) is very conspicuous, and often irksome. 'Australia has a higher level of planning than the United States but less than state country France' as (Hi Id, p.39). Hild goes on such of Australia - a government, they find government much and upon remark to pervasiveness of rigid bureaucratic organisation' in Australia. suspicious centralised a 'the Americans are too powerful feature locals are sometimes prepared to acknowledge, but in do little about, despite much right-leaning media incitement. Indeed government and its supporting bureaucracy are increasing in power, size and in Australia. influence extent of public inquiries, the acclaimed 'Australian talent for even Western standards, procedures, incompatible bias is written in, approaches objectives. Nor There are policy-determining For they are top-down a heavy with bottom-up democratic control; value a conservative bias from the judicial system in the Royal Commissions; confrontational intended e.g. For equivalents of increasing length and real cost. not much asked in Australia. questions of organization. questions about these forms of "fact"-finding and procedure^, case and are large numbers of Royal Commissions and their there serious bureaucracy' and This is part of Royal Commissions and the like. example, by numbers So also are the associated the and in methods Commissions) employed (e.g. are commonly unsuited are fundamental questions about forms and procedures of government, adversarial, the for the established which are often raised in USA, much asked in Australia. Australia was fortunate to have determined at 33 time of Federation a respresentative democratic system, Mhich Mas, by the standards of the times, very sophisticated, and capable of reflecting minority positions * not that it been used sufficiently for these purposes by most minorities. has of mass-production update electronic computing equipment, it is noM federal and state electoral arrangements, Australian the Mith feasible to have a to more direct democracy Mith more pluralistic and responsive representation; but such a change is politically unlikely, improvements in the directness and pluralism The only changes of democracy having obtained little public discussion even. mooted have anachronistic simplifications of electoral arrangements (such are occurred of direction Mhere some and reasons, Mhere money minorities a plays little have major role in political the federal impact determining or gets Mho (For a catalogue of major deficiency of US capaitalistic and so on. democracy, several US, the representation, elected, in in NeM Zealand) Mhich Mould take Australia as valuable suggestions for electoral arrangements improvement, being one, smaller For OD). see population, another, government remains much more accessible and responsive (e.g. to small represenations) in Australia than USA, group influenced by If the unfortunate American 42 folloMed hoMever, much of that Mill change Connected the attitude America seem Mith differences in attitude to goverment are servants of the government. are looked doMn upon: immediately to path is differences in professional lobbying. to admit to having. The civil servants it is the sort of job one may not, By contrast, more Mhich by contrast is much the public servants in be held in considerable esteem (and some among the taller in North does not, Australia unlopped 43 poppies) Mork One source of the difference lies in the underlying attitudes and service. In USA the public sector isn't really considered to to Mork 42. Occasionally for the better. Australian government has much to learn yet from American about openness and freedom of information. 43. Hhat is shared betMeen North America and Australia is the attitude of middle level people Morking for the government: often these people do not like Morking for the government (even though it provides them Mith a very comfortable 1iving). 34 (because it is outside the market system), but constitutes a burden on the private sector Mhich does Mork. Though there have been efforts to import these of (erroneous) market assumptions into Australia, sorts they have not really thriven. In seemingly curious contrast Mith the respective attitudes taken to public service, there is contempt for specific politicians, if even are the vieMS of the political and judicial systems. there is the In USA, considerable resDect for the political system: the constitution is virtually God-given, and 44 certainly something to be proud of and much superior to anything elseMhere. In Australia is considerable cynicism about there it has little or no high authority and backing, system; judiciary political gerrymandering, the reputation of same holds as regards the judicial system: the and the favouritism, etc., are virtually expected and accepted features. corruptness, Huch hoMever, is constantly being practice) in the Make of scandals. propped up (Mith unjustified the success in Both again contrast Mith attitudes to the public service, Mhich Australians tend to consider relatively honest, and most certainly not open to bribery on an Asian scale (thank you!). There are significant (but significantly different) both mainstream cultures over government: all cover deeper, the branches equally; then, in Australia respect for the of government does not penetrate very deep, branches tensions, and certainly does in USA respect for the institutions in chief not goes but does not cover the functionaries. The American situation is the more easily explained, in outline at least. In USA government is vieMed, frameMork apparatus, in principle, as a rather minimal regulating and Mhich does not itself Mork, but keeps the market system Mhere the real Mork is done Mell-oiled and suitably running, other capitalistic 44. institutions such as private property and guarantee^ and individual 1^ recent decades, 'Americans continued to say that they Mere proud of our system of goverment. Their lack of confidence Mas clearly directed at the people running those institutions' (Lipset and Schneider, p.16?). 35 freedoms. social government has become too large, But expensive services), functionaries parasitic as take the flack for that situation. Big expensive arrangements. unproductive government is invidiously contrasted Mith market Furthermore, government often operates, and is seen operate in organisations furthering their OMn interests and profits, large in government And burden. many of them accordingly parasites and seen and employees, looking out for themselves, - a overextended (specially favour of the whereas market system, for all its basis in competitive self interest, does not bestow great A favours. extraordinary markets: in political America mainstream is the market system bordering on and support systems are outside or operation of supported, deplored. The feM further assumptions, deductively justified through) commitment to competitive individualism. the intimacy of regard and effort, but mainstream American commitment to market arrangements is in turn explained by (and, but an the in faith arrangements taken to accompany free brief the free-enterprise system is religiously arrangements by explained suspicion of any political arrangements stepping a capitalistic the beyond to commitment and system, about deal Mith cultural the The associated emphasis on Mork, and Mhich accompany market euphoria, can be explained, historically to some extent, by May of the originally difficult and predominantly puritan settlement of America. But such a genetic explanation is hardly complete; for largely gone, as no more than relics, are the forms of early more democratic America, the toMn meeting places and so on, largely in favour odf super-market places. The American commitment to market procedures, and American enthusiasm for market d lochte methods, does not extend to mainstream a distressing 'Australian distrust of markets'. have found, underlying this individualism, an Australia, endorsement distrust, a Marranted Mhere Americans But Mhere they rejection of might competitive they couple it, not incorrectly, but more superficially, Mith 45 of egalitarianism'. For market processes do redistribute Meal th and Mhat goes Mith it, in very unequal fashion over the course of time, 36 46 both theory allocation market and American experience attest. processes as highly desirable Americans given, and take to tend to regard deviations from or interference in on-going market processes, such as a social preference for equality, as (economically) asinine and certain irrational, and as carrying an expensive price tag. The predominant American view is that the market i^ fair and wise, but preceding quotes are (From previous page) As Withers, from Mhom the tMO the emotional and draMn, remarks, 'as economists and Americans, to elude them' ANU intellectual basis and content of such vieMs seems Reporter 16(6) (1985) 6. 46. 47. Beginning in 1820 Mith a much more egalitarian society, USA experienced many decades of increasingly inegalitarian income distribution; see Williamson and Lindert. most Thus, for example, Caves and Krause, pp.400 1, also p.2, Mho for the al 1 processes (it is after part simply assume the superiority of market , and appeal repeatedly to the efficiency of economic conventional Misdom), .. a definition of market outcomes. It is loaded efficiency, Mith For market efficiency appropriately adjusted to market proces=e=. minimize arrangements are not particularly efficient or to on market externalities (such as environmental degradation) maximize on other objectives (such as income fairness). 1 ou t Extensions of these points apply against the usual arguments rolledOne of t of market procedures everyMhere. 0.. for the imposition or dominance to be Caves and Krause, namely 'the efficiency of ...................... , and market and nonmarket allocation is open to empirical test, and so the the distrust of market outcomes should be subject to modification 1 that evidence Marrants' (p.400). The trouble Mith this is not merely (p.400). much depends on hoM "efficiency" is assessed; it i. is -- that empirical tests ar" virtually never attempted, are difficult to ca<^ out in real-1 ife situations (Mhere there are too many uncontrolled parameters , and Mhen methods. attempted do not deliver unequivocal results favouring marke of market So there is fall back to theoretical argument: the C._ efficiency „ That is true^ Mith "efficiency" given ^39**" processes can be proved. That is true, Mith "efficiency P but under highly restrictive conditions, (externalities neglected, etc.) such as perfect competition, Mhich are virtually never satisfied in Caves and Krause do recognise that frequent failure actual conditions. 1 striking conditions of one of the more Sn ------- for — market efficiency in . Australia may account for local suspicion of markets, Mhich 'may arise natur y a oeographically isolated country in Mhich the actors are too f ensure efficient Market cuties' (p.2: no doubt yet another but Minor econoMic reason for pushing for a larger huMan population is to get Market actors up to competitive strength!) However such reasons "cannot really account for the suspicion of population substantially unfaMiliar with conditions for Market adequacy. tt is false then, what economists like Caves and Krause try o suggest (e.g. p.400), that distrust of Markets has, except in special cases, no economic foundations. That May be Mainstream American economic wisdom, but it hardly passes undisputed in many parts of the Morld. 37 not the government; 1$?57 and 1977 held "gives everyone a for example, ... large majorities of national samples in that the free-enterprise system is "fair and wise" fair choice" (65/D, (82Z), and that it is a "fair and efficient system" (63X)', whereas 'not only do large majorities (1980) believe that "the government is themselves" is pretty (78X), much run by a few big intereasts out looking for but also that "you cannot trust the government to do what right" most of the time (73X)' (Lane, p.3). Lane's summary of American public attitudes does not extend to Australia: the public tends to believe that the market system is a more fair agent than the political system; people tend to include the problem cases in the political domain and exclude them from the market; they ignore many of the public benefits and, with certain exceptions, prefer market goods to political goods; they prefer the market's criteria of deserts to the polity's criteria of equality and need; they believe that market procedures are more fair than political procedures; and they are satisfied that they receive what they deserve in the market but much less so in the polity, and by a different measure, are much more satisfied with the general income distribution among occupations than with the distribution of influence among social groups in the polity (Lane p.7). It is enough to reflect on Australian attitudes to wage determination, security and medicine, and the like. social Australians are less inclined to market rewards as fair returns for hard work, see and more inclined to see market rewards as based on luck and chance as well as on performance in popular areas. In USA, Even where the market's methods are thought unfair to certain groups, such as blacks and women, the intrusion of government into the sacred precincts is regarded with hostility, for the government's program of rectification trespasses on the evaluation of persons by the market's process of "revealed contribution". Hhere government purposes are approved their implemtation is stifled, partly, at least, because the government's justice norms are discounted and because such implementation violated market justice norms. Thus, minimal government is assured and people are endowed with more commodities and fewer collective goods (Lane, p.27). In Australia, support, active by contrast, respect and trust, opposition. Hhile the market system does not enjoy this level of but encounters especially in the area of labour, small local markets (e.g. fruit and vegetables, trash and trivia) are often well supported, the extension of markets into many significant spheres of working and of moral life is 38 resisted. Unions and Mith extensive nonmarket social agendas, thrive, to labour and other parties, irritation of Northern-schooled economists and political scientists the diversion of resources, open-ended regularly point to rent-seeking behaviour, costs, and the (Mho zero-sum nature of governmental redistribution equity and measures). a certain market distrust or indiffierence Since economic phenomenon in Australia, government functioning and various related claims Mhat they notice, in particular, assemble no evidence; operations in many places Mhere organised important as Mell as to its historical source. claim, is an it is Morth inquiring as to the evidence of this phenomenon of 'pervasive distrust', competition' (p.400), appears markets could reflect ('the design and scope of governmental policy and action This this distrust'), so they assume government interference or intervention. is once again to assume, erroneously, that markets are the natural May state alternative is constitutes "interference". contrived, "rights" for or instance In by hoMever, areas, many governmental markets vouchers or the like trade-Morthy items, to of glimpsed) have introducing regulations be function to be special at all. Frequently in Australia the government eventually acted in areas Mhere markets had failed, e.g. in generating employment, adequate Mages, etc., or else Mhere there over Mere no markets, for instance in the secularisation of society to take formerly carried on by religious organisations. Given the 43 context and evolution , it is decidedly misleading to say that functions historical choose at some cost the seemingly greater control of outcomes that government interference promises' (p.2). (and is uniikely to be), There Mas strictly no no cost because there Mere no satisfactory choice markets, and so no such government interference. Australian Mariness of markets, and distaste for them in various socially ^.significant areas, had of course been observed much earlier (though not Mith 3? same level of disapproval as the Americans display). the It Mas part a of long tradition of (predominantly nonmarxist) socialism, Mhich Mas coupled Mith an anti-economic people. open-handed 'Australians are a They dislike refusing favours, Hancock in a much quoted (thus costs' stance and sentiments. passage: counting costs is not economic behaviour; good-tempered, and they do e.g. Connell not count p.29). nor are the nonmaximizing, Not take-a- day-off, leisure-oriented features of the older culture. Explaining mainstream Australian ambivalence toMards government is more Given the anti­ difficult than explaining the Mariness of market procedures. authoritarian elements in the history of the country (e.g.the convict origins, squatting), bushranging, strongly egalitarian attitudes and image presented, the given Mhich are continued in the mainstream culture government in Australia, and the glamour b^en media figures), supposed importance:Each and of ncreasing importance of politicians (Mho are is someMhat surprising. to lie in the lack of religiosity. Firstly, the poMer and Part of an explanation There are tMO and puritanism foster Protestantism points has of 49 individualism every one of us has to ansMer for him or her-self (before God, or 48. (From previous page) Australian history has arguably' shoMn a strong preference for collective action, both Mhere there might have been The early convict markets to intervene in and Mhere there Mere none. phase affords clear evidence of this, and the later nineteenth century has !been characterised (by Butlin) as a period of 'colonial social ism'. The early tMentieth century Mas the time Mhen the Antipodes served as; a Hore recently , hoMever, the European laboratory for social experiments, II. especial 1y since Nor Id Nar industrial Morld has caught up, (Australian public employment and expenditure Mere much higher than most Western countries in the early post-Mar years, but to have not increased nearly as much since: see Aitken). Glenn Nithers made these points, Mhich as he remarks gives a modified Brookings' vieM, as presented by Caves and Krause some historical grounding. 49. As does even the Catholic Church at times of reformation: perhaps Me are entering a second reformation, as the Church of the Third Horld gets transformed. The same types of individualistic themes are also promoted by Transcendental Meditation (e.g., the emphasis upon 'individuals taking responsibility for shaping their OMn lives ', irrespective of their socio­ economic circumstances; 'the effect of meditation itself is a strong affirmation of our OMn poMer to affect our OMn lives and so accept greater responsibility for our OMn level of Mellness': H. Southern, ANU Reporter 16(5) ( 1985)). 40 !.;.i h Qii! 9'-.- er) : is supposedly responsible for his. or her each successes and failures, own lives, their additions! props and supports, such as welfare etc. and an elaborate social security system, are not required (or even desirable). That religious basis tor individualism has been largely eroded or displaced in Australia, but not North in Rmerica where a latent puritanism persists (prohibition would never have survived in Australia). the State serves as a substitute if not for the Maker at least Secondly, for organised religion or for the Church (in a society strongly influenced 'The functions and power of the state in Australia have come to Catholicism). take over, O'Farrell, bx and p.7). displace, the 'Reliance on social the activities of religion'' state has increased to the (to adapt extent of significant erosion of former religious-oriented areas: in charity, hospital=, a whole gamut of social and psychological services and counselling work , and above all in education (there are, to take one striking 50 example, no strictly private Australasian universities ). h-= miqhf hav .idd^d, But the religious explanation is not entirety plausible. For one thing, the substitution argument has been used to explain too many '-lu^ely phenomena: patriotism. UBR, where phenomena 50. not just the Nationalism power of government, but nationalism also and patriotism are however at least very strong no corresponding substitution is assumed. supposed 1y connected explained appear almost as And in fact old as the all and in the allegoric features of The reasons for this are complex; the 1 ack of a Australasian society taken up below: anti-intellectualism lack of wealth philanthropic tradition, egalitarianism, and the relative and grant endowmen t , and super-rich capitalist. On the philanthrophic, have .norm situation for culture in Australia (to which norm things early substantially reverted following the high-cultural heydays of the 70s), see McLeod, p.2ff. 4! can be. substituting extent In addition, t the religous explanation covers which the State has deliberately extended its power and to up the displaced rival social structures, thereby undermining community- and self-reliance. For these reasons a different two-part hypothesis wi1 } be preferred which is State The hypothesis is that the religious explanation as one part. includes progressively and organisation displacing society, and arrangements, social local that what religious and the community organisations had supplied were many community arrangements; especially in health and education, 'n fact m economic and political science (.especially other conflation of the State with society the decision social arrangements: arrangements making is nowadays especially literature), compared are ubiquitious wi th it is virtual!y always the state versus the market, when market Mith other social arrangements'and mechanisms collapsed into the state. is much less opposition and resistance to the encroachment of There where as emphasized Australia than in USA, in state an pathetic) faith m market alternatives persists. rather reactive) state encroachement egalitarian measures; for welfare and but often it is promoted for sectional advantage from a this reason, for cand Sometimes (typically supported state (hence the view of the milch-cow state, hand-out Partly in Australia is unquestioned the remarked by Hancock). the impression still comes strongly through that, despite the growing power of the State, respect for government and politicians does not run deep in Australian society, would do distaste no harm and could, easily be were legendary Australian disrespect for dislodged. It authority and for tall poppies directed against political leaders and government, so at least that both are regarded more critically. The society surprisingly rule-bound and uncritical fits with attitudes to government, character of Australian and again traces back to colonial origins. H heavy-handed government was something people got accustomed to, and also relied upon and reacted against, 42 early on in Australia. For example, 'in 1/-98 government of New South Hates th? authoritative to a high degree' (Within, was omnipresent, centralised, p.22). And, owing especially to/the cost of what is much more evident in USA, ! oca! government). society apparent!'/ more rule-bound than North American, is and prolonged strikes are much more common in the antipodes. But although the as things such To some extent this can be seen as a further reflection of rules: trade union laws are stronger in the Antipodes and unions less repressed. on the State has meant (excess) toleration of the State and Reliance governments, and hence the condoning of much corruption in branches (e.g. pot ice and prison systems). than European (except by occasional journalists) government and its Australian attitudes are more like m the way corruption is umerican North of hidden and allowed to pass. from gaze This is not to imply that corruption is more extensive than in USA * it is almost certainly less - but that it is viewed and treated differently. The ugly underlying face of the State, private property, capitalism: laissez fairs, security and violence. for advanced Despite the minima!, view of the State prevalent m the USA, The US State has a very extensive, different. and conditions ''?ry the practice is and crucial role in providing the conditions + or advanced capitalism both at home and abroad. At home, there are two main factors, maintenance of capitalistic institutions such as private property and ailing big business, and interna! security. In USA contrast, in property are private property has taken on an almost sacred Australia, much restrictions on (in principle) more extensive, accept further restrictions and the "erosion" of private for example, equivalent. is built entirely on leasehold land; Much rural land important in leasehold categories. establishing was unfettered and there is much more leasehold, parks and reserves, something is which and a good deal to Lanberra, Ameri_an no Nuch "freehold" rural land is under various 43 private preparedness property. there By character has proved remains is types of si^y^ * a ] [ rfi e s te .-g. police -st n d-pr i s o n * s y-s^omsJ——Fm-str^lian...attitudes are more li-^e North than European in the way corruption is American and allowed to pass. (except\by occasional journalists) hidden gaze from to imply This is n tainly less that corrup^ixpn is more extensive than in USf) * it is almost c that it is viewed and treated differently. private property, capitali^m: laissez face of the State, underlying The t in the USR, tensive, The US State has a v different. advanced Despite the minimal, security and X'iolence. view of the^^ate preval fairs, for and conditions the practice is very and crucial role in providing both at home and abroad. Rt home, there the conditions for advanced capit are two main factors, maintenance of capitalistic institutions such as private and internal secur i ty. property and ! In s taken on an al USR contrast, in property are st sacred restrictions on (in principi^) ia, more extensive, restrictions and the "erosion" of private ortant a,*tc,n 1 rl 51. in built entirely on leasehold land; Much rural land establishing was leasehold, parks and reserves, there something preparedness rty. is catMuch ""Treel)ol*d——r-uraJ—Land—Ls—under various to Canberra, American proved which and a good deal By private unfettered and there is much m is character.51 remai ty The origin of the institution is much clearer that its .justification. French constitutional and cultural influence undoubtedly contributed to the situation that has arisen; but even the French have observed the 'private affluence and public squalor' of much of US of Fortunately, however, USf^ has retained some zones of public land which on French perception would be private, e.g. beaches, where in the French world it may be necessary to rent a spot to sit down. Hhile the guaranteed accumulation of capital is essential to capitalism and to acquisitiveness, the accumulation of property and a comprehensive institution of property is not necessary for competitive (as distinct from acquisitive) individualism. The reason is simply that competition may be differently motivated than by acquisitivism or material accumulation, e.g. for status, honour, pure perfectionism, etc. However material accumulation can most certainly foster competition (since cakes are limited); and the Hestern competitive drive would surely be much dampened were the ability to accumulate material rewards and property reduced. zoning restraints, etc. orders, And -tor example, environmental preservation, tree preservation rural land is regulated by all virtually local Pasture Protection Boards, Mhich can authorise removal or destruction of noxious Meeds or species, by organisations Mhich bushfire require can fire restriction practices, by Mater and soil conservation authorities, and so on. Fortunately, some of Scandinavian 52 regulation Mhich in effect requires the exploitative use of forested land. hoM<=ver, the have controls private, corporate and public, are a very visible Security arrangements, and not taken the direction feature of American social arrangements. In USA the police 53 is highly conspicuous to Antipodeans. (In this respect the place expensive presence resembles Eastern block countries much more than less uptight parts of Hestern Accompanying Europe.) precautions. (Among the an extraordinarily high is this most guarded places in level Australia of security are American installations: take a look at the US embassy in Canberra, or at Pine Gap.) high level of police, A things, different for and associated military presence, first, instance, as often, can reflect repressive and unrepresentative political, regimes, or second, considerable social inequality alonq Mith dubious legal methods of self-aggrandisement, or third, both (as in Brasil). The USA is usually taken to be a relatively pure case of the e.g. second. The inequality level in opportunity, theory of the etc. a of security is presented as society, in the distribution reflecting of private level of property, in the But it is not merely this: there is no associated accepted person's place, as in class or culturally stratified societies, Mhich .justifies position in a social hierarchy, or Mhich .justifies, 52. Of course Australian privatisation in turn leaves much to be desired by Melanesian and Aboriginal standards. 53. As a raM NeM Zealander, Mho greM up in a small toMn Mith only a couple of policemen, I Mas astounded by the level of police activity in Meal thy and laM-abiding Princeton. There Mere 3 standing sets of police in the toMn: state, city, and university, and the federal force also had access. All Mere armed: the situation Mas not merely astonishing, but alarming as for instance, On the contrary, it is all too evident, in continued poverty. the highly individualistic US society, ha= b<=*=n largely eroded, role Mhere sense of social place and that there is no very sharp moral division between 54 and illegal aggrandisement, "legal" between police and mafia, etc. (The same phenomenon is developing in Australia, especially in NSH and Queensland.) There is a major reason Mhy the USA is not another pure and case, that concerns the significant level of repression. The security arrangements in USA operate to deal internal also Mith certain types of political dissent. There are substantial numbers of political mainly black; prisoners, even so the number appears small compared Mi th many of the Third Horld regimes USA supports (e.g. Indonesia to take a neighbouring 55 example) . In Australia by comparison there are feM political prisoners (though there are no doubt some, some of the and have been conspicuous examples); hoMever requisite legislation to detain such prisoners, legally, is noM in place, and should be removed before it can be used. Hhether or not the number of political prisoners in USA of prisoners is not. number according to ABC figures, is small, in There are huge numbers of prisoners the USA: more than half a million people in gaol. 'As its prison population increases at record rates, it has been estimated that the Uh has already a larger percentage of its citizens behind bars than nation except the Soviet Union and South Africa" (OD, figures by means reflect the extent of the crime. p.28). any other fet the prison There is an enormous crime crime rate Mi th more than 5000 unsolved murders a year. The USA is, Australia is not. sheer, 54, 55. increasingly since Horld Har II, a militarised society; The militarisation of the USA is not simply a matter of the massive numbers (more than 2 million) of Americans in uniform, at home As Veblen observed, early in the Century. For Indonesia, January l'?85/. see Amnesty International. Lf s t r a 1 i an Society and hold doMn the to abroad, and enterprise bureaucracy business and keep the Morld free (but empire It is a matter also of interests). and research devoted to military heavily militarised Keynesianism) have (of USR, though not nearly as many as might be expected; they have mainstream support, these the critics within sadly it appears reflect and to that extent Ub industry, Certainly objectives. arrangements the for that prevailing the cu1ture. one of in simple terms, policy and practice is, US abroad, international capitalism under US hegemony and of encouraging or right-leaning capitalism in as many places practice has worked Mell from part significant Mith militarily "information", installing and education, a channelling is US domination largely political and economic and propaganda The feasible. an American business viewpoint, of the Morld surplus value into the USa. maintained by a mix of methods, together as promoting military, heavily backed by intelligence, security, and military operations. like american religion, US practices abroad thus exhibit, set of double standards: a rhetoric of freedom and rights, a remarkable given limited practical realisation Mithin the USa, coupled Mith activities quite opposed to those ideals in many Third Horld countries. The capitalistic and bureaucratic control of the main media and educational outlets is such, the majority perception of Americans remain largely of US support of aggression, sheltered violence, that furthermore, from torture, inconvenient suppression of rights, and so on, abroad (points Mell documented in Chomsky and Herman.) 56 Hhile australia cannot, by and large, be convicted of such practices, government policies activities. States malpractices, 56. support, find it and remain very uncritical expedient to turn a largely blind and even atrocities, of, eye of other "allied" or neighbouring american to the states These are small-scale activities Mhich channel "aid" in fact beneficial to military structures of adjacent countries, rather than to the local peoples, as Mith aid to the Philippines. (witness australia's official approach, and aid packages, to Indonesia and the Phi!ippines). The USa is a particularly violent society, directly (in several torture training), Mays: military violence and exports practices, intelligence through example, and also less directly, both operations, through media coverage and the sooner the American life-style ceases to be one to imitate and becomes one to avoid and scorn, popular culture, the better. and so on. From this angle, The relative extent of violence in US life is Mell enough 'On the average death by homocide is eight illustrated by homocide rates: to nine times more likely in the US than in other advanced industrial states ^OD, It is even more strikingly revealed by comparative figures for 57 gun killings Mhere detail:s for 1980 are as folloMs: hand- p.27). In are Australi a UK, Canada SMi tzer 1 and USa in in in in 4 8 24 11,998 USa., part this is no doubt due to the vast numbers of hand-guns i n not used purely for deterrence : hand-guns countries 60 mi 11 ion in 1980. are not available in the same free they to felt (presently) are ideological difference: be required. and and easy is there Pacific South In an Mhich May, nor important Reagan's mainstream American vieM that 'the right to carry arms shal1 not be infringed' is not shared in the South, Mhere no such laMlessness and unqualified right is conceded. The differences .just in Meapon availability, are Australia as a pioneering society, the of American vieM of in roughly the same position as parts of American Mest some (unspecific) time ago, reasons toting, the reasons Mhy the common violence, some gun is concern the organisation of the society, seriously astray. Other the extent of socialisation and lack of key elements of a coMboy economy. 57. Figures from a 1984 aBC documentary on violence in USa. are given in 00, pp.28-'?. 4? Similar figures . Liberty, equality, fraternity - compared and updated. Though conditions of personal liberty in Australasia are rivalled in feM other places, not, in marked contrast to 58 appropriate bills of rights. examples restricted; USA, guaranteed constitutionally Furthermore, they remain quite they are by or any unnecessarily are conditions on libel and the right to MithdraM one's labour in Australia (and in NeM Zealand constraints on sexual freedom). despite serious inadequacies in Australasian legal codification and recognised poor performance areas as regards civil liberties, Yet, certain it seems clear that the record of political repression and infringement of civil liberties in 59 USA is Morse. There is also notably less tendency to self-censureship, whether in the Mork-place or in social life, than in North America. in Australia (and NeM Zealand) Australians tend to be open and speak their minds on things. in several respects Australian society is considerably more egalitarian, (but especially wealth and treatment), dominated its cultural life. supported^inequality in Britain. than the Northern societies that There is conspicuous, and still have socially There is very conspicuous inequality in USA, most countries in the primary US "sphere of influence", and also 58. In certain respects this lack of state guarantee matters only to the legally inclined Mho Mant to see everything codified (it certainly In part the lack of matters less to the anarchistically inclined), appropriate codification of rights and freedoms is due to poli t ical inertia and the reluctance of government to concede rights^1 in part it can be traced to a different heritage from the American, to t_ {he British The trouble is that there system enlarging on an uncodified common laM. ______ _ of _ common __ are elements laM, still having some force, Mhich are inimical to various freedoms. 59. Nhile it is difficult to impossible to document claims of this sort, some quantitative impression can be gained by trying to match temporal1 stages stages in of political repression in USA, as assembled by Goldstein, Mith < Similarly corresponding lists of conspicuous infringements of Australia. civil liberties could be draMn up. But even if this arduous recognised there Mould remain many problems of task Mere folloMed through, especially as to Mhat extent population and concentration of Mei gh t ing, should be used to average data, etc. popu1 at i on 60. This is part (but part only) of the alleged rudeness and crudeness Australians Mhich repels refined Europeans. On the self-censorship American citizens, see Goldstein, p.556ff. in e.g. of of Central and Latin America. The inequality is obvious to Australians, and even It is confirmed in varying degrees, by who visit major US cities. Europeans, a ranqe of statistics, home ownership, extent of as to wealth differentials, poverty, etc. inequality Gross is not only present in America, throuoh the competitive individualism of the underpinned, blame: to herself work will remove it. Protestant work (such approved as Poverty culture. the opportunities to avoid it are there, or individual and Thus inequality is justified ideologically in terms of a strongly and worth ethic and s American American inequality is not, primarily ideologically A person in poverty has only himself squalor are commonly deserved. and but is and social philosophers political like that of Europe, however, suppl'-*'. one of class, but and of opportunities connected with this. of wealth, philosophy individualistic old New and money are equated. A it and the extensive popular support main source of American inequality, seems to enjoy, widespread support for is evident fairly unfettered market processes and belief in market justice, and so (with further suppressed assumpt i ons) in capi taiism. American inegalitarianism is supported, grossly unequal distribution wealth under market-based at a deeper level then, —sttppor-fs—marke-t—ar^-angetwnts a&d the like,--- t4+e—the-mcc individualism. competitive 1 n ter*! But the endor semen t is far from clear, some cur i ou s specu 1 ^Lc-n . ex amp 1e, much less egalitarian countrDes it "Australian nationalism" w it ha for een a matter ^en tied to nationalism; but e explication circular). And, in concerning the vigorous = democratic values against an angl'-English themselve , and h of JSA) appear as nationalistic (to make par t i a 1 opposi t i on to ertion of k source e upper These no longer tenable theses a tw-eg di sp 1 i.ced-by a11-J Lh—an t i ^aut class, it is t *.r i an , ttreme---- eta—th# fac h'./ wh.3.t suppor ts market competitive 1 n teres ted endorsement arrangements and the 1 ike, But individualism., of egalitarianism' some c u r 1 ou s speculation. the is far from clear, For ex ample, the source themes self- of 'Australia's of and has been a matter for it has been tied to nationali am $ but much less egalitarian countries (such as UBA) appear as nationalistic (to make And, it "faustralian nationalism" would render the explication circular). partial opposition to this, has been pressed a thesis concerning the vigorous assertion of Australia's democratic values against an anglophile upper or against the English themselves. said, it being displaced by another, with inconsistent hierarchial the organisations in ihese no longer tenable theses are, it is anti-authoritarian, theme - on the face of extensive popular as class, government Antipodean and army - as for support to such 'Australians something said to be shown by their -61 bad relations with the police. No doubt element* of all these collective dislike of higher au thor i ty', undoubtedly themes have historical relevance, and certainly Australian egalitarianism So far as deep historical roots'; but that does not explain why it persisted. however, it has persisted, the including controlling two-way Australian elites, linkage it appears to be due to a complex mix of factors, anti-authoritarian perhaps causal) with the orientation of the mainstream society, Hancock aptly has streak particularly Northern ones. (not has opposition to But more important is the and fraternal and socialistic what was 'colonial socialism called 'socialism without doctrines' (.though it and what is not really devoid of underlying ideas). Not convincing 61. only is detail, this explanation of Australian egalitarianism short on but in its course it touches upon an interesting paradox, These now unlikely explanations are brought together in Connell z4. Against Hancock's claim 'that egalitarianism and nationalism are "interwoven"', was opposed the view of the 'democratic masses ... defining themselves against the Anglophile upper class' (p.34) and Phillips' claim that 'allied to this rebellion against the English is a vigorous asset* tion of democratic values' . 'he anti-authoritarian claim is advanced by Connell himself. Bad relations with and clashes with the police are of course not uncommon elsewhere, including America. puzzle of Australian anti-authoritarianism - or authoritarianism the continues to vex discussion of the mainstream cutture. there there other, unnecessar11y is evident support for, authoritarian reliance upon^and institutions, such as heavy-handed of group size theory. resist the about complacency "self-reliance", most But on Australian attempt wi11 gover nmen t to side, For on the one clear evidence of Australian antipathy to authority. is ujhich by a difference Roughly, individuals and small primary groups Mill tend imposition by other individuals or small groups or factions, counter to large groups or attempt to Australians Mill not but buck the system. To say that Australian society is more egalitarian than American, or than British or French, is not however to say that the local myth of an egalitarian society is Justified, and some, and perhaps extensive, poverty. than m New Zealand), appears or that there are not conspicuous differences in wealth There are (and on both <-ount= more and the polarisation of income and wealth in to be increasing (with inflation). Even so the differences the very rich and the poor are not nearly as marked, 63 numerous or ill-assisted as in USA. In 62. Australia there Australia between and the poor are not is also a recognised cultural drive towards so more The evidence is notjmere 1y historical and anecdotal, as Rigby shows. Nhat Rigby demonstrateshs that English college students are 'significantly more pro—authority' than Australian, 'with English students fa.V'juring institutional authorities more strongly (p.41, p.46). Rigby's, results also suggest that Australian radicals (at least among students) are more opposed to authority than their English counterparts', and that 'attitudes towards the police are not anoma 1 ou s in Australian life ... but fall consistently into a pattern of attitudes towards institutional authority genera 11 y' (p.46). Nh areas 'England has lor had J a tradition of respect for ths police; in Australia the police are commonly viewed with contempt, especially by the young as previous studies have confirmed (p.46) . Note that authoritarian' is used throughout in itstandard dictionary senses of 'subservience to authority , placing obedience to authority above persona! liberty' and not in the unfortuante extensions (discussed by Rigby) made by Adorno in elaboration of the "authoritarian personality". Rigby explains the notion he is operating with as 'the degree of approval or disapproval with which a person views various institutional authorities' (p.42). 51 equality, manifested poppies" ta!! or striking!;/ in the proverbial procedure of "cutting dc.-jn "tall timbers". at F'eop!e who excel, in !east certain respects such as intellectual or artistic ways, are strong!;/ disapproved of in certain traditional social groups, poms, are and, like know-alls, cut down to size if it can be done. But this levelling is b;/ no for instance in sport, means general!;/ applied locally to outstanding people, 84 politics, and increasingly nowadays in business. nowadays- applied fellow sm a Iler break", a 63. in the bigger cities is levelling Even up, less giving regularly the -mall though such aid appears to have been accepted practice c omm u n i t i es, along with poufters and wogs, and h as con s i der ab1e basis in the t_ u 1 t u r a 1 sympathy with the underdog' and more broadly in an in tradition, intolerance of (From previous page) There is much argument about the extent of equa!1ty data organised by Rubenstein (especially Iable 1, in Australia. ' But the meagre spread of weal th in lustra! ia compared with d-A p.26) reveals Embury and Fodder 'conclude that although the distribution and Britain. Australia is far from egalitarian, it is no less so than a of income in as Japan and rather more egalitarian than some of the country such world's most industrialised nation , notabty, USA, UK, Canada and Italy They present as a. common finding in sociology that the (p. 122) inequality of size distribution of family income compares favourably with (p.l8-f.). that of other countries' (p.188). Aitkin, in the course of making = e^cr'R] points of relevance regarding the equality and social welfare for more than 70 years situation in Australia, is less cautiou: Australia has enjoyed the benefits of a basic-wage system and an arbitral method of settling industrial disputes which incidentally fixes wage and salary rates. Two consequences are that Austral ia (a.) has one of the most equal distributions of income in the world [further references are cited], and (b) that there has been a floor under the wage system throughout the twentieth century" (.pp.18-'?). Reliable data pinning down the comparative extent of poverty in Australia and USA faces further difficulties, in differences in the way poverty lines are set, and because the Australian government fails to keep any due records of poverty (%?ot always recognising it as a social problem?). As a very rough rule of thumb, however, poverty appears almost tw1cf a = extensive in USu, in terms of percentage of population, as in Australia. 64. It remains unclear where levelling down applies and where it is waived, and perhaps there are no clear principles involved. The criterion, if any, is not what Caves and Krause suggest, that 'foreign recognition of outstanding qualities of certain Australians somehow legitimizes those persons and makes them acceptable at home (p.?). 'Justified levelling-down is a significant feature of the culture, that will recur; for example, it is linked toAustalian anti-intellectualism, and it is said to be motivated by the incompetence and typical corruption of controlling elites. 64 n nti).3 rLaj^z.----- Ff)—btrsi He = S . i rtg 1 y p. nowadays break", a up, "giving small the ce though such aid appears to hav^ and has considerable basis in the communities, ma!I er 1evelling in the b i ggerco in tradi tion, culture 3 1 nnr^-L^Llhaih\hii th the under dog-—and mare- broad! y --i-rY—M' frYtc 1 oranco 65 oppression'' . pressures The extent greater equality are shown more to objectively of party and political support for redistributative and like which would lessen inequality. in the measures Such support, like the support for socialistic is much more widespread and respectable measures it is commonly coupled with, in Australia than in North America. The reluctance broadened egalitarian (nowadays facade of Australasian life has been propped up by also declining, especially under the impact the of a immigration practice) of rich people to extravagantly display their wealth (in vulgar European fashion). Presumably the forces of egalitarianism, though in part mythical, explain this reticence to tout wealth and indulge in 66 conspicuous or wasteful consumption. 64. It remains unclear where levelling down applies and where it is waived, and perhaps there are no clear principles involved. The criterion, if any, is not what Caves and krause suggest, that foreign recognition of outstanding qualities of certain Australians somehow legitimizes those persons and makes them acceptable at home (p.2!) . Qualified levelling-down is a significant feature of the culture, that will recur; for example, it is linked to Austalian anti-intellectualism, and it is said to be motivated by the incompetence and typical corruption of controlling elites. 65. These sorts of equality in justice. as they might be called, are mentioned in Connell 74, who reminds us of the importance of distinguishing equality determinates, such as treatment, condition, opportunity, and so on. All these forms of equality are manifested to some extent in Australia, whereas in UbA equality is more and more restricted to a certain (but limited) equality of opportunity, along with equality (in principle) before the law. The famous Australian equality in treatment, approach and so on, is regularly illustrated by the phenomena of tea and taxis, and in the (democratic) slogans that 'no-one is (feels?) superior' and that 'one man is as good as another' (cf. p.2'?ff.) . But males, Australian to (potential) mates. Mhite male-dominated Evident blots on Australian egalitarianism social arrangements. prevailing in USA, society. decade, doubt It is little consolation that they are perhaps little Morse .justified. Altering these in image While the of prevailing social arrangements as sexist and racist is no criticism those Momen and the situation changed considerably in the last exaggerated, are Indeed Australia has a particularly bad image in the North as a racist and male chauvinist society. L-jas Australian notorious White Australian policy and the treatment of former the egalitarianism has been restricted to than Mhich is also often attacked as a racist and sexist Antipodean arrangements, in a fashion for Mhich however there is little traditional basis in any cultures, offers the prospect of major changes in social and political arrangements, other matters as peace and Mar (as feminists have explained, such especially and as in opinion po11s have c1 ear 1y indie a ted). at With the comparative male egalitarianism of Australasian societies g% a lack of class stratified and Mell While (there are professionals, so forth), appropriate distinctions. Australasian society of various sorts, the important notion of c1 ass, to the Antipodes. undoubtedly blue-collar Morker=, like so many enough in the North or at least in Europe, is classificatiun= does not extrapolate There is practically no upper class and the and Morking classes substantially merge, middle and there are virtually none of the significant social barriers (discussed^/ in Olson) that go Mith cla=r-, at lea = t 6^ (From previous page) This, and the comparative l ack of Meal th, may also help to explain the paucity of grand mansions in the Australian countryside. Host grander mansions these days are built by fairly recently arrived immigrants Mho have made their fortunes. .67. Similarly Marxist theory does not extrapolate Mell Mithout fundamental overhaul. It is decidedly misleading to speak, as some do, of the rigid class structure of rural society'* in Australia, Mhere all those spoken of are land holders, often large landoMners. There are divisions, farmers and graziers, poor graziers and rich graziers, and there is a rough understood social order of landholders based on quality of property, Mealth origin, time in district, social and political affiliations, etc. But it is hardly a rigid order, and, more important, does not correspond to Marxist (or other) classes. for sufficiently Mhite male Australians. society (another diversity on conventional indicators than less shoM the strata in Australian Moreover, in USA partly due to the much but highly stratified society), "classless." those smaller spread of Meal th and smaller population. in The conventional stratification picture leaves out an element of variety society Mhich may prove of much importance for social change, Australian namely the growing phenomenon of Alternative Australia; that is, Mho people have dropped out of or moved out of the mainstream society and its concomitant commitments to a Mork ethic, to materialism, to maintaining an approved social standing, etc. (in short, have abandoned key elements of the dominant Northern It paradigm). is not knoMn (and is impossible to estimate exactly) hoM many people belong to this loose and vaguely defined grouping, but it is sometimes 88 very optimistically' put at several millions. It certainly takes in the extensive netMorks of communes and alternative farms in (Mith a main concentration in coastal northern NSN). prices is (for that matter, USA rural are much higher, hoMever takes in many in the Aboriginal population, distinctive ethic grouping. S3. The grouping in the cities; though land Mhere the squatters and many beach people and others surviving largely on the dole probably Zealand, and unemployment significantly loMer/^j but includes in It appears unmatched it is not matched in NeM by no means rural, Australia eastern they of the and it form a It is people from Alternative Australia Mho have On the groups involved see Smith and Crossley, Cock and especially Sommerlad et.al. To keep matters in perspective, it is important to recall that these groups have been much influenced by analogous groups in For instance, USA and by a significant literature floMing from USA. Morking Capra and Spetnak estimate that the membership of 'groups is over Mith means and goals that are consistent Mith Green politics . 2 million'* (p.223); (p.223) ; ^ith a base of that size (though still only about IX Even more of the population)^ Green America is far from negligible. pr om i s i n g, '15 million adult Americans ... according to recent studies by the research institute SRI International, are basing their lives fully or par t i a11y on such values as frugality, human scale, seif-de termi nation, HoMever partial ecological aMareness and personal groMth'* (p.i?5) , basing on one such value may amount to little more than subscription to a meditation or encounter group; and so the high figures may only reflect Californian fashions. 54 5^ played a major part in protest and action movements right around Australia, in 70 the forests of North Queensland, East Gippsland, and first at Terania Creek , by the dam sites in Tasmania, at the uranium mines in South Australia, at the American installation in Central Australia, ... , Though points, they of many have broken Mith the dominant social paradigm these peoples have tapped into elements of independent Australian culture. strongly at the critical continuing They represent an important source and, because of the May they connect Mith the older culture, they for change, can carry other parts of the established population Mith them. As equality with and liberty, even so, more so, Mith fraternity. Mainstream Australian society certainly surpasses American in fraternity, Mith fraternity broadly' and communi ty, and sec t i ons). But liberty , equality, community , these are important virtues to construed, sexistly elements socialistic (as to Mill duly include Mateship, in subsequent appear aim for, or even better to have already built into a society or state. that is the sort of society French revolutionaries long envisaged, sort of only there society that some of the founders intended to implant in it got out of control and greM in different and Indeed it is the America dangerous 71 directions. Australian society is lucky to retain a solid cultural base 6'?. (From previous page) The dole is the government-supplied unemployment alloMance. The dole undoubtedly finances a good deal of day-to-day operations of Alternative Australia (as distinct from capital investment in land and equipment), and to that extent its flourishing depends on a subsidy from mainstream Australia. But it doesn't folloM that it is parasitic, any more than infant industries Mhich are subsidised are parasitic. Furthermore, it can be argued, Mith some justice, that mainstream Australia has confiscated the main means of production for its OMn ends and uses, and should pay rent for the resources and facilities. 70. In the forest occupations, Zea 1 artd Mere adap t ed. 71. So it is astonishing that, on the basis of its economic performance, American society is often presented as some sort of model for Australian society to try to emulate. A narroM economism, Mhich measures productivity through material goods turned out and, more important here, quality of life basically through per capita GNP, and neglects liberty, equality and fraternity, is at Mork here/— as it is at Mork in the ideal developing nations are encouraged to pursue. It is a false ideal. direct action methods earlier applied in NeM from Mhich to reorient itself, to steer bac k t OM a r ds these traditional virtues (as amended). has diverged from its original ideals in large part because America ideological leaders have accepted or bought, its and most of the public have been sold, an economic vieM of the Mor 1 d, Mith advanced man (and contemporary Moman 72 even more so) an economic animal . The large assumption has been and remains, ".free" to repeat it in crude populist form, that the operation of the enterprise market system within a suitable democratic framework Mill the other virtues, at least to the extent that they can be desirably 73 obtained, in much the same (no hands) May that the market system guarantees ensure most efficient organisation. The large assumption is false, as the American 74 experience has shoMn; and it does not fail simply because of imperfections in the American application of a perfect economic model. Despite a massive promotional effort in Australia and NeM both outside and many felloM-travellers Mithin, the .just Zealand, the American economic vieM of Morld has not been Midely bought in Australia or NeM Zealand. that it has been substantially rejected, australia, but cultural tradition. individual that tradition it in in particular runs counter to important australia, materialism from components despite the earthy It is not alternative by of materialism competitive the main of that individualism, or fixation on economic gain (as dialectical materialism reveals, at For does not imply least in theory). 72. and thereby also a rational animal. On this modern characterisation of man, and rationality, see, e.g. abraham, chapter 1. 73. For of course incentive musn't be removed by too much equality. equality of opportunity, an important sort of equality, that the enterprise system is supposed to deliver above all others. 74. Nhat results is rather a society rich in go-getters, scoundrels and cheats, many of Mhose main heroes, successful capitalists, remain .just sufficiently on the right side of bent laMS, if that. Consider, seriously, e.q., Mhat is applauded in Heilbroner'*s celebration of the rise of capitalism, in The Nor Idly F'h i 1 osopher s . But free Competitive individualism, JoL and the pace of life. immensely individualistic,, and highly competitive. American society is Australasian society is sufficiently individualistic, but less competitive and operates more on direct cooperat i on. Individualism even more in economic and political and practiced is a conspicuous feature of American arrangements, both as theory reinforces Mhich practice. It is seen in competitive form in the American dream, Mhich has no Australian equivalent: is the of dream manifestations Morth singling out, Mi th the emphasis on individual salvation, not reflected in Australia. it, Extreme individualism has for instance, and elevation of personages as heroes, selection making individual the and so on. in individual life-style, financially, other it in high culture in fundamentalist the religion in survivalism, a "movement" again In USA the individual aims above all to excel; it is the individual that is unique, Mho can make a difference on his or her OMn, Mho succeeds. things, Individual reduction is very strong, make differences, achieve. It is individuals Mho do support systems The make that such achievement realisable, the structure and the other individuals, fade into the background. Individualism in North America is accordingly not merely methodological Mith reduction of social and political arrangements to "individual" actors in the form of nuclear families and nuclear firms), (typically interrelations, other than market exchange, as can be managed. implies that each such individual operates, in large measure, OMn ends, in an individual-first or individual-only fashion. in implies, situations of limited resources, and opportunities, severe competition betMeen individuals. America certainly, indeed an Australia), and seemingly inevitably, immense emphasis, on mechanisms foster 5 Individuali sm to his or her And that in turn sought positions and Individualism in North involves competition. Mhich is exported Morld Mide (and that Mith competitiveness, so There is includes especially those entrenched in mainstream economics, such as market competitiveness, and factor competitiveness active environmental America; for employment, (e.g. movements etc.). promotion, in there is a difference in approach is much more competitiveness within the there the Even within US North more movements, emphasis on leaders, less cooperation, than in Australasian groups. resulting American-preferred picture of pure individual The competition has however to be conspicuously qualified - rather more than minimally - since the competitive mechanisms do not continue to function in optimal fashion, even market system, which is not nearly as self-regulating as is often requires to resources. and mechanisms. As well, etc. But purity the the determine broad functions of the capitalist lands namely democratic within these supposedly necessary and desirable republican state, You outshine move, change your friends to get ahead, etc. sort of competitiveness isn't altogether approved of in Australia, Zealand, is And yet another individualistic-type arrangement is required or beat down your rivals, New and state such as private capital and private and state constraints, competition is the avowed and encouraged objective. in free pretended, to ensure defend and police the institutions within which system operates, select to clear markets, state, and break coalitions and unions, to required and (capitalist) the competition market The without organisational regulation and intervention. at all, or where the American influence is weaker That still less Polynesian and attitudes increasingly influential. In Australasia, there You do not do down mates. mateship. some of is more cooperation, with fortunately not all extra- friendships are superficial, and fortunately the rural tradition of familial neighbourliness, net disappeared adequately with explained through where the self-interest, the advance of agribusiness (itself significant cultural phenomenon in Australia). also coupled Of course there is far more cooperation in USA too than the ideology strictly allows for; entirely it individualistic ideology does a has far not less There are many other respects not square with American For instance, practice. differs the many places Mhere advanced corporate capitalism earlier phases of capitalism, from in demand, producer-controlled through organisation people, in burgeoning bureaucracies, and so on. environmentally very significant, by dominated cooperation because they bear on (Mhat are to present unsatisfactory socio-environmental alternatives society Antipodean attitudes to competition and different The competition is liable to give quite are seen as) arrangements. A weight to undue competitive mechanisms (like the market system) and goals (such as achiever or product maximization), and so to support a range of undesirable objectives and practices, as those exhibited in capitalist business practice, 75 failure and so on, exhibited in short in contemporary America. such differences in lifestyle floM from the differences in Hany cooperative not friends, forth. neighbours, Antipodean In materialistic extent acquaintances, Australasians do to outstrip them in their consumption, need competitive- Because they are not competing to the same orientation. Mith their colleagues, market material success, cultures there is not quite so and the same pressure to consumerism (though there is certainly far more than enough) or to conspicuous or Masteful consumption. American culture consumption, conspicuous estimated partly in acquisitive, terms of especially The competitive individualism of explains the high levels of North acquisitiveness, the the Mastefulness (the consumption and Maste can throughput). of money. American culture is particularly The incentive to obtain money is more of this is always better, typically Mith no upper limit. be high; Hence too there is strong resource orientation, since resources can be converted into money. 75. Theoretically the emphasis on competition shoMS up in the Meight assigned to games such as the prisoners'' dilemma and tragedy-of-the-commons and the May they are supposed to be taken. Note hoM very important differences in culture are for the treatment of these games; an example is the corresponding children's game Mhich is played very differently by American children (Mhere it jis competitive tussle) from Chinese children (for Mhom cooperation affords a rather trivial solution). The relative lack of such enterprise and drive in Australia, of less competitiveness, the and helps explain the slow speed of technology transfer, to resistance, both of business and con*=umer = 76 Australia. The relative lack of enterprise comparative in technology Northerners often claim, to the Australian business innovations' (Stretton, Immigration Department, Mhich 'Australi an community. a special program has ex tends, Such a view has been bougtrF by p.35). n ew risk-averse, and stow to copy capitalists are accused of being unadventurous, others' a corollary attract to btj = in^ = -m^n (including Asian ones) and also businesswomen, the northern because Australian yy business is lacking, it is. said, in enterpreneurial skills and drive. The pace of life is much slower in the Antipodes than North There are significant differences in time conceptualisation in the deriving Antipodes, in part from the limited extent of industrialisation (wh i *- h tries to people to be on t i me) and the weakness of c ompe t i t i on in daily force There is not the same pressure to get on, workplace much America. or to be at work, on living. time. and daily competition goes a race against the clocks (as overtly in competitive sport), also and pace, stress, competitiveness goes a marked difference in pace, etc. Nith American with the most rapid pace in the industrial East where the competition is most widespread and intense. one moves south and west in US, declines. Zealand Nith and west from the centre in Canada, As the pace But in Australia the pace is conspicuously slower still, and in New 78 noticably slower again. Antipodean people are "laid back" by American standards, even if city people still seem in an immense rush, to get nowhere much, to country visitors. The slower pace is tied not just with !e== 76. Features of Australian enterprise developed by the former Minister of Science and technology, B. Jones, in his Sleepers Awake!. Jones, who i= all in favour of having Australia convert to Northern business enterprise and competitiveness, or worse the South Asian parody of it, is inclined to ascribe Australian "failure" to a supposed separation of technology and culture. 77. The sooner this program is halted the better. Much the same applies to recently renewed immigration programs to import more Europeans: for the reasons see Birrell et. al. competitiveness, but standards, threshold often a with more easy going acceptance sometimes verging on sloppiness, and evinced of letter such in familiar slogans as "It'll do" or the famous She'll be right". The differences taken up more theoretically in terms of maximization in be can America, as opposed to much more widespread acceptance of "enough does" (of satisizing) in the Antipodes (for details see MSS). USA it's keep moving, In "commodity" too is hustle. "wasted"), the Time is short (even if much of best life is in the fastest this lane. 'I need to get back to the office, to be at my 7? is what is much more often said than in Australia. There is a clock Punctuality class' is important. in/clock out attitude in North America, fortunately hasn't industrious and been widely shared with Germany and Japan, or enthusiastically industrial Antipodes. adopted in the Nor has the associated American which less go- getting taken to any great extent. The much Northern go-getter vanishes into a role. more readily; Northerners assume people identify with their position. In the Antipodes instance much less role playing, people retain their more dimensions, 30 in their jobs. This has an important corollary for ethics: Northern fashion for trying to explain a person's there is roles ethical position in for the terms 73. (From previous page) By New Zealand standards metropolitan Australians are pushy (as well as commonly vulgar); and for the New Zealand visitor the very congested Sydney does, at first, acquaintance, appear to instantiate the rat-race, especially the aggressive driving on the narrow, crowded and polluted roads. Harris gets down some of the other felt differences: 'New Zealanders regard Australians as flashy, effusively patronising, as scruffy urchins playing Big Brother (The Austral i an, April 23-2'?, l'?85, Neekend Magazine, 5). 79. Beinq 10 minutes o^f so late for appointments is common, and acceptable, in Australia; but not the hour or more some Latin American countries allegedly tolerate (cf. Awa, p.3). 30. Nhy there is less readiness to assume roles in the deep South, like the reluctance of Australians to take deferential or service roles willingly, is a bit puzzling. For in mainstream Australian the society is less individualistic, more social, and in apparently relevant respects less conservative than American. The problem is taken up again in the text. c of his her or various roles loses much of its point force and the in antipodes. Role is occupation actions, responses, intimately mith formality coupled dress, and so forth. of fixity and In these matters a rough spectrum can be observed, as shomn:- australian american European typical 1y informal typical 1y formal a Such range, in exhibited both to mork applies mhich such things as responses to In some of these areas, dress. leisure and strangers, such as dress, is activities, customs, and manners american culture displays a switching between extreme informality and formality, a certain schizophrenia, level of informality in mainstream australis has led to memorable sociological talk of phenomenon also seen in certain trendier australian cults. the peculiarly australian "culture of informality". tells aoainst ',-jell in angloph/ije The extent of informality the more artificial parts of higher culture mhich do not australis, outside small (but sometimes government fare sponsored) minorities. Role-regulation extends to person-to-person relations. an The But here there is interesting reversal of australian and american positions (on the diagram above), mith american relations being more flexible than australian (and these more relaxed in turn than the more British and role-regulated relation^ in Mem Zealand). Hhile american approaches to human relations, as to adolescence and education, are increasingly influencing australian practices, ameri<-an= =till more rapidly reach first name stages, on; they details of their life histories, and =o regularly converse mith strangers .juxtaposed on invite m^re acquaintances into their houses, and more friendly than australians, americans tend to be much more open, public transport, and for the most part are marm^r Of course mhile both australians and forthcoming, and initially friendly than Europeans, are serious questions about the depth and dependability there of many of these (and their) relationships. The "easygoinoness" that Americans often find in the Antipodes is in part due the considerable informality and in part to to pace. slower the The societies are not after al 1 that easygoing in other respects, such as personal and relations, and they are not exactly Mell-knoMn for race toleration is increasing in Australia Mith the development of a (though and further stratified society, multicultural of factors, climate, strong though dying, is mix as is the more leisurely sense of time. One obvious factor i s the casual dress, etc. (Ireland being the European 1 and encourages informality, Mhich inheritance Irish Another i s the of "Take your less submerged than in USf), is )* —f ocus on ttLij^gs-^ittpltasised Ml pnpular footbal1 Mork, 6 Irel and: pol 11 les, Borse (as the n eMspaper s daily conf i rm). pub conversation in Dublin; Mork, racialism, more The easygoing casual features are perhaps due to a still far from dead^ topics tolerance their an i sat i on, so they are in Melbourne. and socialism. in n approached in an lie Mork and union Mork, Mhich are of especially p anitested The s1OMer pace is informal and rather casuaj^ May by Northern standards^y)(4 I attitudes to Mork are par Americans generally notice a 1 ack o ervjce in the Ptntipodeans, through indifference to positive r'. often astonished ascribe to by the service class difference, North y illustrated by attitudes to service. Correspondingly, the ranging doMn Rntipodeans are Mhich North, they an ascription that\hardly applies in often America. Part of the reason for,this difference lies in different attitudes to Mork, to the relative source desines and pressures to serve Mell; these differences remains someMhat obscure. On the one hand, is suggested don' t that f^ntipj0c!eans in service can be rude because it's acceptable and have to prove anything, in particular to the person they're serving. . of _____ On the ___ - popular Australian racing, football focus on things emphasised in organisation, Nork, politics, These are the (as the newspapers daily* confirm). topics of pub conversation m Dublin: e. Ireland: horse leading so they are in He 1 bourne. and socialism. in The slower pace is manifested especially public work and union work, which are often approached in an work, informal and downright rather casual way by Northern standards, lazy and sloppy fashion by most industrial organisations or- "systems", and sometimes The standards. both public and private, a in large are regarded as open to some exploitation (time out, free services, etc.) in a way that mates are not. Attitudes to work are partly illustrated by attitudes to service. Americans generally notice a lack of service in the An11podeans, through mdifference'to positive rudeness. often astonished ascribe to by Correspondingly, the service rendered in the class difference, North, North ranging down Antipodeans are which they an ascription that hardly applies in often America. Part of the reason for this difference lies in different attitudes to work, to the relative desires and pressures to serve well; these differences remains somewhat obscure. but the full source of On the one hand, it is suggested that Antipodeans m service can be rude because it*s acceptable and they don t have to prove anything, in particular to the person they're serving. On the other hand, it is suggested that there is a need in the Antipodes to emphasize that there are no strata differences (when there are), not need to serve. to show that they do On this less likely view Americans can serve because they are equal, and see themselves as such. A further element here is North American identification with the or the thought ladder. firm: the person who serves the firm may still often admit 'I might be president', In Australia, or at least much further up the by contrast with Japan and America, appear to be the same "organisational feudalism". but not vice versa.) concern to the competitive there does not (In Australia, you owe me, siihpr hand, it i.i.snn<^e^t-ed^ a need in t]r= AntipDii^s- to<-emphj^M^- trata differences (mhen there are) , there are no to shom,^ttlat they do likely viem Americans,-can serve because they see themse1ves as such. fl \ur ther element here is North American identification mith the or concern the person mho serves the firm may still often admit the or at least much further up the ight be president', thought Australia, 1 adder. appear fo'be t h $ the to competitive there does by contrast mith Japan and America, not ,3 " nr nan i sat ion al feudJtJism".____ (In Aust rjJ-1-3-,—yiau—cm - -me, . e v?r sa t f especially Nork, are Britain'' and morking conditions and salaries to a much greater extent by politically controlled Australia blue collar mork, in America. than (Nild, p.50). powerful 'Unionisation is high compared to unions and American Australian unions are mostly left-oriented The in by American standards, some of them so far to the left that they are strictly off the truncated socially American spectrum. political They are by contrast mith the generally right-leaning US committed, and the US industrial-military complex. union situation can again be traced Part of the reason for the to the unions, individual support that strange advanced capitalistic mixture, mhich often furthermore ideology of values American competitive individualism, but an important part lies in social selection, =tate-supported repression of left-oriented unions (see Goldstein).. The Australian unions are, politicised, and, by morld-standards, by the same industrial standards, very active and extremely strike-prone. They can serve as an important source of and aid to change. of the Australian environmental things prevent unions concerns. extend to social environmental matters For the interest= and sometime^ Australian unions have been very important in as bans on uranium mining and shipments, and heritage destruction, highly as mell as to =U'_h in green ban=> to patterns not emulated (and mostly not wanted) in North America. It has been suggested, but on slender grounds and by Americans, that such as action green undesirable legal heritage. And environmental or other. important redressing for like those concerning constitutional rights, in a Mhile the in difference of channels action is, to access Mithout the from the courts doubt, an American and Australia and in NeM Zealand, that it cannot account for the differences. the approved channels sufficient, in as many American failures make many important cases, to extremely difference betMeen the environmental situation in USA and end, Mith The sources of this evidently and constitutional inheritance history politically-approved approach, class action cannot be brought in the public interest situation lie, different the But the most that rings true in this is that, minor recent exception, to prevent vandalism, of militancy and strength be accounted for by the relative weakness of 1ega1 means environmental vandalism. the the Mith movement in Australia and its often confrontational environmental can along bans, in Nor are in plain: there is no alternative but recourse to direct action, to the streets and forests. Like most of the Australian unions and universities, both Morkers greenies (those active in environmental movements) remain influenced sometimes inspired by, and certainly linked by, socialist by, ideals. and and The=e influences, overt in Australia, have largely been Miped out oygone underground in USA, being incompatible Mith advanced capitalism, the American establishment. as communistic inspired, the communist politicians can folloMing confusion of communism, Indeed socialist themes are commonly disposed of or as, has been and seen as inimical by Mhat they are not, ..iust communism. kicked, regularly, and hard, by leads and encouragement from North America, state socialism, Although Australian a simple democratic socialism, and so on has been made in Australia in the Midespread and crude May that has occurred in North America. Socialism and a Mel fare state approach Mere adopted long ago in NeM Zealand (about the beginning of the Century) and only shortly later whereas there is little sign of their gaining much ground in Australia, no^.' in North America. even Socialist principles are regarded w i t h suspicion even except for a small minority. bv more educated North Americans, Right-leaning attitudes have a prominence in US that they (rightly) do not enjoy 81 Australia. In several respects, then, Reagan and his substitutes are political in representative of the mass of America people. The double (Christianity vs. standards we have seen exhibited American in economism) and foreign policy (rights vs. religion domination) and could have been displayed in trade policy (free enterprise abroad vs. American 82 subsidies and protection) and elsewhere — contradictions engendered not by mere between practice and ideologies — extend to^much acclaimed Amt erican conflict incompatib 1 e pragmatism. ideology but threaten ideological fundamentals are not tolerated; "dangerous" elements of p1ur a 1ism and These operate in an unambivalent way only in a narrow ran%e where ideological fundamentals are not seriously threatened. to through viens are often excluded, more difficult times at least, toleration is hardly remarkable, Thus parties thought and foreigners nith while natives nith such views are, 83 suppressed. While the Australian record in on and the society was until recently mu<-h more uniform in character than American, the room for political variety and spread of political parties is greater. 81. They are reflected in such small things as. the form of anarchist movements - always strongly individualistic in North America, but mostly pluralistic and socialistic, and sometimes communistic in Australia. Even Alternative American remains staunchly individualistic; only in the quite minor US commune movement do the contrasts begin to break down a bit. The differences are important in political philosophy and theory, where Americans and Antipodeans tend to operate on different wavelength?. 32. Thus, for instance, the policy, which combines a substantial subsidies and produce. 83. See again Goldstei, for example. narrow pluralism of capitalist chapter of 00. doubl/ standards of American agricultural free enterprise image with allowance for discounts #4, American, but not foreign, Worthwhile proposals for widening the democracy may be found in the final extent of toleration noM evident in Australia is not simply a result The of a strong British heritage (from an England that Mas) but OMes something appear markedly multiple the level of personal features as Mell:- Firstly, indigenous roots, in is in the industrial North than egalitarianism, and the encouraged by a strong to tendency of vieMS (an infuriating feature for relativisation (a dielike in the educational structure, people, overassertive toleration loMer assertiveness that has overbearing and feature of to and so on). personal secondly, in-group or teachers). Ideological argument and competition is avoided not so much by general pluralism of vieMS, but by personal relativisation of positions (Mhich looks foolish at first Mith questions such as God's existence, though not Mith matters of religious belief and political opinion). action is not required. as lonq But it noM looks (Mith increasing reorientation of the society and belated introduction of cultural methods into social discussion) as if other and this sort of strategy succeeds only so To be sure, advance to an - if consensual can relativism Australian intellectually respectable pluralism multi­ Northern control perfni ts. *F. Leisure time activities, eating, drinking, sport and gambling. retailing and consumerism, culture, that Australia is the it is here, Americanisation of Apart from in surface elements of more significant features of popular life in most conspicuous, especially in food and entertainment, but also in sport. Take food, for example. American impact and control occurs primarily Mith fast foods (Mhere most of the larger chains are American) and in prepared and highly processed foods (Mhere many of the companies involved, larger biscuit and snack food companies, concerns having been bought out.) ready are ultimately e.g. all American, Significant features of these products the local are or immediate gratification from largely already-made or -prepared mass- produced items, Mith consumer attractiveness achieved through a high level of The technology involved is imported from USA (though fancy packaging. may the patents are American, be some minor local adaptions), so involved, are skills local cheap adolescent) (often there and feM or no labour can be exploited. This pattern applies of course to American penetration of the food industry, and tourist industry, in many countries other than Australia; it is part incorporation of the "free Morld" into the of the flagging American ^'or Id-system, the American imperium as it is sometimes called. features are involved in the American influence on entertainment Similar again designed to Min acceptance by a mass market, and sport, immediate gratification, or term action (or bright or professionalisation. containing Take the short­ achieved for instance in the form of violence) for passive audiences, colourful namely and effect skilful packaging many changes much by achieved set, of and on Australian cricket - formerly a very leisurely and, for spectators, often boring game - of American infusions, dra'A'n especially uniforms The baseball. has game become substantially there are many one day matches, Mhere the players appear in professionalised, gaudy from and lots of safety gear (noM necessary Mith the increase of pace and stop-start action), and the game proceeds at a much greater pace Mith lots of croMd pleasing action. There is an American overlay also to more recent forms of slot machine gambling and, Australia, more important, overlay exhibits the same surface features, as in sport gratification and food - and underlying these, casino gambling. designed to appeal to action, - colour, gambling professional commercialism, in The consumers, quick polish, professional control, multinational organisation, and repatriation of profits to the North. But plausibly the in each of these cases, especially sport and gambling, argued that the American influence is superficial - a single bricks Mall of the Californian brick veneer, appearance of masonry solidity to Mooden houses, it can veneer be like designed to give the a style noM ubiquitous in building that is on to a but grafted onto a ecualypt Mood frame structure, Australia, evolved, that though antecedents Mith Northern In the building industry (as to some extent in the in Australia. influences, Northern from food industry) the distinctively Australian basic house structure is beginning to in disappear plantation-groMn places like Canberra Mith the replacement pine, Honterey of by hardMOod the adoption (again from America) uf light timber framing codes, and so on. It indeed is in the spraMling suburbs of Australia that veneer is most strikingly exhibited, American the and not just in the housing and streets styles of automobiles (all local manufacturing companies being American, a Japanese exception, Mith and the predominantly Japanese imports largely American copies), but in the shopping centres, their supermarkets (American in style of and retailing lots. parking increasingly in oMnership or control) and petrol stations Nonetheless Davidson is deliberately and Mhen exaggerating he Mrites (Mhile ruminating on the film and entertainment situation) that ... Me need all the cultural consciousness Me can muster to delay - if only by the tactic of infinite postponement - our complete incorporation into the American Mgfld-systenr (p.21). For merely is there evidence t^fjt the American imperium has not i t- pa = =ed zenith, but again the American encroachment and influence is superficial. Despite the overlay, the main structures of institutions such as and gambling remain basically Australian, of Australian forms. history, from European, local adaptions, evolved and particularly British and Iri=h, =o it so it is Mith home '-ooking. These institutions Mould and club gambling; remain substantially intact even if recent other overlays Mere entirely removed. Nhat is more, and quality of life not readily available, The community afford good examples. American these institutions and Mith further local adaption could to a much greater extent, America. over much So it is Mith the main forms of football, Mith amateur cricket; is Mith pub drinking, style sport or available and club structures of much gambling and can, provide for a at and all, in drinking cA</iAvf*^tnA%)^nf r^-v^A/ <**<A — ^to the ^jA,f ^<?/^ ^.f-At^Z/y d. ^r^,f ^ta^n/ At//^<^y ^-A viewpoint of th<= p ^9^ ^?^e-4t^-^-€. believe what they se^^- accepted, regional culture, ^cr/A^, A4^. largely uncritically accepted. among there others, are From undoubtedly but they are problems to which there are known answers. problems here; nf ?4s ^A7f /i^c /njA^^nZiAi^- </<P^/l<tA</; VAr<?KyA /6 JTT, V^/ / ^-, ^-*<?;/ */A, longer-term answer lies in education, Part much in the teaching of more 86 critical attitudes to Mhat is presented through media such as television. Pi more viable in countries like Australia (and even immediate interim measure, controlled, more in New Zealand) Mhere radio and television are heavily state to and remove much of the American fiction from the publicly licensed, channels. regulated That the short answer is the is, nondocumentary material displaying violence, supported same as Mith so on; sexual exploitation, and given the socially and culturally undesirable results of such public 87 of such material, it fails to merit purchase and public exhibition (if namely, use people Mant to hire or buy this material for their OMn video systems, another matter). difficulties in Certainly selection there difficulties are here, processes for Mhat is broadcast especially licensed commercial, tied on of predominantly drugs, standover censorship, commercial activity, tactics, pictography, selection and purchasing policies, extent, up public, Mith and channels (for there is far less fictionalised violence on public-corporation than commercial TN in Ptustrali^. suggested is not any kind of that is 1'1 hat is being straightforward social regulation such as regularly etc; in occurs Mith this case regulation hard of of a type already folloMed to some limited for instance in Psustralian content requirements. Pt practical problem 85. Contrary to American philosopher Davidson and his followers, usually accepting Mhat is presented is not essential to living; but the idea that it is necessary iWa standard part of the Ptmerican cultural and most Northern and educational frameworks. 88. See especially Bonney and Nilson. 87. 'The consensus among most of the research community is that violence on television does lead to aggressive behaviour by children and teenagers Mho watch the programs' (.reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Narch 13 1?85, p.8). Psdults too are liable to be desensitized to violence through television watching, wi th influence not only ^n values but sp^ill over to the real world, e.g. they estimate their environment is more violent. A sV<vkcL.<-^44 ^7, y>, g in mith such content requirements has been that there is insufficient But materia!. rise the tota! reduced. domination other of the Australian and there is nom much more regiona! materia!; industries, former mith and, of Australian cinemas by American Australian regions! as a result, the has films the variety of television material nom available from Given an end to American domination of local television programs, sources, fi!m been morld and of this part of Australian leisure culture, could also be achieved. and gambling form a mutually supporting trio of immense drinking Sport, importance in the popular culture of Australasia, the to grasp or explain. outsider ('Much American sociological gambling deals mith it as a deviant activity": historical on-going influence population is of Irish descent). brought and activities, writing A p.421.) in Australia is undoubtedly Irish (in on main early nomaday about 17X of the Nith their blanketing Catholicism, the Irish propagated rather successfully a religion liberal masculine in but exceedingly narrom in intersexual such as those of the trio, enterprises. mas out; Caldmell 77, one quarter of the population mas Irish; Australia for to an extent difficult Drinking mas in, contraception mas out; gambling mas in, divorce sport mas in, lomer-church homosexuality mas out ... Catholicism and more Catholicism mostly men in Australia, purjit/nical . In the play-off betmeen forms o^ Protestantism, mhereas in eastern USA more puritanica! forces prevailed, and these mere subsequently reinforced by Judaism. is a central part of Australian social life and so of Drinking (Nhile it is important in Nem Zealand also, social momen. life.) For it is a less dominant feature of It bears on the connected issues of mateship and attitudes to matesh ip relationship, and is mateship often based upon, is (cobbers) mhich excludes momen. North culture. America, that to his mife. or groms characteristically a Indeed, out of, relation a drinking betmeen men in contrast to the apparent norm in a man's relations to his mates, or mate, may be closer than The mateship mates, first and foremost, through thick and thin. A first corollary is a or less rigorously some ambivalence about, social and career limitation upon, because mobility, may involve leaving one's mates any transfer or promotion or distancing from them. A related corollary is a restriction on competition because one does not compete seriously Mith one's mates. similarly also mateship engenders, The mateship ethos because mates are treated requires local egalitarianism, Thus equals. his Mith ethos strict!;/ requires that a man should stick especially given a little as transitivity, egalitarian and non-competitive features, also encouraged by other elements of Accompanying aspects of mateship are that mainstream culture. the identity success are sought, and concerns such as a job or career, serious and energy in leisure, Mhere they are, personal not in more and that often a greater level interest is di rec ted at leisure ac t iv i t i es and pas t imes than Excellence in serious things tends to be deflated or denigrated. Mork. of Antipodean socialism. at Hates however are supported, and so by extension are those Mho Mould be mates. mateship is one of the props of Thus A less expected aspect of mateship, Mhich is after all a communitarian relation of an important type, is diminished involvement Mith social (and also sometimes political) is because mates afford a secure social framework Mhich this Perhaps issues. unnecessary to look beyond. it is Hates naturally get together frequently, commonly for sport, gambling or drinking. The main setting uncomfortable and for drinking is pub the degenerate form of the English pub. important public setting for drinking is the clubs, as the Australian barbeque. - though some city The hotel Mas, pubs have occasionally invaded by groups of Momen. the development serves, not _urious!y hotel, a But an increasingly Mhich also commonly cater Among private group settings, for drinking are such institutions for gambling. haunt or only and remains, been liberalised, essentially a male and others are Thus the hotel is a main setting for and continuation of mateship. to reinforce male chauvinism, The hotel has served, but also to foster and racism. Until very recently, and still in some places, hotels excluded or segregated and perhaps other groups such as Orientals uho fall towards Aboriginals, the bottom of the caste ladder. do the places of drinking differ in significant respects only Not those in USA; extent it is in USA, and is not a major form for the drinking bout; nor are Beer is the mainstay of is the main alcoholic drink consumed. and hotels, is not consumed to anyuhere near the given the same prominence as in USA. cocktails Hard liquor, so do the styles of drinking and uhat is drunk. uh 1 ch is nou heavily taxed in Australia, from drinking But Australian patterns have changed markedly in the last twenty years; the and nine has become an everyday drink in the clubs and often for lunch. the feu older clubs can be exclusive in their membership Nhile American country clubs carry exorbitant fees, or the neu clubs have very like modest joining fees and represent an improvement on the hotels in many respects; for they are not aluays, predominantly drinking establishments and dominantly male but they are more sociable and comfortable, and they carry a range preserves, including commonly gambling (on uhich their of other programs and activities, depends) financing nonprofit associations) sort importance, and consumer greatly Hales). golf); but there notably returned servicemen's clubs, and ethnic clubs, religious These interests. of the are several clubs (community types other catering for uhich function in all respects like are a major post-Har social country touns, of minority phenomenon, uhich altered leisure patterns in parts of Australia (especially Neu 'In one political and labour clubs, and there are many neu registered clubs, cooperatives, registered are indeed sporting clubs in origin (football of bouls, another, of Hany sport. and have South clubs have replaced churches as the centres for sociability and recreation; in the metropolitan areas, they have decentralised leisure facilities providing nightclub, restaurant, gambling and entertainment outlets in leisure sophistication'*. the suburbs; and in the coastal touns they And in these very successful have brought some gambling-financed cooperatives, 'sport, gambling and drinking of - the pillars Australian leisure culture - have found common ground' (Caldwell 77, pp.424, 425). Sport is the opiate of the masses in Australasia, a main leisure activity and entertainment form, a major (male) topic of conversation both socially and and it takes up a significant chunk of the "news"^newspaper coverage at work, it is now relegated to the back pages^with local politics occupying (but front It pages). is also a major reservoir of chauvinism, with 'Sport competitiveness. its long traditions may the and conformism more m^ifest male chauvinism than many other forms of popular Australian culture' (Caldwell p.41'7'); racial and cultural. as such j^-also manifests and often encourages other forms of it Even in sport reevaluation is 77, chauvinism place, taking including reassessment of the competitive principle, and there is a shift away from bureaucratic Fortunately, sport, controls however, to freer environmentally forms, damaging especially sports. vertigo machine-dependent forms have not caught on to the same extent as in America; or art, nor of do forms such as hunting enjoy a% similar following or so little criticism. important component of Antipodean newspaper sport, An racing anima! distinct as "sport", especially, from professional, predominantly gambling purposes. integrally tied to gambling. is the type younger people In the participant sports there is, other and This participate and now essentially designed for North, a heavy outdoor emphasis. but horse form of in, is spectator and in contrast with the This emphasis is partly a New Norld feature, partly a matter of extensive open space and a favourable outdoor climate. Explaining the separating sport sheer extent of sport is a complex matter, best approached by into its different components looking and at what is distinctive in the new world, and what in the Antipodes (at the same time this reveals e.g. the that ritualised limited applicability of psychological substitutibility sport, national substitute sport for war). especially, is a socially claims, acceptable And one thing that is distinctive is the and amount style of gambling-linked sport. Explaining that is inseparable from explaining gambling itself. have been several attempts to explain the extent and diversity There in Australia as compared Mith that in the North, gambling smoothly into the culture. it according Morld, various and to incorporate Australians are the heaviest gamblers in the 88 surveys. Some of the main explanations to combine the following elements: try suggested to of the of influence Irish Latholicism in overriding the restrictive puritanism, the comparative Meekness the of ethic Mork bother?"), the the drive to accumulate and entrenched belief in gambling a strand form of (Mith as a positional improvement (Mhich appears to date back, like distinctive Australian games as 2!-up, such together, to convict times). gambling Not all these elements sit easily not all of them, such as the Mork ethic, are relevant on their oMn. The Mork ethic becomes relevant because it Mas Midely believed by that gambling damagingly undercut Mork, improvement, positional to Meal th, Mork "Mhy of Protestants both because of the popular legend of that gambling offered an alternative route than hard and because gambling Mas an absorbing leisure-time activity Mhich competed successfully Mith (often alienating) Mork. Moreover, acommodated. gambling, there are some important complicating factors to be One is that Mhat is more extensive in Australia is smaller-scale social gambling, entrepreneurial gambling. not heavy punting, professional gambling or Australians are, by and large, very security minded and are not large-scale risk takers: hence one of the reasons for the shortage 8'? of venture capital in Australia . Despite the risk-taking image, there is then a strong emphasis on security, - the suburban both in the (home) OMnership expectations a-cnd—a-s— hegsr-de-- ------------------------ 88. Thus e.g. R/deen. On the extent of Australian gambling, see also CaldMell 74. Like drinking, gambling is less extensive in NeM Zealand. 8'?. The extent of gambling in Australia contrasts sharply Mith risk-taking in investment. 'Risk aversion seems to be endemic in Australia at least as far as investment in innovative products is concerned'* (S. Macdonald). block, the private home, the car, and as regards defence (whence the appeal of an American second 6 gambling. Australian complication concerns the 'is marked by a heavy reliance on It character of and so chance But Caldwell's attempt to explain on skill'* (Caldwell/^ p.20). little this features of the Australian character which deemphasize excellence through less shield). partly satisfactory, than from sport, differently where, because it as he admits, involves treating 'excellence ... is gambling is [almost] fact the preferred explanations of the characterisatics and puzzling always approved of'*. In aspects of Australian gambling are unsatisfactory. In several places, Caldwell has appealed in possible explanation'* 'to features of Australian specifical 1y to egalitarianism, concen trates on r e1qu i s i t e trying to what these are, Fatalism, explaining. fatal i sm/ mateship and a sense of say for example, character, not on how they But he do the apathy, is said to involve putting up with unfavourable conditions, and accepting the outcomes of fortune but with good fortune attributed to luck, hardly a fatalistic theme, fatalism might explain a certain dourness or resignation, Australian, unclear with along some more typical Australian Caldwell since really the extent makes no difference to in disclose success that by luck. marginally what for this the bulk of Australian gambling is social better than fatalism it remains i^ Hhat fated. that things surveys suggestion, gambling in And mateship and egalitarianism only in will but a ^^rious (nonmarket) optimism, a Unfortunately do not expect to succeed. especially rather than little seems to be appealing to is not fatalism, happen as they are already fated to do, people features, how it is supposed to explain extensive gambling, gambling, belief neither klhile their intended explanatory which fare roles; egalitarianism does, as will appear, have a minor role. 8^. (From previous page) The extent of gambling in Australia contrasts sharply with risk-taking in investment. 'Risk aversion seems to be endemic in Australia at least as far as investment in innovative products is concerned* (8. Macdonald). ^^7 /s* By contrast, Inglis attempts an historical explanation, he sees as the social sources of gambling. He claims to uncover the following speculative character of business in a neM country (but unless the factors: looking to Mhat specially difficult and distinctive character of the neM country is also the invoked does not distinguish Australia from the rest of the neM this that life Mas a gamble in early Australia (but this does including USA); explain Mhy social gambling took off, Irish heritage subsequent mining persistence the and does not account for the of the of social gambling in Australia); the role Mith heightened discovery and rapid riches (but again this to California Mhere gambling practices are different, and are e.g., not concentrated on social gambling). particular not or the augmentation of gambling); (but this applied also to USA, industry applies, Morld, These sorts of factors may explain inherited forms of gambling in Australia, for instance the the Irish contribution no doubt helps account for the prominence of horse-racing and its egalitarian betting patterns in Australia (though horse-racing is as important in NeM Zealand Mhich had no comparable influx of Irish catholics). But they do not explain the persistence and styles of gambling in Australia, as opposed to USA. to delegated the to extent that it Mas in Australia, the Inglis favours, hoM Mas it that gambling Mas integrated into emerges: question order, up in the historical fashion set Nhen rather commercial and criminal sector as in than USA? a the major social substantially question The fetches its OMn complex ansMer - in terms of the differing religious pressures for the suppression and regulation of gambling, the respective gambling and their possible exploitation by capitalistic methods, types of illegal or legate and the comparative commitment to market and commercial methods - once the features of Australian gambling are explained. In trying to explain Australian gambling and its distinctive features, it is most important^first to divide gambling into types. Australian pursuit gambling is social, of Meal th. A salient feature is that for "fun", as opposed for instance But professional and heavy (and plunge) gambling to appear be greater in Australia than elsewhere (and to not gambling than less are in USA, investment the reflecting again of non-social Bayesian theory (i.e. gambling be can gambling can be explained in the people). improvement remains it given a largely psychological explanation, positional an undoubted consideration in such forms as lottery is to social gambling. For example-substantial A through Since compulsive subjective expected utility theory). here some divi = i'*sn of types helps. These May standard explain Mhat _i_s distinctive in the Australian scene, broadly Even venture security- supposed mindedness of Australians and the timidity of their business types and art and union gambling but not in poker machine gambling. main The forms of social such gambling, club as rather undemanding leisure-time-fillers of unintellectual gambling, acceptable More ordinary Australians have a good deal of leisure time to fill; are types. and given the prevailing relatively uncompetitive ethos and general anti-intellectualism of the society, activities (e.g. intellectual or this time is not often occupied by additional Mork or for positional improvement of one sort or another) higher cultural activities, But by gregarious television Matching has to some extent substituted in recent years. or direct television does not the same offer stimulation that gambling affords. established, socially acceptable, activities (like pip? smoking), and neMspapers^, setting; offering iKti. it social opportunities Still, Mhy gambling rather than other time It is not simply that it Mas and remains an fillers and entertainment forms? social undemanding or For both of these more passive and activities, such as drinking and gambling. solitary but by hobby form, Mell surrounded Mith associated such as ^11 ec ting .snd reading^ + orm guidey social contacts and opportunities or at also^afforde^ uncompetitive?^ form of stimulation, aec a/, approved least funintellectual a and Mhere^excitement could be directly exper i encecL tends to be extraverted; leisure time activity in Australia and Mhen it is not directed toMards the notorious the gambling situation reveals, As trie, it is usually practical or- material, mainstream Australian culture is, not educational or artistic. The to understate matters, neither cultured nor intel 1ectual, communication, Education, the intellectual patterns in Australasia are Northern, England and Scotland, imported almost entirely, from mainly As a result very recently, some local adaption. significant surface educational differences between Australia are (though the differences do not touch the America North Mith, The life and practicality. underlying and so are not of great ideological depth?. social paradigm, and Northern surface These differences bear directly on the continuation of the cultural traditions. Austral ia countries. t^or st the has There educational record of any for example, are, the of three times as many people going on to higher science studies proportionally in USA as in Australia. 23 to this recorded. Australia.) better including 50 per cent level, (There is up the ladder, doubt to and different. similar ethnic of the blacks, differentiation students at more average American different, attitudes to lowest in Not only educational segment education universities reflecting the but are generally nor-se in quality, the more generous intake of students. styles In USA however 83 percent go than their Australian counterparts, drive levels a University motivated 5 In Australia about 20 per cent leave school at 15, and only 3'? percent proceed to higher school certificate. on Nhereas in UbA in Australia only percent of science students eventually obtain Ph.Ds, per cent do, etc. developed oning in are in are social part no educational institutions are In North America universities are much more business, and there is The details of general intellectual life, differ material 1y. extent of reading, etc., al so It is in intellectual and educational life, especially in the extent of book reading, that Ne'.-j Zealand culture differs, perhaps most strikingly, from Australian. The anti-intelleptu_al charges regularly hurled at Australians are not often directed at Neu Zealanders, t^h^je traditions remain much more British. not the degree separation of the university of business commun i t i es evident in Australia. Education in Australia encounters, and has to combat, the practicality of the mass of people, the widespread impatience with theory and ideas, and anti­ The impatience with theory, intellectualism. theory into action, blue the demand for translation the concentration on the practical, collar (working-class) people, of appear not only with for instance in adult education but in groups drawn from virtually all strata of the society, and groups, even, and perhaps or especially, in groups concerned with changing social consciousness. The anti-intellectualism feature, striking locals. Thu to of Australia is a widely cultural European visitors^and admitted or even insisted on 'sheep-culture, agriculture, by physical culture have reached standards in Australia but intellectual culture has high remarked been neglected* . 'Especially important in affecting the output of govenments and the quality of our political life ... [is] a suspicion of debate and reason, combined with a profound anti-intellectualism'. 13 Rnti-intellectualism has however two levels (like anti-theism): or, differently, hostility to things intellectual. though the Both appear in Australia, neglect is far more widespread than hostility (which restricted neglect appears to a few older class-differentiated cultural groupings), vast and amorphous middle class vaguely approving of things largely most of educational. Note also the role of private schools in Australia, as in USR, as opposed to New Zealand, where quality secondary eduction is not so privatised. The whole style of ranking educational institutions in fact differs from culture to culture. Stephenson^s "words ring as true as they did the^' 30 writes Dunlevy (Canberra Times l'?84). years ago, so The other two 'characteristics [which] infect our public life'*, and also stand in the way of 'a better society in this country", listed by Aitkin in his cynical and pessimistic conclusion (p.28) are worth recording also, namely widespread authoritarianism and majoritarianism in government, and primary group loyalty (and therewith partisan and even confrontational practices) in public affairs, i.e. narrow non-pluralistic matesh i p. this In does Australia neglect, not differ from situation may be Morse in rural USA than it is in rural the highly other Indeed there are grounds for supposing materialist cultures, such as the USA. that markedly Australia, Mhere people commonly have access to public libraries and a variety of public c ommun i c a t i on ne tMorks, terms In furnished America relative of population Australia corresponds perhaps is to community radio stations like Canberra's could Mell adapt, is different. better Nothing in cultural communication netMorks than USA. Mith 2XX North to or The US PSS arrangments, Mhich Australia ethnic radio in most state capitals. by size For Mhat it is Morth (for they are controlled capitalist right and carry a heavy Northern ideological message) the the main Australian neMspapers also compare favourably Mith American neMspapers at least on a circulation-size basis Many Americans have 'America's for conservatism' (p.345). Mhich, Australia, remarked, in a similar parochialism, The though - and tend to be less parochial. fashion to anti-intellectualism Merrill, sc i en t i sm ano smoothly for same ingredients do not blend so certainly instantiating that on initially^_starting coupling of scientism Mith an t i - i n t e 1 1 ec t u a 1 i sm^s^^Can d n a t i on a 1 i sm)^ i s neither so conservative (especially politically) nor nearly as parochial (perhaps because much further from the centre of things than USA). there is some significant overlap, are, like Moreover, of 'P%. though because both mainstream cultures are male- dominated Mith a heavy practical get-things-done orientation. Australasian USA Nor do the of Australian anti-intellectualism look the same as American, sources as For example, in male preserves it is still considered that intellectual pursuits artistic endeavours, for practical men, unmasculine and effeminate ("sissy"). ideas and intellectual activity, except as part a narroM practically-directed result-oriented science, are an impediment, Looked at differently things are not so good. Australia's capital, for example, hardly turns out, in the form of the Canberra Times, a product Mhich compares favourably Mith the Nashing ton Post an effete luxury. in that Inhere Australian culturet&e3±±s^diverges from American anti-intellectualism, culture and thought, ^deriv the connected mediocre standards and opportunities various furthermore, to higher from egalitarian and levelling down elements culture (for intellectual activities, serious of to and excel, like high culture, surpass is in offer too many There mates). are, connected mediocre-maintaining mechanisms in Australian for example ''social penalisation of deviance from certain "middling" society, intellectual other norms'* (Ely), a lopping off cultures do share is a heavy and of intellectual tall poppies. the Nhat as misrepresented Americans, a practical practical utilitarianism. and unlike most Europeans, orientation, Australians are, often like practical do-it-yourself people, proud But for the most part, of their fix-it make-do and improvisational abilities. Australians have strong group loyalties and do not treat those outside primary groups with sense; nor aiming at sufficient impartiality to count as utilitarians in they, in appropriate utilitarianism greatest happiness of the greatest are 'the societal maximum. educational and or number' strict maximizers, any other They are utilitarian only in the vulgar sense of utility- focussed and practical, experimental fashion, any in the sense that theory, statistical work, gets and research institutes (as e.g. a low as opposed to practice and even in higher the Research School of Social ranking, Sciences, Australian National University). The practical capabilities of Australians are by no means directed but include group and social organisation. individually Particularly significant The utilitarian theme was a hare-meleased by Hancock, in his attempt to reconcile Australian 'individualism with ... reliance upon Government' (p.55). In fact utilitarianism is inessential to the style of reconciliation Hancock attempts, several sorts of accounts of collective poster at the service of integrated individual interests serving as well or better in the Australian case. Even in the academies utilitarianism hardly predominates; and it has had little historical importance in Australian philosophy, though it has regrettably become a position to be reckoned with in recent years. By contrast, pragmatism has almost no foil owing. is australian 'the organisations zest for starting, joining of all kinds' (aitkin p.26). and maintaining voluntary This has proved important for a long time in the provision of Melfare services in australis, and more recently 40?% n in the case of the environment. The pattern of Melfare^in australia, for long self-provisioning (as distinct from provided by local largely elseMhere ), a "Mel fare partnership" Mith government into merged espec i al 1 y in brick-and mortar- grants and the like, and other organisations. environmental a The concerns. government similar pattern funding, for voluntary, is re! igious as emerging as regards size of the nongovernmental Melfare sector in Rustralia, an important part of the informal economy, remains extremely large (est ima ted 9. S p.26^/ for equivalent in unpaid mages alone to 1.5'< of GDP, de t ai 1s); the informal economy bound up and see Mith aitkin, environmental issues is no longer negligible though governmental assistance is siight. But the success of nongovernmental organisation and the informal economy up a latent paradox concerning political organisation in australia throMS for Mhat i s paradoxes tied to the already noticed authoritarianism paradox; afxa poMer+ul authoritarian government doing in self-reliant communities?) the one hand, there political culture', is 'an important self-reliant in strain (a On australian Mith do-it-themselves groups Mhich substituted for local government; it is 'a political culture in Mhich voluntary organistions have an honoured place' (aitkin, apathy, though populace Mhich p.26). But, on the other hand, there is a political are not as marked as formerly or as- in the USa; has by and large 'not sought profound there changes in is problems a reliance on government to provide and (this in complete contrast Mith america) to deal . a Mith and political difference-in-size In contrast Mith USa, for instance, local government Mas development in australia, and remains Meak: see aitkin, p.23ff. ?7- a their political or social structure for several generations noM" (aitkin p.23); there is a late "So australians faced Mith a political problem learned to respond Mith "Mhat Mill they (= the government) do about it?", Mhereas americans in a similar situation could be heard to say "Hhat Mill Me do about it?'" (aitkin, p.23). ar ^6 theory, both lessons for Australian political decentralisation and^some Mith expI anatory 0! son' s Mould appear to resolve the paradox (a theory pOMer, individuals, action, collective of bogie but Mhich initial the groups or factions to Mhom primary within Mhich mateship^ bonds operate). in but Mith elements not attach and loyalties Nhat holds for the smaller local group individual is directly involved does not the resembling to transfer larger political arrangements? tsri on the contrary, local loyalties act against larger groups struggle and compete for their OMn organisation^ enter ^nto a-v^ricty"'of partisan and rent-seeking behaviour. Australians political are self- or problems they hardly and Similarly Mhile problems, group-reliant Mith smaller appeal to government, interests larger for surprisingly^ to authoritarian government (for though authoritarianism is not essential, an it is likely in the circumstances). .The 1 open times may be changing Mith the serious attempt to apply " methods secretive to large group decision making, games, numbers instead of group 'a perversion of the majority principle old Mhich in HoMever the of more satisfactory and rational decision making methods into large organisation and choice practices have a long May to go political the simply getting the numbers is a surrogate for persuasion'* (Aitkin p.28). adoption consensual, J life, in Australian in such less anti-intellectual (but still often even anti­ theory) cloisters as the universities and other educational institutions. Approaches to the environment. the frequent presentation of USA as the heartland An t i podes, despi te environmental movement. proportionately, the Morld. of There are, as Australian for example, more paid-up the of members, environmental groups in Australia than anyMhere else in Apparently blest Germany, Northern homeland of green politics, noM comes second in this sort of statistic, Mell Ecological aMareness is greater in the easily ahead of USA and Canada. a quantitative difference there is a qualitative difference and Northern environmentalism. The Australian movement As betMeen is much A and active more ecological auareness communities. The involved. not mi th permeated Antipodean culture is encountered in North America in except an isolated These are subjective impressions from informants, but there are some more objective matters to back them up, such as The P issue Tasmanian dam issue, uhich could not have figured as election an in the same sort of uay in North America (though perhaps it could have in Noruay); level of political commitment on such environmental matters neu The 9 the preservation of rainforest in NSH. as (For details, and other examples, see Dunphy). ? for example, Responses to questionnaires on rainforest and uoodchipping, uhich indicate uide community concern in Australia on these issues. impressions The quantitative can, uay, by moreover, be backed up to some dividing environmental groups into (conservative) and neuer (post l'?65, more radical). extent in tuo types: more a older The overwhelming majority of people involved in environmental groups in England, for instance, belong to organisations of the former type, National mostly founded last century, especially the Trust (see Loue and Goyder). By contrast the consists predominantly of more recently formed groups. Australian The Australian groups differ in character from those in USA in important uays; also for and less inclined to compromise. For instance, there has never been a action, (such deal as as the Sierra Club made) uith. organisations supporting there has never been a uorking alliance uith shooters or pouer, nuclear clubs they are, more active, more radical, more left-leaning, more inclined to the most part, major movement is commonplace in USA, or an easy alliance uith off-road gun vehicle c1ubs. USA can Emerging), much in be very roughly seen, as dividing into tuo parts, the uilderness), uay as Callenbach sees (in Ecotopi a Eastern part, uithout the Old Norld, of deeper ecological concerns (or it of national parks or and a Neuer Norld, Nestern part, uhich is much more ecologically There concerned. is little doubt however that the metropolitan eastern industrial part of USA (the Boston-Neu York-Hashington conglomeration) is Mell and truly in control of things. in the places uhere again roughly, The division gets reflected, environmental philosophy or features in university programs, equivalent an seriously not at the namely the south and uest, more richly-endoued higher-ranked universities in the east. Jeuish prominence in eastern American universities has something The to There is a significant Jewish element in do Mith this educational situation. contemporary US thinking and philosophy, but not to any extent in Australian American. The evident Jewish influence on American economic and political life extends into except insofar as it (increasingly) serves as a Meak copy of philosophy and Nalzer political theory, in elements. ideology: This long the Mork of Nozick for instance, Mhich is overtly infused influence exploitation-disrupted the Consider, has a substantial Mith Jeuish effect, Jeuish record is exceedingly disappointing, Hebraic especially arenas like peace and the natural environment both in and in - Mhere practice and theory (occasional rebels excepted). The features strength of Australian environmentalism arises from a combination of of the land and the culture: the presence pouer and of the surrounding natural Morld, the conspicuousness and the resilience of many more familiar Mhich close, parts of the environment, together the outdoor barbeque-and-beach lifestyle, Mith a variety of outdoor activities brings the secular earthiness of the culture, the its naturalism, environment the doMn-to- earth practical character of the people, the do-it-yourself approach to things like housing, repairs and so forth Mhich often frustrating, details of the natural Morld close again. brings the messy, if Nhile Hestern American A. 9^. There are hoMever some European emigres, Mith right-leaning or even reactionary political vieMS, Mho have an influence on political thinking in Australia, especially as regards defence and communism. NeM Zealand is, by contrast, relatively free of such immigrants. %?. Nain reasons Mhy are in fact nicely explained in SchMarzschild. these things it does not share all of of many shares them by means, any in particular not the areligious character or the style of naturalism. Despite Australia's frequent inclusion as an industrialised nation, it is not industrialised, highly mining, and agriculture and of much the export in their different Mays quarrying both Other Antipodean countries are even less industrialised. there the level of Old Norld yet isn't transformation industrial land. the the The European still environment even in most parts of the largest reaches through conspicuously, from And in the Antipodes control, the total inhabitable landscape. of comes wealth cities. survey of cultural media such as films Mould shoM this clearly enough. a rare (or NeM Zealand) film that doesn't include Australian bushdrop, many Mhereas US exclude productions the some A It is natural environment natural entirely, and even Mhen sequences are shot outside it's often all concrete and and glass, neon lights and automobiles and pools sMimming - metropolitan "cu1ture". Certainly these sorts of urban effects, taken from noMhere in particular, could be achieved in parts of the older Australia state capitals, becoming (less very freeMay cities in the American-influenced much systems hoMever), Melbourne, noisy and As a result, older mode structures the largest, Sydney and are not .just sprauling and mostly unplanned but heavily congested, polluted, Mith nature blotted out in many of despite its impressive monuments, the inner poorer In this they resemble Hashington, suburbs by red brick and Mires and asphalt. Mhich are free-enterprise overlaying and expanding copied from British provincial cities. Mhich has only little planning, and is mostly the American adaption of the European city - an adaption Mhere the city is treated as if at first space didn't matter, structures, fortunate al) being, to have, so to say, by contrast, nor any unity of better integrated into and less imposed upon, (the Australia is isolated individual ones). in Canberra a much more style holistic capita), / the environment. Moreover it is hard not to see and to some extent appreciate the natural environment on the hills, especially Canberra, neatly planned and in places so green, between, lands even if the flatter in so exhibit (though as cities normally do) so much artifice. The prospects for the environment look rather brighter in Australia than in USA, and for several reasons, some physical and structural, much smaller proportion firmly population, and agriculture or to industrialist activities. matter possibilities technological and a of good luck than good management; America much For a similar land area Australia has a cultural. have been lacking. some ideological human smaller committed to intensive In large measure this is more a for both the time and physical and for a such colossal business investment as in But cultural reasons have also made a difference Mill likely become increasingly important: contrasts cultural already observed, that is. In had Australians came increasingly godless to a land God the first place, supposedly forgotten about; for them there Mas no mandate or such as the Americans operated under, in Australian life not merely to multiply and be fruitful, and exploit it to their oMn ends. but to dominate the land, and approaches directive to the environment Nor is there noM the extent of religiously-reinforced human chauvinism that operates in the industrial North, and Mhich sciences. informs the Secondly, precedent-bound foundations American adulation of, of Northern social and ideological commitment . (From previous page) So it is to be hoped that Griffin's environmental vision, from Mhich Canberra took shape, can be sustained. H.B. Griffin a naturalised Australian Mho greM up in USA - has a significant place in the groMth of environmentalism in Australia. His role in this regard has been largely neglected; for he is usually portrayed .just as an arch i tec t. /P/ . On the May in Mhich human chauvinism is Mritten deep into mainline social sciences, see EE, pp.183-'?. About the social theory involved, many Australians are fortunately sceptical - those that bother Mith theory, that is. /%%. The practice of government**assisted capitalism of differs of course from the ideology. advanced capitalism to, market arrangements and market-based minimally-regulated profit-directed competition is not shared in Australia, American commitment to the Big, and, to big business, to put it all more theoretically, capitalism, controlled is substantially opposed. but to tall poppies, to genius, to maximization. extraordinarily bad neMS for the environment. general and documented, reasons for their damaging effects are sufficiently theoretical the understood.) such commitments and themes, though influential enough and In Australia, and advertised daily through the commercial media, pushed in are (The damaging effects of these in practice are quite evident enough and Mell 3-Bad-lTs But such minimally- maximization, and markets, So is do not dominate. For there is a different mainstream ideology Mith a different agenda - such as social social regulation, and intervention, so arbitration, consensus, group government The land and the people are not open forth. American-style markets in the same '.jay (though there are increasing ill-considered pressures forces", dairy market, e.g. expose farmers in a subsidized and also Morks in favour of the environment. natural and are entitled to fair treatment, oppressed or poor Australians, rather to a "fair go" and assistance. growing reluctance to see local environments, especially and, by foreign companies. Fourthly, Australian environmental movement itself, Morld Australian Thirdly, are to an increasing extent considered as honorary or even Australians, "market heavily-controlled markets). the and often to population sectors of the adolescents in over-supplied labour egalitarianism animals to to Native exemplary like other And there is a like small people, ripped off, there is the live and expanding some of it manifest in Alternative Australia. 5. Formulating and takinq different directions The distinctive features of Australian culture both point change and supply main parts of an engine for change. is, houever, the May to The standard complaint that proposals for radical change noM lack, Mith the demise of revolutionary aspirations in the oppressed c 1 asses, any engine for change. In more friendly form, the complainfis elaborated along the foliating lines:- It is easy enough to formulate different directions for the South Pacific it is far harder to see how such an appropriately different course countries; It is not merely that the main countries in the can be adopted and followed. region, European transformed descent. by Europeans, There are are much influenced by people inevitably, then, strong recent of pressures for conformity, for similarity to the North, and for cultural anonymity, and there is much pressure for increased assimilation within the !JS6 sphere of influence These Northern pressures comprise a familiar package, notably and control. * Domination popular media Northern, of main forms of communication and education - especially the such as T'-.J, especially books - by features and missionaries of Northern culture and but also intellectual media such American but also British, programs, as products. * Cultural propaganda. travelling ambassadors, Surprisingly, these people are almost invariably welcomed, their loaded messages eagerly sought. reinforce the missionaries. from, On a lesser scale, North tourists from the They see the North, generally the areas they come as ^zi.tmg the standards, as providing the sort of cultural ideals the backward Antipodes should be seeking to attain. * Top-down directives from aligned with Northern interests. local both private and public companies, metropolitan skylines). which are These include not merely the manaoements of branches of multinational companies, insurance sources and so on (roughly, but those of a variety of banks, those whose buildings now dominate Etc. 103 Even the most powerful and populous states in the South Pacific region are becoming increasingly locked into a dual system of Northern control, namely through 103. Those which operate their own limited imperialism in lesser states of the region, e.g., Australia in Papua New Guinea and New Zealand in Samoa. The 1. organisation American 104 The most important of these arrangements in Australia's case is hegemony. of industrialised capitalist states, under perhaps the Pacific rim strategy, masterminded by the USA Mith assistance from and fitting within the world arrangements envisaged by the Japan, Trilateral Commission. 2. of the economy by penetration The many of them ultimately American controlled. Northern, mostly corporations, transnational of (For the effects this framework of control in Australia's case, see Crough and Wheelwright.). A very significant net result is that local economic control is diminishing or and therewith, being lost altogether, local control political in these economically-dominated times, is diminishing. National economies increasingly respond, and are seen as obliged to respond, to so-called international forces "international market" forces in state-rigged markets with (or and highly concentrated participants). effort, of much (unmarketable) it intentional, At the same time there is a concerted to reduce and remain, remove substantially cultural differences in the contemporary world, mass consumer society and worldwide markets. differences unequal very a to produce Notwithstanding, major cultural even in the more industrialised With countries. some A care, some fostering, the differences cou1be accentuated in worthwhile ways, though the especially in the industrial trend, main nations, in is the opposite direction, to almost complete cultural convergence. On the other side, forces, mainly local, there are in the South Pacific some in counterbalancing favour of some distancing of Australian and New Zealand cultures from the USA, and of looser relations, especially, presently, in matters of (nuclear) defence. If change is to occur, it is important to encourage worthwhile components of these forces, particularly those in regional culture interconnected ways, through ideas that regional and action. grounded cultures 104. For Third World southern countries, financial arrangements through US-dominated INF and World Bank loom much larger. and the their do conventionalism and important. shape a are There culture, undoubted!;/ pragmatism as American lifestyle or Australian naturalism (and and Sydney However what Russell that culture determines the shape of the dominant philosophy, to think, qualification. major philosophy; dominant are and realism a main strand of Australian. materialism) requires reflect that philosophies came elements philosophical but Certainly, conversely, 105 culture affects philosophical and constrains input can affect, or even alter, culture. Genuine differences implementation (as of a few very simple ideas could make major the 1884-5 stand of the New Zealand government on visits of namely that significant principles (of morality) or nuclear ships reveals); features of local culture or regional environments are not sacrificed, in jeopardy, such things as trading advantages or for distributed economic benefits. economism narrowly There is a powerful basis for defeating in Australian and Antipodean cultures, egalitarian approaches; short-term or put such in the shape of anti-market and these and other complementary cultural features could serve more widely to halt or subvert Northern incursions. The South uncritical Pacific Enlightenment and for uncontrolled extension of European culture take one lesser instance of that world-wide to spread and disease) has been very damaging both to indigenous the lands and seas, extinction. mistakes. (to and the of peoples even pushing some of the former inhabitants to Nodern people are supposed to learn, if from anything, from their Among mistakes of civilizations, environmental mistakes are as 105. Russell 'connecttsl'* philosophies with the social environments of the philosophers concerned' p.824). Elsewhere, however, Russell only claims social influences, not determination (e.g., p.827). His working example is the connection of Dewey's philosophy 'with American enterprise; in particular there is the belief in human power, and an unwillingness to admit "stubborn facts".'* 'His philosophy is a power philosophy. Russell then proceeded to consider the very real dangers of human power. Dewey, for his part, contested the connections Russell alleged, as well as the dangers. There is much more, however, to the interrelations of dominant philosophies with cultures and their environments than Russell unear thed. conspicuous as any (sea e.g, hanger no though beyond Hatt) . the reach of a Northern Mar - to of Northern civilizations, mistakes Thors is sti 1 1 time for* the Antipodes avoid the beginning Mith human overpopulation many and environmental impoverishment (as differently illustrated by Italy and Lhina). There that grounded in regional are various different directions, a country or place can attempt to take. There are, for features, example, tMO extremal economic directions a contemporary state or region may try to pursue, as illustra ted:- other reliance, e.g. upon i n ternat i onal economic forces al ternative fort-jard May present se 1 freli ance At the one end lies local self-reliance and control, substantially excluded Mhen it comes to essentials; (as Mith the Meather of an island), regulation largely controlled from elseMhere, (but direction. dominated) by the is It or directed through some toMards- the dashed arroM, points this direction general economy and control Mith the for instance at the mercy of international Northern dominated) economic forces, shoMn outside the at the other lies outside patron (as Mith Australia's, defence or Tibet's economy). that Mith that poMerful A typical direction, latter (backMards) international (American financial institutions such as the INF and the Horld Bank try to impose on client states. Unfortunately bent on indicate Mritten pursuing given all likely governments in countries like Australia the Mrong direction. the May poMer, The reasons are privilege and influence into the control of societies - lie. not appear difficult - Northern to features But it does not have to be or stay that way. difficulty for all suggestions for extensile major A normal governmental procedures, through effect constraint for change. is a change, severe For governmental procedures are st on, put into apparent time piecemeal and whichever usually reactive (this is even how successful governmental methods, these are, vastly sages successful) and (among But time is running out for the present (.not are supposed to be) . human experiment it is now everywhere sound men and women of common sense, from crackpots will 1'lhatever is done for change may have to be done with more rapidity is customary in grander human affairs, except with war itself (which is of the main prob 1ems and a likely outcome of one as from whose numbers are those most confident that present arrangements persist). than as well said, heard socio-economic catastrophe ensuing from other problems). In the present conditions of uncertainty, a strategy relevant to both outcomes, concentrating upon imme^d^ate paths it would seem wise to plot out catastrophic breakdown or to change aimed avoiding at while not, socio- env i r onmen t a 1 break down. Both the deeper American environmentalists and leading German Greens, unlike many thinkers and leaders take the problems with deadly hope for a way out of present massive socio-environmental main nuclear impasse particularly, change will take the form of a This spread like a religious revival, by way of democratic channels. the through a mass change seriousness, difficulties, of spiritual who and consciousness. conversion, and to alter political decisions and directions These ideas, while by no means ridiculous in fashion of new-born Christians' views about their individualistic escape from nuclear Armageddon, and while offering a clear ray of hope, leave most 106 Australians who have encountered them duly sceptical. That type of massive change a of consciousness (which may not be politically effective) will require miracle, and miracles are not credible. More important, that sort of conversion i_s ruled out culturally in Australia, spiritual according to the prev i ous ar gumen t. A drastic and massive change of consciousness, or religious is neither likely nor necessary (nor Mould it be sufficient). Antipodes, the someMhat Mith isolated favourable location in its Fortunately in Southern the conversion, Hemisphere, there are different and from the belligerent North, more These are social Mays promising routes to change and regional nuclear escape. and locally self-reliant Mays deeply rooted in the culture. Instead of seeking to change consciousness, then, the and through elements of, the culture. lines of religious conversion, picture through of change. in But many and those involves rather is as amended; straightforwardness, aMay than from dominant It encourages many so to say). for example those as interfering Mith crucial features of running counter to enterprise, orderliness, change not re-conditioning counter-cultural, deplored features of Australian culture, culture, of, Mhat is being offered is a very different this respects the route acquisitive capitalist virtues. the in the form a The route is thus cultural, not in this respect counter-cultural. considered been Mith Instead of the picture of change along Northern paradigms (counter-Northern-culture, often Mork to is The main path to change is through culture, consciousness; conversion. idea that is already there or in the background, "consciousness" the leading market that capitalism, selfishness and the initiative, have other It encourages instead traditional virtues of for instance Midened generosity, egalitarianism, permissiveness, pluralism, unsubtlety, spontaneity, authenticity, sociaSbility, reliability, anti-authoritarianism, group-reli^ance, resourcefulness, moderation, leisure!iness. The main environmental route aMay from Northern social paradigms has been 10^. (From previous page) Host, but of course, not all. The change-ofconscicusness idea has its adherents, e.g. Cairns, some in Alternative Australia. Naturally it is not being denied that change-^f-consciousness (e.g. in the form of ecological conversion) does occur^aac^is an important h happening. Hhat is at issue is the likely scale of such change. and Mhat it involves indicated (e.g. in RP). t-lhat is the extent to Mhich elements of mainstream Australian culture reconnoitred elsewhere, is remarkable Indeed in Australasian culture there fit with that divergence from the North. is at best dominant social There is already in the cultures paradigm. for a marked SMing aMay from the dominant Northern basis vieMpoint, demagogic of ambivalent subscription to major facets only is it mainly a matter of tipping Northern the a substantial paradigm. an From already a poised balance aMay from Nor them-influenced control. break-aMay This involve first control has tMO political facets arrangements part Mhich of part relevant is breaking free from Northern hegemony, control, alignment of The and from the influence of foreign states and the grips of transnational Some companies. recovering Mays connected of the Mays this can be accomplished have local control of media output and messages, are knoMn, e.g. escheMing a false internationalism, and, into line Mith both so that political arrangements reflect these parts of culture. reliance, e.g. political bringing culture, from sMeepingly, more dropping moving to greater regional been indicated, and many other self-reliance, modifying limited liability of companies, out of the international abandoning the race to keep up Mith the Singaporian rat-race Jones and the (e.g. E/i^shoMas, Host of these Mays could 107 The second designed to strike resounding chords in mainstream culture. in demolishinq their oMn and others'* environments). be rtA"' ccbLt subsidizing transnationals, A.? providing hand-outs and undue shelter to big business or monopolistic professions, cutting assistance to the disadvantaged, exposing local small-actor sectors (in difficulty) to the icy Minds of Morld 107. And Mhere not it is a matter of removing false beliefs, such as that Australia is currently threatened militarily by hostile states. These sorts of beliefs could be altered, at least for many Mho hold them, by appropriate persuasion by credible popular figures on mass media channels. In fact it has suited both government and opposition, hitherto committed to an essentially bipartisan defence policy, to let false beliefs about defence, for instance, stand, or even to encourage and reinforce them. market forces, and so on. such Tipping the balance involves both positive measures promoting the valid features in as as^ such measures, counteracting freely flowing in from the North, Australian culture, counter- and images and removing damaging impacts and e.g. by cutting doMn the floM, making it more expensive, and introducing rivals. Governments cannot be relied upon even Mhere motivated to do so (e.g. as Mith defence they may support, because of false beliefs). rolehas never to make requisite changes on their OMn, been active in lack popular Apparently, and surprisingly, the State's Australia, but a 1 Mays reactive. State intervention and regulation is and has alMays been in reaction to Mhat 108 happens. Since governments can not be relied upon to initiate action, it is important to move for change, for such possible, change early and Mhere possible to obtain popular support 10? on in movements. It is important also, Mhere to bypass government, building alternative social arrangements and enlarging the informal economy (see e.g. Nartin). There is further a component to be exploited in tipping the balance from the mainstream dominant Northern paradigm, apart from the Australian authoritarianism, culture (as e.g. components egalitarianism, of anti­ anti-marketism, satisization, environmentalism, and so on). That is anti-Americanism. There developed leading aMay The attitude in the Antipodes to USA is ambivalent. is a love-hate relationship in Australia (e.g. mutual admiration from perceived cultural similarities, gratitude from older Australians for American 108. This major theme is advanced, illustrated, and defended in Gilbert, p.?ff. One important example concerns squatting, other aspects of social Melfare. But the theme is liable to be contested, e.g. by Aitkin, Mho sees 'nearly tMo centuries of reliance on ... omnicompetent initiating goverment behind us' (p.27). HoMever Gilbert seems to be correct; Australian governments are hardly omnicompetent or 'omnipresent'*, and they rarely appear to initiate. 10?. That support may be enlisted from culturally unexpected sources, e.g. Momen in the case of the peace movement, as opinion polls clearly reveal. The peace movement has not undertaken sufficient political foot-uork, e.g. grass roots activity such as door knocks, in increasing and mobilizing this potential support. in Morld Mar II; action ugly American abroad). dislike of American blustering, the Antipodes. independence, trying to The distaste for being visibly pushed around is strong in A striking feature of established Antipodean peoples is their elements or to be unwillingness to put up with nonsense, their manipulated^ especially by foreigners. cultural There is now much anti-US- in New Zealand since USA made the tactical error of New Zealand. bully the There is much anti-Americanism in Australia as well as widespread opposition to the American government. governmentism opposition to as pushed* Ao Of course, the tactic of appeal ingj^such practices opposition to the American political is a dangerous one, owing in part to politicians' dishonest penchant for conflating opposition to a foreign government with opposition to people that goverment is supposed to represent (or perhaps on rare occasions does), easy the by above). neutralised. practice ambiguity of terms like anti-American (an ambiguity The tactic opens the way to charges of racism, and the like. a But the charges, For it is on national chauvinism, if they can be got at, are straightforwardly largely a matter of removing institutions (and cultures) to their individual members, institutions devolves, traded made fallaciously, into criticism of crude reduction of so that criticism of each and every one of the members. no Richard Sylvan 110. This paper had a long and difficult gestation and growth period, before ye'idling a result that still leaves its author uneasy most days. He cehtainly hopes that those who commented on the paper or assisted on the labour in its earlier days now only dimly recognise it. Among those to be thanked are Brian Hartin, Jean Norman, Louise Syvlan (who was responsible for the monster in the first place), David Bennett, ... . On the notion of culture and cultural pluralism APPENDIX 1: unfortunately, with very few exceptions, Definitions of culture abound; Hany are too narrow, are bad. all for example chauvinistically restricting culture to human groups (as Kamenka's appalling motto, 'nothing human is alien p.7.); some are too broad, for example making any sort of organisation to me', as a trade union or a local brass band.) a culture. such serve to connect problems:- High redefinitions of cu1ture with [a peoples'] artistic achievement or, even more 111 with (their) literature. This is h1 on culture, at least insofar culture LaJ narrowly, as the types of indicate Pt fen examples will what is included is class restricted, to certain class-approved products and performances (e.g. opera, ballet, drama as opposed to reggae, punk, etc.). Hhile high redefinitions let in too little, So is with the definition of culture as 'the transfer of it behavioural means, (Bonner with low redefinitions admit too much. p.ltj), culture. information most particularly by the process of teaching and learning* because that includes much that has nothing especially to For by example, number of bricks on a site, relaying a weather forecast or passing on transfers information by behavioural means, do the but information of no particular cultural relevance. By contrast, culture. For Herskovits: most definitions mark out something which roughly overlaps example, culture Awa 'settletsJ for the offered definition is "the man-made part of the environment" ...' by (p.2'?). Not only is this inadmissibly anthropocentric, excluding animal cultures (such as Bonner writers studies) imagine); and extraterrestrial cultures (such but worse, as science-fiction this twisted definition appears to render a ill. Thus, for example, Stephenson throughout his iconoclastic book on Australian culture. The equation, with literary texts, like that of a paradigm with central texts, is useful in offering a materia! representation of a culture. For there is something solid that can be grasped and presented. Similary, money, newspapers and motor cars, afford material artefacts and museum exhibits of wider popular cultures. deserted town or ancient ruins a culture (rather mining of manifestation a past culture) while excluding a system physics! the than and beliefs of values as a culture (.unless an erroneous theory of systems of propositions In invoked). is latching onto the physical exemplification it is moreover like Kuhn' s identification of a text-book with a paradigm. there is much m common between the notion of culture and Indeed libera! extension of the notion of paradigm, one of uh 1 ch gained currency &ng!o-ffmerican thought about a hundred years Later than the other. have in Both terms been used to cover an apparently diverse range of things (and criticised dismissed for doing just that), or Kuhn's and both do this in rather simitar because both attempt to capture types of conceptual schema. parallels suggest - certainly once the usefu! notion of a widely adopted in sociology, Mays, Nhat is more the paradigm, soc1 a 1 been encountered and worked Mith - a common has notion. Mith but little reflection, from advantage of this definition, involved and para!tel in a rather different account of culture the run of anthropologies! definitions straightaway emerges:- P) cu!ture, or more exact!y a pure culture, BP) then, P great is that the hard and part of its appeal, thus does not have to be repeated; the supplied a logical sense; generous by but the c!ean-up Mould that is, an elaborate interpretation relational structure. it is function Naturally it is a contrast to a scientific paradigm, propositional structure delivered, is many that of a social group. sketched take theoretical on a required f aithfu1 to Mhat (the social forms, activities and so on) it models. in in Recall that a paradigm is explicated as a model, form for culture. system, i.e. on paradigm, Mork in rectifying the notion of paradigm has already been done (e.g. precisely structure is a comprehensive socia! paradigm. is a paradigm genera! to be 6 social where the the political themes and value judgements, Group cohesiveness in fact is guaranteed in examples of such social paradigms (several reproduced in the RP) because actual groups with distinctive cultures are taken; but the theoretical explanation goes structure. The and deeper depends on features of the of propositions! structure delivered types mode! underlying in shoMn, are capsule form, in the first table of this paper contrasting parts of mainstream American and Philippine cultures; other more detailed examples are reproduced in theoretical Mork on social paradigms (e.g. RP, CPE, Cotgrove and references cited therein). dust the as of explication May by paradigm of enabled models a clarification and unification job to be done on the giant conceptual mess that the of paradigm had become, notion facilitates a pleasing and simplifying synthesis. the hc"-j complains diffusion by pointing to the about complaint his Consider, about, in definitions of culture to similes and metaphors, desperation, as ... a map, as a sieve, resort cu1ture illustrate, to Kluckholn Geertz Minds but in anthropology more generally, can be reduced. especially, up Geertz diffusion' 'theoretical of so the parallel explication in attempted to the analogies 'perhaps in and as a matrix', before a mere paragraph later, offering his OMn metaphor of culture as a. Meb of significance or interpretation (and mode 1 too, its in metaphor), roots though here an exact technical notion, Prs it happens, Geertz's account is not too has bad a picture of the sort of logical model involved, that is of a system, a Meb**l ike structure, Mith an interpretation matrix The other similes are hoMever more exact: on it. imposed, can function, supplying significance or meaning models (though not as function usually both a map and a social ones), a map typically modelling a landscape. take up Kluckholn's elaboration on culture (not to Furthermore, really ^definitions' as Geertz suggests), a model is indeed '(4) "an abstraction from Mhich, behaviour"', feeling thinking, hoMever is not prescript i v e 1 y Mhere and it is a social paradigm, believing"'* in terms of items merely descriptive, as, supplies '('?) "a validated. but Mill be applied mechanism for the (3) "a May of and normative can The model be regulation read of (ID? "a set of techniques for adjusting both to the externa! and behaviour"' environment and to other men"'. Such a mode!, which does correspond to '(5) "a the part of the anthropologist about the '..'jay in which a on theory peop!e in fact behave"' and their view of the wor!d, orientations, Since the social paradigm evolves over time, '(11) "a precipitate of history'", of certainly affords '(6) a structure of pooled learning"' and '(7.) "a set of standardized to recurrent problems" . group it is and it does record '(2) "the social legacy the individual [in the society] acquires from his group"'. three parts or levels of a culture that Conga!ton and David The *--P*22 ff.) are similar to those Kuhn includes within a paradigm, readi1y supplied by a model. They are, first, the discern and likewise genera! rules and procedures characterising and controlling the behaviour of adherents; secondly the ideas and vatues.behind these beliefs and procedures; thirdly the products materia! and exemplars resulting, e.g. textbooks, interpretation function validates both themes and ru!es; domains as wel! it including values and ideas (on both see of objects, connection with exemplars and artefacts is less direct, The The newspapers. RP, delivers pp.12-16). and of more than textbook may present a paradigm or, more likely, part of one; or 112 it may, like an artefact, supply or be a partial modelling of the paradigm. one kind. remaining The to order culture reflect has life-forms done. Ihus to of qualifying term comprehensive is some of the slackness of the deliberately notion of Abraham, styles there are varying degrees to which this for one, can 112. and be explains various inclusive levels of culture (PP* 12-13) before opting for the most inclusive, under which 'culture is 113 common life of the people and 'includes the whole of the knowledge, arts, in Hhile culture. cover a sufficiently comprehensive part of life a community, vague th<= the science, technology, religions, morality, ritual, politics, literature, theory normally has many models, some exact and canonical, some of which bring out al! that holds in the theory but not only what holds there; and, more sweepmgly still, it has partial models, which accurately depict part of the theory. etiquette even compr eh ensi ve, includes use of t he.t erm hot'je ver mastery a sculpture, . of a seventeenth (p. 12) 114 ..." -fashions Under a all of process literature, Abraham (p.13). of and could knoM (p.13). history, culture!, music, pauperisation of Mhat the culture and painting conjectures that this use evolved and eighteenth centuries, ! ess narroMer, cu 1 ture i s limited to Mhat are called In this use [that again of "higher" of the mind. things result and educated the age of enlightenment, man 'as in a the stood for', Such a person could reflect the Mhole culture in the more comprehensive use. The European vieM of culture, Mhich tends to concentrate on high culture, is insufficiently comprehensive, leaving out a crucial aspect of culture, so it has been argued, namely attitudes to and approaches to the environment, and so natural environments largely devoid of man-made features and influences particular. in fuller picture of environmentally-sensitive culture looks like this:113. (From previous page) See p.21. Accounts of culture of this very inclusive, but still unnecessarily anthropic, form are common in the literature. Thus, for example, Harris: 'f) culture is the total socially acquired life-May or life-style of a group of people' (p.144), their patterns of behaviour and thought. Thus, Mith even less qualification, the first of Kluckholn'-s eleven definitions of culture (as listed in Geertz pp.4-5), 'the total May of life of of a people', a definition repeated in Conga)ton and David, p.22. The intended model accordingly provides a complete representation of life-Mays of members of the c u 1 t u r e. 114. H fuller and better account Mhich gets very close to the model-theoretic analysis, is Kumer's analogous definition of culture: The shared symbolic system Mhich gives meaning to human interactions in a society. It refers to a society's May of perceiving, interpreting and expressing things ... it includes knoMledqe, belief-systems, values, norms and ideologies Mhich enable the members of a society to perceive, organise and interpret reality ... reality is alMays perceived Mi thin an evaluative frameMork. Similar too is Tylor's definition of 'culture' in terms of a structure again: 'Culture or Civilization ... that complex Mhole Mhich includes knoMledge, belief, art, morals, la.M, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society'. (Primitive Culture vol. 7, p.7). So all human societies have a culture, a generalised paradigm. It is better to separate out civi1ization, hoMever, and link it to its 'root meaning of living in cities'. PRIMARY CULTURE DlnGFWl sense 'culture', of and intellectual sociology, in Mhere order culture. artistic the practice dictionaries, takes up the primary namely Con c i se En q1i sh D i c t i on ary), consists in put] of and as presented culture of a society is said to comprise a given culture, state 'the as it is lor development, of a in shared 'the It is important to separate off - in or people Mith, and the education-derived sense, the training or discipline in or group- particular, the in Mhich the culture comprises the community, leading in Mhich the to Evidently the explication, Mhich makes the product primary a given reverses the culture. like agriculture, viticulture, and 115 Mas first and foremost a process , a "cultivation" of intellect and the historical order, so on, in to set aside - some derivative senses, sharing, culture offered values and beliefs' of the society. derived sense, or as or people' (cf. community norms, through social paradigms, explication so far, The Mhere 115. Pts Hilliams explains, the ear 1 y meaning of 'culture' Mas as a process; and the 'culture of the mind' Mas vieMed as a process rather than a product or achieved state. In (early) modern use 'culture' became, like 'civilized', a condition. Only Mith the 'fourth modern development did culture appear as ' the Mho 1e May of life, material, intellectual and spiritual of a given society' (p.273), i.e., as a comprehensive social paradigm. The other forms, the first three developments, Mere restricted versions of this, to respectively the individual, intellectual and moral parts, and arts and intellectual areas. To invert the ahistorical explanatory patte^, so to say, the inherited cu1tures of science? scientific paradigms are, However the reversal makes it easier to qet some grip on art and technology. the very rich process-product complex that a culture comprises. example, goes astray in settling for a process definition of Bonner, for 'culture'* allied to the education-derived sense: 'By culture I mean the transfer of information by most means, behavioural by the process particularly of teaching and Hhile the definition certainly achieves its intended objective of learning*. including animal culture^, it is, as already remarked, a quite excessively low redefinition, such accounting things as semaphoring between boy scouts as c u 1 t u r e. There is a further dimension of complexity so far largely omitted through restriction pure most contemporary states are far from culturally pure, comprising a cultures, mixture 1-lhile tribal groups may have relatively to pure cultures. of peoples.and cultures. represented More generally, an n-cultural society by a system of n paradigms adhered to in the society. 6 multi­ 6 multi­ cultural society is thus an n-cultural society where n is cultural society may simply Australia, not include however be very many. it pluralistic; may, groups of people from different cultures under some dominant culture which controls in one region together is as in brought the main Much depends then on the type of system of paradigms political institutions. involved, on how the paradigms are themselves interrelated and structured. Ft society nil! function (cf. Abraham, p.lbff., incompatible with extreme individualism'). a variety of subcultures. Mhich is not Characteristically and commonly For culture is the glue of a group; competing cultures. integrative always have a culture, several perhaps it has an important who remarks that 'culture is Ft society wi 1 1 also typically have f) subculture is a paradigm, included in a culture, sufficiently subcultures comprehensive to rank as a share norms and assumptions with some culture. larger culture except where they diverge. The dominant cultures in countries like Australia and America can be as having tree structures. represented a is there Subcultures mainstream century gentry Protestant many subcultural long played significant parts in have last example, Mi th culture, differences the terms, 116 tributaries. Transposing to river-network between Catholic, extensive immigration program, substantial social tolerance, with and chai 1enged. Alternative critical important an As a result assumptions along and that is, the cultural streams remain of the mainstream culture are not those of Australia) do however is to criticise and challenge themes of the accommodate, These within too a pluralistic (a plural paradigm) society provided the social paradigms present limits, no can real to overarching socio-political arrangements and the prevailing type of threat structure (if they should however things would have to give or power of complex permit the relatively easy formation rival and al ternative social paradigms (such as Hhat culture. dominant and Australia now boasts a much more persistence of subcultures - so long as, subcu1tures Protestant Flexible multi-cultural arrangements, of ethnic subcultures. pattern for of Australian colonial culture had streams bearing on leisure activities such as gambling (see Inglis). its history; Australian change; rival river networks are bound to alter the cultural landscape). like Cultures, explaining illustrated that and paradigms, social inducing social change. explanatory roles. repudiation nature', important role on the that is, For example, in RP). It is worth that it noticing to Philp criticises for Foucault prevents him from consistent explaining in and human culture can replace nature of the human subject and the denial of a ground both So much has already been shown as regards social paradigms (e.g. nature have been supposed mandatory; 'his an can also afford explanatory roles in cases where appeal they social have in for human directed 116. A subculture of a given culture is itself a culture (i.e. a comprehensive social paradigm) applying to a subgroup of the given wider culture, which agrees with the wider culture on characterising (paradigmatic) features but which may diverge, and typically does, by virtue of further cultural features, i.e. features in its paradigm. A subculture stands then technically to a culture as a subalgebra stands to an algebra, etc. 4^ resistance or social struggle for the better. explain a and justify such resistance 'requires that Me make some commitment to conception of the human good and this usually rests on some vieM of nature and human subjectivity'*. the to social good as human a.May; The modifier 'usually' gives the game route can circuit through culture. justificatory directed Accordingly to Philp t.p.17.!, to discerned under a The struggle regional can paradigm; be the commitments can be cultural. The main real Mork of this paper, descriptive some attempt of relevant features of the different cultures at explanation has been contrasted, Mith like much Mork on culture, of more unexpected features of the cultures, concerned, some criticism, and some attempt to explain some cultural traits in terms of others. enterprise, cultures only This, like the modelling account, points to a more difficult broached: investigated, namely, the task of providing theories of and so perhaps explaining Mhat pulls them the together, makes them tick, gives them their distinctive shape and grip, and so on. APPENDIX 2: Contemporary scientific redeployment of human nature attempts of this sort are based on the modern evolutionary synthesis, and in appear extreme most form in sociobiology. t'jas it However quickly recognised that (opportunistic) sociobioligical attempts, such as Nilson's, to to rule out significant political 117 narrow social alternatives fail. redeploy nature human underlying characterisation of human nature is Nilson's from the main socio-political tradition. the [is! of set full behavioural possibilities innate Li.e. very and different 'In the broader sense, human nature genetic or genetically-determined] predispositions that characterise the human species; and in the narrower sense, those predispositions that affect social behaviour' t.pp.217-8, mith It is not constant or static, rearrangement). It is certainly ahistorical, (sub)species read disease patterns conjunctively however the ambiguity in the characterisation of is resolved. nature - hardly a set, disjunctively it only n'ill include the full humans since genes may mutate. are liable to set suffer; For if the definition of if is genetically-determined read, those every (normal) human is bound to less undergo plausibly, at some stage. In any event, such sets are remote from Enlightenment political concerns, thouph, like health and disease more generally, socially relevant enough; they hardly alternatives. appear to Moreover, impose they significant offer constraints on no bulwark against racial or and political cultural and since by no means 118 everything is determined genetically e.g. languages of some cultures. relativity, since races have separate gene subpools, 117. f^s this is a commonplace vie^j, Singer and especially Pigden. there is no need to labour it: see Ruse, determinism is simply one, and perhaps even the weakest, of forms of determinism intended to vastly reduce cultural variability. Nilson does not rely on that form exclusively, but helps himself to other incompatible forms of determinism as suit^: see p.207. 118. Genetic REFERENCES W.E. Abraham, The Mind of Africa, University of Illinois Press, Chicago, 1362. D. A. Aitkin, 'Where does lustra 1ia stand?', in Pothers, pp.13-31. A. Alpers, Maori Myths and Tribal Legends, Longman Paul, Auckland, 1384. N.E. Awa, 'Culture and credibility', Ceres 13 (5) (1933) 28-32. E. Best, The Maori., Col. 1, Tombs, Wellington, l'?24. R. Birrell, 0. HiU Sydney, 1384. J.T, Benner, 1380. .^nd J. Neville, Populate and Perish?, Fontana/AFC, The Evolution of Culture in Animals, Princeton University Press, B. Bonney and H. 1383. Australia's Commercial Media, Macmillan, Melbourne, Wilson, 8.J. Berry, Human, Hegel and Human Nature, Martinus Nijhcff, The Hague, 1382. J. Cairns, The Quiet. Revo 1 u t i on - Pl ides c o D o e. C am b e r we 1]. '2i c tgi a.. 1375^ G.T, jGaldlwel!., 'The gamblj.no Australian.'j,_.in Change in Australia (ed. Edgar), Cheshire, Melbourne, ly/4. D.E. G.T. Caldwell, 'Leisure', in Davies et.al., pp.410-433. G.T. Caldwell, 'Some historical and sociological characteristics of Australian gambling', in Caldwell et.al. G.F. Caldwell, M. Dickerson, B. Haig and L. Australia, Croom Helm, Sydney, 1385. Sylvan (eds.), Gambling in F. Capra and C. Spretnak, Green Politics, Hutchinson, London, 1384. R. E. C a v e s and L . B. Krause, The Australian Economy: George Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1384. N. Chomsky and E, Herman, Press, Boston, 1373. A L'iew from the North , The Political Economy of Human Rights, South End P. Cock, Al ternative Australia, Quartet Books, Melbourne, 1373. J. Cohen and J. Rogers, On Democracy, Penguin, New York, 1384. A.A. Congalton and A.E. 1378. R.W. Connell, 'Images of Australia'* in Social Change in Australia Edgar), Cheshire, Melbourne, 1374. David, The Individual in the Making, Wiley, Sydney, (ed. R. W. Connell, Ruling class, ruling culture, S. Cotgrove, Catastrophe or Cornucopia, Wiley, blew York , 1382. G. Crough and T. Wheelwright, Australia: A Client State, Penguin, Australia, D. 1'7'82! . E , C/t 1 er,bach , Ecotopia Emerging, A.F. Davies 1765. and S. Encel (eds.), Au s t r a 1 ian Seei e t y, Melbourne, Cheshire, A.F. Davies, 8. Encel and M. Berry (eds.), Austral ian Society, Third Edition, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 17777. M.J. Dunphy, Ft) ternative Thoughts, Total Environment* Centre, Sydney, 1784. R. Ely, 'Australian Historians on "Tall Cultural History 3 (1784) 104-126. Poppies": a Australian survey', B.L. Embury and N. Fodder, 'Economic Melfare in Australia'* i n Australi an Social Issues of the 70's, (ed. F'.R. Nilson), Butterworths Sydney, 1772. 8. Gaus, The Modern Libera) Theory of Han, Croom Helm, London, 1783. A. Gilbert, 'The state and nature in Australia, Australian Cultural History 1781, (eds. S. Goldberg and F.H.Smith), Canberra, 1782, pp.?-28. R. J. Goldstein, 1778. Political Repression in Modern America, U.K. Hancock, Aus trai ia, E. G. K. Hall, Boston, , London, 1730. M. Harris, Culture, People, Mature, Second edition, Cromwell, 1775. S. Hays, Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: Con servat i on Movemen t, 1870-1720, Cambridge, MA, 1757. R. Heilbroner, The Morldly Philosophers, Schus t er, New Yor k, 1767. 3rd revised The Progressive edit., Simon and T. Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. M. Oakeshott, Oxford, 1746, I. Illich, Deschooling Society, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1771. K.S. Inglis, 'Religious behaviour'*, in A.F. Davies and S. Australian Society, Cheshire, Melbourne, 1765, pp.43-75. Encel (eds.), K.S. Inglis, 'Gambling and culture^ in Australia' in Caldwell et.al. B. Jones, S1 eeper s Awak e! , Ox f or d Un i ver si t y Press , 1 '782. E. Kamenka, 'Culture and Australian culture', (1784) 7-18. Australian Cultural History 3 T.S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Second edition, Un i v e r s i t y of Chicago Press, 1770. K. Ku m a r , The Social and Cultural Impact of Transnational Enterprises, Norking Faper No. 6, %tRF, University of Sydney, 1779. R.E. Lane, 'Market .justice, political justice', Hugo Holfsen Memorial Lecture, He1 bourne, May, 1935. N. Lini, Keynote address,. Australia and the South Pacific, Proceedings of a Conference held at the Australian National University, 1782, //3 S.M. L i p s e t and H. Schreidor , The Confidence Gap; Busines: Government in the Fublic Hind, Free Frees, Ne'?j Yo r k, 1'?83. F. Lome and J. Gcyder, London, 1383. Environmental Groups in Politics, '5. Macdonald, 'The lo^-dct^n on high-technology industry in presented at the Science Research in Australia: Conference, Canberra, 23-4, June 1384. Labor fallen and Unmin, Australia, paper Who Benefits? A. L. HcLeod, The Pattern of Australian Culture, O. and 1363. Hannison and others (eds.), En vironmentai Philosophy, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1379. K. Harx, Selected Works, R. Merrill, 'Philosophical monism, humanistic pluralism and the decline of the humanities', Human ties in Soc i e t y 3 ( 1380) 335-343, B. Morton, Uprooting War, Freedom Press, London, 1384. R. Nash, The American Environment, Reading, MA, 1378. R. Nash, 'Rounding out the American revolution: ethical extension and the neuj environmentalism', typescript, 1382. P. 0 Farrell, "!*he cultural ambivalence of Australian Cultural History 1 (1382) 3-8. M. 01s c n , The Rise and Decline of Nations, 1382. M. religion', Au stra 1 ian Y a 1 e U n i v e r s i t y Pre s s, N e^j H a v e n , Philp, 'Disconcerting discourses. The return of Grand Theory II: Michel Foucault' Australian Society 4 ( 1385) 15-17. C. Pigden, 'Notes o/ sociobiology", typescript, Canberra, 1384. J. Ratals, A Theory of Justice, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1371. k. Rigby, 'The attitudes of English and Australian college students towards institutional authority'. Journal of Social Psychology 122 (1384) 41-48. R. Routley, 'Roles and limits of paradigms in environmental thought and action', Environmentai Phi1osophy (ed. A. Gare and R. Eliott), University of Queensland Frees 1383; referred to as RP. R. Routley, 'Maximizing, satisficing, satisizing: the differences in real and rational behaviour under r i v a 1 par a d i gm s', Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1384; referred to as HSS. R. and 'J. Routley, 'Human chauvinism and environmental ethics' in Hannison; referred to as EE. U. and R. Routley, 'Social problems', in Hannison. theor i es, self management R. Routley and N. Griffin, 'Unravelling the meanings of Papers in Environmental Philosophy # 3, Research //y and environmental 1i f e ?', Discussion Schoo! of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1982. N.D. Rubenstein, ''Men of wealth'', Australian Cultural History 3 (1984) 24-37. M. Ruse, Sociobio1ogy: Sense or Nonsense K. Rudeen, 'The global gamble'', Sports Illustrated, August 4, 1958, pp. 10-13. B. Russell, Hist or y of Hee tern Philosoph y, Allen and Unwin, London, 1947. S.S. Schwarzschild, 'The unnatural Jew'*, Environmental Ethics 6 ( 1984) 347- P. Singer, (booRon Sociobiology) M. Smith and 0. Crossley, (eds.) The Nay Cut: Austral i a, Lan sdown e, Me 1 bcume, 1975. Radical Alternatives in Snyder, E.A. Sommerlad, P.L. Dawson and J.C. Altman, Rural Land Sharing Communities^ An Alternative Economic Model? Bureal of Labour Market Research, Monograph Series No. 7, Australian Government Printing Service, L'angerra, 19851 P.R. The Foundations of Lui tune, N. J. Mi 1 es, Sydney, 193*5. St ewar t, American Cultural Patterns: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1971. E. H. Stephensen , Stretton, 36. A Cross-Cultural Perspective, 'Hhere does Australia stand?: A Discussion', in Hithers, pp.32- R. Sylvan, 'Prospects for regional philosophies in Australasia', Australasian Journa 1 of Philosophy S3 ( 1985) 188-204. R. Sylvan, 'Philosophy, politics and pluralism. I. Relevant modellings and arguments', Research Series in Logic and Metaphysics, No. 2, Rese a r ch Schoo! of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1985; referred to as PPP. R. Sylvan, 'Culture, philosophy, and approaches to the natural environment an Australian perspective'', in Ethics, Environment, Ecology (.ed. D. Bennett), Australian National University, 1985; referred to as CPE. E.B. Tyl^r, Primitive Culture, Vol. 7., London, 1871. T. Veblen, An inquiry into the Nature of Peace, Viking, New fork, 1945. T. Vinson, 'Crime'*, in Davies et.al. E. Matt, [Latest environmental book! D.R. H i1d R. Heiner, 'The historical origins Envi ronmen t a 1 Revi ew 6 ( 1982) 42-61. of Soviet environmentalism', [soc i o1ogy book J Hilliams, 'Culture and civilization", in Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (ed. P. Edwards), Macmillan, London, 1967, vol. 2, pp.273-362. R. Williams, Keywords, Fontana, London, 1976. J.G. Williamson and P.H. Linder t, American History, Academic Press, Ne^' York, 1980. E.O. Hi1son, 1973. On Human Nature, Inequality: Harvard University Press, 0. Withers (ed.), Bigger or Smaller Government?, Papers Symposium of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Canberra, 1983. A Hacroeconomic Cambridge, from the Australia L. Wittgenstein, Phi1osophica 1 Investigarions, Blackwell, Oxford, 195x. Nass., Sixth 1982, 1 On the notion of culture and cultural pluralism APPENDIX 1: Definitions of culture abound; all unfortunately, with very few exceptions, Many are too narrow, are bad. for example chauvmistica! ly restricting culture to human groups (as Kamenka's appalling motto, 'nothing human is alien p.7); some are too broad, for example making any sort of organisation to me' , as a trade union or a local brass band) a culture, such to serve connect problems:- High redefinitions of cu1ture with [a peoples'] artistic achievement or, even more lil with (their) literature. This is nion culture, at least insofar culture EaJ narrowly, as the types of indicate A few examples w 11 1 what is included is class restricted, to certain class-approved products and performances (e.g. opera, ballet, drama as opposed to reggae, punk, etc.). Mhile high redefinitions let in too little, So is with the definition of culture as 'the transfer of it behavioural means, (Bonner Mi th low redefinitions admit too much. p.l'J), culture. information most particularly by the process of teaching and learning' because that includes much that has nothing especially to For by example, number of bricks on a site, relaying a weather forecast or passing on transfers information by behavioural means, do the but information of no particular cultural relevance. . By contrast, For culture. Herskovits: most definitions mark out something which roughly overlaps example, culture Awa settleEsJ for the definition is "the man-made part of the environment" offered ...' by (p.2'?). Not only is this inadmissibly anthropocentric, excluding animal cultures (such as Bonner writers studies) imagine); and extraterrestrial cultures (such but worse, as science-fiction this twisted definition appears to render a ill. Thus, for example, Stephenson throughout his iconoclastic book on Australian culture. The equation, with literary texts, like that of a paradigm with central texts, is useful in offering a material representation of a culture. 'For there is something solid that can be grasped and presented. Similary, money, newspapers and motor cars, afford material artefacts and museum exhibits of wider popular cultures. deserted toMn or ancient rums a culture (rather mining of manifestation a than past culture) Mhile excluding a system the of physical and beliefs values as a culture (unless an erroneous theory of systems of propositions invoked). In is latching onto the physical exemplification it is moreover like Kuhn's identification of a text-book Mith a paradigm. there is much in common between the notion of culture and Indeed liberal extension of the notion of paradigm, one of Mhich gamed currency ^nglo-Psmerican thought about a hundred years later than the other. have in Both terms been used to cover an apparently diverse range of things (and criticised dismissed for doing just that), or Kuhn's and both do this m rather similar because both attempt to capture types of conceptual schema. parallels suggest - certainly once the useful notion of a Midely adopted m sociology, Mays, Nhat is more the social paradigm, been encountered and Morked Mith - a common has notion. Nith but little reflection, from then, a rather different account of culture the run of anthropological definitions straightaMay emerges:- & culture, or more exactly a pure culture, advantage of this definition, is a comprehensive socia! paradigm. and part of its appeal, R great is that the hard Mork involved in rectifying the notion of paradigm has already been done (e.g. RP) thus and parallel m the supplied system, i.e. on a logical sense; generous by but the clean-up Mould that is, an elaborate interpretation relational structure. it is function Naturally it is a theoretical on a required fai thfu1 to Mhat (the social forms, activities and so on) it models. paradigm, m contrast to a scientific paradigm, propositional structure delivered, is many that of a social group. sketched take Recall that a paradigm is explicated as a mode!. form for culture. precisely structure does not have to be repeated; m is a paradigm general to be Ps social Mhere the the political themes and value judgements, Group cohesiveness in fact is guaranteed in examples of such social paradigms (several reproduced in the RP) because actual groups Mith distinctive cultures are taken; but the theoretical explanation goes structure. The deeper and depends on features of underlying the of propositional structure delivered types are model in shoMn, capsule form, in the first table of this paper contrasting parts of mainstream other more detailed examples are reproduced American and Philippine cultures; in theoretical Mork social paradigms (e.g. PP, CPE, Cotgrove and references cited therein). Just expl 1 cat ion the as of paradigm of May by models enabled a clarification and unification .job to be done on the giant conceptual mess that the of paradigm had become, notion facilitates a pleasing and simplifying synthesis. how complaint his Geertz to Consider, about, complains diffusion by pointing to the about in definitions of culture to similes and metaphors, desperation, as ... map, a resort Kluckholn Geertz Minds in attempted to the analogies ''perhaps in mere before a and as a matrix'*, as a sieve, cu1ture illustrate, but in anthropology more generally, can be reduced. especially, up diffusion'* 'theoretical the of so the parallel explication paragraph later, offering his OMn metaphor of culture as a web of significance or interpretation (and model too, its in metaphor). roots though here an exact technical notion, Rs it happens, Geertz"'s account is not too has bad a picture of the sort of logical model involved, that is of a system, a Meb-like structure, Mith an interpretation imposed, matrix both a map and a The other similes are hoMever more exact: on it. function can function, supplying significance or meaning as models (though not usually social ones), map a typically modelling a landscape. Furthermore, take up Kluckholn'* s elaboration on culture (not to really 'definitions' as Geertz suggests), a model is indeed '(4) "an abstraction from behaviour'"', thinking, hoMever Mhich, and feeling is not prescriptively Mhere believing'" in terms of items merely descriptive, as, supplies '(3) "a May of it is a social paradigm, '*('?) "a validated. but Mill be applied mechanism for the and normative can The model be regulation read of and "(10) "a set of techniques -tor- adjusting both to the externa! behaviour'"' environment and to other men"''. Such a mode!, which does correspond to '(5) "a theory the part of the anthropologist about the way in which a on peop!e m fact behave'"' and their view of the world, orientations, it is . Since the social paradigm evolves over time, '(11) "a precipitate of history'"', of certainly affords '(6) a "structure of pooled learning'"' and '(7) "a set of standardized to recurrent problems'". group and it does record '(2) "the social legacy the individual Ein the society! acquires from his group"'. three parts or levels of a culture that Conga!ton and David The (p.22 ff.) are similar to those Kuhn includes within a paradigm, by supplied readily a model. They are, first, the discern and likewise general rules and procedures characterising and controlling the behaviour of adherents; secondly the ideas and values behind these beliefs and procedures; thirdly the products and exemplars material resulting, e.g. interpretation function validates both themes and rules; of objects, domains The The newspapers. textbooks, as well it including values and ideas (on both see connection with exemplars and artefacts is less direct, RP, delivers pp.12-16). and of more than Pt textbook may present a paradigm or, more likely, part of one; or 112 it may, like an artefact, supply or be a partial mode!ling of the paradigm. one kind. The order culture remaining reflect to has life-forms done. Thus to of qualifying term comprehensive is some of the slackness of the notion of culture. cover a sufficiently comprehensive part of life a community, Abraham, vague deliberately for one, klhile styles there are varying degrees to which this can and be explains various inclusive levels of culture (pp.12-13) before opting for the most inclusive, under which 'culture is 113 common life of the people'* and 'includes the whole of the knowledge, arts, in the the science, technology, religions, morality, ritual, politics, literature, 112. 6 theory normally has many models, some exact and canonical, some of which bring out all that holds m the theory but not only what holds there; and, more sweepingly still, it has partial models, which accurately depict part of the theory. even etiquette and of the mind. includes le narroMer, In this use [that again of "higher" mastery a '* scu1pture, a seventeenth a Under use of the term however ''culture is limited to Mhat are called comprehensive, things (p.12)114 ' -fashions Abraham (p.13). process of conjectures that this use evolved pauperisation of Mhat and eighteenth centuries, and could knoM (p.13). the educated the age of enlightenment, man 'as in a the stood for', Such a person could reflect the Mhole culture in the more comprehensive use. The European vieM of culture, Mhich tends to concentrate on high culture, is insufficiently comprehensive, leaving out a crucial aspect of culture, so it has been argued, namely attitudes to and approaches to the environment, and so natural environments largely devoid of man-made features and influences particular. in & fuller picture of environmentally-sensitive culture looks like this:- 113. (From previous page) See p.21. Accounts of culture of this very inclusive, but still unnecessarily anthropic, form are common in the literature. Thus, for example, Harris: ''Ft culture is the total socially acquired life-May or life-style of a group of people (p.144), their patterns of behaviour and thought. Thus, Mith even less qualification, the first of Kluckholn's eleven definitions of culture (as listed in Geertz pp.4-5), 'the total May of life of of a people', a definition repeated in Congalton and David, p.22. The intended model accordingly provides a complete representation of life-Mays of members of the culture. 114. Ft fuller and better account Mhich gets very close to the model-theoretic analysis, is Kumer's analogous definition of culture: The shared symbolic system Mhich gives meaning to human interactions in a society. It refers to a society's May of perceiving, interpreting and expressing things ... it includes knoMledge, belief-systems, values, norms and ideologies Mhich enable the members of a society to perceive, organise and interpret reality ... reality is alMays perceived Mithin an evaluative frameMork. Similar too is Tylor's definition of 'culture' in terms of a structure again: 'Culture or Civilization ... that complex Mhole Mhich includes knoMledge, belief, art, morals, laM, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society'. (Primitive Culture vol. 7, p.7). So all human societies have a culture, a generalised paradigm. It is better to separate out civiliza11on, hoMever, and link it to its 'root meaning of living in cities'. PRIORY CULTURE DIRGRRH sense of "culture"', and intellectual where sociology, in order culture. artistic the practice takes up the grimary namely dictionaries, Concise English Dictionary), consists in putJ of and as presented culture of a society is said to comprise a given culture, state the as it is tor development, ' the of a in shared It is important to separate off * particular, the in in which the culture comprises the community, and the educa11on-der1ved sense, the training or discipline in or groun­ or people with, leading in which the to Evidently the explication, which makes the product primary the historical order, so on, in to set aside - some derivative senses, sharing, culture offered values and beliefs' of the society. der ived sense, or as or people' (cf. community norms, through social paradigms, explication so -far, The a given reverses the culture, like agriculture, viticulture, and 115 was first and foremost a process , a "cultivation" of intellect and where 115. Rs Williams explains, the early meaning of 'culture'' was as a process; and the ''culture of the mind' was viewed as a process rather than a product or achieved state. In (early) modern use 'culture' became, like 'civilized'', a condition. Only with the 'fourth modern development did culture appear as 'the whole way of life, material, intellectual and spiritual of a given society* (p.273), i.e., as a comprehensive social paradigm. The other forms, the first three developments, were restricted versions of this, to respectively the individual, intellectual and moral parts, and arts and intellectual areas. To invert the ahistorical explanatory patten^ so to say, the inherited cu1tures of science. scientific paradigms are, art and technology. However the reversal makes it easier to get some grip on the very rich process-product complex that a culture comprises. example, goes astray in settling for a process definition of Bonner, for allied 'culture to the education-derived senses ''By culture I mean the transfer of information by behavioural particularly most means, of by the process teaching and Nhile the definition certainly achieves its intended objective of learning*', it is, as already remarked, a quite excessively low including animal culture^ accounting redefinition, such things as semaphoring between boy scouts as culture. There is a further dimension of complexity so far largely omitted through restriction pure most contemporary states are far from culturally pure, comprising a cultures, mixture Mhile tribal groups may have relatively to pure cultures. More generally, of peoples and cultures. represented an n-cultural society by a system of n paradigms adhered to in the society. & multi­ ft multi­ cultural society is thus an n-cultural society where n is cultural society may simply Australia, not include however be very many. pluralistic; it as may, groups of people from different cultures under some dominant culture which controls in one region together is in brought main the Much depends then on the type of system of paradigms poli tical institutions. involved, on how the paradigms are themselves interrelated and structured. Ps society will function (cf. Abraham, p.lbff., incompatible with extreme individualism'). a variety of subcultures. which is not Characteristically and commonly For culture is the glue of a group; competing cultures. integrative always have a culture, several perhaps it has an important who remarks that culture is society will also typically have R subculture is a paradigm, included in a culture, sufficiently subcultures comprehensive to rank as a share norms and assumptions with some culture. larger culture except where they diverge. The dominant cultures in countries like Australia and America can be is there Subcultures with many century gentry the differences terms, 11.S tributaries. subculture! hong played significant parts in have last Protestant culture, mainstream a example, Transposing to river-network as having tree structures. reoresented between Catholic, extensive immigration program, pattern of ethnic subcultures. important As a result complex accommodate, and that is, the cultural streams remain of the mainstream culture are not those of These within too a pluralistic (a plural paradigm) society provided the social paradigms present limits, can no real to overarching socio-political arrangements and the prevailing type of threat structure (if they should however things would have to give or power along permit the relatively easy formation assumptions of Australia) do however is to criticise and challenge themes of the culture. dominant an rival and alternative social paradigms (such as k-lhat chai 1enged. Al ternative critical and and Australia now boasts a much more persistence of subcultures - so long as, subcultures Protestant Flexible multi-cultural arrangements, substantial social tolerance, with for of Australian colonial culture had streams bearing on leisure activities such as gambling (see Inglis), its history; lustra!ian change; rival river networks are bound to alter the r*.;Xural landscape). Cultures, explaining and illustrated that like paradigms, social inducing social change. explanatory roles. repudiation nature", important role on the that is, For example, in RP). It is worth that it noticing to Philp criticises for Foucault prevents him from consistent explaining in and human culture can replace nature of the human subject and the denial of a ground both So much has already been shown as regards social paradigms (e.g. nature have been supposed mandatory; 'his an can also afford explanatory roles in cases where appeal they social have in for human directed IIS, A subculture of a given culture is itself a culture (i.e. a comprehensive social paradigm) applying to a subgroup of the given wider culture, which agrees with the wider culture on characterising (paradigmatic) features but which may diverge, and typically does, by virtue of further cultural features, i.e. features in its paradigm. A subculture stands then technically to a culture as a subalgebra stands to an algebra, etc. resistance or social struggle tor the better, explain a and justify such resistance 'requires that ^e make some commitment to conception of the human good and this usually rests on some vie^j of human The modifier 'usually* gives the game a^ay; nature and human subjectivity'*. the route can circuit through culture. justificatory directed accordingly to Philp (p.17), to to social good as under discerned a The struggle can paradigm^ regional be the c ommitmen t s c an be cultural. The main real ^ork of this paper, descriptive some attempt like much Mork on culture, of relevant features of the different cultures at explanation of more unexpected features has been contrasted, ^ith of the cultures concerned, some criticism, and some attempt to explain some cultural traits in terms of others. enterprise, cultures only This, like the modelling account, points to a more difficult broached: investigated, namely, the task of providing theories of and so perhaps explaining ^hat pulls them the together, makes them tick, gives them their distinctive shape and grip, and so on. Contemporary scientific redeployment of human nature APPENDIX 2: attempts of this sort are based on the modern evolutionary synthesis, and most in appear extreme form in sociobiology. However it Mas quickly recognised that (opportunistic) sociobiol^gical attempts, such as Nilson's, to nature human to rule out significant political 117 narroM social alternatives fail. redeploy underlying characterisation of human nature is Nilson's from the main socio-political tradition. [is] of set full the possibilities [i.e, innate very different 'In the broader sense, human nature genetic genetically-determinedJ or predispositions that characterise the human species; behavioural and and in the narrower sense, those predispositions that affect social behaviour'* (pp.217-8, Mith It is certainly ahistorical, read disjunctively it disease hoMever the ambiguity in the characterisation of nature - hardly a set, (sub)species patterns conjunctively only since genes may mutate. It is not constant or static, rearrangement). Mill include the full humans For if the definition is resolved. are liable to set suffer; of if is genetically-determined read, those every (normal) human is bound to less undergo plausibly, at some stage. In any event, such sets are remote from Enlightenment political concerns, though, like health and disease more generally, socially relevant enough; they hardly alternatives. appear to Moreover, impose they significant offer constraints on no bulMark against racial or and political cultural and since by no means 118 everything is determined genetically e.g. languages of some cultures. relativity, since races have separate gene subpools, 117. Fss this is a commonplace vieM, Singer^, and especially Pigden. there is no need to labour it: see Ruse, 118. Genetic determinism is simply one, and perhaps even the Meakest, of several forms of determinism intended to vastly reduce cultural variability. Nilson does not rely on that form exclusively, but helps himself to other incompatible forms of determinism as suit^: see p.207. REFERENCES W.E. Abraham, Ths Mind of Africa, University of lilinois ess, Litica^o, i-S2. D, A. Aitkin, ''Mhere does Australia stand?', in Withers, pp.18-31. Pipers, Maori Myths and Tri ba' Legends, Longman Pau], Auckland, 1984. N.E. Awa, '"Culture and credibility'", Ceres 16 (5) (1983) 28-38, E. Best, The Maori, Vol, 1, Tombs, Wellington, 1924, R. Birrell, D. HiH Sydney, 1984. J.T. Bonner, 1980. .^nd J, Neville, Populate and Perish?, Fontana/AFC, The Evolution of Culture in animals, Princeton University Press, B. Bonney and H. 1983. Australia's Commercial Media, Macmillan, Melbourne, Wilson, 8.J. Berry, Human, Hegel and Human Nature, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1982. J. Cairns, The Quiet Revolution. Widescop^e.^Camberw.elJ^J-Jiotg^^a. 1975^. 8.T, jCald/wel.l., '"The gambling AustraTian.'L^_in Change in Australia (ed. Edgar), Cheshire, Melbourne, 1974. D.L. G.T. Caldwell, '"Leisure', in Davies et.al., pp.410-439. G.T. Caldwell, '"Some historical and sociological characteristics of Australian gambling', in Caldwell et.al. G.T. Caldwell, M. Dickerson, B. Haig and L. Australia, Croom Helm, Sydney, 1985. Sylvan (eds.), Camb' ing—ijl F. Capra and C. Spretnak, Green Poli tics, Hutchinson, London, 1984. R.E. Caves and L.8. Krause, The Australian Economy: George Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1984. N. Chomsky and E. Herman, Press, Boston, 1979. A M1ew from the North, The Political Economy of Human Rights, South c.nd P. Cock, Alternative Australia, Quartet Books, Melbourne, 19/9. J. Cohen and J. Rogers, On Democracy, Penguin, New York, 1984. David, The Individual in the Making, Wiley, Sydney, A.A. Congalton andA.E. 1976. R.W. Connell, 'Images of Australia in Social Change in Australia Edgar), Cheshire, Melbourne, 1974. (ed. R. W. Connell, Ruling fl ass, Ruling Culture, S. Cotgrove, Catastrophe or Cornucopia, Wiley, New <ork, 1?87. G. Crough and T. Wheelwright, Australia: A Client State, Penguin, Australia, D. 1982. E. C^llenbach, Ecotopia Emerprng, A.F. Davies 1985. and S. Encel (eds.), lustra Han Society., Melbourne, Cheshire, A.F. Davies, S. Encel and M. Berry (eds.), lustra!!an Soci e t y. Third Edition, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 19777. M.J. Dunphy, Alternative Thoughts, Total Environment Centre, Sydney, 1984. R. Ely, 'Australian Historians on "Tall Cultural History 3 (1984) 104-128. Poppies": a survey'', Austra - i an B.L. Embury and N. Fodder, ''Economic Welfare in Australia' in Austral i an Social Issues of the 70"s, (ed. P.R. Nilson), Butterworths, Sydney, 1972. G. Gaus, The Modern Liberal Theory of 'Man. Croom Helm, London, 1983. A. Gilbert, 'The state and nature in Australia, Australian Cultural History 1981, (eds. S. Goldberg and F.&Smith), Canberra, 1982, pp.9-28. R.J. Goldstein, 1978. Political Repression in Modern America, N.K. Hancock, Austra! ia. E. 3^.^^ G.K. Hall, Boston, , London, 1930. M. Harris, Culture, People, Nature. Second edition, Cromwell, 1975. Hays, Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: Conservation Movement. 1390-1920. Cambridge, MA, 1959. R. Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers. Schuster, New York, 1987. 3rd revised The Progressive edit., Simon and T. Hobbes, Levi athan( ed. M. Oakeshot^, Oxford, 1948. I. Illich, Des-z h co ling Soc i e t y, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1971. K.S. Inglis, 'Religious behaviour'*, in A.F. Davies and S. Australian Society. Cheshire, Melbourne, 1985, pp.43-75. Encel (eds.), K.S. Inglis, 'Gambling and culture^ in Australia'' in Caldwell et.al, B. Jones, SIeepers Awake'. Oxford University Press, 1982. E. Kamenka. 'Culture and Australian culture', (1984) 7-18. Australian Cultural History 3 T.S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revo1utions. Second edition, University of Chicago Press, 1970. K. Kumar, The Social and Cultural Impact of Transnational Enterprises, Horking Paper No. 8, ?tRP, University of Sydney, 1979. R.E. Lane, "Market .justice, political justice'', Hugo Nolfsen Memorial Lecture, Melbourne, May, 1985. N. Lini, Keynote address, Australia and the South Pacific. Proceedings of a Conference held at the Australian National University, 1982. //3 The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Letter, Alan? (Department of Philosophy, University of Alberta) to Richard Sylvan, 9 Jun 1988 re feedback on paper. (4 pages) %/,y 7 Ch / <^/ ' C2< *1- 7 — On the notion of culture and cultural pluralism APPENDIX 1: unfortunately, with very + ew exception s, Definitions of culture abound; y all Many are too narrow, 3re bad. cu1ture to human groups (as Kamenka's p.7) ; some are too broad, , brass band) a culture. as a trade union (such problems:- High serve connect EaJ as redefinitions with Ea peoples'] artistic achievement culture with (their) literature. narrowly, A few examples will of cu1ture even or, more This is high culture, at least insofar what is included is class restricted, to certain class-approved products and performances (e.g. opera, ballet, drama as opposed to reggae, punk, etc.). low redefinitions admit too much. "the transfer of information by process of teaching and learning' (Bonner p.10), because that includes much that has nothing especially to do the number of bricks on a site, transfers information by behavioural means, but information of no particular cultural relevance. By contrast, most definitions mark out something which roughly overlaps Awa 'settleEsJ for the definition by (p.2?). "the man-made part of the environment" Herskovi ts: offered this inadmissibly anthropocentric, excluding animal cultures (such Bonner as writers -f&sl studies) imagine); and extraterrestrial cultures (such but as science-fiction this twisted definition appears to worse, LL't......... render throughout his iconoclastic book o L Thus , for t example, Stephenson Australian culture. The equation, with literary texts, like that of paradigm with central texts, is useful in offering a materia representation of a culture. For there is something solid that can b grasped and presented. Similary, money, newspapers and motor cars afford material artefacts and museum exhibits of wider popular cultures. ?5 a deserted town or ancient ruins a culture (rather mining of manifestation a than past culture) while excluding a system physical the of beliefs and values as a culture (unless an erroneous theory of systems of propositions invoked). In is latching onto the physical exemplification it is moreover like Kuhn's identification of a text-book Mith a paradigm. Indeed there is much in common between the notion of culture and Kuhns one of which'gained currency Both terms Rnglo-&merican thought about a hundred years later than the other. have or in been used to cover an apparently diverse range of things (and criticised dismissed for doing just that), and both do this in Nhat is more the because both attempt to capture types of conceptual schema. paradigm, a common been encountered and worked Mith noti on. then, from the run of anthropological definitions straightaway emerges advan tage of this definition, i nvo1ved and paral1 el in and part of its appeal, is that the hard work would take in rectifying the notion of paradigm thus does not have to be repeated; form for culture. precisely structure 6 great is a comprehensive social paradigm or more exactly a pure culture. RP) a rather different account of cu1ture but c1ean-up Recal 1 that a paradigm is expli cated as a model, is it the supplied the by an elaborate interpretation function is a theoretical on required faithful to what (the social forms, activities and so on) it models, paradigm, in contrast to a scientific paradigm, proposi tional structure delivered, is many that of a social group. sketched general a is a paradigm to be & social where the the political themes and value .judgements, Group cohesiveness in fact is guaranteed in examples of such social paradigms (several reproduced in the RP) because actual groups with distinctive cultures are taken; but the theoretical 96 explanation goes structure. The deeper depends on features of and of propositional structure delivered types model underlying the are in shoMn, capsule form, in the first table of this paper contrasting parts of mainstream other more detailed examples are reproduced American and Philippine cul bares; in theoretical Mork on social paradigms (e.g. RP, CPE, Cotgrove^and references cited therein). Just as the of explication by paradigm May of models enabled a clarification and unification .job to be done on the giant conceptual mess that the of paradigm had become, notion so the parallel explication in abou t, but in anthropology more generally, can be reduced. especially, up his c^.\tu,rg. Kluckholn Geertz Minds attempted in resor t diffusion by pointing to the about complaint of and^r metaphors, to the analogies 'perhaps in as desperation, a map*, and as a matrix', as a sieve, before a mere paragraph later, offering his OMn metaphor of culture as a Meb of significance ' ' too, ' , though here an exact technical notion, has or interpretation (and model its roots in metaphor]^ Rs it happen^Geertz^/ account is not too bad a picture of the sort of logical model involved structure^Mith an interpretation imposed, typically on it. that is of a system, a Meb-like function, supplying signifi'-arn.e -r meaning The other similes are hoMever more exact: modelling a landscape. Furthermore, elaboration of) culture (not really 'definitions is indeed '(4) "an abstraction from behaviour"', paradigm, supplies '(3) "a May of thinking, of items validated. to take ooth a map and a. up as Geertz suggests), a model Mhere it is a social Mhich, feeling and believing" The model hoMever is not merely descriptive, applied and can be read prescriptively as, Kluckholn s in rerm=. but Mill be ('?) "a mechanism for the normative regulation of behaviour"' and '(10) "a set of techniques for adjusting both to the external environment and to other 97 men'". Such a model, Mhich does 2 to '(5) "a theory on the part of the anthropologist about the correspond in group of people in fact behave'" and their vieM a Mhich '*(4) a "structure of pooled learning'"' and affords certainly of standardized orientations, to recurrent problems'"'. ^ay Morld, the (7) "a set of Since the social paradigm it does 1egacy the individual [in the society] acquires from is ''(11) "a precipitate of history'", and his group'" discern of a culture that Conga!ton and David three parts or The Kuhn includes readily supplied They a model. by are, procedures characterising and controlling the behaviour of adherents; secondly procedures; thirdly the products and exemplars material resulting, e.g. interpretation function validate^! both themes The connection Mi th exemplars and artefacts is^e^^ direct, RP, The delivers as Mel lit including values and ideas (on both see of objects, domains neMspapers. textbooks, pp.12-16). and of more than 3 textbook may present a paradigm^^or^more likely, part of one; or on^ kind. it may, like an artefact, supply or be a partial modelling of the paradigm. remaining The culture life-forms done. to has Thus of qualifying term comprehensive is cover a sufficiently comprehensive part of life a community, Rbraham, vague deliberately styles there are varying degrees to Mhich this for one, can and be explains various inclusive levels of 7 ' (pp.12-13) before opting for tbe most inclusive, under Mhich 'culture is If§' and 'includes the Mhole of the knoMledge, common life of the people arts, in the the science, technology, religions, morali ty, ri tual, politics, literature, ttTP*. & theory normally has many models, some exact and canonical, some of __ Mhich bring, out all that holds in the theory but not only Mhat holds i s i ngTy stil Impartial models, Mhich ac-e a'-'_urately there; and, more surpr -----depict part of the theory. ) 98 ULk etiquette fashions ...' of eighteenth pauperisation centuries, Such (p.13). narrower, a Under In this use [that again of "higher" of the mind. includes a mastery of all literature, process (p.12) ^ess use of the term however 'culture is limited to Mhat are caned comprehensive, things and a of Mhat the educated man in cou 1 d culture history, music, painting and sculpture, the age of enlightenment , person culture], reflect the the s even teen th stood for', Mho i e culture and and could knoM in the more c ompr eh en s i ve u se. The European vieM of culture, Mhich tends to concentrate on high t.u = ture, is insufficiently comprehensive, leaving out a crucial aspect of culture, so it has been argued, namely attitudes to and approaches to the environment, and so natural environments largely devoid of man-made features and influences particular. in R fuller picture of environmentally-sensitive culture looks like this:11^-. (From previous page) See p.21. Accounts of culture of .;!i= very inclusive, but still unnecessarily anthropic, form are common in the . __ literature. Thus, for example, Harris: 'A culture is the total socially acquired life-May or life-style of a group of people* (p.144), their patterns of behaviour and thought. Thus, Mith even less qualification, the first of Kluckholn's eleven definitions of culture (as listed in Geertz pp.4-5), 'the total may of life of of a people', a definition repeated in Congalton and David, p.22. The intended model accordingly provides a complete representation of life-Mays of members of the cul tur-e. 111^ Ft fuller and better account Mhich gets very close to the model-theoretic analysis, is Kumer's analogous definition of culture: The shared symbolic system Mhich gives meaning to human interactions in a society. It refers to a society s May of perceiving, interpreting and expressing things ... it in'„lude=> knowledge, belief-systems, values, norms and ideologies Mhich enable the members of a society to perceive, organise and interpret reality ... reality is always perceived Mithin an evaluative framework. Similar too is Tylor's definition of 'culture' in terms of a structure again: 'Culture or Civilization ... that complex MholeMhich includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, laM, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society'. (Primitive Culture vol. 7, p.7). So all human societies have a culture, a generalised paradigm. It is better to separate out civi1ization, however, and link it to its 'root meaning of living in cities . religions, morality, ritual, politics, literature, even etiquette and fashions is 'culture use limited to Mhat are called things of mind. the In this [that history, con.jec tures that music, this painting and sculpture,/^..' (p.13), use evolved 'as a result of Rbraham^. of a / process ^7 /J cen turles, he age of enlightenment, stood for'', and could knoM (p.13). Such a per son could reflect the Mhole culture in the more comprehensive use. The European vieM of culture, Mhich tends to concentrate on high culture, is insufficiently comprehensive, it has been argued, natural environments leaving out a crucial aspect of culture, namely attitudes to and approaches to the largely devoid of man-made features and so environment, influences in /Recounts of culture of this very inclusive form but still unnecessari an thropic form, are common m the literature* ^hus^for example^Harris: <R culture is the total socially acquired life-May or life-style of a group of people' (p.144), their patterns of behaviour and though t. Thus, Mith even less qualification, the first of Kluckholn's eleven definitions of culture ^listed m Geertz pp.4-5), the total May of life of a peopled a definition repeated in and David^p.22. lhe model ^provides a complete representation o+ life-Mays of members of the R fuller and better account^Mhich gets very ejase to^ the model-theoretic analysis^ ig Kiernan's analogous definition of jculturq: The shared symbolic system Mhich gives meaning to human interactions in a society. It refers to a society's May of perceiving, interpreting and expressing things ... it includes knoMledge, belief-systems, values, norms and ideologies Mhich enable the members of a society to perceive, organise and interpret reality ... reality is alMays perceived Mithin an evaluative frameMork. Similar too is Taylor's definition of 'culture' in terms of a structure again: 'Culture or Civilization ... that complex Mhole Mhich includes knoMledge, belief, art, morals, laM, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society'. (Primitive Culture vol. 7, p.7). So al 1 human societies have a culture, a generalised paradigm. It is better to separate out c iyi l,i zat 1 on, hoMever, and i-t—nc-sep%'e/. +<sf? its 'root meaning of living in cities'. PRIMARY CULTURE DIAGRAM sense of "'culture'', intellectual sociology, in and mhere order culture. artistic the , * practice takes up the primary namely lor development, Con c i se English 0 i c t i on ary) , in -state put] in a in shared "the particular, the group- or people mith, and the education-derived sense, leading in mhich the to Evidently the explication, mhich makes the product primary a given reverses like agriculture, viticulture, and the culture, mas first and foremost a process of It is important to separate off - the training or discipline in or mhere of and as presented culture of a society is said to comprise a given culture, consists "the as it is in mhich the culture comprises the community, the historical order, so on, dictionaries, in to set aside - some derivative senses, sharing, culture offered values and beliefs"' of the society. derived sense, or as or people"' (cf. community norms, through social paradigms, explication so -far, The , a "cultivation" of intellect and 11^ As Mi 11 iams explains, the ear 1 y meaning of "culture"' mas as a process; and the "culture of the mind" mas viemed as a process rather than a product or achieved state. In (early) modern use "culture" became, like 'civilized"', a condition. Onlp^the "fourth modern development" did culture appear as "the mhole may of life, material, intellectual and spiritual of a given society"' (p.273), i.e., as a comprehensive social paradigm. The other forms, the first three developments^mere restricted versions of this, to respectively the individual, intellectual and moral parts, and arts and intellectual areas. , r. To invent the ahistorical explanatory pattern, scientific paradigms are, so to say, the inherited cu1tures of science. 100 However the reversal makes it easier- to get some grip on art and technology. the very rich process-product complex that a culture comprises. example, goes astray in settling for a process definition of for Bonner, allied 'culture to the education-derived sense: "'By culture I mean the transfer of information by means, behavioural by the process particularly most of and teaching Hhile the definition certainly achieves its intended objective of learning'. including (cultures'^ an7maC^g%p&, excessively it is, as already remarked, a accounting such things as semaphoring loM redefinition, quite between boy scouts as culture. There is a further dimension of complexity so far largely omitted through restriction pure most contemporary states are far from culturally pure, comprising a cultures, mixture Nhile tribal groups may have relatively to pure cultures. of peoples and cultures. represented More generally, an n-cultural society by a system of n paradigms adhered to in the society. & multi­ & multi­ cultural society is thus an n-cultural society Mhere n is cultural society may Australia, simply not include however be very many. it pluralistic; as may, in brought groups of people from different cultures under some dominant culture Mhich controls in one region together is the main Much depends then on the type of system of paradigms political institutions. involved, on hoM the paradigms are themselves interrelated and structured. Pt society Mill function (cf. Ptbraham, p.l5ff., incompatible Mith extreme individualism ). a variety of subcultures. is Mhich not Characteristically and commonly For culture is the glue of a group; competing cultures. integrative alMays have a culture, several perhaps it has an important Mho remarks that culture is Pt society Mill also typically have Pt subculture is a paradigm, included in a culture, sufficiently subcultures comprehensive to rank as a share norms and assumptions Mith some culture. larger culture except Mhere they diverge. The dominant cultures in countries like Australia and Ptmerica 101 can be as having tree structures. represented a is there Subcultures century gentry Protestant many the between differences terms,. 1 1^ tribu.ari!=''=. subcultural long played significant parts in have last example, with culture, mainstream Transposing to river-network Australian L-athoXc, extensive immigration program, of ethnic subcultures. pattern with critical challenged. and an o? As a result complex aiong permit the relatively easy formation assumptions and that is, the cultural streams remain of the mainstream culture rival and alternative social paradigms (such as Plhat important Australia now boasts a much more persistence of subcultures - so long as, and Protestant Flexible multi-cultural arrangements, substantial social tolerance, subcultures f'-tr of Australian colonial culture had streams bearing on leisure activities such as gambling (see Inglis?. its history; are n^t those of the Al ternative These culture. dominant accommodate, within too a pluralistic (a plural paradigm) society provided the social paradigms present limits, r^m no to overarching socio-political arrangements and the prevailing type of threat structure (if they should however things would have to give or P'Ower tan t-ha^ge, rival river networks are bound to alter the cultural landscape). Cultures, explaining and illustrated that like they social paradigms, inducing social change. 'his important role in RP). It is worth can also afford explanatory roles in cases where appeal explanatory roles. repudiation nature', an on the that is, For example, that it noticing to Philp criticises for Foucault prevents him from i_on = i = .en. explaining in and human culture can replace nature of the human subject and the denial of a ground both So much has already been shown as regards social paradigms (e.g. nature have been supposed mandatory; social have in for numaf; directed 11^). A subculture of a given culture is itself a culture (i.e. a comprehensive social paradigm) applying to a subgroup of the given wider culture, which agrees with the wider culture on characterising (paradigma.i'-) \ features but which may diverge, and typically does, by virtue of further cultural features, i.e. features in its paradigm. A subculture stands 102 resistance or social struggle for the better. explain a and .justify such resistance 'requires that Me make some commitment to conception of the human good and this usually rests on some vieM of human The modifier "usually"' gives the game aMay; nature and human subjectivity"'. the Accordingly to Philp tp.i7), to route can circuit through culture. justificatory directed social to as good discerned under a The struggle can paradigm; regional be the commitments can be cultural. has been descriptive of relevant fea^f tures of the different cultures contrasted. Mi th some of The attempt concerned, in main terms A Mork at this paper, of explanation like much Mork on culture, of more unexpected features the cu1tures some criticism, and some attempt to explain some cu1tural of others. This, like the modelling account, points to a more difficult enterprise, only broached: namely, the task of providing theories of the cultures formufsrfed, and so perhaps explaining Mhat pulls them together, makes them tick, gives them their shape and grip, and so on. A 103 / .< / / Contemporary scientific redeployment of human nature APPENDIX 2: Attempts evolutionary of this sort are based on the moder^tn synthesis, and appear in most extreme form in sociobiology. r /e cc^"i A r ) % Sociobioldoical attempts, such as Nilson's, to redeploy human nature to A j ' 1 a]t I er natives fail. rule out ^political possibilities and narroM social ajtli, A underlying Wilson's characterisation of human nature is very different the main socio-political tradition. the full set of innate Ei.e. those sense, and in nature.*- hardly set.' a the hoMever is (pp.217-8, For the definition if socially relevant b5t subpools, and or since cultural relativity, since stage.J^ In any though, like health more they hardly significant constraints on political alternatives. racial disease less plausibly, conjunctively if read, enough; of read is Mill inclue the full set of genetically-determined it It is characterisation ^b^Vare remote from Enlightenment concerns, against Mith the those every (normal) human is bound to undergo at some generally, narrower ambiguity in resolved. patterns humans are liable to suffer; event, the It is not constant or static, since genes may mutate. ahistorical, only behavioural genetic or genetically-determinedJ predispositions that affect social behaviour' rearrangement). disp^M^tively '* In the broader- sense, human nature Ei-sJ characterise the human species; that predispositions from appear to impose Moreover, i*t—is no bulwark races separate have by no means everything is determined gene genetically^ e.g. language^of some culture). there is no need to labour it: see Ruse, '*1- As this is a commonplace vieM, Singer and especially Pigden. 11^ Genetic determinism is simply one, and perhaps^ the M^kest, of several forms of determinism intended to vastly reduce cultural variability. Nilson does not rely on that form exclusively: see p.207. AtPijol/ /o ) 104 y * y o situation of certaintg such as the eLementarg choLce situationi affords, expectation vaLues drop out. Then, as under the maximaLLtg criteri^, R is the rat LonaL choLce under this utiLitg criterion; B cannot be^a rat LonaL oho Lee, it is^)-------------------- The same argument, Lf correct, ref'ute^Bages^anism. For, as Suppes c La Lms, the Bayesian posLtLon Leads to the oversLL sLngte prLncLpLe of ra t Lona L i tg, the principLe of maximizing expected utLLLtg: One action or decision shouLd be chosen over another Lf^ the expected utLLLtg of the fLrst Ls at L'east as great as that of the second, ... (p.178).^ _ (p.178)." ((The arguments aLso eawt&r princ ip Les, such as that criter ia^ of sure thing, appeaLed to in derivations of maximization Satisizing, doLng-MLth-enough, counters the orthodox rat LonaLitg axioms; satisficing, doing-as-Meii-as-can-be-in-the-circumstances, does not. Satisficing is constrained maximization; the satisficer, organisation man on bimon s picture, aiMags chooses the maximum from among aLternatLves aireadg enumerated, and so in the eLementrg diagram chooses R, not B (as satisizers mag), inere is aLready a Literature at pains to point out that satisficing does not int^ fer^ Mith the rationatitu axioms.— though that it does not Mas^ cLear enough from Limited rationaiitg^ Thus, for exampLe, Riker and Ordeshook turn^g criticisms of the principle of maximizing expected utiLitg on satisficing qrounds, ^d bu arguing (incorrectLg) that in aLL pr^cticaL cases maximizing snd satisficing r^^ease identicai^ appeat tMice to Simon s authoritg: MhLLe some enthusiasts have misinterpreted hLs argument as antiratLonaL, Ln fac*^ Professor Simon does not suppose that, Mhen better or Morse aLternatives are cieartg avaiiabie to the chooser, ne mag reject the better for Morse, just because the worse H sat^factory (pp.21-2). ... CertainLg Professor Simon is not asking for thLs, because even Ln hLs termf, Lt Ls LrratLonaL to reject better for Morse. be expected to occur Os an LrratLonaLLtg satisficing cannot then (p-23). Ue need not the enthusiasts; but Me are supposLng Mhat S'^mon ded no t. 7 ........................... Various Ln ./rat LonaL ^9.. Impact on paradoxes and on ratLonaL behaviour.. L — ---- paradoxes ]——— r* A—t------------------------------- - ——----------- ;--------7-7%-------_______________________________ A cases paradox disapp dLSappearaag choLce theorg appear Ln a neM Light; in many peases atftytt7H5etgcr> For the aLr o^ paradox derLves from competLng maximization crLterLa. R good exampLe is provided bg NeMComb's paradox, Mhich is supposed to arise in the foLLoMing situation^: There are tMO boxes before gou: one transparent and one opaque. You can see that there is $1,000 in the transparent box, and gou knoM that there is either $1,000,000 or nothing in the opaque box. You must choose betMeen the foLLoMing tMO acts: take the contents onig of the opaque box or take the contents of both boxes. Furthermore, there is a being in Mhose predictive poMers gou have enormous confidence, 3nd gou knoM that he has aLreadg determined the contents of the opaque box according to the foLLoMing ruLes: If he predicted that gou Mouid take -9- A Take the list of characteristics Gilson considers for instance (Mhich forms in a curious May part of his attempt to rehabilitate a particular partisan of humans on the strength of sociobiology: p.22). The list has to be pruned if"it is to cover the spread of knoMn human races and cultures, vaguer and less question-begging (e.g. removed); but then vieM and rendered Mith reference to relations to numan-=> it ceases to separate tribes of humans from tribes primates or other nonhumans. [Detail and adjust.] /f2' 7 o+ The NeM Zealand comparison: APPENDIX 3. Preliminary notes towards or New qualitative rating of mainstream New Zealand culture, A Zealand data, as against an Australian (and sometimes other) goes as follows:but still high for Angloceltic world (presumably per capita less, Drinking: patterns similar except for club phenomenon in Australia, figures available); and dry areas and prohibition proclivities in New Zealand. Gambling: significantly but less, for patterns similar except important matters of clubs and casinos. Sport: but less variety in New Zealand, owing to greater similar addiction, New Zealand emphasis on tramping, uniformity of culture. trail systems, not matched in Oz. Permissiveness: variety. less, markedly especially concerning sexual issues and But Polynesian alternative increasingly influential in New Zealand. Plural ism: a less, more uniform society, with few ethnic groupings and strata. stronger, but still less so than UK. Authori tarianism: It is hypothesized by Sinclair that older authority patterns in New Zealand arise from child rearing especially techniques, in Oz. counterpart are, the famous Plunkett method, The result was a rather up-tight the suggestion is, more laid-back, easy-going. which no had product. real Australians Vet the matter is not =o simple, as the next items reveal. Policing and opposition among the younger in New Zealand. increasing bushrangers, cultural Long-standing opposition to police coercive methods: etc., mythology. in New Zealand, in Oz, But no adulation of and no Eureka Stockade Violence perhaps less in New Zealand, or associated though (at home) neither society is very violent by American standards. Egali tarianism: slightly more in New Zealand, despite the Australian image. In both Jack is as good as his master. Pace of Life: slower in New Zealand. 1 less in NeM Poverty: in NeM Zealand. Distrust of markets simi1 ar less than Oz Fraternity and mateship: Hale chauvinism: margina11y less (?) Unionisation: Mith no environmen tai actions. Environmen t: communi ties mixed Extensive NeM Zealand to many i ssues in even sympathy, public among rural the An issue breakdoMn is required here: better Chemicals and Maste management: Parks and reserves: National ism: (Inglis) margina11y better, excessively in Morse both places strong in both It is taken as validating consider the many memorials Mith 'they their country' scattered around small toMns. national ism (or stateism) as a means and Hi th by political leaders). It can be Mar and sport of social and national cohesion, purpose (e.g. died It is sometimes suggested is the neM secular religion operation in those tMo related enterprises, death for that seen in Both have served and have been used for that (Hars Mere a common method of obtaining maintaining integration of large states, improved communications perhaps fall into disuse) and propaganda netMorks, that method Divisive national sport is interesting from could this angle also. Federalism and Australian idea federation: of adding No experience in NeM NeM Zealand as a further sympathetic consideration in NeM Zealand. 2 Zealand. state The obtains frequent little There Mas, and is, no loyalty to an Australasian nation. Communications: Broadcasting less commercialised in Ne^j Zealand. As a result less H) violence, etc. Reading: more in Neu Zealand. Education and Research: opposition to theory. (HoM much more?) Little research done in Ne^ Zealand, but less mixed. Public school system better. 3 The following have been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. • • Letter, Alastair (University of Waikato) to Richard Sylvan, 17 April 1985 re feedback on paper. (4 pages (2 leaves)) Letter, Tom (Philosophy Department, Massey University) to Richard Sylvan, 10 Jul 1985 re feedback on paper. (3 pages (2 leaves))  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 103, Item 1: Correspondence and drafts of Culture and the roots of political divergence: a South Pacific perspective with emphasis on the Australian/American contrast Subject The topic of the resource Printout of various drafts with handwritten emendations, and handwritten notes, undated. Includes correspondence from Alan? (Department of Philosophy, University of Alberta) to Richard Sylvan, 9 June 1988 (typescript, 4 pages) re feedback on paper; Richard Sylvan to Alan, 13 July 1988 (handwritten, 2 pages) re: feedback on paper; Alastair (University of Waikato) to Richard Sylvan, 17 April 1985 (handwritten, 4 pages (2 leaves)) re feedback on paper; Tom (Philosophy Department, Massey University) to Richard Sylvan, 10 Jul 1985 (handwritten, 3 pages (2 leaves)) re feedback on paper. Description An account of the resource Letters redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Unnumbered paper from collection, item number assigned by library staff. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 103, Item 1 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, <a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. 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Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:fbf70d1">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:fbf70d1</a> Box 103: Culture, Politics, Environment, Economics https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/e982e570c60865b3674aefbc54296e15.pdf 85a1e7e591aff80e1814d6e487e4fc61 PDF Text Text �— ?HUMAN CHAUVINISM AND.ENVIRONMENTAL.ETHICS* Richard and Vai Routley / * . * Class chauvinism has been and remains a cardinal weakness of most . moral codes - including, so it will°be argued, Western ethics. * A most serious failure 6f Western ethics is its human chauvinism or anthropo^centricism - a chauvinism which emerges in a refined, and apparently more reds&n*able, form as person chauvinism in much modern ethical theory. * w What is chauvinism? $ * Class chauvinism, in the relevant sense, is sz^Etant^aZ-Z-z/ differential, discriminatory and inferior treatment (by sufficiently many members of the class) for items outside the class, for which there is not enff-ZcZen^ justification. Pnwan chauvinism is class chauvinism where the class is humans, wuZ-e chauvinism where the class is human males, an-Z/zzaZ. chauvinism where the class is animals, etc. It would be bazf, to say the least, if Western ethics, in its various strands, were to turn out to rest on human, or person, chauvinism. For Western ethics would then have no better foundation than, and be open to the same sorts of objections as, moral codes based on other sorts of chauvinisms, e.g. on familial, national, sexual, racial or socio-economic class chauvinism - in particular it would be open to the objection that This paper (which considerably elaborates R. Routley 'Is There a need for a new, an environmental, ethic?', Procee^-Znps of Zz/ze XPt/z ^orZ^ Ccnpress of PTz^Z-cscp/zz/, 1 (1973), pp.205-10), was drafted in 1973 and read in 1974 at the University of Indiana, Bloomington, at Notre Dame University, and at the Conference on The Good Society held at the University of Victoria, Canada. Since the main virtue of the paper has been that it'has generated much interesting discussion, the original form has been retained, though the authors are no longer especially happy with the form, and many theses remain insufficiently developed or defended. But in order not to remove the previous and continuing criticism, no substantial deletions have been made, even though the paper has been raided and segments of it presented in improved form elsewhere, especially (a) R. and V. Routley, 'Against the inevitability of human chauvinism', in MoraZ P/z-ZZosopTzz/ an<7 t?ze Tzjentp-F-Zrst Centnrz/ (edited by K. Goodpaster and K. Sayre), Notre Dame University Press, 1979, and (b) R. and V. Routley, 'An expensive repair-kit for utilitarianism', paper presented at the Colloquium on Preferences CTzo^ce an<i FaZzve, RSSS, Australian National University, 1977. However some sizeable additions have been made, with a view to increasing the intelligibility and enlarging the scope of the original draft, and meet­ ing some of the many objections. 1 �it discriminated against nonhumans in a prejudiced and unwarranted way, and would thereby stand condemned. For it is hard to see how an ethic based on simple spoo-Zes loyalty could have any greater claim to absolute­ ness or deserve any more respect than moral codes based on simple loyalty to national, sexual, or racial classes. Such an ethic could no more command allegiance - once the facts are brought into clear view - than other normally-deplored examples of localised class chauvinism, such as the Mafia or protection agencies or rackets or enclaves of slavery. Unfortunately prevailing Western ethics appear to be of just this sort. §1. THE WESTERN CASE FOR ITS HUMAN (OR PERSON) CHAUVINISM: THE FIRST LINES OF DEFENCE It is important, then, for defenders of the Western ideology to be able to show - *Zf it can be shown - that an ethic which discriminates strongly in favour of humans, as Western ethics apparently does, is not chauvinistic. Otherwise the ethic stands condemned. Of course not every distinction in treatment qualifies as chauvinistic - the distinction in treatment may not be substantial or systematic, and there may be an adequate and explicable basis for the distinction, so that some discrimin­ ation is warranted. In order to escape the charge of human chauvinism, it has to be shown how and why the drastic and general discrimination in favour of humans sanctioned and enjoined by modern (as by historical) Western ethical systems is warranted, and that it has an adequate basis. The extent of this chauvinism, especially with respect to animals, is at last - after centuries of a priori prejudice and gross distortion of the characteristics of wild animals and wilderness - beginning to be spelt 1 out. It is at least clear from the outset that an adequate justification cannot be provided which simply selects all and only these members of the species human (i.e. /zowo sap*Zo?zs) as zoologically defined. There is nothing about the characteristic of TzMwazzZZp itself (as distinct perhaps from its accompanying properties) which could provide a justification for overwhelmingly favourable treatment for humans (and unfavourable treatment for nonhumans) as opposed to other possible, and possibly some actual, nonhuman creatures. Once again, an adequate ethic and justification can­ not possibly be based on blind and unthinking species loyalty. The same 1 See, e.g., S. and R. Godlovitch and J. Harris (eds), Mor azzd Morals. -Z^Zo Z/ze zzzaZ^roat/TzozzZ of yzorz-ZzMwaMS, Gollancz, London, 1971; P. Singer, ?l?z-Z7na:Z f-Z^oraf-ZoM. pzezj o^/z-Zos for OMr of azz*Z/??aZs, Cape, London, 1976; S.R.L. Clark, y/zo A7oraZ of ^H-ZwaZs, Clarendon, Oxford, 1977. 2 �CB objection applies against the simple need's argument: the commonly assumed domination of human needs over all else (e.g. over all environ­ mental considerations) has, if it is to have any merit, to be based on more than speciesism.^ We shall have to look then for some other not merely taxonomic characteristic to provide the sought justification. It will emerge however, that any such characteristic is held or may be held by nonhumans, and is not held, or potentially not held, by all items of the species human. Of course there are many characteristics which can, as a contingent matter, be used to distinguish human beings as a general class from other higher animals - although in fact with increasing knowledge of animals it is no longer clear that some of these characteristics distinguish as clearly as was assumed a priori in the past. For example, humans have a language, and a culture of a certain sort and even various logics. And, as we are accustomed to have people point out, other terrestrial animals do not conduct philosophical discussions on environmental ethics. However not only is participation in these activities potentially available to nonhuman creatures, and these characteristics possibly possessed by some, but these activities are not generally engaged in even by humans (particularly the power elite), many humans lack the requisite competence, and even among those who do qualify, such activities are carried out to a very varying extent. We run the risk, then, in applying such demanding criteria, of ruling out, of classing as deserving of "sub-human" or "sub­ person" treatment, a considerable class of human beings — items most humans would consider as worthy of better treatment than that normally accorded by humans to nonhuman animals. What is more important however is that such criteria as human language, culture, human civilization, human intentionality, or whatever, appear to provide no satisfactory for the substantially unfavourable treatment allotted those falling outside the privileged class. should there be such strong discrimination in favour of creatures having a (certain sort of)^ language or a higher level of intelligence and against creatures or items which do not, in favour of things with a certain sort of culture or a certain logic and against those without? Especially when some of these criteria are clearly, and 2 As McCloskey remarked (in a letter dated 5.7.77 containing many helpful comments) 'talking about needs does little but obscure the problem, as needs, to be normatively relevant, involve reference to goods; and that merely transfers the problem'. 3 On next page. 3 �*3 unjustifiably,loaded in favour of human interests, achievements and By contrast the very many respects in which some or sorts of animals are superior bo bMfnans (many are noted in V.B. Droscher, Tbe abilities (cf. the cultural loading of various intelligence tests). 4?ibmaZ Parcaptbo^, Allen, London, of tbe Sassos. 1969) are rarely considered; yet some of these features would, if taken in the same serious way as some respects in which humans excell, justify a reverse chauvinism (which could be reflected as, for exampZ-e, in the Hindu treatment of cows). The only sort of justification for the discrimination that might appear convincing - that those who have the given characteristic (e.g. those that are more intelligent, or more rational, or richer) are more valuable or worth special treatment - is vitiated by the fact that were it accepted by Western ethics it would warrant similar discrimination humans (or persons). For how do we show that the allegedly warranted discrimination is sufficiently different from making substantial (class) distinctions between humans in terms of their level of intelli­ gence, linguistic or logical ability, or level or kind of cultural achievement - so that those with "lower" levels of these valued abilities are treated in a consistently inferior way and regarded as available for the use of the others? In short, these characteristics do not provide adequate justification for the substantially inferior treatment accorded those not having them, and so the charge of chauvinism is not escaped by producing them. A similar set of points applies against a number of other criteria^ traditionally or recently proposed to distinguish the privileged class. Often these are propounded in terms of personhood and criteria for being a parson (the class marked out for privileged treatment being the class of persons) rather than criteria for being bz^wan - in order to escape difficulties raised by young, senile, decrepit, stupid, irrational, 3 For undoubtedly many mammals, birds and insects can communicate, some times in ways analogous to language, even if the honorific term 'language' is withheld (see - to select an unfavourable source the discussion in E.O. Wilson, SocZobboZ-opp. Belknap, Cambridge Mass., 1975, chapter 8 ff.). It is becoming increasingly evident, however, that the ascription of some linguistic ability, and of elementary languages, to nonhuman creatures should not be withheld, see e.q. the details assembled in E. Linden, 4p<2s_, Penguin,New York, 1976. (But contrast Wilson, op. cit., pp.555 59, and to set this in proper perspective, consider Wilson s discussion of ethics and aesthetics a few pages later, pp.562-65.) 4 Many of the criteria that have been proposed are assessed, and found wanting, in Routley (a). 4 �damaged and defective humans, extraterrestrial creatures, and super animals; to avoid the merely contingent connections between being human and having requisite person-determining characteristics (such as ration­ ality or knowledge) supposed to warrant discriminatory treatment; and t defeat, though it is a pyrrhic victory, the charge of human chauvinism (or equivalents of the charge, such as anthropocentricism or speciesism). But much the same problems then arise in terms of criteria for u person, and the chauvinism problem reappears as the problem of furnish­ ing criteria which are suitably clearcut, and do separate persons from assumed nonpersons, and which would provide an adequate justification for substantially privileged treatment for persons and inferior treatment for nonpersons. Unless such a justification is forthcoming the charge of person is not escaped. Most of the criteria proposed for personhood fall down in just these sorts of ways, e.g. being autonomous, the having of projects, the producing of junk, the assessing of some of one's performances as successful or not, the awareness of oneself as an agent or initiator. Not only does it appear that (the more worthy of) such criteria apply (or could apply) to many nonhuman animals - thus animals are generally more autonomous (in main senses of the term) than humans, many animals have projects (e.g. home and nest building), and they are well aware of themselves, as opposed to rivals, as initiators of 5 projects - and that they do not apply uniformly to humans or indeed to persons in any ordinary sense; but again it is extremely difficult to see what there is in these characteristics which would warrant or justify the vast difference in treatment between the privileged and nonprivileged classes, or justify regarding the non-privileged class as something available for the of the privileged class. Similar objections can be lodged against the proposal that knowledge or the possession of knowledge, provides feature. (or u crMc^uZ) distinguishing It can hardly provide the appropriate filter, since it not only gives no sharp cut-off point,but does not even always rank humans or persons above nonhumans or nonpersons. Moreover, taken seriously it should lead to substantial moral differentiation between persons, a person's moral rating also fluctuating during his lifetime. In any case, For example, the shiftless intelligent person, or the primitive person, who has no projects and engages in no moral reflection, and thus offends protestant ethics, is not thereby deregisterable as a person, any more than an intelligent animal with projects can join the union. On next page. 5 �4 why rank knowledge so highly: for (pace Socrates) knowledge is not the foundation of virtue, but is frequently turned to evil ends, and even where it is meritorious it is not the sole (or even a crucial) criterion of worth. Similar difficulties apply too to the historic criterion of ratZozzaZZZp, along with the added problem that it is -very difficult to say what it is in any clear or generally acceptable way, or to prevent it from degenerating into a simple "pro" word. If a hallmark of rationality is commitment to the consequences of what one believes and seriously says, then many humans fail the test. If, on the other hand rationality i^, for example, the ability to discover and pursue courses and actions likely to achieve desired goals (direct action toward goals), ability to solve problems concerned, etc., then plainly many animals have it, and possibly to a greater extent than humans in some cases (and of certain humans in almost all cases). If it were the ability, e.g. to do ZopZc (say propositional calculus) or to assess reasoning verbally, then the (biassed) criterion would be far too strong and rule out many humans. Again, why should one make such a marked discrimination on this basis? What is so meritorious about this characteristic, that it warrants such a marked distinction? Nothing (at least in the ordinary academic's view, or logicians would receive more favoured treatment). Other criteria, which yield an analytic connection between being a person and enjoying freedom or having rationality, in part beg the question. For in D?zat respect is it that persons - or worse, just persons - are free. Also the justificatory problem, as to how the claimed freedom or rationality warrants such differential treatment, remains. Characterisations of parsons vary enormously, from so strong that they rule out suburban humans who are not "self-made" enterpreneurs, to so weak that they admit very wa^z/ animals. An (unintentional) example of the latter is the following: persons, that is, ... beings who are not only sentient but also capable of intensional autonomous action, beings that must be ascribed not only states of consciousness but also states of belief, thought and intention (A. Townsend, 'Radical vegetarians , 4zzstraZasZa?z JoMrzzaZ of P/zZZosop/zz/, 57 (1979), p.89). 6 in addition, the relation "a has at least as much knowledge as b is only a partial ordering. For example, a dog's and a child s knowledge may be incomparable, because they know about different matters how to do quite different sorts of things, etc. (The idea that knowledge is the key to moral discrimination, that it is what makes humans rank t way Western ethics ranks them, may be found in C.B. Daniels, PaaZMaZZoK of FZTzZcaZ T/zoorZes, Philosophy in Canada Monograph, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1975.) 6 �O) Most rats and rabbits satisfy the conditions: conscious animals that have intentions they are sentient, (e.g. to get through some barrier such as a floor or a fence), beliefs and thoughts (e.g. that there is For his further argument Townsend preferred food beyond the barrier). shifts - without notice, but in a way that is quite typical of this scene - to wzzcTz stronger requirements upon being a person (such that one who does not meet them is incapacitated as a person) which rule out many humans, e.g. 'The person must recognise canons of evidence and inference warranting changes in his beliefs, and be capable of changing his beliefs 7 accordingly' (op. cit., p.90). In meeting hypothetical objections, Townsend slips in a further require ment of rationality, but the characterisation of person given does not include any such requirement. Subsequently, however, Townsend commits himself, without argument, to the thesis that 'a fairly high degree of rationality is prerequisite' to attributing 'intensionality' (as dis­ tinct from 'intentionality'). This is not going to help much. For, firstly, rationality is very much a notion which admits of degrees, without the relatively sharp cut-off stages required for person as a notion of orthodox moral relevance, or possessed by the notion of /zzzwczzz to which Townsend sneaks back in his chauvinistic conclusion (p.93). Secondly, Tzozj high a degree is prerequisite for being a person? If only enough to satisfy the conditions for being a person, then the animals that are persons have it. If more, then either the initial characterisation of a person fails or the thesis breaks down. The much stronger requirements upon being a person that Townsend sub­ sequently appeals to are said to derive from S.I. Benn. But, if any­ thing they strengthen one of the stronger of several zzozze^zz-Zz^uZezzf characterisations of (zzatz^raZ) person - none of them equivalent to /zzzzzzuzz - that Benn has at various times offered. While Benn's weaker characterisations appear to admit at least many "higher" animals, e.g. that of a natural person as a chooser, conscious of himself as able to make a difference to the way the world goes, by deciding to do this rather than that, having projects, therefore, of his own, whose life experience may consequently be understood, not simply as a chronicle of events, but as an enterprise, on which he puts his own construct­ ion ((a) 'The protection and limitation of privacy, Part I', ^MstraZ-Zazz Lazj JozzrzzczZ, 52 (1978), p.605); the stronger characterisations which invoke (rather vaguely specified, and cZ-Z//ere?zt) minimum conditions of rationality in belief and action said to imply respoTzs-Zb-ZZ-Ztz/ on the part of the person for what s/he does, though they do zzcf - exclude many of the creatures admitted by weaker characterisations. For such stronger characterisations see 'Individuality, autonomy and community' in CozzzzzzMzz-Ztz/ (ed. E. Kamenka) Edward Arnold (forthcoming) and (c) 'Freedom, autonomy and the concept of a person', ProceecZ-Zzzps o/ t?ze ^r-Zs^oteZ-Zuzz Society, 76 (1976), pp.109-30. 7 �D The foregoing points, taken together, support our contention that it is not possible to provide criteria which would distinguishing, in the sharp way standard Western ethics do, between humans and certain nonhuman creatures, and particularly those creatures which have prefer­ ences or preferred states.For such criteria appear to depend upon the mistaken assumption that moral respect for other creatures is due only when they can be shown to measure up to some rather and tests for membership of a privileged class (essentially an elitist view), instead of upon, say, respect for the preferences of other creatures. Accordingly fka skarp woraZ ethics by philosophers and others alike, commonly accepted m aZZ ofkar a^-fmaZ speafas, Zacks a safZsfacforz/ cokarazif bcsZs. The distinction, which historically rested on the assumption that humans possessed a soul (or higher reason) but that other animals, brutes, did not, appears to have been uncritically retained even after the religious beliefs or philosophical theories underpinning it have been abandoned. Given that the distinction underlying human chauvinism fails, is there anywhere satisfactory demarcations of moral relevance can be made among things? Yes, several divisions^ of mcraZ can be made; but of these coincides with a division into human and others. Consider, first, the question of consideration fiards others, and the matter of which offers are to be taken into account in cases where others' interests and preferences are affected by some action. Insofar as moral consideration for others (among sentient items) is based on analogical (empathetic, and essentially inductive) principles, such as taking account of their worthwhile preferences, objectives, interests etc., 8 There are of course further arguments for the contention, for example from the anatomical and physiological affinities of human and other animals, from their common evolutionary history, and so on. The arguments are of varying force; for example, evolutionary arguments can be arrested, temporarily, by the claim that there was a quantum jump" in human evolutionary development which did not occur with other creatures with a previously shared evolutionary history (cf. Wilson, op. cit.). 9 Although the divisions may be conceptually sharp enough, they are any­ thing but sharp when applied in the field to the variety of creature and circumstances that occur. For example, preference-havers is, so far at least, sharp enough, but it is far from clear which creatures qualify, e.g. which, if any, Crustacea? For the present most of t ese potential decision cases are cases for cheerful indecision; _ u , alternatively, the divisions may be viewed - perhaps better not a sharp boundaries, but as gradation states, as where two colours m a rainbow meet. 8 * �c- it is difficult to see how such consideration can fail to apply to all (including nonhuman) preference-having creatures; and one does not need to apply criteria such as linguistic ability, navigational ability, intelligence, piano-playing, hunting skill, etc., to obtain a basis for such consideration (indeed one cannot). The /zuzzz^zz^ a/* pr^yerezzces (and of preferences revealed through choices) is however a quite sufficient basis for z^/zz^s of consideration and concern. It is at this point, we suggest, that the requisite, important and non-arbitrary distinction is to be drawn which marks out the class of creatures towards which obligations may be held; that is, the usually recognised principles of consideration towards others (of the privileged class) properly extend or should be generalised to consideration for other creatures having prefer­ ences, and t/ze correspazz^zzy pezzaraZ zza^ to putt afTzars a/zZ-^pa^azz pr^zzc^pZ-e ("at/zer preyerezzce-TzuzJersJ tzzto a c%spreyerra<^ stato y*ar zza paa<i raasazz. Insofar as moral behaviour is based on consideration for others and not harming others, preference-having provides an adequate basis, and does appear to provide a sufficient justification for substantially different treatment for preference-having over non-preference-having items - because items without preference cannot (literally) be put into a dispreferred state. Thus preference-having appears to tie in with an important basis for moral obligation, and appears to provide a superior criterion, for a sort of moral consideration, to other criteria sometimes proposed such as sentience - or, differently, intelligence - especially since in the absence of preferences such notions as /zurzzztzz^ something (in a way that does affect it) and damaging its interests become difficult of application (not to say nonsignificant, except in extended senses). The unsatisfactoriness of the sentience criterion for what one can hold obligations ^azJarzis can be grasped from the case of the sentient machine or purely sentient creature which does not have preferen­ ces, does not care what state it is in or whether it is destroyed,etc. The sentience criterion is often converted by utilitarians into a suffer­ ing criterion, by taking pain as a paradigm of sentience: but plainly the two criteria diverge since some sentient creatures may never feel pain or suffer. Suffering is even less satisfactory than sentience; for suffering is neither necessary nor sufficient for being in a dispreferred state (consider masochists who suffer but are not in a dispreferred state, and well-treated workers who are in a dispreferred state but do not suffer). Preference-having provides a lower bound; it is a sufficient but zzat zzecassurz/ condition for being an object of this sort of moral 9 �consideration and concern. That it is not necessary is revealed, independently of environmental examples, by the following sorts of cases: the treatment of "human vegetables", successful stoics, and science­ fiction cases in which people are brain-washed into performing certain goals and having no dispreferred states apart from the programmed goals. In all three cases the question of dispreferences does not arise, but relevant moral issues can.*^ The necessary condition, that corresponds to preference-having as a sufficient condition, appears to be capability at some time (e.g. previously, when developed) for preference-having. It has been taken for granted that many animals (from species higher on the evolutionary scale) have preferences, make choices, and the like. This is the merest commonsense, which can be readily confirmed in a scientific way. For example, some of the preference-rankings of a black­ tail wallaby as to types of foliage to eat are readily established by observation, and it is fairly straightforward verifying that bushrats prefer cheese to soap, this preference being revealed by regular choices. It has however been claimed by some recent philosophers, for reasons apparently different from those offered by traditional philosophers such as Aristotle, Aquinas and Descartes,that animals do not have intentions, or at least do not have them in a full sense. It is unclear whether these intentions, which are taken to include thoughts and beliefs and, perhaps, desires, include preferences; but it is hard to see how preferences, which are intentional, are excluded if desires are included in intentions. The recent arguments to show that animals do not really have intentions, which do not bear much investigation even in such central cases as belief,12 appear extremely feeble when applied to preference. For the arguments start from the claim that we cannot say zjTzat it is that animals As N Griffin, who supplied the examples, remarked a similar thing happens also in less extreme cases of the type brought in to prominence, e.q. by the women's movement: that it is possible, by means of indoctrination, to limit the range of someone's dispreferences; treatment of such persons may still remain immoral even when it does not place them outside the (artificially widened) range of their preferred states. 11 The traditional reasons look slight also in the case of preferences and choices. It would have been claimed - the theory forces the claim Interestingly, choices - that animals' choices could not be rational, of many animals conform to behavioural criteria for rationality pro posed in economics. (forthcoming) 12 See J. Bishop, 'More thought on thought and talk', and R Routley, 'Alleged problems in attributing beliefs to anima s , paper'prepared for the B.Ztef conference, University of Queensland, 1979. 10 �believe (of course very often we can, and unproblematically) and fall back on the claim that animals lack concepts of a fit sort. In the case of preferences, however, there is often no problem in saying what it is animals prefer, or in confirming the claim. Nor is it that we cannot attribute propositional-style preferences to animals; if black-tail wallabies prefer, as they do, new foliage to old then they prefer the foliage's being new over the foliage's being old. As for the concept claim, in the sense in which is delineated in psychology, animals have concepts. And if a philosopher's notion of "concept gets in the way of the claim that free dogs prefer bones to carrots (or other vegetables) then it is not the claim that requires revision, but the philosopher's notion. The preference-having criteria appear to distinguish non-arbitrarily and sharply enough between higher animals and other items, and to rule out of the relevant class elementary animals, trees, rocks and also some human items, e.g. human kidneys. The criteria plainly exclude inanimate objects, and they separate animate objects. For while living creatures such as plants and elementary animals can be said in an extended sense to have and also optimal living conditions, e.g., for healthy develop­ ment, and in sense to have preferred states or environments, they do not have preferences, and cannot be put into states they disprefer. All that is required for an 'interest' or 'welfare' in the broad sense is a telos or life-goal, as possessed by living things, or an equilibrium or system goal, as possessed by living ecosystems. At the same time the criteria indicate another important division. For in a wider sense, animate objects which do not (significantly) have preferences or make choices, are sometimes said to have or 'preferred environments' (as, e.g., in 'the plant prefers a sunny frost-free location with a well drained soil'). us say that the or preferred states To avoid confusion let of animate objects and also such biological items as ecosystems can be affected in one way or another, e.g. increased, decreased, upset.For instance, the wellbeing of a coastal community and of the individual trees in it can be reduced to zero by sandmining, and it can be seriously threatened by pumping waste detergent 13 in this broad sense too, living things, things that participate in the growth process, have interests. However under a narrower and more common determinate of the slippery term 'interests', only preference­ havers have interests (again sentient creatures do not provide the boundary). Because the term 'interests' so readily admits of high redefinition, and the infiltration of chauvinism, its use is better limited (or even avoided), in favour of other more stable terms. 11 �There is a general obligation principle into the nearby ocean. corresponding likewise to this more comprehensive class of welfare bearers, namely, sz/sf67??s ohjecfs <9r ^<90<i reason. Moral does not of course end with what is in some way animate, much as the class of valuable objects is not tied to what relates suitably to central preference-havers. In suitable settings, a (virtually) dead landscape, a rare stone, a cave, can be items of moral or aesthetic concern; indeed any object of value can in principle be of such concern, and in principle at least, value or disvalue, and so of woraZ concern. almost any sort of object. <2% object of There can then be obligations Naturally only a fraction of the things that exist have especial value, and only a few of the things that exist will be things concerning which some of us have obligations. Furthermore these sorts of obligations do not in general reduce to the conditions or arrangements (e.g. contractual or joint welfare arrangements) of preference-havers or some select subclass thereof (what will sub­ sequently be called, as the argument is developed, the base cZass). Just as there are relevant divisions beyond the class of preference­ havers, so there are within the class. Thus the suggestion that the class towards which moral obligations (and a corresponding sort of moral concern which takes account of creatures' states) may be held is bounded by the class of preference-havers, does not of course imply that d^st^^ot^o^s can be made the class of preference-havers with respect to the kind of behaviour appropriate to them. For example, obligations which by no means exhaust obligations - can only be held directly (as distinct from by way of a representative) with respect to a much narrower class of creatures, from which many humans are excluded. The class is also distinct from the class of persons, at least as 'person' is usually characterised. What emerges is an of types of objects of moral relevance, some matched by types of moral obligation (described toward the end of Routley (a)), with nested zones representing respectively different sorts of objects - such as, objects of moral concern, welfare-having objects, preference-havers (and choice-makers), right-holders, obligationholders and responsibility-bearers, those contractually-comnitted-and the different sorts of obligations that can significantly apply to such objects. Not all the types of objects indicated are distinct, nor is the listing intended to be exhaustive but rather illustrative. For strictly the labels given should be expanded, as the distinctions are categorial ones, so that what matters is not whether an object is, for instance, 12 �contractually committed in some fashion but whether it is the sort of thing that can be, whether it can significantly enter into or be committed by arrangements of a contractual kind. is to Similarly function as a categorial marker, that marks out the sorts of things that can (significantly) have preferences: the assumption that preference­ havers coincide with choice-makers is based on this categorial reading. Although the annular picture is (as will become clear in §5) important for the environmental alternative to be elaborated, and in meeting object­ ions to it, the countercharge has been laid that it reintroduces chauvin­ ism through its inegalitarian distinctions. This is a mistake: not every sort of ethical distinction, certainly not a justified distinction, involves chauvinism. Chauvinism is exhibited where, for example, objects of a favoured class are treated in a preferential way to superior items of an excluded class,e.g. defective humans as against apes, degenerate French against normal Pygmies. The annular picture neither involves nor encourages such differences in treatment: it is neutral and unchauvinistic, for the reason that it relies only on categorial distinctions which tie analytically with ethical notions (see the semantical analyses of §5). It is certainly in no way species chauvinist or human chauvinist For none of the zones of the annular picture comprises the class of humans (or its minor variant the class of persons); for this class is not of moral relevance. The reason is that the human/nonhuman distinction is not an ethically significant one, and can, and should, be demoted from its dominant, and damaging, position in ethical theory. notion of But dropping the out of ethics, is only part of the ethical change that is called for: taking due account of nonhumans is also required. In particular - to return to the theme - what is quite unacceptable, 14 and based on a set of distinctions which are arbitrary and unjustifiable, differential treatment enjoined nonpersons as distinct is the ex from persons under Western ethics, and the view that only persons or humans have any (nonderivative) right to moral consideration and concern as preference-havers and that there are obligations towards other creatures such a criticism of chauvinism is based firmly 14 According to Q. Gibson ----- ----. . . . ' " This is simply on Western ethical equality and egalitarian principles,. ___ The general argument not so: there is no reliance on such principles, feature -f cannot be what justifies the differential takes the form; ----- — - . . . treatment of humans and nonhumans, because either f is not morally relevant or not all humans have f or some nonhumans have f., Neither Nei__. equality nor substitutions based upon equality are invoked at any stage. 13 �only insofar as these are or reduce to obligations to persons or humans. §2. THE EXTENT OF CHAUVINISM, AND FURTHER LINES OF DEFENCE Western ethics are, then, human chauvinist in that they characterist ically take humans (or, to make a slight improvement, persons) to be the only items worthy of proper moral consideration, and sanction or even enjoin substantially inferior treatment for the class of non-human preference-having creatures, without - so it certainly appears - adequate justification. The prevailing nineteenth century Western attitude to wild creatures is evident from Judge Blackstone (quoted approvingly in Penguin, London, 1967, pp.431): W. Cobbett, E^raZ With regard likewise to wild animals, aZZ rT?a%kZ%<7 arZ^ZnaZ bz/ the the Creator a right to pursue and take away any fowl or insect of the air, any fish or inhabitant of the waters, and any beast or reptile of the field: and this natural right still continues in every individual, unless where it is restrained by the civil laws of the country. And when a man has once so seized them, they become, while living his qualified property, or if dead, are absolutely his own. Prevailing Western attitudes have not shifted markedly since that time; for example, foresters, widely regarded as socially responsible, think nothing of dislodging from their homes and environment, or even destroying, communities of animals which do not directly interfere with human welfare. But there is another very important broader respect in which Western ethics are human (or person) chauvinistic, namely in the treat­ ment accorded to and attitude taken towards the broader class of natural items such as trees and forests, herbs, grasslands and swamps, soils and waterways and ecosystems. Unlike higher animals such items cannot liter­ ally be put into dispreferred states (and in Z/zZs obvious sense, as opposed to the wider sense of 'interests' tied to welfare, they have no interests), but they can be damaged or destroyed or have their eroded or impaired. The Western, chauvinistic, assumption is that this can only happen where human interests are affected. The basic assumption is that value attaches essentially only to humans or to what serves or bears on human interests, or derivatively, to items which derive from human skill, ingenuity or labour. Since natural items have no other value, there is no restriction on the way they are treated insofar as this does not interfere with others; as far as ZsoZate^ natural things are con­ cerned anything is permissible. 14 �It is, at base, because of these chauvinistic features of Western ethics that there is a need for a new ethic and value theory (and so derivatively for a new economics, and new politics, etc.) setting out not just people's relations to preference-havers generally but also (along with many other things) people's relations to the natural environment - in Leopold's words 'an ethic dealing with man's relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it' ct/zer essuz/s (A. Leopold, A Coz^/ztz/ New York, 1966, p.238). /Uzzzu^zuc It is not of course that old and prevailing ethics do not deal with man's relation to nature: they do, and on the prevailing view man is free to deal with nature as he pleases, i.e. his relations with nature - insofar at least as they do not affect others, as pollution and vandalism do - are not subject to moral censure. Thus assertions such as 'Crusoe ought not to be mutilating those trees' are significant and morally determinate but inasmuch at least as Crusoe's actions do not interfere with others, they are false or do not hold - and trees are not, in a good sense, moral objects. It is to this, to the values and evaluations of the prevailing ethics, that Leopold, Fraser Darling and many others, both earlier and later, take exception. Leopold regards as subject to moral criticism, as wrong, behaviour that on prevailing views is morally permissible. But it is not, then, as Leopold seems to think, that such behaviour is beyond the scope of the prevailing ethics and that merely an extension of traditional morality is required to cover such cases, to fill a moral void. If Leopold is right in his criticism of prevailing conduct, what is required is a change in the ethics, in attitudes, values and evaluations; for example, what is permissible on the prevailing ethics will be no longer permissible on the new. For as matters stand, as Leopold himself explains, humans generally do not feel morally ashamed if they interfere with a wilderness, if they maltreat the land, extract from it whatever will yield, and then move on; and such conduct is not taken to interfere with and does not rouse the moral indignation of others, and is accordingly permissible on prevailing ethics. As Leopold says: A farmer who clears the woods off a 75% slope, turns his cows into the clearing, and dumps its rainfall, rocks, and soil into the coi^munity creek, is still (if otherwise decent) a respected member of society (op. cit., p.245). Only recently has such behaviour begun to be seriously questioned and become the subject of criticism,e.g. by environmentalists. Under what will be accounted an eyz^trozi/TzeMtuZ gtTz^c, however, such traditionally 15 �permissible conduct would be accounted morally wrong, and the farmer subject to proper moral criticism. That ethics and morality are not, and never have been, restricted to human concerns, or exclusively to relations between persons, is important in rebutting objections to the very idea of an environmental ethic, based on the premiss that morality just is restricted (definitionally) to human relationships (and connected values) and is not significant beyond that. The problem of moral relations with respect to preference-havers other than persons and to inanimate items cannot be resolved or escaped simply by declaring morality to apply solely,or as a matter of meaning or defin­ ition only to humans (or to persons). For first, such a solution would run counter to the common view that humans are subject to some moral con­ straints, even if comparatively minor ones, towards other creatures; the having of such constraints cannot be ruled out definitionally, and corres pondingly the judgments formulating these constraints or prohibitions cannot be ruled out as nonsignificant, yet they are surely moral. The only way in the end, that the claim gets support is by a narrow, and no longer acceptable, account of what is moral in terms of concern with humans alone (cf. S6). Likewise, the question of the moral interrelations of humans with intelligent nonhuman extraterrestrial beings, even if at present hypothetical, is certainly a meaningful one, and some interesting and clearly moral issues of this sort are frequently raised in science fiction. Only if the extent of morality is, somewhat misleadingly, reconstrue in terms of the class of constraints on the behaviour of those it applies to - that is, in terms of limitations, as distinct from moral freedom does the claim that Western morality is restricted to humans (or persons) begin to gain plausibility. For it is true that beyond the favoured base class, humans or persons, few constraints are supposed to operate (and ad hoc ones at that) unless the welfare of members of the base class is adversely affected. Under an environmental ethic, such as that Leopold advocates, this would change: previously unconstrained behaviour would be morally circumscribed, and in this sense the scope of morality would be extended. It is not evident, however, that a ethic ethic, an in the case at hand, is required to accommodate even radical new judgments seriously constraining traditionally approved conduct, i.e. imposing limitations on behaviour previously considered morally permissible. For one reason it is none too clear what is going to count as a new ethic, much as it is often unclear whether a new development in physics counts as a new physics or just as a modification or extension of the old. 16 For, �notoriously, ethics are not clearly articulated or at all well worked out, so that the application of identity criteria for ethics may remain obscure. They are nonetheless (pace Quineans) perfectly good objects for investigation. Furthermore, there is a tendency to cluster a family of ethical systems which do not differ on core or fundamental principles together as the one ethic: e.g. the Christian ethic, which is an umbrella notion covering a cluster of differing and even competing systems. There are two other possibilities, apart from a new environmental ethic, which might cater for the new principles and evaluations; that of an extension or modification of the prevailing ethic, and that of the development of principles that are already encompassed or latent within the prevailing ethic. The possibility that environmental evaluations can be incorporated within (and ecological problems solved within) the not inflexible framework of prevailing Western ethics, may appear open because there is not a single ethical system uniquely assumed in Western civiliz­ ation: on many issues, and especially on controversial issues such as infanticide, women's rights and drugs, there are competing sets of principles. Talk of a new ethic and prevailing ethics tends to suggest a sort of monolithic structure, a uniformity, that prevailing ethics, and even a single ethic, need not have. The Western ethic is not so monolithic. In particular, three important traditions in Western ethical views n ,been mapped .3 out: 4. 15 a concerning man's relation to nature have recently dominant tradition, the despotic position, with man as despot (or tyrant), and two lesser traditions, the stewardship position, with man as custod­ ian, and the cooperative position with man as perfector. the only traditions; Nor are these primitivism is another, and both romanticism and mysticism have influenced Western views. The dominant Western view is simply inconsistent with an environmental ethic; for according to it nature is the dominion of man and he is free to deal with it as he pleases (since - at least on the mainstream StoicAugustine view - it exists only for his sake^^), whereas on an See especially (a) J. Passmore, Man's Fespons^btZ^^z/ for Duckworth, London, 1974; also R. Nash, ^tZderness an^ t/ze Yale University Press, New Haven, 1973. (All further references to Passmore's work are, unless otherwise indicated, to Passmore (a).) The dominant position has also been sketched in many other recent texts, e.g. I. McHarg, Z)es^<yn Doubleday, New York, 1969, while the lesser traditions have been appealed to in meeting criticisms of the Western ethic as involving the dominant view. The masculine particles are appropriate; so is the resulting tone. �environmental ethic man is not so free to do as s/he pleases. But it is not quite so obvious that an environmental ethic cannot be coupled with one of the lesser traditions. Part of the problem is that the lesser traditions are by no means adequately characterised anywhere, especially when the religious backdrop is removed, e.g. (as further considered in §4) who is man steward for and responsible to? However both traditions are inconsistent with a deeper environmental ethic because they imply policies of complete interference, whereas on an environmental ethic some worthwhile parts of the earth's surface should be preserved from sub­ stantial human interference, whether of the "improving" sort or not. Both traditions would in fact prefer to see the earth's land surfaces reshaped along the lines of the tame and comfortable but ecologically impoverished European small farm and village langscape. According to the cooperative position man's proper role is to develop, cultivate and perfect nature - all nature eventually - by bringing out its potential­ ities, the test of perfection being basically purposes; /or while on the stewardship view man's role, like that of a farm manager, is to make nature productive by his efforts though not by means that will deliberately degrade its resources. Thus these positions figure among those of the shallow ecological movement (as depicted by A. Naess, 16 'The shallow and the deep, long-range ecology movement', Tr^M^rz/ (1973), 95-100): longer term. they are typically exploitative, even if only in the Although these lesser positions both depart from the dominant position in a way which enables the incorporation of some evaluations of an environmental ethic, e.g. some of those concerning the irresponsible farmer, and allow for some of the modern extensions of the Western ethic that have been made, e.g. concerning the treatment of animals and criticisms of vandalism, they are not well-developed, fit poorly into the prevailing framework, and do zzof p<9 /ar orozz^Zz. For in the present situation of expanding populations confined to finite natural areas, they will lead to, and enjoin the perfecting, farming and utilizing of all natural areas. Indeed these lesser traditions lead to, what a thorough­ going environmental ethic would reject, a principle of total use, implying 17 that every natural area should be cultivated or otherwise used for /zzzzzzor 17 if 'use' is extended, somewhat illicitly, to include use for preservation, this total use principle is rendered innocuous at least as regards it actual effects. Note that the total use principle, in the usual sense, is tied to the resource view of nature (cf. (d) R. and V. Routley, F-z^/zt /or z^/ze Forests, Third Edition, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1975). Such a principle, like the requirement of economic growth, emerges directly from - it is an integral part of neoclassical economic theory. 18 �18 "humanized". As the important Western traditions mentioned exclude an environ­ mental ethic, it would appear, at first glance anyway, that such an ethic - not primitive, mystical or romantic - would be new alright - or at least new from a Western perspective. For, from a wider perspective, which takes due account of traditional societies (such as those of some American Indians, Australian Aboriginals, and Pygmies), there is, it will turn out, nothing so very new about what is included in (as distinct from the theoretical setting of) the "new" ethics. Even from the narrow Western perspective, the matter is not so straightforward. for the dominant ethic has been substantially qualified, in particular by the rider that one is not always entitled to do as one pleases where this physically interferes with others.^ It may be that some such non-inter­ ference proviso was implicit all along (despite evidence to the contrary); and that it was simply assumed that doing what one pleased vn.th natural items would not affect others (a^oT^terfereMcg assMwpf^^). it may, the Be this as appears, at least for many thinkers to have supplanted the dominant position; and the modified position can undoubtedly go much further towards an environmental ethic. For example the farmer's polluting of a community stream may be ruled immoral on the grounds that it physically interferes with others who use or would use the stream. Likewise business enterprises which destroy the natural environ­ ment for no satisfactory (taxable) returns or which cause pollution deleterious to the health of future humans can be criticised on the sort of welfare basis (e.g. that of P.W. Barkley and D.W. Seckier, 18 Humanization, and humanitarian measures, may be a cloak for human chauvinism - in which case, far from being virtuous, they may be positively undesirable. 19 Also, as Leopold has observed, the class of has been ively widened, e.g. from the family group, to the tribe, to the nation or race, even to all humans including often enough future humans but rarely further in the West until recently. of 20 The assumption is not the same as its relative, Benn's 'that no one may legitimately frustrate or prevent (or interfere with) a person's doing what he chooses to do, ^nles there is some reason for preventing him (Benn (c), op. cit., in from (a) P.605). The principle is said to derive from 'the notion of a person' ^e.g. (a), p.605), but it only so derives given commission ofPfhe fallacy of conversion of an A-proposition. Moreover even reduced to a 'formal principle ... locating the onus of justification (cf (a)) the principle is dubious, especially given principles of respect for objects other than persons, with which persons may be interfering. It is, however, a formal principle that will help to keep entreprenuerial humans happy. �* GrozjZ/z <2%^ Dgcaz/, T/ze ^oZz^ZZc^ ^gcowgs York, 1972) that blends with the modified position; be criticised on welfare grounds; and so on. Fr^hZ^w^ New vandalism can usually The modified position may even serve to restrict the sort of family size one is entitled to have, since in a finite situation excessive population levels will interfere with future people. Nonetheless neither the modified dominant position nor its Western variants, obtained by combining it with the lesser trad­ itions, is adequate as an environmental ethic. chauvinism. None moves outside human They are all encompassed under the t^es-Zs - the view that the earth and all its non-human contents exist or are available for human benefit or to serve human interests, and hence that humans are entitled to manipulate the world and its systems as they want, in their own interests - which is but the ecological restatement of the strong thesis of human chauvinism, according to which items outside the privil­ eged human class have no value except one as instrumental value (both theses are criticised in Routley (a)). To escape from chauvinism, and from its thesis, a new ethic -Zs wanted, as we now try to show. §3. GENERAL ENVIRONMENTAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST WESTERN ETHICS The main argument is directed primarily against the modified dominant position, but will incidentally show the inadequacy of the lesser Western traditions. The strategy is to locate core features of Western ethics, and to reveal through examples their thoroughgoing chauvinism and class bias, and in this way to provide decisive grounds for rejecting For the general argument some more technical points have to be made them. first. (An) spgcZyZc ethic, is ambiguous, as between a specific ethical system, a and a more generic notion, a specific ethics are grouped. under which (As usual, a weZu-ethic is a theory about ethics, super-ethics, their features and fundamental notions.) An ^Z/zZcaZ sz/sZsw s is, near enough, a propositional system (i.e. a structured set of propositions) or a theory which includes (like individuals of a theory) a set of values and (like postulates of a theory) a set of general evaluative judgments concerning conduct, typically of what is obligatory, permissible and wrong, of what are rights and responsibilities, what is valued, and so forth, (On newer perceptions an ethical system will include rather less in the way of prescriptions, of duties, obligations and the like, and more as to what are matters of care and of concern and for respect.) Since an ethical system is propositional in character, such notions as consistency, coherence, independence of 20 a �assumptions, and the like, apply to it without further ado. It is evident, from a consideration of competing or incompatible values and principles, that are sz/s^ews. Moreover appropriately general criteria for rationality will not reduce this class to a singleton. Accordingly, there is logical space for a^terrzaf^re A general or lawlike proposition of a system (characterised along similar lines to a scientific law) is a pr^Mc^pZe; and certainly if systems Si and S2 contain different principles, they they are different systems. It will follow then that an environmental ethic differs from the important traditional ethics outlined if it differs on some principles. Moreover if environmental ethics differ from each Western ethical system on some core principle or other embedded in that Western system, then these systems differ from the Western super-ethic (assuming, what seems to be so, that that ethic can be sufficiently characterised) - in which case if an environmental ethic is needed then a new ethic is wanted. It would suffice then to locate a common core principle and to provide environmental counterexamples to it. It is illuminating (and necessary, so it will emerge) to attempt to do a little more than this minimum, with a view to bringing out the basic assumptions of the Western super-ethic. Two major classes of evaluative statements, commonly distinguished, are axiological statements, concerning what is good, worthwhile, valuable, best, etc., and deontological state­ ments, which concern what is obligatory, permissible, wrong, etc. Now there appear to be core principles of Western ethics on both axiological and deontic fronts, principles, for example, as to what is valuable and as to what is permissible. Naturally these principles are interconnected, because anything is permitted with respect to what has no value except insofar as it interferes with what does have value. A strong historical case can be made out for what is commonly assumed, that there are, what amount to, core principles of Western ethical systems, principles that will accordingly belong to the super- ethic. example. The fairness principle inscribed in the Golden Rule provides one Directly relevant here, as a good stab at a core deontic principle, is the commonly formulated liberal principle of the modified A recent formulation of this principle runs as 21 follows (Barkley and Seckier, op. cit., p.58): dominant position. On next page. 21 �The liberal philosophy of the Western world holds that (D) one should be able to do what he wishes, providing (1) that he does not harm others {and (2) that he is not likely to harm himself irreparably}. The principle, which is built into or derivable from most traditional ethical theories, may be alternatively formulated in terms of permissib­ ility, as the principle that <2 person's (foes no^ ^n^er/ere zJ-^/z o^/zers, ^s perw^ss^&^e provt^e^ (i.e. other people, including perhaps the A related economic principle is that free enterprise can operate agent). within similar limits. It is because of these permissibility formulations that the principle - which incorporates fundamental features of (human or person) chauvinism - is sometimes hailed as a freedom principle; for it gives permission to perform a wide range of actions (including actions which degrade the environment and natural things) providing they do not harm others. others. In fact it tends to cunningly shift the onus of proof to It is worth remarking that 'harming others' in the restriction is narrower than a restriction to the (usual) interests of others; it is not enough that it is in my interests, because I detest you, that you stop breathing; you are free to breath, for the time being anyway, because it does not harm me. There remains a problem however as to exactly what counts as harm or interference. Moreover the width of the principle is so far obscure, because 'other' may be filled out in significantly different ways: 21 it makes a difference to the extent - and privilege - of The principle is attributed by Barkley and Seckier to Mill, though something like it was fairly common currency in nineteenth century European thought. It appears, furthermore, that Mill would have rejected the principle on account of clause (2): thus, for example: Those interests, I contend, authorise the subjection of individual spontaneity to external control, ozzZz/ in respect of those actions of each, which concern the interest of o^Zzer people (J.S. Mill, (/^^Z^^ar^uzz^szzzj L^&gr^z/ az-z^f 7?eprese?z^az^zze ^ozz6r?z777g?z^, Everyman's Library, Dent, London, 1910, p.74, emphasis added). The deletion of clause (2) from (D) does not affect the general argument: hence the braces. (We owe this reference and the points in the next footnote to N. Griffin.) A similarly modified form of (D) is found in much recent Western literature, even radical literature which purports to make due allow­ ance for environmental concerns. A good example of the latter is I. Illich, TcoZs /cr Cofz^ttz^uZ-z^z/, Calder & Boyers, London, 1973, where Mill's (D) appears, in various forms, at several places (e.g. p.xii, p.41). What this indicates is that Illich's "convivial society" will not - if its principles are taken seriously - move beyond chauvinism in its treatment of animals and the natural environment; it will at best yield some form of resource conservation. 22 �a the chauvinism whether 'other' expands to 'other human' - which is too restrictive - or to 'other person' or to 'other sentient being'; and it makes a difference to the adequacy of the principle, and inversely to its economic applicability, to which class of other persons it is intended to apply, whether to future as well as to present others, whether to remote future others or only to nondiscountable future others, and whether to poss^bZe others. The latter would make the principle untestable and com­ and it is generally assumed that it pletely unworkable in practice; applies at most to present and (some) future others, to those to whom it would make a (fairly immediate) difference (thus excluding past others ). For the purposes of the general argument however, the problems in specify­ ing the class of others is not material, so long as the class includes no 23 more than persons that at some time exist. Fortunately the main argument is not very sensitive to the precise formulation of principle (D). Not only can clause (2) be deleted, and 'other' left rather unspecific, but additions can be made; then even if the main argument does not succeed, m-z^or succeed. o/ t/ze zzzu^M arpz^g?^ An important case concerns the treatment of animals. Unless (D) is construed widely (extending 'other'), or hedged by further qualifying clauses,24 the basic principle fails to take proper account of concern for animals, especially that one should not inflict "unnecessary cruelty or "impermissible" harm. animals then comes to matter; these issues can be avoided. What counts as per^ss^Me Tzurzzz to and familiar conflict issues arise. But For the core principle (D), of basic chauvinism, can be modified to include (historically recent) moral concern for higher animals by adding, after 'harm others', something like 'or harm animals unnecessarily'. Then however the new principle succumbs to the 22 Although the interests and preferences of past others are excluded in conventional utilitarianism, as in (welfare) economic theory and vot inq theory, these are often respected in ethical and legal settings, e.g. in wills, last wishes, etc. Similarly (as N. Griffin also point­ ed out), in the treatment of "human vegetables", past preferences of the person when capable of making decisions are often taken to be morally relevant, or even decisive, to the question as to whether to keep the body alive. 23 if merely possible persons are included then the valuational rankings of environmental ethics, indeed of virtually any ethics, can be reflected in a "utilitarian" fashion. The argument of (c) R. and V. Routley, 'Semantical foundations for value theory', (accepted for publication in 1974; still forthcoming?), can be used to show this. 24 or unless it can be made out, what seems entirely implausible, that what is wrong with torturing animals is not what it does to them but the way it affects other people (the Aquinas-Kant thesis). 23 �main argument - upon at most simple variation of the counterexamples to be given. Modification becomes more important in the case of standard ethical theories which lead to principles conflicting with (D), such as utilitar­ ianism does unless (D) and the maximisation principle of utilitarianism are appropriately segregated, e.g. by severing connections at some point in the chain connecting entitlement, permissibility, right, maximum utility. For, as in widely recognised, net utility may be increased in ways that violate (D), e.g. by injustice to, or the infliction of suffer­ ing upon, or harming, some individual by others. Thus utilitarianisms in the tradition of Mill, which both include (D) and characterise entitlement in utilitarian terms, are inconsistent (as simple hypothetical cases show). To avoid counterexamples it is not enough merely to distinguish higher and lower utilities, though this is an initial step in what is required, namely - ideally by constraints (as is explained in §5) - o/ unconstrained Although qualification of utilitar­ ianism principles to ensure (D), as a restriction (but not the orzZz/ restriction) on what is permissible,is the proper course, it is a course not all utilitarians are prepared to follow. To defeat isms, it is not enough to adduce counterexamples to (D). utilitarian­ Counterexamples to some other core principle of such utilitarianisms must be located; otherwise the main argument fails against a quite standard, and important, class of positions supporting chauvinism and the Dominion thesis. Fortunately, again, neither a suitable core principle nor appropriate counterexamples are hard to find. The common utilitarian principle provides such a core, and several of the examples directed against (D) serve to counter it (in its various forms). An axiological principle corresponding to (D) (%72<i to some of its variants) runs along these lines: (A) Only those objects which are of use or concern to humans (or persons), or which are the product of human (or person) labour or ingenuity, are of value; thus these are all that need to be taken into account in determining best choice or best course of action, what is good, etc. Roughly, value consists in answering back to certain features of human (or person) involvement. No calculus of value or what is best need look beyond human values. According to a matching value-ranking thesis, item a is better than b only if a serves human concerns more than b. A narrower version of principle (A) embedded in main forms of Marxism is 24 �the human labour theory of value. 25 Thus a corollary will be that Marxism is certainly - unless severely modified - no direction in which to seek an environmental ethic or social theory. There may appear to be exceptions to principle (A) in such objects But although values are assigned to works of art where as works of art. these may not positively affect human welfare, the basis for assigning value is usually taken to be the human skill or ingenuity involved in their production. principle (A). Hence such assignments do not extend, or violate, Indeed the problem raised by natural objects which cost nothing to produce and involved nothing human is very different from the matter of valuing art objects. objects rctse <2 problem. There are also other important differences between natural objects and works of art, apart from the characteristic noninvolvement of humans, namely those turning on the issues of replaceability and the reversibility of destruction. Human artefacts are always replaceable by similar objects, e.g. modern cities, especially concrete jungles are all too similar and replaceable, and using modern techniques paintings can be substanially duplicated; whereas there is no possibility of replicating, even remotely, such as extinct species or real damaged or destroyed natural objects jungles (or lost or vanishing cultures). In terms of replacement costs, these are much more valuable than such human artefacts as material works of art. Thus attempts to assimilate natural objects to material works of art break down. There is an additional reason for rejecting a now familiar approach to natural objects through works of art, namely that it is premissed on the assumption that some sort of chauvinistic account of works of art is adequate: that is not so, as the (intermediate) situation of objet trouve begins to reveal. It is in connection with principles qualification to (D) and especially (A) that the ethics (already required at several points) becomes important for the argument; for various non-Western ethics have not adopted these principles, e.g. both American Indians and Australian Aborigines appear to recognise clearly values in natural items which are not reducible (simply or at all) to human values - and apparently not essentially theistic (supra-human). In any case Western ethics and 25 According to some Marxists, and apparently to Marx, the labour theory is superceded when the period of accumulation is completed and the post­ scarcity era reached. But by the time this high-energy high-tech stage is reached, if ever, irreparable and frequently irreversible environmental damage will have been wreaked. 26 On next page. 25 �p attitudes, and more comprehensively the associated ideologies, are of critical importance; for it is to these and Western influence that the world's main - serious and very extensive - environmental problems can be ascribed. Hypothetical situations are introduced in designing counterexamples to core principles (D) and (A). The basis of the method lies in the semantical analyses of permissibility, obligation and value statements which stretch out over ideal situations (which may be incomplete or even inconsistent), so that what is permissible holds in some permitted situation, what is obligatory in every such situation, and what is wrong is excluded m every such situation. But the main point to grasp for the counterexamples that follow, is that ethical principles if correct are universal and are assessed over a class of situations. Thus hypothetical cases are logically perfectly legitimate and cannot be ruled out on one pretext or another, e.g. as rare, as desert island cases, as hypothetical, The counterexamples to (D) and (A) presented depend largely on etc. designing situations different from the actual where there are either too few or too many humans or persons. But alternative special situations where interference with others is minimized or is immaterial are readily devised. (i) The example. The last man (or woman or person) surviving the collapse of the world system sets to work eliminating, as far as he can, every living thing, animal or plant (but painlessly if you like, as at the best abattoirs). What he does is quite permissible according to principle (D) but on environmental grounds what he does is wrong. Moreover one does not have to be committed to esoteric values to regard Mr. Last Man as behaving badly and destroying things of value (the reason being perhaps that radical thinking and values have shifted in an environmental direction in advance of corresponding shifts in the Characteristically Westerners have attempted to recast these value systems, sometimes misleadingly, in a religious guise - probably because it was thought that there was no non-religious way of presenting them so as to make them intelligible or have them comprehended. Thus they get represented as basically chauvinistic in view of the relations of Man and God. On these semantical analyses, which avoid all the usual problems of modal theories of axiological and deontic terms, see R. Routley, R.K. Meyer, and others, RSSS, Australian National University, 1979, chapters 7 and 8. A sketch is given in §5 below. The situations or worlds with respect to which the interpretation is made permit of different construals; e.g. instead of permitted situ­ ations, the situations can be construed evaluatively as ideal situations. 26 �3 Q formulation of fundamental evaluative principles). The usual vandalism charge does not apply against Mr. Last Man since he does no damage to others. Moreover, Mr. Last Man's activities may be toned down to avoid any vandalism charge, yet succumb to the (extended) chauvinist charge, e.g. he may simply destroy sows environ­ mentally valuable things unnecessarily (without due reason or some need). (ii) The Zest pgopZe example. to the last people example. The last man example can be extended We can assume that they know they are the last people, e.g. because they are aware that radiation effects have One considers the last people in blocked any chance of reproduction. order to rule out the possibility that what these people do harms or somehow physically interferes with later people. Otherwise one could as well consider science fiction cases where people arrive at a new planet and destroy its ecosystems, whether with good intentions such as perfect­ ing the planet for their ends and making it more fruitful or, forgetting the lesser traditions, just for the sheer enjoyment of it. Let us assume that the last people are very numerous. They humanely exterminate every wild animal and they eliminate the fish of the seas, they put all arable land under intensive cultivation, and all remaining natural forests disappear in favour of pastures or plantations,and so on. They may give various familiar reasons for this, e.g. they believe it is the way to salvation or to perfection, or they are simply satisfying reasonable needs, or even that it is needed to keep the last people employed or occupied so that they do not worry too much about their impending extinction. behaved badly; of value; On an environmental ethic the last people have they have done what is impermissible and destroyed much for they have simplified and largely destroyed all the natural ecosystems, and with their demise the world will soon be an ugly and largely wrecked place. But this conduct may conform with the core principles (D) and (A), and as well with the principles enjoined by the lesser traditions under more obvious construals of these principles. Indeed the main point of elaborating this extension of the last man example is because principles (D) and (A) may, as they stand, appear to conflict with stewardship, cooperation and perfection positions, as the last man example reveals. The apparent conflict between these positions and principle (D) may be definitively removed, it seems, by conjoining a further proviso to the principle, to the effect (3) that he does not wilfully destroy natural resources. But as the last people who are not vandals do not destroy resources wilfully, but perhaps "for the best of 28 reasons", the variant is still environmentally inadequate. 28 On next page. 27 �(iii) The ^reu^ eTz^repr^KeMr example. The last man example can be adjusted so as to not fall foul of clause (3). industrialist; The last man is an he runs a giant complex of automated factories and farms which he proceeds to extend. He produces automobiles among other things, from renewable and recyclable resources of course, only he dumps and recycles these shortly after manufacture and sale to a dummy buyer instead of putting them on the road for a short time as we do. Of course he has the best of reasons for his activity, e.g. he is increasing gross world product, or he is improving output to fulfil some plan, and he will be increasing his own and general welfare since he much prefers increased output and productivity. The entrepreneur's behaviour is on the Western ethic quite permissible; indeed his conduct is commonly thought to be quite fine and even meets Pareto optimality requirements given prevailing notions of being "better off". It may be objected, however, that there is no reason or warrant for the great entrepreneur's production and it is simply wasteful. But we can easily amend the example by adding consumers who want to use the out­ put. Just as we can extend the last man example to a class of last people, so we can extend (iii) to the socket!/ example (iv): the society looks depressingly like ours except for its reproductive incapacity. (v) The species example. The blue whale (reduced to a 29 mixed good on the economic picture ) is on the verge of extinction because of its qualities as a private good, as a profitable source of oil and meat. whalers; The catching and marketing of blue whales does not harm the it does not harm or physically interfere with others in any good sense, though it may upset them and they may be prepared to compen­ sate the whalers if they desist; destruction. nor need whale hunting be wilful (Slightly different examples which eliminate the hunting aspect of the blue whale example are provided by cases where a species is eliminated or threatened through destruction of its habitat by man's 28 There are however elements in the lesser traditions - especially if 'cooperation' and 'perfection' are reconstrued in less chauvinistic and homocentric terms - which point the way to a more satisfactory ethic. 29 The example is adapted from Barkley and Seckier, op. cit., who nicely expose the orthodox economic picture. To make the example more difficult for utilitarians in the tradition of Bentham, it can be further supposed that the killing of the whalesis near instantaneous and painless, the whale products are very valuable to humans and indeed irreplaceable, and that the whales led a good life while they lived. (Would the killing of remote groups of humans under similar conditions be then so much worse?). 28 �* activity or the activities of animals he has introduced, e.g. many plains-dwelling Australian marsupials and the Arabian oryx.) The behaviour of the whalers in eliminating this magnificent species of whale is accordingly quite permissible - at least according to basic chauvinism. But on an environmental ethic it is not. However the free-market mechanism did not cease allocating whales to commercial uses, as a satisfactory environmental economics would: instead the market system ground inexorably (for the sorts of reasons well-explained in Barkley and Seckier, op. cit.) along the private demand curve until the blue whale population was no longer viable. It has been objected that the operation of the free market is restrained by ethical principles - or rather legally enforced copies thereof; for example, it would be profitable to exploit child labour, but moral prohibitions, legally enforced, exclude such exploitation of children. But the case is quite different; children, unlike young animals such as vealers, are already shielded under the modified dominant position. If anything, the "objection" is a further illustration of chauvinism at work.^O Although the vanishing species example given does not apply decisively against extended utilitarianisms, such as that of Bentham, which widen the base class to all sentient creatures, the case is easily varied so that it does: class of tropical plant species simply select one of the currently threatened with extinction. (vi) The /actorz/ /arm example. On the farm animals of various sorts are kept under artificial, confined conditions and simply used for the market goods they deliver, e.g. eggs in the case of battery hens, milk in the case of rotor cows, veal in the case of calves. The animals are subject to whatever conditions (e.g. forced feeding, iron deficient diets, constant lighting) will deliver maximal quantities of desired goods for the human commodity market. The animals do not necessarily suffer pain (and insofar as they do in behaviourally conspicuous ways the problem can For the most part the operation of the free market is only constrained by chauvinistic principles: otherwise enterpreneurs tend to undertake whatever apparently profitable business activity they can get away with, including substantial exploitation of animals and widespread environ­ mental destruction, and their lack of concern is illustrated by such facts as that they are generally prepared to pay taxes (e.g. to compensate other humans) rather than to forgo their activities in cases such as river and lake pollution and forest removal. In fact, of course, fairly unfettered operation of the market tends to encourage more restricted chauvinisms, e.g. the exploitation of cheap foreign or female labour in the secondary labour market. 29 �be met by antibiotics), but they are imprisoned under dispreferred conditions. The threatment of the animals on the "farm" is perfectly permissible according to the core principle (or at least minor adjustments to exclude unnecessary suffering will ensure conformity), but on an The treatment of the animals on the farm environmental ethic it is not. also seems to conform to the principles of the lesser traditions, insofar as these principles are spelled out in a way that can be applied to the example, that is so long as cooperation and perfection are construed in intended chauvinistic fashion. (vii) The example. The wilderness, though isolated and rarely visited or thought about by environmentalists, is known to contain nothing of use to humans, such as seed or drug supplies, that is not adequately replicated elsewhere. It does contain however some "low quality" forest that could supply pulpwood on a commercial basis were the local government to provide subsidies on the usual basis. The logging would destroy the wilderness in a largely irreversible way (e.g. it grows on high sand dune country or on lateritic soils) and kill many animals which live in the forest. sees The prevailing with the destruction of such ethic wrong nothing a wilderness, nor do the lesser traditions: a deeper environmental ethic does. Again the example requires variation, e.g. to a wilderness devoid of sentient individuals, if it is to counter clearly such extensions of Western ethics as those of animal liberationists. For this sort of reason we do not want to overstate or overrate the role of as distinct from variations upon such examples. examples - Firstly, people deeply committed to human chauvinism - as many, perhaps most, people are - will find some of the examples unconvincing because they depend on non- chauvinistic assumptions. Secondly, there are rejoinders to some of the examples based on the prevailing ethic. In this case what we claim is that there are variations on, and elaborations of the examples which meet such considerations. In connection with this we do not want to deny that there are other strands supplementing the prevailing ethic which are critical of some activities of the sort described in the examples, e.g. anti-vandalism principles and strictures against conspicuous consumption But, as remarked, these principles as reflected, e.g. in sumptuary laws. have not been adequately incorporated in the prevailing ethic in such a way as to meet variations on the examples or to serve environmental purposes; and if the attempt were made to fully incorporate such princi­ ples once again a new ethic would be the upshot. (Compare the situation before the change from an ethic which sanctioned Tzu/na??. slavery.) 30 �* In summary,what the examples show is that core axiological and deontic assumptions of the Western super-ethic are environmentally inadequate; and accordingly Western ethics should be superseded by a more environmentally adequate ethic. The class of permissible actions that rebound on the environment is more narrowly circumscribed on such an environmental ethic than it is in the Western superethic, and the class of noninstrumentally valuable objects is correspondingly wider than it is on the Western super-ethic. But is not an environmentalist ethic going too far in implying that these people - those of the examples and respected entrepreneurs and industrialists and bureaucrats, farmers and fishermen and foresters - are behaving, when engaging in environmentally degrading activities of the sort described, in a morally impermissible way? No, what these people do is to a greater or lesser extent evil, since destructive of what is valuable, and hence in serious cases morally impermissible. For example, insofar as the killing or forced displacement of primitive peoples who stand in the way of an industrial development is morally indefensible and impermissible, so also is the destruction of the forest where the people may live, or the slaughter of remaining blue whales, or the gross exploitation of experimental or factory-farm animals for private profit or as part of the latest 5 year plan. Those who organise or engage in such activities are (to a greater or lesser extent, depending on their mode of engagement) morally culpable. Models of permissible respected life styles and of the good life (for others to emulate) depend upon what the underlying ethic accounts good and evil, permissible or not, and so forth; and changes with change of ethic. A new ethic is needed not merely to accommodate the evaluations, prescriptions and models indicated, in a way decidedly different from Western ethics, but in order to cope with a much wider range of more practical, and often more controversial, cases where Western ethics yield (without epicycling, i.e. extensive resort to theory-saving strategems) unacceptable or inadequately grounded results. An alternative ethic is also needed by a growing number of valuers because they have values, interests and new concerns of ecological sorts which do not fit in with, but conflict with, central features of prevailing Western ethics. There is occurring, it seems, a far-reaching cultural, and ethical change, a change in consciousness, and in particular a change in attitudes to what is natural and the natural environment (a change which may eventually be as fundamental as, and partly overturn, the humanist changes of the Enlightenment). A new ethic is accordingly needed to reflect and formul­ ate, and enable the defence and application of, a new, increasingly felt, 31 �a but not so far well-articulated system of values, in much the same way that a system of probability was needed and formulated to articulate and systematise likelihood and probability principles, and relevant logic systems required to capture pre-analytic views of entailment. The explication of environmental ethics is a similar theoretical concern; again, as commonly, theory lags behind the facts of change and the felt data. Furthermore, just as entailment systems are not uniquely determined, or desired or accepted by every thinker, so ezzzz*Zr<9zzwe7zfaZ. be %%-z^MeZz/ (ie^grzzz-Zzzg^, or adopted by every valuer. will zzct On the contrary, as is plain enough, their adaption and furtherance will be vigorously resisted by many vested interests, as - to take just one instance - the furtherance of programmes for the elimination of environmental sources of cancer is vigorously opposed by industrial chemical companies. The matter of persuading other, valuers to accept values and principles of a new ethic is of course a further and somewhat separate issue from the question of need for such an ethic. The procedures for trying to effect changes in values are but variations on the usual pro­ cedures, and like them are not fully effective: excluding coercion and education, they include, for example, argumentation, and propaganda, in each case of many sorts.As usual, too, where there is a broad common 32 basis, especially in felt evaluations and emotional presentation, effecting a change, or a conversion, will generally be an easier task. In the case of transformation to environmental values, what is often important are distinctive features regarding the factual bases of many of the evaluations. correcting In particular, there is the matter of removing or /zz^scozzcept^oTZS on a broad range of matters of Some of these sorts are considered in more detail in (c) J. Passmore, 'Ecological problems and persuasion' in PpnaZ^fz/ ipz^erTzaz^ozzaZ u?Z(Z Comparative t/vrisprz/devce (ed. G. Dorsey) , Oceana Publications, New York, 1977, pp.431-42. The apposite term 'emotional presentation' is adapted from Meinong; see especially Ov FmotiozzaZ Presentation (trans. M.L. Schubert-Kalsi), Northwestern University Press, 1972. The notion of emotional present­ ation can play an important role in the explanation of how emotions enter into (environmental) evaluations, the objects evaluated (canyons, mountains, giant trees) often being emotionally presented. A little more precisely, the connections are these: A value ranking (e.g. c is better, more valuable, than d) of a valuer is explained emotionally through - it does not reduce to - certain preference rankings of the valuer; and the preference rankings have in turn dual factual and emotional bases, in the same sort of way that an item may be preferred or chosen in virtue of its factual features and the valuer's emotional responses to those. The main details of such a semantical analysis of value, which is discussed in §5, are given in Routley (c). 32 �environmental concern; for example, about animals, their various behaviour, abilities, etc; about the alleged gulf between humans and other animals and the uniqueness of humans and each human; about the profitability, or desirability, or necessity, of environmentally destruct­ ive enterprises; about the inevitability of current Western social arrangements and about the history of the way these particular arrange­ ments developed. There is, moreover, the matter of sheer information, for example as to how free animals live together and what they do; about how factory and experimental animals are treated, and in the latter case for what: about the sources and effects of various forms of pollution and the reasons for it; about how natural creatures such as whales or environments such as forests are commonly dealt with, for what products, by what interests, for what ends. Naturally (given a fact/value division) none of this information is entirely conclusive support for a change in ethic; for many of the evaluations the data helps support can be included in other ethics (including sometimes modifications of prevailing ethics), while remaining evaluations can, at worst, be simply rejected (as e.g., those utilitarians who extend consideration just to sentient creatures are obliged to reject versions of the last man argument where no sentient creatures are affected). Althouth a new ethic is needed, for the reasons indicated, and although such an ethic can,furthermore, be a considerable asset in practical environmental argument (e.g., as to the point of trying to 33 retain a piece of not-especially-unique near-wilderness), for many practical ecological purposes, there is no need to apply it or to fall back on it. For example, virtually the whole environmental issue of destructive forestry in Australia can be argued without invoking any unconventional ethical principles or values at all, i.e. entirely within the prevailing chauvinistic framework. environmental disputes. The same sort of point applies to But, it by no means applies to all. A corollary is an inadequacy in the presentation of environmental problems and suggested solutions in standard (human) ecology texts (such as P. and JssMss A. Erlich's Freeman, San Francisco, 1970, to select one example), which are set 34 e/zf-ZreZz/ within the chauvinistic framework. Also, differently, in the way that theories are in enabling one to see how to move and argue in a discussion. Quite properly given prevailing sentiments, according to some erring conservationists, who account themselves "realists". 33 �Since it is sometimes charged - despite all that has been said that an environmental ethic does not differ in practice from that of more conventional "chauvinistic" ethics, there is point in spelling out in Firstly, many conventional yet other ways how it can differ in practice: positions, in particular social contract and sympathy theories, cannot take proper account of moral obligation to future humans (who are not in the immediate future). Since the usual attempt to argue, in terms of value and benefit to humans, that natural areas ecosystems generally should not be destroyed or degraded depends critically on introducing possible future humans who will suffer or be worse off as a result of its destruction or degradation, it is plain that an environ­ and mental ethic will differ radically from such conventional positions. That is, the usual argument depends on the reduction of value of a natural item to the interests of present and /nfure humans, in which reduction future humans must play a critical role if conclusions not blatantly opposed to conservation are to be reached. Hence there will usually be a very great gulf between the practical value judgements of conservation ethics and those of conventional positions which discount the (non- immediate) future. Secondly, as we have already seen through examples, there are practical differences between an environmental ethic and conventional instrumental views which do take account of the interests of past, present and future humans, differences which emerge sharply at the It is, however, unnecessary to hypothetical (possible world) level. turn to possible world examples to see that normally there would be very great differences in the practical valuations and behaviour of those who believe that natural items can have value and create obligations not reducible (in any way) to human interests and those who do not, as the following further examples show. Example 1. We need only consider the operation of zJorZd, for example, the concept of damapo to a natural item, and the associated notion of coTnpeMsafdoM for that damage. C. Stone, for instance, in STzo^Zd Troes ^fuTid^Mp? Thus Towards LepaZ. /"or ZVufMraZ- Objocfs (Avon Books, New York, 1975) notes the practical legal differences between taking the damage to a polluted river as affecting its intrinsic value, and taking it as just affecting human river users. In the one case one will see adequate compensation as restoring the original state of the river (rectifying the wrong to the river) and in the other as compensating those present (or future) humans who will suffer from its pollution. As Stone points out, the sum 34 �adequate to compensate the latter may well be much less than that required to restore the river to its unpolluted state, thus making it economic, and in terms of the human chauvinist theory, fair and reason­ able, to compensate those damaged and continue pollution of the river. In the first case, of course, adequate compensation or restoration for the harm done would have to consist in restoring the river to its unpolluted condition and will not just be paid to the people affected. Compare here Stone's example of compensation for injury to a Greek slave; in the instrumentalist case this will involve compensating the slave's owner for the loss of his slave's working time; in the other, where the slave is regarded as not merely an instrument for his owner, it will compensate the sZuue not the for this compensation will also take account of the pain and suffering of the slave, even where this has not affected his working ability. There is a difference not only in the amount of compensation, but to zj/zow it is directed. In the case of a natural item damage may be compensated by payment to a trust set up to protect and restore it. Example 2. The believer in intrinsic values may avoid making unnecessary and excessive noise in the forest, out of respect for the forest and its nonhuman inhabitants. She will do this even when it is certain that there is no other human around to know the difference. For one to whom the forest and its inhabitants are merely another conventional utility, however, there will be no such constraint. He may avoid unnecessary noise if he thinks it will disturb other humans, but if he is certain none are about to hear him he will feel at liberty to make as much and as loud a noise as he chooses, and this will affect his behaviour. Examples like this cannot be dealt with by the introduction of future humans, since they will be unable to hear the noise in question. To claim that the making of noise in such circumstances is a matter of no importance, and therefore there is no important difference in behaviour, is of course to assess the matter through human chauvinist eyes. question-begging. From the intrinsic viewpoint it So such a claim is make a difference, and be reflected in practical behavioural difference. Example 3. Consider an aboriginal tribe which holds a particular place to be sacred, and where this sanctity and intrinsic valuableness and beauty is celebrated by a number of beautiful cave paintings. A typically "progressive" instrumentalist Western view would hold the cave (and perhaps place) to be worth preservation because of its value to the aboriginal people, and because of the artistic merit of the human arti­ facts, the cave paintings the cave contained. 35 To the "enlightened" �Westerner, if the tribe should cease to exist, and the paintings be i destroyed, it would be permissible to destroy the place if this should be in what is judged to be the best interests of human kind, e.g. to get at the uranium underneath. To the aboriginal the human artifacts, the cave paintings would be irrelevant, a celebration of the value of the place, but certainly not a surrogate for it, and the obligation to the place would not die because the tribe disappeared or declined. Similarly no ordinary sum of money would be able to compensate for the loss of such a place, in the way that it might for something conceived of as a utility or convenience, as having value only because of the benefits it confers on the "users" of it. There is an enormous or difference between feeling that a place should be valued or respected for itself, for its perceived beauty and character., and.feeling that it should not be defaced because it is valued by one's fellow humans, and provides pleasurable sensations or money or convenience for them. Compare too the differences between feeling that a yellow robin, say, is a fellow creature in many ways akin to oneself, and feeling that it is a nice little yellow and grey, basically clockwork, aesthetic object. These differences in emotional presentation are accompanied by or expressed by an enormous range of behavioural differences, of which the examples given represent only a very small sample. The sort of behaviour by each viewpoint and thought by it, the concept of what one is free to do, for example, will normally be very different. It is certainly no coincidence that cultures holding to the intrinsic view have normally been far less destructive of nature than the dominant Western human chauvinist culture. In summary, the claim that there is no difference, that the intrinsic value viewpoint is empty verbalisation, does not stand up to examination. The capacity - no doubt exaggerated, but nonetheless far from negligible - of Western industrial societies to solve their ecological problems (at least to their own pathetically low standards) within a chauvinistic framework, does considerably complicate, and obstruct, an alternative more practical argument to the need for a new ethic, /row that in no other way ... [than] prepared[ness] to accept a "new ethic", as distinct even from adding one or two new moral principles to an accepted common ... can modern industrial 35 societies solve their ecological problems. On next page. 36 �Not only does the argument encounter various objections - most obviously that many of the problems can be solved, if not within Western ethics, in immediate extensions of them - but the case suggested would hardly be a satisfactory basis for the type of ethic sought. It is not so much that it would be a chauvinistic way of arriving at a supposedly nonchauvinistic ethic, for bad procedures can lead to good results; rather it is that important ecological problems, shaping environmental ethics, such as preservation of substantial tracts of wilderness and just treatment of animals, tend to be written off in industrial societies as not serious problems. But even if the argument suggested has too narrow a problem base, and so may yield too limited a change in attitudes as compared with the main theoretical argument, the argument merits fuller formulation and further investigation. The argument to need for ethical revision is as follows: (1) A satisfactory solution to environmental problems (of modern industrial societies) implies (the adoption of) an alternative environmental ethic. (2) A satisfactory solution to environmental problems is needed. Therefore, an alternative environmental ethic is needed.36 The argument is valid, given, what seems correct, that pimplies q implies that p is needed implies that q is needed. The second premiss is or can be made analytic, on the sense of 'satisfactory' 'satisfactory' imply 'needed'); (e.g. by having so the case is complete if the first premiss can be established (in the same sense of 'satisfactory'), and the conclusion is then plausible to at least the extent the premiss is. Al37 though the first premiss, or something like it, is widely endorsed, cogent 35 Passmore (c) op. cit., p.438. According to Passmore (p.431), By common consent, there are four major ecological problems: pollution, the exhaustion of resources, the destruction of species, and overpopulation ... To solve such problems involves finding a way either of altering types of human conduct or of preventing that human conduct from having its present consequences. In what follows the assumption that 'there are four major ecological problems' gets rejected. 36 This implies only, that a new ethic is necessary for solving environmental problems, and not of course that it is 37 Even Passmore, though previously (e.g. in (a)) highly critical of proposals for new ethics, gives qualified endorsement to an assumption of this sort ((c), p.441). ... I do not doubt, all the same, that our attitudes to nature stand badly in need of revision and that, as they stand, they form a major obstacle to the solution of ecological problems. 37 �# arguments for it are few and it is no simple matter rendering the premiss plausible. Moreover rendering it plausible involves a substant­ ial detour through social theory; for the case for the premiss proceeds along these sorts of lines: (3) Unless there are (certain) major changes in socio-economic structure, environmental problems will not be satisfactorily solved. (4) The major changes in socio-economic structure involve ethic. an alternative A much stronger thesis than (3) has been argued for using systems analysis, namely that without very extensive socio-economic changes, modern industrial society will collapse; but several of the assumptions made in the analysis are doubtful or disputed. independently of that stronger thesis; But (3) has been argued for example, it will follow from the thesis (of Falk, Commoner and others) 'that the modern industrial ethic as we have known it is not sustainable on ecological grounds'.^ In a sense, (3) is obvious; for it is present socio-economic arrangements that have produced many of the present serious environmental problems; without major changes in those arrangements most of the problems will What is not immediately evident is persist or, more likely, intensify. that the major changes called for, in satisfying (3), suffice for (4). However reflection on the specific types of changes required - for example at a superficial level, human population limitation, reduction of poll­ ution, more sensible resource usage, selective economic growth - reveals that significant changes in value, and also in what is considered permissible, are bound to be involved in the changes. plausible, and therewith the intended conclusion. So (4) is decidedly But the argument leaves the detailed character of the needed alternative ethic rather obscure; and it may well be that the ethic so yielded is somewhat chauvinistic in character. The more practical argument cannot entirely supplant the main theoretical argument. In sum, there are good and pressing reasons to investigate the alternatives to chauvinistic ethics, especially human chauvinism, because such chauvinistic ethics are discriminatory, because the case for them 38 39 See, in particular, D. Meadows and others, Potomac Associates, Washington, D.C., 1972. PtwZts to CrozjtT?, R.A. Falk, 'Anarchism and world order', Pornos IX, 1978, p.66. Falk refers for the case to B.Commoner, TPs CZosZ^p CZroZo, Knopf, New York, 1971; R.A. Falk, T/zZs PZo^ot, Random House, New York. 1971; E. Goldsmith and others EZMoprZut /or F^rvZ^aZ, Houghton and Miflin, Boston, 1972, and Meadows et aZ., op. cit. 38 O �does not stand up to examination, and because they have been involved in the destruction of much of value and now threaten the viability of much that is valuable. § 4 . ENVIRONMENTAL ALTERNATIVES : NARROWING THE CHOICE AMONG ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS . The basic - and basically mistaken - doctrine of the Western super-ethic is, as we have seen, that people, humans of whatever shape or form, are the fundamental carriers or objects of value and that all other items are valuable only in an instrumental or derivative way. It is important, in­ deed mandatory in a genuine environmental ethic, to reject this view and allow natural items to have a value in their own right, ^yz i/ze sazzze /as/z^oM as peopZ-e, both for the reasons outlined above, of the theoret­ ical unsatisfactoriness and arbitrariness of the traditional view, and for more practical reasons, namely, to help ensure the ecological sustain­ ability of modern society, and in optimising human welfare. It has often been pointed out that 'a totally humanised world would diminish us as 40 human beings', that the traditional view of humans, or classes of humans, as dominant, and of natural items as without value except where they serve human or class interests - a view that often carries contempt for nature leads not only to the destruction of much that is of value but (paradoxic­ ally) to counterproductive results even with respect to human welfare. Thus McHarg (in attractively coloured rhetoric) Show me a man-oriented society in which it is believed that reality exists only because man can perceive it, that the cosmos is a struct­ ure erected to support man on its pinnacle, that man exclusively is divine and given dominion over all things, indeed that God is made in the image of man, and I will predict the nature of its cities and their landscape. I need not look far for we have seen them-the hot­ dog stands, the neon shill, the ticky-tacky houses, dysgenic city and mined landscapes. centric man; This is the image of the anthropomorphic, anthropo­ he seeks not unity with nature but conquest (op. cit.). The rejection of this view and its replacement by a view in which natural items can be regarded as of value and as worthy of our respect for themselves and not merely for what we can get out of them or what use we 40 see e.g. the discussion at pp.116-17 of (a) J. Rodman, 'The Liberation of nature', Irz^z^rz/, 20 (1977) 83-145. All subsequent references to Rodman's work without further indication are to this article. Note well that the rejection of human chauvinism does Moi imply that no chauvinistic arguments - or rafTzsr, arguments that are usually stated in chauvinistic form - carry weight. On the contrary, some chauvinistic arguments (e.g. those supporting wilderness retention and species preservation) carry considerable weight; and, since the prevailing industrial ethics remain chauvinistic, environmentalists would be rash not to use them. 39 �& can make of them, is becoming increasingly widespread in parts of the environmental movement. It is this primarily that makes for an important ideological split in the conservation movement, between what Naess (op. cit.) called sTzaZZozj and Fesp ecology, between those who see conservation as just a matter of wiser, better-controlled exploitation of the environment — something which is compatible with denying value to everything except man and those who see it at least in part as involving a recognition of value for natural items independent of man, and hence as involving (at least to some extent) a The gzEpZo^a^opz view, which is first view, the long-term or closely tied to prevailing more enlightened economic assumptions, tends to make heavy use of the watershed term 'resource'; the problem of conserv­ ation is seen as one of 'zjFss Mse oy resoMrcss', a resource being something of use to humans or persons. On this view, which does not get beyond the confines of human chauvinism, and so is no direction for.a satisfactory environmental ethic to take, items which have no perceivable use to man, i.e. non-resources, can be destroyed without loss; and the environmental problem is viewed as largely one of making people aware of the extent to which natural items and processes have Fustrz^gnPaZ- value, i.e. of how far we are dependent on them and they are of to us. There is no recognition either that some items might be valuable precisely they are independent of man. Resource Conservation, or the shallow position, is the first of the 42 four ideal types that Rodman discerns in his investigation of the contemporary environmental movement. The deeper ecological position gets split under Rodman's division into three ideological positions - though Rodman prefers to put the matter in symbolic or experiential terms, in terms of forms of consciousness - namely Wilderness Preservation, Nature Moralism, and Ecological Resistance. Though the positions discerned are neither characterised in an exclusive fashion, nor exhaustive of ecological positions, and though we shall have to look beyond all the positions for a satisfactory environmental ethic, nonetheless they afford an excellent perspective on the main types of alternative positions that have been adopted by those within environmental movements. It is not uncommon to encounter attempts to write the shallow position into the very meaning or definition of e.g. 'conservation is the use of resources to the greatest advantage of man', 4 Furvez/ py Fcrgsz^rz/ T^FMSz^r^es. ParP FT. Foresfrz/ Pe^gZ.opz7?e?2^ PZ-arz. Draft (31 October, 1974), p.ll - a blatantly chauvinistic account. On next page. 40 �According to (Wilderness) Preservation, which focusses on wilderness, wilderness is to be preserved for the wilderness experience, wilderness offers a natural cathedral, a sacred place where human beings can transcend the limitations of everyday experience and become renewed through contact with the power of creation ((b), p.49). The values discerned in wilderness and natural landscape are primarily aesthetic and quasi-religious, or mystical, 'the experience of the holy is esthetically mediated'; what is valuable remains human experiences. Thus the Wilderness Preservation position does not move outside the sphere of human chauvinism, and can no more than Resource Conservation offer a frame for an environmental ethic. Rodman reaches a similar conclusion: Resource Conservation and Wilderness Preservation appear variations on the theme of wise use, the former oriented to the [efficient] production of commodities for human consumption, the latter to providing human amenities ((b), p.50). For this reason, the Wilderness Preservation position fails even on the score of justifying the preservation of wilderness - on the very task it was designed to accomplish - in a range of circumstances. Like other See especially (b) J. Rodman, 'Theory and practice in the environmental movement: notes towards an ecology of experience', in Search for VuZzzes a International Cultural Foundation, New York, 1978, pp.45-56. Some of the types are portrayed in greater detail in other Rodman papers. The remainder of this largely new section on environmental ethical alternatives is heavily indebted, in ways the references mostly make plain, to Rodman's work. His work covers a vast range of interlinked topics; only those of immediate relevance have been touched upon. But there is very much in the remainder that repays careful reading, and zzzMc/z to think about and to question or reject, reaching perhaps its lowest point in the paradoxical themes: Just as our statements about other people tend also to be concealed statements about ourselves, so statements about non­ human nature tend to be concealed statements about the human condition, and movements to liberate nonhuman nature tend also to be movements to liberate the repressed potentials of human nature (p.105). In part because these themes and the related myth of microcosm are taken seriously, and not for the evident falsehoods they are, in part because the ethical adequacy of the human/nonhuman distinction is never seriously questioned (e.g. it is taken for granted, what is not the case, that rights apply to humans and are problematic beyond them), and in part because of the characteristically chauvinistic emphasis on human experience and the endeavour to bring everything within that experiential purvue, and the associated weight assigned to human symbolic, mythic and ritual activities, one is left with the feeling, at the end of all the investigations one can profitably follow Rodman through, that one has not got beyond the confines of human chauvinism. 41 �instrumentalist accounts of wilderness value, it breaks down entirely with examples like the Last Man, assuming that Mr. Last Man is never turned on by natural spendour. More alarmingly, under readily conceivable developments, it would allow the elimination of wilderness entirely. For consider the Wilderness Experience Machine, a low-impact low-tech philosophical machine, recently patented by I.M. Diabolic, which can duplicate entirely, even for groups of people, wilderness experiences, but in a downtown room. As far as the psychological experience goes, this machine can provide a complete substitute for any actual wilderness, and were the value of wilderness to reside in the experience it afforded, could entirely replace it and eliminate the alleged need for it. Most environmentalists would be (rightly) dissatisfied with, not to say appalled by, the idea that Wilderness Experience Machines could sub­ stitute for wildernesses, since they provided the same experiences. what else they wanted, the answer would of course be: Asked Wildernesses, not merely wilderness experiences. Wildernesses are valuable in their own right, over and above the experiences they can afford.43 Really, that is, they consider wildernesses intrinsically valuable, but have been pushed by the prevailing ethical ethos into stating, and misrepresenting, their position in experiential terms. There is some independent evidence that the Wilderness Preservation position is frequently a disguised intrinsic value position, in the attitude taken to examples like the Last Man case, that purely hypothetical experiencers (who may vanish into counterfactuals) are good enough, and that in some real-life cases it is enough that wilderness is there to be contemplated, whether or not anyone actually takes advantage of its presence to gain experiences, or indeed whether or not it is in fact contemplated. Such examples remove the disguise and reveal the position as at bottom an intrinsic value position. In that event it is however better to avoid the disguise; for the case for wilder­ ness preservation which starts from the position that some wilderness tracts have intrinsic as well as merely instrumental value is substantially stronger than any position which assigns them merely instrumental value. Wilderness lovers and nature conservationists have in fact worked out - or concocted - a set of arguments to show why wildernesses and nature conservation are of benefit to humans, to argue for their instrumental — The concept of zjfZ-demess too can vary with the operative ideology, e.g. on certain views, such as Wilderness Preservation, wilderness comprises areas that are (or provide the opportunity for use), e.g. used for experiential enrichment. By contrast, on a genuine Environ­ mental Resistance view, wilderness is a wild area, use of which is not implied: it may never be used, and it may not matter that it affords no opportunity for (human) use. (Under popular high redefinition of 'wilderness', there are of course no wildernesses remaining on the earth, and wilderness vanishes as soon as humanly experienced.) 42 �value. For example, there are various arguments from the scientific value, or usefulness, of wilderness, e.g. for the study of natural eco­ systems, for the investigation of plant history and evolution, as a repository of genetic diversity, etc. These arguments, which (like parallel arguments for species preservation) are not to be especially as regards persuasive force, can be put in nonchauvinistic form; for science and knowledge are not linked essentially with, for example, the feature of being human. Often however - e.g. where the wilderness defended has, so far as it is known, little that is very special to offer - such arguments appear to be merely a conventional front for the real (or deeper) reasons - and in sofne instances, correspondingly weak and unpersuasive (as Fraser Darling has remarked, and Passmore has tried to show in (a)) - the real reasons being based on the perception of nonuseful properties of value. This is particularly marked in the case of arguments for preserving the most complex and beautiful of the world's plant communities, tropical rainforest. Such arguments as that various uninvestigated rainforest trees may at some time be found to contain useful drugs, by no means exhaust the true value of the rainforest. For it is in the intrinsic, i.e. noninstrumental, value of the rainforest that the main reason for not unduly interfering with it, e.g. not interfering in ways that threaten its stability or viability, lies. In particular, destruction of a wilderness, such as a rainforest, would significantly diminish intrinsic value, and so should (in general) be resisted. Environmentalists who are aware of these sorts of problems and dangers with resource use approaches to wilderness preservation sometimes attempt to formulate their alternative view in terms of one of the lesser traditions, most popularly in terms of the image, in which man is seen as the steward of the earth - an analogy which, as Passmore points out (in (a)), is problematic outside a religious context. For who is man steward to? If not to God, then how is the analogy to be unpacked, and what conditions must "stewardship" conform to? If "good stewardship" is management in the interests of humans, or humanity, then the position does not go beyond Resource Conservation; if it is manage44 ment to serve intrinsic values, or God, then good stewardship is but a cover for the recognition of intrinsic values, which are better introduced directly. Thus admitting values which are not instrumental, which do not answer back in some way to states or conditions of humans is a feature of all satisfactory deeper ecological alternatives. In order to allow for such intrinsic values and/or associated attitudes of respect, e.g. for 44 on some interpretations; chauvinism. on others theism may serve to reinforce human 43 �nature and various natural things, it is however unnecessary to adopt a religious backdrop such as the "Good Stewardship" image suggests, or even a semi-religious framework such as a mystical or superstitious one with taboos and sacred places as symbolic and ritual elements. A theory of intrinsic value which assigns intrinsic value to wilderness and species of free animals, for good reasons, can be entirely naturalistic (in a main sense of that much-abused term). The third, somewhat amorphous, cluster of positions Rodman describes, Nature Moralisms, do just that, assign intrinsic, noninstrumental, value to natural items, such as - on some versions of the position wilderness. [An] alternative perspective ... [to] the theme of wise use 45 ... is provided by the tradition growing out of the humane movement, recently radicalised by animal liberationists, and sometimes generalised to embrace non-animal beings as well. to the economic ethos of Resource In contrast Conservation and the religious/ esthetic character of Wilderness Preservation, this perspective is strikingly moral in style. Its notion of human virtue is not prudence or reverence, but justice. In contrast to the caste­ bound universe of the Resource Conservationist, the Natural Moralist affirms the democratic principle that all natural entities (or, more narrowly, all forms of life) have intrinsic value, and that wild animals, plants, rivers, and whole ecosystems have a right to exist, flourish and reproduce - or at least that human beings have no right to exploit or unnecessarily harm or destroy other members of the biotic community. In contrast to the aristo­ cratic universe of Wilderness Preservation, where some places (and some forms of recreation) are holier than others and certain types of natural entities ... are traditionally more worthy of being saved than others ..., the world of the Nature Moralist is characterised by an apparent egalitarianism ((b), p.50, my rearrangement). Each of the sweep of environmental alternatives indicated can be seen as an of conventional Western ethics: intrinsic value is extended uniformly to all animals or certain favoured features of all these, e.g. their experience, happiness, avoidance of suffering, or is extended to all living creatures or systems, or is extended to all natural items or even to objects - it may or may 45 be distributed uniformly or equally; Human use and human experience, it might be added. 44 �rather independently, rights may be ceded to all animals, or to some or all living things, or to all things, or, alternatively and differently, right-holders' rights with respect to some or other of these classes are restricted; and similarly other deontic notions, justice, obligation, even perhaps duty, may extend to apply to larger classes of items than all humans or persons. The sweep, which is impressive, is intended to include both extended utilitarianisms, e.g. Bentham's utilitarianism as revamped by Singer according to which all sentient creatures are entitled to equal consider­ ation of interest, and extended (legal) rights doctrines, e.g. the assignment of rights or legal standing to all natural objects as suggested by, for instance, Stone. 46 It also includes Darwin's ethic and Leopold s 47 "land ethic". In order to capture some of the intended examples of Nature Moralists, and all the Moral Extension positions, Rodman's characterisation requires some adjustment - which will be taken for granted in what follows. For example, Singer and other animal liberation- ists do not assign intrinsic value to all forms of life, or even to all animals; but (as Rodman is well aware) to all sentient creatures; that is, further classifications have to be taken into account. The egalitarian, or uniformity, assumptions that serve in character­ ising Natural Moralism are mistaken. Not all objects are of equal value; some are more valuable then others, while some have little or no value (and some have a negative value).4^ Impressive though the sweep of extensions is, all the positions indicated should be rejected on one ground or another, and sometimes on several grounds. Against positions which do not extend the class of objects of moral concern and candidates for value to include all objects, variants of the counterexamples to the Western super-ethic can be directed. Consider, for instance, the positions (of usual animal liber- ationists) which extend the moral boundaries just to include sentient creatures (or e.g. preference-havers). Adapt the Last Man and Last People examples, the Wilderness example, etc., by removing all (inessential) animals from the examples, e.g. the wilderness contains no animals, in the Last People situation there are no other animals than the 46 p. Singer, .4 ZVozJ Random House, New York, 1975; for (7%r C. Stone, op. cit. <?y 47 At least on a straightforward reading of Leopold's eventual position, but not according to Rodman; see his contrast of Leopold with Stone,, p.110. Darwin's ethic, which anticipates Leopold's, is presented m C. Darwin, of Muzz, Second edition, J. Murray, London, 1883. 4 8 On next page. 45 �1* Then the counterexamples apply as before last people themselves. against the liberation positions. It is unnecessary to go quite so far afield to fault such positions, at least in practice: as Rodman might put it, they are countered by the facts of experience: ... I need only to stand in the midst of a clear-cut forest, a strip-mined hillside, a defoliated jungle, or a dammed canyon to feel uneasy with assumptions that could yield the conclusion that no human action can make any difference to the welfare of anything but sentient animals (p.89). But an advantage of the counterexamples is that the same examples, among many others (e.g. situations devoid of sentient creatures, situations where the message of experience conflicts with justice or fairness), reveals the erroneousness of the well-sponsored thesis, a simple analogue of empiricism, that all value or sentient, objects). derives from experience (of experiential, A corollary is that value is not to be assessed either, in any simple way, in terms of the facts of experience. Insofar as Nature Moralism relies upon simple extensions of utilitarianisms, or of subjectivisms, to include a larger class of subjects, (a larger base class), such as all present sentient creatures, or all preference-havers at any one time, etc., it is open not merely to adaptations of the argument against chauvinism (animal chauvinism is not that much more satisfactory than human chauvinism), but most of the Nor, on Moral Extensions, need all objects that have rights have equal rights. Rights may not be very democratically distributed. Some things have rights, e.g. as a result of agreements, of a sort others do not hold or are not capable of holding. Even rights to exist, to flourish and to reproduce (each case is different) are in much doubt where there is scarcity or conflict and where some right holders are taken to be worth much more than others. Nor are such leading examplars of Natural Moralism as Singer and Stone, though they are concerned to extend principles of justice, committed to equality of rights assumptions. Stone explicitly rejects equal distribution of rights; but the principle that all natural objects are equal in having rights, which really says no more than that they all have rights, is at best a very weak egalitarian principle. Singer offers (and presumably would offer) no equality of rights principle, rejects an equality of treatment principle, and proposes as a principle of equality a (near vacuous) principle of equal consideration of interests. Not, this time, knowledge. But amusingly "value empiricism" collapses into empiricism proper given the Socratic identification: Value (generalising Virtue) is knowledge. The only natural stopping point under value empiricism is, of course, with all creatures that have (or could have) the relevant experiences: again not with humans. 46 �standard objections to utilitarians, subjectivisms, etc. Many versions of Nature Moralism may than be defeated on rather conventional grounds. There emerges, further, a dilemma for extensions. Either the crucial notions of right and intrinsic value are extended to all sentient creatures (experience-havers), in which case the objections just lodged apply, or they are extended more sweepingly, e.g. to all natural objects. But the latter involves attributing to such items attributes they do not have, most obviously rights to such objects as stones; it also violates the conditions that have to be met for the holding of rights and for the entitlement of rights. Thus, for example, Stone considers underpinning his extension of rights, beyond sentient creatures in the ordinary sense - or of legal rights beyond recognised "legal persons" - by a postulate of 50 universal sentience or consciousness; in short, by an unacceptable metaphysics, or myth. There are several further objections which work against many versions of Natural Moralism to which Rodman draws attention: (1) Moral Extensions are 'inadequate to articulate the intention that sustains the [environmental] movement' wilderness preservation movements. (p.88), specifically wilderness and It takes but little argument to show that utilitarian ethics, such as Singer's, so far from assisting the environmental movement, can (if adopted) reinforce the case wilderness and preservation of wild species. But an extension like Stone's extension of legal rights can help, and has helped, at least in the courts where its meta-physical underpining is unlikely to be glimpsed. The basic point is however that the rights talk does not connect with, and is insensitive to, the experiential basis. Mere extensions of moral notions such as interest or right or justice are insufficient to treat and do just­ ice to the multi-dimensional depth of environmental issues, such as the damming of a river (p.115). Part of the reason is said to be that the usual moral aparatus, which was evolved in the case of certain person-to-person 50 See Rodman's discussion, pp.92-3. But Rodman overstates his case m claiming that 'some such postulate as universal consciousness is there­ fore necessary if the notion of rights for trees is not to seem a rootless fancy'. For , as explained below, extended rights can be defined by a rather "natural extension" of the familiar notion of right, without any such postulate; and grounds of entitlement can be traced back to value of the items. Certainly extended rights sever what linkage there may have been between rights and liabilities, but with the modern separations of rights from responsibilities that linkage was already damaged or broken. 47 �* relations, is inadequate for getting to grips with a new dimension of moral experience, that concerned with environment, and inadequate to reflect ecological sensibility. Rodman tries to press, however, a much stronger, and rather more dubious, theme, the By adapting the moral/legal theory of 'rights', [the movement] may sell its soul, its roots in mythic and ritual experience, to get easier judicial standing (p.88); and more savagely, the progressive extension model of ethics, while holding out the promise of transcending the homocentric perspective of modern culture, subtly fulfills and legitimates the basic project of modernity - the total conquest of nature by man (p.97, also 'p.119)7* " While neither of these large claims is strictly true - soul-selling is simply avoided through adoption of the notion of extended-right, which can yield a conservative extension of the original position; and even utilitarians may be committed to blocking projects which threaten free animals - each has a substantial point. Part of the point behind the latter claim is worth developing separately:- (2) Moral Extensions typically cast natural objects, notably animals, in the role of inferior humans, 'legal incompetents', imbeciles, human vegetables, and the like. They are ... degraded by our failure to respect them for having their own existence, their own character and potentialities, their own forms of excellence, their own integrity, a degradation usually reflected in our reduction of 'them to the status of instruments for our own ends', and not removed 'by "giving" them rights, by assigning them to the status of inferior human beings' (p.94). Many of us know where the treatment of natural objects as mere means for human ends tends to lead and has led. The mistaken treatment of them as inferior humans, a treatment which fails to see and 'respect the otherness of nonhuman forms of life', leads in the same direction. For given that animals, for example, are inferior, it is legitimate to treat them also as inferior; a greater value principle, which moral extensions typically endorse, yields a similar result. The needs of increasing populations of superior humans will eventually outweigh, if they do not do so already, the cases of inferior inhabitants of this finite earth for the retention of their natural habitats. 48 For their rights and their �In the larger perspective, the Moral values will be less than "ours". Extensions, with their built-in greater value assumptions, do legitimate the conquest of nature by humans. Thus too they fail seriously, on what will soon enough be quite practical grounds, as satisfactory environmental ethics. (3) The extensions, like the parent ethics which they extend, are narrowly individualistic, and insufficiently holistic. This is particularly conspicuous in the case of utilitarianisms, which in principle arrive at all assessments by some sort of calculations, e.g. summations and perhaps averaging, from an initially given unit conforming to requisite equality conditions, e.g. equal consideration, equal units of suffering. In practice of course the method is, almost invariably, to pretend that the calculations will yield results which agree with alternatively and previously arrived at, usually intuitive, often prejudiced, evaluations; that is, in practice the method is not applied except in a handwaving back-up fashion. The method is not applied in part because there are serious, well enough known, problems in applying it. The individualistic bias carried over in other moral extensions, e.g. any experiential theory, likewise limits their satisfactoriness. It is to understate the matter to say merely that 'the moral atomism that focuses on individual animals and their subjective experiences does not seem well adapted to coping with ecological systems' (p.89), 'to explore the notion of shared habitat and the notion that an organism's relationship to its natural environment may be an important part of the organism's character' ((b), p.52). A moral atomism that focuses on individuals, discounting their interrelations, is bound to result in ecological complexes that matter (such as ecosystems, wilderness, and species) getting seriously short-changed. To illustrate:- Under atomism, the value of a complex, or the rights of a complex, amount to no more than those of its individual members; but since these are, in isolation from the complex, no more valuable than other things of their order, e.g. one gentian than another, a bush rat from a Norwegian rat, there no special merit in a complex, or rights attaching to it, in virtue of its rareity or uniqueness or special features as a complex. Thus, for instance, a utilitarianism under which only individual animals count assigns, and can assign, no special value to species, and can (as remarked) be used to argue against preservation of species: Since all animals are equal - or at least all animals of the same genus are more or less equal - one can substitute for another. For a rare species of rat to die out painlessly cannot matter while there are plenty of other rats. A rights theory is in similar difficulties so long 49 �w as rights are assigned only to individuals, taken in isolation from their environmental setting (i.e. only to the usual separable individuals of philosophical theory). These problems may be avoided, in part, by assign­ ing rights to complexes (given the notion of rights will take that much further stretching; which it will not if right holders are assumed to be conscious or to be preference-havers), and by attributing independent value to complexes. But, since the value of a whole is sometimes more than the sum of the separable values of its individual members, this move involves the rejection of usual atomism, utilitarianisms in particular. The objection against the narrow individualism of the extensions - a defect they share with standard ethics which do not admit of ready extension, such as contract theories - soon broadens into an objection that these extensions are built on an inadequate metaphysics, a metaphysics of rather isolated individuals who (or which) are seriously depauperate in An ethics presupposes a metaphysics at their relations with other objects. least through its choice of base class: thus for example, usual homocen- tric formulations of utilitarianisms and contract theories suppose a base class of narrowly self-interested humans. The remedy is not (as Rodman suggests in various places in his elaboration of Ecological Resistance) to move to holism: to do so would be to accept the other half of a false dichotomy mainstream philosophical thought engenders (cf. Routley (g), this volume). It is rather to move to a metaphysics that is built on a concept­ ion of objects (which may or may not be individuals) which are rich in their interrelations and connections. In summary, the moral extensions are the wrong direction in which to seek a satisfactory environmental ethic. But the failure of Nature Moralism does not mean, as Rodman tends to assume, that all positions 51 that are moral in style are thereby ruled out. For one thing, Nature Moralism, as characterised (or generalised), is far from exhaustive of the range of prima facie viable moral positions. More satisfactory positions will simply avoid the damaging assumptions of Nature Moralism (and likewise those of inadequate ethical positions, such as contract theories or naturalism, and those linking morality to legality; For another, if the quest is for an ruled out. cf. p.103). moral notions can hardly be Even if it is assumed that the call for a 'new ethic' is 'to guide the human/nature relationship (p.95) - a somewhat unfortunate way of putting it - whereas what matters is the human/nature relationship itself, and that in coping with that relation fixation on morality or 51 His thesis of the 'limitation of the moral/legal stage of unconscious­ ness' is investigated in more detail in what follows. 50 �G. $ legality is a serious handicap, and may contribute to the problem of the relationship rather than helping solve it (pp.103-4); still part of the problem is that of indicating entitlements of agents with respect to their environment, what sort of exploitation, if any, is permissible, what the limits on conventional morality are, and discovering 'a larger normative order within which we and our species-specific moral and legal systems have a niche' (p.97). Nor, in outlining Ecological Resistance, does Rodman shrink from using - he could not avoid the effect of - axiological terms such as 'good' and deontic terms such as 'should'; he does not doubt, for example, that some of what is natural that is threatened is valuable and that threats to it should be resisted; and he admits that 'prudence, justice, and reverence may be essential parts of a[n ecologic­ ally] good life'. Ecological Resistance, which is said to be the alternative 'most faithful to the integrity of experience', exhibits indeed the negativity of resistance. The position is founded on action, resistance, and theory only emerges retrospectively (if perhaps at all). Its (insufficiently qualified) central principle is 'that diversity is natural, good and threatened by the forces of monoculture'. The struggle between these forces, diversity and monoculture - between (ecological) good and evil occurs in several different spheres of experience, i.e. at various levels, which reflect one another. Resistance is not undertaken for self-interest or utilitarian reasons, or for moral reasons, or for religious or mystical reasons (such as preventing profanation), but because the threat to the [natural object or system] ... is perceived aZso as a threat to the self, or rather to the principle of diversity and spontaneity that is the endangered side of the basic balance that defines and sustains the very nature of things ((b), p.54). The disjunction, 'or', separates however two rather different (though combin­ able) reasons-cum-motives for resistance. The second disjunct yields the following reasons for resistance (which are linked by a metaphysical assumption connecting diversity and spontaneity with the nature of things): (i) The threat to the natural item is a threat to the principle of diversity and spontaneity. So, by the central principle, it is a threat to what is good, etc. (ii) The threat to the natural object 'is a threat to the very nature of things': (as to how consider the example of the wild river threatened by a dam, p.115). So - by an unstated, but nonetheless implied and assumed, principle, that the very nature of things is good (and natural) it is a threat to the forces of good. 51 �W- The first disjunct yields a further, different, argument; in simplest form: (iii) The threat to the natural object is a threat to oneself. What is a threat to oneself is bad and to be resisted, so what is a threat to the natural object is bad and has to be resisted (since what is bad should, in general, be resisted). Although the arguments are valid, the underlying principles are faulty; for instance, the diversity (and spontaneity) principle because it is too simple (and so too does not harmonize with the nature of things) ; and the second principle, the intrinsic merit of the very nature of the things, because not everything that is the case or is natural is meritor ­ ious, e.g. genuinely natural disasters. Rodman plans to avoid obstacles to adopting nature as an absolute standard and, at the same time, to bridge the gap the principle spans, by resort to a version of naturalism which equates 'the "natural" with the "moral"' (pp.96-7). But for well- known reasons which can be supported (e.g. those telling against objective ethics of the sort such naturalism would yield), substantive evaluative assumptions cannot be removed in this fashion; though they can be suppressed, they reappear as soon as connections between empirical grounds and evaluative judgments based upon them are queried. The trouble, characteristic of reductionism, arises from the mistaken attempt to collapse a grounding, or founding, relation to an identity, to close the gap - which is not problematic but is widely thought to be problem­ atic - between value and empirical fact by a reduction of value to fact, of the thesis that evaluative features are grounded on natural features to the thesis that evaluative features are nothing but certain natural , 52 features (e.g. to be good is just to have certain natural features). 52 Rodman interprets naturalistically the statement of Jonas's that he quotes approvingly (p.95): Only an ethic which is grounded in the breadth of being, not merely in the singularity or oddness of man, can have significance in the scheme of things ... an ethics no longer founded on divine authority [or upon human arete], must be founded on a principle discoverable in the nature of things ... . He interprets it in terms of 'an ontologically-grounded moral order in the "the phenomenon of life" or "the nature of things".' In this way can be avoided the reduction of 'the quest for an ethics ... to prattle about "values" taken in abstraction from the "facts" of experience'. But Jonas's statement can be construed nonnaturalistically, by taking the founding or grounding relation seriously, as connecting, but not reducing, values to empirical facts. So construed the statement does help in delineating the sort of environmental ethics sought. 52 * �C Such reductions commit the naturalistic and prescriptive fallacies which can be avoided neither by thinking 'our way through or around them' (p.97), nor by holistic assimilation of morality in a 'more encompassing ethical life' (p.103 and note 66). But details of the fallacies need not detain us, since we can consider immediately Rodman's important suggestion 53 for circumnavigating them (pp.103-4). Under natural social conditions, such as are obtained in some traditional societies and in some free animal societies (as ethological studies reveal), but have been lost in modern societies, law and morality, at least in their coercive aspects, would disappear, as they did in William Morris's yrow TVozj/zgre, and somewhat as they would in a Kantian community of fully autonomous beings. In terms of modern physics, morality and law are not invariants but vary under transformation of axes, and in fact vanish or prove eliminable under a suitable transformations, e.g. to a natural condition. There is a similar natural condition for morality and legality, a condition in which the prohibitions now prescribed 54 Conscience and the State would have operated "naturally by God, (i.e. from inside the organism, as a matter of course) , and patterns now stated prescriptively could have been stated descriptively. When the Way is abandoned, then we get Humanity and Justice (T<2<9 T6 , #18) (p.103). Even if a change of social axes could place us back on the Way, or on the way to the Way, morality is not really avoidable in our local frame where we are far from the Way. So ethical disputes over environmental matters are also unavoidable;^ for those a satisfactory ethic is a desideratum, and can help in bringing about a change of social axes. Thus too, the identity of the prescriptive with the descriptive, of "ought" with (suitable) "is", is a merely contingent (extensional) one and fails in The suggestion helps explain not only Rodman's naturalism, but his thesis of the limitation of morality and legality; it also introduces the anarchistic social change view that suffuses much of the (very uneven) later parts of (a): the view appears therein as the elabor ation of what is 'unthinkable'. Given prevailing socio-economic conditions it should be rather: that would (ideally) be prescribed. Let us hope, for environmental reasons, that the principles that are lived by in natural conditions bear not too great a resemblance to those now prescribed. Nor is there, in the local frame, much alternative but to resort to legal strategies, where they can be applied (where standing is granted) to delay "the war against nature". 53 �V alternative situations; * hence, as always, there is no deduction of "ought" from "is", since deducibility would require coincidence in the alternative situations. Nor would morality — as distinct from legality, which requires some codification - strictly disappear under natural conditions, though its coercive aspects would: on the whole, as they ought to be. things would simply be, But while deontology would have a much diminished role (as it does on the preferred environmental ethic), axiology (the theory of value) would still have its place - some objects (e.g. diverse landscapes) would be more valuable than others (monocultural landscapes), some not valuable, etc. (As things stand, of course, axiology does have an important place in working out the theory of Ecological Resistance, especially in assessing its central principle of diversity.) The upshot is that without much elaboration (like that indicated below) of an axiological kind; which connects value through a grounding relation, as distinct from an identity, with the run of things (but not aZZ things) that are natural, reason (ii) for ecological resistance fails. Does reason (i), which is premissed on the central principle that diversity is good and natural and threatened by monoculture, fare any better? While it is a matter of fact that that diversity is threatened, indeed is being very rapidly reduced by the forces of monoculture, diver­ sity is not, as opponents of ecological values are wont to point out, an entirely unqualified good. Nor is diversity is always natural: a temperate rain forest can be "enriched" and rendered more diverse by interplanting of exotics (a practice foresters have applied, e.g. in New Zealand) but the result is not natural and sometimes at least bad. Or, differently, ecological diversity can often be increased by increasing edges between ecosystems, but the practice of increasing edges can easily be unnatural and far from good, as, e.g. in rainforest logging with (say) 50% canopy retention. So although a reduction of diversity is commonly bad, since the reduction reduces the quality of an ecological whole, and increase in diversity good, diversity can not be accepted as a solo principle. In fact, Rodman often couples diversity with other factors, such as naturalness (inadmissible in determining, noncircularly, what is good and natural), richness, spontaneity and integrity, which help to remove various of the counterexamples to a diversity principle. procedure points in the direction to be pursued: The replacement of the over- simple principle of diversity by a principle combining all relevant ecological factors. After all ecological sensibility - ecological resist­ ance is assumed to be the position of the person of ecological sensibility - requires sensitivity to all such ecological factors. 54 Once it is determined, �* through consideration of a mix of ecological factors, that, or whether, a natural object is good or valuable the reasons for resistance can be restated: (iv) Where a natural object is valuable - as natural objects are, a natural object does not have to be very ecologically distinctive to be valuable - the threat to the natural object is a threat to what is But, other things being equal, threats to what is valuable valuable. should be resisted. So, similarly, threats to natural objects should often be resisted - and always (on whatever level) resisted where the objects are valuable and the costs of resisting are not overridingly high (to begin to spell out the ceteris paribus clause). It remains to tie in reason (iii), a key premiss of which can now take the initial form that the threat to a valuable natural object is a threat to oneself. A threat to what is valuable, to what one as a valuer values, is athreat to the valuer, to oneself, for these are one's values. To make some of those connections good again requires an excursion into axiology, one, this time, that connects what is valuable with a valuer's values. But Rodman, in trying to connect the threats to natural objects and to oneself, is forced further microcosm: afield, and resorts to the myth of 'Ecological Resistance involves a ritual affirmation of the Myth of Microcosm' universe' (OED). ((b), p.5.4), i.e. the view of man 'as epitome of the While such an affirmation - without the ritual - would yield the requisite connection, it is a classic piece of anthropocentric- ism, quite hostile to a nonchauvinistic position, and, fortunately, inessential to genuine ecological resistance. What Rodman reaches for from the myth (which could be restated in terms of seZ/, without its classic homocentric bias) is however extremely important: account of the it is an which is not a separate subject isolated from its (natural) environment (as a Humean individual is), but is connected intensionally and causally interrelated with that environment. Rodman introduces this metaphysics in rather old-fashioned terms: Ecological Resistance ... assumes a version of the theory of internal relations: the human personality discovers its structure through interaction with the nonhuman order. I am what I am at least partly in my relation to my natural environment, and changes in that environ­ ment affect my own identity. If I stand idly by and let it be destroyed, a part of me is destroyed or seriously deranged ((b) p. 54). Not Man Apart, in the terms of Friends of the Earth. 55 �w For among my interests are its interests, part of my welfare is its welfare; I am identified in part with it.^ The metaphysics deepens, then, the reasons for resistance. A resister 'does not stand over against "his environment" as manager, sight-seer, or do-gooder; he is an integral part of [it]' ((b), p.56). But the environmental metaphysics, that underlies and helps support the ethics, that is part of a fuller environmental theory, need not be, and should not be if it is to be coherent, as (Hegelian and) holistic as Rodman immediately goes on to suppose that it is: __ By making the principle of diversity central, Ecological Resistance can incorporate the other three perspectives as moments within the dialectic of a larger whole. an esthetic religiosity have niches Economics, morality, and in the ecology of our experience of nature, and each has its limits (p.56 continued). But a principle of diversity which opposes the forces of monoculture will not yield f/z-fs pluralism, unless illegitimately extrapolated to theories where its merit is much less evident, especially when some of these theories are not only mutually inconsistent but false. Rodman risks the distinctive features of Ecological Resistance for a dubious synthesis. It is only true that the positions can be combined if the first three positions are verz/ limited indeed, and then a trivial combination with each theory working where it works (which may be nowhere actual in the case of the religious component) can be managed. Moreover Ecological Resistance properly developed, will lead to economic and ethical theories which compete with the rather conventional, and environmentally defective theories of, respectively, Resource Conservation and Natural Moralism. Not only is Ecological Resistance severely handicapped by having implausible holistic theses tacked in to it (not all of which have been discussed); further, Ecological Resistance is too negative. A more positive theory - which includes a theory of value and, ultimately, for a fuller environmental position, a metaphysics - is required, not only for orientation and to meet felt needs of environmentalists already noted, but for more effective, coherent and systematic resistance. S'? it is but a short step to the ; fully ecological sensibility [which] knows with Carl Sandburg that: There is an eagle in me ... and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want ... . And I got the eagle ... from the wilderness, (p.118) The poem almost admits of neutral logical formalisation. 56 �§5. THE VIABILITY OF THE SORT OF ALTERNATIVE ENVIRONMENTAL ETHIC SELECTED It is not necessary for an environmental ethic to take a set position on all the issues so far raised for environmental ethics (or others, such as whether, and if so which, ecological principles should be integrated for example, it does not with the ethical system) ; to decide exactly But it can hardly avoid determining which items do or can have rights. some of the boundaries in a way different from conventional ethics if it is to count as an environmental ethic. In particular, the issues of what sort of items have or carry noninstrumental value, and how they obtain it, cannot be escaped indefinitely. Without the assignment of (intrinsic) value to some items independent of the states and conditions of humans, an ethic would remain within the confines of human chauvinism. But how, it is all too often asked, is such an assignment possible, or rational? In any case, the environmental examples already relied upon (in §3) pre­ suppose items. the assignment of intrinsic value to nonhuman, and to nonsentient So a theory of value is not only unavoidable but owed. that can be adopted on an environmental Of the many accounts of ethic, the following has much to recommend it:- Some values are instru­ mental, i.e. a means or an instrument to something else that has value, and some are not, but are non-instrumental or intrinsic. Some values at least must be intrinsic, some objects valuable in themselves and not as a means to other ends. not, however, imply That a value is (reckoned to be) intrinsic does that it is absolute or system independent; the values that are intrinsic on one ethical theory may be instrumental or relative on another. More controversially, values may be in one way or another, on other things, on other values or, importantly, on non­ values (such as experiences or felt needs, or facts or natural objects); but while some values are reducible to others, others are not but are That is, contrary to naturalism and to other forms of For reductionism such as subjectivism, some values are irreducible. analogues of the naturalistic and prescriptive fallacies, formulated in irreducible. terms of 'valuable', are fallacies. In particular, evaluative judgments, such as those as to what is valuable, are not deducible from nonvaluative judgments, such as those as to what is conventionally valued or what is 58 experienced. That values in natural items are intrinsic does not imply that they are naturalistic. eliminating or Indeed intrinsic value cannot - on pain of - amount to being natural, or reduce to the experiences of humans or of sentient creatures, to their suffering or happiness or preferences. 58 On next page. 57 �w Although some of these things, some of these experiences, some do not, but have no value, or a negative value or disvalue; value, 59 and some things, e.g. some experiences or some natural objects, have more value (are more valuable) than others. of value, but by no means everything is. Almost anything can be an object Value is distributed unevenly throughout the universe in something the way that electrical charge is; some items have positive quantities of varying degrees of intensity (e.g. a thundercloud may carry a positive charge, and have positive value), some negative, and some none. There are however important differences: elect­ rical charge is a quantitative notion, value a qualitative, comparative, one; charges are always commensurable, values less certainly or straight­ forwardly so;60 and the distribution of values (and especially of intrinsic values) is much more theory (system, or viewpoint) relative than .the di^sbributtdn of charges. For example, on an environmental view, matiy of the plants Mr Last Man eliminates have (intrinsic) value, whereas on animal liberation (usual animal chauvinist) views the plants have no value if no animals remain: there would be no similar disagreement about whether the plants were electrically charged. Evaluative features such as worth, merit, beauty are features which behave in rather the way that philosophers of science now mistakenly suppose that behave: empirical features they do not have a hard observational basis but are decidedly theory-dependent, though the theories involved are evaluative in character and not empirical. To assert that value or redness or remoteness is distributed through the universe is not to imply that these features, value or redness or For an outline of how this nondeducibility thesis, which yields a nondefinability thesis, may be proved (in limited contexts), see the final section of R. and V. Routley, 'The semantics of first degree entailment', ZVoMS, 6 (1972), pp. 335-59. A simpler argument against naturalistic reducibility of values is a consequence of the intensionality of values and the fact that intensional notions cannot be extensionally analysed (syntactically), which is what naturalistism characteristically assumes. Strictly the account of instrumental value should be widened if disvalues as well as (positive) values are to be taken proper account of. That is, mcrg may be at best a partial order, and so an inadequate basis on which to define total utility functions, and on which to rationally reconstruct modern economic theory. If this is so, as Godfrey Smith has suggested, and the orderings cannot be completed, applications of the optimistisation models subsequently introduced will have to work with partial functions. 58 �remoteness, exist, or are to be found in the universe. undermines much criticism of nonsubjective values; The point alone for example, Mackie's empiricist case is premissed on the false assumption that the existence of values is necessary to objectivism, which he does not distinguish from nonsubjectivism. Mackie's "argument from queernessis similarly broken at the outset: since values are not entities at all, they are not strange sorts of entities. To see how unpersuasive Mackie's argument should be, replace '(objective) values' throughout by, e.g., ordinals'. universe; 'transfinite They too would be 'utterly different from'anything in Mackie's but that does not show that there are no transfinite ordinals. Thus too, since values are not entities, the account of value being developed is Met a reaZ-Zst one (in the ordinary sense).62 Values, of one sort or another, are features objects may have or lack; they are not subjective, they are not features which reduce to states or conditions of subjects or valuers. But no more are they object­ ive features, natural or empirical features of objects, features entirely detached from valuers. A largely unquestioned false dichotomy between subjective and objective ethical theories has served to rule out important options (it has been helped by a connected false dichotomy between instrumental and detached accounts of value: see Routley (b)). In simplest terms, an objective account of value has values "located" in objects entirely independently of valuers, in the way that (inertial) mass is located in physical objects independently of observers; more satisfactorily, objects have values and masses irrespective of valuers or observers. Objectivism forces intuitionism, when it is inquired how values are apprehended or known; thus a fuller objective theory is almost always accompanied by an account, so far always unsatisfactory, 61 The position is that for properties and relations argued in (e) R. Routley, EepcTX'd, RSSS, Australian National University, 1979. Such objects do not exist, but they have important theoretical, explanatory, and other roles. 62 j.c. Mackie, Ft/zZcs. especially pp.38-9. F-ZpTzt Penguin, 1977; see 62 So undermining 0K6 part of D. Mannison's claim that we want to defend a reaZ-Zst theory of values, i.e. a theory of values that accounts for the truth of "x has value" with no ineliminable reference to the interests and concerns of the evaluating group ('Critique of a proposal for an "environmental ethic'", this volume). The further parts of Mannison's claim are assessed in what immediately follows. We are indebted to Mannison for forcing us to try to work out what is wrong and right about detached value theses. 59 �3 characteristically modelled on sense perception, of the way in which 64 values are intuited or apprehended. It is also regularly assumed on objective accounts that values exist, in the world; noneism) that is a separable assumption. but evidently (given By contrast, a subjective account finds values in, or not independent of, actual subjects, and commonly as linked with the pyschological states of valuers. Although subjectivism, like objectivism, comes in a variety of forms, it is always required that where an item is valued there exists, at sometime or other, a valuer who values it: "no values without a valuer" holds, in a strong, an excessively strong,implausible and erroneous, form; namely, a world without existing valuers in it is, by that very fact, a world without values. Fortunately - since both objectivisms and subjectivisms suffer from serious, and mostly well-known, defects - the positions are not exhaustive. The way between is perhaps best revealed in terms of alter­ native worlds.65 Although values in a world (more precisely, that items in that world a have evaluative features) always depend upon a valuer existing in sows world, the valuer may not exist in the world of the values (i.e. the valuer may not exist in a). For example, our claim that a certain world without valuers, e.g. a pure plant world of botanically rich form, is a fine world, depends on our existing in this world (in order to make the claim, in fact); "make sense" but it does not demand in order to (of course the claim is significant) or to be true, what is ex hypothesis ruled out, the existence of valuers in the pure plant world. That the world is a fine one, is dependent on a valuer in some world (and that valuer's assessments of value and, if you like, theory or overview of what is valuable and not); by contrast, that the world contains only plants of this or that leaf type, biomass or colour, does not depend upon a perceiver.66 since values are not entirely independent of a valuer in the way that empirical properties are independent of an observer, the An important corollary is that resulting account is not objective. transworld evaluation does not require objectivism, nor (as we shall see) intuitionism. Call the resulting account, which is neither objective nor, (short for, neither objective nor as is evident, subjective, subjective: the term is ugly but memorable). For a fuller account and worthwhile criticism, see N. Smith, Penguin, 1954. The use of worlds in ethical theorising, which is old, soon leads into world semantical analyses of ethical notions, which is newer but will also be taken for granted: it is ^problematic. On next page. 60 �The replacement of the (no detachable values) thesis, (1) There are no values without a valuer, by the revised thesis, (1°) There are no values which are entirely independent of a valuer, still affords the requisite semantical connections between values and valuers subjectivists have been at pains to maintain, still allows for the requisite theory dependence and cultural relativity of values, and still avoids the extravagances of objectivism. The replacement enables the defeat of various sophistical arguments designed to show, in virtue of the conceptual character of evaluative terms, that the case so far presented against human (or person) chauvinism collapses. argument of this sort runs thus: A simple Objectivism is untenable; but that leaves subjectivism, which validates (1), as the only alternative; and subjectivism undermines the counterexamples to chauvinism.6& One defect of this argument lies in the assumption that a theory can just dispose of counterexamples, when commonly examples are harder data than any theory. Note that the difference between evaluative and empirical properties is not adequately explained counterfactually: if an appropriate valuer - it cannot be an arbitrarily chosen valuer - were placed in the world it would rate the world fine, to be sure; but equally a suitable observer would perceive perceptual properties. Both these things objectivism can quite well allow. Partly for this reason Rescher's attempt to maintain his initially subjectivist thesis that value must be benefit-oriented, while admitting Moore's comparison of unoccupied worlds, is unsuccessful. Rescher's thesis really gets modified to: value must be potential-benefit-oriented - with which an objectivist might well agree, since it becomes a truism if 'benefit' is construed sufficiently widely (e.g. as 'value'), once unscrambled counterfactually thus:the unseen sunset has aesthetic value because of the potential benefits it affords ... [i.e.] someone were placed on to such a world, he be able to appreciate and enjoy this sunset. (N. Rescher, Prentice Hill, 1969 , pp.136-37.) But insofar as Rescher wants to suggest that value comes down to potential-benefit-orientation, that the unseen sunset has value jMst because of the potential benefits, which are entirely captured counter­ factually, objectivists will rightly object; even if no one were placed in this world, the sunset which delivered no benefits the world, would still have value, still be beautiful. In short, a counterfactually-extended subjectivism remains inadequate. The requisite relation of entire independence is explained semantically in terms of worlds. The truth of A is not entirely independent of b iff, in every model, for every world of the model in which A holds there is some world of the model in which b exists. The valuer of (1°) need not exist; it is only required (in each model) that it exist in some world. Such an argument appears, in essentials, in R. Elliot, species?', this publication. 61 'Why preserve �9 Such a procedure is methodologically unsound. In this case the examples tell against subjectivism, and point to another defect in the theoretical argument, namely the reliance on the false objective/subjective dichotomy. It has been objected 69 that the nonjective way between subjective and objective is unsatisfactory, for the reason that (1°) results in unacceptible assignments of value. But the objection depends upon under­ standing 'a valuer' in (1°) not in the intended way, as 'a certain (or definite) valuer' , the determination of valuer being MpoM the values concerned, but as a choice term, as 'an arbitrarily chosen valuer', or 'some valuer or other (you choose)' - which would require, what can never happen, that every hypothetical valuer agrees in the values assigned. A precisely similar misunderstanding of (1) likewise gives strange results: namely that any state of affairs, however environmentally appalling, is valuable because we can find a valuer, e.g. a spokesman for your local development association., who would account it valuable. understood yields no such bizarre results: But (1) properly all it guarantees is that, where a state of affairs has a value then there is a certain valuer (zj/z^cT? depending upon the state of affairs and the value assigned, i.e. the choice is heavily constrained) who assigns that value to that state. Similarly in the case of (1°) choice of appropriate valuers is a dependent choice, not an arbitrary one. There are several, deeper (because metaphysically grounded), sophistical arguments that conclude on the basis of (1) among other 70 things, that human, or at least person, chauvinism is unavoidable. These arguments too fail with (1). It is simply a (common) mistake to think that values and rights do not have a meaning, or an application, outside the human context or situation: to establish this point (on which Moore rightly insisted) it is enough to point out again that (hypothetical) valuers, not necessarily human or persons, can assign 69 For example by R. Elliot op. cit. Elliot's objection depends on a misconstrual. The original draft of this paper pointed out that principle (1) is strictly mistaken: it would be a little more accurate to assert that there are no values without possible valuers. A world in which there are no valuers extant may still contain valuable items. It does not follow from this, what Elliot infers, that 'a state of affairs has value if it is such that it would be valued by some sentient individual if such an individual were to exist', with 'some' read 'some or other'. 70 These arguments are examined in detail in Routley (a), and found wanting. The objections there lodged apply equally against variations of the arguments built on (1°) . What follows in the text on sorne of these arguments is largely a condensation of some of the points developed more fully there. 62 �C Q values with respect to situations and worlds devoid of humans and of persons altogether. But though these deeper arguments strictly fail with the demise of (1), they can be readily restated in terms of (1°), which can equally be taken (given further assumptions) to support the thesis that persons (or preference-havers) are the primary items of value or, more strongly, that persons are the ozzZ-y items of intrinsic value. One of these arguments relies on the idea that persons are the source of value. But the argument trades on an ambiguity. A person is the source of value-judgements and values in one sense, i.e. s/he is the valuer; but not in another, namely s/he is not responsible for valued item having its valued properties. Nor is there any licence for reducing the values assigned to those that serve the interests of the valuer. The argument is likely to be given the following sort of initial elaboration: By (1°), whatever has a value has its value in virtue of an assignment from certain valuers. But valuers are always persons. The argument is however ever has a value gets its value from persons. defective. Therefore what­ For even if values were always assigned by persons the items their values from persons assigned values do not thereby yet or (or those of persons). They have what value they have partly in virtue of features of their own. Nonetheless, the argument continues, the empirical features of objects valued are relevant because they are taken into account in preference rankings on which valuers base their assignments. By (1°) (or a derivative) values are relational properties not properties simpliciter as objectivism would have it. They are relational properties which depend on certain features of the related item. Which features, of values? Well, obviously, preferences and interests of valuers. So, it is con­ cluded, values answer to, or reduce to, interests of persons: no alternative to chauvinism. there is Rather similar arguments lead to such (mistaken) conclusions as that rights are interest-oriented, that 71 obligations must answer to people's interests, etc. etc. The arguments can furthermore - in case the transit seemed excessively swift - be filled out, for example as follows: By (1°), Thus, e.g. K. Baier, T/ze AforczZ Po^yzt o/ Ithaca, 1958. 63 Cornell University Press, �-B. Values depend upon valuers, upon their value assignments or rankings. -A. These value rankings depend upon valuers' preference rankings. A. Hence Values depend upon, or are determined through, the preference rankings of valuers. B. Valuers' preference rankings are determined through valuers' interests. C. Valuers are humans [persons]. Therefore D. Values are determined through, or depend upon, human [or 72 persons'] interests. Hence, it is sometimes concluded, not only is it perfectly acceptable for humans to reduce matters of value and morality to matters of human, interest, there is no rational or feasible alternative to doing so: any alternative to chauvinism is simply incoherent. With the replacement of (1) by (1°), premiss (C) is rendered implausible unless 'human' is supplanted by 'person' (where the variable 'person' is so characterised that all valuers are persons, something some accounts of person would rule out). Thus, without (1), the argument leads at best to person chauvinism. Nor does -B follow from (1°): "not entirely independent of" does not imply "dependent upon", but at best "partially dependent upon". However it does seem that values are, in a sense, determined through value assignments - assignments made certainly in virtue of features of the objects valued and of preference rankings of valuers, that is having dual factual and attitudinal bases - but assign­ ments nevertheless. Accordingly, the central part of the argument can be reformulated, in a way which locates the main source of damage, thus A'. Values are determined through value assignments [preference rankings] of valuers. B'. The value assignments [preference ranking] of valuers are determined through valuers' interests. In order to reach what amounts to chauvinism 73 from B', however, 'interest' has to be narrowly construed, after the fashion of egoism, as 'own, self- centred or selfish, interest'. D'. Otherwise the conclusion, Values are determined through valuers' interests, Many variations on this argument are considered in Routley (a); and obviously there are yet other variations, e.g. value assignments could be directly linked with interests. On next page. 64 �c Q is innocuous; valuers. it does nothing to confine what determines value, to For valuers' interests may concern almost anything, and in particular may include the interests of nonvaluers(as in 'its interest is among my interests') and the welfare of natural systems. understood, is no more chauvinistic than: D', so Values are value-centred. To succeed the argument has to narrow the elements assessed in determining value to features of the base class of persons [or humans]; their interests and welfare alone. e.g. to For if we have to look beyond this class to assess value - even to determine interests and welfare - then the argument to chauvinism fails. Thus the argument has, in order to suc­ ceed, to rely upon assumptions either of egoism - valuers' interests are restricted to their own (perhaps enlightened) self-interest - or of a group analogue - valuers' interests are restricted to those of the group, the base class - where (to indicate the final trick in the argument) there is, in each case, a slide on the elastic term 'interests', e.g. from ^?z) f/z^r ozjzz ozjyz Mses or purposes. to t/z^^r ozjzz u^urztape., or t/ze^r It is evident enough that in order to succeed the argument has to assume one of the very points at issue, that interests, which are progressively restricted to chauvinistic interests, are so restricted.74 But consider, to expose the character of the assumptions made, parallel arguments to egoism and groupism, i.e. group egoism: AE. Persons always act (in freely chosen cases, or rational cases) in the way they prefer or choose, i.e. in accord with their (revealed) preference rankings. BE. Individual [group] preference rankings are always determined through (reflect) self [group] interest. 71 What amounts to chauvinism; for if a position were reached in this way by a sound argument, then the position would not be chauvinistic, being justified. For this reason, it is absurd for a rational creature to present itself (as some philosophers have) as a human chauvinist or a person chauvinist. There is however a descriptive analogue of chauvinism, in which the justificatory clause is omitted; and this use of 'chauvinism' we have resorted to ourselves (as the astute reader will have observed) as an interim step. In the end of course such descriptive-chauvinism is chauvinism, since the discrimination involved is unwarranted. 74 The claim generalises: it is not possible to mount an argument for person [or human] chauvinism on the basis of the meaning, or analysis, of such notions as, o^Z^pa^o/z or r^pTzf or without assuming, in the analysis or the course of the argument, the very points at issue. This is an outcome of the viability of nonchauvinistic analyses of these notions, together with the content preservation character of genuine deductive arguments. 65 �Therefore DE. Individual persons [groups of persons] always act in ways determined in their own self [group] interests (or that reflect their own interest^). Thereafter follows the slide from "in their own interests" to "to their own advantage", or "for their own uses or purposes". The eventual con­ clusion of egoism, again parallelling the class chauvinism case, is not only that the egoistic position is perfectly in order and thoroughly rational, but that there are no alternatives; least ought to be, no other way of acting, that is, there is, or at 'that men can only choose to do what is in their own interests or that it is only rational to do Thus,person or (human) chauvinism, as based.on the central argument, 3 stands revealed as like group selfishness, "group egoism" one might almost say. Likewise the criticisms of the as we shall now call the argument through D or D', parallel those of egoism; in particular, premiss B' to those that defeat premiss BE. (or B) succumbs to similar objections Group selfishness is no more acceptable than egoism, since it depends on exactly the same set of confusions between values, preferences, interests, and advantages (encouraged by slippery terms such as 'interests' and 'self-interest') as the arguments on which egoism rests. Briefly, because one may discern or select one's own preference or value rankings, it does not follow that these rankings are set up or selected in one's own selfish (or enlightened self) interests; similarly in group cases, because a group determines its own rankings, it does not follow that it determines them in its own interests; the group includes environmental individuals. certainly not if Thus just as BE is refuted, at least prima facie, by a range of examples where preference, and value, rankings run counter to self-regarding interest, e.g. cases of otherregarding interest or altruism, so prima facie at least, B is refuted by examples where value, and also overall preference rankings, vary from group interests, e.g. cases of group altruism and extra-group-regarding interests, as in resistance movements, environmental action groups, and so on. It is often in selfish human interests (no less selfish because pertaining to a group) to open up and develop the wilderness, strip mine the earth, exploit animals, and so on, but ecological resistance workers Nowell Smith, op. cit., p.140. Nowell-Smith's very appealing critique of egoism (pp.140-44) may, by simple paraphrase, be converted into a critique of group selfishness. This is obvious once B' and BE are compared. 66 �who oppose doing so are commonly not acting just out of (their own or) human intragroup interests, but out of direct concern for the environment and its welfare. But, just as BE is not demolished by such counterexamples of apparently other-regarding and altruistic action, neither is B: in each case it can be made out that further selfish (i.e. self-regarding) inter­ ests are involved, e.g., in the case of B, that an agent did what he did, an altruistic action, because he in the egoism case, doing it. As Nowell-Smith explains 'interest' is written in as an internal accusative, thereby rendering such theses as BE true at the cost, however, of trivial- More generally, valuing something gets written in as a further sort of "interest"; whatever valuers value that does not seem to ising them. be in their interests is said to provide a further interest, either the value itself or an invented value surrogate; for example, the environ­ mentalist who works to retain a wilderness he never expects to see may be said to be so acting only because he has an interest in or derives benefit or advantage from just knowing it exists, just as he would be said to in the egoist case. "retained"; By such strategies the theses can be for then a valued item really is in valuers' interests, in the extended sense, even if they are in obvious ways seriously incon­ venienced by it, i.e. even if it is Mot in their narrow interests in the customary sense. Thus B, like BE, is preserved by stretching the elastic term 'interests', in a way that it too readily admits, to include values, or value surrogates, among interests. Then however the conclus­ ion of the Group Selfishness argument loses its intended force, and becomes the platitude that values are determined through valuers' values, just as egoism, under the extension which makes us all covert egoists, loses its sting and becomes a platitude. Human chauvinism in this form, like egoism, derives its plausibility from vacillation on the sense of 'interests', with a resulting fluctuation between a strong false thesis when interests are narrowed through group interests to group restricted interests - the real face of human chauvinism - and a trivial analytic thesis, between paradox and platitude. To reject the reductionist conclusion D, or D', is by no means to be committed to the view that the valuers and their preference rankings play %<? role in determining values and that values are a further set of In the sense of Wisdom's (meta)philosophy. The technique of rescuing philosophical theses by shifts, which begin with natural extensions of terms, enforced by accompanying redefinitions of terms - including the thesis "We're all selfish really" - is delightfully explained in J. Wisdom, dt/zer Blackwell, Oxford, 1952, especially chapter 1. 67 �mysterious independent items somehow perceived by valuers through a special (even mystical and non-rational) moral sense. An intuitionist theory of value is not required, and is not lurking in the background. One can simply admit that valuers' preference rankings play an important role in evaluation; one is not thereby committed to D unless one assumes - what amounts to premiss B - that these preference rankings reflect, or can be reduced to, valuers' (narrow) interests. Even so important problems remain unresolved, in particular, precisely what role valuers' preference-rankings play, and how this role enables the damaging features of intuitionism to be avoided. The arguments against genuinely environmental ethics from the character of are sometimes followed up by the objection that such a ethic can be given no, or no satisfactory, theory of value (or metaethic, to.use the current, but questionable, jargon transferred from logical theory). It is true that several theories of value are quickly ruled out, including mainstream noncognitive theories, which are objection­ ably chauvinistic, allowing no non-instrumental value to any non-sentient natural items. While an environmental ethic, like almost any other normative ethic, ca?? be supplied with an intuitionist theory of value, an environmental ethic, unlike most other ethics, wa?/ appear to have no option to such a theory, though the theory is unsatisfactory and causes especial problems for the ethic. 75 The unsatisfactoriness of intuitionism is in part for the usual reasons: apart from the perceptual comparison which is problematic in several ways (e.g. evaluative properties are not like perceptual properties, the moral sense is rather different from other senses), the theory is (like a purely axiomatic theory) too much of a black box, which gives no explanation of many things that call for explanation, e.g. the semantics of value, how value judgements are based on factual and emotional or attitudinal bases; but it is in part because intuitionism provides little guidance or assistance in accounting for the intrinsic value of environmental objects. These difficulties can be evaded and the problems largely resolved through a semantical theory of value, and more generally of ethical terms. Thus D. Mannison, 'the "new environmental ethic" is ... irredeemably intuitionistic' (op. cit.), and H.J. McCloskey: As far as I can see of the known, plausible meta-ethics, the only one available ... is an intuitionist one. ... [There] would still be ... the problem of associating it with a non-human-centred normative ethic, one which did not locate all values in human capacities states, goods, but accorded to environmental phenomena value in their own right. ('Ecological ethics and its justification: a critical appraisal', this volume.) 68 �For the truth-conditions, 7 8 and resulting interpretation conditions, will supply an account of meaning not only of axiological expressions but also of deontic expressions, and moreover in a way that is plainly nonchauvinistic; e.g., it enables natural items to be awarded intrinsic value in much the way that states or conditions of humans are on chauvinistic theories. Something of the shape and character of the semantical analyses emerges from the evaluation rules for important axiological and deontic 79 functions. The semantics are set within the framework of the semantics of entailment: in this way several paradoxes possible world semantics induces in deontic (and axiological) theory are automatically removed. The semantical analyses of the central axiological functor, 'that ... is better than that __ ', abbreviated 'Bt', and the key deontic predicate 'that ... is permissible', abbreviated 'P', restricted to sentential terms, take respectively the following forms: I(A Bt B, a) = 1 iff [B] i.e. [A], where [C] = {c e K: I(C, c) =1}, [C] is the range of C, the class of situations where C holds, some­ times called the proposition C expresses. In short, that A is better than that B holds in world a iff from the perspective of a, the proposition B expresses is less preferable than the proposition A expresses, where the ordering relation is spelt out in terms of a preference ranking. I(PA, a) = 1 iff, for some world b such that Tab, I(A, b) = 1; i.e., that A is permissible holds in a iff for some world b permitted as far as a is concerned, A holds in b - where the relation T is spelt out in terms of a relative permittedness relation. Enough of the semantical theory has been exposed to indicate some important features. Firstly, betterness - and something the same holds for other value terms - is assessed semantically in terms of a world- relativised preference ranking. In the simplest case, where betterness is assessed as to truth (rather than interpretation, or meaning), i.e. at actual world T, the assessment just is in terms of a preference ranking (so validating a form of premiss B above, for a technical sense of 70 Ethical judgements, both axiological and deontic, have truth values, relative to their context of occurrence. By use of context, objections, e.g. from relativity, to the attribution of truth-values to such judgements can be straightforwardly avoided. 79 Full details of the semantics are presented elsewhere, in Routley (c), and in R. Routley, R.K. Meyer, and others, PeZevuzzf TZzeZr P-ZfaZs, RSSS, Australian National University, 1979. 69 �'determined'). Secondly, the semantics of can be given in descriptive terms; similarly for deontic terms such as The semantical analysis bridges the fact-value gap, by a functional linkage, without however closing it. preferential basis. For it provides no of value to its The linkage enables a simple explanation of how environmental considerations can count: criteria may be preferred. worlds satisfying environmental Sets of worlds where human interests or needs are not met but ecosystems are maintained may, for example, be prefer­ entially ranked above worlds where human needs are met at the expense of ecosystems. The way in which the factual basis, which includes environ­ mental facts - the descriptive better-making characteristics - enters into the evaluative judgments of quality, is in outline as follows: factual criteria delimit preference rankings on worlds in the same way that descriptive features of objects delimit preference rankings of these objects. It is not the case, then, that we are unable to explain zj?zz/ a natural item is valuable if we cannot point to some human interest or purpose which is served. This again assumes mistakenly, that because a valuer­ relative preference-ranking is involved, the evaluation must somehow be reducible to the interests or purposes of the valuer. That there is an allusion in the semantical unpacking of value to the preference system of a certain valuer no more requires that the items valued are valuable only insofar as they serve the valuer's interests or preferences than it does in more familiar cases such as valuing a work of art, a library or an old building. Valuers can and do value items because they perceive in them properties they take to be valuable, and in the interests of other things whose interests are their own, and not simply for what they can get out of them or how far they serve their own interests. The answer to the question 'Why is it valuable?', for a natural item, will not always be, as it must always be on the instrumental view, 'Because it is good for such and such purpose or end of the valuer or those of his group', but may be: 'Because it has properties A, B and C which the valuer holds to be valuable in virtue of considered preferences, including iterated (second order) preferences which reflect the preferences of other preference-havers. In the end, then, environmental value systems are cvz different How a seTnaTzt-fcaZ analysis - as distinct from a analysis may make bridges without involving a reduction - but leaving everything as it is - is more fully explained in R. Routley 'The semantical meta­ morphosis of metaphysics', JoMruaZ P/z^Zosop/zz/, 54 (1976), 187-205. For more on how the fact/value gap is semantically bridged see Routley (c). 70 �preference rankings, which take into account different facts from the chauvinistic systems they are beginning to compete with and aim to supplant - a different group preference ranking and network (emanating from the valuer and those like her) which is grounded in a different perception and emotional presentation of nature. The semantical meta-ethic is not as neutral as an intuitionistic meta-ethic: for the preference-rankings involved require a valuer, i.e. thesis (1°) is applied, thereby excluding objective theories. The fact that the semantical theory will work (perhaps after minor adaptions) for a range of normative theories is no serious objection. not have to be precisely tailored to a given ethic: A meta-ethic does the same (sort of) metalogic may work satisfactorily for many different logics. It is not merely that the distinctiveness of the meta-ethic may be what is more serious is that the contested; (normative) ethic, even newness of the within Western traditions, may be challenged. It has been suggested, for instance, that such ethics are but versions or minor variants of ideal utilitarianism McCloskey, op. cit.). (cf. Elliot, op. cit.; To assess this claim, and to reveal how much the preferred environmental ethic has in common with such utilitarianism and how much it differs, considering what counts as ideal utilitarianism is unavoidable. In indicating what does count, there is real point in going back to Rashdall's original explanation: ... all moral judgements are ultimately judgements as to the value of ends. This view of Ethics, which combines the utilitarian principle that Ethics must be teleological with a non-hedonistic view of the ethical end I propose to call Ideal Utilitarianism. According to this view actions are right or wrong according as they tend to produce for all mankind an ideal end or good, which includes but is not limited to pleasure. ... The right action is always that which (so far as the agent has means of knowing) will produce the greatest amount of good upon the whole. (H- Rashdall, TTze T/zeorz/ o/ Fzz-z^Z, Oxford University Press, 1907, p.184.) Ideal utilitarianism is thus, according to Rashdall, nonhedonistic utilitarianism, and so conforms to the core theses of utilitarianism, namely: (i) The ethical or ideal end (the good) is determined simply by maximisation of net utility or value of certain factors or ends, typically (but not invariably) experiences or states of consciousness such as pleasure, enjoyment, satisfaction of desires or preferences 71 �!* (ii) The ends or experiences are those of some given base class, e.g. mankind, present persons, sentient creatures (Pase <?Zass r^Z-az^z^sut-Zczz); and (iii) Other ethical notions, right in particular, are defined as determined in terms of the ethical end (^eZeoZ-c^-ZcuZ re^zzc^-Zozz-Zsw). A corollary of the reductionist assumption - which can take various forms, e.g. act, rule, average utilitarianism - is that maximisation is uncon­ strained by deontic requirements. The core principles are also readily discerned in that other paradigmatic ideal utilitarian, Moore, who like Rashdall, objects to (hedonistic) utilitarianism on the grounds of its hedonistic principle (e.g. p.184), and accordingly widens the ends admitted in (i), and, again like Rashdall, takes the base class to consist of humans. as assessed through its paradigm exponents *Zs thus chauvinistic, and zzo e^zz-ZrczzwezztuZ. sc/zewa /or azz Human chauvinism is in fact integral to both Rashdall'sand Moore's work. For example, Rashdall characterises r-z^TzZ; in terms of good for mankind, and endorses a strong form of the greater value assumption (p.215). And Moore not only identifies the best poss-ZbZe state of things in this world with Human Good (p.183), but considers 'by far the most valuable things we can know or -z^azy-Z/ze, are certain states of consciousness', Zzzz?n<27z consciousness (p.188, my italics). Each one of the core theses of utilitarianism is false (the case is argued in detail in Routley (b)). Contrary to (i) optimisation needs to be constrained, deontically constrained, else serious injustices to and ill-treatment of objects within the base class and, more important, objects outside that class, are all too likely. But, as against (iii) this destroys prospects of successful deontic reductions, which are, on independent grounds, improbable. To avoid the chauvinism, typically built See Pr-Zpzc-Zp-Zu Ez^/z^cu, Cambridge University Press, 1903, chapters V and VI. Moore does say (p.188) that No one, probably, ... who has asked himself the question, has even doubted that personal affection and appreciation of what is beautiful in Art or Nature, are good in themselves. But 'appreciation of what is beautiful' reduces, on Moore's account, to 'enjoyment of beautiful objects'; and any independent value in what is beautiful is 'so small as to be negligible in comparison with that which attaches to the cozzsu^ozzszzess of beauty', (p.189). Moore's chauvinistic account thus appears open to familiar objections e.g. those based on enjoyment machines (cf. the wilderness experience machine discussed above), and on beautiful worlds lacking conscious beings-which help show that beauty is what counts and not just, or primarily, experiences of beauty. Moore was not, however, entirely unaware of such points: cf. pp.194-95. 72 * �into (ii), (i) requires restatement in terms of factors which avoid base class relativisation; then clause (ii) is eliminated. The need for con­ straints in optimisation modellings of utilitarian or economic sorts can be seen from the phenomena of interrelated interests and preferences: that my interests include, or depend upon, yours, means that these cannot vary independently, but are interrelated. Repairing the defects of ideal utilitarianism results in more adequate optimisation modelling. notion of The recipe elementary analysis of the item leads to is, in essence, as follows: Maximise a weighted function (e.g. a sum) of the factors that value a determines subject to appropriate constraints: symbolically, maximise n-place function E = E(x) subject to constraining relations Rj(x) and x = <x^,...,x^>). (with j an index, Special cases of such optimisation modellings are familiar from engineering and economic applications (e.g. determination of optimal social welfare in concave programming). What is more general 82 about the model indicated, is, in particular, the form of constraints permitted, which can include that ... Xi ... X2 ..." bounds for optimals). deontic constraints, e.g. "It is forbidden (which has the effect of putting a subspace out of Since there is nothing to prevent moral prohibitions, requirements of fairness, and the like, from appearing among the constraints ethics, economics, and practical reasoning can in principle be success­ fully amalgamated. The optimisation modelling of general value theory differs significantly from that of (ideal) utilitarianism. Although maximization is fundamental in both, in utilitarianism value is characteristically replaced by net utility, measured usually in terms of experiential units of some sort, whereas in general value theory this reduction is rejected. In each case there is a of an ethical calculus, but the currency is different, being values in one case and base class or individual utilities (units of utility) in the other; but in both cases the calculus is so far (equally) unworkable except in very special cases. In each case there is an analysis into components of the objective (function) maximized, but the analysis is very different. In utilitarianism net utility is broken down into individual utilities of members of some base class. In general value theory such a reduction is rejected (except perhaps where appropriate hypothetical valuers are admitted); analysis into factors that carry value is made. instead an (But in Moore's ideal The general model is motivated, explained, illustrated, applied and defended in Routley (b) and (d) and also in R. Routley, 'The choice of logical foundations: nonclassical choices and the ultralogical choice', L<9<2"f<?a, 38 (1979). 73 �utilitarianism, unlike utilitarianism proper, the way is opened for factors, such as beauty, which carry intrinsic value and are not reducible to features of the base class or its members.) In utilitarianism deontic notions, such as right, are analysed in terms of the value theory; general value theory deontic notions are taken as given constraints are imposed on optimisations. but in and deontic Whereas the maximisations of utilitarianisms proper are (single element) unconstrained maximisations (hence the injustice, unfairness, and ill-treatment such ethics condone), general value theory optimisations are constrained. in principle While there is room for constraints in ideal utilitarianism, as there is for a switch to factors which are base-class independent - though the theory has never been elaborated to the point where these things are done - deontic constraints cannot be noncircularly imposed, given the teleological reduction thesis (so the problems of unfairness and ill-treatment remain). It is a fairly evident corollary of the differences that general value theory removes leading objections to utilitarianisms. It is not perhaps so evident, however, how it applies to environmental cases or what the factors of environmental relevance are. To expose some of the factors - and to indicate just how far an environmental ethics is dis­ tanced even from a comparatively liberal ethic like Moore's ideal utilitarianism - consider the very difficult optimisation problems as to the determination of the Ideal. Moore distinguishes (1) The Ideal, from, what is more interesting, state of things the best possZbZe state of things in this world', toward which our action should be directed' absolute ideal' (KI) and (2) 'the (2) 'the MZtZ/naZe end (p.183). Call (1) 'The 'the T ideal' or 'the this world ideal' (TI). A crucial difference between the two problems lies in the constraints: determination of TI is constrained by features - many of them unknown - of the actual world T (now and in the immediate future), by its populations of humans and of various species of living things on its various earths, by its natural features, by its physical and technological resources, limitations of which will impose characteristic scarcity constraints. By That does not imply that no analyses can be given of deontic notions. Although axiological reductions are ruled out, others are not. Certainly semantical analysis, like that already sketched for permissib­ ility, can be supplied and elaborated. Moore's teleological ethic is not far removed from Aristotle's ethic more than 2000 years earlier (which exhibits features of ideal utilitarianism) . From the point of view of this long relativelyunchanged base line, environmental ethics are not merely new and radical, but represent a paradigm shift. 74 �- contrast, KI is presumably not constrained by resources or technology (in relation to populations); this is just one reason why Leibnitz's equations of TI with KI and with things as at present fails. theless constrained. 8S KI is none­ There will, for example, be constraints forbidding unfair or ill-treatment of various sorts (given that such treatment is possible), and there will be constraints interrelating factors that are not independent. The factors entering into the modelling will no doubt represent, in some way, many of the positive goods, such as enjoyment of the "meritor­ ious" sorts that Moore managed to discern - positively weighted - and many of the evils he found - but negatively weighted (but some of these things are better represented through constraints). There remain, 86 however, many features of ecological importance that Moore never con­ templated; for example, diversity of systems and creatures, naturalness, o7 integrity of systems, stability of systems, harmony of systems. Optimising a mix of factors, which are mutually constrained, meets constant reproaches made against such ecological values as diversity. The objections take the form that enhancement of diversity as a sole factor can lead to undesirable ecological results, indeed can diminish Op net value and so be wrong on utilitarianism grounds. On the multiple factor model diversity is constrained by naturalness and stability, for example; thus net value is not going to be increased through increasing the diversity of a simple temperate rainforest by felling some of its trees and replacing them with exotic species. On the other hand, diver­ sity will be increased by planting the banks of a stream, eroded through excess clearing and overgrazing, with suitable exotic species - then birds Perhaps, moreover, there are no limiting natural laws, such as con­ servation principles, but the universe operates according to beneficient natural laws. There are distinctions here between worlds and physically possible worlds which Moore did not make. There may also be, at least in the case of KI, as Moore observed, factors that we are unaware of - at least under the intended construal of 'conceivable'. Rough and ready measures of such factors as diversity are not so difficult to come by, and, in important respects, present fewer problems than obtaining measures of pleasure that encompass, in ways that take account of interspecies and interindividual comparisons, all sentient creatures. Compare the objections made in §4 to Rodman's reliance on the single criteria of diversity; and also Passmore's points in (a) against diversity as a single criterion in arguments for preservation. 75 �and other animals will increase as well as plant diversity - and in such a case stability will also be increased in the longer term and natural­ ness not diminished (since already removed); thus overall value will be increased (it may also be increased by the enjoyment of conservationists formerly appalled by the stream landscape). Diversity,though (like enjoy­ ment or pleasure) good in itself, is (again like hedonistic values) not an unconstrained value (compare, e.g., enjoyment obtained through secret maltreatment of animals or by impoverishment of an unvisited streamside). The multiple factor model also solves the problem of how to combine traditional values, such as the virtues and creature enjoyment with what many in the West are only beginning to discern, environmental values; namely, by a constrained optimisation which takes due (i.e. weighted) account of them Thus in moving to an environmental (or nonchauvinist) ethic one is not ordinarily acknowledged welfare values for persons or humans, but simply recognising a further set of values to which such welfare values should be added. welfare values are retained; Nor is one humans, for human one is simply aiming to remove - through constraints which may reduce assignments to human values in favour of other values - the unwarranted privilege and chauvinism of the displaced Western super-ethic. One would not have come very far if, despite the claim to have recognised environmental values, one assumed that wherever there is con­ flict between natural values and human values, the latter must always prevail. This would be equivalent to assigning them very low weight, or even zero value, in all serious conflict cases. One would not have advanced far past rejection of axiological principle (A) if one then accepted, in assessments as to how things should be done, the yreafer namely that even though other things may have intrinsic value, people or humans are more valuable than anything else, and rank more highly (no matter how large their number).To allow that sows in human welfare values may sometimes - or even often, especially with increasing human populations - have to be accepted in cases of conflict is an essential part of assigning a genuine positive value to nonhuman factors. Sometimes humans, their states and conditions, do not come first: the greater value assumption should be rejected. Such an assumption - in popular form, that people come first - is extrgTMgZ-z/ widespread and is even included in animal liberation theory; cf. Singer, op. cit. For striking examples of the damaging assumption at work, see the (chauvinistic) resolutions of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment. �o 4 There are many kinds of examples. Conspicuous examples are provided by recognisedly evil people (there are, under current social arrangements, plenty), whose welfare, or even lives, do not rank above, for example, valuable natural items, or the welfare of future persons. More con­ troversial are evaluations which rank the preservation of an animal species, such as the tiger, above the increase (or even retention) of human population in given areas.91 But, for the most part, the compar­ ative value of humans as opposed to other creatures and things has been greatly exaggerated. The arguments used in support of the greater value assumption are but variations of those for human chauvinism already considered, and largely rejected (in §1). Thus, for instance, Keller argues for a greater value thesis on the ground that a 'human being is the most complex thing which we know; its depth and range of experience far transcend that of any other known living thing' (p.209) Ecological Concern', Zz/^o/z, vol.6 (J.A. Keller, (1971), pp.197-209). complexity the claim is almost certainly false: are much more complex. 'Types of Motives for As regards pure tropical forest ecosystems The claim about range of experience is open to doubt, even for "normal" humans, since many animals have a much wider range of such sensory experiences as smells; and it is false of many humans. More important, range and "depth" of experience, of certain have) , does not, on its own, select sorts (those that normally establish greater value in any routine or regular way. Often enough it is no good basis for assigning greater value. The generalised optimisation model will commonly give way, in applications less sweeping and more feasible than that of the determining TI, to such special cases of it as Bayesian decision theory and cost­ benefit analysis, where these analyses allow properly for environmental values and duly incorporate ethical constraints (see Routley (a)). 90 91 It The fact of the matter is that prevailing unqualified attitudes to human welfare or the "sanctity" of human life - as opposed to other life - are shot through with inconsistency. For instance, despite common claims that human life is sacrosanct, neither the largely unquestioned military ethics nor medical ethics nor the state or "the law" take such a position: most individual humans are regarded as expendible, replaceable, and not particularly or uniquely valuable. On the prevailing ethic quite a different evaluation is taken for granted: e.g. It would be unrealistic to agree, of course, that preservation of wildlife should take precedence over providing for human needs. (S. Richardson, writing in T/ze CuTZ&erru November 29, 1974 , p.12) On an environmental ethic, while it might not be politically expedient, it would not be at all "unrealistic", to so agree. 77 �& is these more special methods that should normally be applied in trying to determine a best course of action in a range of difficult decision cases thrown up for an environmental ethics, especially cases where there is a conflict (i.e. constraining conditions) between retention of natural values (e.g. preserving a wilderness or a national park) and maintenance of humanistic values (e.g. keeping some humans alive, commonly reckoned one of the highest human-values). But for a cost-benefit weigh-up to be attempted such cases have to be described in more detail usually provided by chauvinistic philosophers who than is to direct such examples against environmental evaluations - as if furthermore, the examples were quite conclusive, when they almost always presuppose from the very beginning what is in dispute, a greater value assumption. In connection with such intended counterexamples to properly environmental ethics, two further points are worth recording: firstly, resort to such analytical methods is the rational procedure in such cases (unless a time urgency intrudes, as seldom happens, or should happen, in philosophy); secondly, an environmental ethic should not, any more than other ethics or economics, be expected to provide a decision procedure for any and every case that may arise: the theory (and accompanying intuitions) may have to be developed to resolve some cases, while other cases may go (cheerfully) undecided. On similar test or decision cases, e.g. one group of starving people versus another group in a situation of limited resources, or quality of life versus number of humans, conventional ethical theories may offer no quick, or clearcut, resolutions, etc. The optimisation model indicates, among many other things, how axiological principle (A) is to be modified. For best choice and best course of action are now determined by taking account of the further range of values, not just those that are human-based. Then (A) vanishes into the truism that only those objects that are of intrinsic value are of intrinsic value, or need be taken into account in the values of the optimisation model. How to rectify the deontic principle (D) is rather less obvious than how to adjust (A). An obvious strategy, is, however, to add further 92 Even when a case is more fully described there will, of course be (unavoidable) difficulties in quantifying some of the values, e.g. those of "intangible" factors; but these difficulties are not sub­ stantially worse than those already encountered in routine business accounting in quantifying such assets as good-will and such matters as wage relativities for different work. As L. Tribe has pointed out (in 'Ways not to think about plastic trees: new foundations for environmental law', YaZ-e AuzJ vol.83 (1974) , pp.1315-1348) the difficulties of transferring or adapting rather standard methods of assessment, such as decision theory and cost-benefit analyses, to pro vide rational decision methods in the case of environmental matters has been much exaggerated, to the detriment of the environment. 78 * �provisos. way; But it is unsatisfactory to do this in a piecemeal sort of it hardly suffices, for example, to simply add further riders excluding unnecessary cruelty to animals, speciescide, etc. What has to is unwarranted interference with other preference­ be ruled out havers (and goal-possessors) and the degrading of items of value. A revised principle appears then to go something like this:- DN. One is free to act as one wishes provided that (i) one does not unwarrantedly interfere with other preference-havers, and (ii) one does not damage or ill-treat or devalue anything of value. Though the revised principle has a rather more complex and restrictive character than freedom principle (D) and Western variants thereon, it still does the requisite task (D) set out to do, namely to state that out­ side certain prescribed areas one is free, that select behaviour is permissible.93 it is simply that the proscribed area is far larger than inadequate homocentric ethics have envisaged. But perhaps the whole conception underlying (D), and the way it fixes onus of proof, should be stood on its head. On the view behind (D), one starts from an unlimited position permitting unlimited interference and exploitation; restrictions are added primarily because other ones (again ones of the privileged class) are also starting from a similar unlimited position whose freedom of action may be (impermissibly) curtailed by one's own. So results the initial position, e.g. of (D). For inter­ ference in others' projects (no matter how exploitative) beyond this "evident" initial position,good reasons have always to be offered. alternative thoroughgoing On the respect view, which is illustrated by various nonexploitative non-Western ethics, one starts from a restricted position, a position of no interference and no exploitation, a position at peace with the natural world so to say, and allows interference - not as on thinking, restricts interference - for good reasons. thus entirely inverted: stop interference. Western The onus of proof is good reasons are required y<2r interference, not The good reasons include the collecting of fruit and nuts (and other natural "produce") for life support purposes, but not, for example, the collection of a substantial surplus of forest orchids on whim or in the hope that they may be sold at a profit. A theory of value like that outlined, though it takes it for granted, 93 The revised freedom principle is not incompatible with, but can be combined with and supplemented by, a bill of rights, charter or catechism specifying positively types of rights and of permissible conduct. 79 �A in the constraints imposed in optimisation, that there are deontic principles limiting what is done to many objects other than persons, leaves main deontic issues open, and in particular does not thereby imply that such objects have rights. For woraZ forbidding certain actions with respect to an object (fo not, in general, that object a 94 corretattle r-^p/zt. That it would be wrong to mutilate a given oak or landscape painting does not entail that the tree or painting has a correl­ ative right not to be mutilated - without (what has a point) stretching the notion of r^p*7z^. An environmental ethic like the respect ethic being advanced does not automatically commit one to the view that natural objects or artifacts sometimes have rights. It is sometimes held that some such objects do have rights, e.g. under the influence of pantheism. But construed literally, pantheism is false, since artefacts, and other inanimate objects, are not alive. The view that the class of right-holders extends beyond the class of preference-havers can however be placed on bases less extravagant than pantheism - most obviously in terms of a suitable deontic analysis of r^p?zt, for instance along the following lines: others d has a right to iff (obligation-holders) are not entitled to interfere with d's cj)ing (if d (f)'s or were to (j)). Under this account, of which emerges straight-forwardly from modern analyses of r^p/zt, a painting or a tree may indeed have "rights", such as to continue existing. Although the term 'right' can no doubt be 6^ctezz<ie(i along some such lines, the analysis leaves out essential elements of the normal notion, namely the involvement of choice. There are, once again, various competing environ­ mental ethics, some simple extensions of Western ethics which extrapolate the notion of r^p/zt, some not, some rationalistic, some not, and so on. Environmental positions can - but need not - adhere to the familiar assumption that rights divide into the following two broad classes:First, there are rights held by those (persons, in o?z6 sense) who can duly claim their rights themselves, a class which excludes many humans So rejected also is the s^rozz^ correlation thesis, presented e.g. in S.I. Benn and R.S. Peters, Pocz^aZ Pr^Tzc^pZes a7z<i ^Tze Pew<9<?r<2^<? Allen and Unwin/1959, pp.89-9, according to which 'right and duty are different names for the same normative relation, according to the point of view from which it is regarded' (thereby also elevating what is at best a coentailment into a stronger identity relation). For example, that d has a duty to look after the painting does not entail that the painting has a right to be looked after by d, in any sense of 'right' Benn and Peters are prepared to acknowledge. The weaker correlation thesis - that d has a right to R entails that at least someone else has a duty with respect to R - is not at issue. 80 & �and (so far as we know) almost all nonhuman animals. Such rights are often supposed to carry with them various responsibilities. Secondly, there are rights held by certain other (sometime sentient) creatures; though the extent of this subclass of right-holders is a controversial matter, it is generally taken to include at least infants, mentally defective humans, dead humans, and some animals. These rights do not carry corresponding responsibilities, though they are, of course, the However the assumption that certain rights - ground for various claims. the really central rights - are restricted to those who can claim them on their OM% behalf, seems to be based on the faulty idea of private (or separable) individuals as the basic metaphysical units. In a community of socio-environmental individuals there is no reason why one creature's rights should not be claimed, as infants' and animals' rights frequently are, by another: these rights are others' responsibilities. right-holder has itself no specific responsibilities. Often a Moreover the supposed division leaves it quite vague what responsibilities "central" often, it seems, they have none that right-holders are supposed to have; connect relevantly with their rights. be put on the alleged division: a primary nonderivative way). Accordingly but little weight will any preference-haver can hold rights (in That any preference-haver can hold rights is a consequence of the account of rt<y72t that usage of 'right to' appears to lead to, namely for very many (action-type) predicates cj), d has a right to iff, for every other (obligation-holder) z, z is not entitled to interfere with d if d chooses or would choose to <&. Thus that d holds rights requires of d only that it be the sort of creature that can make choices, that it be a preference-haver. The result holds good generally. Consider the other main case, where the right is to some object b: d has a right to b iff, for certain ot (a class of obligation holders, which may consist of a single person), members of a have an obligation to cede b to d if a chooses or would choose (to have) b (cf. Benn and Peters, op. cit., p.89). To be sure, there are other cases where rights to are attributed, but these appear to reduce to the cases given; which seems to amount to something like: to work. e.g. a has a right to work, a has a right to an opportunity Similar analyses - again with significance restrictions on the class of (])S and bs - apply to rights ??ot to, e.g. an animal has a right not to be kept in a cage. Rights of this sort can likewise be held by any preference-haver (but once again such rights be extended beyond this class to all natural objects). Not every right-holder bears responsibilities or carries obligations : infants for instance do not. Responsibility-bearers and obligation­ holders are a very proper subclass of humans and may only overlap the 81 �A t* class of humans, and likewise the class of potential responsibility­ bearers only overlaps the class of humans. Thus more demanding deontic notions afford no point of access for human chauvinism. To be responsible for something requires more than ability to have preferences or capacity to make choices; it implies liability to be called to account for the thing, answerability for it. Similarly, the undertaking of obligations involves entering into binding relations which imply answerability. Responsibility­ bearers and obligation-holders are thus a subclass of preference-havers, in accord with the annular theory. For answerability and accountability involve some level of linguistic competence - at the very least an ability to answer, in some language (usually presumed to be translatable, easily?, into some human language) - which many preference-havers do not possess. But responsibility and obligation lead a kind of a double life. For a creature that does not have responsibilities, may nonetheless be responsible for various things, in the sense of having done them, and sometimes done them deliberately; as, e.g., the wallaby who breaks down protecting netting and branches time and again is responsible for the demise of a Japanese plumtree. Rather similar oz^p/zf-statements hold true of subjects who do not carry obligations; consider, e.g., "wombats ought to be more careful in crossing roads". The upshot is that an environmental ethic can - despite its very different value theory - retain, in large measure, and sharpen, rather standard accounts of, and distinctions concerning, rights and obligations. It is in this respect, however, that the sort of environmental ethic being advanced differs markedly from alternative environmental ethics, e.g. those which would, implausibly, confer rights to trees, assign obligations to the soil, and so on. JM<?7z 6J?fe?zs^o?z pos^f^o/zs, of which Leopold's would be a leading example, ^Tzaf <2% eM^iro^z/??6?zfaZ ef/z^c znz^sf yoZZozJ i/zg paffgru cy hosier?? ef/z^<?s &ase <?^uss. orzZz/ a zzzzzcTz The way to a satisfactory, environmental, ethic is to reject the pattern of the Western super-ethic, not to simply extend it. The way is through some sort of annular theory which recognises categorial distinc­ tions between different sorts of things, not through a theory which would delete the legitimate distinctions between the sorts of things. latter mistaken way is unnecessary. The For example, in order to reject the instrumental view of value, and to assign natural objects intrinsic value, it is unnecessary to take Leopold's course of viewing all natural objects as having r^p/zfs in the same way as persons and preference-havers are regarded as having rights, or of persons as having obligations natural objects such as trees in the same sort of way as to other persons. Thus too there is no need to see the rejection of the instrumental 82 �<! view as mystical or anti-rational, or as reverting to the view that trees and other natural items house spirits (a view which in any case may have simply been a way of expressing an allotment of value to natural items), and hence as gross superstition. An environmental ethic can be as tough, practical, rational and secular as prevailing Western ethics. so such an ethics will lose much Even if it loses contact with its felt bases in natural things and appreciation of natural things. An environmental ethic will be much the poorer too if it limits itself to the moral terminology, and variations of the categories, of chauvinistically shaped ethics. There will much more as to care, concern and respect in the presentation and main principles of such an ethic than, what occupies standard Western ethics, duties, obligations and rights. In this way too, further problems and puzzles for environmental ethics can be resolved. For example, the view that ethical concepts can apply to the non-human world in an irreducible way is often seen as very puzzling. Much of this puzzlement is generated by attempting to transfer intact a strongly legalistic and person-oriented category of moral concepts, such as rights, moral obligations, duties, and so on, to items in the natural world where they give rise to such apparg^tZ-y problematic questions as 'Do stones have rights?', 'What are our moral obligations to trees?', and so on. If we attempt instead to apply a broader, less legalistic class of moral concepts, such as care, concern, responsibility and respect, much of the puzzling character of these still essentially moral attributions vanishes. There is no great problem for example about how we can legitimately apply notions such as respect to natural items, once a few distinctions are made. The view that the land, animals, and the natural world should be treated with respect was a common one in many hunting and gathering societies, and it is clear that this respect was not seen as generated merely by moral obligations to other persons. dimension to relations with Respect adds a moral the natural world. Respect - or the lack of it - comes out in everyday actions concerning the natural world. The following passage contrasts the Western treatment of the land which lacks respect with the careful and respectful treatment of some American Indians: The White people never cared for land or dear or bear. we Indians kill meat, we eat it all up. little holes. When we dig roots we make When we built houses, we make little holes. burn grass for grasshoppers, we don't ruin things. acorns and pinenuts. dead wood. When We don't chop down the trees. When we We shake down We only use But the White people plow up the ground, pull down the 83 �St trees, kill everything (Tozzck ike Furik, (ed. T.C. McLuhan, Sphere Books, London, 1973, p.15). The great care with which so many of the Indians utilized every portion of the carcass of a hunted animal was an expression, not of economic thrift, but of courtesy and respect (D. Lee, in Tonck ike Forik, p.15)What the respect position is based on is the fact that it is possible to make use of something without treating it as something which is no more than a means to one's ends. That is, it is possible to make use of some­ thing in limited, constrained ways - with constraints which may not derive entirely from considerations of the welfare of other humans, as in the case of the Indians' use of animals - without treating it as available for any kind of use. To so use something without treating it as available for unlimited or unconstrained use for human ends is characteristic of use. In contrast non-respectful use treats the use of the item as constrained by no considerations arising from the item itself and the user's relationship to it, but as constrained only in a derivative way, by considerations of the convenience, welfare and so forth of other humans. The Western view, as the Indians realised, is the non-respect position, that the world is available for unconstrained human use. People who hold respect positions, such as the Indians, see such a position as indicative of a lack of moral sensitivity, and sometimes in even stronger terms. The conventional wisdom of Western society tends to offer a false dichotomy of use versus respectful nonuse - a false choice which comes out especially clearly again in the treatment of animals. Here the choice presented in Western thought is typically one of eiiker use without respect or serious constraint, of using animals for example in the ways character­ istic of large-scale mass-production farming and a market economic system which are incompatible with respect, or on the other hand of not making any use of animals at all, for example, never making use of animals for food or for farming purposes. What is left out in this choice is the alternative the Indians and other non-Western people have recognised, the alternative of limited and respectful use, which enables use to be made of animals, but does not allow animals to be used in an unconstrained way or merely as a means to human ends. Such an alternative can have some applic­ ation in a Western context (for some limited examples of respectful use in the operations of a small farmer, see John Seymour, Tke Cowpiete Rook of Faber, London, 1976). A limited and respectful use position would condemn the infliction of unnecessary pain on animals, and also the treatment of animals as machines, as in factory farming. 84 It �would also condemn unecessary and wasteful killing and especially killing for amusement or "sport", which is incompatible with respect and assumes that animals can be used merely as a means for ZrZz?ZuZ human ends. But it would not necessarily oppose the use of animals in the case of approp­ riate non-trivial need, e.g. for food, although here again it would insist that the ways in which use can be made are limited, and not just by considerations of effect on other humans. The limited and respectful use position avoids some of the serious problems of the no-use position of the animal liberationists, although it shares many of the same beliefs concerning the illegitimacy of factory farming and similar disrespectful methods of making use of and exploiting animals. The no-use position faces the problem that it proposes that humans should treat animals in ways which are quite different from the ways in which animals treat one another, for example, prohibiting needful use for food. Thus the no-use position seems obliged to say either that the world would be a better place without carnivores, or else that carnivorous animals themselves are inferior, immoral, moral creatures - whichever alternative amoral or non- is taken here the bulk of animals emerge as inferior to humans, or at least vegetarian humans. It implies too that an impoverished natural order which lacked carnivores - and given what we know of ecology this would be a very highly impoverished one indeed, not to say an unworkable "natural" order - is preferable to a rich natural one with a normal proportion of carnivorous and partly carnivorous species. carnivores, Since it would imply the moral inferiority of the no-use position appears to arrive at the negation of its own starting point, (as regards e.g., the equality consideration) of all animals, human and non-human. In thus seeing humans as capable of a moral existence which most animals are not capable of, it sees man as apart from a largely amoral (or immoral) natural world, denies community with the animal and natural world,and indirectly reinforces human chauvinism. §6. TOWARDS AN ENVIRONMENTAL PHILOSOPHY: A PRELIMINARY SKETCH OF THE EXTENT OF PHILOSOPHICAL REVISION ENSUING ON ABANDONMENT OF CHAUVINISTIC ETHICS A radical change in a theory not uncommonly forces changes elsewhere - conceptual revision which affects not only the theory itself but many neighbouring areas. The phenomenon is well-known in the case of major physical theories, but it holds as well for ethical and philosophical theories; for example, a logical theory which rejects the Reference Theory in a thoroughgoing way has important repercussions throughout much of the rest of philosophy, and requires modification not only of logical 85 �systems and their semantics, but also, for instance, of the usual meta­ theory which also accepts the Reference Theory and indeed which is 95 tailored to cater only for logics which do conform. A thorough-going environmental ethics likewise has a substantial impact and forces many changes. The escape from human chauvinism not only involves sweeping changes in ethical principles and value theory but it induces substantial reverberations elsewhere - both inwards, for example in metaphysics, in epistemology, and in the philosophy and method­ ology of science, and outwards (in subjects that presuppose value theory) in social theory, in politics, in economics and in law, and beyond. For human chauvinism is deeply embedded in Western culture, and affects not only the ideology and the institutions but the arts. Thus, for example, much of literature, and especially of ballet and film, is given over to a celebration :of things' human,', of .'the species. ,-;Eveh the. ti.RfeLy herw,eYnphas.is, for instance of the counterculture, on-human relations (a-s opposed to selfcontained private individuals of social theories) remains well within the inherited chauvinistic framework. As to the changes, let us begin again with ethics. As we have begun to see, an environmental ethic can retain, though in a much amended theoretical framework (which affects meanings of terms), virtually all the standard ethical terminology. But even at a superficial syntactical level, there will be conspicuous alterations: firstly, ethical terminology will be enriched with new environmental terms, drawn in particular from ecology, somewhat as it was expanded in the late nineteenth century by terminology from evolutionary theories; and secondly, accompanying the attitudinal shifts the new ethic involves, there will be a marked shift in ethical terminology, away from the predominance of such terms as (and examples associated with) 'obligation', to such expressions as 'care', 'respect', 'consciousness'. 'duty', 'concern', 'promise', 'contract', 'responsibility', 'trust', Because the theoretical and attitudinal frame is changed, an environmental ethic forces - as we have already found with such notions as z)oZ-Me, cZzotce, interference and (Zowa^e reexamination of, and modified analyses of, characteristic ethical notions. It requires, furthermore, reassessment of traditional and conventional analyses of such notions as nctnraZ- ri^/zt, ^ronn^Z of ri^Zzt^ and perznissib- iZitz/., especially where these are based on chauvinist assumptions - much as it requires the rejection of most of the more prominent meta-ethical These points are explained in detail in Routley (e); and also in L. Goddard and R. Routley, TZze Lopic of Cipnificonce an^Z Context, Vol. 1, Scottish Academic Press, 1973, chapters 3 and 4. 86 �0 46 positions. Cursory examination of recent accounts of TzuZ^ruZ rZpTzZ^ zzzoruZ-Ztz/-, and ucf-Zczz will help illustrate and confirm these points. Hart, for example, accepts (subject to defeating conditions which are here irrelevant) the classical doctrine of natural rights according to which, among other things, any adult human ... capable of choice is at liberty to do (i.e. is under no obligation to abstain from) any action which is not one coercing or restraining or designed to injure other persons Hart, (H.L.A. 'Are there any natural rights?', reprinted in PcZ-ZZ-ZcuZ P/z-fZoscpZzz/, (ed. A. Quinton), Blackwell, Oxford 1967). But this sufficient condition for a human natural right depends on accepting the basic chauvinist principle - a variant of (D) - environmental ethics reject; since if a person has a natural right he has a right. So too the definition of a natural right adopted by classical theorists and accepted with minor qualifications by Hart presupposes the same defective principle. Accordingly an environmental ethic would have to amend the classical notion of a natural right, a far from straightforward matter now that human rights with respect to animals and the natural environment are, like those with respect to slaves not all that long ago, undergoing major re-evaluation. Another example of chauvinism at work in the very setting up of the field of discussion and problems in ethics is provided by recent accounts of woruZ-ZZy, where it is simply taken for granted that 'moral' distinguishes 96 among ZzMzzzu?z actions, policies, motives and reasons, and that what is moral refers essentially to human well-being (contentment, happiness or something of this general sort, tied with appropriate states or 97 conditions of humans). Such criteria for what is moral are chauvinistically based, assuming that what does not bear on human states or conditions cannot be a moral matter. What happens in worlds without humans, how animals fare or are treated, what is done or what happens to plants or other natural objects - none of these are directly moral matters, except insofar as they impinge on human welfare. That is human 96 Thus for instance, B. Williams, AfcruZ-Ztp; 24% P^z^rodMcf-Zo^ fo Ff/z-Zcs^ Harper & Row, New York, 1972, p.79. Williams does, however, remark in his Preface (p.xiv) how 'shaky and problematic' the distinction - which he subsequently takes for granted - is. 97 See, for example, P.R. Foot, TZzeor'Zes Ft/z-Zcs, Oxford University Press, London, 1967, and G.J. Warnock, Ccwfewporurz/ AforuZ P/z-ZZosop/zz/, Macmillan, London, 1967, and also TZzg o.f MoraZ-Zfz/, Methuen, London, 1971. 87 �t* chauvinism at work, and is at the same time a reductio such criteria. s- ad absurdum of A different nonchauvinistic account of what is moral is required (a beginning can be made by adopting certain of the maligned formal criteria). It is evident that any account which meets even weak conditions of adequacy will serve to meet the objection that an environ­ mental ethic is not concerned with what is moral but is really an aesthetic theory. For the objection as usually presented depends squarely on a chauvinistic restriction on morality, all the rest of value theory being classed, or dismissed, as "(mere) aesthetics". The case of morality illustrates the characteristic way in which theories - in this case chauvinistic ethics - redefine crucial notions in their own terms to suit their own ends, such as entrenchment and fortification of the theories against objections. Further corollaries of the rejection of chauvinism include the inadequacy of recent fashionable attempts, mainly derivative from Hobhouse, at characterising a^naZf^z/ and justifying it in ways that argue from man's humanity^98 and the inadequacy of much recent, largely chauvinistic, work in the philosophy of actdan, which takes it for granted that action and 99 rationality requirements on action are bound up with human nature. The abandonment of chauvinism implies the rejection not only of much ethical analysis, but of all current major ethical positions. The bias of prevailing ethical positions, and also of economic positions, which aim to make principles of conduct or reasonable economic behaviour calculable is especially evident. These positions typically employ a single criterion p, such as preference or happiness, as a summum bonum; characteristically each individual of some base class, almost always humans, but perhaps including future humans, is supposed to have (at least) an ordinal p- ranking of the states in question (e.g. of affairs, of the economy); then some principle is supplied to determine a collective p-ranking of these states in terms of individual p-rankings, and what is best or ought to be done is determined either directly, as in act-utilitarianism under the Greatest Happiness principle, or indirectly, as in rule-utilitarianism in terms of some optimization principle applied to the collective ranking. The species bias is transparent from the selection of the base class. And 98 Among such unsatisfactory liberal egalitarian positions are those presented in G. Vlastos, 'Justice and equality' in SacZaZ JnstZae (ed. R.B. Brandt), Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1962, and B.A.O. Williams, 'The idea of equality' in P^Zasap/zz^., PaZfZfcs and JacZafz/, Second series (ed. P. Laslett and W.G. Runciman), Blackwell, Oxford, 1963. 99 see, e.g.^T. Nagel, T/ze Pass-Z&'ZZ'Ztz/ a/ ^ZZrnZszzz, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1970. 88 �even if the base class is extended to include persons or some animals (at the cost, like that of including remotely future humans, of losing testability), the positions are open to familiar criticism, namely that the whole of the base class may be prejudiced in a way which leads to unjust principles. To take a simple example, if every member of the base class detests dingoes, on the basis of mistaken data as to dingoes' behaviour, then by the Pareto ranking test the collective ranking will rank states where dingoes are exterminated very highly, from which it will generally be concluded that dingoes ought to be exterminated (still unfortunately the evaluation of most Australian farmers, though it lacks any requisite empirical basis). Likewise it would just be a happy accident, it seems, if collective demand (horizontally summed from individual demand) for a state of the economy with sperm whales as a mixed good, were to succeed in outweighing private whaling demands; for if but few in the base class happened to know that sperm whales exist or cared a jot that they do, then even the most "rational" economic decision­ making would do nothing to prevent their extinction. But whether the sperm whale survives should not have to depend on what humans know or what they see on television. Summed human interests, or preferences of certain private individuals, are far too parochial to provide a satisfactory basis for deciding upon what is environmentally desirable. Nor would such accidental bases be adequate. Moreover ways out of the problem do not bear much investigation. It cannot be assumed, for instance, that the base class is on the whole good, and hence will not enjoin reprehensible behaviour, because such an assumption seems false, would at best be contingently true (so that the theory would fail for different circumstances to which it should apply), and would involve a deep problem in the theory, since it would then seem to admit the determination of goodness - that of the base class, on the whole - independently of what the theory was set up to determine, among other things, goodness. Nor can it be assumed, without serious circularity, that the optimisation is constrained by requirements of justice or fairness (see Routley (b) and §5 above). The ethical and economic theories just singled out (which are based on optimisation over select features of the base class) are not alone in their species chauvinism; much the same applies to west going meta- ethical theories which, unlike intuitionistic theories, try to offer some rationale for their basic principles. That is, the argument against utilitarian—type ethical and economic theories generalises. For instance, on social contract positions, obligations are a matter of mutual agreement 89 �between individuals of a given (but again problematic) base class; on a social justice picture, rights and obligations spring from the application of symmetrical fairness principles to members of the base class, usually a rather special class of persons;^00 while on a Kantian position, which has some vogue, obligations somehow arise from respect for members of the base class, persons.In each case, if members of the base class happen to be ill-disposed to items outside the base class, then that is unfortun­ ate for them: that is (rough) justice. Looking outwards from the ethics, the abandonment of chauvinism has likewise a wide set of consequences, both theoretical and practical, in economics, politics and law, and generally in the social sciences. One major practical economic impact of environmental ethics is in the extent to which free enterprise can operate unimpeded or unchanged. of business and enterpreneurial activity - to But consider <9722 option - will involve, in turn, either legal constraints, or reallocation of activity by such devices as environmental pricing, which directs activity away from environmentally undesirable pursuits. For example, if it is wrong to destroy a rare ecosystem in order to make a few more dollars, then restrictions should be imposed on business activity by one method or another. To some limited extent this is already happening in the field of pollution, but primarily because of the likely effects, direct or not too far removed, that pollution comes to have on other humans, not for a wider set of reasons, and often not for the right reasons. With a wider environ­ mental code, the public and legal intrusion into areas typically regarded as "private" and open to the free enterprise operations (of "open go") would be much more extensive. The same applies in the case of private Thus for example, [Rawls'] original position seems to presuppose not just a neutral theory of the good, but a liberal, individualistic conception according to which the best that can be wished for someone is the unimpeded pursuit of his own path, provided it does not interfere with the rights of others. This view is persuasively developed in the later portions of the book, but without a sense of its controver­ sial character (T. Nagel, 'Rawls on justice' , P/z^Zcsop/ztcczZ 82 (1973), p.228). Nagel also effectively argues that Rawls' original position is not neutrally determined but involves substantial moral assumptions (e.g. pp.232, 233); they are mostly, as it happens, of a chauvinistic cast. While the first of Kant's maxims is not so restricted in actual form­ ulation, others are (see H.J. Paton, AforuZ P<2M, Hutchinson, London, 1947) . And, firstly, such maxims are s^ppast?^ to be equivalent to ones formulated in terms of persons; secondly, they are supposed to be derived from features of, or connected with, people. 90 �-4 property; for example, given that it is not permissible to erode hill­ sides then there should, in this setting, be (legal) restrictions on farmers' and foresters' activities. Although the impact on the practice of economics of a thoroughgoing environmental ethic would be drastic - market negotiations, firms' activities, international trade, all would be affected - the impact on the underlying theories of preference and choice is comparatively For much of economics is squarely founded but still far from negligible. on chauvinism. less, The theoretical bias follows directly from the utilitarian bases of the theory, which is fairly explicit in welfare theory and rather heavily disguised in neoclassical theory. But although choice and value theory are, as characteristically presented in economics and elsewhere, damagingly chauvinistic, they do not have to be. For the theories can be reformulated in a non-chauvinistic way, as was indicated (in §5) above for utilitarianism - upon which economic theory is modelled. On such a revamped foundation an environmental economics to match the chosen environmental ethic can be built (for some preliminaries on this approach, see Routley (d), appendices 1 and 6). Several of the objections to base class theories such as utilitar­ ianism apply not merely against orthodox economic theory, but also to voting theory, to representative democratic systems of determination of political action. If, for, example, the base class consists of private individuals motivated by their own self-contained interest then such procedures can readily lead to most undesirable results, especially if these individuals compromise representative individuals. their autonomy through the election of For the more powerful of these representative individuals can be - and typically are, as their behaviour if not their protestations show - not favourably disposed to (the welfare of) things outside the base class or even to many members of the base class. Nearer the theoretical surface, especially in such branches of economics as "resource management", the chauvinism is more conspicuous. The following narrowly utilitarian assumption is quite typical: The goal of resource managers should be to communicate and act in ways that maximize human satisfaction (H.J. Campbell, 'Economic and social significance of upstream aquatic resources' in Forest Fs^s Oregon State University, Corcallis, 1971, p.14, also p.17). When management - where such is management becomes needed at all - the goals will be changed from such chauvinistic ones. 91 �The method of interference in "free economic enterprise", of controls and regulations, of legal and political constraints, is only one way in which leading principles of an environmental ethics can be put into effect. A quite different, and ultimately far more appealing, approach is by way of structural change, by changing the socio-economic structure in such a way that it comes to reflect on environmental ethics (by altering the frame of reference, or axes, to use the physical picture of §4, so that major problems vanish). Requisite structural change is . 102 far-reaching, both practically and theoretically in every reach of social science. For example, while on the position, capitalist markets are subject to further regulation, either directly imposed or by way of suitable pricing policies, in the s^rz^g^raZ. c/zaMgre position, capitalist markets are eliminated; while under state regulation private property is subject to further Controls,given approp­ riate structural change private property disappears. Looking inwards, an environmental ethic has an impact on the practice of many sciences other than the social sciences - what they do experimentally with natural objects (e.g. the treatment of animals in laboratory testing); how their research programmes are organised and directed (consider,e.g., projects involving irradiation or broadscale herbicide treatments of rainforests); the way classifications are made and which are made (consider, e.g. the extent to which human perception enters into classifications in botany); recommended on the basis of such sciences. and, of course, what is For as it stands human chauvinism is deeply embedded in the practice of science, directly in research and experimentation and in shaping classifications, theses and theories. Indeed the effect of a different ethic may extend even to the theory of such sciences, in particular through the bearing the ethic has 103 on metaphysics which m turn influences the foundations of such sciences. Such a new ethic would quite properly upset (as §1 should indicate) the extent to which humans are seen at the centre of things and things as accountable through them and scientific theories as 'human constructions wrestled from a hostile nature' (after Popper). It would help overthrow the pernicious chauvinistic idea that, apart from certain elementary facts, 4ZZ-es value. Me?zs<?/ze?zzjgr^, all necessity, all intensionality, all It should result too in the shattering of still widespread As (g) V. and R. Routley, 'Social theories, self management and environmental problems', this volume, begins to explain. Cf. R. Harre, TTza P/z^Zosop/ztes c/ S'c^eyzcg, Oxford University Press, 1972; and also Routley (e). 92 �***** assumptions as to the nature of animals and plants, for instance that their apparently goal—directed and intensional behaviour can be explained (away) mechanistically, and the deeply-rooted idea that some sort of Cartesian metaphysical picture of natural, as distinct from spiritual or rational, objects can be maintained (cf. again §1). In metaphysics there are at least two further important classes of effects. Firstly, the orthodox views of man's relation to nature, the dominant and modified dominant and lesser traditions, have to be abandoned and new positions worked out. In this sense, a new environmental ethic implies a similarly new metaphysic redefining Man's place in nature and human/nature relationships.104 Such a new philosophy of nature will recognise various natural objects other than humans as of independent value, so it will not be naturalistic. Nor will it view natural objects as simply available for the use, wise or otherwise, of humans. Several principles derived from the orthodox metaphysical positions will have to be abandoned and replacements worked out (as in the case of (D) in ethics) Thus superseded, for example, will be the principles of total use of natural areas for human use and of maximum long-term productivity of the earth's resources (principles criticised in their application in forestry in Routley (d)). At a deeper level, such a philosophy of nature will involve a turning away from the leading ideological principles of both the Renaissance and the Enlightenment and of much that went with them (e.g. with the Renaissance, the rise of commerce, bureaucracy, professionalism, formal education, and subsequently, with the Enlightenment, the rise of the modern state, capitalism and scientific enlightenment). For it means the dismissal of the chauvinistic principles of theRenaissance,with 'Man as the kernel of the Universe', a creature 'half-earthly and half-divine, his body and soul form[ing] a microcosm enabling him to understand and control Nature ...'.1°5 It means too removal of the humanism of the Enlightenment, the reduction of what formerly was assigned to the religious, such as ethical and political principles, to the human, a reduction which 104 As Passmore has observed - inconsistently with what is claimed m his (a) - in 'Attitudes to Nature', Roz/aZ of PTz^oscp/zy Lectures, volume 8, Macmillan, London, 1975. As against Passmore (a) p.3, such new ethics and metaphysics need involve no abandonment of 'the analytical, critical approach which is the glory of the West : on the contrary, they may well mean a more thoroughly critical and analytical approach than hitherto. 105 goth quotations are from T^ze <?y tTzg 7?e7z<2^ss(2%<3g (ed. D. Hay) Thames and Hudson, London 1967, pp.7-10, where too main movements, practical and ideological, of the Renaissance are usefully indicated. 93 �was based on the false dichotomy, which has still not lost its hpld:, religious or humanistic. Secondly, the removal of humans from a dominant position JhT the natural order renders immediately suspect a range of familiar philosophical positions of a verificationistic or idealistic kind such as phenomenalism in epistemology (how can what exists depend on what is perceived by members of such a transitory and perhaps not so important species or ^on whether there exist perceivers?), intuitionism in mathematics, con­ ventionalism in logical theory, the Copenhagen interpretation ir^ micr<^- physics, and subjectivisms not only in ethics but in every other* * True, most of these positions are defeated on t^e basis of other considerations anyway; but it is an immediate and fur,t^ier philosophical sphere. point against them that they are damagingly chauvinistic. Thus a corollary of the thoroughgoing rejection of human chauvinism, of very considerable philosophical importance, is the rejection of all the usual forms of idealism, i.e. all positions which accord primacy to the human subject and make the existence of a world of things or the nature of things dependent upon such subjects. A paradigmatic example is phenomenalism; other examples are Kantian idealisms, Hegelianisms and later German idealisms, Christian philosophies based on the primacy of human (and superhuman) consciousness, existentialisms; more surprising examples are empiricisms - inasmuch as all knowledge and truth is supposed to be ultimately derived from human experience - and their holistic images, dialectical materialisms and Marxisms. A satisfactory environ­ mental philosophy will be significantly different from all these positions. 94 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document — ?HUMAN CHAUVINISM AND.ENVIRONMENTAL.ETHICS* Richard and Vai Routley / * . * Class chauvinism has been and remains a cardinal weakness of most . moral codes - including, so it will°be argued, Western ethics. * A most serious failure 6f Western ethics is its human chauvinism or anthropo^centricism - a chauvinism which emerges in a refined, and apparently more reds&n*able, form as person chauvinism in much modern ethical theory. * w What is chauvinism? $ * Class chauvinism, in the relevant sense, is sz^Etant^aZ-Z-z/ differential, discriminatory and inferior treatment (by sufficiently many members of the class) for items outside the class, for which there is not enff-ZcZen^ justification. Pnwan chauvinism is class chauvinism where the class is humans, wuZ-e chauvinism where the class is human males, an-Z/zzaZ. chauvinism where the class is animals, etc. It would be bazf, to say the least, if Western ethics, in its various strands, were to turn out to rest on human, or person, chauvinism. For Western ethics would then have no better foundation than, and be open to the same sorts of objections as, moral codes based on other sorts of chauvinisms, e.g. on familial, national, sexual, racial or socio-economic class chauvinism - in particular it would be open to the objection that This paper (which considerably elaborates R. Routley 'Is There a need for a new, an environmental, ethic?', Procee^-Znps of Zz/ze XPt/z ^orZ^ Ccnpress of PTz^Z-cscp/zz/, 1 (1973), pp.205-10), was drafted in 1973 and read in 1974 at the University of Indiana, Bloomington, at Notre Dame University, and at the Conference on The Good Society held at the University of Victoria, Canada. Since the main virtue of the paper has been that it'has generated much interesting discussion, the original form has been retained, though the authors are no longer especially happy with the form, and many theses remain insufficiently developed or defended. But in order not to remove the previous and continuing criticism, no substantial deletions have been made, even though the paper has been raided and segments of it presented in improved form elsewhere, especially (a) R. and V. Routley, 'Against the inevitability of human chauvinism', in MoraZ P/z-ZZosopTzz/ an<7 t?ze Tzjentp-F-Zrst Centnrz/ (edited by K. Goodpaster and K. Sayre), Notre Dame University Press, 1979, and (b) R. and V. Routley, 'An expensive repair-kit for utilitarianism', paper presented at the Colloquium on Preferences CTzo^ce an<i FaZzve, RSSS, Australian National University, 1977. However some sizeable additions have been made, with a view to increasing the intelligibility and enlarging the scope of the original draft, and meet­ ing some of the many objections. 1 it discriminated against nonhumans in a prejudiced and unwarranted way, and would thereby stand condemned. For it is hard to see how an ethic based on simple spoo-Zes loyalty could have any greater claim to absolute­ ness or deserve any more respect than moral codes based on simple loyalty to national, sexual, or racial classes. Such an ethic could no more command allegiance - once the facts are brought into clear view - than other normally-deplored examples of localised class chauvinism, such as the Mafia or protection agencies or rackets or enclaves of slavery. Unfortunately prevailing Western ethics appear to be of just this sort. §1. THE WESTERN CASE FOR ITS HUMAN (OR PERSON) CHAUVINISM: THE FIRST LINES OF DEFENCE It is important, then, for defenders of the Western ideology to be able to show - *Zf it can be shown - that an ethic which discriminates strongly in favour of humans, as Western ethics apparently does, is not chauvinistic. Otherwise the ethic stands condemned. Of course not every distinction in treatment qualifies as chauvinistic - the distinction in treatment may not be substantial or systematic, and there may be an adequate and explicable basis for the distinction, so that some discrimin­ ation is warranted. In order to escape the charge of human chauvinism, it has to be shown how and why the drastic and general discrimination in favour of humans sanctioned and enjoined by modern (as by historical) Western ethical systems is warranted, and that it has an adequate basis. The extent of this chauvinism, especially with respect to animals, is at last - after centuries of a priori prejudice and gross distortion of the characteristics of wild animals and wilderness - beginning to be spelt 1 out. It is at least clear from the outset that an adequate justification cannot be provided which simply selects all and only these members of the species human (i.e. /zowo sap*Zo?zs) as zoologically defined. There is nothing about the characteristic of TzMwazzZZp itself (as distinct perhaps from its accompanying properties) which could provide a justification for overwhelmingly favourable treatment for humans (and unfavourable treatment for nonhumans) as opposed to other possible, and possibly some actual, nonhuman creatures. Once again, an adequate ethic and justification can­ not possibly be based on blind and unthinking species loyalty. The same 1 See, e.g., S. and R. Godlovitch and J. Harris (eds), Mor azzd Morals. -Z^Zo Z/ze zzzaZ^roat/TzozzZ of yzorz-ZzMwaMS, Gollancz, London, 1971; P. Singer, ?l?z-Z7na:Z f-Z^oraf-ZoM. pzezj o^/z-Zos for OMr of azz*Z/??aZs, Cape, London, 1976; S.R.L. Clark, y/zo A7oraZ of ^H-ZwaZs, Clarendon, Oxford, 1977. 2 CB objection applies against the simple need's argument: the commonly assumed domination of human needs over all else (e.g. over all environ­ mental considerations) has, if it is to have any merit, to be based on more than speciesism.^ We shall have to look then for some other not merely taxonomic characteristic to provide the sought justification. It will emerge however, that any such characteristic is held or may be held by nonhumans, and is not held, or potentially not held, by all items of the species human. Of course there are many characteristics which can, as a contingent matter, be used to distinguish human beings as a general class from other higher animals - although in fact with increasing knowledge of animals it is no longer clear that some of these characteristics distinguish as clearly as was assumed a priori in the past. For example, humans have a language, and a culture of a certain sort and even various logics. And, as we are accustomed to have people point out, other terrestrial animals do not conduct philosophical discussions on environmental ethics. However not only is participation in these activities potentially available to nonhuman creatures, and these characteristics possibly possessed by some, but these activities are not generally engaged in even by humans (particularly the power elite), many humans lack the requisite competence, and even among those who do qualify, such activities are carried out to a very varying extent. We run the risk, then, in applying such demanding criteria, of ruling out, of classing as deserving of "sub-human" or "sub­ person" treatment, a considerable class of human beings — items most humans would consider as worthy of better treatment than that normally accorded by humans to nonhuman animals. What is more important however is that such criteria as human language, culture, human civilization, human intentionality, or whatever, appear to provide no satisfactory for the substantially unfavourable treatment allotted those falling outside the privileged class. should there be such strong discrimination in favour of creatures having a (certain sort of)^ language or a higher level of intelligence and against creatures or items which do not, in favour of things with a certain sort of culture or a certain logic and against those without? Especially when some of these criteria are clearly, and 2 As McCloskey remarked (in a letter dated 5.7.77 containing many helpful comments) 'talking about needs does little but obscure the problem, as needs, to be normatively relevant, involve reference to goods; and that merely transfers the problem'. 3 On next page. 3 *3 unjustifiably,loaded in favour of human interests, achievements and By contrast the very many respects in which some or sorts of animals are superior bo bMfnans (many are noted in V.B. Droscher, Tbe abilities (cf. the cultural loading of various intelligence tests). 4?ibmaZ Parcaptbo^, Allen, London, of tbe Sassos. 1969) are rarely considered; yet some of these features would, if taken in the same serious way as some respects in which humans excell, justify a reverse chauvinism (which could be reflected as, for exampZ-e, in the Hindu treatment of cows). The only sort of justification for the discrimination that might appear convincing - that those who have the given characteristic (e.g. those that are more intelligent, or more rational, or richer) are more valuable or worth special treatment - is vitiated by the fact that were it accepted by Western ethics it would warrant similar discrimination humans (or persons). For how do we show that the allegedly warranted discrimination is sufficiently different from making substantial (class) distinctions between humans in terms of their level of intelli­ gence, linguistic or logical ability, or level or kind of cultural achievement - so that those with "lower" levels of these valued abilities are treated in a consistently inferior way and regarded as available for the use of the others? In short, these characteristics do not provide adequate justification for the substantially inferior treatment accorded those not having them, and so the charge of chauvinism is not escaped by producing them. A similar set of points applies against a number of other criteria^ traditionally or recently proposed to distinguish the privileged class. Often these are propounded in terms of personhood and criteria for being a parson (the class marked out for privileged treatment being the class of persons) rather than criteria for being bz^wan - in order to escape difficulties raised by young, senile, decrepit, stupid, irrational, 3 For undoubtedly many mammals, birds and insects can communicate, some times in ways analogous to language, even if the honorific term 'language' is withheld (see - to select an unfavourable source the discussion in E.O. Wilson, SocZobboZ-opp. Belknap, Cambridge Mass., 1975, chapter 8 ff.). It is becoming increasingly evident, however, that the ascription of some linguistic ability, and of elementary languages, to nonhuman creatures should not be withheld, see e.q. the details assembled in E. Linden, 4p<2s_, Penguin,New York, 1976. (But contrast Wilson, op. cit., pp.555 59, and to set this in proper perspective, consider Wilson s discussion of ethics and aesthetics a few pages later, pp.562-65.) 4 Many of the criteria that have been proposed are assessed, and found wanting, in Routley (a). 4 damaged and defective humans, extraterrestrial creatures, and super animals; to avoid the merely contingent connections between being human and having requisite person-determining characteristics (such as ration­ ality or knowledge) supposed to warrant discriminatory treatment; and t defeat, though it is a pyrrhic victory, the charge of human chauvinism (or equivalents of the charge, such as anthropocentricism or speciesism). But much the same problems then arise in terms of criteria for u person, and the chauvinism problem reappears as the problem of furnish­ ing criteria which are suitably clearcut, and do separate persons from assumed nonpersons, and which would provide an adequate justification for substantially privileged treatment for persons and inferior treatment for nonpersons. Unless such a justification is forthcoming the charge of person is not escaped. Most of the criteria proposed for personhood fall down in just these sorts of ways, e.g. being autonomous, the having of projects, the producing of junk, the assessing of some of one's performances as successful or not, the awareness of oneself as an agent or initiator. Not only does it appear that (the more worthy of) such criteria apply (or could apply) to many nonhuman animals - thus animals are generally more autonomous (in main senses of the term) than humans, many animals have projects (e.g. home and nest building), and they are well aware of themselves, as opposed to rivals, as initiators of 5 projects - and that they do not apply uniformly to humans or indeed to persons in any ordinary sense; but again it is extremely difficult to see what there is in these characteristics which would warrant or justify the vast difference in treatment between the privileged and nonprivileged classes, or justify regarding the non-privileged class as something available for the of the privileged class. Similar objections can be lodged against the proposal that knowledge or the possession of knowledge, provides feature. (or u crMc^uZ) distinguishing It can hardly provide the appropriate filter, since it not only gives no sharp cut-off point,but does not even always rank humans or persons above nonhumans or nonpersons. Moreover, taken seriously it should lead to substantial moral differentiation between persons, a person's moral rating also fluctuating during his lifetime. In any case, For example, the shiftless intelligent person, or the primitive person, who has no projects and engages in no moral reflection, and thus offends protestant ethics, is not thereby deregisterable as a person, any more than an intelligent animal with projects can join the union. On next page. 5 4 why rank knowledge so highly: for (pace Socrates) knowledge is not the foundation of virtue, but is frequently turned to evil ends, and even where it is meritorious it is not the sole (or even a crucial) criterion of worth. Similar difficulties apply too to the historic criterion of ratZozzaZZZp, along with the added problem that it is -very difficult to say what it is in any clear or generally acceptable way, or to prevent it from degenerating into a simple "pro" word. If a hallmark of rationality is commitment to the consequences of what one believes and seriously says, then many humans fail the test. If, on the other hand rationality i^, for example, the ability to discover and pursue courses and actions likely to achieve desired goals (direct action toward goals), ability to solve problems concerned, etc., then plainly many animals have it, and possibly to a greater extent than humans in some cases (and of certain humans in almost all cases). If it were the ability, e.g. to do ZopZc (say propositional calculus) or to assess reasoning verbally, then the (biassed) criterion would be far too strong and rule out many humans. Again, why should one make such a marked discrimination on this basis? What is so meritorious about this characteristic, that it warrants such a marked distinction? Nothing (at least in the ordinary academic's view, or logicians would receive more favoured treatment). Other criteria, which yield an analytic connection between being a person and enjoying freedom or having rationality, in part beg the question. For in D?zat respect is it that persons - or worse, just persons - are free. Also the justificatory problem, as to how the claimed freedom or rationality warrants such differential treatment, remains. Characterisations of parsons vary enormously, from so strong that they rule out suburban humans who are not "self-made" enterpreneurs, to so weak that they admit very wa^z/ animals. An (unintentional) example of the latter is the following: persons, that is, ... beings who are not only sentient but also capable of intensional autonomous action, beings that must be ascribed not only states of consciousness but also states of belief, thought and intention (A. Townsend, 'Radical vegetarians , 4zzstraZasZa?z JoMrzzaZ of P/zZZosop/zz/, 57 (1979), p.89). 6 in addition, the relation "a has at least as much knowledge as b is only a partial ordering. For example, a dog's and a child s knowledge may be incomparable, because they know about different matters how to do quite different sorts of things, etc. (The idea that knowledge is the key to moral discrimination, that it is what makes humans rank t way Western ethics ranks them, may be found in C.B. Daniels, PaaZMaZZoK of FZTzZcaZ T/zoorZes, Philosophy in Canada Monograph, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1975.) 6 O) Most rats and rabbits satisfy the conditions: conscious animals that have intentions they are sentient, (e.g. to get through some barrier such as a floor or a fence), beliefs and thoughts (e.g. that there is For his further argument Townsend preferred food beyond the barrier). shifts - without notice, but in a way that is quite typical of this scene - to wzzcTz stronger requirements upon being a person (such that one who does not meet them is incapacitated as a person) which rule out many humans, e.g. 'The person must recognise canons of evidence and inference warranting changes in his beliefs, and be capable of changing his beliefs 7 accordingly' (op. cit., p.90). In meeting hypothetical objections, Townsend slips in a further require ment of rationality, but the characterisation of person given does not include any such requirement. Subsequently, however, Townsend commits himself, without argument, to the thesis that 'a fairly high degree of rationality is prerequisite' to attributing 'intensionality' (as dis­ tinct from 'intentionality'). This is not going to help much. For, firstly, rationality is very much a notion which admits of degrees, without the relatively sharp cut-off stages required for person as a notion of orthodox moral relevance, or possessed by the notion of /zzzwczzz to which Townsend sneaks back in his chauvinistic conclusion (p.93). Secondly, Tzozj high a degree is prerequisite for being a person? If only enough to satisfy the conditions for being a person, then the animals that are persons have it. If more, then either the initial characterisation of a person fails or the thesis breaks down. The much stronger requirements upon being a person that Townsend sub­ sequently appeals to are said to derive from S.I. Benn. But, if any­ thing they strengthen one of the stronger of several zzozze^zz-Zz^uZezzf characterisations of (zzatz^raZ) person - none of them equivalent to /zzzzzzuzz - that Benn has at various times offered. While Benn's weaker characterisations appear to admit at least many "higher" animals, e.g. that of a natural person as a chooser, conscious of himself as able to make a difference to the way the world goes, by deciding to do this rather than that, having projects, therefore, of his own, whose life experience may consequently be understood, not simply as a chronicle of events, but as an enterprise, on which he puts his own construct­ ion ((a) 'The protection and limitation of privacy, Part I', ^MstraZ-Zazz Lazj JozzrzzczZ, 52 (1978), p.605); the stronger characterisations which invoke (rather vaguely specified, and cZ-Z//ere?zt) minimum conditions of rationality in belief and action said to imply respoTzs-Zb-ZZ-Ztz/ on the part of the person for what s/he does, though they do zzcf - exclude many of the creatures admitted by weaker characterisations. For such stronger characterisations see 'Individuality, autonomy and community' in CozzzzzzMzz-Ztz/ (ed. E. Kamenka) Edward Arnold (forthcoming) and (c) 'Freedom, autonomy and the concept of a person', ProceecZ-Zzzps o/ t?ze ^r-Zs^oteZ-Zuzz Society, 76 (1976), pp.109-30. 7 D The foregoing points, taken together, support our contention that it is not possible to provide criteria which would distinguishing, in the sharp way standard Western ethics do, between humans and certain nonhuman creatures, and particularly those creatures which have prefer­ ences or preferred states.For such criteria appear to depend upon the mistaken assumption that moral respect for other creatures is due only when they can be shown to measure up to some rather and tests for membership of a privileged class (essentially an elitist view), instead of upon, say, respect for the preferences of other creatures. Accordingly fka skarp woraZ ethics by philosophers and others alike, commonly accepted m aZZ ofkar a^-fmaZ speafas, Zacks a safZsfacforz/ cokarazif bcsZs. The distinction, which historically rested on the assumption that humans possessed a soul (or higher reason) but that other animals, brutes, did not, appears to have been uncritically retained even after the religious beliefs or philosophical theories underpinning it have been abandoned. Given that the distinction underlying human chauvinism fails, is there anywhere satisfactory demarcations of moral relevance can be made among things? Yes, several divisions^ of mcraZ can be made; but of these coincides with a division into human and others. Consider, first, the question of consideration fiards others, and the matter of which offers are to be taken into account in cases where others' interests and preferences are affected by some action. Insofar as moral consideration for others (among sentient items) is based on analogical (empathetic, and essentially inductive) principles, such as taking account of their worthwhile preferences, objectives, interests etc., 8 There are of course further arguments for the contention, for example from the anatomical and physiological affinities of human and other animals, from their common evolutionary history, and so on. The arguments are of varying force; for example, evolutionary arguments can be arrested, temporarily, by the claim that there was a quantum jump" in human evolutionary development which did not occur with other creatures with a previously shared evolutionary history (cf. Wilson, op. cit.). 9 Although the divisions may be conceptually sharp enough, they are any­ thing but sharp when applied in the field to the variety of creature and circumstances that occur. For example, preference-havers is, so far at least, sharp enough, but it is far from clear which creatures qualify, e.g. which, if any, Crustacea? For the present most of t ese potential decision cases are cases for cheerful indecision; _ u , alternatively, the divisions may be viewed - perhaps better not a sharp boundaries, but as gradation states, as where two colours m a rainbow meet. 8 * c- it is difficult to see how such consideration can fail to apply to all (including nonhuman) preference-having creatures; and one does not need to apply criteria such as linguistic ability, navigational ability, intelligence, piano-playing, hunting skill, etc., to obtain a basis for such consideration (indeed one cannot). The /zuzzz^zz^ a/* pr^yerezzces (and of preferences revealed through choices) is however a quite sufficient basis for z^/zz^s of consideration and concern. It is at this point, we suggest, that the requisite, important and non-arbitrary distinction is to be drawn which marks out the class of creatures towards which obligations may be held; that is, the usually recognised principles of consideration towards others (of the privileged class) properly extend or should be generalised to consideration for other creatures having prefer­ ences, and t/ze correspazz^zzy pezzaraZ zza^ to putt afTzars a/zZ-^pa^azz pr^zzc^pZ-e ("at/zer preyerezzce-TzuzJersJ tzzto a c%spreyerra<^ stato y*ar zza paa<i raasazz. Insofar as moral behaviour is based on consideration for others and not harming others, preference-having provides an adequate basis, and does appear to provide a sufficient justification for substantially different treatment for preference-having over non-preference-having items - because items without preference cannot (literally) be put into a dispreferred state. Thus preference-having appears to tie in with an important basis for moral obligation, and appears to provide a superior criterion, for a sort of moral consideration, to other criteria sometimes proposed such as sentience - or, differently, intelligence - especially since in the absence of preferences such notions as /zurzzztzz^ something (in a way that does affect it) and damaging its interests become difficult of application (not to say nonsignificant, except in extended senses). The unsatisfactoriness of the sentience criterion for what one can hold obligations ^azJarzis can be grasped from the case of the sentient machine or purely sentient creature which does not have preferen­ ces, does not care what state it is in or whether it is destroyed,etc. The sentience criterion is often converted by utilitarians into a suffer­ ing criterion, by taking pain as a paradigm of sentience: but plainly the two criteria diverge since some sentient creatures may never feel pain or suffer. Suffering is even less satisfactory than sentience; for suffering is neither necessary nor sufficient for being in a dispreferred state (consider masochists who suffer but are not in a dispreferred state, and well-treated workers who are in a dispreferred state but do not suffer). Preference-having provides a lower bound; it is a sufficient but zzat zzecassurz/ condition for being an object of this sort of moral 9 consideration and concern. That it is not necessary is revealed, independently of environmental examples, by the following sorts of cases: the treatment of "human vegetables", successful stoics, and science­ fiction cases in which people are brain-washed into performing certain goals and having no dispreferred states apart from the programmed goals. In all three cases the question of dispreferences does not arise, but relevant moral issues can.*^ The necessary condition, that corresponds to preference-having as a sufficient condition, appears to be capability at some time (e.g. previously, when developed) for preference-having. It has been taken for granted that many animals (from species higher on the evolutionary scale) have preferences, make choices, and the like. This is the merest commonsense, which can be readily confirmed in a scientific way. For example, some of the preference-rankings of a black­ tail wallaby as to types of foliage to eat are readily established by observation, and it is fairly straightforward verifying that bushrats prefer cheese to soap, this preference being revealed by regular choices. It has however been claimed by some recent philosophers, for reasons apparently different from those offered by traditional philosophers such as Aristotle, Aquinas and Descartes,that animals do not have intentions, or at least do not have them in a full sense. It is unclear whether these intentions, which are taken to include thoughts and beliefs and, perhaps, desires, include preferences; but it is hard to see how preferences, which are intentional, are excluded if desires are included in intentions. The recent arguments to show that animals do not really have intentions, which do not bear much investigation even in such central cases as belief,12 appear extremely feeble when applied to preference. For the arguments start from the claim that we cannot say zjTzat it is that animals As N Griffin, who supplied the examples, remarked a similar thing happens also in less extreme cases of the type brought in to prominence, e.q. by the women's movement: that it is possible, by means of indoctrination, to limit the range of someone's dispreferences; treatment of such persons may still remain immoral even when it does not place them outside the (artificially widened) range of their preferred states. 11 The traditional reasons look slight also in the case of preferences and choices. It would have been claimed - the theory forces the claim Interestingly, choices - that animals' choices could not be rational, of many animals conform to behavioural criteria for rationality pro posed in economics. (forthcoming) 12 See J. Bishop, 'More thought on thought and talk', and R Routley, 'Alleged problems in attributing beliefs to anima s , paper'prepared for the B.Ztef conference, University of Queensland, 1979. 10 believe (of course very often we can, and unproblematically) and fall back on the claim that animals lack concepts of a fit sort. In the case of preferences, however, there is often no problem in saying what it is animals prefer, or in confirming the claim. Nor is it that we cannot attribute propositional-style preferences to animals; if black-tail wallabies prefer, as they do, new foliage to old then they prefer the foliage's being new over the foliage's being old. As for the concept claim, in the sense in which is delineated in psychology, animals have concepts. And if a philosopher's notion of "concept gets in the way of the claim that free dogs prefer bones to carrots (or other vegetables) then it is not the claim that requires revision, but the philosopher's notion. The preference-having criteria appear to distinguish non-arbitrarily and sharply enough between higher animals and other items, and to rule out of the relevant class elementary animals, trees, rocks and also some human items, e.g. human kidneys. The criteria plainly exclude inanimate objects, and they separate animate objects. For while living creatures such as plants and elementary animals can be said in an extended sense to have and also optimal living conditions, e.g., for healthy develop­ ment, and in sense to have preferred states or environments, they do not have preferences, and cannot be put into states they disprefer. All that is required for an 'interest' or 'welfare' in the broad sense is a telos or life-goal, as possessed by living things, or an equilibrium or system goal, as possessed by living ecosystems. At the same time the criteria indicate another important division. For in a wider sense, animate objects which do not (significantly) have preferences or make choices, are sometimes said to have or 'preferred environments' (as, e.g., in 'the plant prefers a sunny frost-free location with a well drained soil'). us say that the or preferred states To avoid confusion let of animate objects and also such biological items as ecosystems can be affected in one way or another, e.g. increased, decreased, upset.For instance, the wellbeing of a coastal community and of the individual trees in it can be reduced to zero by sandmining, and it can be seriously threatened by pumping waste detergent 13 in this broad sense too, living things, things that participate in the growth process, have interests. However under a narrower and more common determinate of the slippery term 'interests', only preference­ havers have interests (again sentient creatures do not provide the boundary). Because the term 'interests' so readily admits of high redefinition, and the infiltration of chauvinism, its use is better limited (or even avoided), in favour of other more stable terms. 11 There is a general obligation principle into the nearby ocean. corresponding likewise to this more comprehensive class of welfare bearers, namely, sz/sf67??s ohjecfs <9r ^<90<i reason. Moral does not of course end with what is in some way animate, much as the class of valuable objects is not tied to what relates suitably to central preference-havers. In suitable settings, a (virtually) dead landscape, a rare stone, a cave, can be items of moral or aesthetic concern; indeed any object of value can in principle be of such concern, and in principle at least, value or disvalue, and so of woraZ concern. almost any sort of object. <2% object of There can then be obligations Naturally only a fraction of the things that exist have especial value, and only a few of the things that exist will be things concerning which some of us have obligations. Furthermore these sorts of obligations do not in general reduce to the conditions or arrangements (e.g. contractual or joint welfare arrangements) of preference-havers or some select subclass thereof (what will sub­ sequently be called, as the argument is developed, the base cZass). Just as there are relevant divisions beyond the class of preference­ havers, so there are within the class. Thus the suggestion that the class towards which moral obligations (and a corresponding sort of moral concern which takes account of creatures' states) may be held is bounded by the class of preference-havers, does not of course imply that d^st^^ot^o^s can be made the class of preference-havers with respect to the kind of behaviour appropriate to them. For example, obligations which by no means exhaust obligations - can only be held directly (as distinct from by way of a representative) with respect to a much narrower class of creatures, from which many humans are excluded. The class is also distinct from the class of persons, at least as 'person' is usually characterised. What emerges is an of types of objects of moral relevance, some matched by types of moral obligation (described toward the end of Routley (a)), with nested zones representing respectively different sorts of objects - such as, objects of moral concern, welfare-having objects, preference-havers (and choice-makers), right-holders, obligationholders and responsibility-bearers, those contractually-comnitted-and the different sorts of obligations that can significantly apply to such objects. Not all the types of objects indicated are distinct, nor is the listing intended to be exhaustive but rather illustrative. For strictly the labels given should be expanded, as the distinctions are categorial ones, so that what matters is not whether an object is, for instance, 12 contractually committed in some fashion but whether it is the sort of thing that can be, whether it can significantly enter into or be committed by arrangements of a contractual kind. is to Similarly function as a categorial marker, that marks out the sorts of things that can (significantly) have preferences: the assumption that preference­ havers coincide with choice-makers is based on this categorial reading. Although the annular picture is (as will become clear in §5) important for the environmental alternative to be elaborated, and in meeting object­ ions to it, the countercharge has been laid that it reintroduces chauvin­ ism through its inegalitarian distinctions. This is a mistake: not every sort of ethical distinction, certainly not a justified distinction, involves chauvinism. Chauvinism is exhibited where, for example, objects of a favoured class are treated in a preferential way to superior items of an excluded class,e.g. defective humans as against apes, degenerate French against normal Pygmies. The annular picture neither involves nor encourages such differences in treatment: it is neutral and unchauvinistic, for the reason that it relies only on categorial distinctions which tie analytically with ethical notions (see the semantical analyses of §5). It is certainly in no way species chauvinist or human chauvinist For none of the zones of the annular picture comprises the class of humans (or its minor variant the class of persons); for this class is not of moral relevance. The reason is that the human/nonhuman distinction is not an ethically significant one, and can, and should, be demoted from its dominant, and damaging, position in ethical theory. notion of But dropping the out of ethics, is only part of the ethical change that is called for: taking due account of nonhumans is also required. In particular - to return to the theme - what is quite unacceptable, 14 and based on a set of distinctions which are arbitrary and unjustifiable, differential treatment enjoined nonpersons as distinct is the ex from persons under Western ethics, and the view that only persons or humans have any (nonderivative) right to moral consideration and concern as preference-havers and that there are obligations towards other creatures such a criticism of chauvinism is based firmly 14 According to Q. Gibson ----- ----. . . . ' " This is simply on Western ethical equality and egalitarian principles,. ___ The general argument not so: there is no reliance on such principles, feature -f cannot be what justifies the differential takes the form; ----- — - . . . treatment of humans and nonhumans, because either f is not morally relevant or not all humans have f or some nonhumans have f., Neither Nei__. equality nor substitutions based upon equality are invoked at any stage. 13 only insofar as these are or reduce to obligations to persons or humans. §2. THE EXTENT OF CHAUVINISM, AND FURTHER LINES OF DEFENCE Western ethics are, then, human chauvinist in that they characterist ically take humans (or, to make a slight improvement, persons) to be the only items worthy of proper moral consideration, and sanction or even enjoin substantially inferior treatment for the class of non-human preference-having creatures, without - so it certainly appears - adequate justification. The prevailing nineteenth century Western attitude to wild creatures is evident from Judge Blackstone (quoted approvingly in Penguin, London, 1967, pp.431): W. Cobbett, E^raZ With regard likewise to wild animals, aZZ rT?a%kZ%<7 arZ^ZnaZ bz/ the the Creator a right to pursue and take away any fowl or insect of the air, any fish or inhabitant of the waters, and any beast or reptile of the field: and this natural right still continues in every individual, unless where it is restrained by the civil laws of the country. And when a man has once so seized them, they become, while living his qualified property, or if dead, are absolutely his own. Prevailing Western attitudes have not shifted markedly since that time; for example, foresters, widely regarded as socially responsible, think nothing of dislodging from their homes and environment, or even destroying, communities of animals which do not directly interfere with human welfare. But there is another very important broader respect in which Western ethics are human (or person) chauvinistic, namely in the treat­ ment accorded to and attitude taken towards the broader class of natural items such as trees and forests, herbs, grasslands and swamps, soils and waterways and ecosystems. Unlike higher animals such items cannot liter­ ally be put into dispreferred states (and in Z/zZs obvious sense, as opposed to the wider sense of 'interests' tied to welfare, they have no interests), but they can be damaged or destroyed or have their eroded or impaired. The Western, chauvinistic, assumption is that this can only happen where human interests are affected. The basic assumption is that value attaches essentially only to humans or to what serves or bears on human interests, or derivatively, to items which derive from human skill, ingenuity or labour. Since natural items have no other value, there is no restriction on the way they are treated insofar as this does not interfere with others; as far as ZsoZate^ natural things are con­ cerned anything is permissible. 14 It is, at base, because of these chauvinistic features of Western ethics that there is a need for a new ethic and value theory (and so derivatively for a new economics, and new politics, etc.) setting out not just people's relations to preference-havers generally but also (along with many other things) people's relations to the natural environment - in Leopold's words 'an ethic dealing with man's relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it' ct/zer essuz/s (A. Leopold, A Coz^/ztz/ New York, 1966, p.238). /Uzzzu^zuc It is not of course that old and prevailing ethics do not deal with man's relation to nature: they do, and on the prevailing view man is free to deal with nature as he pleases, i.e. his relations with nature - insofar at least as they do not affect others, as pollution and vandalism do - are not subject to moral censure. Thus assertions such as 'Crusoe ought not to be mutilating those trees' are significant and morally determinate but inasmuch at least as Crusoe's actions do not interfere with others, they are false or do not hold - and trees are not, in a good sense, moral objects. It is to this, to the values and evaluations of the prevailing ethics, that Leopold, Fraser Darling and many others, both earlier and later, take exception. Leopold regards as subject to moral criticism, as wrong, behaviour that on prevailing views is morally permissible. But it is not, then, as Leopold seems to think, that such behaviour is beyond the scope of the prevailing ethics and that merely an extension of traditional morality is required to cover such cases, to fill a moral void. If Leopold is right in his criticism of prevailing conduct, what is required is a change in the ethics, in attitudes, values and evaluations; for example, what is permissible on the prevailing ethics will be no longer permissible on the new. For as matters stand, as Leopold himself explains, humans generally do not feel morally ashamed if they interfere with a wilderness, if they maltreat the land, extract from it whatever will yield, and then move on; and such conduct is not taken to interfere with and does not rouse the moral indignation of others, and is accordingly permissible on prevailing ethics. As Leopold says: A farmer who clears the woods off a 75% slope, turns his cows into the clearing, and dumps its rainfall, rocks, and soil into the coi^munity creek, is still (if otherwise decent) a respected member of society (op. cit., p.245). Only recently has such behaviour begun to be seriously questioned and become the subject of criticism,e.g. by environmentalists. Under what will be accounted an eyz^trozi/TzeMtuZ gtTz^c, however, such traditionally 15 permissible conduct would be accounted morally wrong, and the farmer subject to proper moral criticism. That ethics and morality are not, and never have been, restricted to human concerns, or exclusively to relations between persons, is important in rebutting objections to the very idea of an environmental ethic, based on the premiss that morality just is restricted (definitionally) to human relationships (and connected values) and is not significant beyond that. The problem of moral relations with respect to preference-havers other than persons and to inanimate items cannot be resolved or escaped simply by declaring morality to apply solely,or as a matter of meaning or defin­ ition only to humans (or to persons). For first, such a solution would run counter to the common view that humans are subject to some moral con­ straints, even if comparatively minor ones, towards other creatures; the having of such constraints cannot be ruled out definitionally, and corres pondingly the judgments formulating these constraints or prohibitions cannot be ruled out as nonsignificant, yet they are surely moral. The only way in the end, that the claim gets support is by a narrow, and no longer acceptable, account of what is moral in terms of concern with humans alone (cf. S6). Likewise, the question of the moral interrelations of humans with intelligent nonhuman extraterrestrial beings, even if at present hypothetical, is certainly a meaningful one, and some interesting and clearly moral issues of this sort are frequently raised in science fiction. Only if the extent of morality is, somewhat misleadingly, reconstrue in terms of the class of constraints on the behaviour of those it applies to - that is, in terms of limitations, as distinct from moral freedom does the claim that Western morality is restricted to humans (or persons) begin to gain plausibility. For it is true that beyond the favoured base class, humans or persons, few constraints are supposed to operate (and ad hoc ones at that) unless the welfare of members of the base class is adversely affected. Under an environmental ethic, such as that Leopold advocates, this would change: previously unconstrained behaviour would be morally circumscribed, and in this sense the scope of morality would be extended. It is not evident, however, that a ethic ethic, an in the case at hand, is required to accommodate even radical new judgments seriously constraining traditionally approved conduct, i.e. imposing limitations on behaviour previously considered morally permissible. For one reason it is none too clear what is going to count as a new ethic, much as it is often unclear whether a new development in physics counts as a new physics or just as a modification or extension of the old. 16 For, notoriously, ethics are not clearly articulated or at all well worked out, so that the application of identity criteria for ethics may remain obscure. They are nonetheless (pace Quineans) perfectly good objects for investigation. Furthermore, there is a tendency to cluster a family of ethical systems which do not differ on core or fundamental principles together as the one ethic: e.g. the Christian ethic, which is an umbrella notion covering a cluster of differing and even competing systems. There are two other possibilities, apart from a new environmental ethic, which might cater for the new principles and evaluations; that of an extension or modification of the prevailing ethic, and that of the development of principles that are already encompassed or latent within the prevailing ethic. The possibility that environmental evaluations can be incorporated within (and ecological problems solved within) the not inflexible framework of prevailing Western ethics, may appear open because there is not a single ethical system uniquely assumed in Western civiliz­ ation: on many issues, and especially on controversial issues such as infanticide, women's rights and drugs, there are competing sets of principles. Talk of a new ethic and prevailing ethics tends to suggest a sort of monolithic structure, a uniformity, that prevailing ethics, and even a single ethic, need not have. The Western ethic is not so monolithic. In particular, three important traditions in Western ethical views n ,been mapped .3 out: 4. 15 a concerning man's relation to nature have recently dominant tradition, the despotic position, with man as despot (or tyrant), and two lesser traditions, the stewardship position, with man as custod­ ian, and the cooperative position with man as perfector. the only traditions; Nor are these primitivism is another, and both romanticism and mysticism have influenced Western views. The dominant Western view is simply inconsistent with an environmental ethic; for according to it nature is the dominion of man and he is free to deal with it as he pleases (since - at least on the mainstream StoicAugustine view - it exists only for his sake^^), whereas on an See especially (a) J. Passmore, Man's Fespons^btZ^^z/ for Duckworth, London, 1974; also R. Nash, ^tZderness an^ t/ze Yale University Press, New Haven, 1973. (All further references to Passmore's work are, unless otherwise indicated, to Passmore (a).) The dominant position has also been sketched in many other recent texts, e.g. I. McHarg, Z)es^<yn Doubleday, New York, 1969, while the lesser traditions have been appealed to in meeting criticisms of the Western ethic as involving the dominant view. The masculine particles are appropriate; so is the resulting tone. environmental ethic man is not so free to do as s/he pleases. But it is not quite so obvious that an environmental ethic cannot be coupled with one of the lesser traditions. Part of the problem is that the lesser traditions are by no means adequately characterised anywhere, especially when the religious backdrop is removed, e.g. (as further considered in §4) who is man steward for and responsible to? However both traditions are inconsistent with a deeper environmental ethic because they imply policies of complete interference, whereas on an environmental ethic some worthwhile parts of the earth's surface should be preserved from sub­ stantial human interference, whether of the "improving" sort or not. Both traditions would in fact prefer to see the earth's land surfaces reshaped along the lines of the tame and comfortable but ecologically impoverished European small farm and village langscape. According to the cooperative position man's proper role is to develop, cultivate and perfect nature - all nature eventually - by bringing out its potential­ ities, the test of perfection being basically purposes; /or while on the stewardship view man's role, like that of a farm manager, is to make nature productive by his efforts though not by means that will deliberately degrade its resources. Thus these positions figure among those of the shallow ecological movement (as depicted by A. Naess, 16 'The shallow and the deep, long-range ecology movement', Tr^M^rz/ (1973), 95-100): longer term. they are typically exploitative, even if only in the Although these lesser positions both depart from the dominant position in a way which enables the incorporation of some evaluations of an environmental ethic, e.g. some of those concerning the irresponsible farmer, and allow for some of the modern extensions of the Western ethic that have been made, e.g. concerning the treatment of animals and criticisms of vandalism, they are not well-developed, fit poorly into the prevailing framework, and do zzof p<9 /ar orozz^Zz. For in the present situation of expanding populations confined to finite natural areas, they will lead to, and enjoin the perfecting, farming and utilizing of all natural areas. Indeed these lesser traditions lead to, what a thorough­ going environmental ethic would reject, a principle of total use, implying 17 that every natural area should be cultivated or otherwise used for /zzzzzzor 17 if 'use' is extended, somewhat illicitly, to include use for preservation, this total use principle is rendered innocuous at least as regards it actual effects. Note that the total use principle, in the usual sense, is tied to the resource view of nature (cf. (d) R. and V. Routley, F-z^/zt /or z^/ze Forests, Third Edition, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1975). Such a principle, like the requirement of economic growth, emerges directly from - it is an integral part of neoclassical economic theory. 18 18 "humanized". As the important Western traditions mentioned exclude an environ­ mental ethic, it would appear, at first glance anyway, that such an ethic - not primitive, mystical or romantic - would be new alright - or at least new from a Western perspective. For, from a wider perspective, which takes due account of traditional societies (such as those of some American Indians, Australian Aboriginals, and Pygmies), there is, it will turn out, nothing so very new about what is included in (as distinct from the theoretical setting of) the "new" ethics. Even from the narrow Western perspective, the matter is not so straightforward. for the dominant ethic has been substantially qualified, in particular by the rider that one is not always entitled to do as one pleases where this physically interferes with others.^ It may be that some such non-inter­ ference proviso was implicit all along (despite evidence to the contrary); and that it was simply assumed that doing what one pleased vn.th natural items would not affect others (a^oT^terfereMcg assMwpf^^). it may, the Be this as appears, at least for many thinkers to have supplanted the dominant position; and the modified position can undoubtedly go much further towards an environmental ethic. For example the farmer's polluting of a community stream may be ruled immoral on the grounds that it physically interferes with others who use or would use the stream. Likewise business enterprises which destroy the natural environ­ ment for no satisfactory (taxable) returns or which cause pollution deleterious to the health of future humans can be criticised on the sort of welfare basis (e.g. that of P.W. Barkley and D.W. Seckier, 18 Humanization, and humanitarian measures, may be a cloak for human chauvinism - in which case, far from being virtuous, they may be positively undesirable. 19 Also, as Leopold has observed, the class of has been ively widened, e.g. from the family group, to the tribe, to the nation or race, even to all humans including often enough future humans but rarely further in the West until recently. of 20 The assumption is not the same as its relative, Benn's 'that no one may legitimately frustrate or prevent (or interfere with) a person's doing what he chooses to do, ^nles there is some reason for preventing him (Benn (c), op. cit., in from (a) P.605). The principle is said to derive from 'the notion of a person' ^e.g. (a), p.605), but it only so derives given commission ofPfhe fallacy of conversion of an A-proposition. Moreover even reduced to a 'formal principle ... locating the onus of justification (cf (a)) the principle is dubious, especially given principles of respect for objects other than persons, with which persons may be interfering. It is, however, a formal principle that will help to keep entreprenuerial humans happy. * GrozjZ/z <2%^ Dgcaz/, T/ze ^oZz^ZZc^ ^gcowgs York, 1972) that blends with the modified position; be criticised on welfare grounds; and so on. Fr^hZ^w^ New vandalism can usually The modified position may even serve to restrict the sort of family size one is entitled to have, since in a finite situation excessive population levels will interfere with future people. Nonetheless neither the modified dominant position nor its Western variants, obtained by combining it with the lesser trad­ itions, is adequate as an environmental ethic. chauvinism. None moves outside human They are all encompassed under the t^es-Zs - the view that the earth and all its non-human contents exist or are available for human benefit or to serve human interests, and hence that humans are entitled to manipulate the world and its systems as they want, in their own interests - which is but the ecological restatement of the strong thesis of human chauvinism, according to which items outside the privil­ eged human class have no value except one as instrumental value (both theses are criticised in Routley (a)). To escape from chauvinism, and from its thesis, a new ethic -Zs wanted, as we now try to show. §3. GENERAL ENVIRONMENTAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST WESTERN ETHICS The main argument is directed primarily against the modified dominant position, but will incidentally show the inadequacy of the lesser Western traditions. The strategy is to locate core features of Western ethics, and to reveal through examples their thoroughgoing chauvinism and class bias, and in this way to provide decisive grounds for rejecting For the general argument some more technical points have to be made them. first. (An) spgcZyZc ethic, is ambiguous, as between a specific ethical system, a and a more generic notion, a specific ethics are grouped. under which (As usual, a weZu-ethic is a theory about ethics, super-ethics, their features and fundamental notions.) An ^Z/zZcaZ sz/sZsw s is, near enough, a propositional system (i.e. a structured set of propositions) or a theory which includes (like individuals of a theory) a set of values and (like postulates of a theory) a set of general evaluative judgments concerning conduct, typically of what is obligatory, permissible and wrong, of what are rights and responsibilities, what is valued, and so forth, (On newer perceptions an ethical system will include rather less in the way of prescriptions, of duties, obligations and the like, and more as to what are matters of care and of concern and for respect.) Since an ethical system is propositional in character, such notions as consistency, coherence, independence of 20 a assumptions, and the like, apply to it without further ado. It is evident, from a consideration of competing or incompatible values and principles, that are sz/s^ews. Moreover appropriately general criteria for rationality will not reduce this class to a singleton. Accordingly, there is logical space for a^terrzaf^re A general or lawlike proposition of a system (characterised along similar lines to a scientific law) is a pr^Mc^pZe; and certainly if systems Si and S2 contain different principles, they they are different systems. It will follow then that an environmental ethic differs from the important traditional ethics outlined if it differs on some principles. Moreover if environmental ethics differ from each Western ethical system on some core principle or other embedded in that Western system, then these systems differ from the Western super-ethic (assuming, what seems to be so, that that ethic can be sufficiently characterised) - in which case if an environmental ethic is needed then a new ethic is wanted. It would suffice then to locate a common core principle and to provide environmental counterexamples to it. It is illuminating (and necessary, so it will emerge) to attempt to do a little more than this minimum, with a view to bringing out the basic assumptions of the Western super-ethic. Two major classes of evaluative statements, commonly distinguished, are axiological statements, concerning what is good, worthwhile, valuable, best, etc., and deontological state­ ments, which concern what is obligatory, permissible, wrong, etc. Now there appear to be core principles of Western ethics on both axiological and deontic fronts, principles, for example, as to what is valuable and as to what is permissible. Naturally these principles are interconnected, because anything is permitted with respect to what has no value except insofar as it interferes with what does have value. A strong historical case can be made out for what is commonly assumed, that there are, what amount to, core principles of Western ethical systems, principles that will accordingly belong to the super- ethic. example. The fairness principle inscribed in the Golden Rule provides one Directly relevant here, as a good stab at a core deontic principle, is the commonly formulated liberal principle of the modified A recent formulation of this principle runs as 21 follows (Barkley and Seckier, op. cit., p.58): dominant position. On next page. 21 The liberal philosophy of the Western world holds that (D) one should be able to do what he wishes, providing (1) that he does not harm others {and (2) that he is not likely to harm himself irreparably}. The principle, which is built into or derivable from most traditional ethical theories, may be alternatively formulated in terms of permissib­ ility, as the principle that <2 person's (foes no^ ^n^er/ere zJ-^/z o^/zers, ^s perw^ss^&^e provt^e^ (i.e. other people, including perhaps the A related economic principle is that free enterprise can operate agent). within similar limits. It is because of these permissibility formulations that the principle - which incorporates fundamental features of (human or person) chauvinism - is sometimes hailed as a freedom principle; for it gives permission to perform a wide range of actions (including actions which degrade the environment and natural things) providing they do not harm others. others. In fact it tends to cunningly shift the onus of proof to It is worth remarking that 'harming others' in the restriction is narrower than a restriction to the (usual) interests of others; it is not enough that it is in my interests, because I detest you, that you stop breathing; you are free to breath, for the time being anyway, because it does not harm me. There remains a problem however as to exactly what counts as harm or interference. Moreover the width of the principle is so far obscure, because 'other' may be filled out in significantly different ways: 21 it makes a difference to the extent - and privilege - of The principle is attributed by Barkley and Seckier to Mill, though something like it was fairly common currency in nineteenth century European thought. It appears, furthermore, that Mill would have rejected the principle on account of clause (2): thus, for example: Those interests, I contend, authorise the subjection of individual spontaneity to external control, ozzZz/ in respect of those actions of each, which concern the interest of o^Zzer people (J.S. Mill, (/^^Z^^ar^uzz^szzzj L^&gr^z/ az-z^f 7?eprese?z^az^zze ^ozz6r?z777g?z^, Everyman's Library, Dent, London, 1910, p.74, emphasis added). The deletion of clause (2) from (D) does not affect the general argument: hence the braces. (We owe this reference and the points in the next footnote to N. Griffin.) A similarly modified form of (D) is found in much recent Western literature, even radical literature which purports to make due allow­ ance for environmental concerns. A good example of the latter is I. Illich, TcoZs /cr Cofz^ttz^uZ-z^z/, Calder & Boyers, London, 1973, where Mill's (D) appears, in various forms, at several places (e.g. p.xii, p.41). What this indicates is that Illich's "convivial society" will not - if its principles are taken seriously - move beyond chauvinism in its treatment of animals and the natural environment; it will at best yield some form of resource conservation. 22 a the chauvinism whether 'other' expands to 'other human' - which is too restrictive - or to 'other person' or to 'other sentient being'; and it makes a difference to the adequacy of the principle, and inversely to its economic applicability, to which class of other persons it is intended to apply, whether to future as well as to present others, whether to remote future others or only to nondiscountable future others, and whether to poss^bZe others. The latter would make the principle untestable and com­ and it is generally assumed that it pletely unworkable in practice; applies at most to present and (some) future others, to those to whom it would make a (fairly immediate) difference (thus excluding past others ). For the purposes of the general argument however, the problems in specify­ ing the class of others is not material, so long as the class includes no 23 more than persons that at some time exist. Fortunately the main argument is not very sensitive to the precise formulation of principle (D). Not only can clause (2) be deleted, and 'other' left rather unspecific, but additions can be made; then even if the main argument does not succeed, m-z^or succeed. o/ t/ze zzzu^M arpz^g?^ An important case concerns the treatment of animals. Unless (D) is construed widely (extending 'other'), or hedged by further qualifying clauses,24 the basic principle fails to take proper account of concern for animals, especially that one should not inflict "unnecessary cruelty or "impermissible" harm. animals then comes to matter; these issues can be avoided. What counts as per^ss^Me Tzurzzz to and familiar conflict issues arise. But For the core principle (D), of basic chauvinism, can be modified to include (historically recent) moral concern for higher animals by adding, after 'harm others', something like 'or harm animals unnecessarily'. Then however the new principle succumbs to the 22 Although the interests and preferences of past others are excluded in conventional utilitarianism, as in (welfare) economic theory and vot inq theory, these are often respected in ethical and legal settings, e.g. in wills, last wishes, etc. Similarly (as N. Griffin also point­ ed out), in the treatment of "human vegetables", past preferences of the person when capable of making decisions are often taken to be morally relevant, or even decisive, to the question as to whether to keep the body alive. 23 if merely possible persons are included then the valuational rankings of environmental ethics, indeed of virtually any ethics, can be reflected in a "utilitarian" fashion. The argument of (c) R. and V. Routley, 'Semantical foundations for value theory', (accepted for publication in 1974; still forthcoming?), can be used to show this. 24 or unless it can be made out, what seems entirely implausible, that what is wrong with torturing animals is not what it does to them but the way it affects other people (the Aquinas-Kant thesis). 23 main argument - upon at most simple variation of the counterexamples to be given. Modification becomes more important in the case of standard ethical theories which lead to principles conflicting with (D), such as utilitar­ ianism does unless (D) and the maximisation principle of utilitarianism are appropriately segregated, e.g. by severing connections at some point in the chain connecting entitlement, permissibility, right, maximum utility. For, as in widely recognised, net utility may be increased in ways that violate (D), e.g. by injustice to, or the infliction of suffer­ ing upon, or harming, some individual by others. Thus utilitarianisms in the tradition of Mill, which both include (D) and characterise entitlement in utilitarian terms, are inconsistent (as simple hypothetical cases show). To avoid counterexamples it is not enough merely to distinguish higher and lower utilities, though this is an initial step in what is required, namely - ideally by constraints (as is explained in §5) - o/ unconstrained Although qualification of utilitar­ ianism principles to ensure (D), as a restriction (but not the orzZz/ restriction) on what is permissible,is the proper course, it is a course not all utilitarians are prepared to follow. To defeat isms, it is not enough to adduce counterexamples to (D). utilitarian­ Counterexamples to some other core principle of such utilitarianisms must be located; otherwise the main argument fails against a quite standard, and important, class of positions supporting chauvinism and the Dominion thesis. Fortunately, again, neither a suitable core principle nor appropriate counterexamples are hard to find. The common utilitarian principle provides such a core, and several of the examples directed against (D) serve to counter it (in its various forms). An axiological principle corresponding to (D) (%72<i to some of its variants) runs along these lines: (A) Only those objects which are of use or concern to humans (or persons), or which are the product of human (or person) labour or ingenuity, are of value; thus these are all that need to be taken into account in determining best choice or best course of action, what is good, etc. Roughly, value consists in answering back to certain features of human (or person) involvement. No calculus of value or what is best need look beyond human values. According to a matching value-ranking thesis, item a is better than b only if a serves human concerns more than b. A narrower version of principle (A) embedded in main forms of Marxism is 24 the human labour theory of value. 25 Thus a corollary will be that Marxism is certainly - unless severely modified - no direction in which to seek an environmental ethic or social theory. There may appear to be exceptions to principle (A) in such objects But although values are assigned to works of art where as works of art. these may not positively affect human welfare, the basis for assigning value is usually taken to be the human skill or ingenuity involved in their production. principle (A). Hence such assignments do not extend, or violate, Indeed the problem raised by natural objects which cost nothing to produce and involved nothing human is very different from the matter of valuing art objects. objects rctse <2 problem. There are also other important differences between natural objects and works of art, apart from the characteristic noninvolvement of humans, namely those turning on the issues of replaceability and the reversibility of destruction. Human artefacts are always replaceable by similar objects, e.g. modern cities, especially concrete jungles are all too similar and replaceable, and using modern techniques paintings can be substanially duplicated; whereas there is no possibility of replicating, even remotely, such as extinct species or real damaged or destroyed natural objects jungles (or lost or vanishing cultures). In terms of replacement costs, these are much more valuable than such human artefacts as material works of art. Thus attempts to assimilate natural objects to material works of art break down. There is an additional reason for rejecting a now familiar approach to natural objects through works of art, namely that it is premissed on the assumption that some sort of chauvinistic account of works of art is adequate: that is not so, as the (intermediate) situation of objet trouve begins to reveal. It is in connection with principles qualification to (D) and especially (A) that the ethics (already required at several points) becomes important for the argument; for various non-Western ethics have not adopted these principles, e.g. both American Indians and Australian Aborigines appear to recognise clearly values in natural items which are not reducible (simply or at all) to human values - and apparently not essentially theistic (supra-human). In any case Western ethics and 25 According to some Marxists, and apparently to Marx, the labour theory is superceded when the period of accumulation is completed and the post­ scarcity era reached. But by the time this high-energy high-tech stage is reached, if ever, irreparable and frequently irreversible environmental damage will have been wreaked. 26 On next page. 25 p attitudes, and more comprehensively the associated ideologies, are of critical importance; for it is to these and Western influence that the world's main - serious and very extensive - environmental problems can be ascribed. Hypothetical situations are introduced in designing counterexamples to core principles (D) and (A). The basis of the method lies in the semantical analyses of permissibility, obligation and value statements which stretch out over ideal situations (which may be incomplete or even inconsistent), so that what is permissible holds in some permitted situation, what is obligatory in every such situation, and what is wrong is excluded m every such situation. But the main point to grasp for the counterexamples that follow, is that ethical principles if correct are universal and are assessed over a class of situations. Thus hypothetical cases are logically perfectly legitimate and cannot be ruled out on one pretext or another, e.g. as rare, as desert island cases, as hypothetical, The counterexamples to (D) and (A) presented depend largely on etc. designing situations different from the actual where there are either too few or too many humans or persons. But alternative special situations where interference with others is minimized or is immaterial are readily devised. (i) The example. The last man (or woman or person) surviving the collapse of the world system sets to work eliminating, as far as he can, every living thing, animal or plant (but painlessly if you like, as at the best abattoirs). What he does is quite permissible according to principle (D) but on environmental grounds what he does is wrong. Moreover one does not have to be committed to esoteric values to regard Mr. Last Man as behaving badly and destroying things of value (the reason being perhaps that radical thinking and values have shifted in an environmental direction in advance of corresponding shifts in the Characteristically Westerners have attempted to recast these value systems, sometimes misleadingly, in a religious guise - probably because it was thought that there was no non-religious way of presenting them so as to make them intelligible or have them comprehended. Thus they get represented as basically chauvinistic in view of the relations of Man and God. On these semantical analyses, which avoid all the usual problems of modal theories of axiological and deontic terms, see R. Routley, R.K. Meyer, and others, RSSS, Australian National University, 1979, chapters 7 and 8. A sketch is given in §5 below. The situations or worlds with respect to which the interpretation is made permit of different construals; e.g. instead of permitted situ­ ations, the situations can be construed evaluatively as ideal situations. 26 3 Q formulation of fundamental evaluative principles). The usual vandalism charge does not apply against Mr. Last Man since he does no damage to others. Moreover, Mr. Last Man's activities may be toned down to avoid any vandalism charge, yet succumb to the (extended) chauvinist charge, e.g. he may simply destroy sows environ­ mentally valuable things unnecessarily (without due reason or some need). (ii) The Zest pgopZe example. to the last people example. The last man example can be extended We can assume that they know they are the last people, e.g. because they are aware that radiation effects have One considers the last people in blocked any chance of reproduction. order to rule out the possibility that what these people do harms or somehow physically interferes with later people. Otherwise one could as well consider science fiction cases where people arrive at a new planet and destroy its ecosystems, whether with good intentions such as perfect­ ing the planet for their ends and making it more fruitful or, forgetting the lesser traditions, just for the sheer enjoyment of it. Let us assume that the last people are very numerous. They humanely exterminate every wild animal and they eliminate the fish of the seas, they put all arable land under intensive cultivation, and all remaining natural forests disappear in favour of pastures or plantations,and so on. They may give various familiar reasons for this, e.g. they believe it is the way to salvation or to perfection, or they are simply satisfying reasonable needs, or even that it is needed to keep the last people employed or occupied so that they do not worry too much about their impending extinction. behaved badly; of value; On an environmental ethic the last people have they have done what is impermissible and destroyed much for they have simplified and largely destroyed all the natural ecosystems, and with their demise the world will soon be an ugly and largely wrecked place. But this conduct may conform with the core principles (D) and (A), and as well with the principles enjoined by the lesser traditions under more obvious construals of these principles. Indeed the main point of elaborating this extension of the last man example is because principles (D) and (A) may, as they stand, appear to conflict with stewardship, cooperation and perfection positions, as the last man example reveals. The apparent conflict between these positions and principle (D) may be definitively removed, it seems, by conjoining a further proviso to the principle, to the effect (3) that he does not wilfully destroy natural resources. But as the last people who are not vandals do not destroy resources wilfully, but perhaps "for the best of 28 reasons", the variant is still environmentally inadequate. 28 On next page. 27 (iii) The ^reu^ eTz^repr^KeMr example. The last man example can be adjusted so as to not fall foul of clause (3). industrialist; The last man is an he runs a giant complex of automated factories and farms which he proceeds to extend. He produces automobiles among other things, from renewable and recyclable resources of course, only he dumps and recycles these shortly after manufacture and sale to a dummy buyer instead of putting them on the road for a short time as we do. Of course he has the best of reasons for his activity, e.g. he is increasing gross world product, or he is improving output to fulfil some plan, and he will be increasing his own and general welfare since he much prefers increased output and productivity. The entrepreneur's behaviour is on the Western ethic quite permissible; indeed his conduct is commonly thought to be quite fine and even meets Pareto optimality requirements given prevailing notions of being "better off". It may be objected, however, that there is no reason or warrant for the great entrepreneur's production and it is simply wasteful. But we can easily amend the example by adding consumers who want to use the out­ put. Just as we can extend the last man example to a class of last people, so we can extend (iii) to the socket!/ example (iv): the society looks depressingly like ours except for its reproductive incapacity. (v) The species example. The blue whale (reduced to a 29 mixed good on the economic picture ) is on the verge of extinction because of its qualities as a private good, as a profitable source of oil and meat. whalers; The catching and marketing of blue whales does not harm the it does not harm or physically interfere with others in any good sense, though it may upset them and they may be prepared to compen­ sate the whalers if they desist; destruction. nor need whale hunting be wilful (Slightly different examples which eliminate the hunting aspect of the blue whale example are provided by cases where a species is eliminated or threatened through destruction of its habitat by man's 28 There are however elements in the lesser traditions - especially if 'cooperation' and 'perfection' are reconstrued in less chauvinistic and homocentric terms - which point the way to a more satisfactory ethic. 29 The example is adapted from Barkley and Seckier, op. cit., who nicely expose the orthodox economic picture. To make the example more difficult for utilitarians in the tradition of Bentham, it can be further supposed that the killing of the whalesis near instantaneous and painless, the whale products are very valuable to humans and indeed irreplaceable, and that the whales led a good life while they lived. (Would the killing of remote groups of humans under similar conditions be then so much worse?). 28 * activity or the activities of animals he has introduced, e.g. many plains-dwelling Australian marsupials and the Arabian oryx.) The behaviour of the whalers in eliminating this magnificent species of whale is accordingly quite permissible - at least according to basic chauvinism. But on an environmental ethic it is not. However the free-market mechanism did not cease allocating whales to commercial uses, as a satisfactory environmental economics would: instead the market system ground inexorably (for the sorts of reasons well-explained in Barkley and Seckier, op. cit.) along the private demand curve until the blue whale population was no longer viable. It has been objected that the operation of the free market is restrained by ethical principles - or rather legally enforced copies thereof; for example, it would be profitable to exploit child labour, but moral prohibitions, legally enforced, exclude such exploitation of children. But the case is quite different; children, unlike young animals such as vealers, are already shielded under the modified dominant position. If anything, the "objection" is a further illustration of chauvinism at work.^O Although the vanishing species example given does not apply decisively against extended utilitarianisms, such as that of Bentham, which widen the base class to all sentient creatures, the case is easily varied so that it does: class of tropical plant species simply select one of the currently threatened with extinction. (vi) The /actorz/ /arm example. On the farm animals of various sorts are kept under artificial, confined conditions and simply used for the market goods they deliver, e.g. eggs in the case of battery hens, milk in the case of rotor cows, veal in the case of calves. The animals are subject to whatever conditions (e.g. forced feeding, iron deficient diets, constant lighting) will deliver maximal quantities of desired goods for the human commodity market. The animals do not necessarily suffer pain (and insofar as they do in behaviourally conspicuous ways the problem can For the most part the operation of the free market is only constrained by chauvinistic principles: otherwise enterpreneurs tend to undertake whatever apparently profitable business activity they can get away with, including substantial exploitation of animals and widespread environ­ mental destruction, and their lack of concern is illustrated by such facts as that they are generally prepared to pay taxes (e.g. to compensate other humans) rather than to forgo their activities in cases such as river and lake pollution and forest removal. In fact, of course, fairly unfettered operation of the market tends to encourage more restricted chauvinisms, e.g. the exploitation of cheap foreign or female labour in the secondary labour market. 29 be met by antibiotics), but they are imprisoned under dispreferred conditions. The threatment of the animals on the "farm" is perfectly permissible according to the core principle (or at least minor adjustments to exclude unnecessary suffering will ensure conformity), but on an The treatment of the animals on the farm environmental ethic it is not. also seems to conform to the principles of the lesser traditions, insofar as these principles are spelled out in a way that can be applied to the example, that is so long as cooperation and perfection are construed in intended chauvinistic fashion. (vii) The example. The wilderness, though isolated and rarely visited or thought about by environmentalists, is known to contain nothing of use to humans, such as seed or drug supplies, that is not adequately replicated elsewhere. It does contain however some "low quality" forest that could supply pulpwood on a commercial basis were the local government to provide subsidies on the usual basis. The logging would destroy the wilderness in a largely irreversible way (e.g. it grows on high sand dune country or on lateritic soils) and kill many animals which live in the forest. sees The prevailing with the destruction of such ethic wrong nothing a wilderness, nor do the lesser traditions: a deeper environmental ethic does. Again the example requires variation, e.g. to a wilderness devoid of sentient individuals, if it is to counter clearly such extensions of Western ethics as those of animal liberationists. For this sort of reason we do not want to overstate or overrate the role of as distinct from variations upon such examples. examples - Firstly, people deeply committed to human chauvinism - as many, perhaps most, people are - will find some of the examples unconvincing because they depend on non- chauvinistic assumptions. Secondly, there are rejoinders to some of the examples based on the prevailing ethic. In this case what we claim is that there are variations on, and elaborations of the examples which meet such considerations. In connection with this we do not want to deny that there are other strands supplementing the prevailing ethic which are critical of some activities of the sort described in the examples, e.g. anti-vandalism principles and strictures against conspicuous consumption But, as remarked, these principles as reflected, e.g. in sumptuary laws. have not been adequately incorporated in the prevailing ethic in such a way as to meet variations on the examples or to serve environmental purposes; and if the attempt were made to fully incorporate such princi­ ples once again a new ethic would be the upshot. (Compare the situation before the change from an ethic which sanctioned Tzu/na??. slavery.) 30 * In summary,what the examples show is that core axiological and deontic assumptions of the Western super-ethic are environmentally inadequate; and accordingly Western ethics should be superseded by a more environmentally adequate ethic. The class of permissible actions that rebound on the environment is more narrowly circumscribed on such an environmental ethic than it is in the Western superethic, and the class of noninstrumentally valuable objects is correspondingly wider than it is on the Western super-ethic. But is not an environmentalist ethic going too far in implying that these people - those of the examples and respected entrepreneurs and industrialists and bureaucrats, farmers and fishermen and foresters - are behaving, when engaging in environmentally degrading activities of the sort described, in a morally impermissible way? No, what these people do is to a greater or lesser extent evil, since destructive of what is valuable, and hence in serious cases morally impermissible. For example, insofar as the killing or forced displacement of primitive peoples who stand in the way of an industrial development is morally indefensible and impermissible, so also is the destruction of the forest where the people may live, or the slaughter of remaining blue whales, or the gross exploitation of experimental or factory-farm animals for private profit or as part of the latest 5 year plan. Those who organise or engage in such activities are (to a greater or lesser extent, depending on their mode of engagement) morally culpable. Models of permissible respected life styles and of the good life (for others to emulate) depend upon what the underlying ethic accounts good and evil, permissible or not, and so forth; and changes with change of ethic. A new ethic is needed not merely to accommodate the evaluations, prescriptions and models indicated, in a way decidedly different from Western ethics, but in order to cope with a much wider range of more practical, and often more controversial, cases where Western ethics yield (without epicycling, i.e. extensive resort to theory-saving strategems) unacceptable or inadequately grounded results. An alternative ethic is also needed by a growing number of valuers because they have values, interests and new concerns of ecological sorts which do not fit in with, but conflict with, central features of prevailing Western ethics. There is occurring, it seems, a far-reaching cultural, and ethical change, a change in consciousness, and in particular a change in attitudes to what is natural and the natural environment (a change which may eventually be as fundamental as, and partly overturn, the humanist changes of the Enlightenment). A new ethic is accordingly needed to reflect and formul­ ate, and enable the defence and application of, a new, increasingly felt, 31 a but not so far well-articulated system of values, in much the same way that a system of probability was needed and formulated to articulate and systematise likelihood and probability principles, and relevant logic systems required to capture pre-analytic views of entailment. The explication of environmental ethics is a similar theoretical concern; again, as commonly, theory lags behind the facts of change and the felt data. Furthermore, just as entailment systems are not uniquely determined, or desired or accepted by every thinker, so ezzzz*Zr<9zzwe7zfaZ. be %%-z^MeZz/ (ie^grzzz-Zzzg^, or adopted by every valuer. will zzct On the contrary, as is plain enough, their adaption and furtherance will be vigorously resisted by many vested interests, as - to take just one instance - the furtherance of programmes for the elimination of environmental sources of cancer is vigorously opposed by industrial chemical companies. The matter of persuading other, valuers to accept values and principles of a new ethic is of course a further and somewhat separate issue from the question of need for such an ethic. The procedures for trying to effect changes in values are but variations on the usual pro­ cedures, and like them are not fully effective: excluding coercion and education, they include, for example, argumentation, and propaganda, in each case of many sorts.As usual, too, where there is a broad common 32 basis, especially in felt evaluations and emotional presentation, effecting a change, or a conversion, will generally be an easier task. In the case of transformation to environmental values, what is often important are distinctive features regarding the factual bases of many of the evaluations. correcting In particular, there is the matter of removing or /zz^scozzcept^oTZS on a broad range of matters of Some of these sorts are considered in more detail in (c) J. Passmore, 'Ecological problems and persuasion' in PpnaZ^fz/ ipz^erTzaz^ozzaZ u?Z(Z Comparative t/vrisprz/devce (ed. G. Dorsey) , Oceana Publications, New York, 1977, pp.431-42. The apposite term 'emotional presentation' is adapted from Meinong; see especially Ov FmotiozzaZ Presentation (trans. M.L. Schubert-Kalsi), Northwestern University Press, 1972. The notion of emotional present­ ation can play an important role in the explanation of how emotions enter into (environmental) evaluations, the objects evaluated (canyons, mountains, giant trees) often being emotionally presented. A little more precisely, the connections are these: A value ranking (e.g. c is better, more valuable, than d) of a valuer is explained emotionally through - it does not reduce to - certain preference rankings of the valuer; and the preference rankings have in turn dual factual and emotional bases, in the same sort of way that an item may be preferred or chosen in virtue of its factual features and the valuer's emotional responses to those. The main details of such a semantical analysis of value, which is discussed in §5, are given in Routley (c). 32 environmental concern; for example, about animals, their various behaviour, abilities, etc; about the alleged gulf between humans and other animals and the uniqueness of humans and each human; about the profitability, or desirability, or necessity, of environmentally destruct­ ive enterprises; about the inevitability of current Western social arrangements and about the history of the way these particular arrange­ ments developed. There is, moreover, the matter of sheer information, for example as to how free animals live together and what they do; about how factory and experimental animals are treated, and in the latter case for what: about the sources and effects of various forms of pollution and the reasons for it; about how natural creatures such as whales or environments such as forests are commonly dealt with, for what products, by what interests, for what ends. Naturally (given a fact/value division) none of this information is entirely conclusive support for a change in ethic; for many of the evaluations the data helps support can be included in other ethics (including sometimes modifications of prevailing ethics), while remaining evaluations can, at worst, be simply rejected (as e.g., those utilitarians who extend consideration just to sentient creatures are obliged to reject versions of the last man argument where no sentient creatures are affected). Althouth a new ethic is needed, for the reasons indicated, and although such an ethic can,furthermore, be a considerable asset in practical environmental argument (e.g., as to the point of trying to 33 retain a piece of not-especially-unique near-wilderness), for many practical ecological purposes, there is no need to apply it or to fall back on it. For example, virtually the whole environmental issue of destructive forestry in Australia can be argued without invoking any unconventional ethical principles or values at all, i.e. entirely within the prevailing chauvinistic framework. environmental disputes. The same sort of point applies to But, it by no means applies to all. A corollary is an inadequacy in the presentation of environmental problems and suggested solutions in standard (human) ecology texts (such as P. and JssMss A. Erlich's Freeman, San Francisco, 1970, to select one example), which are set 34 e/zf-ZreZz/ within the chauvinistic framework. Also, differently, in the way that theories are in enabling one to see how to move and argue in a discussion. Quite properly given prevailing sentiments, according to some erring conservationists, who account themselves "realists". 33 Since it is sometimes charged - despite all that has been said that an environmental ethic does not differ in practice from that of more conventional "chauvinistic" ethics, there is point in spelling out in Firstly, many conventional yet other ways how it can differ in practice: positions, in particular social contract and sympathy theories, cannot take proper account of moral obligation to future humans (who are not in the immediate future). Since the usual attempt to argue, in terms of value and benefit to humans, that natural areas ecosystems generally should not be destroyed or degraded depends critically on introducing possible future humans who will suffer or be worse off as a result of its destruction or degradation, it is plain that an environ­ and mental ethic will differ radically from such conventional positions. That is, the usual argument depends on the reduction of value of a natural item to the interests of present and /nfure humans, in which reduction future humans must play a critical role if conclusions not blatantly opposed to conservation are to be reached. Hence there will usually be a very great gulf between the practical value judgements of conservation ethics and those of conventional positions which discount the (non- immediate) future. Secondly, as we have already seen through examples, there are practical differences between an environmental ethic and conventional instrumental views which do take account of the interests of past, present and future humans, differences which emerge sharply at the It is, however, unnecessary to hypothetical (possible world) level. turn to possible world examples to see that normally there would be very great differences in the practical valuations and behaviour of those who believe that natural items can have value and create obligations not reducible (in any way) to human interests and those who do not, as the following further examples show. Example 1. We need only consider the operation of zJorZd, for example, the concept of damapo to a natural item, and the associated notion of coTnpeMsafdoM for that damage. C. Stone, for instance, in STzo^Zd Troes ^fuTid^Mp? Thus Towards LepaZ. /"or ZVufMraZ- Objocfs (Avon Books, New York, 1975) notes the practical legal differences between taking the damage to a polluted river as affecting its intrinsic value, and taking it as just affecting human river users. In the one case one will see adequate compensation as restoring the original state of the river (rectifying the wrong to the river) and in the other as compensating those present (or future) humans who will suffer from its pollution. As Stone points out, the sum 34 adequate to compensate the latter may well be much less than that required to restore the river to its unpolluted state, thus making it economic, and in terms of the human chauvinist theory, fair and reason­ able, to compensate those damaged and continue pollution of the river. In the first case, of course, adequate compensation or restoration for the harm done would have to consist in restoring the river to its unpolluted condition and will not just be paid to the people affected. Compare here Stone's example of compensation for injury to a Greek slave; in the instrumentalist case this will involve compensating the slave's owner for the loss of his slave's working time; in the other, where the slave is regarded as not merely an instrument for his owner, it will compensate the sZuue not the for this compensation will also take account of the pain and suffering of the slave, even where this has not affected his working ability. There is a difference not only in the amount of compensation, but to zj/zow it is directed. In the case of a natural item damage may be compensated by payment to a trust set up to protect and restore it. Example 2. The believer in intrinsic values may avoid making unnecessary and excessive noise in the forest, out of respect for the forest and its nonhuman inhabitants. She will do this even when it is certain that there is no other human around to know the difference. For one to whom the forest and its inhabitants are merely another conventional utility, however, there will be no such constraint. He may avoid unnecessary noise if he thinks it will disturb other humans, but if he is certain none are about to hear him he will feel at liberty to make as much and as loud a noise as he chooses, and this will affect his behaviour. Examples like this cannot be dealt with by the introduction of future humans, since they will be unable to hear the noise in question. To claim that the making of noise in such circumstances is a matter of no importance, and therefore there is no important difference in behaviour, is of course to assess the matter through human chauvinist eyes. question-begging. From the intrinsic viewpoint it So such a claim is make a difference, and be reflected in practical behavioural difference. Example 3. Consider an aboriginal tribe which holds a particular place to be sacred, and where this sanctity and intrinsic valuableness and beauty is celebrated by a number of beautiful cave paintings. A typically "progressive" instrumentalist Western view would hold the cave (and perhaps place) to be worth preservation because of its value to the aboriginal people, and because of the artistic merit of the human arti­ facts, the cave paintings the cave contained. 35 To the "enlightened" Westerner, if the tribe should cease to exist, and the paintings be i destroyed, it would be permissible to destroy the place if this should be in what is judged to be the best interests of human kind, e.g. to get at the uranium underneath. To the aboriginal the human artifacts, the cave paintings would be irrelevant, a celebration of the value of the place, but certainly not a surrogate for it, and the obligation to the place would not die because the tribe disappeared or declined. Similarly no ordinary sum of money would be able to compensate for the loss of such a place, in the way that it might for something conceived of as a utility or convenience, as having value only because of the benefits it confers on the "users" of it. There is an enormous or difference between feeling that a place should be valued or respected for itself, for its perceived beauty and character., and.feeling that it should not be defaced because it is valued by one's fellow humans, and provides pleasurable sensations or money or convenience for them. Compare too the differences between feeling that a yellow robin, say, is a fellow creature in many ways akin to oneself, and feeling that it is a nice little yellow and grey, basically clockwork, aesthetic object. These differences in emotional presentation are accompanied by or expressed by an enormous range of behavioural differences, of which the examples given represent only a very small sample. The sort of behaviour by each viewpoint and thought by it, the concept of what one is free to do, for example, will normally be very different. It is certainly no coincidence that cultures holding to the intrinsic view have normally been far less destructive of nature than the dominant Western human chauvinist culture. In summary, the claim that there is no difference, that the intrinsic value viewpoint is empty verbalisation, does not stand up to examination. The capacity - no doubt exaggerated, but nonetheless far from negligible - of Western industrial societies to solve their ecological problems (at least to their own pathetically low standards) within a chauvinistic framework, does considerably complicate, and obstruct, an alternative more practical argument to the need for a new ethic, /row that in no other way ... [than] prepared[ness] to accept a "new ethic", as distinct even from adding one or two new moral principles to an accepted common ... can modern industrial 35 societies solve their ecological problems. On next page. 36 Not only does the argument encounter various objections - most obviously that many of the problems can be solved, if not within Western ethics, in immediate extensions of them - but the case suggested would hardly be a satisfactory basis for the type of ethic sought. It is not so much that it would be a chauvinistic way of arriving at a supposedly nonchauvinistic ethic, for bad procedures can lead to good results; rather it is that important ecological problems, shaping environmental ethics, such as preservation of substantial tracts of wilderness and just treatment of animals, tend to be written off in industrial societies as not serious problems. But even if the argument suggested has too narrow a problem base, and so may yield too limited a change in attitudes as compared with the main theoretical argument, the argument merits fuller formulation and further investigation. The argument to need for ethical revision is as follows: (1) A satisfactory solution to environmental problems (of modern industrial societies) implies (the adoption of) an alternative environmental ethic. (2) A satisfactory solution to environmental problems is needed. Therefore, an alternative environmental ethic is needed.36 The argument is valid, given, what seems correct, that pimplies q implies that p is needed implies that q is needed. The second premiss is or can be made analytic, on the sense of 'satisfactory' 'satisfactory' imply 'needed'); (e.g. by having so the case is complete if the first premiss can be established (in the same sense of 'satisfactory'), and the conclusion is then plausible to at least the extent the premiss is. Al37 though the first premiss, or something like it, is widely endorsed, cogent 35 Passmore (c) op. cit., p.438. According to Passmore (p.431), By common consent, there are four major ecological problems: pollution, the exhaustion of resources, the destruction of species, and overpopulation ... To solve such problems involves finding a way either of altering types of human conduct or of preventing that human conduct from having its present consequences. In what follows the assumption that 'there are four major ecological problems' gets rejected. 36 This implies only, that a new ethic is necessary for solving environmental problems, and not of course that it is 37 Even Passmore, though previously (e.g. in (a)) highly critical of proposals for new ethics, gives qualified endorsement to an assumption of this sort ((c), p.441). ... I do not doubt, all the same, that our attitudes to nature stand badly in need of revision and that, as they stand, they form a major obstacle to the solution of ecological problems. 37 # arguments for it are few and it is no simple matter rendering the premiss plausible. Moreover rendering it plausible involves a substant­ ial detour through social theory; for the case for the premiss proceeds along these sorts of lines: (3) Unless there are (certain) major changes in socio-economic structure, environmental problems will not be satisfactorily solved. (4) The major changes in socio-economic structure involve ethic. an alternative A much stronger thesis than (3) has been argued for using systems analysis, namely that without very extensive socio-economic changes, modern industrial society will collapse; but several of the assumptions made in the analysis are doubtful or disputed. independently of that stronger thesis; But (3) has been argued for example, it will follow from the thesis (of Falk, Commoner and others) 'that the modern industrial ethic as we have known it is not sustainable on ecological grounds'.^ In a sense, (3) is obvious; for it is present socio-economic arrangements that have produced many of the present serious environmental problems; without major changes in those arrangements most of the problems will What is not immediately evident is persist or, more likely, intensify. that the major changes called for, in satisfying (3), suffice for (4). However reflection on the specific types of changes required - for example at a superficial level, human population limitation, reduction of poll­ ution, more sensible resource usage, selective economic growth - reveals that significant changes in value, and also in what is considered permissible, are bound to be involved in the changes. plausible, and therewith the intended conclusion. So (4) is decidedly But the argument leaves the detailed character of the needed alternative ethic rather obscure; and it may well be that the ethic so yielded is somewhat chauvinistic in character. The more practical argument cannot entirely supplant the main theoretical argument. In sum, there are good and pressing reasons to investigate the alternatives to chauvinistic ethics, especially human chauvinism, because such chauvinistic ethics are discriminatory, because the case for them 38 39 See, in particular, D. Meadows and others, Potomac Associates, Washington, D.C., 1972. PtwZts to CrozjtT?, R.A. Falk, 'Anarchism and world order', Pornos IX, 1978, p.66. Falk refers for the case to B.Commoner, TPs CZosZ^p CZroZo, Knopf, New York, 1971; R.A. Falk, T/zZs PZo^ot, Random House, New York. 1971; E. Goldsmith and others EZMoprZut /or F^rvZ^aZ, Houghton and Miflin, Boston, 1972, and Meadows et aZ., op. cit. 38 O does not stand up to examination, and because they have been involved in the destruction of much of value and now threaten the viability of much that is valuable. § 4 . ENVIRONMENTAL ALTERNATIVES : NARROWING THE CHOICE AMONG ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS . The basic - and basically mistaken - doctrine of the Western super-ethic is, as we have seen, that people, humans of whatever shape or form, are the fundamental carriers or objects of value and that all other items are valuable only in an instrumental or derivative way. It is important, in­ deed mandatory in a genuine environmental ethic, to reject this view and allow natural items to have a value in their own right, ^yz i/ze sazzze /as/z^oM as peopZ-e, both for the reasons outlined above, of the theoret­ ical unsatisfactoriness and arbitrariness of the traditional view, and for more practical reasons, namely, to help ensure the ecological sustain­ ability of modern society, and in optimising human welfare. It has often been pointed out that 'a totally humanised world would diminish us as 40 human beings', that the traditional view of humans, or classes of humans, as dominant, and of natural items as without value except where they serve human or class interests - a view that often carries contempt for nature leads not only to the destruction of much that is of value but (paradoxic­ ally) to counterproductive results even with respect to human welfare. Thus McHarg (in attractively coloured rhetoric) Show me a man-oriented society in which it is believed that reality exists only because man can perceive it, that the cosmos is a struct­ ure erected to support man on its pinnacle, that man exclusively is divine and given dominion over all things, indeed that God is made in the image of man, and I will predict the nature of its cities and their landscape. I need not look far for we have seen them-the hot­ dog stands, the neon shill, the ticky-tacky houses, dysgenic city and mined landscapes. centric man; This is the image of the anthropomorphic, anthropo­ he seeks not unity with nature but conquest (op. cit.). The rejection of this view and its replacement by a view in which natural items can be regarded as of value and as worthy of our respect for themselves and not merely for what we can get out of them or what use we 40 see e.g. the discussion at pp.116-17 of (a) J. Rodman, 'The Liberation of nature', Irz^z^rz/, 20 (1977) 83-145. All subsequent references to Rodman's work without further indication are to this article. Note well that the rejection of human chauvinism does Moi imply that no chauvinistic arguments - or rafTzsr, arguments that are usually stated in chauvinistic form - carry weight. On the contrary, some chauvinistic arguments (e.g. those supporting wilderness retention and species preservation) carry considerable weight; and, since the prevailing industrial ethics remain chauvinistic, environmentalists would be rash not to use them. 39 & can make of them, is becoming increasingly widespread in parts of the environmental movement. It is this primarily that makes for an important ideological split in the conservation movement, between what Naess (op. cit.) called sTzaZZozj and Fesp ecology, between those who see conservation as just a matter of wiser, better-controlled exploitation of the environment — something which is compatible with denying value to everything except man and those who see it at least in part as involving a recognition of value for natural items independent of man, and hence as involving (at least to some extent) a The gzEpZo^a^opz view, which is first view, the long-term or closely tied to prevailing more enlightened economic assumptions, tends to make heavy use of the watershed term 'resource'; the problem of conserv­ ation is seen as one of 'zjFss Mse oy resoMrcss', a resource being something of use to humans or persons. On this view, which does not get beyond the confines of human chauvinism, and so is no direction for.a satisfactory environmental ethic to take, items which have no perceivable use to man, i.e. non-resources, can be destroyed without loss; and the environmental problem is viewed as largely one of making people aware of the extent to which natural items and processes have Fustrz^gnPaZ- value, i.e. of how far we are dependent on them and they are of to us. There is no recognition either that some items might be valuable precisely they are independent of man. Resource Conservation, or the shallow position, is the first of the 42 four ideal types that Rodman discerns in his investigation of the contemporary environmental movement. The deeper ecological position gets split under Rodman's division into three ideological positions - though Rodman prefers to put the matter in symbolic or experiential terms, in terms of forms of consciousness - namely Wilderness Preservation, Nature Moralism, and Ecological Resistance. Though the positions discerned are neither characterised in an exclusive fashion, nor exhaustive of ecological positions, and though we shall have to look beyond all the positions for a satisfactory environmental ethic, nonetheless they afford an excellent perspective on the main types of alternative positions that have been adopted by those within environmental movements. It is not uncommon to encounter attempts to write the shallow position into the very meaning or definition of e.g. 'conservation is the use of resources to the greatest advantage of man', 4 Furvez/ py Fcrgsz^rz/ T^FMSz^r^es. ParP FT. Foresfrz/ Pe^gZ.opz7?e?2^ PZ-arz. Draft (31 October, 1974), p.ll - a blatantly chauvinistic account. On next page. 40 According to (Wilderness) Preservation, which focusses on wilderness, wilderness is to be preserved for the wilderness experience, wilderness offers a natural cathedral, a sacred place where human beings can transcend the limitations of everyday experience and become renewed through contact with the power of creation ((b), p.49). The values discerned in wilderness and natural landscape are primarily aesthetic and quasi-religious, or mystical, 'the experience of the holy is esthetically mediated'; what is valuable remains human experiences. Thus the Wilderness Preservation position does not move outside the sphere of human chauvinism, and can no more than Resource Conservation offer a frame for an environmental ethic. Rodman reaches a similar conclusion: Resource Conservation and Wilderness Preservation appear variations on the theme of wise use, the former oriented to the [efficient] production of commodities for human consumption, the latter to providing human amenities ((b), p.50). For this reason, the Wilderness Preservation position fails even on the score of justifying the preservation of wilderness - on the very task it was designed to accomplish - in a range of circumstances. Like other See especially (b) J. Rodman, 'Theory and practice in the environmental movement: notes towards an ecology of experience', in Search for VuZzzes a International Cultural Foundation, New York, 1978, pp.45-56. Some of the types are portrayed in greater detail in other Rodman papers. The remainder of this largely new section on environmental ethical alternatives is heavily indebted, in ways the references mostly make plain, to Rodman's work. His work covers a vast range of interlinked topics; only those of immediate relevance have been touched upon. But there is very much in the remainder that repays careful reading, and zzzMc/z to think about and to question or reject, reaching perhaps its lowest point in the paradoxical themes: Just as our statements about other people tend also to be concealed statements about ourselves, so statements about non­ human nature tend to be concealed statements about the human condition, and movements to liberate nonhuman nature tend also to be movements to liberate the repressed potentials of human nature (p.105). In part because these themes and the related myth of microcosm are taken seriously, and not for the evident falsehoods they are, in part because the ethical adequacy of the human/nonhuman distinction is never seriously questioned (e.g. it is taken for granted, what is not the case, that rights apply to humans and are problematic beyond them), and in part because of the characteristically chauvinistic emphasis on human experience and the endeavour to bring everything within that experiential purvue, and the associated weight assigned to human symbolic, mythic and ritual activities, one is left with the feeling, at the end of all the investigations one can profitably follow Rodman through, that one has not got beyond the confines of human chauvinism. 41 instrumentalist accounts of wilderness value, it breaks down entirely with examples like the Last Man, assuming that Mr. Last Man is never turned on by natural spendour. More alarmingly, under readily conceivable developments, it would allow the elimination of wilderness entirely. For consider the Wilderness Experience Machine, a low-impact low-tech philosophical machine, recently patented by I.M. Diabolic, which can duplicate entirely, even for groups of people, wilderness experiences, but in a downtown room. As far as the psychological experience goes, this machine can provide a complete substitute for any actual wilderness, and were the value of wilderness to reside in the experience it afforded, could entirely replace it and eliminate the alleged need for it. Most environmentalists would be (rightly) dissatisfied with, not to say appalled by, the idea that Wilderness Experience Machines could sub­ stitute for wildernesses, since they provided the same experiences. what else they wanted, the answer would of course be: Asked Wildernesses, not merely wilderness experiences. Wildernesses are valuable in their own right, over and above the experiences they can afford.43 Really, that is, they consider wildernesses intrinsically valuable, but have been pushed by the prevailing ethical ethos into stating, and misrepresenting, their position in experiential terms. There is some independent evidence that the Wilderness Preservation position is frequently a disguised intrinsic value position, in the attitude taken to examples like the Last Man case, that purely hypothetical experiencers (who may vanish into counterfactuals) are good enough, and that in some real-life cases it is enough that wilderness is there to be contemplated, whether or not anyone actually takes advantage of its presence to gain experiences, or indeed whether or not it is in fact contemplated. Such examples remove the disguise and reveal the position as at bottom an intrinsic value position. In that event it is however better to avoid the disguise; for the case for wilder­ ness preservation which starts from the position that some wilderness tracts have intrinsic as well as merely instrumental value is substantially stronger than any position which assigns them merely instrumental value. Wilderness lovers and nature conservationists have in fact worked out - or concocted - a set of arguments to show why wildernesses and nature conservation are of benefit to humans, to argue for their instrumental — The concept of zjfZ-demess too can vary with the operative ideology, e.g. on certain views, such as Wilderness Preservation, wilderness comprises areas that are (or provide the opportunity for use), e.g. used for experiential enrichment. By contrast, on a genuine Environ­ mental Resistance view, wilderness is a wild area, use of which is not implied: it may never be used, and it may not matter that it affords no opportunity for (human) use. (Under popular high redefinition of 'wilderness', there are of course no wildernesses remaining on the earth, and wilderness vanishes as soon as humanly experienced.) 42 value. For example, there are various arguments from the scientific value, or usefulness, of wilderness, e.g. for the study of natural eco­ systems, for the investigation of plant history and evolution, as a repository of genetic diversity, etc. These arguments, which (like parallel arguments for species preservation) are not to be especially as regards persuasive force, can be put in nonchauvinistic form; for science and knowledge are not linked essentially with, for example, the feature of being human. Often however - e.g. where the wilderness defended has, so far as it is known, little that is very special to offer - such arguments appear to be merely a conventional front for the real (or deeper) reasons - and in sofne instances, correspondingly weak and unpersuasive (as Fraser Darling has remarked, and Passmore has tried to show in (a)) - the real reasons being based on the perception of nonuseful properties of value. This is particularly marked in the case of arguments for preserving the most complex and beautiful of the world's plant communities, tropical rainforest. Such arguments as that various uninvestigated rainforest trees may at some time be found to contain useful drugs, by no means exhaust the true value of the rainforest. For it is in the intrinsic, i.e. noninstrumental, value of the rainforest that the main reason for not unduly interfering with it, e.g. not interfering in ways that threaten its stability or viability, lies. In particular, destruction of a wilderness, such as a rainforest, would significantly diminish intrinsic value, and so should (in general) be resisted. Environmentalists who are aware of these sorts of problems and dangers with resource use approaches to wilderness preservation sometimes attempt to formulate their alternative view in terms of one of the lesser traditions, most popularly in terms of the image, in which man is seen as the steward of the earth - an analogy which, as Passmore points out (in (a)), is problematic outside a religious context. For who is man steward to? If not to God, then how is the analogy to be unpacked, and what conditions must "stewardship" conform to? If "good stewardship" is management in the interests of humans, or humanity, then the position does not go beyond Resource Conservation; if it is manage44 ment to serve intrinsic values, or God, then good stewardship is but a cover for the recognition of intrinsic values, which are better introduced directly. Thus admitting values which are not instrumental, which do not answer back in some way to states or conditions of humans is a feature of all satisfactory deeper ecological alternatives. In order to allow for such intrinsic values and/or associated attitudes of respect, e.g. for 44 on some interpretations; chauvinism. on others theism may serve to reinforce human 43 nature and various natural things, it is however unnecessary to adopt a religious backdrop such as the "Good Stewardship" image suggests, or even a semi-religious framework such as a mystical or superstitious one with taboos and sacred places as symbolic and ritual elements. A theory of intrinsic value which assigns intrinsic value to wilderness and species of free animals, for good reasons, can be entirely naturalistic (in a main sense of that much-abused term). The third, somewhat amorphous, cluster of positions Rodman describes, Nature Moralisms, do just that, assign intrinsic, noninstrumental, value to natural items, such as - on some versions of the position wilderness. [An] alternative perspective ... [to] the theme of wise use 45 ... is provided by the tradition growing out of the humane movement, recently radicalised by animal liberationists, and sometimes generalised to embrace non-animal beings as well. to the economic ethos of Resource In contrast Conservation and the religious/ esthetic character of Wilderness Preservation, this perspective is strikingly moral in style. Its notion of human virtue is not prudence or reverence, but justice. In contrast to the caste­ bound universe of the Resource Conservationist, the Natural Moralist affirms the democratic principle that all natural entities (or, more narrowly, all forms of life) have intrinsic value, and that wild animals, plants, rivers, and whole ecosystems have a right to exist, flourish and reproduce - or at least that human beings have no right to exploit or unnecessarily harm or destroy other members of the biotic community. In contrast to the aristo­ cratic universe of Wilderness Preservation, where some places (and some forms of recreation) are holier than others and certain types of natural entities ... are traditionally more worthy of being saved than others ..., the world of the Nature Moralist is characterised by an apparent egalitarianism ((b), p.50, my rearrangement). Each of the sweep of environmental alternatives indicated can be seen as an of conventional Western ethics: intrinsic value is extended uniformly to all animals or certain favoured features of all these, e.g. their experience, happiness, avoidance of suffering, or is extended to all living creatures or systems, or is extended to all natural items or even to objects - it may or may 45 be distributed uniformly or equally; Human use and human experience, it might be added. 44 rather independently, rights may be ceded to all animals, or to some or all living things, or to all things, or, alternatively and differently, right-holders' rights with respect to some or other of these classes are restricted; and similarly other deontic notions, justice, obligation, even perhaps duty, may extend to apply to larger classes of items than all humans or persons. The sweep, which is impressive, is intended to include both extended utilitarianisms, e.g. Bentham's utilitarianism as revamped by Singer according to which all sentient creatures are entitled to equal consider­ ation of interest, and extended (legal) rights doctrines, e.g. the assignment of rights or legal standing to all natural objects as suggested by, for instance, Stone. 46 It also includes Darwin's ethic and Leopold s 47 "land ethic". In order to capture some of the intended examples of Nature Moralists, and all the Moral Extension positions, Rodman's characterisation requires some adjustment - which will be taken for granted in what follows. For example, Singer and other animal liberation- ists do not assign intrinsic value to all forms of life, or even to all animals; but (as Rodman is well aware) to all sentient creatures; that is, further classifications have to be taken into account. The egalitarian, or uniformity, assumptions that serve in character­ ising Natural Moralism are mistaken. Not all objects are of equal value; some are more valuable then others, while some have little or no value (and some have a negative value).4^ Impressive though the sweep of extensions is, all the positions indicated should be rejected on one ground or another, and sometimes on several grounds. Against positions which do not extend the class of objects of moral concern and candidates for value to include all objects, variants of the counterexamples to the Western super-ethic can be directed. Consider, for instance, the positions (of usual animal liber- ationists) which extend the moral boundaries just to include sentient creatures (or e.g. preference-havers). Adapt the Last Man and Last People examples, the Wilderness example, etc., by removing all (inessential) animals from the examples, e.g. the wilderness contains no animals, in the Last People situation there are no other animals than the 46 p. Singer, .4 ZVozJ Random House, New York, 1975; for (7%r C. Stone, op. cit. <?y 47 At least on a straightforward reading of Leopold's eventual position, but not according to Rodman; see his contrast of Leopold with Stone,, p.110. Darwin's ethic, which anticipates Leopold's, is presented m C. Darwin, of Muzz, Second edition, J. Murray, London, 1883. 4 8 On next page. 45 1* Then the counterexamples apply as before last people themselves. against the liberation positions. It is unnecessary to go quite so far afield to fault such positions, at least in practice: as Rodman might put it, they are countered by the facts of experience: ... I need only to stand in the midst of a clear-cut forest, a strip-mined hillside, a defoliated jungle, or a dammed canyon to feel uneasy with assumptions that could yield the conclusion that no human action can make any difference to the welfare of anything but sentient animals (p.89). But an advantage of the counterexamples is that the same examples, among many others (e.g. situations devoid of sentient creatures, situations where the message of experience conflicts with justice or fairness), reveals the erroneousness of the well-sponsored thesis, a simple analogue of empiricism, that all value or sentient, objects). derives from experience (of experiential, A corollary is that value is not to be assessed either, in any simple way, in terms of the facts of experience. Insofar as Nature Moralism relies upon simple extensions of utilitarianisms, or of subjectivisms, to include a larger class of subjects, (a larger base class), such as all present sentient creatures, or all preference-havers at any one time, etc., it is open not merely to adaptations of the argument against chauvinism (animal chauvinism is not that much more satisfactory than human chauvinism), but most of the Nor, on Moral Extensions, need all objects that have rights have equal rights. Rights may not be very democratically distributed. Some things have rights, e.g. as a result of agreements, of a sort others do not hold or are not capable of holding. Even rights to exist, to flourish and to reproduce (each case is different) are in much doubt where there is scarcity or conflict and where some right holders are taken to be worth much more than others. Nor are such leading examplars of Natural Moralism as Singer and Stone, though they are concerned to extend principles of justice, committed to equality of rights assumptions. Stone explicitly rejects equal distribution of rights; but the principle that all natural objects are equal in having rights, which really says no more than that they all have rights, is at best a very weak egalitarian principle. Singer offers (and presumably would offer) no equality of rights principle, rejects an equality of treatment principle, and proposes as a principle of equality a (near vacuous) principle of equal consideration of interests. Not, this time, knowledge. But amusingly "value empiricism" collapses into empiricism proper given the Socratic identification: Value (generalising Virtue) is knowledge. The only natural stopping point under value empiricism is, of course, with all creatures that have (or could have) the relevant experiences: again not with humans. 46 standard objections to utilitarians, subjectivisms, etc. Many versions of Nature Moralism may than be defeated on rather conventional grounds. There emerges, further, a dilemma for extensions. Either the crucial notions of right and intrinsic value are extended to all sentient creatures (experience-havers), in which case the objections just lodged apply, or they are extended more sweepingly, e.g. to all natural objects. But the latter involves attributing to such items attributes they do not have, most obviously rights to such objects as stones; it also violates the conditions that have to be met for the holding of rights and for the entitlement of rights. Thus, for example, Stone considers underpinning his extension of rights, beyond sentient creatures in the ordinary sense - or of legal rights beyond recognised "legal persons" - by a postulate of 50 universal sentience or consciousness; in short, by an unacceptable metaphysics, or myth. There are several further objections which work against many versions of Natural Moralism to which Rodman draws attention: (1) Moral Extensions are 'inadequate to articulate the intention that sustains the [environmental] movement' wilderness preservation movements. (p.88), specifically wilderness and It takes but little argument to show that utilitarian ethics, such as Singer's, so far from assisting the environmental movement, can (if adopted) reinforce the case wilderness and preservation of wild species. But an extension like Stone's extension of legal rights can help, and has helped, at least in the courts where its meta-physical underpining is unlikely to be glimpsed. The basic point is however that the rights talk does not connect with, and is insensitive to, the experiential basis. Mere extensions of moral notions such as interest or right or justice are insufficient to treat and do just­ ice to the multi-dimensional depth of environmental issues, such as the damming of a river (p.115). Part of the reason is said to be that the usual moral aparatus, which was evolved in the case of certain person-to-person 50 See Rodman's discussion, pp.92-3. But Rodman overstates his case m claiming that 'some such postulate as universal consciousness is there­ fore necessary if the notion of rights for trees is not to seem a rootless fancy'. For , as explained below, extended rights can be defined by a rather "natural extension" of the familiar notion of right, without any such postulate; and grounds of entitlement can be traced back to value of the items. Certainly extended rights sever what linkage there may have been between rights and liabilities, but with the modern separations of rights from responsibilities that linkage was already damaged or broken. 47 * relations, is inadequate for getting to grips with a new dimension of moral experience, that concerned with environment, and inadequate to reflect ecological sensibility. Rodman tries to press, however, a much stronger, and rather more dubious, theme, the By adapting the moral/legal theory of 'rights', [the movement] may sell its soul, its roots in mythic and ritual experience, to get easier judicial standing (p.88); and more savagely, the progressive extension model of ethics, while holding out the promise of transcending the homocentric perspective of modern culture, subtly fulfills and legitimates the basic project of modernity - the total conquest of nature by man (p.97, also 'p.119)7* " While neither of these large claims is strictly true - soul-selling is simply avoided through adoption of the notion of extended-right, which can yield a conservative extension of the original position; and even utilitarians may be committed to blocking projects which threaten free animals - each has a substantial point. Part of the point behind the latter claim is worth developing separately:- (2) Moral Extensions typically cast natural objects, notably animals, in the role of inferior humans, 'legal incompetents', imbeciles, human vegetables, and the like. They are ... degraded by our failure to respect them for having their own existence, their own character and potentialities, their own forms of excellence, their own integrity, a degradation usually reflected in our reduction of 'them to the status of instruments for our own ends', and not removed 'by "giving" them rights, by assigning them to the status of inferior human beings' (p.94). Many of us know where the treatment of natural objects as mere means for human ends tends to lead and has led. The mistaken treatment of them as inferior humans, a treatment which fails to see and 'respect the otherness of nonhuman forms of life', leads in the same direction. For given that animals, for example, are inferior, it is legitimate to treat them also as inferior; a greater value principle, which moral extensions typically endorse, yields a similar result. The needs of increasing populations of superior humans will eventually outweigh, if they do not do so already, the cases of inferior inhabitants of this finite earth for the retention of their natural habitats. 48 For their rights and their In the larger perspective, the Moral values will be less than "ours". Extensions, with their built-in greater value assumptions, do legitimate the conquest of nature by humans. Thus too they fail seriously, on what will soon enough be quite practical grounds, as satisfactory environmental ethics. (3) The extensions, like the parent ethics which they extend, are narrowly individualistic, and insufficiently holistic. This is particularly conspicuous in the case of utilitarianisms, which in principle arrive at all assessments by some sort of calculations, e.g. summations and perhaps averaging, from an initially given unit conforming to requisite equality conditions, e.g. equal consideration, equal units of suffering. In practice of course the method is, almost invariably, to pretend that the calculations will yield results which agree with alternatively and previously arrived at, usually intuitive, often prejudiced, evaluations; that is, in practice the method is not applied except in a handwaving back-up fashion. The method is not applied in part because there are serious, well enough known, problems in applying it. The individualistic bias carried over in other moral extensions, e.g. any experiential theory, likewise limits their satisfactoriness. It is to understate the matter to say merely that 'the moral atomism that focuses on individual animals and their subjective experiences does not seem well adapted to coping with ecological systems' (p.89), 'to explore the notion of shared habitat and the notion that an organism's relationship to its natural environment may be an important part of the organism's character' ((b), p.52). A moral atomism that focuses on individuals, discounting their interrelations, is bound to result in ecological complexes that matter (such as ecosystems, wilderness, and species) getting seriously short-changed. To illustrate:- Under atomism, the value of a complex, or the rights of a complex, amount to no more than those of its individual members; but since these are, in isolation from the complex, no more valuable than other things of their order, e.g. one gentian than another, a bush rat from a Norwegian rat, there no special merit in a complex, or rights attaching to it, in virtue of its rareity or uniqueness or special features as a complex. Thus, for instance, a utilitarianism under which only individual animals count assigns, and can assign, no special value to species, and can (as remarked) be used to argue against preservation of species: Since all animals are equal - or at least all animals of the same genus are more or less equal - one can substitute for another. For a rare species of rat to die out painlessly cannot matter while there are plenty of other rats. A rights theory is in similar difficulties so long 49 w as rights are assigned only to individuals, taken in isolation from their environmental setting (i.e. only to the usual separable individuals of philosophical theory). These problems may be avoided, in part, by assign­ ing rights to complexes (given the notion of rights will take that much further stretching; which it will not if right holders are assumed to be conscious or to be preference-havers), and by attributing independent value to complexes. But, since the value of a whole is sometimes more than the sum of the separable values of its individual members, this move involves the rejection of usual atomism, utilitarianisms in particular. The objection against the narrow individualism of the extensions - a defect they share with standard ethics which do not admit of ready extension, such as contract theories - soon broadens into an objection that these extensions are built on an inadequate metaphysics, a metaphysics of rather isolated individuals who (or which) are seriously depauperate in An ethics presupposes a metaphysics at their relations with other objects. least through its choice of base class: thus for example, usual homocen- tric formulations of utilitarianisms and contract theories suppose a base class of narrowly self-interested humans. The remedy is not (as Rodman suggests in various places in his elaboration of Ecological Resistance) to move to holism: to do so would be to accept the other half of a false dichotomy mainstream philosophical thought engenders (cf. Routley (g), this volume). It is rather to move to a metaphysics that is built on a concept­ ion of objects (which may or may not be individuals) which are rich in their interrelations and connections. In summary, the moral extensions are the wrong direction in which to seek a satisfactory environmental ethic. But the failure of Nature Moralism does not mean, as Rodman tends to assume, that all positions 51 that are moral in style are thereby ruled out. For one thing, Nature Moralism, as characterised (or generalised), is far from exhaustive of the range of prima facie viable moral positions. More satisfactory positions will simply avoid the damaging assumptions of Nature Moralism (and likewise those of inadequate ethical positions, such as contract theories or naturalism, and those linking morality to legality; For another, if the quest is for an ruled out. cf. p.103). moral notions can hardly be Even if it is assumed that the call for a 'new ethic' is 'to guide the human/nature relationship (p.95) - a somewhat unfortunate way of putting it - whereas what matters is the human/nature relationship itself, and that in coping with that relation fixation on morality or 51 His thesis of the 'limitation of the moral/legal stage of unconscious­ ness' is investigated in more detail in what follows. 50 G. $ legality is a serious handicap, and may contribute to the problem of the relationship rather than helping solve it (pp.103-4); still part of the problem is that of indicating entitlements of agents with respect to their environment, what sort of exploitation, if any, is permissible, what the limits on conventional morality are, and discovering 'a larger normative order within which we and our species-specific moral and legal systems have a niche' (p.97). Nor, in outlining Ecological Resistance, does Rodman shrink from using - he could not avoid the effect of - axiological terms such as 'good' and deontic terms such as 'should'; he does not doubt, for example, that some of what is natural that is threatened is valuable and that threats to it should be resisted; and he admits that 'prudence, justice, and reverence may be essential parts of a[n ecologic­ ally] good life'. Ecological Resistance, which is said to be the alternative 'most faithful to the integrity of experience', exhibits indeed the negativity of resistance. The position is founded on action, resistance, and theory only emerges retrospectively (if perhaps at all). Its (insufficiently qualified) central principle is 'that diversity is natural, good and threatened by the forces of monoculture'. The struggle between these forces, diversity and monoculture - between (ecological) good and evil occurs in several different spheres of experience, i.e. at various levels, which reflect one another. Resistance is not undertaken for self-interest or utilitarian reasons, or for moral reasons, or for religious or mystical reasons (such as preventing profanation), but because the threat to the [natural object or system] ... is perceived aZso as a threat to the self, or rather to the principle of diversity and spontaneity that is the endangered side of the basic balance that defines and sustains the very nature of things ((b), p.54). The disjunction, 'or', separates however two rather different (though combin­ able) reasons-cum-motives for resistance. The second disjunct yields the following reasons for resistance (which are linked by a metaphysical assumption connecting diversity and spontaneity with the nature of things): (i) The threat to the natural item is a threat to the principle of diversity and spontaneity. So, by the central principle, it is a threat to what is good, etc. (ii) The threat to the natural object 'is a threat to the very nature of things': (as to how consider the example of the wild river threatened by a dam, p.115). So - by an unstated, but nonetheless implied and assumed, principle, that the very nature of things is good (and natural) it is a threat to the forces of good. 51 W- The first disjunct yields a further, different, argument; in simplest form: (iii) The threat to the natural object is a threat to oneself. What is a threat to oneself is bad and to be resisted, so what is a threat to the natural object is bad and has to be resisted (since what is bad should, in general, be resisted). Although the arguments are valid, the underlying principles are faulty; for instance, the diversity (and spontaneity) principle because it is too simple (and so too does not harmonize with the nature of things) ; and the second principle, the intrinsic merit of the very nature of the things, because not everything that is the case or is natural is meritor ­ ious, e.g. genuinely natural disasters. Rodman plans to avoid obstacles to adopting nature as an absolute standard and, at the same time, to bridge the gap the principle spans, by resort to a version of naturalism which equates 'the "natural" with the "moral"' (pp.96-7). But for well- known reasons which can be supported (e.g. those telling against objective ethics of the sort such naturalism would yield), substantive evaluative assumptions cannot be removed in this fashion; though they can be suppressed, they reappear as soon as connections between empirical grounds and evaluative judgments based upon them are queried. The trouble, characteristic of reductionism, arises from the mistaken attempt to collapse a grounding, or founding, relation to an identity, to close the gap - which is not problematic but is widely thought to be problem­ atic - between value and empirical fact by a reduction of value to fact, of the thesis that evaluative features are grounded on natural features to the thesis that evaluative features are nothing but certain natural , 52 features (e.g. to be good is just to have certain natural features). 52 Rodman interprets naturalistically the statement of Jonas's that he quotes approvingly (p.95): Only an ethic which is grounded in the breadth of being, not merely in the singularity or oddness of man, can have significance in the scheme of things ... an ethics no longer founded on divine authority [or upon human arete], must be founded on a principle discoverable in the nature of things ... . He interprets it in terms of 'an ontologically-grounded moral order in the "the phenomenon of life" or "the nature of things".' In this way can be avoided the reduction of 'the quest for an ethics ... to prattle about "values" taken in abstraction from the "facts" of experience'. But Jonas's statement can be construed nonnaturalistically, by taking the founding or grounding relation seriously, as connecting, but not reducing, values to empirical facts. So construed the statement does help in delineating the sort of environmental ethics sought. 52 * C Such reductions commit the naturalistic and prescriptive fallacies which can be avoided neither by thinking 'our way through or around them' (p.97), nor by holistic assimilation of morality in a 'more encompassing ethical life' (p.103 and note 66). But details of the fallacies need not detain us, since we can consider immediately Rodman's important suggestion 53 for circumnavigating them (pp.103-4). Under natural social conditions, such as are obtained in some traditional societies and in some free animal societies (as ethological studies reveal), but have been lost in modern societies, law and morality, at least in their coercive aspects, would disappear, as they did in William Morris's yrow TVozj/zgre, and somewhat as they would in a Kantian community of fully autonomous beings. In terms of modern physics, morality and law are not invariants but vary under transformation of axes, and in fact vanish or prove eliminable under a suitable transformations, e.g. to a natural condition. There is a similar natural condition for morality and legality, a condition in which the prohibitions now prescribed 54 Conscience and the State would have operated "naturally by God, (i.e. from inside the organism, as a matter of course) , and patterns now stated prescriptively could have been stated descriptively. When the Way is abandoned, then we get Humanity and Justice (T<2<9 T6 , #18) (p.103). Even if a change of social axes could place us back on the Way, or on the way to the Way, morality is not really avoidable in our local frame where we are far from the Way. So ethical disputes over environmental matters are also unavoidable;^ for those a satisfactory ethic is a desideratum, and can help in bringing about a change of social axes. Thus too, the identity of the prescriptive with the descriptive, of "ought" with (suitable) "is", is a merely contingent (extensional) one and fails in The suggestion helps explain not only Rodman's naturalism, but his thesis of the limitation of morality and legality; it also introduces the anarchistic social change view that suffuses much of the (very uneven) later parts of (a): the view appears therein as the elabor ation of what is 'unthinkable'. Given prevailing socio-economic conditions it should be rather: that would (ideally) be prescribed. Let us hope, for environmental reasons, that the principles that are lived by in natural conditions bear not too great a resemblance to those now prescribed. Nor is there, in the local frame, much alternative but to resort to legal strategies, where they can be applied (where standing is granted) to delay "the war against nature". 53 V alternative situations; * hence, as always, there is no deduction of "ought" from "is", since deducibility would require coincidence in the alternative situations. Nor would morality — as distinct from legality, which requires some codification - strictly disappear under natural conditions, though its coercive aspects would: on the whole, as they ought to be. things would simply be, But while deontology would have a much diminished role (as it does on the preferred environmental ethic), axiology (the theory of value) would still have its place - some objects (e.g. diverse landscapes) would be more valuable than others (monocultural landscapes), some not valuable, etc. (As things stand, of course, axiology does have an important place in working out the theory of Ecological Resistance, especially in assessing its central principle of diversity.) The upshot is that without much elaboration (like that indicated below) of an axiological kind; which connects value through a grounding relation, as distinct from an identity, with the run of things (but not aZZ things) that are natural, reason (ii) for ecological resistance fails. Does reason (i), which is premissed on the central principle that diversity is good and natural and threatened by monoculture, fare any better? While it is a matter of fact that that diversity is threatened, indeed is being very rapidly reduced by the forces of monoculture, diver­ sity is not, as opponents of ecological values are wont to point out, an entirely unqualified good. Nor is diversity is always natural: a temperate rain forest can be "enriched" and rendered more diverse by interplanting of exotics (a practice foresters have applied, e.g. in New Zealand) but the result is not natural and sometimes at least bad. Or, differently, ecological diversity can often be increased by increasing edges between ecosystems, but the practice of increasing edges can easily be unnatural and far from good, as, e.g. in rainforest logging with (say) 50% canopy retention. So although a reduction of diversity is commonly bad, since the reduction reduces the quality of an ecological whole, and increase in diversity good, diversity can not be accepted as a solo principle. In fact, Rodman often couples diversity with other factors, such as naturalness (inadmissible in determining, noncircularly, what is good and natural), richness, spontaneity and integrity, which help to remove various of the counterexamples to a diversity principle. procedure points in the direction to be pursued: The replacement of the over- simple principle of diversity by a principle combining all relevant ecological factors. After all ecological sensibility - ecological resist­ ance is assumed to be the position of the person of ecological sensibility - requires sensitivity to all such ecological factors. 54 Once it is determined, * through consideration of a mix of ecological factors, that, or whether, a natural object is good or valuable the reasons for resistance can be restated: (iv) Where a natural object is valuable - as natural objects are, a natural object does not have to be very ecologically distinctive to be valuable - the threat to the natural object is a threat to what is But, other things being equal, threats to what is valuable valuable. should be resisted. So, similarly, threats to natural objects should often be resisted - and always (on whatever level) resisted where the objects are valuable and the costs of resisting are not overridingly high (to begin to spell out the ceteris paribus clause). It remains to tie in reason (iii), a key premiss of which can now take the initial form that the threat to a valuable natural object is a threat to oneself. A threat to what is valuable, to what one as a valuer values, is athreat to the valuer, to oneself, for these are one's values. To make some of those connections good again requires an excursion into axiology, one, this time, that connects what is valuable with a valuer's values. But Rodman, in trying to connect the threats to natural objects and to oneself, is forced further microcosm: afield, and resorts to the myth of 'Ecological Resistance involves a ritual affirmation of the Myth of Microcosm' universe' (OED). ((b), p.5.4), i.e. the view of man 'as epitome of the While such an affirmation - without the ritual - would yield the requisite connection, it is a classic piece of anthropocentric- ism, quite hostile to a nonchauvinistic position, and, fortunately, inessential to genuine ecological resistance. What Rodman reaches for from the myth (which could be restated in terms of seZ/, without its classic homocentric bias) is however extremely important: account of the it is an which is not a separate subject isolated from its (natural) environment (as a Humean individual is), but is connected intensionally and causally interrelated with that environment. Rodman introduces this metaphysics in rather old-fashioned terms: Ecological Resistance ... assumes a version of the theory of internal relations: the human personality discovers its structure through interaction with the nonhuman order. I am what I am at least partly in my relation to my natural environment, and changes in that environ­ ment affect my own identity. If I stand idly by and let it be destroyed, a part of me is destroyed or seriously deranged ((b) p. 54). Not Man Apart, in the terms of Friends of the Earth. 55 w For among my interests are its interests, part of my welfare is its welfare; I am identified in part with it.^ The metaphysics deepens, then, the reasons for resistance. A resister 'does not stand over against "his environment" as manager, sight-seer, or do-gooder; he is an integral part of [it]' ((b), p.56). But the environmental metaphysics, that underlies and helps support the ethics, that is part of a fuller environmental theory, need not be, and should not be if it is to be coherent, as (Hegelian and) holistic as Rodman immediately goes on to suppose that it is: __ By making the principle of diversity central, Ecological Resistance can incorporate the other three perspectives as moments within the dialectic of a larger whole. an esthetic religiosity have niches Economics, morality, and in the ecology of our experience of nature, and each has its limits (p.56 continued). But a principle of diversity which opposes the forces of monoculture will not yield f/z-fs pluralism, unless illegitimately extrapolated to theories where its merit is much less evident, especially when some of these theories are not only mutually inconsistent but false. Rodman risks the distinctive features of Ecological Resistance for a dubious synthesis. It is only true that the positions can be combined if the first three positions are verz/ limited indeed, and then a trivial combination with each theory working where it works (which may be nowhere actual in the case of the religious component) can be managed. Moreover Ecological Resistance properly developed, will lead to economic and ethical theories which compete with the rather conventional, and environmentally defective theories of, respectively, Resource Conservation and Natural Moralism. Not only is Ecological Resistance severely handicapped by having implausible holistic theses tacked in to it (not all of which have been discussed); further, Ecological Resistance is too negative. A more positive theory - which includes a theory of value and, ultimately, for a fuller environmental position, a metaphysics - is required, not only for orientation and to meet felt needs of environmentalists already noted, but for more effective, coherent and systematic resistance. S'? it is but a short step to the ; fully ecological sensibility [which] knows with Carl Sandburg that: There is an eagle in me ... and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want ... . And I got the eagle ... from the wilderness, (p.118) The poem almost admits of neutral logical formalisation. 56 §5. THE VIABILITY OF THE SORT OF ALTERNATIVE ENVIRONMENTAL ETHIC SELECTED It is not necessary for an environmental ethic to take a set position on all the issues so far raised for environmental ethics (or others, such as whether, and if so which, ecological principles should be integrated for example, it does not with the ethical system) ; to decide exactly But it can hardly avoid determining which items do or can have rights. some of the boundaries in a way different from conventional ethics if it is to count as an environmental ethic. In particular, the issues of what sort of items have or carry noninstrumental value, and how they obtain it, cannot be escaped indefinitely. Without the assignment of (intrinsic) value to some items independent of the states and conditions of humans, an ethic would remain within the confines of human chauvinism. But how, it is all too often asked, is such an assignment possible, or rational? In any case, the environmental examples already relied upon (in §3) pre­ suppose items. the assignment of intrinsic value to nonhuman, and to nonsentient So a theory of value is not only unavoidable but owed. that can be adopted on an environmental Of the many accounts of ethic, the following has much to recommend it:- Some values are instru­ mental, i.e. a means or an instrument to something else that has value, and some are not, but are non-instrumental or intrinsic. Some values at least must be intrinsic, some objects valuable in themselves and not as a means to other ends. not, however, imply That a value is (reckoned to be) intrinsic does that it is absolute or system independent; the values that are intrinsic on one ethical theory may be instrumental or relative on another. More controversially, values may be in one way or another, on other things, on other values or, importantly, on non­ values (such as experiences or felt needs, or facts or natural objects); but while some values are reducible to others, others are not but are That is, contrary to naturalism and to other forms of For reductionism such as subjectivism, some values are irreducible. analogues of the naturalistic and prescriptive fallacies, formulated in irreducible. terms of 'valuable', are fallacies. In particular, evaluative judgments, such as those as to what is valuable, are not deducible from nonvaluative judgments, such as those as to what is conventionally valued or what is 58 experienced. That values in natural items are intrinsic does not imply that they are naturalistic. eliminating or Indeed intrinsic value cannot - on pain of - amount to being natural, or reduce to the experiences of humans or of sentient creatures, to their suffering or happiness or preferences. 58 On next page. 57 w Although some of these things, some of these experiences, some do not, but have no value, or a negative value or disvalue; value, 59 and some things, e.g. some experiences or some natural objects, have more value (are more valuable) than others. of value, but by no means everything is. Almost anything can be an object Value is distributed unevenly throughout the universe in something the way that electrical charge is; some items have positive quantities of varying degrees of intensity (e.g. a thundercloud may carry a positive charge, and have positive value), some negative, and some none. There are however important differences: elect­ rical charge is a quantitative notion, value a qualitative, comparative, one; charges are always commensurable, values less certainly or straight­ forwardly so;60 and the distribution of values (and especially of intrinsic values) is much more theory (system, or viewpoint) relative than .the di^sbributtdn of charges. For example, on an environmental view, matiy of the plants Mr Last Man eliminates have (intrinsic) value, whereas on animal liberation (usual animal chauvinist) views the plants have no value if no animals remain: there would be no similar disagreement about whether the plants were electrically charged. Evaluative features such as worth, merit, beauty are features which behave in rather the way that philosophers of science now mistakenly suppose that behave: empirical features they do not have a hard observational basis but are decidedly theory-dependent, though the theories involved are evaluative in character and not empirical. To assert that value or redness or remoteness is distributed through the universe is not to imply that these features, value or redness or For an outline of how this nondeducibility thesis, which yields a nondefinability thesis, may be proved (in limited contexts), see the final section of R. and V. Routley, 'The semantics of first degree entailment', ZVoMS, 6 (1972), pp. 335-59. A simpler argument against naturalistic reducibility of values is a consequence of the intensionality of values and the fact that intensional notions cannot be extensionally analysed (syntactically), which is what naturalistism characteristically assumes. Strictly the account of instrumental value should be widened if disvalues as well as (positive) values are to be taken proper account of. That is, mcrg may be at best a partial order, and so an inadequate basis on which to define total utility functions, and on which to rationally reconstruct modern economic theory. If this is so, as Godfrey Smith has suggested, and the orderings cannot be completed, applications of the optimistisation models subsequently introduced will have to work with partial functions. 58 remoteness, exist, or are to be found in the universe. undermines much criticism of nonsubjective values; The point alone for example, Mackie's empiricist case is premissed on the false assumption that the existence of values is necessary to objectivism, which he does not distinguish from nonsubjectivism. Mackie's "argument from queernessis similarly broken at the outset: since values are not entities at all, they are not strange sorts of entities. To see how unpersuasive Mackie's argument should be, replace '(objective) values' throughout by, e.g., ordinals'. universe; 'transfinite They too would be 'utterly different from'anything in Mackie's but that does not show that there are no transfinite ordinals. Thus too, since values are not entities, the account of value being developed is Met a reaZ-Zst one (in the ordinary sense).62 Values, of one sort or another, are features objects may have or lack; they are not subjective, they are not features which reduce to states or conditions of subjects or valuers. But no more are they object­ ive features, natural or empirical features of objects, features entirely detached from valuers. A largely unquestioned false dichotomy between subjective and objective ethical theories has served to rule out important options (it has been helped by a connected false dichotomy between instrumental and detached accounts of value: see Routley (b)). In simplest terms, an objective account of value has values "located" in objects entirely independently of valuers, in the way that (inertial) mass is located in physical objects independently of observers; more satisfactorily, objects have values and masses irrespective of valuers or observers. Objectivism forces intuitionism, when it is inquired how values are apprehended or known; thus a fuller objective theory is almost always accompanied by an account, so far always unsatisfactory, 61 The position is that for properties and relations argued in (e) R. Routley, EepcTX'd, RSSS, Australian National University, 1979. Such objects do not exist, but they have important theoretical, explanatory, and other roles. 62 j.c. Mackie, Ft/zZcs. especially pp.38-9. F-ZpTzt Penguin, 1977; see 62 So undermining 0K6 part of D. Mannison's claim that we want to defend a reaZ-Zst theory of values, i.e. a theory of values that accounts for the truth of "x has value" with no ineliminable reference to the interests and concerns of the evaluating group ('Critique of a proposal for an "environmental ethic'", this volume). The further parts of Mannison's claim are assessed in what immediately follows. We are indebted to Mannison for forcing us to try to work out what is wrong and right about detached value theses. 59 3 characteristically modelled on sense perception, of the way in which 64 values are intuited or apprehended. It is also regularly assumed on objective accounts that values exist, in the world; noneism) that is a separable assumption. but evidently (given By contrast, a subjective account finds values in, or not independent of, actual subjects, and commonly as linked with the pyschological states of valuers. Although subjectivism, like objectivism, comes in a variety of forms, it is always required that where an item is valued there exists, at sometime or other, a valuer who values it: "no values without a valuer" holds, in a strong, an excessively strong,implausible and erroneous, form; namely, a world without existing valuers in it is, by that very fact, a world without values. Fortunately - since both objectivisms and subjectivisms suffer from serious, and mostly well-known, defects - the positions are not exhaustive. The way between is perhaps best revealed in terms of alter­ native worlds.65 Although values in a world (more precisely, that items in that world a have evaluative features) always depend upon a valuer existing in sows world, the valuer may not exist in the world of the values (i.e. the valuer may not exist in a). For example, our claim that a certain world without valuers, e.g. a pure plant world of botanically rich form, is a fine world, depends on our existing in this world (in order to make the claim, in fact); "make sense" but it does not demand in order to (of course the claim is significant) or to be true, what is ex hypothesis ruled out, the existence of valuers in the pure plant world. That the world is a fine one, is dependent on a valuer in some world (and that valuer's assessments of value and, if you like, theory or overview of what is valuable and not); by contrast, that the world contains only plants of this or that leaf type, biomass or colour, does not depend upon a perceiver.66 since values are not entirely independent of a valuer in the way that empirical properties are independent of an observer, the An important corollary is that resulting account is not objective. transworld evaluation does not require objectivism, nor (as we shall see) intuitionism. Call the resulting account, which is neither objective nor, (short for, neither objective nor as is evident, subjective, subjective: the term is ugly but memorable). For a fuller account and worthwhile criticism, see N. Smith, Penguin, 1954. The use of worlds in ethical theorising, which is old, soon leads into world semantical analyses of ethical notions, which is newer but will also be taken for granted: it is ^problematic. On next page. 60 The replacement of the (no detachable values) thesis, (1) There are no values without a valuer, by the revised thesis, (1°) There are no values which are entirely independent of a valuer, still affords the requisite semantical connections between values and valuers subjectivists have been at pains to maintain, still allows for the requisite theory dependence and cultural relativity of values, and still avoids the extravagances of objectivism. The replacement enables the defeat of various sophistical arguments designed to show, in virtue of the conceptual character of evaluative terms, that the case so far presented against human (or person) chauvinism collapses. argument of this sort runs thus: A simple Objectivism is untenable; but that leaves subjectivism, which validates (1), as the only alternative; and subjectivism undermines the counterexamples to chauvinism.6& One defect of this argument lies in the assumption that a theory can just dispose of counterexamples, when commonly examples are harder data than any theory. Note that the difference between evaluative and empirical properties is not adequately explained counterfactually: if an appropriate valuer - it cannot be an arbitrarily chosen valuer - were placed in the world it would rate the world fine, to be sure; but equally a suitable observer would perceive perceptual properties. Both these things objectivism can quite well allow. Partly for this reason Rescher's attempt to maintain his initially subjectivist thesis that value must be benefit-oriented, while admitting Moore's comparison of unoccupied worlds, is unsuccessful. Rescher's thesis really gets modified to: value must be potential-benefit-oriented - with which an objectivist might well agree, since it becomes a truism if 'benefit' is construed sufficiently widely (e.g. as 'value'), once unscrambled counterfactually thus:the unseen sunset has aesthetic value because of the potential benefits it affords ... [i.e.] someone were placed on to such a world, he be able to appreciate and enjoy this sunset. (N. Rescher, Prentice Hill, 1969 , pp.136-37.) But insofar as Rescher wants to suggest that value comes down to potential-benefit-orientation, that the unseen sunset has value jMst because of the potential benefits, which are entirely captured counter­ factually, objectivists will rightly object; even if no one were placed in this world, the sunset which delivered no benefits the world, would still have value, still be beautiful. In short, a counterfactually-extended subjectivism remains inadequate. The requisite relation of entire independence is explained semantically in terms of worlds. The truth of A is not entirely independent of b iff, in every model, for every world of the model in which A holds there is some world of the model in which b exists. The valuer of (1°) need not exist; it is only required (in each model) that it exist in some world. Such an argument appears, in essentials, in R. Elliot, species?', this publication. 61 'Why preserve 9 Such a procedure is methodologically unsound. In this case the examples tell against subjectivism, and point to another defect in the theoretical argument, namely the reliance on the false objective/subjective dichotomy. It has been objected 69 that the nonjective way between subjective and objective is unsatisfactory, for the reason that (1°) results in unacceptible assignments of value. But the objection depends upon under­ standing 'a valuer' in (1°) not in the intended way, as 'a certain (or definite) valuer' , the determination of valuer being MpoM the values concerned, but as a choice term, as 'an arbitrarily chosen valuer', or 'some valuer or other (you choose)' - which would require, what can never happen, that every hypothetical valuer agrees in the values assigned. A precisely similar misunderstanding of (1) likewise gives strange results: namely that any state of affairs, however environmentally appalling, is valuable because we can find a valuer, e.g. a spokesman for your local development association., who would account it valuable. understood yields no such bizarre results: But (1) properly all it guarantees is that, where a state of affairs has a value then there is a certain valuer (zj/z^cT? depending upon the state of affairs and the value assigned, i.e. the choice is heavily constrained) who assigns that value to that state. Similarly in the case of (1°) choice of appropriate valuers is a dependent choice, not an arbitrary one. There are several, deeper (because metaphysically grounded), sophistical arguments that conclude on the basis of (1) among other 70 things, that human, or at least person, chauvinism is unavoidable. These arguments too fail with (1). It is simply a (common) mistake to think that values and rights do not have a meaning, or an application, outside the human context or situation: to establish this point (on which Moore rightly insisted) it is enough to point out again that (hypothetical) valuers, not necessarily human or persons, can assign 69 For example by R. Elliot op. cit. Elliot's objection depends on a misconstrual. The original draft of this paper pointed out that principle (1) is strictly mistaken: it would be a little more accurate to assert that there are no values without possible valuers. A world in which there are no valuers extant may still contain valuable items. It does not follow from this, what Elliot infers, that 'a state of affairs has value if it is such that it would be valued by some sentient individual if such an individual were to exist', with 'some' read 'some or other'. 70 These arguments are examined in detail in Routley (a), and found wanting. The objections there lodged apply equally against variations of the arguments built on (1°) . What follows in the text on sorne of these arguments is largely a condensation of some of the points developed more fully there. 62 C Q values with respect to situations and worlds devoid of humans and of persons altogether. But though these deeper arguments strictly fail with the demise of (1), they can be readily restated in terms of (1°), which can equally be taken (given further assumptions) to support the thesis that persons (or preference-havers) are the primary items of value or, more strongly, that persons are the ozzZ-y items of intrinsic value. One of these arguments relies on the idea that persons are the source of value. But the argument trades on an ambiguity. A person is the source of value-judgements and values in one sense, i.e. s/he is the valuer; but not in another, namely s/he is not responsible for valued item having its valued properties. Nor is there any licence for reducing the values assigned to those that serve the interests of the valuer. The argument is likely to be given the following sort of initial elaboration: By (1°), whatever has a value has its value in virtue of an assignment from certain valuers. But valuers are always persons. The argument is however ever has a value gets its value from persons. defective. Therefore what­ For even if values were always assigned by persons the items their values from persons assigned values do not thereby yet or (or those of persons). They have what value they have partly in virtue of features of their own. Nonetheless, the argument continues, the empirical features of objects valued are relevant because they are taken into account in preference rankings on which valuers base their assignments. By (1°) (or a derivative) values are relational properties not properties simpliciter as objectivism would have it. They are relational properties which depend on certain features of the related item. Which features, of values? Well, obviously, preferences and interests of valuers. So, it is con­ cluded, values answer to, or reduce to, interests of persons: no alternative to chauvinism. there is Rather similar arguments lead to such (mistaken) conclusions as that rights are interest-oriented, that 71 obligations must answer to people's interests, etc. etc. The arguments can furthermore - in case the transit seemed excessively swift - be filled out, for example as follows: By (1°), Thus, e.g. K. Baier, T/ze AforczZ Po^yzt o/ Ithaca, 1958. 63 Cornell University Press, -B. Values depend upon valuers, upon their value assignments or rankings. -A. These value rankings depend upon valuers' preference rankings. A. Hence Values depend upon, or are determined through, the preference rankings of valuers. B. Valuers' preference rankings are determined through valuers' interests. C. Valuers are humans [persons]. Therefore D. Values are determined through, or depend upon, human [or 72 persons'] interests. Hence, it is sometimes concluded, not only is it perfectly acceptable for humans to reduce matters of value and morality to matters of human, interest, there is no rational or feasible alternative to doing so: any alternative to chauvinism is simply incoherent. With the replacement of (1) by (1°), premiss (C) is rendered implausible unless 'human' is supplanted by 'person' (where the variable 'person' is so characterised that all valuers are persons, something some accounts of person would rule out). Thus, without (1), the argument leads at best to person chauvinism. Nor does -B follow from (1°): "not entirely independent of" does not imply "dependent upon", but at best "partially dependent upon". However it does seem that values are, in a sense, determined through value assignments - assignments made certainly in virtue of features of the objects valued and of preference rankings of valuers, that is having dual factual and attitudinal bases - but assign­ ments nevertheless. Accordingly, the central part of the argument can be reformulated, in a way which locates the main source of damage, thus A'. Values are determined through value assignments [preference rankings] of valuers. B'. The value assignments [preference ranking] of valuers are determined through valuers' interests. In order to reach what amounts to chauvinism 73 from B', however, 'interest' has to be narrowly construed, after the fashion of egoism, as 'own, self- centred or selfish, interest'. D'. Otherwise the conclusion, Values are determined through valuers' interests, Many variations on this argument are considered in Routley (a); and obviously there are yet other variations, e.g. value assignments could be directly linked with interests. On next page. 64 c Q is innocuous; valuers. it does nothing to confine what determines value, to For valuers' interests may concern almost anything, and in particular may include the interests of nonvaluers(as in 'its interest is among my interests') and the welfare of natural systems. understood, is no more chauvinistic than: D', so Values are value-centred. To succeed the argument has to narrow the elements assessed in determining value to features of the base class of persons [or humans]; their interests and welfare alone. e.g. to For if we have to look beyond this class to assess value - even to determine interests and welfare - then the argument to chauvinism fails. Thus the argument has, in order to suc­ ceed, to rely upon assumptions either of egoism - valuers' interests are restricted to their own (perhaps enlightened) self-interest - or of a group analogue - valuers' interests are restricted to those of the group, the base class - where (to indicate the final trick in the argument) there is, in each case, a slide on the elastic term 'interests', e.g. from ^?z) f/z^r ozjzz ozjyz Mses or purposes. to t/z^^r ozjzz u^urztape., or t/ze^r It is evident enough that in order to succeed the argument has to assume one of the very points at issue, that interests, which are progressively restricted to chauvinistic interests, are so restricted.74 But consider, to expose the character of the assumptions made, parallel arguments to egoism and groupism, i.e. group egoism: AE. Persons always act (in freely chosen cases, or rational cases) in the way they prefer or choose, i.e. in accord with their (revealed) preference rankings. BE. Individual [group] preference rankings are always determined through (reflect) self [group] interest. 71 What amounts to chauvinism; for if a position were reached in this way by a sound argument, then the position would not be chauvinistic, being justified. For this reason, it is absurd for a rational creature to present itself (as some philosophers have) as a human chauvinist or a person chauvinist. There is however a descriptive analogue of chauvinism, in which the justificatory clause is omitted; and this use of 'chauvinism' we have resorted to ourselves (as the astute reader will have observed) as an interim step. In the end of course such descriptive-chauvinism is chauvinism, since the discrimination involved is unwarranted. 74 The claim generalises: it is not possible to mount an argument for person [or human] chauvinism on the basis of the meaning, or analysis, of such notions as, o^Z^pa^o/z or r^pTzf or without assuming, in the analysis or the course of the argument, the very points at issue. This is an outcome of the viability of nonchauvinistic analyses of these notions, together with the content preservation character of genuine deductive arguments. 65 Therefore DE. Individual persons [groups of persons] always act in ways determined in their own self [group] interests (or that reflect their own interest^). Thereafter follows the slide from "in their own interests" to "to their own advantage", or "for their own uses or purposes". The eventual con­ clusion of egoism, again parallelling the class chauvinism case, is not only that the egoistic position is perfectly in order and thoroughly rational, but that there are no alternatives; least ought to be, no other way of acting, that is, there is, or at 'that men can only choose to do what is in their own interests or that it is only rational to do Thus,person or (human) chauvinism, as based.on the central argument, 3 stands revealed as like group selfishness, "group egoism" one might almost say. Likewise the criticisms of the as we shall now call the argument through D or D', parallel those of egoism; in particular, premiss B' to those that defeat premiss BE. (or B) succumbs to similar objections Group selfishness is no more acceptable than egoism, since it depends on exactly the same set of confusions between values, preferences, interests, and advantages (encouraged by slippery terms such as 'interests' and 'self-interest') as the arguments on which egoism rests. Briefly, because one may discern or select one's own preference or value rankings, it does not follow that these rankings are set up or selected in one's own selfish (or enlightened self) interests; similarly in group cases, because a group determines its own rankings, it does not follow that it determines them in its own interests; the group includes environmental individuals. certainly not if Thus just as BE is refuted, at least prima facie, by a range of examples where preference, and value, rankings run counter to self-regarding interest, e.g. cases of otherregarding interest or altruism, so prima facie at least, B is refuted by examples where value, and also overall preference rankings, vary from group interests, e.g. cases of group altruism and extra-group-regarding interests, as in resistance movements, environmental action groups, and so on. It is often in selfish human interests (no less selfish because pertaining to a group) to open up and develop the wilderness, strip mine the earth, exploit animals, and so on, but ecological resistance workers Nowell Smith, op. cit., p.140. Nowell-Smith's very appealing critique of egoism (pp.140-44) may, by simple paraphrase, be converted into a critique of group selfishness. This is obvious once B' and BE are compared. 66 who oppose doing so are commonly not acting just out of (their own or) human intragroup interests, but out of direct concern for the environment and its welfare. But, just as BE is not demolished by such counterexamples of apparently other-regarding and altruistic action, neither is B: in each case it can be made out that further selfish (i.e. self-regarding) inter­ ests are involved, e.g., in the case of B, that an agent did what he did, an altruistic action, because he in the egoism case, doing it. As Nowell-Smith explains 'interest' is written in as an internal accusative, thereby rendering such theses as BE true at the cost, however, of trivial- More generally, valuing something gets written in as a further sort of "interest"; whatever valuers value that does not seem to ising them. be in their interests is said to provide a further interest, either the value itself or an invented value surrogate; for example, the environ­ mentalist who works to retain a wilderness he never expects to see may be said to be so acting only because he has an interest in or derives benefit or advantage from just knowing it exists, just as he would be said to in the egoist case. "retained"; By such strategies the theses can be for then a valued item really is in valuers' interests, in the extended sense, even if they are in obvious ways seriously incon­ venienced by it, i.e. even if it is Mot in their narrow interests in the customary sense. Thus B, like BE, is preserved by stretching the elastic term 'interests', in a way that it too readily admits, to include values, or value surrogates, among interests. Then however the conclus­ ion of the Group Selfishness argument loses its intended force, and becomes the platitude that values are determined through valuers' values, just as egoism, under the extension which makes us all covert egoists, loses its sting and becomes a platitude. Human chauvinism in this form, like egoism, derives its plausibility from vacillation on the sense of 'interests', with a resulting fluctuation between a strong false thesis when interests are narrowed through group interests to group restricted interests - the real face of human chauvinism - and a trivial analytic thesis, between paradox and platitude. To reject the reductionist conclusion D, or D', is by no means to be committed to the view that the valuers and their preference rankings play %<? role in determining values and that values are a further set of In the sense of Wisdom's (meta)philosophy. The technique of rescuing philosophical theses by shifts, which begin with natural extensions of terms, enforced by accompanying redefinitions of terms - including the thesis "We're all selfish really" - is delightfully explained in J. Wisdom, dt/zer Blackwell, Oxford, 1952, especially chapter 1. 67 mysterious independent items somehow perceived by valuers through a special (even mystical and non-rational) moral sense. An intuitionist theory of value is not required, and is not lurking in the background. One can simply admit that valuers' preference rankings play an important role in evaluation; one is not thereby committed to D unless one assumes - what amounts to premiss B - that these preference rankings reflect, or can be reduced to, valuers' (narrow) interests. Even so important problems remain unresolved, in particular, precisely what role valuers' preference-rankings play, and how this role enables the damaging features of intuitionism to be avoided. The arguments against genuinely environmental ethics from the character of are sometimes followed up by the objection that such a ethic can be given no, or no satisfactory, theory of value (or metaethic, to.use the current, but questionable, jargon transferred from logical theory). It is true that several theories of value are quickly ruled out, including mainstream noncognitive theories, which are objection­ ably chauvinistic, allowing no non-instrumental value to any non-sentient natural items. While an environmental ethic, like almost any other normative ethic, ca?? be supplied with an intuitionist theory of value, an environmental ethic, unlike most other ethics, wa?/ appear to have no option to such a theory, though the theory is unsatisfactory and causes especial problems for the ethic. 75 The unsatisfactoriness of intuitionism is in part for the usual reasons: apart from the perceptual comparison which is problematic in several ways (e.g. evaluative properties are not like perceptual properties, the moral sense is rather different from other senses), the theory is (like a purely axiomatic theory) too much of a black box, which gives no explanation of many things that call for explanation, e.g. the semantics of value, how value judgements are based on factual and emotional or attitudinal bases; but it is in part because intuitionism provides little guidance or assistance in accounting for the intrinsic value of environmental objects. These difficulties can be evaded and the problems largely resolved through a semantical theory of value, and more generally of ethical terms. Thus D. Mannison, 'the "new environmental ethic" is ... irredeemably intuitionistic' (op. cit.), and H.J. McCloskey: As far as I can see of the known, plausible meta-ethics, the only one available ... is an intuitionist one. ... [There] would still be ... the problem of associating it with a non-human-centred normative ethic, one which did not locate all values in human capacities states, goods, but accorded to environmental phenomena value in their own right. ('Ecological ethics and its justification: a critical appraisal', this volume.) 68 For the truth-conditions, 7 8 and resulting interpretation conditions, will supply an account of meaning not only of axiological expressions but also of deontic expressions, and moreover in a way that is plainly nonchauvinistic; e.g., it enables natural items to be awarded intrinsic value in much the way that states or conditions of humans are on chauvinistic theories. Something of the shape and character of the semantical analyses emerges from the evaluation rules for important axiological and deontic 79 functions. The semantics are set within the framework of the semantics of entailment: in this way several paradoxes possible world semantics induces in deontic (and axiological) theory are automatically removed. The semantical analyses of the central axiological functor, 'that ... is better than that __ ', abbreviated 'Bt', and the key deontic predicate 'that ... is permissible', abbreviated 'P', restricted to sentential terms, take respectively the following forms: I(A Bt B, a) = 1 iff [B] i.e. [A], where [C] = {c e K: I(C, c) =1}, [C] is the range of C, the class of situations where C holds, some­ times called the proposition C expresses. In short, that A is better than that B holds in world a iff from the perspective of a, the proposition B expresses is less preferable than the proposition A expresses, where the ordering relation is spelt out in terms of a preference ranking. I(PA, a) = 1 iff, for some world b such that Tab, I(A, b) = 1; i.e., that A is permissible holds in a iff for some world b permitted as far as a is concerned, A holds in b - where the relation T is spelt out in terms of a relative permittedness relation. Enough of the semantical theory has been exposed to indicate some important features. Firstly, betterness - and something the same holds for other value terms - is assessed semantically in terms of a world- relativised preference ranking. In the simplest case, where betterness is assessed as to truth (rather than interpretation, or meaning), i.e. at actual world T, the assessment just is in terms of a preference ranking (so validating a form of premiss B above, for a technical sense of 70 Ethical judgements, both axiological and deontic, have truth values, relative to their context of occurrence. By use of context, objections, e.g. from relativity, to the attribution of truth-values to such judgements can be straightforwardly avoided. 79 Full details of the semantics are presented elsewhere, in Routley (c), and in R. Routley, R.K. Meyer, and others, PeZevuzzf TZzeZr P-ZfaZs, RSSS, Australian National University, 1979. 69 'determined'). Secondly, the semantics of can be given in descriptive terms; similarly for deontic terms such as The semantical analysis bridges the fact-value gap, by a functional linkage, without however closing it. preferential basis. For it provides no of value to its The linkage enables a simple explanation of how environmental considerations can count: criteria may be preferred. worlds satisfying environmental Sets of worlds where human interests or needs are not met but ecosystems are maintained may, for example, be prefer­ entially ranked above worlds where human needs are met at the expense of ecosystems. The way in which the factual basis, which includes environ­ mental facts - the descriptive better-making characteristics - enters into the evaluative judgments of quality, is in outline as follows: factual criteria delimit preference rankings on worlds in the same way that descriptive features of objects delimit preference rankings of these objects. It is not the case, then, that we are unable to explain zj?zz/ a natural item is valuable if we cannot point to some human interest or purpose which is served. This again assumes mistakenly, that because a valuer­ relative preference-ranking is involved, the evaluation must somehow be reducible to the interests or purposes of the valuer. That there is an allusion in the semantical unpacking of value to the preference system of a certain valuer no more requires that the items valued are valuable only insofar as they serve the valuer's interests or preferences than it does in more familiar cases such as valuing a work of art, a library or an old building. Valuers can and do value items because they perceive in them properties they take to be valuable, and in the interests of other things whose interests are their own, and not simply for what they can get out of them or how far they serve their own interests. The answer to the question 'Why is it valuable?', for a natural item, will not always be, as it must always be on the instrumental view, 'Because it is good for such and such purpose or end of the valuer or those of his group', but may be: 'Because it has properties A, B and C which the valuer holds to be valuable in virtue of considered preferences, including iterated (second order) preferences which reflect the preferences of other preference-havers. In the end, then, environmental value systems are cvz different How a seTnaTzt-fcaZ analysis - as distinct from a analysis may make bridges without involving a reduction - but leaving everything as it is - is more fully explained in R. Routley 'The semantical meta­ morphosis of metaphysics', JoMruaZ P/z^Zosop/zz/, 54 (1976), 187-205. For more on how the fact/value gap is semantically bridged see Routley (c). 70 preference rankings, which take into account different facts from the chauvinistic systems they are beginning to compete with and aim to supplant - a different group preference ranking and network (emanating from the valuer and those like her) which is grounded in a different perception and emotional presentation of nature. The semantical meta-ethic is not as neutral as an intuitionistic meta-ethic: for the preference-rankings involved require a valuer, i.e. thesis (1°) is applied, thereby excluding objective theories. The fact that the semantical theory will work (perhaps after minor adaptions) for a range of normative theories is no serious objection. not have to be precisely tailored to a given ethic: A meta-ethic does the same (sort of) metalogic may work satisfactorily for many different logics. It is not merely that the distinctiveness of the meta-ethic may be what is more serious is that the contested; (normative) ethic, even newness of the within Western traditions, may be challenged. It has been suggested, for instance, that such ethics are but versions or minor variants of ideal utilitarianism McCloskey, op. cit.). (cf. Elliot, op. cit.; To assess this claim, and to reveal how much the preferred environmental ethic has in common with such utilitarianism and how much it differs, considering what counts as ideal utilitarianism is unavoidable. In indicating what does count, there is real point in going back to Rashdall's original explanation: ... all moral judgements are ultimately judgements as to the value of ends. This view of Ethics, which combines the utilitarian principle that Ethics must be teleological with a non-hedonistic view of the ethical end I propose to call Ideal Utilitarianism. According to this view actions are right or wrong according as they tend to produce for all mankind an ideal end or good, which includes but is not limited to pleasure. ... The right action is always that which (so far as the agent has means of knowing) will produce the greatest amount of good upon the whole. (H- Rashdall, TTze T/zeorz/ o/ Fzz-z^Z, Oxford University Press, 1907, p.184.) Ideal utilitarianism is thus, according to Rashdall, nonhedonistic utilitarianism, and so conforms to the core theses of utilitarianism, namely: (i) The ethical or ideal end (the good) is determined simply by maximisation of net utility or value of certain factors or ends, typically (but not invariably) experiences or states of consciousness such as pleasure, enjoyment, satisfaction of desires or preferences 71 !* (ii) The ends or experiences are those of some given base class, e.g. mankind, present persons, sentient creatures (Pase <?Zass r^Z-az^z^sut-Zczz); and (iii) Other ethical notions, right in particular, are defined as determined in terms of the ethical end (^eZeoZ-c^-ZcuZ re^zzc^-Zozz-Zsw). A corollary of the reductionist assumption - which can take various forms, e.g. act, rule, average utilitarianism - is that maximisation is uncon­ strained by deontic requirements. The core principles are also readily discerned in that other paradigmatic ideal utilitarian, Moore, who like Rashdall, objects to (hedonistic) utilitarianism on the grounds of its hedonistic principle (e.g. p.184), and accordingly widens the ends admitted in (i), and, again like Rashdall, takes the base class to consist of humans. as assessed through its paradigm exponents *Zs thus chauvinistic, and zzo e^zz-ZrczzwezztuZ. sc/zewa /or azz Human chauvinism is in fact integral to both Rashdall'sand Moore's work. For example, Rashdall characterises r-z^TzZ; in terms of good for mankind, and endorses a strong form of the greater value assumption (p.215). And Moore not only identifies the best poss-ZbZe state of things in this world with Human Good (p.183), but considers 'by far the most valuable things we can know or -z^azy-Z/ze, are certain states of consciousness', Zzzz?n<27z consciousness (p.188, my italics). Each one of the core theses of utilitarianism is false (the case is argued in detail in Routley (b)). Contrary to (i) optimisation needs to be constrained, deontically constrained, else serious injustices to and ill-treatment of objects within the base class and, more important, objects outside that class, are all too likely. But, as against (iii) this destroys prospects of successful deontic reductions, which are, on independent grounds, improbable. To avoid the chauvinism, typically built See Pr-Zpzc-Zp-Zu Ez^/z^cu, Cambridge University Press, 1903, chapters V and VI. Moore does say (p.188) that No one, probably, ... who has asked himself the question, has even doubted that personal affection and appreciation of what is beautiful in Art or Nature, are good in themselves. But 'appreciation of what is beautiful' reduces, on Moore's account, to 'enjoyment of beautiful objects'; and any independent value in what is beautiful is 'so small as to be negligible in comparison with that which attaches to the cozzsu^ozzszzess of beauty', (p.189). Moore's chauvinistic account thus appears open to familiar objections e.g. those based on enjoyment machines (cf. the wilderness experience machine discussed above), and on beautiful worlds lacking conscious beings-which help show that beauty is what counts and not just, or primarily, experiences of beauty. Moore was not, however, entirely unaware of such points: cf. pp.194-95. 72 * into (ii), (i) requires restatement in terms of factors which avoid base class relativisation; then clause (ii) is eliminated. The need for con­ straints in optimisation modellings of utilitarian or economic sorts can be seen from the phenomena of interrelated interests and preferences: that my interests include, or depend upon, yours, means that these cannot vary independently, but are interrelated. Repairing the defects of ideal utilitarianism results in more adequate optimisation modelling. notion of The recipe elementary analysis of the item leads to is, in essence, as follows: Maximise a weighted function (e.g. a sum) of the factors that value a determines subject to appropriate constraints: symbolically, maximise n-place function E = E(x) subject to constraining relations Rj(x) and x = <x^,...,x^>). (with j an index, Special cases of such optimisation modellings are familiar from engineering and economic applications (e.g. determination of optimal social welfare in concave programming). What is more general 82 about the model indicated, is, in particular, the form of constraints permitted, which can include that ... Xi ... X2 ..." bounds for optimals). deontic constraints, e.g. "It is forbidden (which has the effect of putting a subspace out of Since there is nothing to prevent moral prohibitions, requirements of fairness, and the like, from appearing among the constraints ethics, economics, and practical reasoning can in principle be success­ fully amalgamated. The optimisation modelling of general value theory differs significantly from that of (ideal) utilitarianism. Although maximization is fundamental in both, in utilitarianism value is characteristically replaced by net utility, measured usually in terms of experiential units of some sort, whereas in general value theory this reduction is rejected. In each case there is a of an ethical calculus, but the currency is different, being values in one case and base class or individual utilities (units of utility) in the other; but in both cases the calculus is so far (equally) unworkable except in very special cases. In each case there is an analysis into components of the objective (function) maximized, but the analysis is very different. In utilitarianism net utility is broken down into individual utilities of members of some base class. In general value theory such a reduction is rejected (except perhaps where appropriate hypothetical valuers are admitted); analysis into factors that carry value is made. instead an (But in Moore's ideal The general model is motivated, explained, illustrated, applied and defended in Routley (b) and (d) and also in R. Routley, 'The choice of logical foundations: nonclassical choices and the ultralogical choice', L<9<2"f<?a, 38 (1979). 73 utilitarianism, unlike utilitarianism proper, the way is opened for factors, such as beauty, which carry intrinsic value and are not reducible to features of the base class or its members.) In utilitarianism deontic notions, such as right, are analysed in terms of the value theory; general value theory deontic notions are taken as given constraints are imposed on optimisations. but in and deontic Whereas the maximisations of utilitarianisms proper are (single element) unconstrained maximisations (hence the injustice, unfairness, and ill-treatment such ethics condone), general value theory optimisations are constrained. in principle While there is room for constraints in ideal utilitarianism, as there is for a switch to factors which are base-class independent - though the theory has never been elaborated to the point where these things are done - deontic constraints cannot be noncircularly imposed, given the teleological reduction thesis (so the problems of unfairness and ill-treatment remain). It is a fairly evident corollary of the differences that general value theory removes leading objections to utilitarianisms. It is not perhaps so evident, however, how it applies to environmental cases or what the factors of environmental relevance are. To expose some of the factors - and to indicate just how far an environmental ethics is dis­ tanced even from a comparatively liberal ethic like Moore's ideal utilitarianism - consider the very difficult optimisation problems as to the determination of the Ideal. Moore distinguishes (1) The Ideal, from, what is more interesting, state of things the best possZbZe state of things in this world', toward which our action should be directed' absolute ideal' (KI) and (2) 'the (2) 'the MZtZ/naZe end (p.183). Call (1) 'The 'the T ideal' or 'the this world ideal' (TI). A crucial difference between the two problems lies in the constraints: determination of TI is constrained by features - many of them unknown - of the actual world T (now and in the immediate future), by its populations of humans and of various species of living things on its various earths, by its natural features, by its physical and technological resources, limitations of which will impose characteristic scarcity constraints. By That does not imply that no analyses can be given of deontic notions. Although axiological reductions are ruled out, others are not. Certainly semantical analysis, like that already sketched for permissib­ ility, can be supplied and elaborated. Moore's teleological ethic is not far removed from Aristotle's ethic more than 2000 years earlier (which exhibits features of ideal utilitarianism) . From the point of view of this long relativelyunchanged base line, environmental ethics are not merely new and radical, but represent a paradigm shift. 74 - contrast, KI is presumably not constrained by resources or technology (in relation to populations); this is just one reason why Leibnitz's equations of TI with KI and with things as at present fails. theless constrained. 8S KI is none­ There will, for example, be constraints forbidding unfair or ill-treatment of various sorts (given that such treatment is possible), and there will be constraints interrelating factors that are not independent. The factors entering into the modelling will no doubt represent, in some way, many of the positive goods, such as enjoyment of the "meritor­ ious" sorts that Moore managed to discern - positively weighted - and many of the evils he found - but negatively weighted (but some of these things are better represented through constraints). There remain, 86 however, many features of ecological importance that Moore never con­ templated; for example, diversity of systems and creatures, naturalness, o7 integrity of systems, stability of systems, harmony of systems. Optimising a mix of factors, which are mutually constrained, meets constant reproaches made against such ecological values as diversity. The objections take the form that enhancement of diversity as a sole factor can lead to undesirable ecological results, indeed can diminish Op net value and so be wrong on utilitarianism grounds. On the multiple factor model diversity is constrained by naturalness and stability, for example; thus net value is not going to be increased through increasing the diversity of a simple temperate rainforest by felling some of its trees and replacing them with exotic species. On the other hand, diver­ sity will be increased by planting the banks of a stream, eroded through excess clearing and overgrazing, with suitable exotic species - then birds Perhaps, moreover, there are no limiting natural laws, such as con­ servation principles, but the universe operates according to beneficient natural laws. There are distinctions here between worlds and physically possible worlds which Moore did not make. There may also be, at least in the case of KI, as Moore observed, factors that we are unaware of - at least under the intended construal of 'conceivable'. Rough and ready measures of such factors as diversity are not so difficult to come by, and, in important respects, present fewer problems than obtaining measures of pleasure that encompass, in ways that take account of interspecies and interindividual comparisons, all sentient creatures. Compare the objections made in §4 to Rodman's reliance on the single criteria of diversity; and also Passmore's points in (a) against diversity as a single criterion in arguments for preservation. 75 and other animals will increase as well as plant diversity - and in such a case stability will also be increased in the longer term and natural­ ness not diminished (since already removed); thus overall value will be increased (it may also be increased by the enjoyment of conservationists formerly appalled by the stream landscape). Diversity,though (like enjoy­ ment or pleasure) good in itself, is (again like hedonistic values) not an unconstrained value (compare, e.g., enjoyment obtained through secret maltreatment of animals or by impoverishment of an unvisited streamside). The multiple factor model also solves the problem of how to combine traditional values, such as the virtues and creature enjoyment with what many in the West are only beginning to discern, environmental values; namely, by a constrained optimisation which takes due (i.e. weighted) account of them Thus in moving to an environmental (or nonchauvinist) ethic one is not ordinarily acknowledged welfare values for persons or humans, but simply recognising a further set of values to which such welfare values should be added. welfare values are retained; Nor is one humans, for human one is simply aiming to remove - through constraints which may reduce assignments to human values in favour of other values - the unwarranted privilege and chauvinism of the displaced Western super-ethic. One would not have come very far if, despite the claim to have recognised environmental values, one assumed that wherever there is con­ flict between natural values and human values, the latter must always prevail. This would be equivalent to assigning them very low weight, or even zero value, in all serious conflict cases. One would not have advanced far past rejection of axiological principle (A) if one then accepted, in assessments as to how things should be done, the yreafer namely that even though other things may have intrinsic value, people or humans are more valuable than anything else, and rank more highly (no matter how large their number).To allow that sows in human welfare values may sometimes - or even often, especially with increasing human populations - have to be accepted in cases of conflict is an essential part of assigning a genuine positive value to nonhuman factors. Sometimes humans, their states and conditions, do not come first: the greater value assumption should be rejected. Such an assumption - in popular form, that people come first - is extrgTMgZ-z/ widespread and is even included in animal liberation theory; cf. Singer, op. cit. For striking examples of the damaging assumption at work, see the (chauvinistic) resolutions of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment. o 4 There are many kinds of examples. Conspicuous examples are provided by recognisedly evil people (there are, under current social arrangements, plenty), whose welfare, or even lives, do not rank above, for example, valuable natural items, or the welfare of future persons. More con­ troversial are evaluations which rank the preservation of an animal species, such as the tiger, above the increase (or even retention) of human population in given areas.91 But, for the most part, the compar­ ative value of humans as opposed to other creatures and things has been greatly exaggerated. The arguments used in support of the greater value assumption are but variations of those for human chauvinism already considered, and largely rejected (in §1). Thus, for instance, Keller argues for a greater value thesis on the ground that a 'human being is the most complex thing which we know; its depth and range of experience far transcend that of any other known living thing' (p.209) Ecological Concern', Zz/^o/z, vol.6 (J.A. Keller, (1971), pp.197-209). complexity the claim is almost certainly false: are much more complex. 'Types of Motives for As regards pure tropical forest ecosystems The claim about range of experience is open to doubt, even for "normal" humans, since many animals have a much wider range of such sensory experiences as smells; and it is false of many humans. More important, range and "depth" of experience, of certain have) , does not, on its own, select sorts (those that normally establish greater value in any routine or regular way. Often enough it is no good basis for assigning greater value. The generalised optimisation model will commonly give way, in applications less sweeping and more feasible than that of the determining TI, to such special cases of it as Bayesian decision theory and cost­ benefit analysis, where these analyses allow properly for environmental values and duly incorporate ethical constraints (see Routley (a)). 90 91 It The fact of the matter is that prevailing unqualified attitudes to human welfare or the "sanctity" of human life - as opposed to other life - are shot through with inconsistency. For instance, despite common claims that human life is sacrosanct, neither the largely unquestioned military ethics nor medical ethics nor the state or "the law" take such a position: most individual humans are regarded as expendible, replaceable, and not particularly or uniquely valuable. On the prevailing ethic quite a different evaluation is taken for granted: e.g. It would be unrealistic to agree, of course, that preservation of wildlife should take precedence over providing for human needs. (S. Richardson, writing in T/ze CuTZ&erru November 29, 1974 , p.12) On an environmental ethic, while it might not be politically expedient, it would not be at all "unrealistic", to so agree. 77 & is these more special methods that should normally be applied in trying to determine a best course of action in a range of difficult decision cases thrown up for an environmental ethics, especially cases where there is a conflict (i.e. constraining conditions) between retention of natural values (e.g. preserving a wilderness or a national park) and maintenance of humanistic values (e.g. keeping some humans alive, commonly reckoned one of the highest human-values). But for a cost-benefit weigh-up to be attempted such cases have to be described in more detail usually provided by chauvinistic philosophers who than is to direct such examples against environmental evaluations - as if furthermore, the examples were quite conclusive, when they almost always presuppose from the very beginning what is in dispute, a greater value assumption. In connection with such intended counterexamples to properly environmental ethics, two further points are worth recording: firstly, resort to such analytical methods is the rational procedure in such cases (unless a time urgency intrudes, as seldom happens, or should happen, in philosophy); secondly, an environmental ethic should not, any more than other ethics or economics, be expected to provide a decision procedure for any and every case that may arise: the theory (and accompanying intuitions) may have to be developed to resolve some cases, while other cases may go (cheerfully) undecided. On similar test or decision cases, e.g. one group of starving people versus another group in a situation of limited resources, or quality of life versus number of humans, conventional ethical theories may offer no quick, or clearcut, resolutions, etc. The optimisation model indicates, among many other things, how axiological principle (A) is to be modified. For best choice and best course of action are now determined by taking account of the further range of values, not just those that are human-based. Then (A) vanishes into the truism that only those objects that are of intrinsic value are of intrinsic value, or need be taken into account in the values of the optimisation model. How to rectify the deontic principle (D) is rather less obvious than how to adjust (A). An obvious strategy, is, however, to add further 92 Even when a case is more fully described there will, of course be (unavoidable) difficulties in quantifying some of the values, e.g. those of "intangible" factors; but these difficulties are not sub­ stantially worse than those already encountered in routine business accounting in quantifying such assets as good-will and such matters as wage relativities for different work. As L. Tribe has pointed out (in 'Ways not to think about plastic trees: new foundations for environmental law', YaZ-e AuzJ vol.83 (1974) , pp.1315-1348) the difficulties of transferring or adapting rather standard methods of assessment, such as decision theory and cost-benefit analyses, to pro vide rational decision methods in the case of environmental matters has been much exaggerated, to the detriment of the environment. 78 * provisos. way; But it is unsatisfactory to do this in a piecemeal sort of it hardly suffices, for example, to simply add further riders excluding unnecessary cruelty to animals, speciescide, etc. What has to is unwarranted interference with other preference­ be ruled out havers (and goal-possessors) and the degrading of items of value. A revised principle appears then to go something like this:- DN. One is free to act as one wishes provided that (i) one does not unwarrantedly interfere with other preference-havers, and (ii) one does not damage or ill-treat or devalue anything of value. Though the revised principle has a rather more complex and restrictive character than freedom principle (D) and Western variants thereon, it still does the requisite task (D) set out to do, namely to state that out­ side certain prescribed areas one is free, that select behaviour is permissible.93 it is simply that the proscribed area is far larger than inadequate homocentric ethics have envisaged. But perhaps the whole conception underlying (D), and the way it fixes onus of proof, should be stood on its head. On the view behind (D), one starts from an unlimited position permitting unlimited interference and exploitation; restrictions are added primarily because other ones (again ones of the privileged class) are also starting from a similar unlimited position whose freedom of action may be (impermissibly) curtailed by one's own. So results the initial position, e.g. of (D). For inter­ ference in others' projects (no matter how exploitative) beyond this "evident" initial position,good reasons have always to be offered. alternative thoroughgoing On the respect view, which is illustrated by various nonexploitative non-Western ethics, one starts from a restricted position, a position of no interference and no exploitation, a position at peace with the natural world so to say, and allows interference - not as on thinking, restricts interference - for good reasons. thus entirely inverted: stop interference. Western The onus of proof is good reasons are required y<2r interference, not The good reasons include the collecting of fruit and nuts (and other natural "produce") for life support purposes, but not, for example, the collection of a substantial surplus of forest orchids on whim or in the hope that they may be sold at a profit. A theory of value like that outlined, though it takes it for granted, 93 The revised freedom principle is not incompatible with, but can be combined with and supplemented by, a bill of rights, charter or catechism specifying positively types of rights and of permissible conduct. 79 A in the constraints imposed in optimisation, that there are deontic principles limiting what is done to many objects other than persons, leaves main deontic issues open, and in particular does not thereby imply that such objects have rights. For woraZ forbidding certain actions with respect to an object (fo not, in general, that object a 94 corretattle r-^p/zt. That it would be wrong to mutilate a given oak or landscape painting does not entail that the tree or painting has a correl­ ative right not to be mutilated - without (what has a point) stretching the notion of r^p*7z^. An environmental ethic like the respect ethic being advanced does not automatically commit one to the view that natural objects or artifacts sometimes have rights. It is sometimes held that some such objects do have rights, e.g. under the influence of pantheism. But construed literally, pantheism is false, since artefacts, and other inanimate objects, are not alive. The view that the class of right-holders extends beyond the class of preference-havers can however be placed on bases less extravagant than pantheism - most obviously in terms of a suitable deontic analysis of r^p?zt, for instance along the following lines: others d has a right to iff (obligation-holders) are not entitled to interfere with d's cj)ing (if d (f)'s or were to (j)). Under this account, of which emerges straight-forwardly from modern analyses of r^p/zt, a painting or a tree may indeed have "rights", such as to continue existing. Although the term 'right' can no doubt be 6^ctezz<ie(i along some such lines, the analysis leaves out essential elements of the normal notion, namely the involvement of choice. There are, once again, various competing environ­ mental ethics, some simple extensions of Western ethics which extrapolate the notion of r^p/zt, some not, some rationalistic, some not, and so on. Environmental positions can - but need not - adhere to the familiar assumption that rights divide into the following two broad classes:First, there are rights held by those (persons, in o?z6 sense) who can duly claim their rights themselves, a class which excludes many humans So rejected also is the s^rozz^ correlation thesis, presented e.g. in S.I. Benn and R.S. Peters, Pocz^aZ Pr^Tzc^pZes a7z<i ^Tze Pew<9<?r<2^<? Allen and Unwin/1959, pp.89-9, according to which 'right and duty are different names for the same normative relation, according to the point of view from which it is regarded' (thereby also elevating what is at best a coentailment into a stronger identity relation). For example, that d has a duty to look after the painting does not entail that the painting has a right to be looked after by d, in any sense of 'right' Benn and Peters are prepared to acknowledge. The weaker correlation thesis - that d has a right to R entails that at least someone else has a duty with respect to R - is not at issue. 80 & and (so far as we know) almost all nonhuman animals. Such rights are often supposed to carry with them various responsibilities. Secondly, there are rights held by certain other (sometime sentient) creatures; though the extent of this subclass of right-holders is a controversial matter, it is generally taken to include at least infants, mentally defective humans, dead humans, and some animals. These rights do not carry corresponding responsibilities, though they are, of course, the However the assumption that certain rights - ground for various claims. the really central rights - are restricted to those who can claim them on their OM% behalf, seems to be based on the faulty idea of private (or separable) individuals as the basic metaphysical units. In a community of socio-environmental individuals there is no reason why one creature's rights should not be claimed, as infants' and animals' rights frequently are, by another: these rights are others' responsibilities. right-holder has itself no specific responsibilities. Often a Moreover the supposed division leaves it quite vague what responsibilities "central" often, it seems, they have none that right-holders are supposed to have; connect relevantly with their rights. be put on the alleged division: a primary nonderivative way). Accordingly but little weight will any preference-haver can hold rights (in That any preference-haver can hold rights is a consequence of the account of rt<y72t that usage of 'right to' appears to lead to, namely for very many (action-type) predicates cj), d has a right to iff, for every other (obligation-holder) z, z is not entitled to interfere with d if d chooses or would choose to <&. Thus that d holds rights requires of d only that it be the sort of creature that can make choices, that it be a preference-haver. The result holds good generally. Consider the other main case, where the right is to some object b: d has a right to b iff, for certain ot (a class of obligation holders, which may consist of a single person), members of a have an obligation to cede b to d if a chooses or would choose (to have) b (cf. Benn and Peters, op. cit., p.89). To be sure, there are other cases where rights to are attributed, but these appear to reduce to the cases given; which seems to amount to something like: to work. e.g. a has a right to work, a has a right to an opportunity Similar analyses - again with significance restrictions on the class of (])S and bs - apply to rights ??ot to, e.g. an animal has a right not to be kept in a cage. Rights of this sort can likewise be held by any preference-haver (but once again such rights be extended beyond this class to all natural objects). Not every right-holder bears responsibilities or carries obligations : infants for instance do not. Responsibility-bearers and obligation­ holders are a very proper subclass of humans and may only overlap the 81 A t* class of humans, and likewise the class of potential responsibility­ bearers only overlaps the class of humans. Thus more demanding deontic notions afford no point of access for human chauvinism. To be responsible for something requires more than ability to have preferences or capacity to make choices; it implies liability to be called to account for the thing, answerability for it. Similarly, the undertaking of obligations involves entering into binding relations which imply answerability. Responsibility­ bearers and obligation-holders are thus a subclass of preference-havers, in accord with the annular theory. For answerability and accountability involve some level of linguistic competence - at the very least an ability to answer, in some language (usually presumed to be translatable, easily?, into some human language) - which many preference-havers do not possess. But responsibility and obligation lead a kind of a double life. For a creature that does not have responsibilities, may nonetheless be responsible for various things, in the sense of having done them, and sometimes done them deliberately; as, e.g., the wallaby who breaks down protecting netting and branches time and again is responsible for the demise of a Japanese plumtree. Rather similar oz^p/zf-statements hold true of subjects who do not carry obligations; consider, e.g., "wombats ought to be more careful in crossing roads". The upshot is that an environmental ethic can - despite its very different value theory - retain, in large measure, and sharpen, rather standard accounts of, and distinctions concerning, rights and obligations. It is in this respect, however, that the sort of environmental ethic being advanced differs markedly from alternative environmental ethics, e.g. those which would, implausibly, confer rights to trees, assign obligations to the soil, and so on. JM<?7z 6J?fe?zs^o?z pos^f^o/zs, of which Leopold's would be a leading example, ^Tzaf <2% eM^iro^z/??6?zfaZ ef/z^c znz^sf yoZZozJ i/zg paffgru cy hosier?? ef/z^<?s &ase <?^uss. orzZz/ a zzzzzcTz The way to a satisfactory, environmental, ethic is to reject the pattern of the Western super-ethic, not to simply extend it. The way is through some sort of annular theory which recognises categorial distinc­ tions between different sorts of things, not through a theory which would delete the legitimate distinctions between the sorts of things. latter mistaken way is unnecessary. The For example, in order to reject the instrumental view of value, and to assign natural objects intrinsic value, it is unnecessary to take Leopold's course of viewing all natural objects as having r^p/zfs in the same way as persons and preference-havers are regarded as having rights, or of persons as having obligations natural objects such as trees in the same sort of way as to other persons. Thus too there is no need to see the rejection of the instrumental 82 <! view as mystical or anti-rational, or as reverting to the view that trees and other natural items house spirits (a view which in any case may have simply been a way of expressing an allotment of value to natural items), and hence as gross superstition. An environmental ethic can be as tough, practical, rational and secular as prevailing Western ethics. so such an ethics will lose much Even if it loses contact with its felt bases in natural things and appreciation of natural things. An environmental ethic will be much the poorer too if it limits itself to the moral terminology, and variations of the categories, of chauvinistically shaped ethics. There will much more as to care, concern and respect in the presentation and main principles of such an ethic than, what occupies standard Western ethics, duties, obligations and rights. In this way too, further problems and puzzles for environmental ethics can be resolved. For example, the view that ethical concepts can apply to the non-human world in an irreducible way is often seen as very puzzling. Much of this puzzlement is generated by attempting to transfer intact a strongly legalistic and person-oriented category of moral concepts, such as rights, moral obligations, duties, and so on, to items in the natural world where they give rise to such apparg^tZ-y problematic questions as 'Do stones have rights?', 'What are our moral obligations to trees?', and so on. If we attempt instead to apply a broader, less legalistic class of moral concepts, such as care, concern, responsibility and respect, much of the puzzling character of these still essentially moral attributions vanishes. There is no great problem for example about how we can legitimately apply notions such as respect to natural items, once a few distinctions are made. The view that the land, animals, and the natural world should be treated with respect was a common one in many hunting and gathering societies, and it is clear that this respect was not seen as generated merely by moral obligations to other persons. dimension to relations with Respect adds a moral the natural world. Respect - or the lack of it - comes out in everyday actions concerning the natural world. The following passage contrasts the Western treatment of the land which lacks respect with the careful and respectful treatment of some American Indians: The White people never cared for land or dear or bear. we Indians kill meat, we eat it all up. little holes. When we dig roots we make When we built houses, we make little holes. burn grass for grasshoppers, we don't ruin things. acorns and pinenuts. dead wood. When We don't chop down the trees. When we We shake down We only use But the White people plow up the ground, pull down the 83 St trees, kill everything (Tozzck ike Furik, (ed. T.C. McLuhan, Sphere Books, London, 1973, p.15). The great care with which so many of the Indians utilized every portion of the carcass of a hunted animal was an expression, not of economic thrift, but of courtesy and respect (D. Lee, in Tonck ike Forik, p.15)What the respect position is based on is the fact that it is possible to make use of something without treating it as something which is no more than a means to one's ends. That is, it is possible to make use of some­ thing in limited, constrained ways - with constraints which may not derive entirely from considerations of the welfare of other humans, as in the case of the Indians' use of animals - without treating it as available for any kind of use. To so use something without treating it as available for unlimited or unconstrained use for human ends is characteristic of use. In contrast non-respectful use treats the use of the item as constrained by no considerations arising from the item itself and the user's relationship to it, but as constrained only in a derivative way, by considerations of the convenience, welfare and so forth of other humans. The Western view, as the Indians realised, is the non-respect position, that the world is available for unconstrained human use. People who hold respect positions, such as the Indians, see such a position as indicative of a lack of moral sensitivity, and sometimes in even stronger terms. The conventional wisdom of Western society tends to offer a false dichotomy of use versus respectful nonuse - a false choice which comes out especially clearly again in the treatment of animals. Here the choice presented in Western thought is typically one of eiiker use without respect or serious constraint, of using animals for example in the ways character­ istic of large-scale mass-production farming and a market economic system which are incompatible with respect, or on the other hand of not making any use of animals at all, for example, never making use of animals for food or for farming purposes. What is left out in this choice is the alternative the Indians and other non-Western people have recognised, the alternative of limited and respectful use, which enables use to be made of animals, but does not allow animals to be used in an unconstrained way or merely as a means to human ends. Such an alternative can have some applic­ ation in a Western context (for some limited examples of respectful use in the operations of a small farmer, see John Seymour, Tke Cowpiete Rook of Faber, London, 1976). A limited and respectful use position would condemn the infliction of unnecessary pain on animals, and also the treatment of animals as machines, as in factory farming. 84 It would also condemn unecessary and wasteful killing and especially killing for amusement or "sport", which is incompatible with respect and assumes that animals can be used merely as a means for ZrZz?ZuZ human ends. But it would not necessarily oppose the use of animals in the case of approp­ riate non-trivial need, e.g. for food, although here again it would insist that the ways in which use can be made are limited, and not just by considerations of effect on other humans. The limited and respectful use position avoids some of the serious problems of the no-use position of the animal liberationists, although it shares many of the same beliefs concerning the illegitimacy of factory farming and similar disrespectful methods of making use of and exploiting animals. The no-use position faces the problem that it proposes that humans should treat animals in ways which are quite different from the ways in which animals treat one another, for example, prohibiting needful use for food. Thus the no-use position seems obliged to say either that the world would be a better place without carnivores, or else that carnivorous animals themselves are inferior, immoral, moral creatures - whichever alternative amoral or non- is taken here the bulk of animals emerge as inferior to humans, or at least vegetarian humans. It implies too that an impoverished natural order which lacked carnivores - and given what we know of ecology this would be a very highly impoverished one indeed, not to say an unworkable "natural" order - is preferable to a rich natural one with a normal proportion of carnivorous and partly carnivorous species. carnivores, Since it would imply the moral inferiority of the no-use position appears to arrive at the negation of its own starting point, (as regards e.g., the equality consideration) of all animals, human and non-human. In thus seeing humans as capable of a moral existence which most animals are not capable of, it sees man as apart from a largely amoral (or immoral) natural world, denies community with the animal and natural world,and indirectly reinforces human chauvinism. §6. TOWARDS AN ENVIRONMENTAL PHILOSOPHY: A PRELIMINARY SKETCH OF THE EXTENT OF PHILOSOPHICAL REVISION ENSUING ON ABANDONMENT OF CHAUVINISTIC ETHICS A radical change in a theory not uncommonly forces changes elsewhere - conceptual revision which affects not only the theory itself but many neighbouring areas. The phenomenon is well-known in the case of major physical theories, but it holds as well for ethical and philosophical theories; for example, a logical theory which rejects the Reference Theory in a thoroughgoing way has important repercussions throughout much of the rest of philosophy, and requires modification not only of logical 85 systems and their semantics, but also, for instance, of the usual meta­ theory which also accepts the Reference Theory and indeed which is 95 tailored to cater only for logics which do conform. A thorough-going environmental ethics likewise has a substantial impact and forces many changes. The escape from human chauvinism not only involves sweeping changes in ethical principles and value theory but it induces substantial reverberations elsewhere - both inwards, for example in metaphysics, in epistemology, and in the philosophy and method­ ology of science, and outwards (in subjects that presuppose value theory) in social theory, in politics, in economics and in law, and beyond. For human chauvinism is deeply embedded in Western culture, and affects not only the ideology and the institutions but the arts. Thus, for example, much of literature, and especially of ballet and film, is given over to a celebration :of things' human,', of .'the species. ,-;Eveh the. ti.RfeLy herw,eYnphas.is, for instance of the counterculture, on-human relations (a-s opposed to selfcontained private individuals of social theories) remains well within the inherited chauvinistic framework. As to the changes, let us begin again with ethics. As we have begun to see, an environmental ethic can retain, though in a much amended theoretical framework (which affects meanings of terms), virtually all the standard ethical terminology. But even at a superficial syntactical level, there will be conspicuous alterations: firstly, ethical terminology will be enriched with new environmental terms, drawn in particular from ecology, somewhat as it was expanded in the late nineteenth century by terminology from evolutionary theories; and secondly, accompanying the attitudinal shifts the new ethic involves, there will be a marked shift in ethical terminology, away from the predominance of such terms as (and examples associated with) 'obligation', to such expressions as 'care', 'respect', 'consciousness'. 'duty', 'concern', 'promise', 'contract', 'responsibility', 'trust', Because the theoretical and attitudinal frame is changed, an environmental ethic forces - as we have already found with such notions as z)oZ-Me, cZzotce, interference and (Zowa^e reexamination of, and modified analyses of, characteristic ethical notions. It requires, furthermore, reassessment of traditional and conventional analyses of such notions as nctnraZ- ri^/zt, ^ronn^Z of ri^Zzt^ and perznissib- iZitz/., especially where these are based on chauvinist assumptions - much as it requires the rejection of most of the more prominent meta-ethical These points are explained in detail in Routley (e); and also in L. Goddard and R. Routley, TZze Lopic of Cipnificonce an^Z Context, Vol. 1, Scottish Academic Press, 1973, chapters 3 and 4. 86 0 46 positions. Cursory examination of recent accounts of TzuZ^ruZ rZpTzZ^ zzzoruZ-Ztz/-, and ucf-Zczz will help illustrate and confirm these points. Hart, for example, accepts (subject to defeating conditions which are here irrelevant) the classical doctrine of natural rights according to which, among other things, any adult human ... capable of choice is at liberty to do (i.e. is under no obligation to abstain from) any action which is not one coercing or restraining or designed to injure other persons Hart, (H.L.A. 'Are there any natural rights?', reprinted in PcZ-ZZ-ZcuZ P/z-fZoscpZzz/, (ed. A. Quinton), Blackwell, Oxford 1967). But this sufficient condition for a human natural right depends on accepting the basic chauvinist principle - a variant of (D) - environmental ethics reject; since if a person has a natural right he has a right. So too the definition of a natural right adopted by classical theorists and accepted with minor qualifications by Hart presupposes the same defective principle. Accordingly an environmental ethic would have to amend the classical notion of a natural right, a far from straightforward matter now that human rights with respect to animals and the natural environment are, like those with respect to slaves not all that long ago, undergoing major re-evaluation. Another example of chauvinism at work in the very setting up of the field of discussion and problems in ethics is provided by recent accounts of woruZ-ZZy, where it is simply taken for granted that 'moral' distinguishes 96 among ZzMzzzu?z actions, policies, motives and reasons, and that what is moral refers essentially to human well-being (contentment, happiness or something of this general sort, tied with appropriate states or 97 conditions of humans). Such criteria for what is moral are chauvinistically based, assuming that what does not bear on human states or conditions cannot be a moral matter. What happens in worlds without humans, how animals fare or are treated, what is done or what happens to plants or other natural objects - none of these are directly moral matters, except insofar as they impinge on human welfare. That is human 96 Thus for instance, B. Williams, AfcruZ-Ztp; 24% P^z^rodMcf-Zo^ fo Ff/z-Zcs^ Harper & Row, New York, 1972, p.79. Williams does, however, remark in his Preface (p.xiv) how 'shaky and problematic' the distinction - which he subsequently takes for granted - is. 97 See, for example, P.R. Foot, TZzeor'Zes Ft/z-Zcs, Oxford University Press, London, 1967, and G.J. Warnock, Ccwfewporurz/ AforuZ P/z-ZZosop/zz/, Macmillan, London, 1967, and also TZzg o.f MoraZ-Zfz/, Methuen, London, 1971. 87 t* chauvinism at work, and is at the same time a reductio such criteria. s- ad absurdum of A different nonchauvinistic account of what is moral is required (a beginning can be made by adopting certain of the maligned formal criteria). It is evident that any account which meets even weak conditions of adequacy will serve to meet the objection that an environ­ mental ethic is not concerned with what is moral but is really an aesthetic theory. For the objection as usually presented depends squarely on a chauvinistic restriction on morality, all the rest of value theory being classed, or dismissed, as "(mere) aesthetics". The case of morality illustrates the characteristic way in which theories - in this case chauvinistic ethics - redefine crucial notions in their own terms to suit their own ends, such as entrenchment and fortification of the theories against objections. Further corollaries of the rejection of chauvinism include the inadequacy of recent fashionable attempts, mainly derivative from Hobhouse, at characterising a^naZf^z/ and justifying it in ways that argue from man's humanity^98 and the inadequacy of much recent, largely chauvinistic, work in the philosophy of actdan, which takes it for granted that action and 99 rationality requirements on action are bound up with human nature. The abandonment of chauvinism implies the rejection not only of much ethical analysis, but of all current major ethical positions. The bias of prevailing ethical positions, and also of economic positions, which aim to make principles of conduct or reasonable economic behaviour calculable is especially evident. These positions typically employ a single criterion p, such as preference or happiness, as a summum bonum; characteristically each individual of some base class, almost always humans, but perhaps including future humans, is supposed to have (at least) an ordinal p- ranking of the states in question (e.g. of affairs, of the economy); then some principle is supplied to determine a collective p-ranking of these states in terms of individual p-rankings, and what is best or ought to be done is determined either directly, as in act-utilitarianism under the Greatest Happiness principle, or indirectly, as in rule-utilitarianism in terms of some optimization principle applied to the collective ranking. The species bias is transparent from the selection of the base class. And 98 Among such unsatisfactory liberal egalitarian positions are those presented in G. Vlastos, 'Justice and equality' in SacZaZ JnstZae (ed. R.B. Brandt), Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1962, and B.A.O. Williams, 'The idea of equality' in P^Zasap/zz^., PaZfZfcs and JacZafz/, Second series (ed. P. Laslett and W.G. Runciman), Blackwell, Oxford, 1963. 99 see, e.g.^T. Nagel, T/ze Pass-Z&'ZZ'Ztz/ a/ ^ZZrnZszzz, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1970. 88 even if the base class is extended to include persons or some animals (at the cost, like that of including remotely future humans, of losing testability), the positions are open to familiar criticism, namely that the whole of the base class may be prejudiced in a way which leads to unjust principles. To take a simple example, if every member of the base class detests dingoes, on the basis of mistaken data as to dingoes' behaviour, then by the Pareto ranking test the collective ranking will rank states where dingoes are exterminated very highly, from which it will generally be concluded that dingoes ought to be exterminated (still unfortunately the evaluation of most Australian farmers, though it lacks any requisite empirical basis). Likewise it would just be a happy accident, it seems, if collective demand (horizontally summed from individual demand) for a state of the economy with sperm whales as a mixed good, were to succeed in outweighing private whaling demands; for if but few in the base class happened to know that sperm whales exist or cared a jot that they do, then even the most "rational" economic decision­ making would do nothing to prevent their extinction. But whether the sperm whale survives should not have to depend on what humans know or what they see on television. Summed human interests, or preferences of certain private individuals, are far too parochial to provide a satisfactory basis for deciding upon what is environmentally desirable. Nor would such accidental bases be adequate. Moreover ways out of the problem do not bear much investigation. It cannot be assumed, for instance, that the base class is on the whole good, and hence will not enjoin reprehensible behaviour, because such an assumption seems false, would at best be contingently true (so that the theory would fail for different circumstances to which it should apply), and would involve a deep problem in the theory, since it would then seem to admit the determination of goodness - that of the base class, on the whole - independently of what the theory was set up to determine, among other things, goodness. Nor can it be assumed, without serious circularity, that the optimisation is constrained by requirements of justice or fairness (see Routley (b) and §5 above). The ethical and economic theories just singled out (which are based on optimisation over select features of the base class) are not alone in their species chauvinism; much the same applies to west going meta- ethical theories which, unlike intuitionistic theories, try to offer some rationale for their basic principles. That is, the argument against utilitarian—type ethical and economic theories generalises. For instance, on social contract positions, obligations are a matter of mutual agreement 89 between individuals of a given (but again problematic) base class; on a social justice picture, rights and obligations spring from the application of symmetrical fairness principles to members of the base class, usually a rather special class of persons;^00 while on a Kantian position, which has some vogue, obligations somehow arise from respect for members of the base class, persons.In each case, if members of the base class happen to be ill-disposed to items outside the base class, then that is unfortun­ ate for them: that is (rough) justice. Looking outwards from the ethics, the abandonment of chauvinism has likewise a wide set of consequences, both theoretical and practical, in economics, politics and law, and generally in the social sciences. One major practical economic impact of environmental ethics is in the extent to which free enterprise can operate unimpeded or unchanged. of business and enterpreneurial activity - to But consider <9722 option - will involve, in turn, either legal constraints, or reallocation of activity by such devices as environmental pricing, which directs activity away from environmentally undesirable pursuits. For example, if it is wrong to destroy a rare ecosystem in order to make a few more dollars, then restrictions should be imposed on business activity by one method or another. To some limited extent this is already happening in the field of pollution, but primarily because of the likely effects, direct or not too far removed, that pollution comes to have on other humans, not for a wider set of reasons, and often not for the right reasons. With a wider environ­ mental code, the public and legal intrusion into areas typically regarded as "private" and open to the free enterprise operations (of "open go") would be much more extensive. The same applies in the case of private Thus for example, [Rawls'] original position seems to presuppose not just a neutral theory of the good, but a liberal, individualistic conception according to which the best that can be wished for someone is the unimpeded pursuit of his own path, provided it does not interfere with the rights of others. This view is persuasively developed in the later portions of the book, but without a sense of its controver­ sial character (T. Nagel, 'Rawls on justice' , P/z^Zcsop/ztcczZ 82 (1973), p.228). Nagel also effectively argues that Rawls' original position is not neutrally determined but involves substantial moral assumptions (e.g. pp.232, 233); they are mostly, as it happens, of a chauvinistic cast. While the first of Kant's maxims is not so restricted in actual form­ ulation, others are (see H.J. Paton, AforuZ P<2M, Hutchinson, London, 1947) . And, firstly, such maxims are s^ppast?^ to be equivalent to ones formulated in terms of persons; secondly, they are supposed to be derived from features of, or connected with, people. 90 -4 property; for example, given that it is not permissible to erode hill­ sides then there should, in this setting, be (legal) restrictions on farmers' and foresters' activities. Although the impact on the practice of economics of a thoroughgoing environmental ethic would be drastic - market negotiations, firms' activities, international trade, all would be affected - the impact on the underlying theories of preference and choice is comparatively For much of economics is squarely founded but still far from negligible. on chauvinism. less, The theoretical bias follows directly from the utilitarian bases of the theory, which is fairly explicit in welfare theory and rather heavily disguised in neoclassical theory. But although choice and value theory are, as characteristically presented in economics and elsewhere, damagingly chauvinistic, they do not have to be. For the theories can be reformulated in a non-chauvinistic way, as was indicated (in §5) above for utilitarianism - upon which economic theory is modelled. On such a revamped foundation an environmental economics to match the chosen environmental ethic can be built (for some preliminaries on this approach, see Routley (d), appendices 1 and 6). Several of the objections to base class theories such as utilitar­ ianism apply not merely against orthodox economic theory, but also to voting theory, to representative democratic systems of determination of political action. If, for, example, the base class consists of private individuals motivated by their own self-contained interest then such procedures can readily lead to most undesirable results, especially if these individuals compromise representative individuals. their autonomy through the election of For the more powerful of these representative individuals can be - and typically are, as their behaviour if not their protestations show - not favourably disposed to (the welfare of) things outside the base class or even to many members of the base class. Nearer the theoretical surface, especially in such branches of economics as "resource management", the chauvinism is more conspicuous. The following narrowly utilitarian assumption is quite typical: The goal of resource managers should be to communicate and act in ways that maximize human satisfaction (H.J. Campbell, 'Economic and social significance of upstream aquatic resources' in Forest Fs^s Oregon State University, Corcallis, 1971, p.14, also p.17). When management - where such is management becomes needed at all - the goals will be changed from such chauvinistic ones. 91 The method of interference in "free economic enterprise", of controls and regulations, of legal and political constraints, is only one way in which leading principles of an environmental ethics can be put into effect. A quite different, and ultimately far more appealing, approach is by way of structural change, by changing the socio-economic structure in such a way that it comes to reflect on environmental ethics (by altering the frame of reference, or axes, to use the physical picture of §4, so that major problems vanish). Requisite structural change is . 102 far-reaching, both practically and theoretically in every reach of social science. For example, while on the position, capitalist markets are subject to further regulation, either directly imposed or by way of suitable pricing policies, in the s^rz^g^raZ. c/zaMgre position, capitalist markets are eliminated; while under state regulation private property is subject to further Controls,given approp­ riate structural change private property disappears. Looking inwards, an environmental ethic has an impact on the practice of many sciences other than the social sciences - what they do experimentally with natural objects (e.g. the treatment of animals in laboratory testing); how their research programmes are organised and directed (consider,e.g., projects involving irradiation or broadscale herbicide treatments of rainforests); the way classifications are made and which are made (consider, e.g. the extent to which human perception enters into classifications in botany); recommended on the basis of such sciences. and, of course, what is For as it stands human chauvinism is deeply embedded in the practice of science, directly in research and experimentation and in shaping classifications, theses and theories. Indeed the effect of a different ethic may extend even to the theory of such sciences, in particular through the bearing the ethic has 103 on metaphysics which m turn influences the foundations of such sciences. Such a new ethic would quite properly upset (as §1 should indicate) the extent to which humans are seen at the centre of things and things as accountable through them and scientific theories as 'human constructions wrestled from a hostile nature' (after Popper). It would help overthrow the pernicious chauvinistic idea that, apart from certain elementary facts, 4ZZ-es value. Me?zs<?/ze?zzjgr^, all necessity, all intensionality, all It should result too in the shattering of still widespread As (g) V. and R. Routley, 'Social theories, self management and environmental problems', this volume, begins to explain. Cf. R. Harre, TTza P/z^Zosop/ztes c/ S'c^eyzcg, Oxford University Press, 1972; and also Routley (e). 92 ***** assumptions as to the nature of animals and plants, for instance that their apparently goal—directed and intensional behaviour can be explained (away) mechanistically, and the deeply-rooted idea that some sort of Cartesian metaphysical picture of natural, as distinct from spiritual or rational, objects can be maintained (cf. again §1). In metaphysics there are at least two further important classes of effects. Firstly, the orthodox views of man's relation to nature, the dominant and modified dominant and lesser traditions, have to be abandoned and new positions worked out. In this sense, a new environmental ethic implies a similarly new metaphysic redefining Man's place in nature and human/nature relationships.104 Such a new philosophy of nature will recognise various natural objects other than humans as of independent value, so it will not be naturalistic. Nor will it view natural objects as simply available for the use, wise or otherwise, of humans. Several principles derived from the orthodox metaphysical positions will have to be abandoned and replacements worked out (as in the case of (D) in ethics) Thus superseded, for example, will be the principles of total use of natural areas for human use and of maximum long-term productivity of the earth's resources (principles criticised in their application in forestry in Routley (d)). At a deeper level, such a philosophy of nature will involve a turning away from the leading ideological principles of both the Renaissance and the Enlightenment and of much that went with them (e.g. with the Renaissance, the rise of commerce, bureaucracy, professionalism, formal education, and subsequently, with the Enlightenment, the rise of the modern state, capitalism and scientific enlightenment). For it means the dismissal of the chauvinistic principles of theRenaissance,with 'Man as the kernel of the Universe', a creature 'half-earthly and half-divine, his body and soul form[ing] a microcosm enabling him to understand and control Nature ...'.1°5 It means too removal of the humanism of the Enlightenment, the reduction of what formerly was assigned to the religious, such as ethical and political principles, to the human, a reduction which 104 As Passmore has observed - inconsistently with what is claimed m his (a) - in 'Attitudes to Nature', Roz/aZ of PTz^oscp/zy Lectures, volume 8, Macmillan, London, 1975. As against Passmore (a) p.3, such new ethics and metaphysics need involve no abandonment of 'the analytical, critical approach which is the glory of the West : on the contrary, they may well mean a more thoroughly critical and analytical approach than hitherto. 105 goth quotations are from T^ze <?y tTzg 7?e7z<2^ss(2%<3g (ed. D. Hay) Thames and Hudson, London 1967, pp.7-10, where too main movements, practical and ideological, of the Renaissance are usefully indicated. 93 was based on the false dichotomy, which has still not lost its hpld:, religious or humanistic. Secondly, the removal of humans from a dominant position JhT the natural order renders immediately suspect a range of familiar philosophical positions of a verificationistic or idealistic kind such as phenomenalism in epistemology (how can what exists depend on what is perceived by members of such a transitory and perhaps not so important species or ^on whether there exist perceivers?), intuitionism in mathematics, con­ ventionalism in logical theory, the Copenhagen interpretation ir^ micr<^- physics, and subjectivisms not only in ethics but in every other* * True, most of these positions are defeated on t^e basis of other considerations anyway; but it is an immediate and fur,t^ier philosophical sphere. point against them that they are damagingly chauvinistic. Thus a corollary of the thoroughgoing rejection of human chauvinism, of very considerable philosophical importance, is the rejection of all the usual forms of idealism, i.e. all positions which accord primacy to the human subject and make the existence of a world of things or the nature of things dependent upon such subjects. A paradigmatic example is phenomenalism; other examples are Kantian idealisms, Hegelianisms and later German idealisms, Christian philosophies based on the primacy of human (and superhuman) consciousness, existentialisms; more surprising examples are empiricisms - inasmuch as all knowledge and truth is supposed to be ultimately derived from human experience - and their holistic images, dialectical materialisms and Marxisms. A satisfactory environ­ mental philosophy will be significantly different from all these positions. 94  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 20, Item 2: Draft of Human chauvinism and environmental ethics Subject The topic of the resource Printout of draft, undated. Handwritten on attached leaf to paper: 57-85 Taken out for age. Paper published, Routley R and Routley V (1980) 'Human chauvinism and environmental ethics', in Mannison DS, McRobbie, MA, Routley R (eds) Environmental philosophy, Dept. of Philosophy, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. Description An account of the resource Unnumbered paper from collection, item number assigned by library staff. 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Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:31eb305">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:31eb305</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Como - [Item not listed with location] Box 20: More Green Como House Como House > [Item not listed with location] https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/1d651af96cc7b07825a4edfa9eabdc93.pdf c09e6df28a2be8efc88346ca0115f7fb PDF Text Text �HUMAN CHAUVINISM AND ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS * Richard and Vai Routley Class chauvinism has been and remains a cardinal weakness of most moral codes - including, so it will be argued, Western ethics. A most serious failure of Western ethics is its human chauvinism or anthropocentricism - a chauvinism which emerges in a refined, and apparently more reasonable, form as person chauvinism in much modern ethical theory. What is chauvinism? Class chauvinism, in the relevant sense, is differential, discriminatory and inferior treatment (by sufficiently many members of the class) for items outside the class, for which there is not justification. PLzwan chauvinism is class chauvinism where the class is humans, zzzuZe chauvinism where the class is human males, chauvinism where the class is animals, etc. It would be bud, to say the least, if Western ethics, in its various strands, were to turn out to rest on human, or person, chauvinism. For Western ethics would then have no better foundation than, and be open to the same sorts of objections as, moral codes based on other sorts of chauvinisms, e.g. on familial, national, sexual, racial or socio-economic class chauvinism - in particular it would be open to the objection that * This paper (which considerably elaborates R. Routley 'Is There a need for d ew, an environmental, ethic?', of f/ze XVfb VorZd P3 1 (1973), pp.205-10), was drafted in 1973 and read in 19 he University of Indiana, Bloomington, at Notre Dame University, an t the Conference on The Good Society held at the University of Canada. Since the main virtue of the paper has been that it h ed much interesting discussion, the original form has been retained, the authors are no longer especially happy with the form, an theses remain insufficiently developed or e the previous and continuing defended. But in order have been made, even though the criticism, no substanti paper has been raided and segments o it presented in improved form 'Against the inevitability elsewhere, especially (a) R. and V. Rou of human chauvinism', in MoruZ P/zfZosopbz/ e University Press, (edited by K. Goodpaster and K. Sayre), Notre 1978, and (b) R. and V. Routley, 'An expensiv , Choice utilitarianism', paper presented at the Colloquium on some u?zd VuZz^g, RSSS, Australian National University, 1977. sizeable additions have been made, with a view to incre intelligibility and enlarging the scope of the original draft, ing some of the many objections. 1 �v' it discriminated against nonhumans in a prejudiced and unwarranted way, and would thereby stand condemned. For it is hard to see how an ethic based on simple species loyalty could have any greater claim to absolute­ ness or deserve any more respect than moral codes based on simple loyalty to national, sexual, or racial classes. Such an ethic could no more command allegiance - once the facts are brought into clear view - than other normally-deplored examples of localised class chauvinism, such as the Mafia or protection agencies or rackets or enclaves of slavery. Unfortunately prevailing Western ethics appear to be of just this sort. §1. THE WESTERN CASE FOR ITS HUMAN (OR PERSON) CHAUVINISM: THE FIRST LINES OF DEFENCE It is important, then, for defenders of the Western ideology to be able to show - i/ it can be shown - that an ethic which discriminates strongly in favour of humans, as Western ethics apparently does, is not chauvinistic. Otherwise the ethic stands condemned. Of course not every distinction in treatment qualifies as chauvinistic - the distinction in treatment may not be substantial or systematic, and there may be an adequate and explicable basis for the distinction, so that some discrimin­ ation is warranted. In order to escape the charge of human chauvinism, it has to be shown how and why the drastic and general discrimination in favour of humans sanctioned and enjoined by modern (as by historical) Western ethical systems is warranted, and that it has an adequate basis. The extent of this chauvinism, especially with respect to animals, is at last - after centuries of a priori prejudice and gross distortion of the characteristics of wild animals and wilderness - beginning to be spelt 'x out. 1 'X It is at least clear from the outset that an adequate justification cannot be provided which simply selects all and only these members of the species human (i.e. Zzcmo sup^e^s) as zoologically defined. nothing about the characteristic of There is itself (as distinct perhaps from its accompanying properties) which could provide a justification for overwhelmingly favourable treatment for humans (and unfavourable treatment for nonhumans) as opposed to other possible, and possibly some actual, nonhuman creatures. Once again, an adequate ethic and justification can­ not possibly be based on blind and unthinking species loyalty. The same 1 See, e.g., S. and R. Godlovitch and J. Harris (eds), 4^iwcZs^ and* Morals. 4% <?y Gollancz, London, 1971; P. Singer, 4 net.) /or cy Cape, London, 1976; S.R.L. Clark, 7'Zie -Staffs <?y 4^iwaZs, Clarendon, Oxford, 1977. 2 �Meeds argument: objection applies against the simple the commonly assumed domination of human needs over all else (e.g. over all environ­ mental considerations) has, if it is to have any merit, to be based on 2 more than speciesism. We shall have to look then for some other not merely taxonomic characteristic to provide the sought justification. It will emerge however, that any such characteristic is held or may be held by nonhumans, and is not held, or potentially not held, by all items of the species human. Of course there are many characteristics which can, as a contingent matter, be used to distinguish human beings as a general class from other higher animals - although in fact with increasing knowledge of animals it is no longer clear that some of these characteristics distinguish as clearly as was assumed a priori in the past. For example, humans have a language, and a culture of a certain sort and even various logics. And, as we are accustomed to have people point out, other terrestrial animals do not conduct philosophical discussions on environmental ethics. However not only is participation in these activities potentially available to nonhuman creatures, and these characteristics possibly possessed by some, but these activities are not generally engaged in even by humans (particularly the power elite), many humans lack the requisite competence, and even among those who do qualify, such activities are carried out to a very varying extent. We run the risk, then, in applying such demanding criteria, of ruling out, of classing as deserving of "sub-human" or "sub­ person" treatment, a considerable class of human beings - items most humans would consider as worthy of better treatment than that normally accorded by humans to nonhuman animals. What is more important however is that such criteria as human language, culture, human civilization, human intentionality, or whatever, appear to provide no satisfactory for the substantially unfavourable treatment allotted those falling outside the privileged class. should there be such strong discrimination in favour of language or a higher level of creatures having a (certain sort of) intelligence and against creatures or items which do not, in favour of things with a certain sort of culture or a certain logic and against those without? Especially when some of these criteria are clearly, and As McCloskey remarked (in a letter dated 5.7.77 containing many helpful comments) 'talking about needs does little but obscure the problem, as needs, to be normatively relevant, involve reference to goods; and that merely transfers the problem'. On next page. 3 �unjustifiably,loaded in favour of human interests, achievements and abilities (cf. the cultural loading of various intelligence tests). By contrast the very many respects in which some uvimuT-s or sorts of animals are corsftierabZi/ s^pericr to /zMwars (many are noted in V.B. Droscher, T^e Mayic o/ * t^e Senses. /VeM Diseorerfes tn ^nfmat Perception, Allen, London, 1969) are rarely considered; yet some of these features would, if taken in the same serious way as some respects in which humans excell, justify a reverse chauvinism (which could be reflected as, /or example, in the Hindu treatment of cows). The only sort of justification for the discrimination that might appear convincing - that those who have the given characteristic (e.g. those that are more intelligent, or more rational, or richer) are more valuable or worth special treatment - is vitiated by the fact that were it accepted by Western ethics it would warrant similar discrimination hcfMccv humans (or persons). For how do we show that the allegedly warranted discrimination is sufficiently different from making substantial (class) distinctions between humans in terms of their level of intelli­ gence, linguistic or logical ability, or level or kind of cultural achievement - so that those with "lower" levels of these valued abilities are treated in a consistently inferior way and regarded as available for the use of the others? In short, these characteristics do not provide adequate justification for the substantially inferior treatment accorded those not having them, and so the charge of chauvinism is not escaped by producing them. A similar set of points applies against a number of other criteria traditionally or recently proposed to distinguish the privileged class. 4 Often these are propounded in terms of personhood and criteria for being a pgrscyz (the class marked out for privileged treatment being the class of persons) rather than criteria for being /zvmuTZ - in order to escape difficulties raised by young, senile, decrepit, stupid, irrational, For undoubtedly many mammals, birds and insects can communicate, some­ times in ways analogous to language, even if the honorific term 'language' is withheld (see - to select an unfavourable source - the discussion in E.O. Wilson, TZze ZVetJ SpvtTzesis, Belknap, Cambridge Mass., 1975, chapter 8 ff.). It is becoming increasingly evident, however, that the ascription of some linguistic ability, and of elementary languages, to nonhuman creatures should not be withheld; see, e.g. the details assembled in E. Linden, 4pes^ Mev Lavpvupe, Penguin, New York, 1976. (But contrast Wilson, op. cit., pp.555-59, and to set this in proper perspective, consider Wilson's discussion of ethics and aesthetics a few pages later, pp.562-65.) Many of the criteria that have been proposed are assessed, and found wanting, in Routley (a). 4 �damaged and defective humans, extraterrestrial creatures, and super animals; to avoid the merely contingent connections between being human and having requisite person-determining characteristics (such as ration­ ality or knowledge) supposed to warrant discriminatory treatment; and to defeat, though it is a pyrrhic victory, the charge of human chauvinism (or equivalents of the charge, such as anthropocentricism or speciesism). But much the same problems then arise in terms of criteria for a person, and the chauvinism problem reappears as the problem of furnish­ ing criteria which are suitably clearcut, and do separate persons from assumed nonpersons, and which would provide an adequate justification for substantially privileged treatment for persons and inferior treatment for nonpersons. Unless such a justification is forthcoming the charge of person c^unrin^sm is not escaped. Most of the criteria proposed for personhood fall down in just these sorts of ways, e.g. being autonomous, the having of projects, the producing of junk, the assessing of some of one's performances as successful or not, the awareness of oneself as an Not only does it appear that (the more worthy of) such criteria apply (or could apply) to many nonhuman animals - thus agent or initiator. animals are generally more autonomous (in main senses of the term) than humans, many animals have projects (e.g. home and nest building), and they are well aware of themselves, as opposed to rivals, as initiators of 5 projects - and that they do not apply uniformly to humans or indeed to persons in any ordinary sense; but again it is extremely difficult to see what there is in these characteristics which would warrant or justify the vast difference in treatment between the privileged and nonprivileged classes, or justify regarding the non-privileged class as something available for the of the privileged class. Similar objections can be lodged against the proposal that knowledge or the possession of knowledge, provides f/zg (or a ur^c-Lai!-) distinguishing It can hardly provide the appropriate filter, since it not only gives no sharp cut-off point, 6 but does not even always rank humans or feature. persons above nonhumans or nonpersons. Moreover, taken seriously it should lead to substantial moral differentiation between persons, a person's moral rating also fluctuating during his lifetime. In any case, For example, the shiftless intelligent person, or the primitive person, who has no projects and engages in no moral reflection, and thus offends protestant ethics, is not thereby deregisterable as a person, any more than an intelligent animal with projects can join the union. .6 on next page. 5 �why rank knowledge so highly: for (paca Socrates) knowledge is not the foundation of virtue, but is frequently turned to evil ends, and even where it is meritorious it is not the sole (or even a crucial) criterion of worth. Similar difficulties apply too to the historic criterion of along with the added problem that it is very difficult to say what it is in any clear or generally acceptable way, or to prevent it from degenerating into a simple "pro" word. If a hallmark of rationality is commitment to the consequences of what one believes and seriously says, then many humans fail the test. If, on the other hand rationality is, for example, the ability to discover and pursue courses and actions likely to achieve desired goals (direct action toward goals), ability to solve problems concerned, etc., then plainly many animals have it, and possibly to a greater extent than humans in some cases (and of certain humans in If it were the ability, e.g. to do (say propositional calculus) or to assess reasoning verbally, then the (biassed) almost all cases). criterion would be far too strong and rule out many humans. Again, why should one make such a marked discrimination on this basis? What is so meritorious about this characteristic, that it warrants such a marked distinction? Nothing (at least in the ordinary academic's view, or logicians would receive more favoured treatment). Other criteria, which yield an analytic connection between being a person and enjoying freedom or having rationality, in part beg the question. For in persons - are free. respect is it that persons - or worse, just Also the justificatory problem, as to how the claimed freedom or rationality warrants such differential treatment, remains. Characterisations of persons vary enormously, from so strong that they rule out suburban humans who are not "self-made" enterpreneurs, to so weak that they admit very /nanp animals. An (unintentional) example of the latter is the following: persons, that is, ... beings who are not only sentient but also capable of intensional autonomous action, beings that must be ascribed not only states of consciousness but also states of belief, thought and intention (A. Townsend, /iMstraZasfar 'Radical vegetarians', PAfZosopTip, 57 (1979), p.89). 6 In addition, the relation "a has at least as much knowledge as b" is only a partial ordering. For example, a dog's and a child's knowledge may be incomparable, because they know about different matters, how to do quite different sorts of things, etc. (The idea that knowledge is the key to moral discrimination, that it is what makes humans rank the way Western ethics ranks them, may be found in C.B. Daniels, TZze 6>y FZ^fcaZ Y'/ieorfgs, Philosophy in Canada Monograph, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1975.) 6 �Most rats and rabbits satisfy the conditions: they are sentient, conscious animals that have intentions (e.g. to get through some barrier such as a floor or a fence), beliefs and thoughts preferred food beyond the barrier). (e.g. that there is For his further argument Townsend shifts - without notice, but in a way that is quite typical of this scene - to stronger requirements upon being a person (such that one who does not meet them is incapacitated as a person) which rule out many humans, e.g. 'The person must recognise canons of evidence and inference warranting changes in his beliefs, and be capable of changing his beliefs 7 accordingly' (op. cit., p.90). In meeting hypothetical objections, Townsend slips in a further require­ ment of rationality, but the characterisation of person given does not include any such requirement. Subsequently, however, Townsend commits himself, without argument, to the thesis that 'a fairly high degree of rationality is prerequisite' to attributing 'intensionality' (as dis­ tinct from 'intentionality'). This is not going to help much. For, firstly, rationality is very much a notion which admits of degrees, without the relatively sharp cut-off stages required for pgrscvz as a notion of orthodox moral relevance, or possessed by the notion of to which Townsend sneaks back in his chauvinistic conclusion (p.93). Secondly, TzozJ high a degree is prerequisite for being a person? If only enough to satisfy the conditions for being a person, then the animals that are persons have it. If more, then either the initial characterisation of a person fails or the thesis breaks down. The much stronger requirements upon being a person that Townsend sub­ sequently appeals to are said to derive from S.I. Benn. But, if any­ thing they strengthen one of the stronger of several KOHegtcZvaZenf characterisations of (%afMruZ) person - none of them equivalent to - that Benn has at various times offered. While Benn's weaker characterisations appear to admit at least many "higher" animals, e.g. that of a natural person as a chooser, conscious of himself as able to make a difference to the way the world goes, by deciding to do this rather than that, having projects, therefore, of his own, whose life experience may consequently be understood, not simply as a chronicle of events, but as an enterprise, on which he puts his own construct­ ion ((a) 'The protection and limitation of privacy, Part I', LazJ <7a^r?za:Z, 52 (1978), p.605); the stronger characterisations which invoke (rather vaguely specified, and (Ziy/greuf) minimum conditions of rationality in belief and action said to imply respcHsfbiZitp on bhe part of the person for what s/he does, though they do - exclude many of the creatures admitted by weaker characterisations. For such stronger characterisations see 'Individuality, autonomy and community' in CowwL/yrZfp (ed. E. Kamenka) Edward Arnold (forthcoming) and (c) 'Freedom, autonomy and the concept of a person', c/ thg PocZefp, 76 (1976), pp.109-30. 7 �The foregoing points, taken together, support our contention that it is not possible to provide criteria which would distinguishing, in the sharp way standard Western ethics do, between humans and certain nonhuman creatures, and particularly those creatures which have preferg ences or preferred states. For such criteria appear to depend upon the mistaken assumption that moral respect for other creatures is due only when they can be shown to measure up to some rather and traded tests for membership of a privileged class (essentially an elitist view), instead of upon, say, respect for the preferences of other creatures. Accordingly sk<2rp nzoraZ commonly accepted in ethics by philosophers and others alike, hgfzjggzz uZZ Tztzwuzzs Zacks a satfs/cctcr^ cokcrcrzt basfs. anZmaZ aZZ ofker The distinction, which historically rested on the assumption that humans possessed a soul (or higher reason) but that other animals, brutes, did not, appears to have been uncritically retained even after the religious beliefs or philosophical theories underpinning it have been abandoned. Given that the distinction underlying human chauvinism fails, is there anywhere satisfactory demarcations of moral relevance can be made 9 among things? Yes, several divisions of wcrcZ can be made; but of these coincides with a division into human and others. Consider, first, the question of consideration others, and the matter of which offers are to be taken into account in cases where others' interests and preferences are affected by some action. Insofar as moral consideration for others (among sentient items) is based on analogical (empathetic, and essentially inductive) principles, such as taking account of their worthwhile preferences, objectives, interests etc., There are of course further arguments for the contention, for example from the anatomical and physiological affinities of human and other animals, from their common evolutionary history, and so on. These arguments are of varying force; for example, evolutionary arguments can be arrested, temporarily, by the claim that there was a "quantum jump" in human evolutionary development which did not occur with other creatures with a previously shared evolutionary history (cf. Wilson, op. cit.). Although the divisions may be conceptually sharp enough, they are any­ thing but sharp when applied in the field to the variety of creatures and circumstances that occur. For example, preference-havers is, so far at least, sharp enough, but it is far from clear which creatures qualify, e.g. which, if any, Crustacea? For the present most of these potential decision cases are cases for cheerful indecision; but, alternatively, the divisions may be viewed - perhaps better - not as sharp boundaries, but as gradation states, as where two colours in a rainbow meet. 8 �it is difficult to see how such consideration can fail to apply to all (including nonhuman) preference-having creatures; and one does not need to apply criteria such as linguistic ability, navigational ability, intelligence, piano-playing, hunting skill, etc., to obtain a basis for such consideration (indeed one cannot). of preferences (and The of preferences revealed through choices) is however a quite sufficient basis for sort of consideration and concern. It is at this point, we suggest, that the requisite, important and non-arbitrary distinction is to be drawn which marks out the class of creatures towards which obligations may be held; that is, the usually recognised principles of consideration towards others (of the privileged class) properly extend or should be generalised to consideration for other creatures having prefer­ ences, and t/ze corresponding penerut defecsihZe odtipution principle is not to pnt others ("ot/zer pre/erence-Zzurers? into a dispre/erred state for no pood reason. Insofar as moral behaviour is based on consideration for others and not harming others, preference-having provides an adequate basis, and does appear to provide a sufficient justification for substantially different treatment for preference-having over non-preference-having items - because items without preference cannot (literally) be put into a dispreferred state. Thus preference-having appears to tie in with an important basis for moral obligation, and appears to provide a superior criterion, for a certain serf of moral consideration, to other criteria sometimes proposed such as sentience - or, differently, intelligence especially since in the absence of preferences such notions as Jzurminp something (in a way that does affect it) and damaging its interests become difficult of application (not to say nonsignificant, except in extended senses). The unsatisfactoriness of the sentience criterion for what one can hold obligations towards can be grasped from the case of the sentient machine or purely sentient creature which does not have preferen­ ces, does not care what state it is in or whether it is destroyed,etc. The sentience criterion is often converted by utilitarians into a suffer­ ing criterion, by taking pain as a paradigm of sentience: but plainly the two criteria diverge since some sentient creatures may never feel pain or suffer. Suffering is even less satisfactory than sentience; for suffering is neither necessary nor sufficient for being in a dispreferred state (consider masochists who suffer but are not in a dispreferred state, and well-treated workers who are in a dispreferred state but do not suffer). Preference-having provides a lower bound; it is a sufficient but -not necessary condition for being an object of this sort of moral 9 �consideration and concern. That it is not necessary is revealed, independently of environmental examples, by the following sorts of cases: the treatment of "human vegetables", successful stoics, and science­ fiction cases in which people are brain-washed into performing certain goals and having no dispreferred states apart from the programmed goals. In all three cases the question of dispreferences does not arise, but relevant moral issues can.^^ The necessary condition, that corresponds to preference-having as a sufficient condition, appears to be capability at some time (e.g. previously, when developed) for preference-having. It has been taken for granted that many animals (from species higher on the evolutionary scale) have preferences, make choices, and the like. This is the merest commonsense, which can be readily confirmed in a scientific way. For example, some of the preference-rankings of a black­ tail wallaby as to types of foliage to eat are readily established by observation, and it is fairly straightforward verifying that bushrats prefer cheese to soap, this preference being revealed by regular choices. It has however been claimed by some recent philosophers, for reasons apparently different from those offered by traditional philosophers such as Aristotle, Aquinas and Descartes,H that animals do not have intentions, or at least do not have them in a full sense. It is unclear whether these intentions, which are taken to include thoughts and beliefs and, perhaps, desires, include preferences; but it is hard to see how preferences, which are intentional, are excluded if desires are included in intentions. The recent arguments to show that animals do not really have intentions, which do not bear much investigation even in such central cases as 12 belief, appear extremely feeble when applied to preference. For the arguments start from the claim that we cannot say zj/zuf it is that animals As N. Griffin, who supplied the examples, remarked a similar thing happens also in less extreme cases of the type brought in to prominence, e.g., by the women's movement: that it is possible, by means of indoctrination, to limit the range of someone's dispreferences; treatment of such persons may still remain immoral even when it does not place them outside the (artificially widened) range of their preferred states. The traditional reasons look slight also in the case of preferences and choices. It would have been claimed - the theory forces the claim - that animals' choices could not be rational. Interestingly, choices of many animals conform to behavioural criteria for rationality pro­ posed in economics. See J. Bishop, 'More thought on thought and talk', (forthcoming) and R. Routley, 'Alleged problems in attributing beliefs to animals', paper prepared for the FeZig/ conference, University of Queensland, 1979. 10 �believe (of course very often we can, and unproblematically) and fall back on the claim that animals lack concepts of a fit sort. In the case of preferences, however, there is often no problem in saying what it is animals prefer, or in confirming the claim. Nor is it that we cannot attribute propositional-style preferences to animals; if black-tail wallabies prefer, as they do, new foliage to old then they prefer the foliage's being new over the foliage's being old. As for the concept claim, in the sense in which concept is delineated in psychology, animals have concepts. And if a philosopher's notion of "concept" gets in the way of the claim that free dogs prefer bones to carrots (or other vegetables) then it is not the claim that requires revision, but the philosopher's notion. The preference-having criteria appear to distinguish non-arbitrarily and sharply enough between higher animals and other items, and to rule out of the relevant class elementary animals, trees, rocks and also some human items, e.g. human kidneys. The criteria plainly exclude inanimate objects, and they separate animate objects. For while living creatures such as plants and elementary animals can be said in an extended sense to have and also optimal living conditions, e.g., for healthy develop­ ment, and in sense to have preferred states or environments, they do not have preferences, and cannot strictly be harmed or have their welfare affected, in that they can be put into states they disprefer. Nor do empathy and analogical considerations extend beyond preference-having creatures: for only these can care about how they are treated. At the same time the criteria indicate another important division. For in a wider sense, animate objects which do not (significantly) have preferences or make choices, are sometimes said to have 'preferred states' or 'preferred environments' (as, e.g., in 'the plant prefers a sunny frost-free location with a well drained soil'). us say that the or To avoid confusion let of animate objects and also such biological items as ecosystems can be affected in one way or another, e.g. increased, decreased, upset. For instance, the wellbeing of a coastal community and of the individual trees in it can be reduced to zero by sandmining, and it can be seriously threatened by pumping waste detergent In this broad sense too, living things, things that participate in the growth process, have interests. However under a narrower and more common determinate of the slippery term 'interests', only preference­ havers have interests (again sentient creatures do not provide the boundary). Because the term 'interests' so readily admits of high redefinition, and the infiltration of chauvinism, its use is better limited (or even avoided), in favour of other more stable terms. 11 �into the nearby ocean. There is a general obligation principle corresponding likewise to this more comprehensive class of welfare­ bearers, namely, z-zat fa jaaparjise tTze zJaHhefzzp a_f ?zatzzraZ abjaafs or sz/sfews zjft/zaz^t paad reasor. Moral coroerr does not of course end with what is in some way animate, much as the class of valuable objects is not tied to what relates suitably to central preference-havers. In suitable settings, a (virtually) dead landscape, a rare stone, a cave, can be items of moral or aesthetic concern; indeed any object of value can in principle be of such concern, and arzp abjact car., in principle at least, be ar object a/ value or disvalue, and so of morat corcerr. corcerrfry almost any sort of object. There can then be obligations Naturally only a fraction of the things that exist have especial value, and only a few of the things that exist will be things concerning which some of us have obligations. Furthermore these sorts of obligations do not in general reduce to the conditions or arrangements (e.g. contractual or joint welfare arrangements) of preference-havers or some select subclass thereof (what will sub­ sequently be called, as the argument is developed, the base c^ass). Just as there are relevant divisions beyond the class of preference­ havers, so there are within the class. Thus the suggestion that the class hazards which moral obligations (and a corresponding serf of moral concern which takes account of creatures' states) may be held is bounded by the class of preference-havers, does not of course imply that %a dfsfizzcfiazzs can be made zjffbfrz the class of preference-havers with respect to the kind of behaviour appropriate to them. For example, cazifracfzzaT- obligations - which by no means exhaust obligations - can only be held directly (as distinct from by way of a representative) with respect to a much narrower class of creatures, from which many humans are excluded. The class is also distinct from the class of persons, at least as 'person' is usually characterised. What emerges is an ann^Zar pfcfzzra of types of objects of moral relevance, some matched by types of moral obligation (described toward the end of Routley (a)), with nested zones representing respectively different sorts of objects - such as, objects of moral concern, welfare-having objects, preference-havers (and choice-makers), right-holders, obligation­ holders and responsibility-bearers, those contractually-committed-and the different sorts of obligations that can significantly apply to such objects. Not all the types of objects indicated are distinct, nor is the listing intended to be exhaustive but rather illustrative. For strictly the labels given should be expanded, as the distinctions are categorial ones, so that what matters is not whether an object is, for instance, 12 �contractually committed in some fashion but whether it is the sort of thing that can be, whether it can significantly enter into or be committed by arrangements of a contractual kind. is to Similarly function as a categorial marker, that marks out the sorts of things that can (significantly) have preferences: the assumption that preference­ havers coincide with choice-makers is based on this categorial reading. Although the annular picture is (as will become clear in §5) important for the environmental alternative to be elaborated, and in meeting object­ ions to it, the countercharge has been laid that it reintroduces chauvin­ ism through its inegalitarian distinctions. This is a mistake: not every sort of ethical distinction, certainly not a justified distinction, involves chauvinism. Chauvinism is exhibited where, for example, objects of a favoured class are treated in a preferential way to superior items of an exluded class, e.g. defective humans as against apes, degenerate French against normal Pygmies. The annular picture neither involves nor encourages such differences in treatment: it is neutral and unchauvin- istic, for the reason that it relies only on categorial distinctions which tie analytically with ethical notions (see the semantical analyses of §5). It is certainly in no way species chauvinist or human chauvinist. For none of the zones of the annular picture comprises the class of humans (or its minor variant the class of persons); for this class is not of moral relevance. The reason is that the human/nonhuman distinction is not an ethically significant one, and can, and should, be demoted from its dominant, and damaging, position in ethical theory. But dropping the notion of out of ethics, is only part of the ethical change that is called for: taking due account of nonhumans is also required. In particular - to return to the theme - what is quite unacceptable, . . 14 and based on a set of distinctions which are arbitrary and unjustifiable, is the differential treatment enjoined nonpersons as distinct from persons under Western ethics, and the view that only persons or humans have any (nonderivative) right to moral consideration and concern as preference-havers and that there are obligations towards other creatures 14 According to Q. Gibson such a criticism of chauvinism is based firmly on Western ethical equality and egalitarian principles. This is simply not so: there is no reliance on such principles. The general argument takes the form; feature f cannot be what justifies the differential treatment of humans and nonhumans, because either f is not morally relevant or not all humans have f or some nonhumans have f. Neither equality nor substitutions based upon equality are invoked at any stage. Moreover Western equality principles - at least as convention­ ally formulated - are in serious doubt, especially with the rejection of human chauvinism (see further §6). 13 �only insofar as these are or reduce to obligations to persons or humans. §2. THE EXTENT OF CHAUVINISM, AND FURTHER LINES OF DEFENCE Western ethics are, then, human chauvinist in that they characterist­ ically take humans (or, to make a slight improvement, persons) to be the only items worthy of proper moral consideration, and sanction or even enjoin substantially inferior treatment for the class of non-human preference-having creatures, without - so it certainly appears - adequate justification. The prevailing nineteenth century Western attitude to wild creatures is evident from Judge Blackstone (quoted approvingly in W. Cobbett, Penguin, London, 1967, pp.431): With regard likewise to wild animals, aZZ bub by tbe o/ ZTzg Creator a right to pursue and take away any fowl or insect of the air, any fish or inhabitant of the waters, and any beast or reptile of the field: and this natural right still continues in every individual, unless where it is restrained by the civil laws of the country. And when a man has once so seized them, they become, while living his qualified property, or if dead, are absolutely his own. Prevailing Western attitudes have not shifted markedly since that time; for example, foresters, widely regarded as socially responsible, think nothing of dislodging from their homes and environment, or even destroying, communities of animals which do not directly interfere with human welfare. But there is another very important broader respect in which Western ethics are human (or person) chauvinistic, namely in the treat­ ment accorded to and attitude taken towards the broader class of natural items such as trees and forests, herbs, grasslands and swamps, soils and waterways and ecosystems. Unlike higher animals such items cannot liter­ ally be put into dispreferred states (and in fbbs obvious sense, as opposed to the wider sense of 'interests' tied to welfare, they have no interests), but they can be damaged or destroyed or have their uaZ^e eroded or impaired. The Western, chauvinistic, assumption is that this can only happen where human interests are affected. The basic assumption is that value attaches essentially only to humans or to what serves or bears on human interests, or derivatively, to items which derive from human skill, ingenuity or labour. Since natural items have no other value, there is no restriction on the way they are treated insofar as this does not interfere with others; as far as -ZsoZufgb natural things are con­ cerned anything is permissible. 14 �It is, at base, because of these chauvinistic features of Western ethics that there is a need for a new ethic and value theory (and so derivatively for a new economics, and new politics, etc.) setting out not just people's relations to preference-havers generally but also (along with many other things) people's relations to the natural environment - in Leopold's words 'an ethic dealing with man's relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it' (A. Leopold, SuTzd" zlZ-muzzur? zjvt/z ot/zer essays on Conservation, New York, 1966, p.238). It is not of course that old and prevailing ethics do not deal with man's relation to nature: they do, and on the prevailing view man is free to deal with nature as he pleases, i.e. his relations with nature - insofar at least as they do not affect others, as pollution and vandalism do - are not subject to moral censure. Thus assertions such as 'Crusoe ought not to be mutilating those trees' are significant and morally determinate but inasmuch at least as Crusoe's actions do not interfere with others, they are false or do not hold - and trees are not, in a good sense, moral objects. It is to this, to the values and evaluations of the prevailing ethics, that Leopold, Fraser Darling and many others, both earlier and later, take exception. Leopold regards as subject to moral criticism, as wrong, behaviour that on prevailing views is morally permissible. But it is not, then, as Leopold seems to think, that such behaviour is beyond the scope of the prevailing ethics and that merely an extension of traditional morality is required to cover such cases, to fill a moral void. If Leopold is right in his criticism of prevailing conduct, what is required is a change in the ethics, in attitudes, values and evaluations; for example, what is permissible on the prevailing ethics will be no longer permissible on the new. For as matters stand, as Leopold himself explains, humans generally do not feel morally ashamed if they interfere with a wilderness, if they maltreat the land, extract from it whatever will yield, and then move on; and such conduct is not taken to interfere with and does not rouse the moral indignation of others, and is accordingly permissible on prevailing ethics. As Leopold says: A farmer who clears the woods off a 75% slope, turns his cows into the clearing, and dumps its rainfall, rocks, and soil into the community creek, is still (if otherwise decent) a respected member of society (op. cit., p.245). Only recently has such behaviour begun to be seriously questioned and become the subject of criticism, e.g. by environmentalists. Under what will be accounted an erzvvroHwgutaZ. et/zvc, however, such traditionally 15 �permissible conduct would be accounted morally wrong, and the farmer subject to proper moral criticism. That ethics and morality are not, and never have been, restricted to human concerns, or exclusively to relations between persons, is important in rebutting objections to the very idea of an environmental ethic, based on the premiss that morality just is restricted (definitionally) to human relationships (and connected values) and is not significant beyond that. The problem of moral relations with respect to preference-havers other than persons and to inanimate items cannot be resolved or escaped simply by declaring morality to apply solely,or as a matter of meaning or defin­ ition only to humans (or to persons). For first, such a solution would run counter to the common view that humans are subject to seme moral con­ straints, even if comparatively minor ones, towards other creatures; the having of such constraints cannot be ruled out definitionally, and corres­ pondingly the judgments formulating these constraints or prohibitions cannot be ruled out as nonsignificant, yet they are surely moral. The only way in the end, that the claim gets support is by a narrow, and no longer acceptable, account of what is mcraZ in terms of concern with humans alone (cf. §6). Likewise, the question of the moral interrelations of humans with intelligent nonhuman extraterrestrial beings, even if at present hypothetical, is certainly a meaningful one, and some interesting and clearly moral issues of this sort are frequently raised in science fiction. Only if the extent of morality is, somewhat misleadingly, reconstrued in terms of the class of constraints on the behaviour of those it applies to - that is, in terms of limitations, as distinct from moral freedom does the claim that Western morality is restricted to humans (or persons) begin to gain plausibility. For it is true that beyond the favoured base class, humans or persons, few constraints are supposed to operate (and ad hoc ones at that) unless the welfare of members of the base class is adversely affected. Under an environmental ethic, such as that Leopold advocates, this would change: previously unconstrained behaviour would sense the scope of morality would be morally circumscribed, and in be extended. It is not evident, however, that a ethic, an ethic in the case at hand, is required to accommodate even radical new judgments seriously constraining traditionally approved conduct, i.e. imposing limitations on behaviour previously considered morally permissible. For one reason it is none too clear what is going to count as a new ethic, much as it is often unclear whether a new development in physics counts as a new physics or just as a modification or extension of the old. 16 For, �notoriously, ethics are not clearly articulated or at all well worked out, so that the application of identity criteria for ethics may remain obscure. They are nonetheless (pace Quineans) perfectly good objects for investigation. Furthermore, there is a tendency to cluster a family of ethical systems which do not differ on core or fundamental principles together as the one ethic: e.g. the Christian ethic, which is an umbrella notion covering a cluster of differing and even competing systems. There are two other possibilities, apart from a new environmental ethic, which might cater for the new principles and evaluations; that of an extension or modification of the prevailing ethic, and that of the development of principles that are already encompassed or latent within the prevailing ethic. The possibility that environmental evaluations can be incorporated within (and ecological problems solved within) the not inflexible framework of prevailing Western ethics, may appear open because there is not a single ethical system uniquely assumed in Western civiliz­ ation: on many issues, and especially on controversial issues such as infanticide, women's rights and drugs, there are competing sets of principles. Talk of a new ethic and prevailing ethics tends to suggest a sort of monolithic structure, a uniformity, that prevailing ethics, and even a single ethic, need not have. The Western ethic is not so monolithic In particular, three important traditions in Western ethical views 15 concerning man's relation to nature have recently been mapped out: a dominant tradition, the despotic position, with man as despot (or tyrant), and two lesser traditions, the stewardship position, with man as custod­ ian, and the cooperative position with man as perfector. the only traditions; Nor are these primitivism is another, and both romanticism and mysticism have influenced Western views. The dominant Western view is simply inconsistent with an environmental ethic; for according to it nature is the dominion of man and he is free to deal with it as he pleases (since - at least on the mainstream Stoic16 Augustine view - it exists only for his sake ), whereas on an See especially (a) J. Passmore, Afurz's Duckworth, London, 1974; also R. Nash, Affzzd, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1973. (All further references to Passmore's work are, unless otherwise indicated, to Passmore (a).) The dominant position has also been sketched in many other recent texts, e.g. I. McHarg, Doubleday, New York, 1969, while the lesser traditions have been appealed to in meeting criticisms of the Western ethic as involving the dominant view. The masculine particles are appropriate; 17 so is the resulting tone. �environmental ethic man is not so free to do as s/he pleases. But it is not quite so obvious that an environmental ethic cannot be coupled with one of the lesser traditions. Part of the problem is that the lesser traditions are by no means adequately characterised anywhere, especially when the religious backdrop is removed, e.g. (as further considered in §4) who is man steward for and responsible to? However both traditions are inconsistent with a deeper environmental ethic because they imply policies of complete interference, whereas on an environmental ethic some worthwhile parts of the earth's surface should be preserved from sub­ stantial human interference, whether of the "improving" sort or not. Both traditions would in fact prefer to see the earth's land surfaces reshaped along the lines of the tame and comfortable but ecologically impoverished European small farm and village langscape. According to the cooperative position man's proper role is to develop, cultivate and perfect nature - all nature eventually - by bringing out its potential­ ities, the test of perfection being basically /ur while on the stewardship view man's role, like that of a farm manager, is to make nature productive by his efforts though not by means that will deliberately degrade its resources. Thus these positions figure among those of the shallow ecological movement (as depicted by A. Naess, 'The shallow and the deep, long-range ecology movement', 16 (1973), 95-100): longer term. they are typically exploitative, even if only in the Although these lesser positions both depart from the dominant position in a way which enables the incorporation of some evaluations of an environmental ethic, e.g. some of those concerning the irresponsible farmer, and allow for some of the modern extensions of the Western ethic that have been made, e.g. concerning the treatment of animals and criticisms of vandalism, they are not well-developed, fit poorly into the prevailing framework, and do ^<9 /ar For in the present situation of expanding populations confined to finite natural areas, they will lead to, and enjoin the perfecting, farming and utilizing of all natural areas. Indeed these lesser traditions lead to, what a thorough­ going environmental ethic would reject, a principle of total use, implying that every natural area should be cultivated or otherwise used for 17 if 'use' is extended, somewhat illicitly, to include use for preservation, this total use principle is rendered innocuous at least as regards it actual effects. Note that the total use principle, in the usual sense, is tied to the resource view of nature (cf. (d) R. and V. Routley, T/ze /or f/ze Forests, Third Edition, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1975). Such a principle, like the requirement of economic growth, emerges directly from - it is an integral part of neoclassical economic theory. 18 �"humanized". As the important Western traditions mentioned exclude an environ­ mental ethic, it would appear, at first glance anyway, that such an ethic - not primitive, mystical or romantic - would be new alright - or at least new from a Western perspective. For, from a wider perspective, which takes due account of traditional societies (such as those of some American Indians, Australian Aboriginals, and Pygmies), there is, it will turn out, nothing so very new about what is included in (as distinct from the theoretical setting of) the "new" ethics. Even from the narrow Western perspective, the matter is not so straightforward: for the dominant ethic has been substantially qualified, in particular by the rider that one is not always entitled to do as one pleases where this 19 physically interferes with others. " It may be that some such non-inter­ ference proviso was implicit all along (despite evidence to the contrary); and that it was simply assumed that doing what one pleased with natural 20 items would not affect others (a?2CMfnfcr/cre?Ycc cssz^npffcyz). Be this as it may, the wcdfyfeti pcsfffoz? appears, at least for many thinkers, to have supplanted the dominant position; and the modified position can undoubtedly go much further towards an environmental ethic. For example the farmer's polluting of a community stream may be ruled immoral on the grounds that it physically interferes with others who use or would use the stream. Likewise business enterprises which destroy the natural environ­ ment for no satisfactory (taxable) returns or which cause pollution deleterious to the health of future humans can be criticised on the sort of welfare basis (e.g. that of P.W. Barkley and D.W. Seckier, Economic Humanization, and humanitarian measures, may be a cloak for human chauvinism - in which case, far from being virtuous, they may be positively undesirable. Also, as Leopold has observed, the class of others has been progress­ ively widened, e.g. from the family group, to the tribe, to the nation or race, even to all humans including often enough future humans - but rarely further in the West until recently. 20 The assumption is not the same as its relative, Benn's principle of rzo^-i^fcrycrcuce, 'that no one may legitimately frustrate or prevent (or interfere with) a person's doing what he chooses to do, unless there is some reason for preventing him' (Benn (c), op. cit.; inset from (a), p.605). The principle is said to derive from 'the notion of a person' (e.g. (a), p.605), but it only so derives given commission of the fallacy of conversion of an A-proposition. Moreover even reduced to a 'formal principle ... locating the onus of justification' (cf.(a)), the principle is dubious, especially cyiven principles of respect for objects other than persons, with which persons may be interfering. It is, however, a formal principle that will help to keep entreprenuerial humans happy. 19 �Pggg:2/, Grczjf?? T^g S c7Mf7c?? * f-ggcwgs f/zg PrchZgw^ York, 1972) that blends with the modified position; be criticised on welfare grounds; and so on. New vandalism can usually The modified position may even serve to restrict the sort of family size one is entitled to have, since in a finite situation excessive population levels will interfere with future people. Nonetheless neither the modified dominant position nor its Western variants, obtained by combining it with the lesser trad­ itions, is adequate as an environmental ethic. chauvinism. None moves outside human They are all encompassed under the Dowz'nic?? t??gsis - the view that the earth and all its non-human contents exist or are available for human benefit or to serve human interests, and hence that humans are entitled to manipulate the world and its systems as they want, in their own interests - which is but the ecological restatement of the strong thesis of human chauvinism, according to which items outside the privil­ eged human class have no value except one as instrumental value (both theses are criticised in Routley (a)). To escape from chauvinism, and from its thesis, a new ethic 7s wanted, as we now try to show. §3. GENERAL ENVIRONMENTAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST WESTERN ETHICS The main argument is directed primarily against the modified dominant position, but will incidentally show the inadequacy of the lesser Western traditions. The strategy is to locate core features of Western ethics, and to reveal through examples their thoroughgoing chauvinism and class bias, and in this way to provide decisive grounds for rejecting For the general argument some more technical points have to be made them. first. (An) gf^7g is ambiguous, as between a specific ethical system, a spgcffiu ethic, and a more generic notion, a SMpgr-gf^fg, under which specific ethics are grouped. (As usual, a wgfu-ethic is a theory about ethics, super-ethics, their features and fundamental notions.) An sz/sfgm s is, near enough, a propositional system (i.e. a structured set of propositions) or a theory which includes (like individuals of a theory) a set of values and (like postulates of a theory) a set of general evaluative judgments concerning conduct, typically of what is obligatory, permissible and wrong, of what are rights and responsibilities, what is valued, and so forth. (On newer perceptions an ethical system will include rather less in the way of prescriptions, of duties, obligations and the like, and more as to what are matters of care and of concern and for respect.) Since an ethical system is propositional in character, such notions as consistency, coherence, independence of 20 �assumptions, and the like, apply to it without further ado. It is evident, from a consideration of competing or incompatible values and principles, that t/zgre are Z^z/iz-z-ZteZz/ wary gf/zZcuZ sz/stezns. Moreover appropriately general criteria for rationality will not reduce this class to a singleton. . Accordingly, there is logical space for aZferratire ratiaraZ etTzies. A general or lawlike proposition of a system (characterised along similar lines to a scientific law) is a pr-ZzzcZpZe; and certainly if systems Si and S2 contain different principles, they they are different systems. It will follow then that an environmental ethic differs from the important traditional ethics outlined if it differs on some principles. Moreover if environmental ethics differ from each Western ethical system on some core principle or other embedded in that Western system, then these systems differ from the Western super-ethic (assuming, what seems to be so, that that ethic can be sufficiently characterised) - in which case if an environmental ethic is needed then a new ethic is wanted. It would suffice then to locate a common core principle and to provide environmental counterexamples to it. It is illuminating (and necessary, so it will emerge) to attempt to do a little more than this minimum, with a view to bringing out the basic assumptions of the Western super-ethic. Two major classes of evaluative statements, commonly distinguished, are axiological statements, concerning what is good, worthwhile, valuable, best, etc., and deontological state­ ments, which concern what is obligatory, permissible, wrong, etc. Now there appear to be core principles of Western ethics on both axiological and deontic fronts, principles, for example, as to what is valuable and as to what is permissible. Naturally these principles are interconnected, because anything is permitted with respect to what has no value except insofar as it interferes with what does have value. A strong historical case can be made out for what is commonly assumed, that there are, what amount to, core principles of Western ethical systems, principles that will accordingly belong to the superethic. example. The fairness principle inscribed in the Golden Rule provides one Directly relevant here, as a good stab at a core deontic principle, is the commonly formulated liberal principle of the modified dominant position. A recent formulation of this principle runs as 21 follows (Barkley and Seckier, op. cit., p.58): 21 On next page. 21 �The liberal philosophy of the Western world holds that (D) one should be able to do what he wishes, providing (1) that he does not harm others {and (2) that he is not likely to harm himself irreparably}. The principle, which is built into or derivable from most traditional ethical theories, may be alternatively formulated in terms of permissib­ ility, as the principle that a pgrscu's action is <ioos not intor/ere zjit/z others, profide<i if (i.e. other people, including perhaps the A related economic principle is that free enterprise can operate agent). within similar limits. It is because of these permissibility formulations that the principle - which incorporates fundamental features of (human or person) chauvinism - is sometimes hailed as a freedom principle; for it gives permission to perform a wide range of actions (including actions which degrade the environment and natural things) providing they do not harm others. others. In fact it tends to cunningly shift the onus of proof to It is worth remarking that 'harming others' in the restriction is narrower than a restriction to the (usual) interests of others; it is not enough that it is in my interests, because I detest you, that you stop breathing; you are free to breath, for the time being anyway, because it does not harm me. There remains a problem however as to exactly what counts as harm or interference. Mo'reover the width of the principle is so far obscure, because 'other' may be filled out in significantly different ways: it makes a difference to the extent - and privilege - of The principle is attributed by Barkley and Seckier to Mill, though something like it was fairly common currency in nineteenth century European thought. It appears, furthermore, that Mill would have rejected the principle on account of clause (2): thus, for example: Those interests, I contend, authorise the subjection of individual spontaneity to external control, ouZi/ in respect of those actions of each, which concern the interest of people (J.S. Mill, f-Zbgrfy Everyman's Library, Dent, London, 1910, p.74, emphasis added). The deletion of clause (2) from (D) does not affect the general argument: hence the braces. (We owe this reference and the points in the next footnote to N. Griffin.) A similarly modified form of (D) is found in much recent Western literature, even radical literature which purports to make due allow­ ance for environmental concerns. A good example of the latter is I. Illich, TcoZs /or Calder & Boyers, London, 1973, where Mill's (D) appears, in various forms, at several places (e.g. p.xii, p.41). What this indicates is that Illich's "convivial society" will not - if its principles are taken seriously - move beyond chauvinism in its treatment of animals and the natural environment; it will at best yield some form of resource conservation. 22 �the chauvinism whether 'other' expands to 'other human' - which is too restrictive - or to 'other person' or to 'other sentient being'; and it makes a difference to the adequacy of the principle, and inversely to its economic applicability, to which class of other persons it is intended to apply, whether to future as well as to present others, whether to remote future others or only to nondiscountable future others, and whether to possible others. The latter would make the principle untestable and com­ and it is generally assumed that it pletely unworkable in practice; applies at most to present and (some) future others, to those to whom it 22 would make a (fairly immediate) difference (thus excluding past others ). For the purposes of the general argument however, the problems in specify­ ing the class of others is not material, so long as the class includes no 23 more than persons that at some time exist. Fortunately the main argument is not very sensitive to the precise formulation of principle (D). Not only can clause (2) be deleted, and 'other' left rather unspecific, but additions can be made; then even if the main argument does not succeed, minor oarianfs a/ fba main argument zjiZ^ snccooti. An important case concerns the treatment of animals. Unless (D) is construed widely (extending 'other'), or hedged by further qualifying clauses,the basic principle fails to take proper account of concern for animals, especially that one should not inflict "unnecessary" cruelty or "impermissible" harm. animals then comes to matter; these issues can be avoided. What counts as permissible harm to and familiar conflict issues arise. But For the core principle (0), of basic chauvinism, can be modified to include (historically recent) moral concern for higher animals by adding, after 'harm others', something like 'or harm animals unnecessarily'. Then however the new principle succumbs to the Although the interests and preferences of past others are excluded in conventional utilitarianism, as in (welfare) economic theory and vot­ ing theory, these are often respected in ethical and legal settings, e.g. in wills, last wishes, etc. Similarly (as N. Griffin also point­ ed out), in the treatment of "human vegetables", past preferences of the person when capable of making decisions are often taken to be morally relevant, or even decisive, to the question as to whether to keep the body alive. If merely possible persons are included then the valuational rankings of environmental ethics, indeed of virtually any ethics, can be reflected in a "utilitarian" fashion. The argument of (c) R. and V. Routley, 'Semantical foundations for value theory', /Vaas (accepted for publication in 1974; still forthcoming?), can be used to show this. Or unless it can be made out, what seems entirely implausible, that what is wrong with torturing animals is not what it does to them but the way it affects other people (the Aquinas-Kant thesis). 23 �attitudes, and more comprehensively the associated ideologies, are of critical importance; for it is to these and Western influence that the world's main - serious and very extensive - environmental problems can be ascribed. Hypothetical situations are introduced in designing counterexamples to core principles (D) and (A). The basis of the method lies in the semantical analyses of permissibility, obligation and value statements which stretch out over ideal situations (which may be incomplete or even inconsistent), so that what is permissible holds in some permitted situation, what is obligatory in every such situation, and what is wrong is excluded in every such situation. ' But the main point to grasp for the counterexamples that follow, is that ethical principles if correct are universal and are assessed over a class of situations. Thus hypothetical cases are logically perfectly legitimate and cannot be ruled out on one pretext or another, e.g. as rare, as desert island cases, as hypothetical, The counterexamples to (D) and (A) presented depend largely on etc. designing situations different from the actual where there are either too few or too many humans or persons. But alternative special situations where interference with others is minimized or is immaterial are readily devised. (i) The example. The last man (or woman or person) surviving the collapse of the world system sets to work eliminating, as far as he can, every living thing, animal or plant (but painlessly if you like, as at the best abattoirs). What he does is quite permissible according to principle (D) but on environmental grounds what he does is wrong. Moreover one does not have to be committed to esoteric values to regard Mr. Last Man as behaving badly and destroying things of value (the reason being perhaps that radical thinking and values have shifted in an environmental direction in advance of corresponding shifts in the Characteristically Westerners have attempted to recast these value systems, sometimes misleadingly, in a religious guise - probably because it was thought that there was no non-religious way of presenting them so as to make them intelligible or have them comprehended. Thus they get represented as basically chauvinistic in view of the relations of Man and God. On these semantical analyses, which avoid all the usual problems of modal theories of axiological and deontic terms, see R. Routley, R.K. Meyer, and others, T/zefr RSSS, Australian National University, 1979, chapters 7 and 8. A sketch is given in §5 below. The situations or worlds with respect to which the interpretation is made permit of different construals; e.g. instead of permitted situ­ ations, the situations can be construed evaluatively as ideal situations. 26 �formulation of fundamental evaluative principles). The usual vandalism charge does not apply against Mr. Last Man since he does no damage to others. Moreover, Mr. Last Man's activities may be toned down to avoid any vandalism charge, yet succumb to the (extended) chauvinist charge, e.g. he may simply destroy seme environ­ mentally valuable things unnecessarily (without due reason or some need). (ii) The Zusf pecpZe example. to the last people example. The last man example can be extended We can assume that they know they are the last people, e.g. because they are aware that radiation effects have blocked any chance of reproduction. One considers the last people in order to rule out the possibility that what these people do harms or somehow physically interferes with later people. Otherwise one could as well consider science fiction cases where people arrive at a new planet and destroy its ecosystems, whether with good intentions such as perfect­ ing the planet for their ends and making it more fruitful or, forgetting the lesser traditions, just for the sheer enjoyment of it. Let us assume that the last people are very numerous. They humanely exterminate every wild animal and they eliminate the fish of the seas, they put all arable land under intensive cultivation, and all remaining natural forests disappear in favour of pastures or plantations,and so on. They may give various familiar reasons for this, e.g. they believe it is the way to salvation or to perfection, or they are simply satisfying reasonable needs, or even that it is needed to keep the last people employed or occupied so that they do not worry too much about their impending extinction. behaved badly; of value; On an environmental ethic the last people have they have done what is impermissible and destroyed much for they have simplified and largely destroyed all the natural ecosystems, and with their demise the world will soon be an ugly and largely wrecked place. But this conduct may conform with the core principles (D) and (A), and as well with the principles enjoined by the lesser traditions under more obvious construals of these principles. Indeed the main point of elaborating this extension of the last man example is because principles (D) and (A) may, as they stand, appear to conflict with stewardship, cooperation and perfection positions, as the last man example reveals. The apparent conflict between these positions and principle (D) may be definitively removed, it seems, by conjoining a further proviso to the principle, to the effect (3) that he does not wilfully destroy natural resources. But as the last people who are not vandals do not destroy resources wilfully, but perhaps "for the best of 28 reasons", the variant is still environmentally inadequate. 2 8 On next page. 27 �(iii) The grreat e^frgpre^gz/r example. The last man example can be adjusted so as to not fall foul of clause (3). industrialist; The last man is an he runs a giant complex of automated factories and farms which he proceeds to extend. He produces automobiles among other things, from renewable and recyclable resources of course, only he dumps and recycles these shortly after manufacture and sale to a dummy buyer instead of putting them on the road for a short time as we do. Of course he has the best of reasons for his activity, e.g. he is increasing gross world product, or he is improving output to fulfil some plan, and he will be increasing his own and general welfare since he much prefers increased output and productivity. The entrepreneur's behaviour is on the Western ethic quite permissible; indeed his conduct is commonly thought to be quite fine and even meets Pareto optimality requirements given prevailing notions of being "better off". It may be objected, however, that there is no reason or warrant for the great entrepreneur's production and it is simply wasteful. But we can easily amend the example by adding consumers who want to use the out­ put. Just as we can extend the last man example to a class of last people, so we can extend (iii) to the sociefz/ example (iv): the society looks depressingly like ours except for its reproductive incapacity. (v) The example. The blue whale (reduced to a 29 mixed good on the economic picture ) is on the verge of extinction because of its qualities as a private good, as a profitable source of oil and meat. whalers; The catching and marketing of blue whales does not harm the it does not harm or physically interfere with others in any good sense, though it may upset them and they may be prepared to compen­ sate the whalers if they desist; destruction. nor need whale hunting be wilful (Slightly different examples which eliminate the hunting aspect of the blue whale example are provided by cases where a species is eliminated or threatened through destruction of its habitat by man's 2 8 There are however elements in the lesser traditions - especially if 'cooperation' and 'perfection' are reconstrued in less chauvinistic and homocentric terms - which point the way to a more satisfactory ethic. 29 The example is adapted from Barkley and Seckier, op. cit., who nicely expose the orthodox economic picture. To make the example more difficult for utilitarians in the tradition of Bentham, it can be further supposed that the killing of the whalesis near instantaneous and painless, the whale products are very valuable to humans and indeed irreplaceable, and that the whales led a good life while they lived. (Would the killing of remote groups of humans under similar conditions be then so much worse?). 28 �activity or the activities of animals he has introduced, e.g. many plains-dwelling Australian marsupials and the Arabian oryx.) The behaviour of the whalers in eliminating this magnificent species of whale is accordingly quite permissible - at least according to basic chauvinism. But on an environmental ethic it is not. However the free-market mechanism did not cease allocating whales to commercial uses, as a satisfactory environmental economics would: instead the market system ground inexorably (for the tragedy-of-the-privatised-commons type reasons well-explained in Barkley and Seckier, op. cit.) along the private demand curve until the blue whale population was no longer viable. It has been objected that the operation of the free market is restrained by ethical principles - or rather legally enforced copies thereof; for example, it would be profitable to exploit child labour, but moral prohibitions, legally enforced, exclude such exploitation of children. But the case is quite different; children, unlike young animals such as vealers, are already shielded under the modified dominant position. If anything, the "objection" is a further illustration of chauvinism at work. 30 Although the vanishing species example given does not apply decisively against extended utilitarianisms, such as that of Bentham, which widen the base class to all sentient creatures, the case is easily varied so that it does: class of tropical plant species simply select one of the currently threatened with extinction. (vi) The fuufory farw example. On the farm animals of various sorts are kept under artificial, confined conditions and simply used for the market goods they deliver, e.g. eggs in the case of battery hens, milk in the case of rotor cows, veal in the case of calves. The animals are subject to whatever conditions (e.g. forced feeding, iron deficient diets, constant lighting) will deliver maximal quantities of desired goods for the human commodity market. The animals do not necessarily suffer pain (and insofar as they do in behaviourally conspicuous ways the problem can For the most part the operation of the free market is only constrained by chauvinistic principles: otherwise enterpreneurs tend to undertake whatever apparently profitable business activity they can get away with, including substantial exploitation of animals and widespread environ­ mental destruction, and their lack of concern is illustrated by such facts as that they are generally prepared to pay taxes (e.g. to compensate other humans) rather than to forgo their activities in cases such as river and lake pollution and forest removal. In fact, of course, fairly unfettered operation of the market tends to encourage more restricted chauvinisms, e.g. the exploitation of cheap foreign or female labour in the secondary labour market. 29 �be met by antibiotics), but they are imprisoned under dispreferred conditions. The threatment of the animals on the "farm" is perfectly permissible according to the core principle (or at least minor adjustments to exclude unnecessary suffering will ensure conformity), but on an environmental ethic it is not. The treatment of the animals on the farm also seems to conform to the principles of the lesser traditions, insofar as these principles are spelled out in a way that can be applied to the example, that is so long as cooperation and perfection are construed in intended chauvinistic fashion. (vii) The MiZderness example. The wilderness, though isolated and rarely visited or thought about by environmentalists, is known to contain nothing of use to humans, such as seed or drug supplies, that is not adequately replicated elsewhere. It does contain however some "low quality" forest that could supply pulpwood on a commercial basis were the local government to provide subsidies on the usual basis. The logging would destroy the wilderness in a largely irreversible way (e.g. it grows on high sand dune country or on lateritic soils) and kill many animals which live in the forest. The prevailing ethic sees nothing wrong with the destruction of such a wilderness, nor do the lesser traditions: a deeper environmental ethic does. Again the example requires variation, e.g. to a wilderness devoid of sentient individuals, if it is to counter clearly such extensions of Western ethics as those of animal liberationists. For this sort of reason we do not want to overstate or overrate the role of as distinct from variations upon such examples. examples - Firstly, people deeply committed to human chauvinism - as many, perhaps most, people are - will find some of the examples unconvincing because they depend on non- chauvinistic assumptions. Secondly, there are rejoinders to some of the examples based on the prevailing ethic. In this case what we claim is that there are variations on, and elaborations of the examples which meet such considerations. In connection with this we do not want to deny that there are other strands supplementing the prevailing ethic which are critical of some activities of the sort described in the examples, e.g. anti-vandalism principles and strictures against conspicuous consumption But, as remarked, these principles as reflected, e.g. in sumptuary laws. have not been adequately incorporated in the prevailing ethic in such a way as to meet variations on the examples or to serve environmental purposes; and if the attempt were made to fully incorporate such princi­ ples once again a new ethic would be the upshot. before the change from an ethic which sanctioned 30 (Compare the situation slavery.) �In summary,what the examples show is that core axiological and deontic assumptions of the Western super-ethic are environmentally inadequate; and accordingly Western ethics should be superseded by a more environmentally adequate ethic. The class of permissible actions that rebound on the environment is more narrowly circumscribed on such an environmental ethic than it is in the Western superethic, and the class of noninstrumentally valuable objects is correspondingly wider than it is on the Western super-ethic. But is not an environmentalist ethic going too far in implying that these people - those of the examples and respected entrepreneurs and industrialists and bureaucrats, farmers and fishermen and foresters - are behaving, when engaging in environmentally degrading activities of the sort described, in a morally impermissible way? No, what these people do is to a greater or lesser extent evil, since destructive of what is valuable, and hence in serious cases morally impermissible. For example, insofar as the killing or forced displacement of primitive peoples who stand in the way of an industrial development is morally indefensible and impermissible, so also is the destruction of the forest where the people may live, or the slaughter of remaining blue whales, or the gross exploitation of experimental or factory-farm animals for private profit or as part of the latest 5 year plan. Those who organise or engage in such activities are (to a greater or lesser extent, depending on their mode of engagement) morally culpable. Models of permissible respected life styles and of the good life (for others to emulate) depend upon what the underlying ethic accounts good and evil, permissible or not, and changes with change of ethic. A new ethic is needed not merely to accommodate the evaluations, and so forth; prescriptions and models indicated, in a way decidedly different from Western ethics, but in order to cope with a much wider range of more practical, and often more controversial, cases where Western ethics yield (without epicycling, i.e. extensive resort to theory-saving strategems) unacceptable or inadequately grounded results. An alternative ethic is also needed by a growing number of valuers because they have values, interests and new concerns of ecological sorts which do not fit in with, but conflict with, central features of prevailing Western ethics. There is occurring, it seems, a far-reaching cultural, and ethical change, a change in consciousness, and in particular a change in attitudes to what is natural and the natural environment (a change which may eventually be as fundamental as, and partly overturn, the humanist changes of the Enlightenment). A new ethic is accordingly needed to reflect and formul­ ate, and enable the defence and application of, a new, increasingly fel,t, 31 �but not so far well-articulated system of values, in much the same way that a system of probability was needed and formulated to articulate and systematise likelihood and probability principles, and relevant logic systems required to capture pre-analytic views of entailment. The explication of environmental ethics is a similar theoretical concern; again, as commonly, theory lags behind the facts of change and the felt data. Furthermore, just as entailment systems are not uniquely determined, or desired or accepted by every thinker, so enoironwontuZ gt/zios will not be nnip^otp detorwZng<i, or adopted by every valuer. On the contrary, as is plain enough, their adaption and furtherance will be vigorously resisted by many vested interests, as - to take just one instance - the furtherance of programmes for the determination of environmental sources of cancer is vigorously opposed by industrial chemical companies. The matter of persuading other valuers to accept values and principles of a new ethic is of course a further and somewhat separate issue from the question of need for such an ethic. The procedures for trying to effect changes in values are but variations on the usual pro­ cedures, and like them are not fully effective: excluding coercion and education, they include, for example, argumentation, and propaganda, in each case of many sorts. 31 As usual, too, where there is a broad common 32 basis, especially in felt evaluations and emotional presentation, effecting a change, or a conversion, will generally be an easier task. In the case of transformation to environmental values, what is often important are distinctive features regarding the factual bases of many of the evaluations. correcting In particular, there is the matter of removing or /Tztsoonooptions on a broad range of matters of Some of these sorts are considered in more detail in (c) J. Passmore, 'Ecological problems and persuasion' in FpnoZZtp arid Freedom. * JntornutZonoZ and Comparattvo c/nr-Zoprz/donoo (ed. G. Dorsey), Oceana Publications, New York, 1977, pp.431-42. The apposite term 'emotional presentation' is adapted from Meinong; see especially FwotZonaZ Prosentatton (trans. M.L. Schubert-Kalsi), Northwestern University Press, 1972. The notion of emotional present­ ation can play an important role in the explanation of how emotions enter into (environmental) evaluations, the objects evaluated (canyons, mountains, giant trees) often being emotionally presented. A little more precisely, the connections are these: A value ranking (e.g. c is better, more valuable, than d) of a valuer is explained emotionally through - it does not reduce to - certain preference rankings of the valuer; and the preference rankings have in turn dual factual and emotional bases, in the same sort of way that an item may be preferred or chosen in virtue of its factual features and the valuer's emotional responses to those. The main details of such a semantical analysis of value, which is discussed in §5, are given in Routley (c). 32 �environmental concern; for example, about animals, their various behaviour, abilities, etc; about the alleged gulf between humans and other animals and the uniqueness of humans and each human; about the profitability, or desirability, or necessity, of environmentally destruct­ ive enterprises; about the inevitability of current Western social arrangements and about the history of the way these particular arrange­ ments developed. There is, moreover, the matter of sheer information, for example as to how free animals live together and what they do; about how factory and experimental animals are treated, and in the latter case for what: about the sources and effects of various forms of pollution and the reasons for it; about how natural creatures such as whales or environments such as forests are commonly dealt with, for what products, by what interests, for what ends. Naturally (given a fact/value division) none of this information is entirely conclusive support for a change in ethic; for many of the evaluations the data helps support can be included in other ethics (including sometimes modifications of prevailing ethics), while remaining evaluations can, at worst, be simply rejected (as e.g., those utilitarians who extend consideration just to sentient creatures are obliged to reject versions of the last man argument where no sentient creatures are affected). Although a new ethic is needed, for the reasons indicated, and although such an ethic can,furthermore, be a considerable asset in practical environmental argument (e.g., as to the point of trying to retain a piece of not-especially-unique near-wilderness), for many practical ecological purposes, there is no need to apply it or to fall back on it. For example, virtually the whole environmental issue of destructive forestry in Australia can be argued without invoking any unconventional ethical principles or values at all, i.e. entirely within the prevailing chauvinistic framework. wap??/ environmental disputes. The same sort of point applies to But, it by no means applies to all. A corollary is an inadequacy in the presentation of environmental problems and suggested solutions in standard (human) ecology texts Tssz^gs A. Erlich's (such as P. and FuoZ-Ctyz/, Freeman, San Francisco, 1970, to select one example), which are set erzf-freZz/ within the chauvinistic framework.^4 Also, differently, in the way that theories are in enabling one to see how to move and argue in a discussion. Quite properly given prevailing sentiments, according to some erring conservationists, who account themselves "realists". 33 �Since it is sometimes charged - despite all that has been said - that an environmental ethic does not differ in practice from that of more conventional "chauvinistic" ethics, there is point in spelling out in yet other ways how it can differ in practice: Firstly, many conventional positions, in particular social contract and sympathy theories, cannot take proper account of moral obligation to future humans (who are not in the immediate future). Since the usual attempt to argue, in terms of value and benefit to humans, that natural areas and ecosystems generally should not be destroyed or degraded depends critically on introducing possible future humans who will suffer or be worse off as a result of its destruction or degradation, it is plain that an environ­ mental ethic will differ radically from such conventional positions. That is, the usual argument depends on the reduction of value of a natural item to the interests of present and /Izf^re humans, in which reduction future humans must play a critical role if conclusions not blatantly opposed to conservation are to be reached. Hence there will usually be a very great gulf between the practical value judgements of conservation ethics and those of conventional positions which discount the (nonimmediate) future. Secondly, as we have already seen through examples, there are practical differences between an environmental ethic and conventional instrumental views which dr take account of the interests of past, present and future humans, differences which emerge sharply at the It is, however, unnecessary to hypothetical (possible world) level. turn to possible world examples to see that normally there would be very great differences in the practical valuations and behaviour of those who believe that natural items can have value and create obligations not reducible (in any way) to human interests and those who do not, as the following further examples show. We need only consider the operation of irtersioraZ- corcepfs Example 1. Mif/zizz uctz^^Z- zjerZ-d, for example, the concept of duwupe to a natural item, and the associated notion of campezzsaffrr for that damage. C. Stone, for instance, in S/za^Zd Trees #are Sfardirp? Tdp^fs /dr /Vaf^raZ. dhj^efs Thus Tabards L^pcZ (Avon Books, New York, 1975) notes the practical legal differences between taking the damage to a polluted river as affecting its intrinsic value, and taking it as just affecting human river users. In the one case one will see adequate compensation as restoring the original state of the river (rectifying the wrong to the river) and in the other as compensating those present (or future) humans who will suffer from its pollution. As Stone points out, the sum 34 �adequate to compensate the latter may well be much less than that required to restore the river to its unpolluted state, thus making it economic, and in terms of the human chauvinist theory, fair and reason­ able, to compensate those damaged and continue pollution of the river. In the first case, of course, adequate compensation or restoration for the harm done would have to consist in restoring the river to its unpolluted condition and will not just be paid to the people affected. Compare here Stone's example of compensation for injury to a Greek slave; in the instrumentalist case this will involve compensating the slave's owner for the loss of his slave's working time; in the other, where the slave is regarded as not merely an instrument for his owner, it will compensate the sZaue not the ozjyzer, for this compensation will also take account of the pain and suffering of the slave, even where this has not affected his working ability. There is a difference not only in the amount of compensation, but to zj/zow it is directed. In the case of a natural item damage may be compensated by payment to a trust set up to protect and restore it. The believer in intrinsic values may avoid making unnecessary and excessive noise in the forest, out of respect for the forest and its Example 2. nonhuman inhabitants. She will do this even when it is certain that there is no other human around to know the difference. For one to whom the forest and its inhabitants are merely another conventional utility, however, there will be no such constraint. He may avoid unnecessary noise if he thinks it will disturb other humans, but if he is certain none are about to hear him he will feel at liberty to make as much and as loud a noise as he chooses, and this will affect his behaviour. Examples like this cannot be dealt with by the introduction of future humans, since they will be unable to hear the noise in question. To claim that the making of noise in such circumstances is a matter of no importance, and therefore there is no important difference in behaviour, is of course to assess the matter through human chauvinist eyes. question-begging. From the intrinsic viewpoint it So such a claim is make a difference, and be reflected in practical behavioural difference. Example 3. Consider an aboriginal tribe which holds a particular place to be sacred, and where this sanctity and intrinsic valuableness and beauty is celebrated by a number of beautiful cave paintings. A typically "progressive" instrumentalist Western view would hold the cave (and perhaps place) to be worth preservation because of its value to the aboriginal people, and because of the artistic merit of the human arti­ facts, the cave paintings the cave contained. 35 To the "enlightened" �Westerner, if the tribe should cease to exist, and the paintings be destroyed, it would be permissible to destroy the place if this should be in what is judged to be the best interests of human kind, e.g. to get at the uranium underneath. To the aboriginal the human artifacts, the cave paintings would be irrelevant, a celebration of the value of the place, but certainly not a surrogate for it, and the obligation to the place would not die because the tribe disappeared or declined. Similarly no ordinary sum of money would be able to compensate for the loss of such a place, in the way that it might for something conceived of as a utility or convenience, as having value only because of the benefits it confers on the "users" of it. There is an enormous /gZt or difference between feeling that a place should be valued or respected for itself, for its perceived beauty and character, and feeling that it should not be defaced because it is valued by one's fellow humans, and provides pleasurable sensations or money or convenience for them. Compare too the differences between feeling that a yellow robin, say, is a fellow creature in many ways akin to oneself, and feeling that it is a nice little yellow and grey, basically clockwork, aesthetic object. These differences in emotional presentation are accompanied by or expressed by an enormous range of behavioural differences, of which the examples given represent only a very small The sort of behaviour uurrarzteti by each viewpoint and thought by it, the concept of what one is free to do, for example, will normally be very different. It is certainly no coincidence that cultures sample. holding to the intrinsic view have normally been far less destructive of nature than the dominant Western human chauvinist culture. In summary, the claim that there is no reaZ practical difference, that the intrinsic value viewpoint is empty verbalisation, does not stand up to examination. The capacity - no doubt exaggerated, but nonetheless far from negligible - of Western industrial societies to solve their ecological problems (at least to their own pathetically low standards) within a chauvinistic framework, does considerably complicate, and obstruct, an alternative more practical argument to the need for a new ethic, t/ze arpMwezzt yrcm problems, that in no other way ... [than] prepared[ness] to accept a "new ethic", as distinct even from adding one or two new moral principles to an accepted common ... can modern industrial 35 societies solve their ecological problems. On next page. 36 �Not only does the argument encounter various objections - most obviously that many of the problems can be solved, if not within Western ethics, in immediate extensions of them - but the case suggested would hardly be a satisfactory basis for the type of ethic sought. It is not so much that it would be a chauvinistic way of arriving at a supposedly nonchauvinistic ethic, for bad procedures can lead to good results; rather it is that important ecological problems, shaping environmental ethics, such as preservation of substantial tracts of wilderness and just treatment of animals, tend to be written off in industrial societies as not serious problems. But even if the argument suggested has too narrow a problem base, and so may yield too limited a change in attitudes as compared with the main theoretical argument, the argument merits fuller formulation and further investigation. The argument to need for ethical revision is as follows: (1) A satisfactory solution to environmental problems (of modern industrial societies) implies (the adoption of) an alternative (2) environmental ethic. A satisfactory solution to environmental problems is needed. Therefore, an alternative environmental ethic is needed. The argument is valid, given, what seems correct, that pimplies q implies that p is needed implies that q is needed. The second premiss is or can be made analytic, on the sense of 'satisfactory' 'satisfactory' imply 'needed'); (e.g. by having so the case is complete if the first premiss can be established (in the same sense of 'satisfactory'), and the conclusion is then plausible to at least the extent the premiss is. Al37 though the first premiss, or something like it, is widely endorsed, cogent 3 5 Passmore (c) op. cit., p.438. According to Passmore (p.431), By common consent, there are four major pollution, the exhaustion of resources, species, and overpopulation ... To solve such problems involves finding types of human conduct or of preventing having its present consequences. ecological problems: the destruction of a way either of altering that human conduct from In what follows the assumption that 'there are four major ecological problems' gets rejected. 36 Here and elsewhere, 'environmental' less interchangeably. and 'ecological' are used more or 37 Even Passmore, though previously (e.g. in (a)) highly critical of proposals for new ethics, gives qualified endorsement to an assumption of this sort ((c), p.441). ... I do not doubt, all the same, that our attitudes to nature stand badly in need of revision and that, as they stand, they form a major obstacle to the solution of ecological problems. 37 �arguments for it are few and it is no simple matter rendering the premiss plausible. Moreover rendering it plausible involves a substant­ ial detour through social theory; for the case for the premiss proceeds along these sorts of lines: (3) Unless there are (certain) major changes in socio-economic structure, environmental problems will not be satisfactorily solved. (4) The major changes in socio-economic structure involve an alternative ethic. A much stronger thesis than (3) has been argued for using systems analysis, namely that without very extensive socio-economic changes, modern industrial society will collapse; but several of the assumptions made in the analysis are doubtful or disputed. independently of that stronger thesis; But (3) has been argued for example, it will follow from the thesis (of Falk, Commoner and others) 'that the modern industrial ethic as we have known it is not sustainable on ecological grounds'. 39 In a sense, (3) is obvious; for it is present socio-economic arrangements that have produced many of the present serious environmental problems; without major changes in those arrangements most of the problems will persist or, more likely, intensify. What is not immediately evident is that the major changes called for, in satisfying (3), suffice for (4). However reflection on the specific 'types of changes required - for example at a superficial level, human population limitation, reduction of poll­ ution, more sensible resource usage, selective economic growth - reveals that significant changes in value, and also in what is considered permissible, are bound to be involved in the changes. plausible, and therewith the intended conclusion. So (4) is decidedly But the argument leaves the detailed character of the needed alternative ethic rather obscure; and it may well be that the ethic so yielded is somewhat chauvinistic in character. The more practical argument cannot entirely supplant the main theoretical argument. In sum, there are good and pressing reasons to investigate the alternatives to chauvinistic ethics, especially human chauvinism, because such chauvinistic ethics are discriminatory, because the case for them 38 39 See, in particular, D. Meadows and others, T/ze Limits fa GrgzjfZz, Potomac Associates, Washington, D.C., 1972. R.A. Falk, 'Anarchism and world order', FVozncs IX, 1978, p.66. Falk refers for the case to B.Commoner, TTze CZrsizzy Circle, Knopf, New York, 1971; R.A. Falk, PZuzzef, Random House, New York. 1971; E. Goldsmith and others /or SMrrfzJuZ, Houghton and Miflin, Boston, 1972, and Meadows of uZ-., op. cit. 38 �does not stand up to examination, and because they have been involved in the destruction of much of value and now threaten the viability of much that is valuable. §4 . ENVIRONMENTAL ALTERNATIVES : NARROWING THE CHOICE AMONG ENVIRONMENTAL ETHIC The basic-and basically mistaken-doctrine of the Western super-ethic is, as we have seen, that people, humans of whatever shape or form, are the fundamental carriers or objects of value and that all other items are valuable only in an instrumental or derivative way. It is important, in­ deed mandatory in a genuine environmental ethic, to reject this view and allow natural items to have a value in their own right, iz? t/ze same /as/ziazz as CzzaZzza^Ze? peapZe, both for the reasons outlined above, of the theoret­ ical unsatisfactoriness and arbitrariness of the traditional view, and for more practical reasons, namely, to help ensure the ecological sustain­ ability of modern society, and in optimising human welfare. It has often been pointed out that 'a totally humanised world would diminish us as 40 human beings', that the traditional view of humans, or classes of humans, as dominant, and of natural items as without value except where they serve human or class interests-a view that often carries contempt for nature leads not only to the destruction of much that is of value but (paradoxic­ ally) to counterproductive results even with respect to human welfare. Thus McHarg (in attractively coloured rhetoric):- Show me a man-oriented society inwhich it is believed that reality exists only because man can perceive it, that the cosmos is a struct­ ure erected to support man on its pinnacle, that man exclusively is divine and given dominion over all things, indeed that God is made in the image of man, and I will predict the nature of its cities and their landscape. I need not look far for we have seen them-the hot­ dog stands, the neon shill, the ticky-tacky houses, dysgenic city and mined landscapes. centric man; This is the image of the anthropomorphic, anthropo­ he seeks not unity with nature but conquest (op. cit.). The rejection of this view and its replacement by a view in which natural items can be regarded as of value and as worthy of our respect for themselves and not merely for what we can get out of them or what use we 40 See e.g. the discussion at pp.116-17 of (a) J. Rodman, 'The Liberation of nature', IzzgMfrz/, 20 (1977) 83-145. All subsequent references to Rodman's work without further indication are to this article. Note well that the rejection of human chauvinism does z?ot imply that no chauvinistic arguments - or rather, arguments that are usually stated in chauvinistic form - carry weight. On the contrary, some chauvinistic arguments (e.g. those supporting wilderness retention and species preservation) carry considerable weight; and, since the prevailing industrial ethics remain chauvinistic, environmentalists would be rash not to use them. 39 �can make of them, is becoming increasingly widespread in parts of the environmental movement. It is this primarily that makes for an important ideological split in the conservation movement, between what Naess (op. cit.) called and Teep ecology, between those who see conservation as just a matter of wiser, better-controlled topper-term exploitation of the environment - something which is compatible with denying value to 42 ... everything except man ' and those who see it at least in part as involving a recognition of value for natural items independent of man, and hence as involving (at least to some extent) a Ttf^erept uttitp(7e to Mature. The first view, the long-term or erttpbteped e^ptoitatior view, which is closely tied to prevailing more enlightened economic assumptions, tends to make heavy use of the watershed term 'resource'; the problem of conserv­ ation is seen as one of 'zjfse pse of resources', a resource being something of use to humans or persons. On this view, which does not get beyond the confines of human chauvinism, and so is no direction for a satisfactory environmental ethic to take, items which have no perceivable use to man, i.e. non-resources, can be destroyed without loss; and the environmental problem is viewed as largely one of making people aware of the extent to which natural items and processes have frstr^meptut value, i.e. of how far we are dependent on them and they are of pse to us. There is no recognition either that some items might be valuable precisely because they are independent of man. Resource Conservation, or the shallow position, is the first of the 42 four ideal types that Rodman discerns in his investigation of the contemporary environmental movement. The deeper ecological position gets split under Rodman's division into three ideological positions - though Rodman prefers to put the matter in symbolic or experiential terms, in terms of forms of consciousness - namely Wilderness Preservation, Nature Moralism, and Ecological Resistance. Though the positions discerned are neither characterised in an exclusive fashion, nor exhaustive of ecological positions, and though we shall have to look beyond all the positions for a satisfactory environmental ethic, nonetheless they afford an excellent perspective on the main types of alternative positions that have been adopted by those within environmental movements. It is not uncommon to encounter attempts to write the shallow position into the very meaning or definition of copseraotiop, e.g. 'conservation is the use of resources to the greatest advantage of man', 4 Sprrep of /Ipstrotfap Forestry and tVood-Fused Ipd^strfes. Part PT. Prodpcttop Forestry Peretopmept PZup. Draft (31 October, 1974), p.ll - a blatantly chauvinistic account. On next page. 40 �According to (Wilderness) Preservation, which focusses on wilderness, wilderness is to be preserved for the wilderness experience, wilderness offers a natural cathedral, a sacred place where human beings can transcend the limitations of everyday experience and become renewed through contact with the power of creation ((b), p.49). The values discerned in wilderness and natural landscape are primarily aesthetic and quasi-religious, or mystical, 'the experience of the holy is esthetically mediated'; what is valuable remains human experiences. Thus the Wilderness Preservation position does not move outside the sphere of human chauvinism, and can no more than Resource Conservation offer a frame for an environmental ethic. conclusion: Rodman reaches a similar Resource Conservation and Wilderness Preservation appear variations on the theme of wise use, the former oriented to the [efficient] production of commodities for human consumption, the latter to providing human amenities ((b), p.50). For this reason, the Wilderness Preservation position fails even on the score of justifying the preservation of wilderness - on the very task it was designed to accomplish - in a range of circumstances. Like other See especially (b) J. Rodman, 'Theory and practice in the environmental movement: notes towards an ecology of experience', in Search /or i?? a ^orZ-d^ International Cultural Foundation, New York, 1978, pp.45-56. Some of the types are portrayed in greater detail in other Rodman papers. The remainder of this largely new section on environmental ethical alternatives is heavily indebted, in ways the references mostly make plain, to Rodman's work. His work covers a vast range of interlinked topics; only those of immediate relevance have been touched upon. But there is very much in the remainder that repays careful reading, and TnMc/z to think about and to question or reject, reaching perhaps its lowest point in the paradoxical themes: Just as our statements about other people tend also to be concealed statements about ourselves, so statements about non­ human nature tend to be concealed statements about the human condition, and movements to liberate nonhuman nature tend also to be movements to liberate the repressed potentials of human nature (p.105). In part because these themes and the related myth of microcosm are taken seriously, and not for the evident falsehoods they are, in part because the ethical adequacy of the human/nonhuman distinction is never seriously questioned (e.g. it is taken for granted, what is not the case, that rights apply to humans and are problematic beyond them), and in part because of the characteristically chauvinistic emphasis on human experience and the endeavour to bring everything within that experiential purvue, and the associated weight assigned to human symbolic, mythic and ritual activities, one is left with the feeling, at the end of all the investigations one can profitably follow Rodman through, that one has not got beyond the confines of human chauvinism. 41 �instrumentalist accounts of wilderness value, it breaks down entirely With examples like the Last Man, assuming that Mr. Last Man is never turned on by natural spendour. More alarmingly, under readily conceivable developments, it would allow the elimination of wilderness entirely. For consider the Wilderness Experience Machine, a low-impact low-tech philosophical machine, recently patented by I.M. Diabolic, which can duplicate entirely, even for groups of people, wilderness experiences, but in a downtown room. As far as the psychological experience goes, this machine can provide a complete substitute for any actual wilderness, and were the value of wilderness to reside in the experience it afforded, could entirely replace it and eliminate the alleged need for it. Most environmentalists would be (rightly) dissatisfied with, not to say appalled by, the idea that Wilderness Experience Machines could sub­ stitute for wildernesses, since they provided the same experiences. what else they wanted, the answer would of course be: Asked Wildernesses, not merely wilderness experiences. Wildernesses are valuable in their own right, over and above the experiences they can afford. 4 3 Really, that is, they consider wildernesses intrinsically valuable, but have been pushed by the prevailing ethical ethics into stating, and misrepresenting, their position in experiential terms. There is some independent evidence that the Wilderness Preservation position is frequently a disguised intrinsic value position, in the attitude taken to examples like the Last Man case, that purely hypothetical experiencers (who may vanish into counterfactuals) are good enough, and that in some real-life cases it is enough that wilderness is there to be contemplated, whether or not anyone actually takes advantage of its presence to gain experiences, or indeed whether or not it is in fact contemplated. Such examples remove the disguise and reveal the position as at bottom an intrinsic value position. In that event it is however better to avoid the disguise; for the case for wilder­ ness preservation which starts from the position that some wilderness tracts have intrinsic as well as merely instrumental value is substantially stronger than any position which assigns them merely instrumental value. Wilderness lovers and nature conservationists have in fact worked out - or concocted - a set of arguments to show why wildernesses and nature conservation are of benefit to humans, to argue for their instrumental The concept of too can vary with the operative ideology, e.g. on certain views, such as Wilderness Preservation, wilderness comprises areas that are (or provide the opportunity for use), e.g. used for experiential enrichment. By contrast, on a genuine Environ­ mental Resistance view, wilderness is a wild area, use of which is not implied: it may never be used, and it may not matter that it affords no opportunity for (human) use. (Under popular high redefinition of 'wilderness', there are of course no wildernesses remaining on the earth, and wilderness vanishes as soon as humanly experienced.) 42 �value. For example, there are various arguments from the scientific value, or usefulness, of wilderness, e.g. for the study of natural eco­ systems, for the investigation of plant history and evolution, as a repository of genetic diversity, etc. These arguments, which (like parallel arguments for species preservation) are not to be especially as regards persuasive force, can be put in nonchauvinistic form; for science and knowledge are not linked essentially with, for example, the feature of being human. Often however - e.g. where the wilderness defended has, so far as it is known, little that is very special to offer - such arguments appear to be merely a conventional front for the real (or deeper) reasons - and in seme instances, correspondingly weak and unpersuasive (as Fraser Darling has remarked, and Passmore has tried to show in (a)) - the real reasons being based on the perception of nonuseful properties of value. This is particularly marked in the case of arguments for preserving the most complex and beautiful of the world's plant communities, tropical rainforest. Such arguments as that various uninvestigated rainforest trees may at some time be found to contain useful drugs, by no means exhaust the true value of the rainforest. For it is in the intrinsic, i.e. noninstrumental, value of the rainforest that the main reason for not unduly interfering with it, e.g. not interfering in ways that threaten its stability or viability, lies. In particular, destruction of a wilderness, such as a rainforest, would significantly diminish intrinsic value, and so should (in general) be resisted. Environmentalists who are aware of these sorts of problems and dangers with resource use approaches to wilderness preservation sometimes attempt to formulate their alternative view in terms of one of the lesser traditions, most popularly in terms of the image, in which man is seen as the steward of the earth - an analogy which, as Passmore points out (in (a)), is problematic outside a religious context. For who is man steward to? If not to God, then how is the analogy to be unpacked, and what conditions must "stewardship" conform to? If "good stewardship" is management in the interests of humans, or humanity, then the position does not go beyond Resource Conservation; if it is manage4 4 ment to serve intrinsic values, or God, then good stewardship is but a cover for the recognition of intrinsic values, which are better introduced directly. Thus admitting values which are not instrumental, which do not answer back in some way to states or conditions of humans is a feature of all satisfactory deeper ecological alternatives. In order to allow for such intrinsic values and/or associated attitudes of respect, e.g. for On some interpretations; chauvinism. on others theism may serve to reinforce human 43 �nature and various natural things, it is however unnecessary to adopt a religious backdrop such as the "Good Stewardship" image suggests, or even a semi-religious framework such as a mystical or superstitious one with taboos and sacred places as symbolic and ritual elements. A theory of intrinsic value which assigns intrinsic value to wilderness and species of free animals, for good reasons, can be entirely naturalistic (in a main sense of that much-abused term). The third, somewhat amorphous, cluster of positions Rodman describes, noninstrumental, value to natural items, such as - on some versions of the position wilderness. Nature Moralisms, do just that, assign intrinsic, f/zat [An] alternative perspective ... [to] the theme of wise use 4 5 ... is provided by the tradition growing out of the humane movement, recently radicalised by animal liberationists, and sometimes generalised to embrace non-animal beings as well. In contrast to the economic ethos of Resource Conservation and the religious/ esthetic character of Wilderness Preservation, this perspective is strikingly moral in style. Its notion of human virtue is not prudence or reverence, but justice. In contrast to the caste­ bound universe of the Resource Conservationist, the Natural Moralist affirms the democratic principle that all natural entities (or, more narrowly, all forms of life) have intrinsic value, and that wild animals, plants, rivers, and whole ecosystems have a right to exist, flourish and reproduce - or at least that human beings have no right to exploit or unnecessarily harm or destroy other members of the biotic community. In contrast to the aristo­ cratic universe of Wilderness Preservation, where some places (and some forms of recreation) are holier than others and certain types of natural entities ... are traditionally more worthy of being saved than others ..., the world of the Nature Moralist is characterised by an apparent egalitarianism ((b), p.50^ my rearrangement). Each of the sweep of environmental alternatives indicated can be seen as an of conventional Western ethics: intrinsic value is extended uniformly to all animals or certain favoured features of all these, e.g. their experience, happiness, avoidance of suffering, or is extended to all living creatures or systems, or is extended to all natural items or even to objects - it may or may be distributed uniformly or equally; Human use and human experience, it might be added. 44 �rather independently, rights may be ceded to all animals, or to some or all living things, or to all things, or, alternatively and differently, right-holders' rights with respect to some or other of these classes are restricted; and similarly other deontic notions, justice, obligation, even perhaps duty, may extend to apply to larger classes of items than all humans or persons. The sweep, which is impressive, is intended to include both extended utilitarianisms, e.g. Bentham's utilitarianism as revamped by Singer according to which all sentient creatures are entitled to equal consider­ ation of interest, and extended (legal) rights doctrines, e.g. the assignment of rights or legal standing to all natural objects as suggested by, for instance, Stone.it also includes Darwin's ethic and Leopold's "land ethic". 4 7 In order to capture some of the intended examples of Nature Moralists, and all the Moral Extension positions, Rodman's characterisation requires some adjustment - which will be taken for granted in what follows. For example, Singer and other animal liberation- ists do not assign intrinsic value to all forms of life, or even to all animals; but (as Rodman is well aware) to all sentient creatures; that is, further classifications have to be taken into account. The egalitarian, or uniformity, assumptions that serve in character­ ising Natural Moralism are mistaken. Not all objects are of equal value; some are more valuable then others, while some have little or no value (and some have a negative value). Impressive though the sweep of extensions is, all the positions indicated should be rejected on one ground or another, and sometimes on several grounds. Against positions which do not extend the class of objects of moral concern and candidates for value to include all objects, variants of the counterexamples to the Western super-ethic can be directed. Consider, for instance, the positions (of usual animal liber- ationists) which extend the moral boundaries just to include sentient creatures (or e.g. preference-havers). Adapt the Last Man and Last People examples, the Wilderness example, etc., by removing all (inessential) animals from the examples, e.g. the wilderness contains no animals, in the Last People situation there are no other animals than the 46 p. singer, *??; E-ZEerafZc /VeD Random House, New York, 1975; C. Stone, op. cit. 47 at least on a straightforward reading of Leopold's eventual position: but not according to Rodman; see his contrast of Leopold with Stone, p.110. Darwin's ethic, which anticipates Leopold's, is presented in C. Darwin, Second edition, J. Murray, London, 1883. 48 On next page. 45 �last people themselves. Then the counterexamples apply as before against the liberation positions. It is unnecessary to go quite so far afield to fault such positions, at least in practice: facts of experience: as.Rodman might put it, they are countered by the ... I need only to stand in the midst of a clear-cut forest, a strip-mined hillside, a defoliated jungle, or a dammed canyon to feel uneasy with assumptions that could yield the conclusion that no human action can make any difference to the welfare of anything but sentient animals (p.89). But an advantage of the counterexamples is that the same examples, among many others (e.g. situations devoid of sentient creatures, situations where the message of experience conflicts with justice or fairness), reveals the erroneousness of the well-sponsored thesis, a simple analogue of empiricism, that all value 49 derives from experience (of experiential, or sentient, objects). A corollary is that value is not to be assessed either, in any simple way, in terms of the facts of experience. Insofar as Nature Moralism relies upon simple extensions of utilitarianisms, or of subjectivisms, to include a larger class of subjects, (a larger base class), such as all present sentient creatures, or all preference-havers at any one time, * etc., it is open not merely to adaptations of the argument against chauvinism (animal chauvinism is not that much more satisfactory than human chauvinism), but most of the Nor, on Moral Extensions, need all objects that have rights have equal rights. Rights may not be very democratically distributed. Some things have rights, e.g. as a result of agreements, of a sort others do not hold or are not capable of holding. Even rights to exist, to flourish and to reproduce (each case is different) are in much doubt where there is scarcity or conflict and where some right holders are taken to be worth much more than others. Nor are such leading examplars of Natural Moralism as Singer and Stone, though they are concerned to extend principles of justice, committed to equality of rights assumptions. Stone explicitly rejects equal distribution of rights; but the principle that all natural objects are equal in having rights, which really says no more than that they all have rights, is at best a very weak egalitarian principle. Singer offers (and presumably would offer) no equality of rights principle, rejects an equality of treatment principle, and proposes as a principle of equality a (near vacuous) principle of equal consideration of interests. Not, this time, knowledge. But amusingly "value empiricism" collapses into empiricism proper given the Socratic identification: Value (generalising Virtue) is knowledge. The only natural stopping point under value empiricism is, of course, with all creatures that have (or could have) the relevant experiences: again not with humans. 46 �standard objections to utilitarians, subjectivisms, etc. Many versions of Nature Moralism may than be defeated on rather conventional grounds. There emerges, further, a dilemma for extensions. Either the crucial notions of right and intrinsic value are extended to all sentient creatures (experience-havers), in which case the objections just lodged apply, or they are extended more sweepingly, e.g. to all natural objects. But the latter involves attributing to such items attributes they do not have, most obviously rights to such objects as stones; it also violates the conditions that have to be met for the holding of rights and for the entitlement of rights. Thus, for example, Stone considers underpinning his extension of rights, beyond sentient creatures in the ordinary sense - or of legal rights beyond recognised "legal persons" - by a postulate of 50 universal sentience or consciousness; in short, by an unacceptable metaphysics, or myth. There are several further objections which work against many versions of Natural Moralism to which Rodman draws attention: (1) Moral Extensions are 'inadequate to articulate the intention that sustains the [environmental] movement' wilderness preservation movements. (p.88), specifically wilderness and It takes but little argument to show that utilitarian ethics, such as Singer's, so far from assisting the environmental movement, can (if adopted) reinforce the case wilderness and preservation of wild species. But an extension like Stone's extension of legal rights can help, and has helped, at least in the courts where its meta-physical underpining is unlikely to be glimpsed. The basic point is however that the rights talk does not connect with, and is insensitive to, the experiential basis. Mere extensions of moral notions such as interest or right or justice are insufficient to treat and do just­ ice to the multi-dimensional depth of environmental issues, such as the damming of a river (p.115). Part of the reason is said to be that the usual moral aparatus, which was evolved in the case of certain person-to-person See Rodman's discussion, pp.92-3. But Rodman overstates his case in claiming that 'some such postulate as universal consciousness is there­ fore necessary if the notion of rights for trees is not to seem a rootless fancy'. For, as explained below, extended rights can be defined by a rather "natural extension" of the familiar notion of right, without any such postulate; and grounds of entitlement can be traced back to value of the items. Certainly extended rights sever what linkage there may have been between rights and liabilities, but with the modern separations of rights from responsibilities that linkage was already damaged or broken. 47 �relations, is inadequate for getting to grips with a new dimension of moral experience, that concerned with environment, and inadequate to reflect ecological sensibility. Rodman tries to press, however, a much stronger, and rather more dubious, theme, the SsZZ-onf thesis: By adapting the moral/legal theory of 'rights', [the movement] may sell its soul, its roots in mythic and ritual experience, to get easier judicial standing (p.88); and more savagely, the progressive extension model of ethics, while holding out the promise of transcending the homocentric perspective of modern culture, subtly fulfills and legitimates the basic project of modernity - the total conquest of nature by man (p.97, also p.119). While neither of these large claims is strictly true - soul-selling is simply avoided through adoption of the notion of extended-right, which can yield a conservative extension of the original position; and even utilitarians may be committed to blocking projects which threaten free animals - each has a substantial point. Part of the point behind the latter claim is worth developing separately:(2) Moral Extensions typically cast natural objects, notably animals, in the role of inferior humans, 'legal incompetents', imbeciles, human vegetables, and the like. They are ... degraded by our failure to respect them for having their own existence, their own character and potentialities, their own forms of excellence, their own integrity, a degradation usually reflected in our reduction of 'them to the status of instruments for our own ends', and not removed 'by "giving" them rights, by assigning them to the status of inferior human beings' (p.94). Many of us know where the treatment of natural objects as mere means The mistaken treatment of them for human ends tends to lead and has led. as inferior humans, a treatment which fails to see and 'respect the otherness of nonhuman forms of life', leads in the same direction. For given that animals, for example, are inferior, it is legitimate to treat them also as inferior; a greater value principle, which moral extensions typically endorse, yields a similar result. The needs of increasing populations of superior humans will eventually outweigh, if they do not do so already, the cases of inferior inhabitants of this finite earth for the retention of their natural habitats. 48 For their rights and their �In the larger perspective, the Moral values will be less than "ours". Extensions, with their built-in greater value assumptions, do legitimate the conquest of nature by humans. Thus too they fail seriously, on what will soon enough be quite practical grounds, as satisfactory environmental ethics. (3) The extensions, like the parent ethics which they extend, are narrowly individualistic, and insufficiently holistic. This is particularly conspicuous in the case of utilitarianisms, which in principle arrive at all assessments by some sort of calculations, e.g. summations and perhaps averaging, from an initially given unit conforming to requisite equality conditions, e.g. equal consideration, equal units of suffering. In practice of course the method is, almost invariably, to pretend that the calculations will yield results which agree with alternatively and previously arrived at, usually intuitive, often prejudiced, evaluations; that is, in practice the method is not applied except in a handwaving back-up fashion. The method is not applied in part because there are serious, well enough known, problems in applying it. The individualistic bias carried over in other moral extensions, e.g. any experiential theory, likewise limits their satisfactoriness. It is to understate the matter to say merely that 'the moral atomism that focuses on individual animals and their subjective experiences does not seem well adapted to coping with ecological systems' (p.89), 'to explore the notion of shared habitat and the notion that an organism's relationship to its natural environment may be an important part of the organism's character' ((b), p.52). A moral atomism that focuses on individuals, discounting their interrelations, is bound to result in ecological complexes that matter (such as ecosystems, wilderness, and species) getting seriously short-changed. To illustrate:- Under atomism, the value of a complex, or the rights of a complex, amount to no more than those of its individual members; but since these are, in isolation from the complex, no more valuable than other things of their order, e.g. one gentian than another, a bush rat from a Norwegian rat, there no special merit in a complex, or rights attaching to it, in virtue of its rareity or uniqueness or special features as a complex. Thus, for instance, a utilitarianism under which only individual animals count assigns, and can assign, no special value to species, and can (as remarked) be used to argue against preservation of species: Since all animals are equal - or at least all animals of the same genus are more or less equal - one can substitute for another. Fora rare species of rat to die out painlessly cannot matter while there are plenty of other rats. A rights theory is in similar difficulties so long 49 �as rights are assigned only to individuals, taken in isolation from their environmental setting (i.e. only to the usual separable individuals of philosophical theory). These problems may be avoided, in part, by assign­ ing rights to complexes (given the notion of rights will take that much further stretching; which it will not if right holders are assumed to be conscious or to be preference-havers), and by attributing independent value to complexes. But, since the value of a whole is sometimes more than the sum of the separable values of its individual members, this move involves the rejection of usual atomism, utilitarianisms in particular. The objection against the narrow individualism of the extensions - a defect they share with standard ethics which do not admit of ready extension, such as contract theories - soon broadens into an objection that these extensions are built on an inadequate metaphysics, a metaphysics of rather isolated individuals who (or which) are seriously depauperate in An ethics presupposes a metaphysics at their relations with other objects. least through its choice of base class: thus for example, usual homocen- tric formulations of utilitarianisms and contract theories suppose a base class of narrowly self-interested humans. The remedy is not (as Rodman suggests in various places in his elaboration of Ecological Resistance) to move to holism: to do so would be to accept the other half of a false dichotomy mainstream philosophical thought engenders (cf. Routley (g), this volume). It is rather to move to a metaphysics that is built on a concept­ ion of objects (which may or may not be individuals) which are rich in their interrelations and connections. In summary, the moral extensions are the wrong direction in which to seek a satisfactory environmental ethic. But the failure of Nature Moralism does not mean, as Rodman tends to assume, that all positions that are moral in style are thereby ruled out. 51 For one thing, Nature Moralism, as characterised (or generalised), is far from exhaustive of the range of prima facie viable moral positions. More satisfactory positions will simply avoid the damaging assumptions of Nature Moralism (and likewise those of inadequate ethical positions, such as contract theories or naturalism, and those linking morality to legality; For another, if the quest is for an ruled out. cf. p.103). moral notions can hardly be Even if it is assumed that the call for a 'new ethic' is 'to guide the human/nature relationship (p.95) - a somewhat unfortunate way of putting it - whereas what matters is the human/nature relationship itself, and that in coping with that relation fixation on morality or 51 His thesis of the 'limitation of the moral/legal stage of unconscious­ ness' is investigated in more detail in what follows. 50 �legality is a serious handicap, and may contribute to the problem of the relationship rather than helping solve it (pp.103-4); still part of the problem is that of indicating entitlements of agents with respect to their environment, what sort of exploitation, if any, is permissible, what the limits on conventional morality are, and discovering 'a larger normative order within which we and our species-specific moral and legal systems (p.97). have a niche' Nor, in outlining Ecological Resistance, does Rodman shrink from using - he could not avoid the effect of - axiological terms such as 'good' and deontic terms such as 'should'; he does not doubt, for example, that some of what is natural that is threatened is valuable and that threats to it should be resisted; and he admits that 'prudence, justice, and reverence may be essential parts of a[n ecologic­ ally] good life'. Ecological Resistance, which is said to be the alternative 'most faithful to the integrity of experience', exhibits indeed the negativity of resistance. The position is founded on action, resistance, and theory only emerges retrospectively (if perhaps at all). Its (insufficiently qualified) central principle is 'that diversity is natural, good and threatened by the forces of monoculture'. The struggle between these forces, diversity and monoculture - between (ecological) good and evil - occurs in several different spheres of experience, i.e. at various levels, which reflect one another. Resistance is not undertaken for self-interest or utilitarian reasons, or for moral reasons, or for religious or mystical reasons (such as preventing profanation), but because the threat to the [natural object or system] ... is perceived aZso as a threat to the self, or rather to the principle of diversity and spontaneity that is the endangered side of the basic balance that defines and sustains the very nature of things ((b), p.54). The disjunction, 'or', separates however two rather different (though combin­ able) reasons-cum-motives for resistance. The second disjunct yields the following reasons for resistance (which are linked by a metaphysical assumption connecting diversity and spontaneity with the nature of things): (i) The threat to the natural item is a threat to the principle of diversity and spontaneity. So, by the central principle, it is a threat to what is good, etc. (ii) The threat to the natural object 'is a threat to the very nature of things': (as to how consider the example of the wild river threatened by a dam, p.115). So - by an unstated, but nonetheless implied and assumed, principle, that the very nature of things is good (and natural) it is a threat to the forces of good. 51 �The first disjunct yields form: a further, different, argument; in simplest (iii) The threat to the natural object is a threat to oneself. What is a threat to oneself is bad and to be resisted, so what is a threat to the natural object is bad and has to be resisted (since what is bad should, in general, be resisted). Although the arguments are valid, the underlying principles are faulty; for instance, the diversity (and spontaneity) principle because it is too simple (and so too does not harmonize with the nature of things); and the second principle, the intrinsic merit of the very nature of the things, because not everything that is the case or is natural is meritor­ ious, e.g. genuinely natural disasters. Rodman plans to avoid obstacles to adopting nature as an absolute standard and, at the same time, to bridge the gap the principle spans, by resort to a version of naturalism which equates 'the "natural" with the "moral"' (pp.96-7). But for well- known reasons which can be supported (e.g. those telling against objective ethics of the sort such naturalism would yield), substantive evaluative assumptions cannot be removed in this fashion; though they can be suppressed, they reappear as soon as connections between empirical The trouble, characteristic of reductionism, arises from the mistaken attempt grounds and evaluative judgments based upon them are queried. to collapse a grounding, or founding, relation to an identity, to close the gap - which is not problematic but is widely thought to be problem­ atic - between value and empirical fact by a reduction of value to fact, of the thesis that evaluative features are grounded on natural features to the thesis that evaluative features are nothing but certain natural 52 features (e.g. to be good is just to have certain natural features). 52 Rodman interprets naturalistically the statement of Jonas's that he quotes approvingly (p.95): Only an ethic which is grounded in the breadth of being, not merely in the singularity or oddness of man, can have significance in the scheme of things ... an ethics no longer founded on divine authority [or upon human arete], must be founded on a principle discoverable in the nature of things ... . He interprets it in terms of 'an ontologically-grounded moral order in the "the phenomenon of life" or "the nature of things".' In this way can be avoided the reduction of 'the quest for an ethics ... to prattle about "values" taken in abstraction from the "facts" of experience'. But Jonas's statement can be construed nonnaturalistically, by taking the founding or grounding relation seriously, as connecting, but not reducing, values to empirical facts. So construed the statement does help in delineating the sort of environmental ethics sought. 52 �Such reductions commit the naturalistic and prescriptive fallacies - which can be avoided neither by thinking 'our way through or around them' (p.97), nor by holistic assimilation of morality in a 'more encompassing ethical life' (p.103 and note 66). But details of the fallacies need not detain us, since we can consider immediately Rodman's important suggestion 53 for circumnavigating them (pp.103-4). Under natural social conditions, such as are obtained in some traditional societies and in some free animal societies (as ethological studies reveal), but have been lost in modern societies, law and morality, at least in their coercive aspects, would disappear, as they did in William Morris's /row and somewhat as they would in a Kantian community of fully autonomous beings. In terms of modern physics, morality and law are not invariants but vary under transformation of axes, and in fact vanish or prove eliminable under a suitable transformations, e.g. to a natural condition. There is a similar natural condition for morality and legality, a condition in which the prohibitions now prescribed 54 by God, Conscience and the State would have operated "naturally" (i.e. from inside the organism, as a matter of course), and patterns now stated prescriptively could have been stated descriptively. When the Way is abandoned, then we get Humanity and Justice (Tac Te #18) (p.103). Even if a change of social axes could place us back on the Way, or on the way to the Way, morality is not really avoidable in our local frame where we are far from the Way. So ethical disputes over environmental matters 55 are also unavoidable; * for those a satisfactory ethic is a desideratum, and can help in bringing about a change of social axes. Thus too, the identity of the prescriptive with the descriptive, of "ought" with (suitable) "is", is a merely contingent (extensional) one and fails in 53 The suggestion helps explain not only Rodman's naturalism, but his thesis of the limitation of morality and legality; it also introduces the anarchistic social change view that suffuses much of the (very uneven) later parts of (a): the view appears therein as the elabor­ ation of what is 'unthinkable'. 54 Given prevailing socio-economic conditions it should be rather: that would (ideally) be prescribed. Let us hope, for environmental reasons, that the principles that are lived by in natural conditions bear not too great a resemblance to those now prescribed. 55 Nor is there, in the local frame, much alternative but to resort to legal strategies, where they can be applied (where standing is granted), to delay "the war against nature". 53 �alternative situations; hence, as always, there is no deduction of "ought" from "is", since deducibility would require coincidence in the alternative situations. Nor would morality - as distinct from legality, which requires some codification - strictly disappear under natural conditions, though its coercive aspects would: on the whole, as they ought to be. things would simply be, But while deontology would have a much diminished role (as it does on the preferred environmental ethic), axiology (the theory of value) would still have its place - some objects (e.g. diverse landscapes) would be more valuable than others (monocultural landscapes), some not valuable, etc. (As things stand, of course, axiology does have an important place in working out the theory of Ecological Resistance, especially in assessing its central principle of diversity.) The upshot is that without much elaboration (like that indicated below) of an axiological kind, which connects value through a grounding relation, as distinct from an identity, with the run of things (but not aZZ things) that are natural, reason (ii) for ecological resistance fails. Does reason (i), which is premissed on the central principle that diversity is good and natural and threatened by monoculture, fare any better? While it is a matter of fact that that diversity is threatened, indeed is being very rapidly reduced by the forces of monoculture, diver­ sity is not, as opponents of ecological values are wont to point out, an entirely unqualified good. Nor is diversity is always natural: a temperate rain forest can be "enriched" and rendered more diverse by interplanting of exotics (a practice foresters have applied, e.g. in New Zealand) but the result is not natural and sometimes at least bad. Or, differently, ecological diversity can often be increased by increasing edges between ecosystems, but the practice of increasing edges can easily be unnatural and far from good, as, e.g. in rainforest logging with (say) 50% canopy retention. So although a reduction of diversity is commonly bad, since the reduction reduces the quality of an ecological whole, and increase in diversity good, diversity can not be accepted as a solo principle. In fact, Rodman often couples diversity with other factors, such as naturalness (inadmissible in determining, noncircularly, what is good and natural), richness, spontaneity and integrity, which help to remove various of the counterexamples to a diversity principle. The procedure points in the direction to be pursued: replacement of the oversimple principle of diversity by a principle combining all relevant ecological factors. After all ecological sensibility - ecological resist­ ance is assumed to be the position of the person of ecological sensibility requires sensitivity to all such ecological factors. 54 Once it is determined �through consideration of a mix of ecological factors, that, or whether, a natural object is good or valuable the reasons for resistance can be restated: (iv) Where a natural object is valuable - as c/fe?? natural objects are, a natural object does not have to be very ecologically distinctive to be valuable - the threat to the natural object is a threat to what is But, other things being equal, threats to what is valuable valuable. should be resisted. So, similarly, threats to natural objects should often be resisted - and always (on whatever level) resisted where the objects are valuable and the costs of resisting are not overridingly high (to begin to spell out the ceteris paribus clause). It remains to tie in reason (iii), a key premiss of which can now take the initial form that the threat to a valuable natural object is a threat to oneself. A threat to what is valuable, to what one as a valuer values, is a threat to the valuer, to oneself, for these are one's values. To make some of those connections good again requires an excursion into axiology, one, this time, that connects what is valuable with a valuer's values. But Rodman, in trying to connect the threats to natural objects and to oneself, is forced further afield, and resorts to the myth of microcosm: 'Ecological Resistance involves a ritual affirmation of the Myth of Microcosm' universe' (OED). ((b), p.5.4), i.e'. the view of man 'as epitome of the While such an affirmation - without the ritual - would yield the requisite connection, it is a classic piece of anthropocentric- ism, quite hostile to a nonchauvinistic position, and, fortunately, inessential to genuine ecological resistance. What Rodman reaches for from the myth (which could be restated in terms of without its classic homocentric bias) is however extremely important: it is an account of the which is not a separate subject isolated from its (natural) environment (as a Humean individual is),56 but is connected intensionally and causally interrelated with that environment. Rodman introduces this metaphysics in rather old-fashioned terms: Ecological Resistance ... assumes a version of the theory of internal relations: the human personality discovers its structure through interaction with the nonhuman order. I am what I am at least partly in my relation to my natural environment, and changes in that environ­ ment affect my own identity. If I stand idly by and let it be destroyed, a part of me is destroyed or seriously deranged ((b) p. 54). Not Man Apart, in the terms of Friends of the Earth. 55 �For among my interests are its interests, part of my welfare is its 57 welfare; I am identified in part with it. The metaphysics deepens, A resister 'does not stand over against then, the reasons for resistance. "his environment" as manager, sight-seer, or do-gooder; integral part of [it]' he is an ((b), p.56). But the environmental metaphysics, that underlies and helps support the ethics, that is part of a fuller environmental theory, need not be, and should not be if it is to be coherent, as (Hegelian and) holistic as Rodman immediately goes on to suppose that it is: ... By making the principle of diversity central, Ecological Resistance can incorporate the other three perspectives as moments within the dialectic of a larger whole. Economics, morality, and an esthetic religiosity have niches in the ecology of our experience of nature, and each has its limits (p.56 continued). But a principle of diversity which opposes the forces of monoculture will not yield pluralism, unless illegitimately extrapolated to theories where its merit is much less evident, especially when some of these theories are not only mutually inconsistent but false. Rodman risks the distinctive features of Ecological Resistance for a dubious synthesis. It is only true that the positions can be combined if the first three positions are limited indeed, and then a trivial combination with each theory working where it works (which may be nowhere actual in the case of the religious component) can be managed. Moreover Ecological Resistance properly developed, will lead to economic and ethical theories which compete with the rather conventional, and environmentally defective theories of, respectively, Resource Conservation and Natural Moralism. Not only is Ecological Resistance severely handicapped by having implausible holistic theses tacked in to it (not all of which have been discussed); further, Ecological Resistance is too negative. A more positive theory - which includes a theory of value and, ultimately, for a fuller environmental position, a metaphysics - is required, not only for orientation and to meet felt needs of environmentalists already noted, but for more effective, coherent and systematic resistance. It is but a short step to the 'fully ecological sensibility [which] knows with Carl Sandburg that:' There is an eagle in me ... and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want ... . And I got the eagle ... from the wilderness, (p.118) The poem almost admits of neutral logical formalisation. 56 �trees, kill everything f/xe Farf/z, (ed. T.C. McLuhan, Sphere Books, London, 1973, p.15). The great care with which so many of the Indians utilized every portion of the carcass of a hunted animal was an expression, not of economic thrift, but of courtesy and respect (D. Lee, in Farf/z, p.15)- What the respect position is based on is the fact that it is possible to make use of something without treating it as something which is no more than a means to one's ends. That is, it is possible to make use of some­ thing in limited, constrained ways - with constraints which may not derive entirely from considerations of the welfare of other humans, as in the case of the Indians' use of animals - without treating it as available for any kind of use. To so use something without treating it as available for unlimited or unconstrained use for human ends is characteristic of use. In contrast non-respectful use treats the use of the item as constrained by no considerations arising from the item itself and the user's relationship to it, but as constrained only in a derivative way, by considerations of the convenience, welfare and so forth of other humans. The Western view, as the Indians realised, is the non-respect position, that the world is available for unconstrained human use. People who hold respect positions, such as the Indians, see such a position as indicative of a lack of moral sensitivity, and sometimes in even stronger terms. The conventional wisdom of Western society tends to offer a false dichotomy of use versus respectful nonuse - a false choice which comes out especially clearly again in the treatment of animals. Here the choice presented in Western thought is typically one of edf/zer use without respect or serious constraint, of using animals for example in the ways character­ istic of large-scale mass-production farming and a market economic system which are incompatible with respect, or on the other hand of not making any use of animals at all, for example, never making use of animals for food or for farming purposes. What is left out in this choice is the alternative the Indians and other non-Western people have recognised, the alternative of limited and respectful use, which enables use to be made of animals, but does not allow animals to be used in an unconstrained way or merely as a means to human ends. Such an alternative can have some applic­ ation in a Western context (for some limited examples of respectful use in the operations of a small farmer, see John Seymour, CompZtsfe Faber, London, 1976). A limited and respectful use position would condemn the infliction of unnecessary pain on animals, and also the treatment of animals as machines, as in factory farming. 84 It �would also condemn unecessary and wasteful killing and especially killing for amusement or "sport", which is incompatible with respect and assumes that animals can be used merely as a means for human ends. But it would not necessarily oppose the use of animals in the case of approp­ riate non-trivial need, e.g. for food, although here again it would insist that the ways in which use can be made are limited, and not just by considerations of effect on other humans. The limited and respectful use position avoids some of the serious problems of the no-use position of the animal liberationists, although it shares many of the same beliefs concerning the illegitimacy of factory farming and similar disrespectful methods of making use of and exploiting animals. The no-use position faces the problem that it proposes that humans should treat animals in ways which are quite different from the ways in which animals treat one another, for example, prohibiting needful use for food. Thus the no-use position seems obliged to say either that the world would be a better place without carnivores, or else that carnivorous animals themselves are inferior, immoral, moral creatures - whichever, alternative amoral or non- is taken here the bulk of animals emerge as inferior to humans, or at least vegetarian humans. It implies too that an impoverished natural order which lacked carnivores - and given what we know of ecology this would be a very highly impoverished one indeed, not to say an unworkable "natural" order - is preferable to a rich natural one with a normal proportion of carnivorous and partly carnivorous species. carnivores, Since it would imply the moral inferiority of the no-use position appears to arrive at the negation of its own starting point, (as regards e.g., the equality consideration) of all animals, human and non-human. In thus seeing humans as capable of a moral existence which most animals are not capable of, it sees man as apart from a largely amoral, (or immoral) natural world, denies community with the animal and natural world,and indirectly reinforces human chauvinism. §6. TOWARDS AN ENVIRONMENTAL PHILOSOPHY: A PRELIMINARY SKETCH OF THE EXTENT OF PHILOSOPHICAL REVISION ENSUING ON ABANDONMENT OF CHAUVINISTIC ETHICS A radical change in a theory not uncommonly forces changes elsewhere - conceptual revision which affects not only the theory itself but many neighbouring areas. The phenomenon is well-known in the case of major physical theories, but it holds as well for ethical and philosophical theories; for example, a logical theory which rejects the Reference Theory in a thoroughgoing way has important repercussions throughout much of the rest of philosophy, and requires modification not only of logical 85 �systems and their semantics, but also, for instance, of the usual meta­ theory which also accepts the Reference Theory and indeed which is 95 tailored to cater only for logics which do conform. A thorough-going environmental ethics likewise has a substantial impact and forces many changes. The escape from human chauvinism not only involves sweeping changes in ethical principles and value theory but it induces substantial'reverberations elsewhere - both inwards, for example in metaphysics, in epistemology, and in the philosophy and method­ ology of science, and outwards (in subjects that presuppose value theory) in social theory, in politics, in economics and in law, and beyond. For human chauvinism is deeply embedded in Western culture, and affects not only the ideology and the institutions but the arts. Thus, for example, much of literature, and especially of ballet and film, is given over to a celebration of things human, of the species. Even the timely new emphasis, for instance of the counterculture, on human relations (as opposed to self- contained private individuals of social theories) remains well within the inherited chauvinistic framework. As to the changes, let us begin again with ethics. As we have begun to see, an environmental ethic can retain, though in a much amended theoretical framework (which affects meanings of terms), virtually all the standard ethical terminology. But even at a superficial syntactical level, there will be conspicuous alterations: firstly, ethical terminology will be enriched with new environmental terms, drawn in particular from ecology, somewhat as it was expanded in the late nineteenth century by terminology from evolutionary theories; and secondly, accompanying the attitudinal shifts the new ethic involves, there will be a marked shift in ethical terminology, away from the predominance of such terms as (and examples associated with) 'obligation', to such expressions as 'care', 'respect', 'consciousness'. 'duty', 'concern', 'promise', 'responsibility', 'contract', 'trust', Because the theoretical and attitudinal frame is changed, an environmental ethic forces - as we have already found with such notions as and - reexamination of, and modified analyses of, characteristic ethical notions. It requires, furthermore, reassessment of traditional and conventional analyses of such notions as natural right, ground of right, and permissib­ ility, especially where these are based on chauvinist assumptions - much as it requires the rejection of most of the more prominent meta-ethical gr These points are explained in detail in Routley (e); and also in L. Goddard and R. Routley, T/ze py urui Context, Vol. 1, Scottish Academic Press, 1973, chapters 3 and 4. 86 �positions. Cursory examination of recent accounts of nutMruZ wcrcZZtpj jMst-Zce and cctfc?? will help illustrate and confirm these points. Hart, for example, accepts (subject to defeating conditions which are here irrelevant) the classical doctrine of natural rights according to which, among other things, any adult human ... capable of choice is at liberty to do (i.e. is under no obligation to abstain from) any action which is not one coercing or restraining or designed to injure other persons (H.L.A. Hart, 'Are there any natural rights?', reprinted in PcZZticuZ PbiZoscpbp, (ed. A. Quinton), Blackwell, Oxford 1967). But this sufficient condition for a human natural right depends on accepting the basic chauvinist principle - a variant of (D) - environmental ethics reject; since if a person has a natural right he has a right. So too the definition of a natural right adopted by classical theorists and accepted with minor qualifications by Hart presupposes the same defective principle. Accordingly an environmental ethic would have to amend the classical notion of a natural right, a far from straightforward matter now that human rights with respect to animals and the natural environment are, like those with respect to slaves not all that long ago, undergoing major re-evaluation. Another example of chauvinism at work in the very setting up of the field of discussion and problems in ethics is provided by recent accounts of .^ercZ'Ztp, where it is simply taken for granted that 'moral' distinguishe 96 among actions, policies, motives and reasons, and that what is moral refers essentially to human well-being (contentment, happiness or something of this general sort, tied with appropriate states or conditions of humans). Such criteria for what is moral are chauvinistic- ally based, assuming that what does not bear on human states or conditions cannot be a moral matter. What happens in worlds without humans, how animals fare or are treated, what is done or what happens to plants or other natural objects - none of these are directly moral matters, except insofar as they impinge on human welfare. That is human 96 Thus for instance, B. Williams, ^eruZitz/.- Xx tc Effies, Harper & Row, New York, 1972, p.79. Williams does, however, remark in his Preface (p.xiv) how 'shaky and problematic' the distinction - which he subsequently takes for granted - is. 97 see, for example, P.R. Foot, Tbecries cf FtZrZcs, Oxford University Press, London, 1967,and G.J. Warnock, Oc^tewpcrcrp McraZ PhZZcscpbp, Macmillan, London, 1967, and also The Object cf AfcrcZZty, Methuen, London, 1971. 87 �chauvinism at work, and is at the same time a reductio such criteria. ad absurdum of A different nonchauvinistic account of what is moral is required (a beginning can be made by adopting certain of the maligned formal criteria). It is evident that any account which meets even weak conditions of adequacy will serve to meet the objection that an environmental ethic is not concerned with what is moral but is really an aesthetic theory. For the objection as usually presented depends squarely on a chauvinistic restriction on morality, all the rest of value theory being classed, or dismissed, as "(mere) aesthetics". The case of morality illustrates the characteristic way in which theories - in this case chauvinistic ethics - redefine crucial notions in their own terms to suit their own ends, such as entrenchment and fortification of the theories against objections. Further corollaries of the rejection of chauvinism include the inadequacy of recent fashionable attempts, mainly derivative from Hobhouse, at characterising eguuZitp and justifying it in ways that argue from man's humanity,98 and the inadequacy of much recent, largely chauvinistic, work which takes it for granted that action and 99 rationality requirements on action are bound up with human nature. in the philosophy of The abandonment of chauvinism implies the rejection not only of much ethical analysis, but of all current major ethical positions. The bias of prevailing ethical positions, and also of economic positions, which aim to make principles of conduct or reasonable economic behaviour calculable is especially evident. These positions typically employ a single criterion p, such as preference or happiness, as a summum bonum; characteristically each individual of some base class, almost always humans, but perhaps including future humans, is supposed to have (at least) an ordinal p- ranking of the states in question (e.g. of affairs, of the economy); then some principle is supplied to determine a collective p-ranking of these states in terms of individual p-rankings, and what is best or ought to be done is determined either directly, as in act-utilitarianism under the Greatest Happiness principle, or indirectly, as in rule-utilitarianism in terms of some optimization principle applied to the collective ranking, The species bias is transparent from the selection of the base class. go And Among such unsatisfactory liberal egalitarian positions are those presented in G. Vlastos, 'Justice and equality' in JooiuZ (ed. R.B. Brandt), Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1962, and B.A.O. Williams, ' The idea of equality' in P^i^osoph^, Pacifies artJ Jpcietz/, Second series (ed. P. Laslett and W.G. Runciman), Blackwell, Oxford, 1963. 99 gee, e.g. T. Nagel, TTns PossiM7-7fi/ of Oxford, 1970. 88 Clarendon Press, �even if the base class is extended to include persons or some animals (at the cost, like that of including remotely future humans, of losing testability), the positions are open to familiar criticism, namely that the whole of the base class may be prejudiced in a way which leads to unjust principles. To take a simple example, if every member of the base class detests dingoes, on the basis of mistaken data as to dingoes' behaviour, then by the Pareto ranking test the collective ranking will rank states where dingoes are exterminated very highly, from which it will generally be concluded that dingoes ought to be exterminated (still unfortunately the evaluation of most Australian farmers, though it lacks any requisite empirical basis). Likewise it would just be a happy accident, it seems, if collective demand (horizontally summed from individual demand) for a state of the economy with sperm whales as a mixed good, were to succeed in outweighing private whaling demands; for if but few in the base class happened to know that sperm whales exist or cared a jot that they do, then even the most "rational economic decision­ making would do nothing to prevent their extinction. But whether the sperm whale survives should not have to depend on what humans know or what they see on television. Summed human interests, or preferences of certain private individuals, are far too parochial to provide a satisfactory basis for deciding upon what is environmentally desirable. Nor would such accidental bases be adequate. Moreover ways out of the problem do not bear much investigation. It cannot be assumed, for instance, that the base class is on the whole good, and hence will not enjoin reprehensible behaviour, because such an assumption seems false, would at best be contingently true (so that the theory would fail for different circumstances to which it should apply), and would involve a deep problem in the theory, since it would then seem to admit the determination of goodness - that of the base class, on the whole - independently of what the theory was set up to determine, among other things, goodness. Nor can it be assumed, without serious circularity that the optimisation is constrained by requirements of justice or fairness (see Routley (b) and §5 above). The ethical and economic theories just singled out (which are based on optimisation over select features of the base class) are not alone in their species chauvinism; much the same applies to mosf going meta- ethical theories which, unlike intuitionistic theories, try to offer some rationale for their basic principles. That is, the argument against utilitarian-type ethical and economic theories generalises. For instance, on social contract positions, obligations are a matter of mutual agreement 89 �between individuals of a given (but again problematic) base class; on a social justice picture, rights and obligations spring from the application of symmetrical fairness principles to members of the base class, usually a rather special class of persons;while on a Kantian position, which has some vogue, obligations somehow arise from respect for members of the base class, persons.In each case, if members of the base class happen to be ill-disposed to items outside the base class, then that is unfortun­ ate for them: that is (rough) justice. Looking outwards from the ethics, the abandonment of chauvinism has likewise a wide set of consequences, both theoretical and practical, in One economics, politics and law, and generally in the social sciences major practical economic impact of environmental ethics is in the extent to which free enterprise can operate unimpeded or unchanged. of business and enterpreneurial activity - to But consider one option - will involve, in turn, either legal constraints, or reallocation of activity by such devices as environmental pricing, which directs activity away from environmentally undesirable pursuits. For example, if it is wrong to destroy a rare ecosystem in order to make a few more dollars, then restrictions should be imposed on business activity by one method or another. To some limited extent this is already happening in the field of pollution, but primarily because of the likely effects, direct or not too far removed, that pollution comes to have on other humans, not for a wider set of reasons, and often not for the right reasons. With a wider environ mental code, the public and legal intrusion into areas typically regarded as "private" and open to the free enterprise operations (of "open go") would be much more extensive. The same applies in the case of private 100 Thus for example, [Rawls'] original position seems to presuppose not just a neutral theory of the good, but a liberal, individualistic conception according to which the best that can be wished for someone is the unimpeded pursuit of his own path, provided it does not interfere with the rights of others. This view is persuasively developed in the later portions of the book, but without a sense of its controver­ sial character (T. Nagel, 'Rawls on justice', PkiZcscphicuZ 82 (1973), p.228). Nagel also effectively argues that Rawls' original position is not neutrally determined but involves substantial moral assumptions (e.g. pp.232, 233); they are mostly, as it happens, of a chauvinistic cast. 10^ While the first of Kant's maxims is not so restricted in actual form­ ulation, others are (see H.J. Paton, TPe Hutchinson, London, 1947. And, firstly, such maxims are s^pp<9se^ to be equivalent to ones formulated in terms of persons; secondly, they are supposed to be derived from features of, or connected with, people. 90 �property; for example, given that it is not permissible to erode hill­ sides then there should, in this setting, be (legal) restrictions on farmers' and foresters' activities. Although the impact on the practice of economics of a thoroughgoing environmental ethic would be drastic - market negotiations, firms' activities,-international trade, all would be affected - the impact on the underlying theories of preference and choice is comparatively less, but still far from negligible. For much of economics is squarely founded on chauvinism. The theoretical bias follows directly from the utilitarian bases of the theory, which is fairly explicit in welfare theory and rather heavily disguised in neoclassical theory. But although choice and value theory are, as characteristically presented in economics and elsewhere, damagingly chauvinistic, they do not have to be. For the theories can be reformulated in a non-chauvinistic way, as was indicated (in §5) above for utilitarianism - upon which economic theory is modelled. On such a revamped foundation an environmental economics to match the chosen environmental ethic can be built (for some preliminaries on this approach, see Routley (d), appendices 1 and 6). Several of the objections to base class theories such as utilitar­ ianism apply not merely against orthodox economic theory, but also to voting theory, to representative democratic systems of determination of political action. If, for, example, the base class consists of private individuals motivated by their own self-contained interest then such procedures can readily lead to most undesirable results, especially if these individuals compromise representative individuals. their autonomy through the election of For the more powerful of these representative individuals can be - and typically are, as their behaviour if not their protestations show - not favourably disposed to (the welfare of) things outside the base class or even to many members of the base class. Nearer the theoretical surface, especially in such branches of economics as "resource management", the chauvinism is more conspicuous. The following narrowly utilitarian assumption is quite typical: The goal of resource managers should be to communicate and act in ways that maximize human satisfaction (H.J. Campbell, 'Economic and social significance of upstream aquatic resources' in Forest Fses Oregon State University, Corcallis, 1971, p-14, also p.17). When management - where such is management becomes needed at all - the goals will be changed from such chauvinistic ones. 91 �The method of interference in "free economic enterprise", of controls and regulations, of legal and political constraints, is only one way in which leading principles of an environmental ethics can be put into effect. A quite different, and ultimately far more appealing, approach is by way of structural change, by changing the socio-economic structure in such a way that it comes to reflect on environmental ethics (by altering the frame of reference, or axes, to use the physical picture of §4, so.that major problems vanish). Requisite structural change is 102 . far-reaching, both practically and theoretically' in every reach of social science. For example, while on the position, capitalist markets are subject to further regulation, either directly imposed or by way of suitable pricing policies, in the sfrzzcfLzraZ- position, capitalist markets are eliminated; while under state regulation private property is subject to further controls,given approp­ riate structural change private property disappears. Looking inwards, an environmental ethic has an impact on the practice of many sciences other than the social sciences - what they do experimentally with natural objects (e.g. the treatment of animals in laboratory testing); how their research programmes are organised and directed (consider, e.g., projects involving irradiation or broadscale herbicide treatments of rainforests); the way classifications are made and which are made (consider, e.g. the extent to which human perception enters into classifications in botany); recommended on the basis of such sciences. and, of course, what is For as it stands human chauvinism is deeply embedded in the practice of science, directly in research and experimentation and in shaping classifications, theses and theories. Indeed the effect of a different ethic may extend even to the theory of such sciences, in particular through the bearing the ethic has 103 on metaphysics which in turn influences the foundations or such sciences. Such a new ethic would quite properly upset (as §1 should indicate) the extent to which humans are seen at the centre of things and things as accountable through them and scientific theories as 'human constructions wrestled from a hostile nature' (after Popper). It would help overthrow the pernicious chauvinistic idea that, apart from certain elementary facts, AZZes value. isf AfeyzscZzoMMor^., all necessity, all intensionality, all It should result too in the shattering of still widespread As (g) V. and R. Routley, 'Social theory, self management and environmental problems', this volume, begins to explain. Cf. R. Harre, P/zi^osop?zies of 1972; and also Routley (e). 92 Oxford University Press, �assumptions as to the nature of animals and plants, for instance that their apparently goal-directed and intensional behaviour can be explained (away) mechanistically, and the deeply-rooted idea that some sort of Cartesian metaphysical picture of natural, as distinct from spiritual or rational, objects can be maintained (cf. again §1). In metaphysics there are at least two further important classes of effects. Firstly, the orthodox views of man's relation to nature, the dominant and modified dominant and lesser traditions, have to be abandoned and new positions worked out. In this sense, a new environmental ethic implies a similarly new metaphysic redefining Man's place in nature and human/nature relationships.^^4 such a new philosophy of nature will recognise various natural objects other than humans as of independent value, so it will not be naturalistic. Nor will it view natural objects as simply available for the use, wise or otherwise, of humans. Several principles derived from the orthodox metaphysical positions will have to be abandoned and replacements worked out (as in the case of (D) in ethics). Thus superseded, for example, will be the principles of total use of natural areas for human use and of maximum long-term productivity of the earth's resources (principles criticised in their application in forestry in Routley (d)). At a deeper level, such a philosophy of nature will involve a turning away from the leading ideological principles of both the Renaissance and the Enlightenment and of much that went with them (e.g. with the Rennaissance, the rise of commerce, bureaucracy, professionalism, formal education, and subsequently, with the Enlightenment, the rise of the modern state, capitalism and scientific enlightenment). For it means the dismissal of the chauvinistic principles of the Renaissance, with 'Man as the kernel of the Universe', a creature 'half-earthly and half—divine, his body and soul form[ing] a microcosm enabling him to understand and control Nature . ..'.^O-^ It means too removal of the humanism of the Enlightenment, the reduction of what formerly was assigned to the religious, such as ethical and political principles, to the human, a reduction which 404 Passmore has observed - inconsistently with what is claimed in his (a) - in 'Attitudes to Nature', Poz/aZ. Irzstitz^te P/ziZ-csopTzz/ lectures, volume 8, Macmillan, London, 1975. As against Passmore (a) p.3, such new ethics and metaphysics need involve no abandonment of 'the analytical, critical approach which is the glory of the West': on the contrary, they may well mean a more thoroughly critical and analytical approach than hitherto. 104 goth quotations are from ?7ze <9/ t/z<3 Pgrzaissa^cg (ed. D. Hay) Thames and Hudson, London 1967, pp.7-10, where too main movements, practical and ideological, of the Renaissance are usefully indicated. 93 �was based on the false dichotomy, which has still not lost its hold: reli.gious or humanistic. Secondly, the removal of humans from a dominant position in the natural order renders immediately suspect a range of familiar philosophical positions of a verificationistic or idealistic kind such as phenomenalism in epistemology (how can what exists depend on what is perceived by members of such a transitory and perhaps not so important species or on whether there exist <2722/ perceivers?), intuitionism in mathematics, con­ ventionalism in logical theory, the Copenhagen interpretation in micro­ physics, and subjectivisms not only in ethics but in every other philosophical sphere. True, most of these positions are defeated on the basis of other considerations anyway; but it is an immediate and further point against them that they are damagingly chauvinistic. Thus a corollary of the thoroughgoing rejection of human chauvinism, of very considerable philosophical importance, is the rejection of all 'the usual forms of idealism, i.e. all positions which accord primacy to the human subject and make the existence of a world of things or the nature of things dependent upon such subjects. A paradigmatic example is phenomenalism; other examples are Kantian idealisms, Hegelianisms and later German idealisms, Christian philosophies based on the primacy of human (and superhuman) consciousness, existentialisms; more surprising examples are empiricisms - inasmuch as all knowledge and truth is supposed to be ultimately derived from human experience - and their holistic images, dialectical materialisms and Marxisms. A satisfactory environ­ mental philosophy will be significantly different from all these positions. 94 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document HUMAN CHAUVINISM AND ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS * Richard and Vai Routley Class chauvinism has been and remains a cardinal weakness of most moral codes - including, so it will be argued, Western ethics. A most serious failure of Western ethics is its human chauvinism or anthropocentricism - a chauvinism which emerges in a refined, and apparently more reasonable, form as person chauvinism in much modern ethical theory. What is chauvinism? Class chauvinism, in the relevant sense, is differential, discriminatory and inferior treatment (by sufficiently many members of the class) for items outside the class, for which there is not justification. PLzwan chauvinism is class chauvinism where the class is humans, zzzuZe chauvinism where the class is human males, chauvinism where the class is animals, etc. It would be bud, to say the least, if Western ethics, in its various strands, were to turn out to rest on human, or person, chauvinism. For Western ethics would then have no better foundation than, and be open to the same sorts of objections as, moral codes based on other sorts of chauvinisms, e.g. on familial, national, sexual, racial or socio-economic class chauvinism - in particular it would be open to the objection that * This paper (which considerably elaborates R. Routley 'Is There a need for d ew, an environmental, ethic?', of f/ze XVfb VorZd P3 1 (1973), pp.205-10), was drafted in 1973 and read in 19 he University of Indiana, Bloomington, at Notre Dame University, an t the Conference on The Good Society held at the University of Canada. Since the main virtue of the paper has been that it h ed much interesting discussion, the original form has been retained, the authors are no longer especially happy with the form, an theses remain insufficiently developed or e the previous and continuing defended. But in order have been made, even though the criticism, no substanti paper has been raided and segments o it presented in improved form 'Against the inevitability elsewhere, especially (a) R. and V. Rou of human chauvinism', in MoruZ P/zfZosopbz/ e University Press, (edited by K. Goodpaster and K. Sayre), Notre 1978, and (b) R. and V. Routley, 'An expensiv , Choice utilitarianism', paper presented at the Colloquium on some u?zd VuZz^g, RSSS, Australian National University, 1977. sizeable additions have been made, with a view to incre intelligibility and enlarging the scope of the original draft, ing some of the many objections. 1 v' it discriminated against nonhumans in a prejudiced and unwarranted way, and would thereby stand condemned. For it is hard to see how an ethic based on simple species loyalty could have any greater claim to absolute­ ness or deserve any more respect than moral codes based on simple loyalty to national, sexual, or racial classes. Such an ethic could no more command allegiance - once the facts are brought into clear view - than other normally-deplored examples of localised class chauvinism, such as the Mafia or protection agencies or rackets or enclaves of slavery. Unfortunately prevailing Western ethics appear to be of just this sort. §1. THE WESTERN CASE FOR ITS HUMAN (OR PERSON) CHAUVINISM: THE FIRST LINES OF DEFENCE It is important, then, for defenders of the Western ideology to be able to show - i/ it can be shown - that an ethic which discriminates strongly in favour of humans, as Western ethics apparently does, is not chauvinistic. Otherwise the ethic stands condemned. Of course not every distinction in treatment qualifies as chauvinistic - the distinction in treatment may not be substantial or systematic, and there may be an adequate and explicable basis for the distinction, so that some discrimin­ ation is warranted. In order to escape the charge of human chauvinism, it has to be shown how and why the drastic and general discrimination in favour of humans sanctioned and enjoined by modern (as by historical) Western ethical systems is warranted, and that it has an adequate basis. The extent of this chauvinism, especially with respect to animals, is at last - after centuries of a priori prejudice and gross distortion of the characteristics of wild animals and wilderness - beginning to be spelt 'x out. 1 'X It is at least clear from the outset that an adequate justification cannot be provided which simply selects all and only these members of the species human (i.e. Zzcmo sup^e^s) as zoologically defined. nothing about the characteristic of There is itself (as distinct perhaps from its accompanying properties) which could provide a justification for overwhelmingly favourable treatment for humans (and unfavourable treatment for nonhumans) as opposed to other possible, and possibly some actual, nonhuman creatures. Once again, an adequate ethic and justification can­ not possibly be based on blind and unthinking species loyalty. The same 1 See, e.g., S. and R. Godlovitch and J. Harris (eds), 4^iwcZs^ and* Morals. 4% <?y Gollancz, London, 1971; P. Singer, 4 net.) /or cy Cape, London, 1976; S.R.L. Clark, 7'Zie -Staffs <?y 4^iwaZs, Clarendon, Oxford, 1977. 2 Meeds argument: objection applies against the simple the commonly assumed domination of human needs over all else (e.g. over all environ­ mental considerations) has, if it is to have any merit, to be based on 2 more than speciesism. We shall have to look then for some other not merely taxonomic characteristic to provide the sought justification. It will emerge however, that any such characteristic is held or may be held by nonhumans, and is not held, or potentially not held, by all items of the species human. Of course there are many characteristics which can, as a contingent matter, be used to distinguish human beings as a general class from other higher animals - although in fact with increasing knowledge of animals it is no longer clear that some of these characteristics distinguish as clearly as was assumed a priori in the past. For example, humans have a language, and a culture of a certain sort and even various logics. And, as we are accustomed to have people point out, other terrestrial animals do not conduct philosophical discussions on environmental ethics. However not only is participation in these activities potentially available to nonhuman creatures, and these characteristics possibly possessed by some, but these activities are not generally engaged in even by humans (particularly the power elite), many humans lack the requisite competence, and even among those who do qualify, such activities are carried out to a very varying extent. We run the risk, then, in applying such demanding criteria, of ruling out, of classing as deserving of "sub-human" or "sub­ person" treatment, a considerable class of human beings - items most humans would consider as worthy of better treatment than that normally accorded by humans to nonhuman animals. What is more important however is that such criteria as human language, culture, human civilization, human intentionality, or whatever, appear to provide no satisfactory for the substantially unfavourable treatment allotted those falling outside the privileged class. should there be such strong discrimination in favour of language or a higher level of creatures having a (certain sort of) intelligence and against creatures or items which do not, in favour of things with a certain sort of culture or a certain logic and against those without? Especially when some of these criteria are clearly, and As McCloskey remarked (in a letter dated 5.7.77 containing many helpful comments) 'talking about needs does little but obscure the problem, as needs, to be normatively relevant, involve reference to goods; and that merely transfers the problem'. On next page. 3 unjustifiably,loaded in favour of human interests, achievements and abilities (cf. the cultural loading of various intelligence tests). By contrast the very many respects in which some uvimuT-s or sorts of animals are corsftierabZi/ s^pericr to /zMwars (many are noted in V.B. Droscher, T^e Mayic o/ * t^e Senses. /VeM Diseorerfes tn ^nfmat Perception, Allen, London, 1969) are rarely considered; yet some of these features would, if taken in the same serious way as some respects in which humans excell, justify a reverse chauvinism (which could be reflected as, /or example, in the Hindu treatment of cows). The only sort of justification for the discrimination that might appear convincing - that those who have the given characteristic (e.g. those that are more intelligent, or more rational, or richer) are more valuable or worth special treatment - is vitiated by the fact that were it accepted by Western ethics it would warrant similar discrimination hcfMccv humans (or persons). For how do we show that the allegedly warranted discrimination is sufficiently different from making substantial (class) distinctions between humans in terms of their level of intelli­ gence, linguistic or logical ability, or level or kind of cultural achievement - so that those with "lower" levels of these valued abilities are treated in a consistently inferior way and regarded as available for the use of the others? In short, these characteristics do not provide adequate justification for the substantially inferior treatment accorded those not having them, and so the charge of chauvinism is not escaped by producing them. A similar set of points applies against a number of other criteria traditionally or recently proposed to distinguish the privileged class. 4 Often these are propounded in terms of personhood and criteria for being a pgrscyz (the class marked out for privileged treatment being the class of persons) rather than criteria for being /zvmuTZ - in order to escape difficulties raised by young, senile, decrepit, stupid, irrational, For undoubtedly many mammals, birds and insects can communicate, some­ times in ways analogous to language, even if the honorific term 'language' is withheld (see - to select an unfavourable source - the discussion in E.O. Wilson, TZze ZVetJ SpvtTzesis, Belknap, Cambridge Mass., 1975, chapter 8 ff.). It is becoming increasingly evident, however, that the ascription of some linguistic ability, and of elementary languages, to nonhuman creatures should not be withheld; see, e.g. the details assembled in E. Linden, 4pes^ Mev Lavpvupe, Penguin, New York, 1976. (But contrast Wilson, op. cit., pp.555-59, and to set this in proper perspective, consider Wilson's discussion of ethics and aesthetics a few pages later, pp.562-65.) Many of the criteria that have been proposed are assessed, and found wanting, in Routley (a). 4 damaged and defective humans, extraterrestrial creatures, and super animals; to avoid the merely contingent connections between being human and having requisite person-determining characteristics (such as ration­ ality or knowledge) supposed to warrant discriminatory treatment; and to defeat, though it is a pyrrhic victory, the charge of human chauvinism (or equivalents of the charge, such as anthropocentricism or speciesism). But much the same problems then arise in terms of criteria for a person, and the chauvinism problem reappears as the problem of furnish­ ing criteria which are suitably clearcut, and do separate persons from assumed nonpersons, and which would provide an adequate justification for substantially privileged treatment for persons and inferior treatment for nonpersons. Unless such a justification is forthcoming the charge of person c^unrin^sm is not escaped. Most of the criteria proposed for personhood fall down in just these sorts of ways, e.g. being autonomous, the having of projects, the producing of junk, the assessing of some of one's performances as successful or not, the awareness of oneself as an Not only does it appear that (the more worthy of) such criteria apply (or could apply) to many nonhuman animals - thus agent or initiator. animals are generally more autonomous (in main senses of the term) than humans, many animals have projects (e.g. home and nest building), and they are well aware of themselves, as opposed to rivals, as initiators of 5 projects - and that they do not apply uniformly to humans or indeed to persons in any ordinary sense; but again it is extremely difficult to see what there is in these characteristics which would warrant or justify the vast difference in treatment between the privileged and nonprivileged classes, or justify regarding the non-privileged class as something available for the of the privileged class. Similar objections can be lodged against the proposal that knowledge or the possession of knowledge, provides f/zg (or a ur^c-Lai!-) distinguishing It can hardly provide the appropriate filter, since it not only gives no sharp cut-off point, 6 but does not even always rank humans or feature. persons above nonhumans or nonpersons. Moreover, taken seriously it should lead to substantial moral differentiation between persons, a person's moral rating also fluctuating during his lifetime. In any case, For example, the shiftless intelligent person, or the primitive person, who has no projects and engages in no moral reflection, and thus offends protestant ethics, is not thereby deregisterable as a person, any more than an intelligent animal with projects can join the union. .6 on next page. 5 why rank knowledge so highly: for (paca Socrates) knowledge is not the foundation of virtue, but is frequently turned to evil ends, and even where it is meritorious it is not the sole (or even a crucial) criterion of worth. Similar difficulties apply too to the historic criterion of along with the added problem that it is very difficult to say what it is in any clear or generally acceptable way, or to prevent it from degenerating into a simple "pro" word. If a hallmark of rationality is commitment to the consequences of what one believes and seriously says, then many humans fail the test. If, on the other hand rationality is, for example, the ability to discover and pursue courses and actions likely to achieve desired goals (direct action toward goals), ability to solve problems concerned, etc., then plainly many animals have it, and possibly to a greater extent than humans in some cases (and of certain humans in If it were the ability, e.g. to do (say propositional calculus) or to assess reasoning verbally, then the (biassed) almost all cases). criterion would be far too strong and rule out many humans. Again, why should one make such a marked discrimination on this basis? What is so meritorious about this characteristic, that it warrants such a marked distinction? Nothing (at least in the ordinary academic's view, or logicians would receive more favoured treatment). Other criteria, which yield an analytic connection between being a person and enjoying freedom or having rationality, in part beg the question. For in persons - are free. respect is it that persons - or worse, just Also the justificatory problem, as to how the claimed freedom or rationality warrants such differential treatment, remains. Characterisations of persons vary enormously, from so strong that they rule out suburban humans who are not "self-made" enterpreneurs, to so weak that they admit very /nanp animals. An (unintentional) example of the latter is the following: persons, that is, ... beings who are not only sentient but also capable of intensional autonomous action, beings that must be ascribed not only states of consciousness but also states of belief, thought and intention (A. Townsend, /iMstraZasfar 'Radical vegetarians', PAfZosopTip, 57 (1979), p.89). 6 In addition, the relation "a has at least as much knowledge as b" is only a partial ordering. For example, a dog's and a child's knowledge may be incomparable, because they know about different matters, how to do quite different sorts of things, etc. (The idea that knowledge is the key to moral discrimination, that it is what makes humans rank the way Western ethics ranks them, may be found in C.B. Daniels, TZze 6>y FZ^fcaZ Y'/ieorfgs, Philosophy in Canada Monograph, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1975.) 6 Most rats and rabbits satisfy the conditions: they are sentient, conscious animals that have intentions (e.g. to get through some barrier such as a floor or a fence), beliefs and thoughts preferred food beyond the barrier). (e.g. that there is For his further argument Townsend shifts - without notice, but in a way that is quite typical of this scene - to stronger requirements upon being a person (such that one who does not meet them is incapacitated as a person) which rule out many humans, e.g. 'The person must recognise canons of evidence and inference warranting changes in his beliefs, and be capable of changing his beliefs 7 accordingly' (op. cit., p.90). In meeting hypothetical objections, Townsend slips in a further require­ ment of rationality, but the characterisation of person given does not include any such requirement. Subsequently, however, Townsend commits himself, without argument, to the thesis that 'a fairly high degree of rationality is prerequisite' to attributing 'intensionality' (as dis­ tinct from 'intentionality'). This is not going to help much. For, firstly, rationality is very much a notion which admits of degrees, without the relatively sharp cut-off stages required for pgrscvz as a notion of orthodox moral relevance, or possessed by the notion of to which Townsend sneaks back in his chauvinistic conclusion (p.93). Secondly, TzozJ high a degree is prerequisite for being a person? If only enough to satisfy the conditions for being a person, then the animals that are persons have it. If more, then either the initial characterisation of a person fails or the thesis breaks down. The much stronger requirements upon being a person that Townsend sub­ sequently appeals to are said to derive from S.I. Benn. But, if any­ thing they strengthen one of the stronger of several KOHegtcZvaZenf characterisations of (%afMruZ) person - none of them equivalent to - that Benn has at various times offered. While Benn's weaker characterisations appear to admit at least many "higher" animals, e.g. that of a natural person as a chooser, conscious of himself as able to make a difference to the way the world goes, by deciding to do this rather than that, having projects, therefore, of his own, whose life experience may consequently be understood, not simply as a chronicle of events, but as an enterprise, on which he puts his own construct­ ion ((a) 'The protection and limitation of privacy, Part I', LazJ <7a^r?za:Z, 52 (1978), p.605); the stronger characterisations which invoke (rather vaguely specified, and (Ziy/greuf) minimum conditions of rationality in belief and action said to imply respcHsfbiZitp on bhe part of the person for what s/he does, though they do - exclude many of the creatures admitted by weaker characterisations. For such stronger characterisations see 'Individuality, autonomy and community' in CowwL/yrZfp (ed. E. Kamenka) Edward Arnold (forthcoming) and (c) 'Freedom, autonomy and the concept of a person', c/ thg PocZefp, 76 (1976), pp.109-30. 7 The foregoing points, taken together, support our contention that it is not possible to provide criteria which would distinguishing, in the sharp way standard Western ethics do, between humans and certain nonhuman creatures, and particularly those creatures which have preferg ences or preferred states. For such criteria appear to depend upon the mistaken assumption that moral respect for other creatures is due only when they can be shown to measure up to some rather and traded tests for membership of a privileged class (essentially an elitist view), instead of upon, say, respect for the preferences of other creatures. Accordingly sk<2rp nzoraZ commonly accepted in ethics by philosophers and others alike, hgfzjggzz uZZ Tztzwuzzs Zacks a satfs/cctcr^ cokcrcrzt basfs. anZmaZ aZZ ofker The distinction, which historically rested on the assumption that humans possessed a soul (or higher reason) but that other animals, brutes, did not, appears to have been uncritically retained even after the religious beliefs or philosophical theories underpinning it have been abandoned. Given that the distinction underlying human chauvinism fails, is there anywhere satisfactory demarcations of moral relevance can be made 9 among things? Yes, several divisions of wcrcZ can be made; but of these coincides with a division into human and others. Consider, first, the question of consideration others, and the matter of which offers are to be taken into account in cases where others' interests and preferences are affected by some action. Insofar as moral consideration for others (among sentient items) is based on analogical (empathetic, and essentially inductive) principles, such as taking account of their worthwhile preferences, objectives, interests etc., There are of course further arguments for the contention, for example from the anatomical and physiological affinities of human and other animals, from their common evolutionary history, and so on. These arguments are of varying force; for example, evolutionary arguments can be arrested, temporarily, by the claim that there was a "quantum jump" in human evolutionary development which did not occur with other creatures with a previously shared evolutionary history (cf. Wilson, op. cit.). Although the divisions may be conceptually sharp enough, they are any­ thing but sharp when applied in the field to the variety of creatures and circumstances that occur. For example, preference-havers is, so far at least, sharp enough, but it is far from clear which creatures qualify, e.g. which, if any, Crustacea? For the present most of these potential decision cases are cases for cheerful indecision; but, alternatively, the divisions may be viewed - perhaps better - not as sharp boundaries, but as gradation states, as where two colours in a rainbow meet. 8 it is difficult to see how such consideration can fail to apply to all (including nonhuman) preference-having creatures; and one does not need to apply criteria such as linguistic ability, navigational ability, intelligence, piano-playing, hunting skill, etc., to obtain a basis for such consideration (indeed one cannot). of preferences (and The of preferences revealed through choices) is however a quite sufficient basis for sort of consideration and concern. It is at this point, we suggest, that the requisite, important and non-arbitrary distinction is to be drawn which marks out the class of creatures towards which obligations may be held; that is, the usually recognised principles of consideration towards others (of the privileged class) properly extend or should be generalised to consideration for other creatures having prefer­ ences, and t/ze corresponding penerut defecsihZe odtipution principle is not to pnt others ("ot/zer pre/erence-Zzurers? into a dispre/erred state for no pood reason. Insofar as moral behaviour is based on consideration for others and not harming others, preference-having provides an adequate basis, and does appear to provide a sufficient justification for substantially different treatment for preference-having over non-preference-having items - because items without preference cannot (literally) be put into a dispreferred state. Thus preference-having appears to tie in with an important basis for moral obligation, and appears to provide a superior criterion, for a certain serf of moral consideration, to other criteria sometimes proposed such as sentience - or, differently, intelligence especially since in the absence of preferences such notions as Jzurminp something (in a way that does affect it) and damaging its interests become difficult of application (not to say nonsignificant, except in extended senses). The unsatisfactoriness of the sentience criterion for what one can hold obligations towards can be grasped from the case of the sentient machine or purely sentient creature which does not have preferen­ ces, does not care what state it is in or whether it is destroyed,etc. The sentience criterion is often converted by utilitarians into a suffer­ ing criterion, by taking pain as a paradigm of sentience: but plainly the two criteria diverge since some sentient creatures may never feel pain or suffer. Suffering is even less satisfactory than sentience; for suffering is neither necessary nor sufficient for being in a dispreferred state (consider masochists who suffer but are not in a dispreferred state, and well-treated workers who are in a dispreferred state but do not suffer). Preference-having provides a lower bound; it is a sufficient but -not necessary condition for being an object of this sort of moral 9 consideration and concern. That it is not necessary is revealed, independently of environmental examples, by the following sorts of cases: the treatment of "human vegetables", successful stoics, and science­ fiction cases in which people are brain-washed into performing certain goals and having no dispreferred states apart from the programmed goals. In all three cases the question of dispreferences does not arise, but relevant moral issues can.^^ The necessary condition, that corresponds to preference-having as a sufficient condition, appears to be capability at some time (e.g. previously, when developed) for preference-having. It has been taken for granted that many animals (from species higher on the evolutionary scale) have preferences, make choices, and the like. This is the merest commonsense, which can be readily confirmed in a scientific way. For example, some of the preference-rankings of a black­ tail wallaby as to types of foliage to eat are readily established by observation, and it is fairly straightforward verifying that bushrats prefer cheese to soap, this preference being revealed by regular choices. It has however been claimed by some recent philosophers, for reasons apparently different from those offered by traditional philosophers such as Aristotle, Aquinas and Descartes,H that animals do not have intentions, or at least do not have them in a full sense. It is unclear whether these intentions, which are taken to include thoughts and beliefs and, perhaps, desires, include preferences; but it is hard to see how preferences, which are intentional, are excluded if desires are included in intentions. The recent arguments to show that animals do not really have intentions, which do not bear much investigation even in such central cases as 12 belief, appear extremely feeble when applied to preference. For the arguments start from the claim that we cannot say zj/zuf it is that animals As N. Griffin, who supplied the examples, remarked a similar thing happens also in less extreme cases of the type brought in to prominence, e.g., by the women's movement: that it is possible, by means of indoctrination, to limit the range of someone's dispreferences; treatment of such persons may still remain immoral even when it does not place them outside the (artificially widened) range of their preferred states. The traditional reasons look slight also in the case of preferences and choices. It would have been claimed - the theory forces the claim - that animals' choices could not be rational. Interestingly, choices of many animals conform to behavioural criteria for rationality pro­ posed in economics. See J. Bishop, 'More thought on thought and talk', (forthcoming) and R. Routley, 'Alleged problems in attributing beliefs to animals', paper prepared for the FeZig/ conference, University of Queensland, 1979. 10 believe (of course very often we can, and unproblematically) and fall back on the claim that animals lack concepts of a fit sort. In the case of preferences, however, there is often no problem in saying what it is animals prefer, or in confirming the claim. Nor is it that we cannot attribute propositional-style preferences to animals; if black-tail wallabies prefer, as they do, new foliage to old then they prefer the foliage's being new over the foliage's being old. As for the concept claim, in the sense in which concept is delineated in psychology, animals have concepts. And if a philosopher's notion of "concept" gets in the way of the claim that free dogs prefer bones to carrots (or other vegetables) then it is not the claim that requires revision, but the philosopher's notion. The preference-having criteria appear to distinguish non-arbitrarily and sharply enough between higher animals and other items, and to rule out of the relevant class elementary animals, trees, rocks and also some human items, e.g. human kidneys. The criteria plainly exclude inanimate objects, and they separate animate objects. For while living creatures such as plants and elementary animals can be said in an extended sense to have and also optimal living conditions, e.g., for healthy develop­ ment, and in sense to have preferred states or environments, they do not have preferences, and cannot strictly be harmed or have their welfare affected, in that they can be put into states they disprefer. Nor do empathy and analogical considerations extend beyond preference-having creatures: for only these can care about how they are treated. At the same time the criteria indicate another important division. For in a wider sense, animate objects which do not (significantly) have preferences or make choices, are sometimes said to have 'preferred states' or 'preferred environments' (as, e.g., in 'the plant prefers a sunny frost-free location with a well drained soil'). us say that the or To avoid confusion let of animate objects and also such biological items as ecosystems can be affected in one way or another, e.g. increased, decreased, upset. For instance, the wellbeing of a coastal community and of the individual trees in it can be reduced to zero by sandmining, and it can be seriously threatened by pumping waste detergent In this broad sense too, living things, things that participate in the growth process, have interests. However under a narrower and more common determinate of the slippery term 'interests', only preference­ havers have interests (again sentient creatures do not provide the boundary). Because the term 'interests' so readily admits of high redefinition, and the infiltration of chauvinism, its use is better limited (or even avoided), in favour of other more stable terms. 11 into the nearby ocean. There is a general obligation principle corresponding likewise to this more comprehensive class of welfare­ bearers, namely, z-zat fa jaaparjise tTze zJaHhefzzp a_f ?zatzzraZ abjaafs or sz/sfews zjft/zaz^t paad reasor. Moral coroerr does not of course end with what is in some way animate, much as the class of valuable objects is not tied to what relates suitably to central preference-havers. In suitable settings, a (virtually) dead landscape, a rare stone, a cave, can be items of moral or aesthetic concern; indeed any object of value can in principle be of such concern, and arzp abjact car., in principle at least, be ar object a/ value or disvalue, and so of morat corcerr. corcerrfry almost any sort of object. There can then be obligations Naturally only a fraction of the things that exist have especial value, and only a few of the things that exist will be things concerning which some of us have obligations. Furthermore these sorts of obligations do not in general reduce to the conditions or arrangements (e.g. contractual or joint welfare arrangements) of preference-havers or some select subclass thereof (what will sub­ sequently be called, as the argument is developed, the base c^ass). Just as there are relevant divisions beyond the class of preference­ havers, so there are within the class. Thus the suggestion that the class hazards which moral obligations (and a corresponding serf of moral concern which takes account of creatures' states) may be held is bounded by the class of preference-havers, does not of course imply that %a dfsfizzcfiazzs can be made zjffbfrz the class of preference-havers with respect to the kind of behaviour appropriate to them. For example, cazifracfzzaT- obligations - which by no means exhaust obligations - can only be held directly (as distinct from by way of a representative) with respect to a much narrower class of creatures, from which many humans are excluded. The class is also distinct from the class of persons, at least as 'person' is usually characterised. What emerges is an ann^Zar pfcfzzra of types of objects of moral relevance, some matched by types of moral obligation (described toward the end of Routley (a)), with nested zones representing respectively different sorts of objects - such as, objects of moral concern, welfare-having objects, preference-havers (and choice-makers), right-holders, obligation­ holders and responsibility-bearers, those contractually-committed-and the different sorts of obligations that can significantly apply to such objects. Not all the types of objects indicated are distinct, nor is the listing intended to be exhaustive but rather illustrative. For strictly the labels given should be expanded, as the distinctions are categorial ones, so that what matters is not whether an object is, for instance, 12 contractually committed in some fashion but whether it is the sort of thing that can be, whether it can significantly enter into or be committed by arrangements of a contractual kind. is to Similarly function as a categorial marker, that marks out the sorts of things that can (significantly) have preferences: the assumption that preference­ havers coincide with choice-makers is based on this categorial reading. Although the annular picture is (as will become clear in §5) important for the environmental alternative to be elaborated, and in meeting object­ ions to it, the countercharge has been laid that it reintroduces chauvin­ ism through its inegalitarian distinctions. This is a mistake: not every sort of ethical distinction, certainly not a justified distinction, involves chauvinism. Chauvinism is exhibited where, for example, objects of a favoured class are treated in a preferential way to superior items of an exluded class, e.g. defective humans as against apes, degenerate French against normal Pygmies. The annular picture neither involves nor encourages such differences in treatment: it is neutral and unchauvin- istic, for the reason that it relies only on categorial distinctions which tie analytically with ethical notions (see the semantical analyses of §5). It is certainly in no way species chauvinist or human chauvinist. For none of the zones of the annular picture comprises the class of humans (or its minor variant the class of persons); for this class is not of moral relevance. The reason is that the human/nonhuman distinction is not an ethically significant one, and can, and should, be demoted from its dominant, and damaging, position in ethical theory. But dropping the notion of out of ethics, is only part of the ethical change that is called for: taking due account of nonhumans is also required. In particular - to return to the theme - what is quite unacceptable, . . 14 and based on a set of distinctions which are arbitrary and unjustifiable, is the differential treatment enjoined nonpersons as distinct from persons under Western ethics, and the view that only persons or humans have any (nonderivative) right to moral consideration and concern as preference-havers and that there are obligations towards other creatures 14 According to Q. Gibson such a criticism of chauvinism is based firmly on Western ethical equality and egalitarian principles. This is simply not so: there is no reliance on such principles. The general argument takes the form; feature f cannot be what justifies the differential treatment of humans and nonhumans, because either f is not morally relevant or not all humans have f or some nonhumans have f. Neither equality nor substitutions based upon equality are invoked at any stage. Moreover Western equality principles - at least as convention­ ally formulated - are in serious doubt, especially with the rejection of human chauvinism (see further §6). 13 only insofar as these are or reduce to obligations to persons or humans. §2. THE EXTENT OF CHAUVINISM, AND FURTHER LINES OF DEFENCE Western ethics are, then, human chauvinist in that they characterist­ ically take humans (or, to make a slight improvement, persons) to be the only items worthy of proper moral consideration, and sanction or even enjoin substantially inferior treatment for the class of non-human preference-having creatures, without - so it certainly appears - adequate justification. The prevailing nineteenth century Western attitude to wild creatures is evident from Judge Blackstone (quoted approvingly in W. Cobbett, Penguin, London, 1967, pp.431): With regard likewise to wild animals, aZZ bub by tbe o/ ZTzg Creator a right to pursue and take away any fowl or insect of the air, any fish or inhabitant of the waters, and any beast or reptile of the field: and this natural right still continues in every individual, unless where it is restrained by the civil laws of the country. And when a man has once so seized them, they become, while living his qualified property, or if dead, are absolutely his own. Prevailing Western attitudes have not shifted markedly since that time; for example, foresters, widely regarded as socially responsible, think nothing of dislodging from their homes and environment, or even destroying, communities of animals which do not directly interfere with human welfare. But there is another very important broader respect in which Western ethics are human (or person) chauvinistic, namely in the treat­ ment accorded to and attitude taken towards the broader class of natural items such as trees and forests, herbs, grasslands and swamps, soils and waterways and ecosystems. Unlike higher animals such items cannot liter­ ally be put into dispreferred states (and in fbbs obvious sense, as opposed to the wider sense of 'interests' tied to welfare, they have no interests), but they can be damaged or destroyed or have their uaZ^e eroded or impaired. The Western, chauvinistic, assumption is that this can only happen where human interests are affected. The basic assumption is that value attaches essentially only to humans or to what serves or bears on human interests, or derivatively, to items which derive from human skill, ingenuity or labour. Since natural items have no other value, there is no restriction on the way they are treated insofar as this does not interfere with others; as far as -ZsoZufgb natural things are con­ cerned anything is permissible. 14 It is, at base, because of these chauvinistic features of Western ethics that there is a need for a new ethic and value theory (and so derivatively for a new economics, and new politics, etc.) setting out not just people's relations to preference-havers generally but also (along with many other things) people's relations to the natural environment - in Leopold's words 'an ethic dealing with man's relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it' (A. Leopold, SuTzd" zlZ-muzzur? zjvt/z ot/zer essays on Conservation, New York, 1966, p.238). It is not of course that old and prevailing ethics do not deal with man's relation to nature: they do, and on the prevailing view man is free to deal with nature as he pleases, i.e. his relations with nature - insofar at least as they do not affect others, as pollution and vandalism do - are not subject to moral censure. Thus assertions such as 'Crusoe ought not to be mutilating those trees' are significant and morally determinate but inasmuch at least as Crusoe's actions do not interfere with others, they are false or do not hold - and trees are not, in a good sense, moral objects. It is to this, to the values and evaluations of the prevailing ethics, that Leopold, Fraser Darling and many others, both earlier and later, take exception. Leopold regards as subject to moral criticism, as wrong, behaviour that on prevailing views is morally permissible. But it is not, then, as Leopold seems to think, that such behaviour is beyond the scope of the prevailing ethics and that merely an extension of traditional morality is required to cover such cases, to fill a moral void. If Leopold is right in his criticism of prevailing conduct, what is required is a change in the ethics, in attitudes, values and evaluations; for example, what is permissible on the prevailing ethics will be no longer permissible on the new. For as matters stand, as Leopold himself explains, humans generally do not feel morally ashamed if they interfere with a wilderness, if they maltreat the land, extract from it whatever will yield, and then move on; and such conduct is not taken to interfere with and does not rouse the moral indignation of others, and is accordingly permissible on prevailing ethics. As Leopold says: A farmer who clears the woods off a 75% slope, turns his cows into the clearing, and dumps its rainfall, rocks, and soil into the community creek, is still (if otherwise decent) a respected member of society (op. cit., p.245). Only recently has such behaviour begun to be seriously questioned and become the subject of criticism, e.g. by environmentalists. Under what will be accounted an erzvvroHwgutaZ. et/zvc, however, such traditionally 15 permissible conduct would be accounted morally wrong, and the farmer subject to proper moral criticism. That ethics and morality are not, and never have been, restricted to human concerns, or exclusively to relations between persons, is important in rebutting objections to the very idea of an environmental ethic, based on the premiss that morality just is restricted (definitionally) to human relationships (and connected values) and is not significant beyond that. The problem of moral relations with respect to preference-havers other than persons and to inanimate items cannot be resolved or escaped simply by declaring morality to apply solely,or as a matter of meaning or defin­ ition only to humans (or to persons). For first, such a solution would run counter to the common view that humans are subject to seme moral con­ straints, even if comparatively minor ones, towards other creatures; the having of such constraints cannot be ruled out definitionally, and corres­ pondingly the judgments formulating these constraints or prohibitions cannot be ruled out as nonsignificant, yet they are surely moral. The only way in the end, that the claim gets support is by a narrow, and no longer acceptable, account of what is mcraZ in terms of concern with humans alone (cf. §6). Likewise, the question of the moral interrelations of humans with intelligent nonhuman extraterrestrial beings, even if at present hypothetical, is certainly a meaningful one, and some interesting and clearly moral issues of this sort are frequently raised in science fiction. Only if the extent of morality is, somewhat misleadingly, reconstrued in terms of the class of constraints on the behaviour of those it applies to - that is, in terms of limitations, as distinct from moral freedom does the claim that Western morality is restricted to humans (or persons) begin to gain plausibility. For it is true that beyond the favoured base class, humans or persons, few constraints are supposed to operate (and ad hoc ones at that) unless the welfare of members of the base class is adversely affected. Under an environmental ethic, such as that Leopold advocates, this would change: previously unconstrained behaviour would sense the scope of morality would be morally circumscribed, and in be extended. It is not evident, however, that a ethic, an ethic in the case at hand, is required to accommodate even radical new judgments seriously constraining traditionally approved conduct, i.e. imposing limitations on behaviour previously considered morally permissible. For one reason it is none too clear what is going to count as a new ethic, much as it is often unclear whether a new development in physics counts as a new physics or just as a modification or extension of the old. 16 For, notoriously, ethics are not clearly articulated or at all well worked out, so that the application of identity criteria for ethics may remain obscure. They are nonetheless (pace Quineans) perfectly good objects for investigation. Furthermore, there is a tendency to cluster a family of ethical systems which do not differ on core or fundamental principles together as the one ethic: e.g. the Christian ethic, which is an umbrella notion covering a cluster of differing and even competing systems. There are two other possibilities, apart from a new environmental ethic, which might cater for the new principles and evaluations; that of an extension or modification of the prevailing ethic, and that of the development of principles that are already encompassed or latent within the prevailing ethic. The possibility that environmental evaluations can be incorporated within (and ecological problems solved within) the not inflexible framework of prevailing Western ethics, may appear open because there is not a single ethical system uniquely assumed in Western civiliz­ ation: on many issues, and especially on controversial issues such as infanticide, women's rights and drugs, there are competing sets of principles. Talk of a new ethic and prevailing ethics tends to suggest a sort of monolithic structure, a uniformity, that prevailing ethics, and even a single ethic, need not have. The Western ethic is not so monolithic In particular, three important traditions in Western ethical views 15 concerning man's relation to nature have recently been mapped out: a dominant tradition, the despotic position, with man as despot (or tyrant), and two lesser traditions, the stewardship position, with man as custod­ ian, and the cooperative position with man as perfector. the only traditions; Nor are these primitivism is another, and both romanticism and mysticism have influenced Western views. The dominant Western view is simply inconsistent with an environmental ethic; for according to it nature is the dominion of man and he is free to deal with it as he pleases (since - at least on the mainstream Stoic16 Augustine view - it exists only for his sake ), whereas on an See especially (a) J. Passmore, Afurz's Duckworth, London, 1974; also R. Nash, Affzzd, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1973. (All further references to Passmore's work are, unless otherwise indicated, to Passmore (a).) The dominant position has also been sketched in many other recent texts, e.g. I. McHarg, Doubleday, New York, 1969, while the lesser traditions have been appealed to in meeting criticisms of the Western ethic as involving the dominant view. The masculine particles are appropriate; 17 so is the resulting tone. environmental ethic man is not so free to do as s/he pleases. But it is not quite so obvious that an environmental ethic cannot be coupled with one of the lesser traditions. Part of the problem is that the lesser traditions are by no means adequately characterised anywhere, especially when the religious backdrop is removed, e.g. (as further considered in §4) who is man steward for and responsible to? However both traditions are inconsistent with a deeper environmental ethic because they imply policies of complete interference, whereas on an environmental ethic some worthwhile parts of the earth's surface should be preserved from sub­ stantial human interference, whether of the "improving" sort or not. Both traditions would in fact prefer to see the earth's land surfaces reshaped along the lines of the tame and comfortable but ecologically impoverished European small farm and village langscape. According to the cooperative position man's proper role is to develop, cultivate and perfect nature - all nature eventually - by bringing out its potential­ ities, the test of perfection being basically /ur while on the stewardship view man's role, like that of a farm manager, is to make nature productive by his efforts though not by means that will deliberately degrade its resources. Thus these positions figure among those of the shallow ecological movement (as depicted by A. Naess, 'The shallow and the deep, long-range ecology movement', 16 (1973), 95-100): longer term. they are typically exploitative, even if only in the Although these lesser positions both depart from the dominant position in a way which enables the incorporation of some evaluations of an environmental ethic, e.g. some of those concerning the irresponsible farmer, and allow for some of the modern extensions of the Western ethic that have been made, e.g. concerning the treatment of animals and criticisms of vandalism, they are not well-developed, fit poorly into the prevailing framework, and do ^<9 /ar For in the present situation of expanding populations confined to finite natural areas, they will lead to, and enjoin the perfecting, farming and utilizing of all natural areas. Indeed these lesser traditions lead to, what a thorough­ going environmental ethic would reject, a principle of total use, implying that every natural area should be cultivated or otherwise used for 17 if 'use' is extended, somewhat illicitly, to include use for preservation, this total use principle is rendered innocuous at least as regards it actual effects. Note that the total use principle, in the usual sense, is tied to the resource view of nature (cf. (d) R. and V. Routley, T/ze /or f/ze Forests, Third Edition, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1975). Such a principle, like the requirement of economic growth, emerges directly from - it is an integral part of neoclassical economic theory. 18 "humanized". As the important Western traditions mentioned exclude an environ­ mental ethic, it would appear, at first glance anyway, that such an ethic - not primitive, mystical or romantic - would be new alright - or at least new from a Western perspective. For, from a wider perspective, which takes due account of traditional societies (such as those of some American Indians, Australian Aboriginals, and Pygmies), there is, it will turn out, nothing so very new about what is included in (as distinct from the theoretical setting of) the "new" ethics. Even from the narrow Western perspective, the matter is not so straightforward: for the dominant ethic has been substantially qualified, in particular by the rider that one is not always entitled to do as one pleases where this 19 physically interferes with others. " It may be that some such non-inter­ ference proviso was implicit all along (despite evidence to the contrary); and that it was simply assumed that doing what one pleased with natural 20 items would not affect others (a?2CMfnfcr/cre?Ycc cssz^npffcyz). Be this as it may, the wcdfyfeti pcsfffoz? appears, at least for many thinkers, to have supplanted the dominant position; and the modified position can undoubtedly go much further towards an environmental ethic. For example the farmer's polluting of a community stream may be ruled immoral on the grounds that it physically interferes with others who use or would use the stream. Likewise business enterprises which destroy the natural environ­ ment for no satisfactory (taxable) returns or which cause pollution deleterious to the health of future humans can be criticised on the sort of welfare basis (e.g. that of P.W. Barkley and D.W. Seckier, Economic Humanization, and humanitarian measures, may be a cloak for human chauvinism - in which case, far from being virtuous, they may be positively undesirable. Also, as Leopold has observed, the class of others has been progress­ ively widened, e.g. from the family group, to the tribe, to the nation or race, even to all humans including often enough future humans - but rarely further in the West until recently. 20 The assumption is not the same as its relative, Benn's principle of rzo^-i^fcrycrcuce, 'that no one may legitimately frustrate or prevent (or interfere with) a person's doing what he chooses to do, unless there is some reason for preventing him' (Benn (c), op. cit.; inset from (a), p.605). The principle is said to derive from 'the notion of a person' (e.g. (a), p.605), but it only so derives given commission of the fallacy of conversion of an A-proposition. Moreover even reduced to a 'formal principle ... locating the onus of justification' (cf.(a)), the principle is dubious, especially cyiven principles of respect for objects other than persons, with which persons may be interfering. It is, however, a formal principle that will help to keep entreprenuerial humans happy. 19 Pggg:2/, Grczjf?? T^g S c7Mf7c?? * f-ggcwgs f/zg PrchZgw^ York, 1972) that blends with the modified position; be criticised on welfare grounds; and so on. New vandalism can usually The modified position may even serve to restrict the sort of family size one is entitled to have, since in a finite situation excessive population levels will interfere with future people. Nonetheless neither the modified dominant position nor its Western variants, obtained by combining it with the lesser trad­ itions, is adequate as an environmental ethic. chauvinism. None moves outside human They are all encompassed under the Dowz'nic?? t??gsis - the view that the earth and all its non-human contents exist or are available for human benefit or to serve human interests, and hence that humans are entitled to manipulate the world and its systems as they want, in their own interests - which is but the ecological restatement of the strong thesis of human chauvinism, according to which items outside the privil­ eged human class have no value except one as instrumental value (both theses are criticised in Routley (a)). To escape from chauvinism, and from its thesis, a new ethic 7s wanted, as we now try to show. §3. GENERAL ENVIRONMENTAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST WESTERN ETHICS The main argument is directed primarily against the modified dominant position, but will incidentally show the inadequacy of the lesser Western traditions. The strategy is to locate core features of Western ethics, and to reveal through examples their thoroughgoing chauvinism and class bias, and in this way to provide decisive grounds for rejecting For the general argument some more technical points have to be made them. first. (An) gf^7g is ambiguous, as between a specific ethical system, a spgcffiu ethic, and a more generic notion, a SMpgr-gf^fg, under which specific ethics are grouped. (As usual, a wgfu-ethic is a theory about ethics, super-ethics, their features and fundamental notions.) An sz/sfgm s is, near enough, a propositional system (i.e. a structured set of propositions) or a theory which includes (like individuals of a theory) a set of values and (like postulates of a theory) a set of general evaluative judgments concerning conduct, typically of what is obligatory, permissible and wrong, of what are rights and responsibilities, what is valued, and so forth. (On newer perceptions an ethical system will include rather less in the way of prescriptions, of duties, obligations and the like, and more as to what are matters of care and of concern and for respect.) Since an ethical system is propositional in character, such notions as consistency, coherence, independence of 20 assumptions, and the like, apply to it without further ado. It is evident, from a consideration of competing or incompatible values and principles, that t/zgre are Z^z/iz-z-ZteZz/ wary gf/zZcuZ sz/stezns. Moreover appropriately general criteria for rationality will not reduce this class to a singleton. . Accordingly, there is logical space for aZferratire ratiaraZ etTzies. A general or lawlike proposition of a system (characterised along similar lines to a scientific law) is a pr-ZzzcZpZe; and certainly if systems Si and S2 contain different principles, they they are different systems. It will follow then that an environmental ethic differs from the important traditional ethics outlined if it differs on some principles. Moreover if environmental ethics differ from each Western ethical system on some core principle or other embedded in that Western system, then these systems differ from the Western super-ethic (assuming, what seems to be so, that that ethic can be sufficiently characterised) - in which case if an environmental ethic is needed then a new ethic is wanted. It would suffice then to locate a common core principle and to provide environmental counterexamples to it. It is illuminating (and necessary, so it will emerge) to attempt to do a little more than this minimum, with a view to bringing out the basic assumptions of the Western super-ethic. Two major classes of evaluative statements, commonly distinguished, are axiological statements, concerning what is good, worthwhile, valuable, best, etc., and deontological state­ ments, which concern what is obligatory, permissible, wrong, etc. Now there appear to be core principles of Western ethics on both axiological and deontic fronts, principles, for example, as to what is valuable and as to what is permissible. Naturally these principles are interconnected, because anything is permitted with respect to what has no value except insofar as it interferes with what does have value. A strong historical case can be made out for what is commonly assumed, that there are, what amount to, core principles of Western ethical systems, principles that will accordingly belong to the superethic. example. The fairness principle inscribed in the Golden Rule provides one Directly relevant here, as a good stab at a core deontic principle, is the commonly formulated liberal principle of the modified dominant position. A recent formulation of this principle runs as 21 follows (Barkley and Seckier, op. cit., p.58): 21 On next page. 21 The liberal philosophy of the Western world holds that (D) one should be able to do what he wishes, providing (1) that he does not harm others {and (2) that he is not likely to harm himself irreparably}. The principle, which is built into or derivable from most traditional ethical theories, may be alternatively formulated in terms of permissib­ ility, as the principle that a pgrscu's action is <ioos not intor/ere zjit/z others, profide<i if (i.e. other people, including perhaps the A related economic principle is that free enterprise can operate agent). within similar limits. It is because of these permissibility formulations that the principle - which incorporates fundamental features of (human or person) chauvinism - is sometimes hailed as a freedom principle; for it gives permission to perform a wide range of actions (including actions which degrade the environment and natural things) providing they do not harm others. others. In fact it tends to cunningly shift the onus of proof to It is worth remarking that 'harming others' in the restriction is narrower than a restriction to the (usual) interests of others; it is not enough that it is in my interests, because I detest you, that you stop breathing; you are free to breath, for the time being anyway, because it does not harm me. There remains a problem however as to exactly what counts as harm or interference. Mo'reover the width of the principle is so far obscure, because 'other' may be filled out in significantly different ways: it makes a difference to the extent - and privilege - of The principle is attributed by Barkley and Seckier to Mill, though something like it was fairly common currency in nineteenth century European thought. It appears, furthermore, that Mill would have rejected the principle on account of clause (2): thus, for example: Those interests, I contend, authorise the subjection of individual spontaneity to external control, ouZi/ in respect of those actions of each, which concern the interest of people (J.S. Mill, f-Zbgrfy Everyman's Library, Dent, London, 1910, p.74, emphasis added). The deletion of clause (2) from (D) does not affect the general argument: hence the braces. (We owe this reference and the points in the next footnote to N. Griffin.) A similarly modified form of (D) is found in much recent Western literature, even radical literature which purports to make due allow­ ance for environmental concerns. A good example of the latter is I. Illich, TcoZs /or Calder & Boyers, London, 1973, where Mill's (D) appears, in various forms, at several places (e.g. p.xii, p.41). What this indicates is that Illich's "convivial society" will not - if its principles are taken seriously - move beyond chauvinism in its treatment of animals and the natural environment; it will at best yield some form of resource conservation. 22 the chauvinism whether 'other' expands to 'other human' - which is too restrictive - or to 'other person' or to 'other sentient being'; and it makes a difference to the adequacy of the principle, and inversely to its economic applicability, to which class of other persons it is intended to apply, whether to future as well as to present others, whether to remote future others or only to nondiscountable future others, and whether to possible others. The latter would make the principle untestable and com­ and it is generally assumed that it pletely unworkable in practice; applies at most to present and (some) future others, to those to whom it 22 would make a (fairly immediate) difference (thus excluding past others ). For the purposes of the general argument however, the problems in specify­ ing the class of others is not material, so long as the class includes no 23 more than persons that at some time exist. Fortunately the main argument is not very sensitive to the precise formulation of principle (D). Not only can clause (2) be deleted, and 'other' left rather unspecific, but additions can be made; then even if the main argument does not succeed, minor oarianfs a/ fba main argument zjiZ^ snccooti. An important case concerns the treatment of animals. Unless (D) is construed widely (extending 'other'), or hedged by further qualifying clauses,the basic principle fails to take proper account of concern for animals, especially that one should not inflict "unnecessary" cruelty or "impermissible" harm. animals then comes to matter; these issues can be avoided. What counts as permissible harm to and familiar conflict issues arise. But For the core principle (0), of basic chauvinism, can be modified to include (historically recent) moral concern for higher animals by adding, after 'harm others', something like 'or harm animals unnecessarily'. Then however the new principle succumbs to the Although the interests and preferences of past others are excluded in conventional utilitarianism, as in (welfare) economic theory and vot­ ing theory, these are often respected in ethical and legal settings, e.g. in wills, last wishes, etc. Similarly (as N. Griffin also point­ ed out), in the treatment of "human vegetables", past preferences of the person when capable of making decisions are often taken to be morally relevant, or even decisive, to the question as to whether to keep the body alive. If merely possible persons are included then the valuational rankings of environmental ethics, indeed of virtually any ethics, can be reflected in a "utilitarian" fashion. The argument of (c) R. and V. Routley, 'Semantical foundations for value theory', /Vaas (accepted for publication in 1974; still forthcoming?), can be used to show this. Or unless it can be made out, what seems entirely implausible, that what is wrong with torturing animals is not what it does to them but the way it affects other people (the Aquinas-Kant thesis). 23 attitudes, and more comprehensively the associated ideologies, are of critical importance; for it is to these and Western influence that the world's main - serious and very extensive - environmental problems can be ascribed. Hypothetical situations are introduced in designing counterexamples to core principles (D) and (A). The basis of the method lies in the semantical analyses of permissibility, obligation and value statements which stretch out over ideal situations (which may be incomplete or even inconsistent), so that what is permissible holds in some permitted situation, what is obligatory in every such situation, and what is wrong is excluded in every such situation. ' But the main point to grasp for the counterexamples that follow, is that ethical principles if correct are universal and are assessed over a class of situations. Thus hypothetical cases are logically perfectly legitimate and cannot be ruled out on one pretext or another, e.g. as rare, as desert island cases, as hypothetical, The counterexamples to (D) and (A) presented depend largely on etc. designing situations different from the actual where there are either too few or too many humans or persons. But alternative special situations where interference with others is minimized or is immaterial are readily devised. (i) The example. The last man (or woman or person) surviving the collapse of the world system sets to work eliminating, as far as he can, every living thing, animal or plant (but painlessly if you like, as at the best abattoirs). What he does is quite permissible according to principle (D) but on environmental grounds what he does is wrong. Moreover one does not have to be committed to esoteric values to regard Mr. Last Man as behaving badly and destroying things of value (the reason being perhaps that radical thinking and values have shifted in an environmental direction in advance of corresponding shifts in the Characteristically Westerners have attempted to recast these value systems, sometimes misleadingly, in a religious guise - probably because it was thought that there was no non-religious way of presenting them so as to make them intelligible or have them comprehended. Thus they get represented as basically chauvinistic in view of the relations of Man and God. On these semantical analyses, which avoid all the usual problems of modal theories of axiological and deontic terms, see R. Routley, R.K. Meyer, and others, T/zefr RSSS, Australian National University, 1979, chapters 7 and 8. A sketch is given in §5 below. The situations or worlds with respect to which the interpretation is made permit of different construals; e.g. instead of permitted situ­ ations, the situations can be construed evaluatively as ideal situations. 26 formulation of fundamental evaluative principles). The usual vandalism charge does not apply against Mr. Last Man since he does no damage to others. Moreover, Mr. Last Man's activities may be toned down to avoid any vandalism charge, yet succumb to the (extended) chauvinist charge, e.g. he may simply destroy seme environ­ mentally valuable things unnecessarily (without due reason or some need). (ii) The Zusf pecpZe example. to the last people example. The last man example can be extended We can assume that they know they are the last people, e.g. because they are aware that radiation effects have blocked any chance of reproduction. One considers the last people in order to rule out the possibility that what these people do harms or somehow physically interferes with later people. Otherwise one could as well consider science fiction cases where people arrive at a new planet and destroy its ecosystems, whether with good intentions such as perfect­ ing the planet for their ends and making it more fruitful or, forgetting the lesser traditions, just for the sheer enjoyment of it. Let us assume that the last people are very numerous. They humanely exterminate every wild animal and they eliminate the fish of the seas, they put all arable land under intensive cultivation, and all remaining natural forests disappear in favour of pastures or plantations,and so on. They may give various familiar reasons for this, e.g. they believe it is the way to salvation or to perfection, or they are simply satisfying reasonable needs, or even that it is needed to keep the last people employed or occupied so that they do not worry too much about their impending extinction. behaved badly; of value; On an environmental ethic the last people have they have done what is impermissible and destroyed much for they have simplified and largely destroyed all the natural ecosystems, and with their demise the world will soon be an ugly and largely wrecked place. But this conduct may conform with the core principles (D) and (A), and as well with the principles enjoined by the lesser traditions under more obvious construals of these principles. Indeed the main point of elaborating this extension of the last man example is because principles (D) and (A) may, as they stand, appear to conflict with stewardship, cooperation and perfection positions, as the last man example reveals. The apparent conflict between these positions and principle (D) may be definitively removed, it seems, by conjoining a further proviso to the principle, to the effect (3) that he does not wilfully destroy natural resources. But as the last people who are not vandals do not destroy resources wilfully, but perhaps "for the best of 28 reasons", the variant is still environmentally inadequate. 2 8 On next page. 27 (iii) The grreat e^frgpre^gz/r example. The last man example can be adjusted so as to not fall foul of clause (3). industrialist; The last man is an he runs a giant complex of automated factories and farms which he proceeds to extend. He produces automobiles among other things, from renewable and recyclable resources of course, only he dumps and recycles these shortly after manufacture and sale to a dummy buyer instead of putting them on the road for a short time as we do. Of course he has the best of reasons for his activity, e.g. he is increasing gross world product, or he is improving output to fulfil some plan, and he will be increasing his own and general welfare since he much prefers increased output and productivity. The entrepreneur's behaviour is on the Western ethic quite permissible; indeed his conduct is commonly thought to be quite fine and even meets Pareto optimality requirements given prevailing notions of being "better off". It may be objected, however, that there is no reason or warrant for the great entrepreneur's production and it is simply wasteful. But we can easily amend the example by adding consumers who want to use the out­ put. Just as we can extend the last man example to a class of last people, so we can extend (iii) to the sociefz/ example (iv): the society looks depressingly like ours except for its reproductive incapacity. (v) The example. The blue whale (reduced to a 29 mixed good on the economic picture ) is on the verge of extinction because of its qualities as a private good, as a profitable source of oil and meat. whalers; The catching and marketing of blue whales does not harm the it does not harm or physically interfere with others in any good sense, though it may upset them and they may be prepared to compen­ sate the whalers if they desist; destruction. nor need whale hunting be wilful (Slightly different examples which eliminate the hunting aspect of the blue whale example are provided by cases where a species is eliminated or threatened through destruction of its habitat by man's 2 8 There are however elements in the lesser traditions - especially if 'cooperation' and 'perfection' are reconstrued in less chauvinistic and homocentric terms - which point the way to a more satisfactory ethic. 29 The example is adapted from Barkley and Seckier, op. cit., who nicely expose the orthodox economic picture. To make the example more difficult for utilitarians in the tradition of Bentham, it can be further supposed that the killing of the whalesis near instantaneous and painless, the whale products are very valuable to humans and indeed irreplaceable, and that the whales led a good life while they lived. (Would the killing of remote groups of humans under similar conditions be then so much worse?). 28 activity or the activities of animals he has introduced, e.g. many plains-dwelling Australian marsupials and the Arabian oryx.) The behaviour of the whalers in eliminating this magnificent species of whale is accordingly quite permissible - at least according to basic chauvinism. But on an environmental ethic it is not. However the free-market mechanism did not cease allocating whales to commercial uses, as a satisfactory environmental economics would: instead the market system ground inexorably (for the tragedy-of-the-privatised-commons type reasons well-explained in Barkley and Seckier, op. cit.) along the private demand curve until the blue whale population was no longer viable. It has been objected that the operation of the free market is restrained by ethical principles - or rather legally enforced copies thereof; for example, it would be profitable to exploit child labour, but moral prohibitions, legally enforced, exclude such exploitation of children. But the case is quite different; children, unlike young animals such as vealers, are already shielded under the modified dominant position. If anything, the "objection" is a further illustration of chauvinism at work. 30 Although the vanishing species example given does not apply decisively against extended utilitarianisms, such as that of Bentham, which widen the base class to all sentient creatures, the case is easily varied so that it does: class of tropical plant species simply select one of the currently threatened with extinction. (vi) The fuufory farw example. On the farm animals of various sorts are kept under artificial, confined conditions and simply used for the market goods they deliver, e.g. eggs in the case of battery hens, milk in the case of rotor cows, veal in the case of calves. The animals are subject to whatever conditions (e.g. forced feeding, iron deficient diets, constant lighting) will deliver maximal quantities of desired goods for the human commodity market. The animals do not necessarily suffer pain (and insofar as they do in behaviourally conspicuous ways the problem can For the most part the operation of the free market is only constrained by chauvinistic principles: otherwise enterpreneurs tend to undertake whatever apparently profitable business activity they can get away with, including substantial exploitation of animals and widespread environ­ mental destruction, and their lack of concern is illustrated by such facts as that they are generally prepared to pay taxes (e.g. to compensate other humans) rather than to forgo their activities in cases such as river and lake pollution and forest removal. In fact, of course, fairly unfettered operation of the market tends to encourage more restricted chauvinisms, e.g. the exploitation of cheap foreign or female labour in the secondary labour market. 29 be met by antibiotics), but they are imprisoned under dispreferred conditions. The threatment of the animals on the "farm" is perfectly permissible according to the core principle (or at least minor adjustments to exclude unnecessary suffering will ensure conformity), but on an environmental ethic it is not. The treatment of the animals on the farm also seems to conform to the principles of the lesser traditions, insofar as these principles are spelled out in a way that can be applied to the example, that is so long as cooperation and perfection are construed in intended chauvinistic fashion. (vii) The MiZderness example. The wilderness, though isolated and rarely visited or thought about by environmentalists, is known to contain nothing of use to humans, such as seed or drug supplies, that is not adequately replicated elsewhere. It does contain however some "low quality" forest that could supply pulpwood on a commercial basis were the local government to provide subsidies on the usual basis. The logging would destroy the wilderness in a largely irreversible way (e.g. it grows on high sand dune country or on lateritic soils) and kill many animals which live in the forest. The prevailing ethic sees nothing wrong with the destruction of such a wilderness, nor do the lesser traditions: a deeper environmental ethic does. Again the example requires variation, e.g. to a wilderness devoid of sentient individuals, if it is to counter clearly such extensions of Western ethics as those of animal liberationists. For this sort of reason we do not want to overstate or overrate the role of as distinct from variations upon such examples. examples - Firstly, people deeply committed to human chauvinism - as many, perhaps most, people are - will find some of the examples unconvincing because they depend on non- chauvinistic assumptions. Secondly, there are rejoinders to some of the examples based on the prevailing ethic. In this case what we claim is that there are variations on, and elaborations of the examples which meet such considerations. In connection with this we do not want to deny that there are other strands supplementing the prevailing ethic which are critical of some activities of the sort described in the examples, e.g. anti-vandalism principles and strictures against conspicuous consumption But, as remarked, these principles as reflected, e.g. in sumptuary laws. have not been adequately incorporated in the prevailing ethic in such a way as to meet variations on the examples or to serve environmental purposes; and if the attempt were made to fully incorporate such princi­ ples once again a new ethic would be the upshot. before the change from an ethic which sanctioned 30 (Compare the situation slavery.) In summary,what the examples show is that core axiological and deontic assumptions of the Western super-ethic are environmentally inadequate; and accordingly Western ethics should be superseded by a more environmentally adequate ethic. The class of permissible actions that rebound on the environment is more narrowly circumscribed on such an environmental ethic than it is in the Western superethic, and the class of noninstrumentally valuable objects is correspondingly wider than it is on the Western super-ethic. But is not an environmentalist ethic going too far in implying that these people - those of the examples and respected entrepreneurs and industrialists and bureaucrats, farmers and fishermen and foresters - are behaving, when engaging in environmentally degrading activities of the sort described, in a morally impermissible way? No, what these people do is to a greater or lesser extent evil, since destructive of what is valuable, and hence in serious cases morally impermissible. For example, insofar as the killing or forced displacement of primitive peoples who stand in the way of an industrial development is morally indefensible and impermissible, so also is the destruction of the forest where the people may live, or the slaughter of remaining blue whales, or the gross exploitation of experimental or factory-farm animals for private profit or as part of the latest 5 year plan. Those who organise or engage in such activities are (to a greater or lesser extent, depending on their mode of engagement) morally culpable. Models of permissible respected life styles and of the good life (for others to emulate) depend upon what the underlying ethic accounts good and evil, permissible or not, and changes with change of ethic. A new ethic is needed not merely to accommodate the evaluations, and so forth; prescriptions and models indicated, in a way decidedly different from Western ethics, but in order to cope with a much wider range of more practical, and often more controversial, cases where Western ethics yield (without epicycling, i.e. extensive resort to theory-saving strategems) unacceptable or inadequately grounded results. An alternative ethic is also needed by a growing number of valuers because they have values, interests and new concerns of ecological sorts which do not fit in with, but conflict with, central features of prevailing Western ethics. There is occurring, it seems, a far-reaching cultural, and ethical change, a change in consciousness, and in particular a change in attitudes to what is natural and the natural environment (a change which may eventually be as fundamental as, and partly overturn, the humanist changes of the Enlightenment). A new ethic is accordingly needed to reflect and formul­ ate, and enable the defence and application of, a new, increasingly fel,t, 31 but not so far well-articulated system of values, in much the same way that a system of probability was needed and formulated to articulate and systematise likelihood and probability principles, and relevant logic systems required to capture pre-analytic views of entailment. The explication of environmental ethics is a similar theoretical concern; again, as commonly, theory lags behind the facts of change and the felt data. Furthermore, just as entailment systems are not uniquely determined, or desired or accepted by every thinker, so enoironwontuZ gt/zios will not be nnip^otp detorwZng<i, or adopted by every valuer. On the contrary, as is plain enough, their adaption and furtherance will be vigorously resisted by many vested interests, as - to take just one instance - the furtherance of programmes for the determination of environmental sources of cancer is vigorously opposed by industrial chemical companies. The matter of persuading other valuers to accept values and principles of a new ethic is of course a further and somewhat separate issue from the question of need for such an ethic. The procedures for trying to effect changes in values are but variations on the usual pro­ cedures, and like them are not fully effective: excluding coercion and education, they include, for example, argumentation, and propaganda, in each case of many sorts. 31 As usual, too, where there is a broad common 32 basis, especially in felt evaluations and emotional presentation, effecting a change, or a conversion, will generally be an easier task. In the case of transformation to environmental values, what is often important are distinctive features regarding the factual bases of many of the evaluations. correcting In particular, there is the matter of removing or /Tztsoonooptions on a broad range of matters of Some of these sorts are considered in more detail in (c) J. Passmore, 'Ecological problems and persuasion' in FpnoZZtp arid Freedom. * JntornutZonoZ and Comparattvo c/nr-Zoprz/donoo (ed. G. Dorsey), Oceana Publications, New York, 1977, pp.431-42. The apposite term 'emotional presentation' is adapted from Meinong; see especially FwotZonaZ Prosentatton (trans. M.L. Schubert-Kalsi), Northwestern University Press, 1972. The notion of emotional present­ ation can play an important role in the explanation of how emotions enter into (environmental) evaluations, the objects evaluated (canyons, mountains, giant trees) often being emotionally presented. A little more precisely, the connections are these: A value ranking (e.g. c is better, more valuable, than d) of a valuer is explained emotionally through - it does not reduce to - certain preference rankings of the valuer; and the preference rankings have in turn dual factual and emotional bases, in the same sort of way that an item may be preferred or chosen in virtue of its factual features and the valuer's emotional responses to those. The main details of such a semantical analysis of value, which is discussed in §5, are given in Routley (c). 32 environmental concern; for example, about animals, their various behaviour, abilities, etc; about the alleged gulf between humans and other animals and the uniqueness of humans and each human; about the profitability, or desirability, or necessity, of environmentally destruct­ ive enterprises; about the inevitability of current Western social arrangements and about the history of the way these particular arrange­ ments developed. There is, moreover, the matter of sheer information, for example as to how free animals live together and what they do; about how factory and experimental animals are treated, and in the latter case for what: about the sources and effects of various forms of pollution and the reasons for it; about how natural creatures such as whales or environments such as forests are commonly dealt with, for what products, by what interests, for what ends. Naturally (given a fact/value division) none of this information is entirely conclusive support for a change in ethic; for many of the evaluations the data helps support can be included in other ethics (including sometimes modifications of prevailing ethics), while remaining evaluations can, at worst, be simply rejected (as e.g., those utilitarians who extend consideration just to sentient creatures are obliged to reject versions of the last man argument where no sentient creatures are affected). Although a new ethic is needed, for the reasons indicated, and although such an ethic can,furthermore, be a considerable asset in practical environmental argument (e.g., as to the point of trying to retain a piece of not-especially-unique near-wilderness), for many practical ecological purposes, there is no need to apply it or to fall back on it. For example, virtually the whole environmental issue of destructive forestry in Australia can be argued without invoking any unconventional ethical principles or values at all, i.e. entirely within the prevailing chauvinistic framework. wap??/ environmental disputes. The same sort of point applies to But, it by no means applies to all. A corollary is an inadequacy in the presentation of environmental problems and suggested solutions in standard (human) ecology texts Tssz^gs A. Erlich's (such as P. and FuoZ-Ctyz/, Freeman, San Francisco, 1970, to select one example), which are set erzf-freZz/ within the chauvinistic framework.^4 Also, differently, in the way that theories are in enabling one to see how to move and argue in a discussion. Quite properly given prevailing sentiments, according to some erring conservationists, who account themselves "realists". 33 Since it is sometimes charged - despite all that has been said - that an environmental ethic does not differ in practice from that of more conventional "chauvinistic" ethics, there is point in spelling out in yet other ways how it can differ in practice: Firstly, many conventional positions, in particular social contract and sympathy theories, cannot take proper account of moral obligation to future humans (who are not in the immediate future). Since the usual attempt to argue, in terms of value and benefit to humans, that natural areas and ecosystems generally should not be destroyed or degraded depends critically on introducing possible future humans who will suffer or be worse off as a result of its destruction or degradation, it is plain that an environ­ mental ethic will differ radically from such conventional positions. That is, the usual argument depends on the reduction of value of a natural item to the interests of present and /Izf^re humans, in which reduction future humans must play a critical role if conclusions not blatantly opposed to conservation are to be reached. Hence there will usually be a very great gulf between the practical value judgements of conservation ethics and those of conventional positions which discount the (nonimmediate) future. Secondly, as we have already seen through examples, there are practical differences between an environmental ethic and conventional instrumental views which dr take account of the interests of past, present and future humans, differences which emerge sharply at the It is, however, unnecessary to hypothetical (possible world) level. turn to possible world examples to see that normally there would be very great differences in the practical valuations and behaviour of those who believe that natural items can have value and create obligations not reducible (in any way) to human interests and those who do not, as the following further examples show. We need only consider the operation of irtersioraZ- corcepfs Example 1. Mif/zizz uctz^^Z- zjerZ-d, for example, the concept of duwupe to a natural item, and the associated notion of campezzsaffrr for that damage. C. Stone, for instance, in S/za^Zd Trees #are Sfardirp? Tdp^fs /dr /Vaf^raZ. dhj^efs Thus Tabards L^pcZ (Avon Books, New York, 1975) notes the practical legal differences between taking the damage to a polluted river as affecting its intrinsic value, and taking it as just affecting human river users. In the one case one will see adequate compensation as restoring the original state of the river (rectifying the wrong to the river) and in the other as compensating those present (or future) humans who will suffer from its pollution. As Stone points out, the sum 34 adequate to compensate the latter may well be much less than that required to restore the river to its unpolluted state, thus making it economic, and in terms of the human chauvinist theory, fair and reason­ able, to compensate those damaged and continue pollution of the river. In the first case, of course, adequate compensation or restoration for the harm done would have to consist in restoring the river to its unpolluted condition and will not just be paid to the people affected. Compare here Stone's example of compensation for injury to a Greek slave; in the instrumentalist case this will involve compensating the slave's owner for the loss of his slave's working time; in the other, where the slave is regarded as not merely an instrument for his owner, it will compensate the sZaue not the ozjyzer, for this compensation will also take account of the pain and suffering of the slave, even where this has not affected his working ability. There is a difference not only in the amount of compensation, but to zj/zow it is directed. In the case of a natural item damage may be compensated by payment to a trust set up to protect and restore it. The believer in intrinsic values may avoid making unnecessary and excessive noise in the forest, out of respect for the forest and its Example 2. nonhuman inhabitants. She will do this even when it is certain that there is no other human around to know the difference. For one to whom the forest and its inhabitants are merely another conventional utility, however, there will be no such constraint. He may avoid unnecessary noise if he thinks it will disturb other humans, but if he is certain none are about to hear him he will feel at liberty to make as much and as loud a noise as he chooses, and this will affect his behaviour. Examples like this cannot be dealt with by the introduction of future humans, since they will be unable to hear the noise in question. To claim that the making of noise in such circumstances is a matter of no importance, and therefore there is no important difference in behaviour, is of course to assess the matter through human chauvinist eyes. question-begging. From the intrinsic viewpoint it So such a claim is make a difference, and be reflected in practical behavioural difference. Example 3. Consider an aboriginal tribe which holds a particular place to be sacred, and where this sanctity and intrinsic valuableness and beauty is celebrated by a number of beautiful cave paintings. A typically "progressive" instrumentalist Western view would hold the cave (and perhaps place) to be worth preservation because of its value to the aboriginal people, and because of the artistic merit of the human arti­ facts, the cave paintings the cave contained. 35 To the "enlightened" Westerner, if the tribe should cease to exist, and the paintings be destroyed, it would be permissible to destroy the place if this should be in what is judged to be the best interests of human kind, e.g. to get at the uranium underneath. To the aboriginal the human artifacts, the cave paintings would be irrelevant, a celebration of the value of the place, but certainly not a surrogate for it, and the obligation to the place would not die because the tribe disappeared or declined. Similarly no ordinary sum of money would be able to compensate for the loss of such a place, in the way that it might for something conceived of as a utility or convenience, as having value only because of the benefits it confers on the "users" of it. There is an enormous /gZt or difference between feeling that a place should be valued or respected for itself, for its perceived beauty and character, and feeling that it should not be defaced because it is valued by one's fellow humans, and provides pleasurable sensations or money or convenience for them. Compare too the differences between feeling that a yellow robin, say, is a fellow creature in many ways akin to oneself, and feeling that it is a nice little yellow and grey, basically clockwork, aesthetic object. These differences in emotional presentation are accompanied by or expressed by an enormous range of behavioural differences, of which the examples given represent only a very small The sort of behaviour uurrarzteti by each viewpoint and thought by it, the concept of what one is free to do, for example, will normally be very different. It is certainly no coincidence that cultures sample. holding to the intrinsic view have normally been far less destructive of nature than the dominant Western human chauvinist culture. In summary, the claim that there is no reaZ practical difference, that the intrinsic value viewpoint is empty verbalisation, does not stand up to examination. The capacity - no doubt exaggerated, but nonetheless far from negligible - of Western industrial societies to solve their ecological problems (at least to their own pathetically low standards) within a chauvinistic framework, does considerably complicate, and obstruct, an alternative more practical argument to the need for a new ethic, t/ze arpMwezzt yrcm problems, that in no other way ... [than] prepared[ness] to accept a "new ethic", as distinct even from adding one or two new moral principles to an accepted common ... can modern industrial 35 societies solve their ecological problems. On next page. 36 Not only does the argument encounter various objections - most obviously that many of the problems can be solved, if not within Western ethics, in immediate extensions of them - but the case suggested would hardly be a satisfactory basis for the type of ethic sought. It is not so much that it would be a chauvinistic way of arriving at a supposedly nonchauvinistic ethic, for bad procedures can lead to good results; rather it is that important ecological problems, shaping environmental ethics, such as preservation of substantial tracts of wilderness and just treatment of animals, tend to be written off in industrial societies as not serious problems. But even if the argument suggested has too narrow a problem base, and so may yield too limited a change in attitudes as compared with the main theoretical argument, the argument merits fuller formulation and further investigation. The argument to need for ethical revision is as follows: (1) A satisfactory solution to environmental problems (of modern industrial societies) implies (the adoption of) an alternative (2) environmental ethic. A satisfactory solution to environmental problems is needed. Therefore, an alternative environmental ethic is needed. The argument is valid, given, what seems correct, that pimplies q implies that p is needed implies that q is needed. The second premiss is or can be made analytic, on the sense of 'satisfactory' 'satisfactory' imply 'needed'); (e.g. by having so the case is complete if the first premiss can be established (in the same sense of 'satisfactory'), and the conclusion is then plausible to at least the extent the premiss is. Al37 though the first premiss, or something like it, is widely endorsed, cogent 3 5 Passmore (c) op. cit., p.438. According to Passmore (p.431), By common consent, there are four major pollution, the exhaustion of resources, species, and overpopulation ... To solve such problems involves finding types of human conduct or of preventing having its present consequences. ecological problems: the destruction of a way either of altering that human conduct from In what follows the assumption that 'there are four major ecological problems' gets rejected. 36 Here and elsewhere, 'environmental' less interchangeably. and 'ecological' are used more or 37 Even Passmore, though previously (e.g. in (a)) highly critical of proposals for new ethics, gives qualified endorsement to an assumption of this sort ((c), p.441). ... I do not doubt, all the same, that our attitudes to nature stand badly in need of revision and that, as they stand, they form a major obstacle to the solution of ecological problems. 37 arguments for it are few and it is no simple matter rendering the premiss plausible. Moreover rendering it plausible involves a substant­ ial detour through social theory; for the case for the premiss proceeds along these sorts of lines: (3) Unless there are (certain) major changes in socio-economic structure, environmental problems will not be satisfactorily solved. (4) The major changes in socio-economic structure involve an alternative ethic. A much stronger thesis than (3) has been argued for using systems analysis, namely that without very extensive socio-economic changes, modern industrial society will collapse; but several of the assumptions made in the analysis are doubtful or disputed. independently of that stronger thesis; But (3) has been argued for example, it will follow from the thesis (of Falk, Commoner and others) 'that the modern industrial ethic as we have known it is not sustainable on ecological grounds'. 39 In a sense, (3) is obvious; for it is present socio-economic arrangements that have produced many of the present serious environmental problems; without major changes in those arrangements most of the problems will persist or, more likely, intensify. What is not immediately evident is that the major changes called for, in satisfying (3), suffice for (4). However reflection on the specific 'types of changes required - for example at a superficial level, human population limitation, reduction of poll­ ution, more sensible resource usage, selective economic growth - reveals that significant changes in value, and also in what is considered permissible, are bound to be involved in the changes. plausible, and therewith the intended conclusion. So (4) is decidedly But the argument leaves the detailed character of the needed alternative ethic rather obscure; and it may well be that the ethic so yielded is somewhat chauvinistic in character. The more practical argument cannot entirely supplant the main theoretical argument. In sum, there are good and pressing reasons to investigate the alternatives to chauvinistic ethics, especially human chauvinism, because such chauvinistic ethics are discriminatory, because the case for them 38 39 See, in particular, D. Meadows and others, T/ze Limits fa GrgzjfZz, Potomac Associates, Washington, D.C., 1972. R.A. Falk, 'Anarchism and world order', FVozncs IX, 1978, p.66. Falk refers for the case to B.Commoner, TTze CZrsizzy Circle, Knopf, New York, 1971; R.A. Falk, PZuzzef, Random House, New York. 1971; E. Goldsmith and others /or SMrrfzJuZ, Houghton and Miflin, Boston, 1972, and Meadows of uZ-., op. cit. 38 does not stand up to examination, and because they have been involved in the destruction of much of value and now threaten the viability of much that is valuable. §4 . ENVIRONMENTAL ALTERNATIVES : NARROWING THE CHOICE AMONG ENVIRONMENTAL ETHIC The basic-and basically mistaken-doctrine of the Western super-ethic is, as we have seen, that people, humans of whatever shape or form, are the fundamental carriers or objects of value and that all other items are valuable only in an instrumental or derivative way. It is important, in­ deed mandatory in a genuine environmental ethic, to reject this view and allow natural items to have a value in their own right, iz? t/ze same /as/ziazz as CzzaZzza^Ze? peapZe, both for the reasons outlined above, of the theoret­ ical unsatisfactoriness and arbitrariness of the traditional view, and for more practical reasons, namely, to help ensure the ecological sustain­ ability of modern society, and in optimising human welfare. It has often been pointed out that 'a totally humanised world would diminish us as 40 human beings', that the traditional view of humans, or classes of humans, as dominant, and of natural items as without value except where they serve human or class interests-a view that often carries contempt for nature leads not only to the destruction of much that is of value but (paradoxic­ ally) to counterproductive results even with respect to human welfare. Thus McHarg (in attractively coloured rhetoric):- Show me a man-oriented society inwhich it is believed that reality exists only because man can perceive it, that the cosmos is a struct­ ure erected to support man on its pinnacle, that man exclusively is divine and given dominion over all things, indeed that God is made in the image of man, and I will predict the nature of its cities and their landscape. I need not look far for we have seen them-the hot­ dog stands, the neon shill, the ticky-tacky houses, dysgenic city and mined landscapes. centric man; This is the image of the anthropomorphic, anthropo­ he seeks not unity with nature but conquest (op. cit.). The rejection of this view and its replacement by a view in which natural items can be regarded as of value and as worthy of our respect for themselves and not merely for what we can get out of them or what use we 40 See e.g. the discussion at pp.116-17 of (a) J. Rodman, 'The Liberation of nature', IzzgMfrz/, 20 (1977) 83-145. All subsequent references to Rodman's work without further indication are to this article. Note well that the rejection of human chauvinism does z?ot imply that no chauvinistic arguments - or rather, arguments that are usually stated in chauvinistic form - carry weight. On the contrary, some chauvinistic arguments (e.g. those supporting wilderness retention and species preservation) carry considerable weight; and, since the prevailing industrial ethics remain chauvinistic, environmentalists would be rash not to use them. 39 can make of them, is becoming increasingly widespread in parts of the environmental movement. It is this primarily that makes for an important ideological split in the conservation movement, between what Naess (op. cit.) called and Teep ecology, between those who see conservation as just a matter of wiser, better-controlled topper-term exploitation of the environment - something which is compatible with denying value to 42 ... everything except man ' and those who see it at least in part as involving a recognition of value for natural items independent of man, and hence as involving (at least to some extent) a Ttf^erept uttitp(7e to Mature. The first view, the long-term or erttpbteped e^ptoitatior view, which is closely tied to prevailing more enlightened economic assumptions, tends to make heavy use of the watershed term 'resource'; the problem of conserv­ ation is seen as one of 'zjfse pse of resources', a resource being something of use to humans or persons. On this view, which does not get beyond the confines of human chauvinism, and so is no direction for a satisfactory environmental ethic to take, items which have no perceivable use to man, i.e. non-resources, can be destroyed without loss; and the environmental problem is viewed as largely one of making people aware of the extent to which natural items and processes have frstr^meptut value, i.e. of how far we are dependent on them and they are of pse to us. There is no recognition either that some items might be valuable precisely because they are independent of man. Resource Conservation, or the shallow position, is the first of the 42 four ideal types that Rodman discerns in his investigation of the contemporary environmental movement. The deeper ecological position gets split under Rodman's division into three ideological positions - though Rodman prefers to put the matter in symbolic or experiential terms, in terms of forms of consciousness - namely Wilderness Preservation, Nature Moralism, and Ecological Resistance. Though the positions discerned are neither characterised in an exclusive fashion, nor exhaustive of ecological positions, and though we shall have to look beyond all the positions for a satisfactory environmental ethic, nonetheless they afford an excellent perspective on the main types of alternative positions that have been adopted by those within environmental movements. It is not uncommon to encounter attempts to write the shallow position into the very meaning or definition of copseraotiop, e.g. 'conservation is the use of resources to the greatest advantage of man', 4 Sprrep of /Ipstrotfap Forestry and tVood-Fused Ipd^strfes. Part PT. Prodpcttop Forestry Peretopmept PZup. Draft (31 October, 1974), p.ll - a blatantly chauvinistic account. On next page. 40 According to (Wilderness) Preservation, which focusses on wilderness, wilderness is to be preserved for the wilderness experience, wilderness offers a natural cathedral, a sacred place where human beings can transcend the limitations of everyday experience and become renewed through contact with the power of creation ((b), p.49). The values discerned in wilderness and natural landscape are primarily aesthetic and quasi-religious, or mystical, 'the experience of the holy is esthetically mediated'; what is valuable remains human experiences. Thus the Wilderness Preservation position does not move outside the sphere of human chauvinism, and can no more than Resource Conservation offer a frame for an environmental ethic. conclusion: Rodman reaches a similar Resource Conservation and Wilderness Preservation appear variations on the theme of wise use, the former oriented to the [efficient] production of commodities for human consumption, the latter to providing human amenities ((b), p.50). For this reason, the Wilderness Preservation position fails even on the score of justifying the preservation of wilderness - on the very task it was designed to accomplish - in a range of circumstances. Like other See especially (b) J. Rodman, 'Theory and practice in the environmental movement: notes towards an ecology of experience', in Search /or i?? a ^orZ-d^ International Cultural Foundation, New York, 1978, pp.45-56. Some of the types are portrayed in greater detail in other Rodman papers. The remainder of this largely new section on environmental ethical alternatives is heavily indebted, in ways the references mostly make plain, to Rodman's work. His work covers a vast range of interlinked topics; only those of immediate relevance have been touched upon. But there is very much in the remainder that repays careful reading, and TnMc/z to think about and to question or reject, reaching perhaps its lowest point in the paradoxical themes: Just as our statements about other people tend also to be concealed statements about ourselves, so statements about non­ human nature tend to be concealed statements about the human condition, and movements to liberate nonhuman nature tend also to be movements to liberate the repressed potentials of human nature (p.105). In part because these themes and the related myth of microcosm are taken seriously, and not for the evident falsehoods they are, in part because the ethical adequacy of the human/nonhuman distinction is never seriously questioned (e.g. it is taken for granted, what is not the case, that rights apply to humans and are problematic beyond them), and in part because of the characteristically chauvinistic emphasis on human experience and the endeavour to bring everything within that experiential purvue, and the associated weight assigned to human symbolic, mythic and ritual activities, one is left with the feeling, at the end of all the investigations one can profitably follow Rodman through, that one has not got beyond the confines of human chauvinism. 41 instrumentalist accounts of wilderness value, it breaks down entirely With examples like the Last Man, assuming that Mr. Last Man is never turned on by natural spendour. More alarmingly, under readily conceivable developments, it would allow the elimination of wilderness entirely. For consider the Wilderness Experience Machine, a low-impact low-tech philosophical machine, recently patented by I.M. Diabolic, which can duplicate entirely, even for groups of people, wilderness experiences, but in a downtown room. As far as the psychological experience goes, this machine can provide a complete substitute for any actual wilderness, and were the value of wilderness to reside in the experience it afforded, could entirely replace it and eliminate the alleged need for it. Most environmentalists would be (rightly) dissatisfied with, not to say appalled by, the idea that Wilderness Experience Machines could sub­ stitute for wildernesses, since they provided the same experiences. what else they wanted, the answer would of course be: Asked Wildernesses, not merely wilderness experiences. Wildernesses are valuable in their own right, over and above the experiences they can afford. 4 3 Really, that is, they consider wildernesses intrinsically valuable, but have been pushed by the prevailing ethical ethics into stating, and misrepresenting, their position in experiential terms. There is some independent evidence that the Wilderness Preservation position is frequently a disguised intrinsic value position, in the attitude taken to examples like the Last Man case, that purely hypothetical experiencers (who may vanish into counterfactuals) are good enough, and that in some real-life cases it is enough that wilderness is there to be contemplated, whether or not anyone actually takes advantage of its presence to gain experiences, or indeed whether or not it is in fact contemplated. Such examples remove the disguise and reveal the position as at bottom an intrinsic value position. In that event it is however better to avoid the disguise; for the case for wilder­ ness preservation which starts from the position that some wilderness tracts have intrinsic as well as merely instrumental value is substantially stronger than any position which assigns them merely instrumental value. Wilderness lovers and nature conservationists have in fact worked out - or concocted - a set of arguments to show why wildernesses and nature conservation are of benefit to humans, to argue for their instrumental The concept of too can vary with the operative ideology, e.g. on certain views, such as Wilderness Preservation, wilderness comprises areas that are (or provide the opportunity for use), e.g. used for experiential enrichment. By contrast, on a genuine Environ­ mental Resistance view, wilderness is a wild area, use of which is not implied: it may never be used, and it may not matter that it affords no opportunity for (human) use. (Under popular high redefinition of 'wilderness', there are of course no wildernesses remaining on the earth, and wilderness vanishes as soon as humanly experienced.) 42 value. For example, there are various arguments from the scientific value, or usefulness, of wilderness, e.g. for the study of natural eco­ systems, for the investigation of plant history and evolution, as a repository of genetic diversity, etc. These arguments, which (like parallel arguments for species preservation) are not to be especially as regards persuasive force, can be put in nonchauvinistic form; for science and knowledge are not linked essentially with, for example, the feature of being human. Often however - e.g. where the wilderness defended has, so far as it is known, little that is very special to offer - such arguments appear to be merely a conventional front for the real (or deeper) reasons - and in seme instances, correspondingly weak and unpersuasive (as Fraser Darling has remarked, and Passmore has tried to show in (a)) - the real reasons being based on the perception of nonuseful properties of value. This is particularly marked in the case of arguments for preserving the most complex and beautiful of the world's plant communities, tropical rainforest. Such arguments as that various uninvestigated rainforest trees may at some time be found to contain useful drugs, by no means exhaust the true value of the rainforest. For it is in the intrinsic, i.e. noninstrumental, value of the rainforest that the main reason for not unduly interfering with it, e.g. not interfering in ways that threaten its stability or viability, lies. In particular, destruction of a wilderness, such as a rainforest, would significantly diminish intrinsic value, and so should (in general) be resisted. Environmentalists who are aware of these sorts of problems and dangers with resource use approaches to wilderness preservation sometimes attempt to formulate their alternative view in terms of one of the lesser traditions, most popularly in terms of the image, in which man is seen as the steward of the earth - an analogy which, as Passmore points out (in (a)), is problematic outside a religious context. For who is man steward to? If not to God, then how is the analogy to be unpacked, and what conditions must "stewardship" conform to? If "good stewardship" is management in the interests of humans, or humanity, then the position does not go beyond Resource Conservation; if it is manage4 4 ment to serve intrinsic values, or God, then good stewardship is but a cover for the recognition of intrinsic values, which are better introduced directly. Thus admitting values which are not instrumental, which do not answer back in some way to states or conditions of humans is a feature of all satisfactory deeper ecological alternatives. In order to allow for such intrinsic values and/or associated attitudes of respect, e.g. for On some interpretations; chauvinism. on others theism may serve to reinforce human 43 nature and various natural things, it is however unnecessary to adopt a religious backdrop such as the "Good Stewardship" image suggests, or even a semi-religious framework such as a mystical or superstitious one with taboos and sacred places as symbolic and ritual elements. A theory of intrinsic value which assigns intrinsic value to wilderness and species of free animals, for good reasons, can be entirely naturalistic (in a main sense of that much-abused term). The third, somewhat amorphous, cluster of positions Rodman describes, noninstrumental, value to natural items, such as - on some versions of the position wilderness. Nature Moralisms, do just that, assign intrinsic, f/zat [An] alternative perspective ... [to] the theme of wise use 4 5 ... is provided by the tradition growing out of the humane movement, recently radicalised by animal liberationists, and sometimes generalised to embrace non-animal beings as well. In contrast to the economic ethos of Resource Conservation and the religious/ esthetic character of Wilderness Preservation, this perspective is strikingly moral in style. Its notion of human virtue is not prudence or reverence, but justice. In contrast to the caste­ bound universe of the Resource Conservationist, the Natural Moralist affirms the democratic principle that all natural entities (or, more narrowly, all forms of life) have intrinsic value, and that wild animals, plants, rivers, and whole ecosystems have a right to exist, flourish and reproduce - or at least that human beings have no right to exploit or unnecessarily harm or destroy other members of the biotic community. In contrast to the aristo­ cratic universe of Wilderness Preservation, where some places (and some forms of recreation) are holier than others and certain types of natural entities ... are traditionally more worthy of being saved than others ..., the world of the Nature Moralist is characterised by an apparent egalitarianism ((b), p.50^ my rearrangement). Each of the sweep of environmental alternatives indicated can be seen as an of conventional Western ethics: intrinsic value is extended uniformly to all animals or certain favoured features of all these, e.g. their experience, happiness, avoidance of suffering, or is extended to all living creatures or systems, or is extended to all natural items or even to objects - it may or may be distributed uniformly or equally; Human use and human experience, it might be added. 44 rather independently, rights may be ceded to all animals, or to some or all living things, or to all things, or, alternatively and differently, right-holders' rights with respect to some or other of these classes are restricted; and similarly other deontic notions, justice, obligation, even perhaps duty, may extend to apply to larger classes of items than all humans or persons. The sweep, which is impressive, is intended to include both extended utilitarianisms, e.g. Bentham's utilitarianism as revamped by Singer according to which all sentient creatures are entitled to equal consider­ ation of interest, and extended (legal) rights doctrines, e.g. the assignment of rights or legal standing to all natural objects as suggested by, for instance, Stone.it also includes Darwin's ethic and Leopold's "land ethic". 4 7 In order to capture some of the intended examples of Nature Moralists, and all the Moral Extension positions, Rodman's characterisation requires some adjustment - which will be taken for granted in what follows. For example, Singer and other animal liberation- ists do not assign intrinsic value to all forms of life, or even to all animals; but (as Rodman is well aware) to all sentient creatures; that is, further classifications have to be taken into account. The egalitarian, or uniformity, assumptions that serve in character­ ising Natural Moralism are mistaken. Not all objects are of equal value; some are more valuable then others, while some have little or no value (and some have a negative value). Impressive though the sweep of extensions is, all the positions indicated should be rejected on one ground or another, and sometimes on several grounds. Against positions which do not extend the class of objects of moral concern and candidates for value to include all objects, variants of the counterexamples to the Western super-ethic can be directed. Consider, for instance, the positions (of usual animal liber- ationists) which extend the moral boundaries just to include sentient creatures (or e.g. preference-havers). Adapt the Last Man and Last People examples, the Wilderness example, etc., by removing all (inessential) animals from the examples, e.g. the wilderness contains no animals, in the Last People situation there are no other animals than the 46 p. singer, *??; E-ZEerafZc /VeD Random House, New York, 1975; C. Stone, op. cit. 47 at least on a straightforward reading of Leopold's eventual position: but not according to Rodman; see his contrast of Leopold with Stone, p.110. Darwin's ethic, which anticipates Leopold's, is presented in C. Darwin, Second edition, J. Murray, London, 1883. 48 On next page. 45 last people themselves. Then the counterexamples apply as before against the liberation positions. It is unnecessary to go quite so far afield to fault such positions, at least in practice: facts of experience: as.Rodman might put it, they are countered by the ... I need only to stand in the midst of a clear-cut forest, a strip-mined hillside, a defoliated jungle, or a dammed canyon to feel uneasy with assumptions that could yield the conclusion that no human action can make any difference to the welfare of anything but sentient animals (p.89). But an advantage of the counterexamples is that the same examples, among many others (e.g. situations devoid of sentient creatures, situations where the message of experience conflicts with justice or fairness), reveals the erroneousness of the well-sponsored thesis, a simple analogue of empiricism, that all value 49 derives from experience (of experiential, or sentient, objects). A corollary is that value is not to be assessed either, in any simple way, in terms of the facts of experience. Insofar as Nature Moralism relies upon simple extensions of utilitarianisms, or of subjectivisms, to include a larger class of subjects, (a larger base class), such as all present sentient creatures, or all preference-havers at any one time, * etc., it is open not merely to adaptations of the argument against chauvinism (animal chauvinism is not that much more satisfactory than human chauvinism), but most of the Nor, on Moral Extensions, need all objects that have rights have equal rights. Rights may not be very democratically distributed. Some things have rights, e.g. as a result of agreements, of a sort others do not hold or are not capable of holding. Even rights to exist, to flourish and to reproduce (each case is different) are in much doubt where there is scarcity or conflict and where some right holders are taken to be worth much more than others. Nor are such leading examplars of Natural Moralism as Singer and Stone, though they are concerned to extend principles of justice, committed to equality of rights assumptions. Stone explicitly rejects equal distribution of rights; but the principle that all natural objects are equal in having rights, which really says no more than that they all have rights, is at best a very weak egalitarian principle. Singer offers (and presumably would offer) no equality of rights principle, rejects an equality of treatment principle, and proposes as a principle of equality a (near vacuous) principle of equal consideration of interests. Not, this time, knowledge. But amusingly "value empiricism" collapses into empiricism proper given the Socratic identification: Value (generalising Virtue) is knowledge. The only natural stopping point under value empiricism is, of course, with all creatures that have (or could have) the relevant experiences: again not with humans. 46 standard objections to utilitarians, subjectivisms, etc. Many versions of Nature Moralism may than be defeated on rather conventional grounds. There emerges, further, a dilemma for extensions. Either the crucial notions of right and intrinsic value are extended to all sentient creatures (experience-havers), in which case the objections just lodged apply, or they are extended more sweepingly, e.g. to all natural objects. But the latter involves attributing to such items attributes they do not have, most obviously rights to such objects as stones; it also violates the conditions that have to be met for the holding of rights and for the entitlement of rights. Thus, for example, Stone considers underpinning his extension of rights, beyond sentient creatures in the ordinary sense - or of legal rights beyond recognised "legal persons" - by a postulate of 50 universal sentience or consciousness; in short, by an unacceptable metaphysics, or myth. There are several further objections which work against many versions of Natural Moralism to which Rodman draws attention: (1) Moral Extensions are 'inadequate to articulate the intention that sustains the [environmental] movement' wilderness preservation movements. (p.88), specifically wilderness and It takes but little argument to show that utilitarian ethics, such as Singer's, so far from assisting the environmental movement, can (if adopted) reinforce the case wilderness and preservation of wild species. But an extension like Stone's extension of legal rights can help, and has helped, at least in the courts where its meta-physical underpining is unlikely to be glimpsed. The basic point is however that the rights talk does not connect with, and is insensitive to, the experiential basis. Mere extensions of moral notions such as interest or right or justice are insufficient to treat and do just­ ice to the multi-dimensional depth of environmental issues, such as the damming of a river (p.115). Part of the reason is said to be that the usual moral aparatus, which was evolved in the case of certain person-to-person See Rodman's discussion, pp.92-3. But Rodman overstates his case in claiming that 'some such postulate as universal consciousness is there­ fore necessary if the notion of rights for trees is not to seem a rootless fancy'. For, as explained below, extended rights can be defined by a rather "natural extension" of the familiar notion of right, without any such postulate; and grounds of entitlement can be traced back to value of the items. Certainly extended rights sever what linkage there may have been between rights and liabilities, but with the modern separations of rights from responsibilities that linkage was already damaged or broken. 47 relations, is inadequate for getting to grips with a new dimension of moral experience, that concerned with environment, and inadequate to reflect ecological sensibility. Rodman tries to press, however, a much stronger, and rather more dubious, theme, the SsZZ-onf thesis: By adapting the moral/legal theory of 'rights', [the movement] may sell its soul, its roots in mythic and ritual experience, to get easier judicial standing (p.88); and more savagely, the progressive extension model of ethics, while holding out the promise of transcending the homocentric perspective of modern culture, subtly fulfills and legitimates the basic project of modernity - the total conquest of nature by man (p.97, also p.119). While neither of these large claims is strictly true - soul-selling is simply avoided through adoption of the notion of extended-right, which can yield a conservative extension of the original position; and even utilitarians may be committed to blocking projects which threaten free animals - each has a substantial point. Part of the point behind the latter claim is worth developing separately:(2) Moral Extensions typically cast natural objects, notably animals, in the role of inferior humans, 'legal incompetents', imbeciles, human vegetables, and the like. They are ... degraded by our failure to respect them for having their own existence, their own character and potentialities, their own forms of excellence, their own integrity, a degradation usually reflected in our reduction of 'them to the status of instruments for our own ends', and not removed 'by "giving" them rights, by assigning them to the status of inferior human beings' (p.94). Many of us know where the treatment of natural objects as mere means The mistaken treatment of them for human ends tends to lead and has led. as inferior humans, a treatment which fails to see and 'respect the otherness of nonhuman forms of life', leads in the same direction. For given that animals, for example, are inferior, it is legitimate to treat them also as inferior; a greater value principle, which moral extensions typically endorse, yields a similar result. The needs of increasing populations of superior humans will eventually outweigh, if they do not do so already, the cases of inferior inhabitants of this finite earth for the retention of their natural habitats. 48 For their rights and their In the larger perspective, the Moral values will be less than "ours". Extensions, with their built-in greater value assumptions, do legitimate the conquest of nature by humans. Thus too they fail seriously, on what will soon enough be quite practical grounds, as satisfactory environmental ethics. (3) The extensions, like the parent ethics which they extend, are narrowly individualistic, and insufficiently holistic. This is particularly conspicuous in the case of utilitarianisms, which in principle arrive at all assessments by some sort of calculations, e.g. summations and perhaps averaging, from an initially given unit conforming to requisite equality conditions, e.g. equal consideration, equal units of suffering. In practice of course the method is, almost invariably, to pretend that the calculations will yield results which agree with alternatively and previously arrived at, usually intuitive, often prejudiced, evaluations; that is, in practice the method is not applied except in a handwaving back-up fashion. The method is not applied in part because there are serious, well enough known, problems in applying it. The individualistic bias carried over in other moral extensions, e.g. any experiential theory, likewise limits their satisfactoriness. It is to understate the matter to say merely that 'the moral atomism that focuses on individual animals and their subjective experiences does not seem well adapted to coping with ecological systems' (p.89), 'to explore the notion of shared habitat and the notion that an organism's relationship to its natural environment may be an important part of the organism's character' ((b), p.52). A moral atomism that focuses on individuals, discounting their interrelations, is bound to result in ecological complexes that matter (such as ecosystems, wilderness, and species) getting seriously short-changed. To illustrate:- Under atomism, the value of a complex, or the rights of a complex, amount to no more than those of its individual members; but since these are, in isolation from the complex, no more valuable than other things of their order, e.g. one gentian than another, a bush rat from a Norwegian rat, there no special merit in a complex, or rights attaching to it, in virtue of its rareity or uniqueness or special features as a complex. Thus, for instance, a utilitarianism under which only individual animals count assigns, and can assign, no special value to species, and can (as remarked) be used to argue against preservation of species: Since all animals are equal - or at least all animals of the same genus are more or less equal - one can substitute for another. Fora rare species of rat to die out painlessly cannot matter while there are plenty of other rats. A rights theory is in similar difficulties so long 49 as rights are assigned only to individuals, taken in isolation from their environmental setting (i.e. only to the usual separable individuals of philosophical theory). These problems may be avoided, in part, by assign­ ing rights to complexes (given the notion of rights will take that much further stretching; which it will not if right holders are assumed to be conscious or to be preference-havers), and by attributing independent value to complexes. But, since the value of a whole is sometimes more than the sum of the separable values of its individual members, this move involves the rejection of usual atomism, utilitarianisms in particular. The objection against the narrow individualism of the extensions - a defect they share with standard ethics which do not admit of ready extension, such as contract theories - soon broadens into an objection that these extensions are built on an inadequate metaphysics, a metaphysics of rather isolated individuals who (or which) are seriously depauperate in An ethics presupposes a metaphysics at their relations with other objects. least through its choice of base class: thus for example, usual homocen- tric formulations of utilitarianisms and contract theories suppose a base class of narrowly self-interested humans. The remedy is not (as Rodman suggests in various places in his elaboration of Ecological Resistance) to move to holism: to do so would be to accept the other half of a false dichotomy mainstream philosophical thought engenders (cf. Routley (g), this volume). It is rather to move to a metaphysics that is built on a concept­ ion of objects (which may or may not be individuals) which are rich in their interrelations and connections. In summary, the moral extensions are the wrong direction in which to seek a satisfactory environmental ethic. But the failure of Nature Moralism does not mean, as Rodman tends to assume, that all positions that are moral in style are thereby ruled out. 51 For one thing, Nature Moralism, as characterised (or generalised), is far from exhaustive of the range of prima facie viable moral positions. More satisfactory positions will simply avoid the damaging assumptions of Nature Moralism (and likewise those of inadequate ethical positions, such as contract theories or naturalism, and those linking morality to legality; For another, if the quest is for an ruled out. cf. p.103). moral notions can hardly be Even if it is assumed that the call for a 'new ethic' is 'to guide the human/nature relationship (p.95) - a somewhat unfortunate way of putting it - whereas what matters is the human/nature relationship itself, and that in coping with that relation fixation on morality or 51 His thesis of the 'limitation of the moral/legal stage of unconscious­ ness' is investigated in more detail in what follows. 50 legality is a serious handicap, and may contribute to the problem of the relationship rather than helping solve it (pp.103-4); still part of the problem is that of indicating entitlements of agents with respect to their environment, what sort of exploitation, if any, is permissible, what the limits on conventional morality are, and discovering 'a larger normative order within which we and our species-specific moral and legal systems (p.97). have a niche' Nor, in outlining Ecological Resistance, does Rodman shrink from using - he could not avoid the effect of - axiological terms such as 'good' and deontic terms such as 'should'; he does not doubt, for example, that some of what is natural that is threatened is valuable and that threats to it should be resisted; and he admits that 'prudence, justice, and reverence may be essential parts of a[n ecologic­ ally] good life'. Ecological Resistance, which is said to be the alternative 'most faithful to the integrity of experience', exhibits indeed the negativity of resistance. The position is founded on action, resistance, and theory only emerges retrospectively (if perhaps at all). Its (insufficiently qualified) central principle is 'that diversity is natural, good and threatened by the forces of monoculture'. The struggle between these forces, diversity and monoculture - between (ecological) good and evil - occurs in several different spheres of experience, i.e. at various levels, which reflect one another. Resistance is not undertaken for self-interest or utilitarian reasons, or for moral reasons, or for religious or mystical reasons (such as preventing profanation), but because the threat to the [natural object or system] ... is perceived aZso as a threat to the self, or rather to the principle of diversity and spontaneity that is the endangered side of the basic balance that defines and sustains the very nature of things ((b), p.54). The disjunction, 'or', separates however two rather different (though combin­ able) reasons-cum-motives for resistance. The second disjunct yields the following reasons for resistance (which are linked by a metaphysical assumption connecting diversity and spontaneity with the nature of things): (i) The threat to the natural item is a threat to the principle of diversity and spontaneity. So, by the central principle, it is a threat to what is good, etc. (ii) The threat to the natural object 'is a threat to the very nature of things': (as to how consider the example of the wild river threatened by a dam, p.115). So - by an unstated, but nonetheless implied and assumed, principle, that the very nature of things is good (and natural) it is a threat to the forces of good. 51 The first disjunct yields form: a further, different, argument; in simplest (iii) The threat to the natural object is a threat to oneself. What is a threat to oneself is bad and to be resisted, so what is a threat to the natural object is bad and has to be resisted (since what is bad should, in general, be resisted). Although the arguments are valid, the underlying principles are faulty; for instance, the diversity (and spontaneity) principle because it is too simple (and so too does not harmonize with the nature of things); and the second principle, the intrinsic merit of the very nature of the things, because not everything that is the case or is natural is meritor­ ious, e.g. genuinely natural disasters. Rodman plans to avoid obstacles to adopting nature as an absolute standard and, at the same time, to bridge the gap the principle spans, by resort to a version of naturalism which equates 'the "natural" with the "moral"' (pp.96-7). But for well- known reasons which can be supported (e.g. those telling against objective ethics of the sort such naturalism would yield), substantive evaluative assumptions cannot be removed in this fashion; though they can be suppressed, they reappear as soon as connections between empirical The trouble, characteristic of reductionism, arises from the mistaken attempt grounds and evaluative judgments based upon them are queried. to collapse a grounding, or founding, relation to an identity, to close the gap - which is not problematic but is widely thought to be problem­ atic - between value and empirical fact by a reduction of value to fact, of the thesis that evaluative features are grounded on natural features to the thesis that evaluative features are nothing but certain natural 52 features (e.g. to be good is just to have certain natural features). 52 Rodman interprets naturalistically the statement of Jonas's that he quotes approvingly (p.95): Only an ethic which is grounded in the breadth of being, not merely in the singularity or oddness of man, can have significance in the scheme of things ... an ethics no longer founded on divine authority [or upon human arete], must be founded on a principle discoverable in the nature of things ... . He interprets it in terms of 'an ontologically-grounded moral order in the "the phenomenon of life" or "the nature of things".' In this way can be avoided the reduction of 'the quest for an ethics ... to prattle about "values" taken in abstraction from the "facts" of experience'. But Jonas's statement can be construed nonnaturalistically, by taking the founding or grounding relation seriously, as connecting, but not reducing, values to empirical facts. So construed the statement does help in delineating the sort of environmental ethics sought. 52 Such reductions commit the naturalistic and prescriptive fallacies - which can be avoided neither by thinking 'our way through or around them' (p.97), nor by holistic assimilation of morality in a 'more encompassing ethical life' (p.103 and note 66). But details of the fallacies need not detain us, since we can consider immediately Rodman's important suggestion 53 for circumnavigating them (pp.103-4). Under natural social conditions, such as are obtained in some traditional societies and in some free animal societies (as ethological studies reveal), but have been lost in modern societies, law and morality, at least in their coercive aspects, would disappear, as they did in William Morris's /row and somewhat as they would in a Kantian community of fully autonomous beings. In terms of modern physics, morality and law are not invariants but vary under transformation of axes, and in fact vanish or prove eliminable under a suitable transformations, e.g. to a natural condition. There is a similar natural condition for morality and legality, a condition in which the prohibitions now prescribed 54 by God, Conscience and the State would have operated "naturally" (i.e. from inside the organism, as a matter of course), and patterns now stated prescriptively could have been stated descriptively. When the Way is abandoned, then we get Humanity and Justice (Tac Te #18) (p.103). Even if a change of social axes could place us back on the Way, or on the way to the Way, morality is not really avoidable in our local frame where we are far from the Way. So ethical disputes over environmental matters 55 are also unavoidable; * for those a satisfactory ethic is a desideratum, and can help in bringing about a change of social axes. Thus too, the identity of the prescriptive with the descriptive, of "ought" with (suitable) "is", is a merely contingent (extensional) one and fails in 53 The suggestion helps explain not only Rodman's naturalism, but his thesis of the limitation of morality and legality; it also introduces the anarchistic social change view that suffuses much of the (very uneven) later parts of (a): the view appears therein as the elabor­ ation of what is 'unthinkable'. 54 Given prevailing socio-economic conditions it should be rather: that would (ideally) be prescribed. Let us hope, for environmental reasons, that the principles that are lived by in natural conditions bear not too great a resemblance to those now prescribed. 55 Nor is there, in the local frame, much alternative but to resort to legal strategies, where they can be applied (where standing is granted), to delay "the war against nature". 53 alternative situations; hence, as always, there is no deduction of "ought" from "is", since deducibility would require coincidence in the alternative situations. Nor would morality - as distinct from legality, which requires some codification - strictly disappear under natural conditions, though its coercive aspects would: on the whole, as they ought to be. things would simply be, But while deontology would have a much diminished role (as it does on the preferred environmental ethic), axiology (the theory of value) would still have its place - some objects (e.g. diverse landscapes) would be more valuable than others (monocultural landscapes), some not valuable, etc. (As things stand, of course, axiology does have an important place in working out the theory of Ecological Resistance, especially in assessing its central principle of diversity.) The upshot is that without much elaboration (like that indicated below) of an axiological kind, which connects value through a grounding relation, as distinct from an identity, with the run of things (but not aZZ things) that are natural, reason (ii) for ecological resistance fails. Does reason (i), which is premissed on the central principle that diversity is good and natural and threatened by monoculture, fare any better? While it is a matter of fact that that diversity is threatened, indeed is being very rapidly reduced by the forces of monoculture, diver­ sity is not, as opponents of ecological values are wont to point out, an entirely unqualified good. Nor is diversity is always natural: a temperate rain forest can be "enriched" and rendered more diverse by interplanting of exotics (a practice foresters have applied, e.g. in New Zealand) but the result is not natural and sometimes at least bad. Or, differently, ecological diversity can often be increased by increasing edges between ecosystems, but the practice of increasing edges can easily be unnatural and far from good, as, e.g. in rainforest logging with (say) 50% canopy retention. So although a reduction of diversity is commonly bad, since the reduction reduces the quality of an ecological whole, and increase in diversity good, diversity can not be accepted as a solo principle. In fact, Rodman often couples diversity with other factors, such as naturalness (inadmissible in determining, noncircularly, what is good and natural), richness, spontaneity and integrity, which help to remove various of the counterexamples to a diversity principle. The procedure points in the direction to be pursued: replacement of the oversimple principle of diversity by a principle combining all relevant ecological factors. After all ecological sensibility - ecological resist­ ance is assumed to be the position of the person of ecological sensibility requires sensitivity to all such ecological factors. 54 Once it is determined through consideration of a mix of ecological factors, that, or whether, a natural object is good or valuable the reasons for resistance can be restated: (iv) Where a natural object is valuable - as c/fe?? natural objects are, a natural object does not have to be very ecologically distinctive to be valuable - the threat to the natural object is a threat to what is But, other things being equal, threats to what is valuable valuable. should be resisted. So, similarly, threats to natural objects should often be resisted - and always (on whatever level) resisted where the objects are valuable and the costs of resisting are not overridingly high (to begin to spell out the ceteris paribus clause). It remains to tie in reason (iii), a key premiss of which can now take the initial form that the threat to a valuable natural object is a threat to oneself. A threat to what is valuable, to what one as a valuer values, is a threat to the valuer, to oneself, for these are one's values. To make some of those connections good again requires an excursion into axiology, one, this time, that connects what is valuable with a valuer's values. But Rodman, in trying to connect the threats to natural objects and to oneself, is forced further afield, and resorts to the myth of microcosm: 'Ecological Resistance involves a ritual affirmation of the Myth of Microcosm' universe' (OED). ((b), p.5.4), i.e'. the view of man 'as epitome of the While such an affirmation - without the ritual - would yield the requisite connection, it is a classic piece of anthropocentric- ism, quite hostile to a nonchauvinistic position, and, fortunately, inessential to genuine ecological resistance. What Rodman reaches for from the myth (which could be restated in terms of without its classic homocentric bias) is however extremely important: it is an account of the which is not a separate subject isolated from its (natural) environment (as a Humean individual is),56 but is connected intensionally and causally interrelated with that environment. Rodman introduces this metaphysics in rather old-fashioned terms: Ecological Resistance ... assumes a version of the theory of internal relations: the human personality discovers its structure through interaction with the nonhuman order. I am what I am at least partly in my relation to my natural environment, and changes in that environ­ ment affect my own identity. If I stand idly by and let it be destroyed, a part of me is destroyed or seriously deranged ((b) p. 54). Not Man Apart, in the terms of Friends of the Earth. 55 For among my interests are its interests, part of my welfare is its 57 welfare; I am identified in part with it. The metaphysics deepens, A resister 'does not stand over against then, the reasons for resistance. "his environment" as manager, sight-seer, or do-gooder; integral part of [it]' he is an ((b), p.56). But the environmental metaphysics, that underlies and helps support the ethics, that is part of a fuller environmental theory, need not be, and should not be if it is to be coherent, as (Hegelian and) holistic as Rodman immediately goes on to suppose that it is: ... By making the principle of diversity central, Ecological Resistance can incorporate the other three perspectives as moments within the dialectic of a larger whole. Economics, morality, and an esthetic religiosity have niches in the ecology of our experience of nature, and each has its limits (p.56 continued). But a principle of diversity which opposes the forces of monoculture will not yield pluralism, unless illegitimately extrapolated to theories where its merit is much less evident, especially when some of these theories are not only mutually inconsistent but false. Rodman risks the distinctive features of Ecological Resistance for a dubious synthesis. It is only true that the positions can be combined if the first three positions are limited indeed, and then a trivial combination with each theory working where it works (which may be nowhere actual in the case of the religious component) can be managed. Moreover Ecological Resistance properly developed, will lead to economic and ethical theories which compete with the rather conventional, and environmentally defective theories of, respectively, Resource Conservation and Natural Moralism. Not only is Ecological Resistance severely handicapped by having implausible holistic theses tacked in to it (not all of which have been discussed); further, Ecological Resistance is too negative. A more positive theory - which includes a theory of value and, ultimately, for a fuller environmental position, a metaphysics - is required, not only for orientation and to meet felt needs of environmentalists already noted, but for more effective, coherent and systematic resistance. It is but a short step to the 'fully ecological sensibility [which] knows with Carl Sandburg that:' There is an eagle in me ... and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want ... . And I got the eagle ... from the wilderness, (p.118) The poem almost admits of neutral logical formalisation. 56 trees, kill everything f/xe Farf/z, (ed. T.C. McLuhan, Sphere Books, London, 1973, p.15). The great care with which so many of the Indians utilized every portion of the carcass of a hunted animal was an expression, not of economic thrift, but of courtesy and respect (D. Lee, in Farf/z, p.15)- What the respect position is based on is the fact that it is possible to make use of something without treating it as something which is no more than a means to one's ends. That is, it is possible to make use of some­ thing in limited, constrained ways - with constraints which may not derive entirely from considerations of the welfare of other humans, as in the case of the Indians' use of animals - without treating it as available for any kind of use. To so use something without treating it as available for unlimited or unconstrained use for human ends is characteristic of use. In contrast non-respectful use treats the use of the item as constrained by no considerations arising from the item itself and the user's relationship to it, but as constrained only in a derivative way, by considerations of the convenience, welfare and so forth of other humans. The Western view, as the Indians realised, is the non-respect position, that the world is available for unconstrained human use. People who hold respect positions, such as the Indians, see such a position as indicative of a lack of moral sensitivity, and sometimes in even stronger terms. The conventional wisdom of Western society tends to offer a false dichotomy of use versus respectful nonuse - a false choice which comes out especially clearly again in the treatment of animals. Here the choice presented in Western thought is typically one of edf/zer use without respect or serious constraint, of using animals for example in the ways character­ istic of large-scale mass-production farming and a market economic system which are incompatible with respect, or on the other hand of not making any use of animals at all, for example, never making use of animals for food or for farming purposes. What is left out in this choice is the alternative the Indians and other non-Western people have recognised, the alternative of limited and respectful use, which enables use to be made of animals, but does not allow animals to be used in an unconstrained way or merely as a means to human ends. Such an alternative can have some applic­ ation in a Western context (for some limited examples of respectful use in the operations of a small farmer, see John Seymour, CompZtsfe Faber, London, 1976). A limited and respectful use position would condemn the infliction of unnecessary pain on animals, and also the treatment of animals as machines, as in factory farming. 84 It would also condemn unecessary and wasteful killing and especially killing for amusement or "sport", which is incompatible with respect and assumes that animals can be used merely as a means for human ends. But it would not necessarily oppose the use of animals in the case of approp­ riate non-trivial need, e.g. for food, although here again it would insist that the ways in which use can be made are limited, and not just by considerations of effect on other humans. The limited and respectful use position avoids some of the serious problems of the no-use position of the animal liberationists, although it shares many of the same beliefs concerning the illegitimacy of factory farming and similar disrespectful methods of making use of and exploiting animals. The no-use position faces the problem that it proposes that humans should treat animals in ways which are quite different from the ways in which animals treat one another, for example, prohibiting needful use for food. Thus the no-use position seems obliged to say either that the world would be a better place without carnivores, or else that carnivorous animals themselves are inferior, immoral, moral creatures - whichever, alternative amoral or non- is taken here the bulk of animals emerge as inferior to humans, or at least vegetarian humans. It implies too that an impoverished natural order which lacked carnivores - and given what we know of ecology this would be a very highly impoverished one indeed, not to say an unworkable "natural" order - is preferable to a rich natural one with a normal proportion of carnivorous and partly carnivorous species. carnivores, Since it would imply the moral inferiority of the no-use position appears to arrive at the negation of its own starting point, (as regards e.g., the equality consideration) of all animals, human and non-human. In thus seeing humans as capable of a moral existence which most animals are not capable of, it sees man as apart from a largely amoral, (or immoral) natural world, denies community with the animal and natural world,and indirectly reinforces human chauvinism. §6. TOWARDS AN ENVIRONMENTAL PHILOSOPHY: A PRELIMINARY SKETCH OF THE EXTENT OF PHILOSOPHICAL REVISION ENSUING ON ABANDONMENT OF CHAUVINISTIC ETHICS A radical change in a theory not uncommonly forces changes elsewhere - conceptual revision which affects not only the theory itself but many neighbouring areas. The phenomenon is well-known in the case of major physical theories, but it holds as well for ethical and philosophical theories; for example, a logical theory which rejects the Reference Theory in a thoroughgoing way has important repercussions throughout much of the rest of philosophy, and requires modification not only of logical 85 systems and their semantics, but also, for instance, of the usual meta­ theory which also accepts the Reference Theory and indeed which is 95 tailored to cater only for logics which do conform. A thorough-going environmental ethics likewise has a substantial impact and forces many changes. The escape from human chauvinism not only involves sweeping changes in ethical principles and value theory but it induces substantial'reverberations elsewhere - both inwards, for example in metaphysics, in epistemology, and in the philosophy and method­ ology of science, and outwards (in subjects that presuppose value theory) in social theory, in politics, in economics and in law, and beyond. For human chauvinism is deeply embedded in Western culture, and affects not only the ideology and the institutions but the arts. Thus, for example, much of literature, and especially of ballet and film, is given over to a celebration of things human, of the species. Even the timely new emphasis, for instance of the counterculture, on human relations (as opposed to self- contained private individuals of social theories) remains well within the inherited chauvinistic framework. As to the changes, let us begin again with ethics. As we have begun to see, an environmental ethic can retain, though in a much amended theoretical framework (which affects meanings of terms), virtually all the standard ethical terminology. But even at a superficial syntactical level, there will be conspicuous alterations: firstly, ethical terminology will be enriched with new environmental terms, drawn in particular from ecology, somewhat as it was expanded in the late nineteenth century by terminology from evolutionary theories; and secondly, accompanying the attitudinal shifts the new ethic involves, there will be a marked shift in ethical terminology, away from the predominance of such terms as (and examples associated with) 'obligation', to such expressions as 'care', 'respect', 'consciousness'. 'duty', 'concern', 'promise', 'responsibility', 'contract', 'trust', Because the theoretical and attitudinal frame is changed, an environmental ethic forces - as we have already found with such notions as and - reexamination of, and modified analyses of, characteristic ethical notions. It requires, furthermore, reassessment of traditional and conventional analyses of such notions as natural right, ground of right, and permissib­ ility, especially where these are based on chauvinist assumptions - much as it requires the rejection of most of the more prominent meta-ethical gr These points are explained in detail in Routley (e); and also in L. Goddard and R. Routley, T/ze py urui Context, Vol. 1, Scottish Academic Press, 1973, chapters 3 and 4. 86 positions. Cursory examination of recent accounts of nutMruZ wcrcZZtpj jMst-Zce and cctfc?? will help illustrate and confirm these points. Hart, for example, accepts (subject to defeating conditions which are here irrelevant) the classical doctrine of natural rights according to which, among other things, any adult human ... capable of choice is at liberty to do (i.e. is under no obligation to abstain from) any action which is not one coercing or restraining or designed to injure other persons (H.L.A. Hart, 'Are there any natural rights?', reprinted in PcZZticuZ PbiZoscpbp, (ed. A. Quinton), Blackwell, Oxford 1967). But this sufficient condition for a human natural right depends on accepting the basic chauvinist principle - a variant of (D) - environmental ethics reject; since if a person has a natural right he has a right. So too the definition of a natural right adopted by classical theorists and accepted with minor qualifications by Hart presupposes the same defective principle. Accordingly an environmental ethic would have to amend the classical notion of a natural right, a far from straightforward matter now that human rights with respect to animals and the natural environment are, like those with respect to slaves not all that long ago, undergoing major re-evaluation. Another example of chauvinism at work in the very setting up of the field of discussion and problems in ethics is provided by recent accounts of .^ercZ'Ztp, where it is simply taken for granted that 'moral' distinguishe 96 among actions, policies, motives and reasons, and that what is moral refers essentially to human well-being (contentment, happiness or something of this general sort, tied with appropriate states or conditions of humans). Such criteria for what is moral are chauvinistic- ally based, assuming that what does not bear on human states or conditions cannot be a moral matter. What happens in worlds without humans, how animals fare or are treated, what is done or what happens to plants or other natural objects - none of these are directly moral matters, except insofar as they impinge on human welfare. That is human 96 Thus for instance, B. Williams, ^eruZitz/.- Xx tc Effies, Harper & Row, New York, 1972, p.79. Williams does, however, remark in his Preface (p.xiv) how 'shaky and problematic' the distinction - which he subsequently takes for granted - is. 97 see, for example, P.R. Foot, Tbecries cf FtZrZcs, Oxford University Press, London, 1967,and G.J. Warnock, Oc^tewpcrcrp McraZ PhZZcscpbp, Macmillan, London, 1967, and also The Object cf AfcrcZZty, Methuen, London, 1971. 87 chauvinism at work, and is at the same time a reductio such criteria. ad absurdum of A different nonchauvinistic account of what is moral is required (a beginning can be made by adopting certain of the maligned formal criteria). It is evident that any account which meets even weak conditions of adequacy will serve to meet the objection that an environmental ethic is not concerned with what is moral but is really an aesthetic theory. For the objection as usually presented depends squarely on a chauvinistic restriction on morality, all the rest of value theory being classed, or dismissed, as "(mere) aesthetics". The case of morality illustrates the characteristic way in which theories - in this case chauvinistic ethics - redefine crucial notions in their own terms to suit their own ends, such as entrenchment and fortification of the theories against objections. Further corollaries of the rejection of chauvinism include the inadequacy of recent fashionable attempts, mainly derivative from Hobhouse, at characterising eguuZitp and justifying it in ways that argue from man's humanity,98 and the inadequacy of much recent, largely chauvinistic, work which takes it for granted that action and 99 rationality requirements on action are bound up with human nature. in the philosophy of The abandonment of chauvinism implies the rejection not only of much ethical analysis, but of all current major ethical positions. The bias of prevailing ethical positions, and also of economic positions, which aim to make principles of conduct or reasonable economic behaviour calculable is especially evident. These positions typically employ a single criterion p, such as preference or happiness, as a summum bonum; characteristically each individual of some base class, almost always humans, but perhaps including future humans, is supposed to have (at least) an ordinal p- ranking of the states in question (e.g. of affairs, of the economy); then some principle is supplied to determine a collective p-ranking of these states in terms of individual p-rankings, and what is best or ought to be done is determined either directly, as in act-utilitarianism under the Greatest Happiness principle, or indirectly, as in rule-utilitarianism in terms of some optimization principle applied to the collective ranking, The species bias is transparent from the selection of the base class. go And Among such unsatisfactory liberal egalitarian positions are those presented in G. Vlastos, 'Justice and equality' in JooiuZ (ed. R.B. Brandt), Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1962, and B.A.O. Williams, ' The idea of equality' in P^i^osoph^, Pacifies artJ Jpcietz/, Second series (ed. P. Laslett and W.G. Runciman), Blackwell, Oxford, 1963. 99 gee, e.g. T. Nagel, TTns PossiM7-7fi/ of Oxford, 1970. 88 Clarendon Press, even if the base class is extended to include persons or some animals (at the cost, like that of including remotely future humans, of losing testability), the positions are open to familiar criticism, namely that the whole of the base class may be prejudiced in a way which leads to unjust principles. To take a simple example, if every member of the base class detests dingoes, on the basis of mistaken data as to dingoes' behaviour, then by the Pareto ranking test the collective ranking will rank states where dingoes are exterminated very highly, from which it will generally be concluded that dingoes ought to be exterminated (still unfortunately the evaluation of most Australian farmers, though it lacks any requisite empirical basis). Likewise it would just be a happy accident, it seems, if collective demand (horizontally summed from individual demand) for a state of the economy with sperm whales as a mixed good, were to succeed in outweighing private whaling demands; for if but few in the base class happened to know that sperm whales exist or cared a jot that they do, then even the most "rational economic decision­ making would do nothing to prevent their extinction. But whether the sperm whale survives should not have to depend on what humans know or what they see on television. Summed human interests, or preferences of certain private individuals, are far too parochial to provide a satisfactory basis for deciding upon what is environmentally desirable. Nor would such accidental bases be adequate. Moreover ways out of the problem do not bear much investigation. It cannot be assumed, for instance, that the base class is on the whole good, and hence will not enjoin reprehensible behaviour, because such an assumption seems false, would at best be contingently true (so that the theory would fail for different circumstances to which it should apply), and would involve a deep problem in the theory, since it would then seem to admit the determination of goodness - that of the base class, on the whole - independently of what the theory was set up to determine, among other things, goodness. Nor can it be assumed, without serious circularity that the optimisation is constrained by requirements of justice or fairness (see Routley (b) and §5 above). The ethical and economic theories just singled out (which are based on optimisation over select features of the base class) are not alone in their species chauvinism; much the same applies to mosf going meta- ethical theories which, unlike intuitionistic theories, try to offer some rationale for their basic principles. That is, the argument against utilitarian-type ethical and economic theories generalises. For instance, on social contract positions, obligations are a matter of mutual agreement 89 between individuals of a given (but again problematic) base class; on a social justice picture, rights and obligations spring from the application of symmetrical fairness principles to members of the base class, usually a rather special class of persons;while on a Kantian position, which has some vogue, obligations somehow arise from respect for members of the base class, persons.In each case, if members of the base class happen to be ill-disposed to items outside the base class, then that is unfortun­ ate for them: that is (rough) justice. Looking outwards from the ethics, the abandonment of chauvinism has likewise a wide set of consequences, both theoretical and practical, in One economics, politics and law, and generally in the social sciences major practical economic impact of environmental ethics is in the extent to which free enterprise can operate unimpeded or unchanged. of business and enterpreneurial activity - to But consider one option - will involve, in turn, either legal constraints, or reallocation of activity by such devices as environmental pricing, which directs activity away from environmentally undesirable pursuits. For example, if it is wrong to destroy a rare ecosystem in order to make a few more dollars, then restrictions should be imposed on business activity by one method or another. To some limited extent this is already happening in the field of pollution, but primarily because of the likely effects, direct or not too far removed, that pollution comes to have on other humans, not for a wider set of reasons, and often not for the right reasons. With a wider environ mental code, the public and legal intrusion into areas typically regarded as "private" and open to the free enterprise operations (of "open go") would be much more extensive. The same applies in the case of private 100 Thus for example, [Rawls'] original position seems to presuppose not just a neutral theory of the good, but a liberal, individualistic conception according to which the best that can be wished for someone is the unimpeded pursuit of his own path, provided it does not interfere with the rights of others. This view is persuasively developed in the later portions of the book, but without a sense of its controver­ sial character (T. Nagel, 'Rawls on justice', PkiZcscphicuZ 82 (1973), p.228). Nagel also effectively argues that Rawls' original position is not neutrally determined but involves substantial moral assumptions (e.g. pp.232, 233); they are mostly, as it happens, of a chauvinistic cast. 10^ While the first of Kant's maxims is not so restricted in actual form­ ulation, others are (see H.J. Paton, TPe Hutchinson, London, 1947. And, firstly, such maxims are s^pp<9se^ to be equivalent to ones formulated in terms of persons; secondly, they are supposed to be derived from features of, or connected with, people. 90 property; for example, given that it is not permissible to erode hill­ sides then there should, in this setting, be (legal) restrictions on farmers' and foresters' activities. Although the impact on the practice of economics of a thoroughgoing environmental ethic would be drastic - market negotiations, firms' activities,-international trade, all would be affected - the impact on the underlying theories of preference and choice is comparatively less, but still far from negligible. For much of economics is squarely founded on chauvinism. The theoretical bias follows directly from the utilitarian bases of the theory, which is fairly explicit in welfare theory and rather heavily disguised in neoclassical theory. But although choice and value theory are, as characteristically presented in economics and elsewhere, damagingly chauvinistic, they do not have to be. For the theories can be reformulated in a non-chauvinistic way, as was indicated (in §5) above for utilitarianism - upon which economic theory is modelled. On such a revamped foundation an environmental economics to match the chosen environmental ethic can be built (for some preliminaries on this approach, see Routley (d), appendices 1 and 6). Several of the objections to base class theories such as utilitar­ ianism apply not merely against orthodox economic theory, but also to voting theory, to representative democratic systems of determination of political action. If, for, example, the base class consists of private individuals motivated by their own self-contained interest then such procedures can readily lead to most undesirable results, especially if these individuals compromise representative individuals. their autonomy through the election of For the more powerful of these representative individuals can be - and typically are, as their behaviour if not their protestations show - not favourably disposed to (the welfare of) things outside the base class or even to many members of the base class. Nearer the theoretical surface, especially in such branches of economics as "resource management", the chauvinism is more conspicuous. The following narrowly utilitarian assumption is quite typical: The goal of resource managers should be to communicate and act in ways that maximize human satisfaction (H.J. Campbell, 'Economic and social significance of upstream aquatic resources' in Forest Fses Oregon State University, Corcallis, 1971, p-14, also p.17). When management - where such is management becomes needed at all - the goals will be changed from such chauvinistic ones. 91 The method of interference in "free economic enterprise", of controls and regulations, of legal and political constraints, is only one way in which leading principles of an environmental ethics can be put into effect. A quite different, and ultimately far more appealing, approach is by way of structural change, by changing the socio-economic structure in such a way that it comes to reflect on environmental ethics (by altering the frame of reference, or axes, to use the physical picture of §4, so.that major problems vanish). Requisite structural change is 102 . far-reaching, both practically and theoretically' in every reach of social science. For example, while on the position, capitalist markets are subject to further regulation, either directly imposed or by way of suitable pricing policies, in the sfrzzcfLzraZ- position, capitalist markets are eliminated; while under state regulation private property is subject to further controls,given approp­ riate structural change private property disappears. Looking inwards, an environmental ethic has an impact on the practice of many sciences other than the social sciences - what they do experimentally with natural objects (e.g. the treatment of animals in laboratory testing); how their research programmes are organised and directed (consider, e.g., projects involving irradiation or broadscale herbicide treatments of rainforests); the way classifications are made and which are made (consider, e.g. the extent to which human perception enters into classifications in botany); recommended on the basis of such sciences. and, of course, what is For as it stands human chauvinism is deeply embedded in the practice of science, directly in research and experimentation and in shaping classifications, theses and theories. Indeed the effect of a different ethic may extend even to the theory of such sciences, in particular through the bearing the ethic has 103 on metaphysics which in turn influences the foundations or such sciences. Such a new ethic would quite properly upset (as §1 should indicate) the extent to which humans are seen at the centre of things and things as accountable through them and scientific theories as 'human constructions wrestled from a hostile nature' (after Popper). It would help overthrow the pernicious chauvinistic idea that, apart from certain elementary facts, AZZes value. isf AfeyzscZzoMMor^., all necessity, all intensionality, all It should result too in the shattering of still widespread As (g) V. and R. Routley, 'Social theory, self management and environmental problems', this volume, begins to explain. Cf. R. Harre, P/zi^osop?zies of 1972; and also Routley (e). 92 Oxford University Press, assumptions as to the nature of animals and plants, for instance that their apparently goal-directed and intensional behaviour can be explained (away) mechanistically, and the deeply-rooted idea that some sort of Cartesian metaphysical picture of natural, as distinct from spiritual or rational, objects can be maintained (cf. again §1). In metaphysics there are at least two further important classes of effects. Firstly, the orthodox views of man's relation to nature, the dominant and modified dominant and lesser traditions, have to be abandoned and new positions worked out. In this sense, a new environmental ethic implies a similarly new metaphysic redefining Man's place in nature and human/nature relationships.^^4 such a new philosophy of nature will recognise various natural objects other than humans as of independent value, so it will not be naturalistic. Nor will it view natural objects as simply available for the use, wise or otherwise, of humans. Several principles derived from the orthodox metaphysical positions will have to be abandoned and replacements worked out (as in the case of (D) in ethics). Thus superseded, for example, will be the principles of total use of natural areas for human use and of maximum long-term productivity of the earth's resources (principles criticised in their application in forestry in Routley (d)). At a deeper level, such a philosophy of nature will involve a turning away from the leading ideological principles of both the Renaissance and the Enlightenment and of much that went with them (e.g. with the Rennaissance, the rise of commerce, bureaucracy, professionalism, formal education, and subsequently, with the Enlightenment, the rise of the modern state, capitalism and scientific enlightenment). For it means the dismissal of the chauvinistic principles of the Renaissance, with 'Man as the kernel of the Universe', a creature 'half-earthly and half—divine, his body and soul form[ing] a microcosm enabling him to understand and control Nature . ..'.^O-^ It means too removal of the humanism of the Enlightenment, the reduction of what formerly was assigned to the religious, such as ethical and political principles, to the human, a reduction which 404 Passmore has observed - inconsistently with what is claimed in his (a) - in 'Attitudes to Nature', Poz/aZ. Irzstitz^te P/ziZ-csopTzz/ lectures, volume 8, Macmillan, London, 1975. As against Passmore (a) p.3, such new ethics and metaphysics need involve no abandonment of 'the analytical, critical approach which is the glory of the West': on the contrary, they may well mean a more thoroughly critical and analytical approach than hitherto. 104 goth quotations are from ?7ze <9/ t/z<3 Pgrzaissa^cg (ed. D. Hay) Thames and Hudson, London 1967, pp.7-10, where too main movements, practical and ideological, of the Renaissance are usefully indicated. 93 was based on the false dichotomy, which has still not lost its hold: reli.gious or humanistic. Secondly, the removal of humans from a dominant position in the natural order renders immediately suspect a range of familiar philosophical positions of a verificationistic or idealistic kind such as phenomenalism in epistemology (how can what exists depend on what is perceived by members of such a transitory and perhaps not so important species or on whether there exist <2722/ perceivers?), intuitionism in mathematics, con­ ventionalism in logical theory, the Copenhagen interpretation in micro­ physics, and subjectivisms not only in ethics but in every other philosophical sphere. True, most of these positions are defeated on the basis of other considerations anyway; but it is an immediate and further point against them that they are damagingly chauvinistic. Thus a corollary of the thoroughgoing rejection of human chauvinism, of very considerable philosophical importance, is the rejection of all 'the usual forms of idealism, i.e. all positions which accord primacy to the human subject and make the existence of a world of things or the nature of things dependent upon such subjects. A paradigmatic example is phenomenalism; other examples are Kantian idealisms, Hegelianisms and later German idealisms, Christian philosophies based on the primacy of human (and superhuman) consciousness, existentialisms; more surprising examples are empiricisms - inasmuch as all knowledge and truth is supposed to be ultimately derived from human experience - and their holistic images, dialectical materialisms and Marxisms. A satisfactory environ­ mental philosophy will be significantly different from all these positions. 94  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 20, Item 3: Draft of Human chauvinism and environmental ethics Subject The topic of the resource Printout of draft, undated. Pages 57-85 missing. Paper published, Routley R and Routley V (1980) 'Human chauvinism and environmental ethics', in Mannison DS, McRobbie, MA, Routley R (eds) Environmental philosophy, Dept. of Philosophy, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. Description An account of the resource Unnumbered paper from collection, item number assigned by library staff. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Routley&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Routley</a> <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=val+routley&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Val Routley</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 20, Item 3 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, <a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a>. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [1] leaf + [94] leaves. Type The nature or genre of the resource Correspondence Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:31eb305">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:31eb305</a> Box 20: More Green Como House Como House > [Item not listed with location] https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/2eaa1d18f05becd67a71718931914ee3.pdf d63bfbdd56258e499778ceee15e79e72 PDF Text Text Styles of Environmental Philosophy: Eastern and Western Modes, Values and Sources In a provocative article, Holmes Rolston III challenges those trying to develop an environmental philosophy from traditional Eastern sources to put up or shut up. Rolston's challenge (the precise details of which we'll get to) matters, because it sets down what many have thought but few have dared to say so publicly. It gets t-he dispute out in the open. Eastern philosophy, like Continental philosophy, is largely garbage, and not worth bothering about: that is what many in the Anlgo-American scientistic line of philosophical business really think. Styles of Philosophizing: Philosophy Contrasting Features of Different Styles of Historicality. Continental philosophy is characteristically attempted in an evident historical setting. It is not sharply separated from history of ideas. Analyticaly philosophy is typically ahistorical. This historicality posture is one of several that pushes analytic philosophy in a scientific direction, so that it is carried on like a modern science; continental philosophy is much more in the humanities tradition, and thus lies on the other side of the "two cultures" divide. Systematicness. Continental philosophy is much concerned with system building, mainly varying the traditions, e.g. Kantianism. Analytic philosophy attacks small problems in a piecemeal way. (It is not without a background systematic framework, this is an unquestioned framework). The "speculative" character of continental philosophy derives from its systematicness; from its attempt to cover a very broad sweep, e.g.. eventually all philosophical ground. A result is that it is often very up in the air, not so often getting down to concrete details, and the "hard" work analytical philosophy prides itself upon (but doesn't that often do). Pontifical philosophy, pronouncements from on high by elevated established figures, is a ____I variety of continental philosophy in the speculative mode. It is a variety presently well practiced in the Soviet Union. Triviality of analytic and language philosophies as seen from article, continental Erudition/educati"on. analytic philosophies are not educatted in the traditions, only a bit - - - - - --- --- �2 more than essentials. Erudition matters in continental philosphy, not in analytic. Analytic can be a young person's game, part of the youth culture of the dominent Western paradigm. [Thus analytic philosophy seems almost a dilett':1-nte's sport, indulged in by glib young men with quickness of wit rather than solidness of foundational knowledge. This is not to say that analytic philosophy does not clarify concepts and solve ancient philosophical chestnuts, but once the concepts have been clarified and the chestnuts cracked, there is no place for them. They do not fit into a system or even form a piece of a larger conundrum or add to philosophic wisdom (for wisdom is not part of the analytic method or a purpose for its results. On the other hand, Eastern philosophies, for instance Tao, does not c1arify the concepts nor solve the puzzles, instead it sketches a system. Tao outlines, but does not fill in the picture as continental philosophies would do. If these three systems were compared to art, painting or drawing, then analytic philosophy is a clever and detailed thumbnail sketch. It is the preparatory drawing. It is the student's exercise. It serves a purpose, but it is not fulfilling, nor satisfactorily revealing. Continental philosophy is the grand masterpiece never finished. The large picture is begun, but not completed. More and more is constantly added to the canvas, but the canvas is too large or too complex to finish. Eastern philosophy, Tao, is the working sketch. It is gives the master plan without giving the detail or the finished product. It is like a pencil sketch awaiting each individual to fill in the colour. The positions of things are given but not their significance to the overall work nor their fulness revealed. Yet it must be kept in mind that Eastern philosophy cannot be represented by a single branch or example.] No monolithic contrast exists between Eastern and Western styles. Chinese philosophy differs from Indian philosophy as much as continental philosophy does from analytic philosophy. INSERT: In contrast to the mass of fiddly, piecemeal arguments of analytic philosophy, Tao, for instance, presents little or no argument and little logic. Instead it presents an array of paradoxes. These form a broad picture on a large scale, that in a fashion similar to continental philosophy is an almost complete philosophy, but in contrast to continental philosophy there is no mass of detail. There is almost no detail at all. It is left to the reader to fill out the picture. Like continental philosophy Tao requires participant involvement. --------------- �3 Thus the object is not to fill in all the spaces but to give the broad picture so that the individual can fil] in the details as appropriate. It is a pluralistic framework which allows scope for expansion and within which the individual can deal with the paradoxes of life. Unlike Western philosophies that emphasize various sorts of atomistic approaches, Taoism works from the whole down rather than the atomic up. Various sorts of atomistic Western philosophies have a subject-object distinction or division (ontology); instead Tao has a different metaphysics based on process or events. If a dynamic system is not determined by individual processes, then it is better if you descend. -------------- The opening gambit about language makes a point, but the real point is that unless an idea adopted from another culture is both desirable for and compatible with the adopting culture, then it is senseless in the first case and useless in the second case to adopt the idea. However, centuries of ideological imperialism have shown that an idea can be forced upon another culture, even if only in a corrupted form, whether or not it is desirable for or compatible with the 'adopting' culture. As for the evaluating of scientific description, HR III has made the point that it is an embarrassment to science that it .cannot teach us to value. Thus it may in some sense be the wrong approach to attempt to make Taoist thought compatible with scientific description. It is obvious from the work of Capra that Eastern and Western metaphysics can be made compatible. Of course, Western science has a 'loaded metaphysical agenda', and it seems to be a misconception about the nature of that loading that causes so many problems in accepting value judgments. Here is the old problem that science is supposedly 'value-free' and 'objective' coming to mean that scientific interpretation is merely descriptive and 'value-free'. However, what is happening is that the hypothetico-reductive paradigm is replacing less 'rigorous' paradigms. etc. etc. As for the reverence. for life, is it that there are no reasons for revering or respecting life in biology or is it that biologists are not looking for reasons to revere or respect life? When an ability like tool use is found in a creature like an assassin bug, the bug is not promoted up some scale of moral regard, but tool use is dropped from the the list of items warranting moral regard. �4 Also there is the point that reverence for life can be directed towards either the abstract concept of life or towards particular holders of life. To save a species from extinction is to save the individuals of that species from death, but there is a difference between saying that life is sacred {in some manner morally considerable) and anything possessing life should be entitled to respect or regard or not killed. In the way that life is treated in most Western societies, it is wrong to kill humans in most cases, but it is alright to kill a bull for food unless that bull is a prize breeding bull or a child's pet or for some other such reason. That is, life is not revered but the lives of certain creatures are valued because of other constraints. Life in these latter cases takes on value for instrumental reasons that have nothing to do with reverence for life in the abstract. Thus if science finds that the cacto-blastis is good for · destroying prickly pear, then regard for the life of this caterpiller goes up. A reason is found for respecting its life. Yet the individual cacto-blastis is still of no consequence and the regard for the species is coterminous with the need for the species. ---------------Eastern thought is in direct conflict with the dominant social paradigm and lends substance to various alternatives. Holmes Rolston III has confused Tao with binary opposition theory. He states, and correctly so, that the "mystic force binding opposites" will not take you very far. But other elements will. Tao has many facets and is not limited to binary opposition. It is a relatively late import to Tao. While binary opposition is useful concept and has some explanary purposes, its powers of explanation should not be called upon to bear loads that it was never meant to carry. Binary opposition is doing too much work in Holmes Rolston III's understanding. It is like tryijng to base all science on Newton's third law. It is a confusion between Tao and Yany /Yin. Because Tao is much more than something like the Third Law means that much of what Rolston has said is irrelevant. {Richard, these notes are still in a rough and ready form.} There is a monolithic tendency in the treatment of Eastern philosophy that is very like the United States' attitude towards nuclear disarmament. On the one side you have the West, i.e. the US, and on the other side you have the East, i.e. USSR. Although these two �5 nations are prominent in the debates they are not the be all, end all of nuclear disarmament or the sole viewpoint for each side, even if there were only two sides, which there are not. Eastern philosophy can be broken into Indian philosophy, Chinese philosophy, etc. In turn, Indian philosophy can be broken into three brands: 1) net-diamond image or candle image; 2) Buddhism; 3) Hinduism. Holmes Rolston III is demanding that Eastern philosophy provide a complete value inventory, and unless it can meet this requirement then it is not acceptable. This requirement is too stringent. In looking at the history of philosophy and the history of ideas this stringent a condition is not demanded. Rolston is unwi11ing to look at an idea or theory unless it gives a complete account and a formal decision theory, but other ideas have been accepted into our culture in a piecemeal fashion (indeed the most fashionable philosophical style in our culture is piecemeal). Holmes Rolston III spends most of his time setting up paper people or straw tigers. For example, binary opposition is a peripheral feature of Tao and certainly not as central as Rolston would have us believe. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Styles of Environmental Philosophy: Eastern and Western Modes, Values and Sources In a provocative article, Holmes Rolston III challenges those trying to develop an environmental philosophy from traditional Eastern sources to put up or shut up. Rolston's challenge (the precise details of which we'll get to) matters, because it sets down what many have thought but few have dared to say so publicly. It gets t-he dispute out in the open. Eastern philosophy, like Continental philosophy, is largely garbage, and not worth bothering about: that is what many in the Anlgo-American scientistic line of philosophical business really think. Styles of Philosophizing: Philosophy Contrasting Features of Different Styles of Historicality. Continental philosophy is characteristically attempted in an evident historical setting. It is not sharply separated from history of ideas. Analyticaly philosophy is typically ahistorical. This historicality posture is one of several that pushes analytic philosophy in a scientific direction, so that it is carried on like a modern science; continental philosophy is much more in the humanities tradition, and thus lies on the other side of the "two cultures" divide. Systematicness. Continental philosophy is much concerned with system building, mainly varying the traditions, e.g. Kantianism. Analytic philosophy attacks small problems in a piecemeal way. (It is not without a background systematic framework, this is an unquestioned framework). The "speculative" character of continental philosophy derives from its systematicness; from its attempt to cover a very broad sweep, e.g.. eventually all philosophical ground. A result is that it is often very up in the air, not so often getting down to concrete details, and the "hard" work analytical philosophy prides itself upon (but doesn't that often do). Pontifical philosophy, pronouncements from on high by elevated established figures, is a ____I variety of continental philosophy in the speculative mode. It is a variety presently well practiced in the Soviet Union. Triviality of analytic and language philosophies as seen from article, continental Erudition/educati"on. analytic philosophies are not educatted in the traditions, only a bit - - - - - --- --- 2 more than essentials. Erudition matters in continental philosphy, not in analytic. Analytic can be a young person's game, part of the youth culture of the dominent Western paradigm. [Thus analytic philosophy seems almost a dilett':1-nte's sport, indulged in by glib young men with quickness of wit rather than solidness of foundational knowledge. This is not to say that analytic philosophy does not clarify concepts and solve ancient philosophical chestnuts, but once the concepts have been clarified and the chestnuts cracked, there is no place for them. They do not fit into a system or even form a piece of a larger conundrum or add to philosophic wisdom (for wisdom is not part of the analytic method or a purpose for its results. On the other hand, Eastern philosophies, for instance Tao, does not c1arify the concepts nor solve the puzzles, instead it sketches a system. Tao outlines, but does not fill in the picture as continental philosophies would do. If these three systems were compared to art, painting or drawing, then analytic philosophy is a clever and detailed thumbnail sketch. It is the preparatory drawing. It is the student's exercise. It serves a purpose, but it is not fulfilling, nor satisfactorily revealing. Continental philosophy is the grand masterpiece never finished. The large picture is begun, but not completed. More and more is constantly added to the canvas, but the canvas is too large or too complex to finish. Eastern philosophy, Tao, is the working sketch. It is gives the master plan without giving the detail or the finished product. It is like a pencil sketch awaiting each individual to fill in the colour. The positions of things are given but not their significance to the overall work nor their fulness revealed. Yet it must be kept in mind that Eastern philosophy cannot be represented by a single branch or example.] No monolithic contrast exists between Eastern and Western styles. Chinese philosophy differs from Indian philosophy as much as continental philosophy does from analytic philosophy. INSERT: In contrast to the mass of fiddly, piecemeal arguments of analytic philosophy, Tao, for instance, presents little or no argument and little logic. Instead it presents an array of paradoxes. These form a broad picture on a large scale, that in a fashion similar to continental philosophy is an almost complete philosophy, but in contrast to continental philosophy there is no mass of detail. There is almost no detail at all. It is left to the reader to fill out the picture. Like continental philosophy Tao requires participant involvement. --------------- 3 Thus the object is not to fill in all the spaces but to give the broad picture so that the individual can fil] in the details as appropriate. It is a pluralistic framework which allows scope for expansion and within which the individual can deal with the paradoxes of life. Unlike Western philosophies that emphasize various sorts of atomistic approaches, Taoism works from the whole down rather than the atomic up. Various sorts of atomistic Western philosophies have a subject-object distinction or division (ontology); instead Tao has a different metaphysics based on process or events. If a dynamic system is not determined by individual processes, then it is better if you descend. -------------- The opening gambit about language makes a point, but the real point is that unless an idea adopted from another culture is both desirable for and compatible with the adopting culture, then it is senseless in the first case and useless in the second case to adopt the idea. However, centuries of ideological imperialism have shown that an idea can be forced upon another culture, even if only in a corrupted form, whether or not it is desirable for or compatible with the 'adopting' culture. As for the evaluating of scientific description, HR III has made the point that it is an embarrassment to science that it .cannot teach us to value. Thus it may in some sense be the wrong approach to attempt to make Taoist thought compatible with scientific description. It is obvious from the work of Capra that Eastern and Western metaphysics can be made compatible. Of course, Western science has a 'loaded metaphysical agenda', and it seems to be a misconception about the nature of that loading that causes so many problems in accepting value judgments. Here is the old problem that science is supposedly 'value-free' and 'objective' coming to mean that scientific interpretation is merely descriptive and 'value-free'. However, what is happening is that the hypothetico-reductive paradigm is replacing less 'rigorous' paradigms. etc. etc. As for the reverence. for life, is it that there are no reasons for revering or respecting life in biology or is it that biologists are not looking for reasons to revere or respect life? When an ability like tool use is found in a creature like an assassin bug, the bug is not promoted up some scale of moral regard, but tool use is dropped from the the list of items warranting moral regard. 4 Also there is the point that reverence for life can be directed towards either the abstract concept of life or towards particular holders of life. To save a species from extinction is to save the individuals of that species from death, but there is a difference between saying that life is sacred {in some manner morally considerable) and anything possessing life should be entitled to respect or regard or not killed. In the way that life is treated in most Western societies, it is wrong to kill humans in most cases, but it is alright to kill a bull for food unless that bull is a prize breeding bull or a child's pet or for some other such reason. That is, life is not revered but the lives of certain creatures are valued because of other constraints. Life in these latter cases takes on value for instrumental reasons that have nothing to do with reverence for life in the abstract. Thus if science finds that the cacto-blastis is good for · destroying prickly pear, then regard for the life of this caterpiller goes up. A reason is found for respecting its life. Yet the individual cacto-blastis is still of no consequence and the regard for the species is coterminous with the need for the species. ---------------Eastern thought is in direct conflict with the dominant social paradigm and lends substance to various alternatives. Holmes Rolston III has confused Tao with binary opposition theory. He states, and correctly so, that the "mystic force binding opposites" will not take you very far. But other elements will. Tao has many facets and is not limited to binary opposition. It is a relatively late import to Tao. While binary opposition is useful concept and has some explanary purposes, its powers of explanation should not be called upon to bear loads that it was never meant to carry. Binary opposition is doing too much work in Holmes Rolston III's understanding. It is like tryijng to base all science on Newton's third law. It is a confusion between Tao and Yany /Yin. Because Tao is much more than something like the Third Law means that much of what Rolston has said is irrelevant. {Richard, these notes are still in a rough and ready form.} There is a monolithic tendency in the treatment of Eastern philosophy that is very like the United States' attitude towards nuclear disarmament. On the one side you have the West, i.e. the US, and on the other side you have the East, i.e. USSR. Although these two 5 nations are prominent in the debates they are not the be all, end all of nuclear disarmament or the sole viewpoint for each side, even if there were only two sides, which there are not. Eastern philosophy can be broken into Indian philosophy, Chinese philosophy, etc. In turn, Indian philosophy can be broken into three brands: 1) net-diamond image or candle image; 2) Buddhism; 3) Hinduism. Holmes Rolston III is demanding that Eastern philosophy provide a complete value inventory, and unless it can meet this requirement then it is not acceptable. This requirement is too stringent. In looking at the history of philosophy and the history of ideas this stringent a condition is not demanded. Rolston is unwi11ing to look at an idea or theory unless it gives a complete account and a formal decision theory, but other ideas have been accepted into our culture in a piecemeal fashion (indeed the most fashionable philosophical style in our culture is piecemeal). Holmes Rolston III spends most of his time setting up paper people or straw tigers. For example, binary opposition is a peripheral feature of Tao and certainly not as central as Rolston would have us believe.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 79, Item 1: Draft of Styles of environmental philosophy: eastern and western modes, values and sources Subject The topic of the resource Typescript of draft, undated. Description An account of the resource Unnumbered paper from collection, item number assigned by library staff. One paper digitised from item 1. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, <span>Box 79, Item 1</span> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, <a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a>. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [5] leaves. 5.65 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:718a2e7">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:718a2e7</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant n/a not listed in manuscript finding aid Box 79: Logic https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/181810b7c7449d4d292188b3898281ac.pdf dda615262b03a61d2b045bf2adff5a5e PDF Text Text issue of nuclear power raises many basic issues in ethics. The By means of an example, we argue sorts of transfers of costs, benefits from a illegitimacy of certain the for transfers from one party who obtains given course of action, onto other parties who do The inadequate methods currently available not. nuclear power wastes mean that transfer of serious could permit risks onto costs and the arguments for future these crucial ethical ignore the i)7pra 1 to Social Dimensions Ethical and Nuclear Power are not the acceptability of by the fact such an illegitimate future people. that Many of such risks on imposing transfer the We argue issues. that transfer principles give rise constraints on action such removed for storing nuclear those affected future and are not present people. The nuclear issue and associated arguments also raise in a highly topical w3y really ’need' allow for, or are and all is such needs framework? many basic issues in the consumer in part theory. items nuclear power is it authoritarian or wrong to Are existing democratic mechanisms framework adequate, and excessive question prevent what lives? The approach to all are these basic elements pure or do we need to assume both, alterable social the answer to kinds of social changes would framework and over social their own crucially on intera ction are conceived they social wholes, individuals, are distinct and irreducible, argue? R. the allow for more adequate these questions depends how the underlying elements of to If such.concentrations of power and control by people over the social supposed they give inadequate control or do concentrations of power? is affirmative, people for control over I last Do frustrate such needs, imposed by a particular, the social permit social Routley as we shall �NUCLEAR POWER - ETHICAL, ■•MB SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ptMENSIONS Wl/, I. COMPETING PARADIGMS AND THE NUCLEAR DEBATE. One hardly needs initiation into the dark mysteries of nuclear physics to contribute usefully to the debate now widely ranging over nuclear power. While many important empirical questions are still unresolved, these do not really lie at the centre of the controversy. Instead, it is a debate about values ... many of the questions which arise are social and ethical ones. Sociological investigations have confirmed that the nuclear debate is primarily one over what is worth having or pursuing and over what we are entitled to do They have also confirmed that the debate is polarised along the 2 lines of competing paradigms. According to the entrenched paradigm discerned, to others. that constellation of values, attitudes and beliefs often called the Dominant Social Paradigm (hereafter the Old Paradigm), economic criteria become the benchmark by which a wide range of individual and social action is judged ahd evaluated. And belief in the market and market mechanisms is quite central. Clustering around this core belief is the conviction that enterprise flourishes best in a system of risks and rewards, that differentials are necessary ..., and in the necessity for some form of division of labour, and a hierarchy of skills and expertise. In particular, there is a belief in the competence of experts in general and of scientists in particular. ... there is an emphasis on quantification. The rival world viewT, sometimes called the Alternative Environmental Paradigm (the New Paradigm) differs on almost every point, and, according to sociologists, in ways summarised in the following table A Dominant Social Paradigm CORE VALUES Material (economic growth, progress and development) Natural environment valued as resource Alternative Environmental Paradigm Domination over nature Non-material (self-realisation) Natural environment intrinsically valued Harmony with nature ECONOMY* Market forces Risk and reward Rewards for achievement Differentials Individual self-help Public interest Safety Incomes related to need Egalitarian Collective/social provision POLITY Authoritative structures (experts influential) Hierarchical Law and order Action through official institutions Participative structures (citizen/ worker involvement) Non-hierarchical Liberation Direct action SOCIETY Centralised Large-scale Associational Ordered Decentralised Small-scale Communal Flexible NATURE Ample reserves Nature hostile/neutral Environment controllable Earth's resources limited Nature benign Nature delicately balanced KNOWLEDGE Confidence in science and technology Rationality of means (only) Limits to science Rationality of ends State socialism, as practised in most of the "Eastern bloc", differs as to economic organisation, the market in particular being replaced system by a command system). But since there is virtually no debate confines of state socialism, that minor variant on the Old Paradigm from the Old Paradigm really only by central planning (a market over a nuclear future within the need not be delineated here. �2 No doubt t’ne competing paradigm picture is a trifle simple (and subsequently it is important to disentangle a Modified Old Paradigm, which softens the old economic assumptions with social welfare requirements: really and instead of a New Paradigm there are rather counterparadigms, a cluster of not very well worked out positions that diverge from the cluster marked out as the Old Paradigm). Nonetheless it is empirically investigable, and, most important, it enables the nuclear debate to be focussed. Large- scale nuclear development, of the sort now occurring in much of the world, runs counter to leading tenets (such as societal features) of the New Paradigm. Indeed to introduce ethical and social dimensions into the assessment of nuclear power, instead of or in addition to merely economic factors such as cost and efficiency, is already to move somewhat beyond the received paradigm. For under the Old Paradigm, strictly construed, the nuclear debate is confined to the terms of the narrow utilitarianism upon which contemporary economic practice is premissed, the issues to questions of economic means (to assumed economistic ends) along with technological, social engineering and other instrumental details: whatever falls outside these terms is (dismissed as) irrational. Furthermore, nuclear development receives its support from adherents of the Old Paradigm. Virtually all the arguments in favour of it are set within the assumption framework of the Old Paradigm, and without these assumptions the case for the nuclear future the world is presently committed to fails. But in fact the argument for a nuclear future from the Old Paradigm is itself broken-backed and ultimately fails, unless the free enterprise economic assumptions are replaced by the ethically unacceptable assumptions of advanced (corporate) capitalism. The two paradigm picture also enables our case against a nuclear future (a case written from outside the Old Paradigm) to be structured. main parts?:- There are two It is argued, firstly, from without the Old Paradigm, that nuclear development is ethically unjustifiable; but that, secondly, even from within the framework of the ethically dubious Old Paradigm, such development is unacceptable, since significant features of nuclear development conflict with indispensible features of the Paradigm (e.g. costs of project development and state subsidization with market independence and criteria for project selection). It has appeared acceptable from within the dominant paradigm only because ideals do not square with practice, only because the assumptions of the Old Paradigm are but very rarely applied in contemporary political practice, �3 the place of pure (or mixed) capitalism having been usurped by corporate capitalism. It is because the nuclear debate can be carried on within the framework of the Old Paradigm that the debate - although it is a debate about values, because of the conflicting values of the competing paradigms - is not just a debate about values; it is also a debate within a paradigm as to means to already assumed (economistic) ends, and of rational choice as to energy options within a predetermined framework of values. (In this corner belong, as explained in section VIII, most decision theory arguments, arguments often considered as encompassing all the nuclear debate is ethically about, best utilitarian means to predetermined ends.) For another leading characteristic of the nuclear debate is the attempt, under the dominant paradigm to remove it from the ethical and social sphere, and to divert it into specialist issues - whether over minutiae and contingencies of present technology or over medical 8 or legal or mathematical details. The double approach can be applied as regards each of the main problems nuclear development poses. There are many interrelated problems, and the argument is further structured in terms of these. For in the advancement and promotion of nuclear power we encounter a remarkable combination of factors, never before assembled: establishment, on a massive scale, of an industry which involves at each stage of its processing serious risks and at some stages of production possible catastrophe, which delivers as a by-product radioactive wastes which require up to a million years’ storage but for which no sound and economic storage methods are known, which grew up as part of the war industry and which is easily subverted to deliver nuclear weapons, which requires for its operation considerable secrecy, limitations on the flow of information and restrictions on civil liberties, which depends for its economics, and in order to generate expected profits, on substantial state subsidization, support, and intervention. with problems. It is, in short, a very high techological development, beset A first important problem, which serves also to exemplify ethical issues and principles involved in other nuclear power questions, is the unresolved matter of disposal of nuclear wastes. II. THE NUCLEAR WASTE DISPOSAL PROBLEM, AND THE TRAIN PARABLE. A long distance country train has just pulled out. crowded carries both passengers and freight. The train which is At an early stop in the journey someone consigns as freight, to a far distant destination, a package which contains a highly toxic and explosive gas. This is packaged in a very thin container which, as the consigner is aware, may not contain the gas for the �4 full distance for which it is consigned, and certainly will not do so if the train should strike any real trouble, for example if there is a breakdown and the interior of the train becomes very hot, if the train should be derailed or involved in a collision, or if some passenger should interefere inadvertently or deliberately with the freight, perhaps trying to steal some of it. All of these sorts of contingencies have occurred on some previous journeys. If the container should break the resulting disaster would probably kill at least some of the people on the train in adjacent carriages, while others could be maimed or incur serious diseases. Most of us would roundly condemn such an action. consigner of the parcel say to try to justify it? What might the He might say that it is not certain that the gas will escape and that it is mere speculation to suppose it will, that the world needs his product and it is his duty to supply it, and that in any case he is not responsible for the train or the people on it. These sorts of excuses however would normally be seen as ludicrous when set in this What is worth remarking is that similar excuses are not always so seen I when the consigner, again a ’’responsible” businessman, puts his workers’ health context. or other peoples’ welfare at risk. Suppose he ways that it is his own and others’ pressing needs which justify his action. The company he controls, which produces the material as a by-product, is in bad financial straits, and could not afford to produce a better container even if it knew how to make one. If the company fails, he and his family will suffer, his employees will lose their jobs and have to look for others, and the whole company town, through loss of spending and the cancellation of the Multiplier Effect, will be worse off. The poor and unemployed of the town, whom he would otherwise have been able to help, will suffer especially. Few people would accept such a story, even if correct, as justification Even where there are serious risks and costs to oneself or some group for whom one is concerned one is usually considered not to be entitled to simply transfer the heavy burden of those risks and costs onto other uninvolved parties, especially where they arise from one’s own, or one’s group’s, chosen life-style. The matter of nuclear waste disposal has many moral features which resemble the train case. progresses. How fitting the analogy is will become apparent as the argument There is no known proven safe way to package the highly toxic wastes generated by the nuclear plants that will be spread around the world as 9 large-scale nuclear development goes ahead. The waste problem will be much more serious than that generated by the 50 or so reactors in use at present, with �5. each one of the 2000 or so reactors envisaged by the end of the century producing, on average, annual wastes containing 1000 times the radioactivity of the Hiroshima bomb. Much of this waste is extremely toxic. For example, a millionth of a gramme of plutonium is enough to induce a lung cancer. Wastes will include the reactors themselves, which will have to be abandoned after their expected life times of perhaps 40 years, may require and which, some have estimated, million years to reach safe levels of radioactivity. Nuclear wastes must be kept suitably isolated from the environment for their entire active lifetime. For fission products the required storage period averages a thousand years or so, and for transuranic elements, which include plutonium, there is a half to a million year storage problem. Serious problems have arisen with both short-term and proposed long-term methods of storage, even with the comparatively small quantities of waste produced over the last twenty years.Short-term methods of storage require continued human inter­ vention, while proposed longer term methods are subject to both human inter­ ference and risk of leakage through non-human factors. No one with even a slight knowledge of the geological and climatic history of the earth over the last million years, a period whose fluctuations in climate we are only just beginning to guage and which has seen four Ice Ages, could be confident that a rigorous guarantee of safe storage could be provided for the vast period of time involved. Nor does the history of human affairs over the last 3000 years give ground for confidence in safe storage by methods requiring human intervention over perhaps a million years. Proposed long-term storage methods such as storage in granite formations or in salt mines, are largely speculative and relatively untested, and have already proved to involve difficulties with attempts made to put them into practice. Even as regards expensive recent proposals for first embedding concentrated wastes in glass and encapsulating the result in multilayered metal containers before rock deposit, simulation models reveal that radioactive material may not remain suitably isolated from human environment.^ In short, the best present storage proposals carry very real possibilities of irradiating future people and damaging their environment , Given the heavy costs which could be involved for the future, and given the known limits of technology, it is methodologically unsound to bet, as nuclear nations have, on the discovery of safe procedures for storage of wastes. Any new procedures (required before 2000) will probably be but variations on present proposals, and subject to the same inadequacies. For instance, none of the proposed methods for safe storage has been properly tested, and they may �well prove to involve unforeseen difficulties and risks when an attempt is made to put them into practice on a commercial scale. provide a rigorous guarantee of Only a method that could safety over the storage period, that placed safety beyond reasonable doubt, would be acceptable. It is difficult to see how such rigorous guarantees could be given concerning either the geological or future human factors. But even if an economically viable, rigorously safe long term storage method could be devised, there is the problem of guaranteeing that it would be universally and invariably used. The assumption that it would be (especially if, as appears likely, such a method proved expensive economically and politically) seems to presuppose a level of efficiency, perfection and concern for the future which has not previously been encountered in human affairs, and has certainly not been conspicuous in the nuclear industry. 12 Again, unless we assume continuous and faultless guarding of long term storage sites through perhaps a million years of possible future human activity, weapons- grade radioactive material will be accessible, over much of the million year storage period, to any party who is in a position to retrieve it. The assumption that a way will nonetheless be found, before 2000, which gets around the wastestorage problem (no longer a nere disposal problem) is accordingly not rationally based, but is rather like many assumptions of ways, an article of faith. It is an assumption supplied by the Old Paradigm, a no limitations assumption, that there are really no (development) problems that cannot be solved technologically (if not in a fashion that is always immediately economically feasible). The assumption has played part in development plans and practice. technological optimism (not to say hubris an important It has not only encouraged an unwarranted ), that there are no limits to what humans can accomplish, especially through science; it has led to the embarcation on projects before crucial problems have been satisfactorily solved or a solution is even in sight, and it has led to the idea that technology can always be suitably controlled. It has also led, not surprisingly, to disasters. There are severe limits on what technology can achieve (some of which are becoming known in the form of limitation theorems^); and in addition there are human limitations which modern technological developments often fail to take due account of (risk analysis of the likelihood of reactor accidents is a relevant example, discussed below). The original nuclear technology dream was that nuclear fission would provide unlimited energy (a 'clean unlimited supply of power'). shattered. and nuclear That dream soon The nuclear industry apparently remains a net consumer of power, fission will be but a quite short-term supplier of power. �The risks imposed on the future by proceeding with nuclear development are, then, significant. Nuclear fission creates wastes which may remain toxic for a million years, but even with the (suspect) breeder reactor it could be an energy source for only perhaps 150 years. It will do nothing for the energy problems of the people of the distant future whose lives could be seriously affected by the wastes. Thus perhaps 40,000 generations of future people could be forced to bear significant risks resulting from the provision of the (extravagant) energy use of only a small proportion of the people of .10 generations Nor is the risk of direct harm from the escape or misuse of radioactive materials the only burden the nuclear solution imposes on the future. Because the energy provided by nuclear fission is merely a stop gap, it seems probable that in due course the same problem, that of making a transition to renewable sources of energy, will have to be faced again by a future population which will probably, again as a result of our actions, be very much worse placed to cope For they may well have to face the change to renewable resources in an with it. over-populated world not only burdened with the legacy of our nuclear wastes, but also in a world in which, if the nuclear proponents’ dreams of global industrialisation are realised, more and more of the global population will have become dependent on high energy consumption and associated technology and heavy resource use and will have lost or reduced its ability to survive without it. It will, moreover, probably be a world which is largely depleted of non-renewable resources, and in which such renewable resources as forests and soils as remain, resources which will have to form a very important part of the basis of life, are in a run-down condition. Such points tell against the idea that future people must be, if not direct beneficiaries of nuclear fission energy, at least indirect beneficiaries. It is for such reasons that the train parable cannot be turned around to work in favour of nuclear power, with for example, the nuclear train bringing relief as well as wastes to a remote town powered (only) by nuclear power. The'Solution" then is to buy time for contemporary industrial society at a price which not only creates serious problems for future people but which reduces their ability to cope with those problems. Like the consigner in the train parable, contemporary industrial society proposes, in order to get itself out of a mess arising from its chosen life style - the creation of economies dependent on an abundance of non-renewable energy, which is limited in supply - to pass on costs and risks of serious harm to others who will obtain no corresponding benefits. The ’’solution” may enable the avoidance of some uncomfortable changes �8. in the lifetime of those now living and their immediate descendants, just as the consigner’s action avoids uncomfortable changes for him and his immediate surroundings, but at the expense of passing heavy burdens to other uninvolved parties, whose opportunity to lead decent lives may be seriously jeopardised. Industrial society has - under each paradigm, so it will be argued - clear alternatives to this action, which is taken essentially to avoid changing corporately-controlled patterns of consumption and protect the interest of those comparatively few who benefit from them. If we apply to the nuclear situation, so perceived, the standards of behaviour and moral principles generally acknowledged (in principle if perhaps often not in fact) in the contemporary world, it is not easy to avoid the conclusion that nuclear development involves gross injustice with respect to the future.There appear to be only two plausible moves that might enable the avoidance of such a conclusion. First, it might be argued that the moral principles and obligations which we acknowledge for the contemporary world and the immediate future do not apply because the recipients of the nuclear parcel are in the non-immediate future. Secondly, an attempt might be made to appeal to overriding circumstances, for to reject the consigner’s action in the circum­ stances outlined is not of course to imply that there are no circumstances in which such an action might be justifiable, or at least where the matter is less clearcut. It is the same with the nuclear case. Just as in the case of the consigner of the package there is a need to consider what these justifying circumstances might be, and whether they apply in the present case. We consider these possible escape routes for the proponent of nuclear development in turn, beginning with the question of our obligations to the future. Resolution of this question casts light on other ethical questions concerning nuclear develop­ ment. It is only when these have been considered that the matter of whether there are overriding circumstances is taken up again (in section VII). Ill OBLIGATIONS TO THE (DISTANT) FUTURE. The especially problematic area is that of the distant (i.e. non-immediate) future, the future with which people alive today will have no direct contact: by comparison, the immediate future gives fewer problems for most ethical theories. In fact the question of obligations to future people presents tests which a number of ethical theories fail to pass, and also has serious repercussions in political philosophy as regards the adequacy of accepted (democratic and other) institutions which do not take due account of the interests of future creatures. �9. Moral philosophers have, predictably, differed on the issue. A good many of the philosophers who have explicitly considered the question have come down in favour of the same considerations being given to the rights and interests of future people as to those of contemporary or immediately future people. Other philosophers have tended to fall into three categories - those who acknowledge obligations to the future but who do not take them seriously or who assign them a lesser weight, those who deny or who are committed by their general moral position to denying that there are moral obligations beyond the immediate future, and those who come down with admirable philosophical caution, on both sides of the issue, but with the weight of the argument favouring the view underlying prevailing economic and political institutions, that there are no moral obligations to the future beyond perhaps those to the next generation. According to the most extreme of these positions against moral obligations to the future, our behaviour with respect to the future is morally unconstrained, there are no moral restrictions on acting or failing to act deriving from the effect of our actions on future people. Of those philosophers who say, or whose views imply that we do not have obligations to the (non-immediate) future, who have opted for the unconstrained position, many have based this view on accounts of moral obligation which are built on relations which presuppose some temporal or spatial contiguity. Thus moral obligation is seen as grounded on or as presupposing various relations which could not hold between people widely separated in time (or sometimes in space). For example, obligation is seen as grounded in relations which are proximate or of short duration and also non-transitive. Among such suggested bases or grounds of moral obligation, or requirements on moral obligation, which would rule out obligations to the nonimmediate future are these:- Firstly there are those accounts which require that someone to whom a moral obligation is held be able to claim his rights or entitlement. People in the distant future will not be able to claim rights and entitlements as against us, and of course they can do nothing effective to enforce any claims they might have for their rights against us. Secondly, there are those accounts which base moral obligations on social or legal convention, for example a convention which would require punishment of offenders or at least some kind of social enforcement. But plainly these and other conventions will not hold invariant over change in society and amendment of legal conventions and so will not be invariant over time. Also future people have no way of enforcing their interests or punishing offenders, and there could be no guarantee that any contemporary institutions would do it for them. �10. Both the view that moral obligation requires the context of a moral community and the view that it is contractually based appear to rule out the distant future as a field of moral obligation as they not only require a commonality or some sort of common basis which cannot be guaranteed in the case of the distant future, but also a possibility of interchange or reciprocity of action which cannot apply to the future. Where the basis of moral obligation is seen as mutual exchange the interests of future people must be set aside because they cannot change the past and cannot be parties to any mutual contract. The exclusion of moral obligations to the distant future also follows from those views which attempt to ground moral obligations in non-transitive relations of short duration such as sympathy and love. As well there are difficulties about love and sympathy for (non-existent) people in the far distant future about whose personal qualities and characteristics one must know very little and who may well be committed to a life-style for which one has little or no sympathy. On the current showing in the case of nuclear energy it would be easy to conclude that contemporary society lacks both love and sympathy for future people; and it would appear to follow from this that contemporary people had no obligations concerning future people and could damage them as it suited them. What all these views have in common is a picture of obligation as something acquired, either individually or institutionally, something which is conditional on doing something or failing to do something (e.g. participating in the moral community, contracting), or having some characteristic one can fail to have (e.g. love, sympathy, empathy). Because obligation therefore becomes conditional, features usually (and correctly) thought to characterise obligation such as universality of application and necessitation (i.e. the binding features) are lost, especially where there is a choice whether or not to do the thing required to acquire the obligation, and so as to whether to acquire it. The criteria for acquisition suggested are such as to exclude people in the distant future. The view that there are no moral constraints with respect to future people, that one is free to act however one likes with respect to them, is not however sustainable. Consider, for example, a scientific group which, tor no particular reason other than to test a particular piece of technology, places in orbit a cobalt bomb set off by a triggering device designed to go off several hundred years from the time of its despatch. No presently living person and none of their immediate descendants would be affected, but the population of �the earth in the distant future would be wiped out as a result of the action. direct and predictable The unconstrained position clearly implies that this is an acceptable moral enterprise, that whatever else we might legitimately criticize in the scientists’ experiment, perhaps its being over-expensive or badly designed, we cannot lodge a moral protest about the damage it will do to future people. the following sort The unconstrained position also endorses as morally acceptable of policy:- A firm discovers it can make a handsome profit from mining, processing and manufacturing a new type of material which, although it causes no problem for present people or their immediate descendants, will over a period of hundreds of years decay into a substance which will cause an enormous epidemic of cancer among the inhabitants of the earth at that time. According to the unconstrained view the firm is free to act in its own interests, without any consideration for the harm it does remote future people. Such counterexamples to the unconstrained view, which are easily varied and multiplied, might seem childishly obvious. Yet the unconstrained position concerning the future from which they follow is far from being a straw man; not only have several philosophers endorsed this position, but it is a clear implication of many currently popular views of the basis of moral obligation, as well as of prevailing economic theory. It seems that those who opt for the unconstrained position have not considered such examples, despite their being clearly implied by their position. We suspect that - we would certainly hope that - when it is brought out that the unconstrained position admits such counterexamples, that being free to act implies among other things being free to inflict pointless harm for example, most of those who opted for the unconstrained position would want to assert that it was not what they intended. What many of those who have put forward the unconstrained position seem to have had in mind in denying moral obligation is rather that- future people can look after themselves, that we are not responsible for their lives. The popular view that the future can take care of itself also seems to assume a future causally independent of the present. But it is not. It is not as if, in the counter­ example cases or in the nuclear case, the future is simply being left alone to take care of itself. Present people are influencing it, and in doing so thereby acquire many Of the same sorts of moral responsibilities as they do in causally affecting the present and immediate future, namely the obligation to take account in what they do of people affected and their interests, to be careful in their actions, to take account of the genuine probability of their actions causing harm, and to see that they do not act so as to rob future people of the chance of a good life. �12. Furthermore, to say that we are not responsible for the lives of future people does not amount to the same thing as saying that we are free to do as we like with respect to them, that there are no moral constraints on our action involving them. In just the same way, the fact that one does not have or has not acquired an obligation to some stranger with whom one has never been involved, that one has no responsibility for his life, does not imply that one is free to do what one likes with respect to him, for example to rob him or to pursue some course of action of advantage to oneself which could seriously harm him. These difficulties for the unconstrained position arise in part from the (sometimes deliberate) failure to make an important distinction between acquired or assumed obligation toward somebody, for which some act of acquisition or assumption is required as a qualifying condition, and moral constraints, which require, for example, that one should not act so as to damage or harm someone, and for which no act of acquisition is required. There is a considerable difference in the level and kind of responsibility involved. In the first case one must do something or be something which one can fail to do or be, e.g. have loves, synpathy, be contracted. In the second case responsibility arises as a result of being a causal agent who is aware of the consequences or probable consequences of his action, and thus does not have to be especially acquired or assumed. Thus there is no problem about how the latter class, moral constraints, can apply to the distant future in cases where it may be difficult or impossible for acquisition or assumption conditions to be satisfied. They apply as a result of the ability to produce causal effects on the distant future of a reasonably predictable nature. Thus also moral constraints can apply to what does not (yet) exist, just as actions can cause results that do not (yet) exist. While it may perhaps be the case that there would need to be an acquired or assumed obligation in order for it to be claimed that contemporary people must make special sacrifices for future people of an heroic kind, or even to help them especially, only moral constraints are needed in order for us to be constrained from harming them. Thus, to return to the train parable, the consigner cannot argue in justification of his action that he has never assumed or acquired responsibility for the passengers, that he does not know them and therefore has no love or sympathy for them and that they are not part of his moral community, in short that he has no special obligations to help them. All that one needs to argue concerning the train, and the nuclear case, is that there are moral constraints against harming, not that there are specially acquired obligations to take responsibility for the lives of people involved. There has been an attempt to represent all obligations to the distant future in terms of heroic self-sacrifice, something which cannot of course be morally required. But in view of the distinctions between constraints and acquired obligation and between obligation and supererogation this is just �13. to misrepresent the position of these obligations. For example, one is no more engaging in heroic self-sacrifice by not forcing future people into an unviable life position or by refraining from causing then direct harm than the consigner is resorting to heroic self-sacrifice in refraining from placing his dangerous package on the train. The conflation of moral restraints with acquired obligation, and the attempt therewith to view all constraints as acquired and to write off nonacquired constraints, is facilitated through the use of the term ’moral obligation’ both to signify any type of deontic constraints and also to indicate rather something which has to be assumed or required. The conflation is encouraged by reductionist positions which, in attempting to account for obligation in general, mistakenly endeavour to collapse all obligations. Hence the equation, and some main roots of the unconstrained position, of the erroneous belief that there are no moral constraints concerning the distant future. The unconstrained view tends to give way, under the weight of counter­ examples, to more qualified, and sometimes ambivalent, positions, for example the position that our obligations are to immediate posterity, we ought to try to improve the world so that we shall be able to hand it over to our immediate successors in a better condition, and that is all; there are in practice no obligations to the distant future. 17 A main argument in favour of the latter theme is that such obligations would in practice be otiose. Everything that needs to be accounted for can be encompassed through the chain picture of obligation as linking successive generations, under which each generation has obligations, based on loves or sympathy, only to the succeeding generation. account. There are at least three objections to this chain First, it is inadequate to treat constraints concerning the future as if they applied only between generations, as if there were no question of constraints on individuals as opposed to whole generations, since individuals can create causal effects, e.g. harm, on the future in a way which may create individual responsibility, and which often cannot be sheeted home to an entire generation. Nuclear power and its wastes, for example, are strictly the responsibility of small groups of power-holders, not a generational responsibility. Secondly, such chains, since non-transitive, cannot yield direct obligations to the distant future. But for this very reason the chain picture cannot be adequate, as examples again show. For the picture is unable to explain several of the cases that have to be dealt with, e.g. the examples already discussed which show that we can have a direct effect on the distant future without affecting the next generation, who may not even be able to Influence matters. �14. Thirdly, improvements for immediate successors may be achieved at the expense of disadvantages to people of the more distant future. Improving the world for immediate successors is quite compatible with, and may even in some circumstances be most easily achieved by, ruining it for less immediate successors. Such cases can hardly be written off as ’’never-never land" examples since many cases of environmental exploitation might be seen as of just this type. e.g. not just the nuclear case but also the exhaustion of non-renewable resources and the long-term depletion of renewable resources such as soils and forests through overuse. If then such obvious injustices to future people arising from the favouring or exclusive concern with immediate successors are to be avoided, obligations to the future will have to be seen as in some way fairly distributed over time, and not merely as accruing to particular generations in the way the chain picture suggests. IV. ATTEMPTS TO QUALIFY OBLIGATIONS TO THE FUTURE : ECONQMISTIC UNCERTAINTY AND INDETERMINACY ARGUMENTS. While there are grave difficulties for the unconstrained position, qualification leads to a more defensible position. According to the main qualified position we are not entirely unconstrained with respect to the distant future, there are obligations, but these are not so important as those to the present, and the interests of distant future people cannot weigh very much in the scale against those of the present and immediate future. The interests of future people then, except in unusual cases, count for very much less than the interests of present people. Hence such things as nuclear development and various exploitative activities which benefit present people should proceed, even if people of the distant future are (somewhat) disadvantaged by them. The qualified position appears to be widely held and is implicit in prevailing economic theories, where the position of a decrease in weight of future costs and benefits (and so of future interests) is obtained by application over time of a discount rate, so discounting costs and risks to future people. The attempt to apply economics as a moral theory, something that is becoming increasingly common, can lead then to the qualified position. objectionable in such an approach is that What is economics should operate within the bounds of moral (deontic) constraints, just as in practice it operates within legal constraints, not determine what those constraints are. There are moreover alternative economic theories and simply to adopt, without further ado, one which discounts the future is to beg many questions at issue. �15. Among the arguments that economists offer for generally discounting the future, the most threadbare is based on the assumption that future generations will be better off than present ones, and so better placed to handle 18 the waste problem. Since there is mounting evidence that future generations may well not be better off than present ones, especially in things that matter, no argument for discounting the interests of future generations on this basis can carry much weight. Nor is that all that is wrong with the argument. For it depends at base on the assumption that poorer contemporaries would be making sacrifices to richer successors in foregoing such (allegedly beneficial) developments as nuclear power. sacrifice argument. That is, it depends on the already scotched In any case, for the waste disposal problem to be legitimately bequeathed to the future generations, it would have to be shown, what recent economic progress hardly justifies, that future generations will be, not just better off, but so much better off and more capable that they can duly absorb the nuclear waste burden. A more plausible argument for discounting is directly in terms of opportunity costs. It is argued, from the fact that a dollar gained now is worth much more than a dollar received in the non-immediate future (because the first dollar could meanwhile be invested at compound interest), that discounting is required to obtain equivalent monetary values, and so for efficient allocation of resources. Similarly it is argued, by virtue again of equalization of monetary value, that compensation - which is what the waste problem is taken to come to economically - costs much less now than later. Thus a few pennies set aside (e.g. in a trust fund) now or in the future, if need be, will suffice to compensate eventually for any victims of remote radioactive waste leakage. There are, presently at least, insurmountable practical difficulties about applying such discounting, e.g. how to determine appropriate future discount rates. A more serious objection is that applied generally, the argument presupposes, what is false, that compensation, like value, can always be converted into monetary equivalents, that people (including those outside market frameworks) can be monetarily compensated for a variety of damages, including cancer and loss of life. There is no compensating a dead man, or for a lost species. In fact the argument presupposes a double reduction neither part of which can succeed: it is not just that value cannot in general be represented at all adequately 19 monetarily, but (as against utilitarianism, for example) that constraints and obligations can not be somehow reduced to matters of value. It is also presupposed that all decision methods, suitable for requisite nuclear choices, �16. are bound to apply discounting. This is far from so : indeed Goodin argues that, on the contrary, more appropriate decision rules do not allow discounting, and discounting only works in practice with expected utility rules (such as underlie cost-benefit and benefit-risk analyses), which are, he contends strictly inapplicable for nuclear choices (since not all outcomes can be duly determined and assigned probabilities, in the way that application of the rules requires.). 20 As the preceding arguments reveal, the discounting move often has the same result as the unconstrained position. If, for instance, we consider the cancer example and reduce costs to payable compensation, it is evident that over a sufficiently long period of time discounting at current prices would lead to the conclusion that there are no recoverable damages and so, in economic terms, no constraints. In short, even certain damage to future people could be written off. One way to achieve the bias against future people is by the application of discount rates which are set in accord with the current economic horizons of no 21 more than about 15 years, and application of such rates would simply beg the question against the interests and rights of future people. Where there is certain future damage of a morally forbidden type, for example, the whole method of discounting is simply inapplicable, and its use would violate moral constraints. Another argument for the qualified position, which avoids the objections from cases of certain damage, comes from probability considerations. The distant future, it is argued, is much more uncertain than the present and immediate future, so that probabilities are consequently lower, perhaps even approaching or coinciding with zero for any hypothesis concerning the distant future. But then if we take account of probabilities in the obvious way, by simply multiplying them against costs and benefits , it is evident that the interests of future people, except in cases where there is an unusually high degree of certainty, must count for (very much) less than those of present and neighbouring people where (much) higher probabilities are attached. So in the case of conflict between the present and the future where it is a question of weighing certain benefits to the people of the present and the immediate future against a much lower probability of indeterminate costs to an indeterminate number of distant future people, the issue would normally be decided in favour of the present, assuming anything like similar costs and benefits were involved. But of course it cannot be assumed that anything like similarly weighted costs and benefits are involved in the nuclear case, especially if it is a question of risking poisoning some of the earth for half a million or so years, with consequent risk of serious harm to thousands of generations of future people, in order to obtain doubtful benefits for some present people, in the shape of the opportunity to maintain corporation profitability or to continue unnecessarily high energy use. And even if the costs and benefits were comparable or evenly weighted, �17. such an argument would be defective, since an analogous argument would show that the consigner’s action is acceptable provided the benefit, e.g. the profit, he stood to gain from imposing significant risks on other people, was sufficiently large. Such a cost-benefit or risk-benefit approach to moral and decision problems, with or without the probability frills, is quite inadequate where different parties are concerned or to deal with cases of conflict of interest or moral problems where deontic constraints are involved, and commonly yields counterintuitive results. For example, it would follow on such principles that it is permissible for a firm to injure, or very likely injure, some, innocent party provided the firm stands to make a sufficiently large gain from it. But the costs and benefits involved are not transferable in any simple or general way from one party to another . Transfers of this kind, of costs and benefits involving different parties, commonly raise moral issues - e.g. is x entitled to benefit himself by imposing costs on y - which are not susceptible to a simple cost-benefit approach of the sort adopted in promotion of nuclear energy, where costs to future people are sometimes dismissed with the soothing remark that any development involves costs as well as benefits. The limitations of transfer point is enough to invalidate the comparison, heavily relied on in building a case for the acceptability of the nuclear risk, between nuclear risks and those from such activities as airplane travel or cigarette smoking. In the latter case those who supposedly benefit from the activity are also, to an overwhelming extent, those who bear the serious health costs and risks involved. In contrast the users and supposed beneficiaries of nuclear energy will be risking not only, or even primarily, their own lives and health, but also that of others who may be non-beneficiaries and who may be spatially or temporally removed, and these risks will not be in any direct way related to a person’s extent of use. The transfer objection is essentially the same as that to the utilitarian's (happiness) sums as a way of solving moral conflict between different parties, and the introduction of probability considerations - as in utilitarian decision methods such as expected utility rules - does not change the principles involved but merely complicates the analysis. One might further object to the probability argument that probabilities involving distant future situations are not always less than those concerning the immediate future in the way the argument supposes, and that the outcomes of some moral problems do not depend on a high level of probability anyway. reveals, In some sorts of cases it is enough, as the train parable that a significant risk is created; such cases do not depend critically on high probability assignments. �18. Uncertainty arguments in various forms are the most common and important ones used by philosophers, economists and others to argue for the position that we cannot be expected to distant future. take serious account of the effects of our actions on the There are two strands to the uncertainty argument, capable of separation, but frequently tangled up. Both arguments are mistaken, the first on a Priori grounds, the second on a posteriori grounds. The first argument is a generalised uncertainty argument which runs as follows:- In contrast to the exact information we can obtain about the present, the information we can obtain about the effects of our actions on the distant future is unreliable, fuzzy and highly speculative. But we cannot base assessments of how we should act on information of this kind, especially when accurate information is obtain­ able about the present which would indicate different action. Therefore we must regretfully ignore the uncertain effects of our actions on the distant future. More formally and crudely: One only has obligations to the future if these obligations are based on reliable information at present as regards the distant future. Therefore one has no obligations to the distant future. This first argument is essentially a variant on a sceptical argument in epistemology concerning our knowledge of the future (formally, replace ’obligations' by 'knowledge' in the crude statement of the argument above). The main ploy is to considerably overestimate and overstate the degree of certainty available with respect to the present and immediate future, and the degree of certainty which is required as the basis for moral consideration with respect to the present and with respect to the future. Associated with this is the attempt to suggest a sharp division as regards certainty between the present and immediate future on the one hand and the distant future on the other. We shall not find, we suggest, that there is any such sharp or simple division between the distant future and the adjacent future and the present, at least with respect to those things in the present which are normally subject to moral constraints. We can and constantly do act on the basis of such "unreliable" information, as the sceptic as regards the future conveniently labels "uncertainty"; for sceptic­ proof certainty is rarely, or never, available with respect to much of the present and immediate future. In moral situations in the present, action often takes account of risk and probability, even quite low probabilities. Consider again the train example. We do not need to know for certain that the container will break and the lethal gas escape. In fact it does not even have to be probable, in the relevant sense of more probable than not, in order for us to condemn the consigner's action. risk of harm in this sort of case. It is enough that there is a significant It does not matter if the decreased well­ being of the consigner is certain and that the prospects of the passengers quite uncertain, the resolution of the problem is nevertheless clearly in favour of the so-called "speculative" and "unreliable". But if we do not require certainty of action to apply moral constraints in contemporary affairs, why �should we require a much higher standard of certainty in the future? Why should we require for the future, epistemic standards which the more familiar sphere of moral action concerning the present and adjacent future does not need to meet? The insistence on certainty as a necessary condition before moral consideration can be given to the distant future, then, amounts to an eipstemic double standard. But such an epistemic double standard, proposed in explaining the difference between the present and the future and to justify ignoring future peoples interests, in fact cannot itself provide an explanation of the differences, since it already presupposes different standards of certainty appropriate to each class, which difference is in turn in need of justification. The second uncertainty argument is a practical uncertainty argument, that whatever our theoretical obligations to the future, we cannot in practice take the interests of future people into account because uncertainty about the distant future is so gross that we canmot determine what the likely consequences of actions on it will be and therefore, however good our intentions to the people of the distant future are, in practice we have no choice but to ignore their interests. Uncertainty is gross where certain incompatible hypotheses are as good as one another and there is no rational ground for choosing between them. this way:- The second uncertainty argument can be put alternatively If moral principles are. like other principles, implicational in form, that is of such forms as "if x has character h then x is wrong, for every (action) x”, then what the argument claims is that we cannot ever obtain the information about future actions which would enable us to detach the antecedent of the implication. So even if moral principles theoretically apply to future people, in practice they cannot be applied to obtain clear conclusions or directions concerning contemporary action action of the It is wrong to do x” type. Many of the assumptions of the second argument can be conceded. If the distant future really is so grossly uncertain that in every case it is impossible to determine in any way that is better than chance what the effects of present action will be, and whether any given action will help or hinder future people, then moral principles, although they may apply theoretically to the future, will in practice not be applicable to obtain any clear conclusions about how to act. on action. Hence the distant future will impose no practical moral constraints However the argument is factually incorrect in assuming that the future always is so grossly uncertain or indeterminate. Admittedly there is often a high degree of uncertainty concerning the distant future, but as a matter of (contingent) fact it is not always so gross or sweeping as the �20, argument has to assume. There are some areas where uncertainty is not so great as to exclude constraints on action, especially when account is taken of the point, which was noticed in connection with the first argument, that complete certainty is commonly not required for moral constraints and that all that may be needed in some cases is the creation of a significant risk. Again there is considerable uncertainty about many factors which are not highly, or at all, morally relevant, but this does not extend to many factors which are of much greater importance to moral issues. For example, we may not have any idea what the fashions will be in a hundred years in names or footwear, or what flavours of ice cream people will be eating if any, but we do have excellent reason to believe, especially if we consider 3000 years of history, that what people there are in a hundred years are likely to have material and psychic needs not entirely unlike our own, that they will need a healthy biosphere for a good life; that like us they will not be immune to radiation; that their welfare will not be enhanced by a high incidence of cancer or genetic defects, by the destruction of resources, or the elimination from the earth of that wonderful variety of non-human life which at present makes it such a rich and interesting place. For this sort of reason, the second uncertainty argument should be rejected. The case of nuclear waste storage, and of uncertainty of the effects of it on future people, is one area where uncertainty in morally relevant respects is not so great as to preclude moral constraints on action, where we can ascertain if not absolute certainties at least probabilities of the same sort of order as are considered sufficient for the application of moral principles in parallel contemporary cases, 'especially where spatially remote people are involved. In particular there is not gross indeterminacy or uncertainty; it is simply not true that incompatible hypotheses about what may happen are as good as each other. It is plain that nuclear waste storage does impose significant risks of harm on future people, and, as is evident from the train example, the significant risk of harm is enough in cases of this type to make moral constraints applicable. In terms of the defects of the preceding uncertainty arguments, we can see the defects in a number of widely employed uncertainty arguments used to write off probable or possible harm to future people as outside the scope of proper consideration. Most of these popular moves employ both of the uncertainty arguments as suits the case, switching from one to the other in a way that is again reminiscent of sceptical moves. For example, we may be told that we cannot really take account of future people because we cannot be sure that they will exist or that their tastes and wants will not be completely different from our own, to the point where they will not suffer from our exhaustion of resources or from the �21. things that would affect us. But this is to insist upon complete certainty of a sort beyond what is required for the present and immediate future, where there is also commonly no guarantee that some disaster will not overtake those we are morally committed to. Again we may be told that there is no guarantee that future people will be worthy of any efforts on our part, because they may be Even if one is morons or forever plugged into enjoyment or other machines. prepared to accept the elitist approach presupposed - according to which only those who meet certain properly civilized or intellectual standards are eligible for moral consideration — what we are being handed in such arguments as a serious defeating consideration is again a mere outside possibility like the sceptic who says that solid-looking desk in front of us is perhaps only a facade, not because he has any particular reason for doing so, but because he hasn't looked around the back, drilled holes in it, etc. etc. Neither the contemporary nor the historical situation gives any positive reason for supposing that a lapse into universal moronity or universal—pleasure-machine escapism is a serious possibility, as opposed to a logical possibility. We can contrast with these mere logical possibilities the very real historically supportable risks of escape of nuclear waste or decline of a civilisation through destruction of its resource base. The possibilities just considered in these uncertainty arguments of sceptical character are not real possibilities. Another argument which may consider a real possibility, but still does not succeed in showing that it is acceptable to proceed with an action which would appear to be harmful to future people, is often introduced in the nuclear waste case. This is the argument that future people may discover a rigorously safe and permanent storage method for nuclear wastes before they are damaged by escaped waste material. Let us grant for the sake of the argument that this is a real possibility (though physical arguments may show that it is not). This still does not affect the fact that there is a significant risk of serious damage and that the creation of a significant risk is enough to rule out an action of this type as morally impermissible. In just the same way, future people may discover a cure for cancer: that this appears to be a live possibility, and not merely a logical possibility, does not make the action of the firm earlier discussed, of producing a substance likely to cause cancer in future people, morally admissible. The fact that there was a real possibility of future people avoiding the harm would show that actions of these sorts were admissible only if what was required for inadmissibility was certainty of harm or a very high probability of it. In such cases before such actions could �22. be considered admissible what would be required is far more than a possibility, 22 real or not - it is at least the availability of an applicable, safe, and rigorously tested, not merely speculative, technique for achieving it, something that future people could reasonably be expected to apply to protect themselves. The strategy of these and other uncertainty arguments is fairly clear then, and may be brought out by looking yet again at the train example where the consigner says that he cannot be expected to take account of the effect of his actions on the passengers because they may find an effective way to deal with his parcel or some lucky or unlucky accident may occur, e.g. the train may break down and they may all change to a different transport leaving the parcel behind, or the train may crash killing all the passengers before the container gets a chance to leak. These are all possibilities of course, but there is no positive reason to believe that they are any more than that, that is they are not live possibilities. The strategy is to stress such remote possibilities in order to create the false impression that there is gross uncertainty about the future, that the real possibility that the container will break should be treated in the same way as these mere logical possibilities, that uncertainty about the future is so great as to preclude the consigner’s taking account of the passengers’ welfare and the real possibility of harm from his parcel and thereby to excuse his action. A related strategy is to stress a real possibility, such as finding a cure for cancer, and thereby imply that this removes the case for applying moral constraints. This move implicitly makes the assumptions of the first argument, that certainty of harm, or at least a very high probability of harm is required before an action can be judged morally inadmissible, and the point of stressing the real possibility of avoidance of damage is to show that this allegedly required high degree of certainty or probability cannot be attained. That is, the strategy draws attention to some real uncertainty implying that this is sufficient to defeat the application of moral constraints. But, as we have seen, this is often not so. Closely related to uncertainty arguments are arguments premissed on the indeterminacy of the future. In particular it is argued that the indeterminacy, for example, with respect to the number and exact character of people at future times, would at least prevent the interest of future people being taken into account where there is a conflict with the present. Since their numbers are indeterminate and their interests unknown how, it is asked, can we weigh their competing claims against those of the present and immediate future where this information is available in a more or less accurate form? The question is raised particularly by problems of sharing fixed quantities of resources among present and future people, for example oil, when the numbers of the latter are indeterminate. Such problems are indeed difficult, but they are not resolved by ignoring the claims of the future, any more than the problems raised by the need to take account in decision-making of factors difficult to quantify are resolved by �23. ignoring such factors. Nor are distributional problems as large and representative of a class of moral problems concerning the future as the tendency to focus on them would suggest. It can be conceded that there will be cases where the indeterminacy of aspects of the future will make conflicts very difficult to resolve or indeed irresoluble - a realistic ethical theory will not deliver a decision procedure - but there will equally be other conflict cases where the level of indeterminacy does not hinder resolution of the issue, e.g. the train example which is a conflict case of a type. In particular, there will be many cases which are not solved by weighing numbers, numbers of interests, or whatever, cases for which one needs to know only the most general probable characteristics of future people. The crucial question which emerges is then: are. there any features of future people which would disqualify them from full moral consideration or reduce their claims to such below those of present people? principle None. The answer is : in Prima facie, moral principles are universalisable, and lawlike, in that they apply independently of position in space or in time, for example. But universalisability of principles is an outcome of those ethical theories which are capable of dealing satisfactorily with the present: in other words, a theory that did not allow properly for the future would be found to have defects as regards the present, to deal unjustly or unfairly with some present people, e.g. those remotely located, those outside some select subgroup, such as (white­ skinned) humans, etc. The only candidates for characteristics that would fairly rule out future people are the logical features we have been looking at, such as uncertainty and indeterminacy; but, as we have argued, it would be far too sweeping to see these features as affecting the moral claims of future people in a general way. These special features only affect certain sorts of cases (e.g. the determination of best probable or' practical course of action given only present information). In particular, they do not affect cases of the sort being considered, nuclear development, where highly determinate or certain information about the numbers and characteristics of the class likely to be harmed is not required, nor is certainty of damage. To establish obligations to the future a full universalizability principle is not required : it is enough that the temporal position of a person cannot affect his entitlement to just and fair treatment, to full moral 24 consideration; inversely, that it is without basis to discriminate morally against a person in virtue of his temporal position. As a result of this �23a, universalizability, there are the same general obligations to future people as to the present; and thus there is the same obligation to take account of them and their interests in what we do, to be careful in our actions, to take account of the probability (and not just the certainty) of our actions causing harm or damage, and to see, other things being equal, that we do not act so as to rob them of what is necessary for the chance of a good life. and indeterminacy do not relieve us of these obligations. Uncertainty If in a closely comparable case concerning the present the creation of a significant risk is enough to rule out an action as immoral, and there are no independent grounds for requiring greater certainty of �harm in the future case under consideration, then futurity alone will not provide, adequate grounds for proceeding with the action, thus discriminating against future people. Accordingly we cannot escape, through appeal to futurity, the conclusion already tentatively reached, that proposals for nuclear development in the present and likely future state of technology and practices for future waste disposal are immoral. Before we consider (in section VII.) the remaining escape route from this conclusion, through appeal to overriding circumstances, it is important to pick up the further case (which heavily reinforces the. tentative conclusion) against nuclear development, since much of it relies on ethical principles similar to those that underlie obligations to the future, and since it too is commonly met by similar appeal to extenuating circumstances. V. PROBLEMS OF SAFE NUCLEAR OPERATION: REACTOR EMISSIONS, AND CORP: MELTDOWN. The ethical problems with nuclear power are by no means confined to future creatures. Just as remoteness in time does not erode obligations or entitlements to just treatment, neither does location in space, or a particular geographical position. First of all, the problem of nuclear waste disposal raises serious questions of distributive justice not only across time, across generations, but also across space. Is one state or region entitled to dump its radioactive pollution in another state’s or region’s yard or waters? When that region receives no due compensation (whatever that would amount to, in such a case), and the people do not agree (though the leaders imposed upon them might)? The answer, and the arguments underpinning the answer, are both like those already given in arguing to the tentative conclusion concerning the injustice of imposing radioactive wastes upon future people. But the cases are not exactly the same: USA and Japan cannot endeavour to discount peoples of the Pacific in whose regions they propose to drop some of their radioactive pollution in quite the same way they can discount, people of two centuries hence. (But what this consideration really reveals is yet another flaw in the idea that entitlement to just treatment can be discounted over time .) Ethical issues of distributive justice, as to equity, concern not only the spatio-temporal location of nuclear waste, but also arise elsewhere in the assessment of nuclear development; in particular, as regards the treatment of those in the neighbourhood of reactors, and, differently, as regards the distribution of (alleged) benefits and costs from nuclear power across nations. People living or working in the vicinity of a nuclear reactor are subject to special costs and risks: firstly, radioactive pollution, due to the fact that reactors discharge radioactive materials into the air and water near the plant, 25 �25. and secondly catastrophic accidents, such as (steam) explosion of a reactor. An immediate question is whether such costs and risks can be imposed, with any ethical legitimacy, on these people, who frequently have little or no say in their imposition, and who have mostly not been informed of any choices regarding the "risk/benefit tradeoffs” of nuclear technology. That they are so imposed, without local participation, indeed often without local input or awareness as with local opposition, reveals one part of the antidemocratic face of nuclear development, a part that nuclear development shares however with other largescale polluting industry, where local participation and questions, fundamental to a genuine democracy of regional determination and popular sovereignty, are commonly ignored or avoided. The ’’normal” emission, during plant operation, of low level radiation carries carcinogenic and mutagenic costs. While there are undoubtedly costs, there remains, however, substantial disagreement over the likely number of cancers and precise extent of genetic damage induced by exposure to such radiation, over the local health costs involved. Under the Old Paradigm, which (illegitimately) permits free transfer of costs and risks from one person to another, the ethical issue directly raised is said to be: what extent of cancer and genetic damage, if any, is permissibly traded for the advantages of nuclear power, and under what conditions? Under the Old Paradigm the issue is then translated into decision-theoretic questions, such as to ’how to employ risk/benefit analysis as a prelude to government regulation’ and ’how to determine what is an 26 acceptable level of risk/safety for the public. The Old Paradigm attitude, reflected in the public policy of some countries that have such policies, is that the economic benefits conferred by allowing radiation emissions outweigh the costs of an increase in cancer and genetic damage. An example will reveal that such evaluations, which rely for what appeal they have on a dubious utilitarianism, will not pass muster. It is a pity about Aunt Ethyl getting cancer, but it’s nice to have this air conditioner working in summer. Such frequently trivial and rather inessential benefits, which may be obtained alternatively, e.g. by modification of houses, in no way compensate for the agony of cancer. The point is that the costs to one party are not justified, especially when such benefits to other parties can be alternatively obtained without such awful costs, and morally indefensible, being imposed. People, minorities, whose position is particularly compromised are those who live within 50 miles of a nuclear plant. (Children, for example, are in a �26. particularly vulnerable position, since they are several times more likely to contract cancer through exposure than normal adults). In USA, such people bear a risk of cancer and genetic damage of as much as 50 times that borne by the population at large. A non-negligible percentage (in excess of 3% of those exposed for 30 years) of people in the area will die, allegedly for the sake of the majority who are benefitted by nuclear power production (allegedly, for the real reasons for nuclear development do not concern this silent majority). Whatever charm the argument from overriding benefits had, even under the Old Paradigm, vanishes once it is seen that there are alternative, and in several respects less expensive, ways of delivering the real benefits involved. There are several other tricks used in showing that tiie imposition of radiation on minorities, most of whom have little or no genuine voice in the location of reactors in their environment and cannot move away without serious losses, is quite (morally) acceptable. One cheaper trick, deployed by the US Atomic Energy Commission,^ is to suppose that it is permissible to double, through nuclear technology, the level of (natural) radiation that a population has received with apparently negligible consequences, the argument being that the additional amount (being equivalent to the "natural” level) is also likely to have negligible consequences. The increased amounts of radiation - with their large man-made component - are then accounted normal, and, of course, so it is then claimed, what is normal is morally acceptable. in this argument is sound. None of the steps Drinking one bottle of wine a day may have no ill- effects, whereas drinking two a day certainly may affect a person s well-being, and while the smaller intake may have become normal for the person, the larger one will, under such conditions, not be. Finally, what is or has become normal, e.g. two murders or twenty cancers a day in a given city, may be far from acceptable In fact, even the USA, which has strict standards by comparison with most other countries with planned nuclear reactors, permits radiation emissions very substantially in excess of the standards laid down; so the emission situation is worse than mere consideration of the standards would disclose. Furthermore, the monitoring of the standards "imposed" is entrusted to the nuclear operators themselves, scarcely disinterested parties. Public policy is determined not so as to guarantee public health, but rather to serve as a private nuclear operations proceed relatively unhampered. public pacifier while �27. While radioactive emissions are an ordinary feature of reactor operation, breakdown is, hopefully, not: an accident of magnitude is accounted, by official definition, an ’extraordinary nuclear occurrence’. But such accidents can happen, 3 and almost have on several occasions (the most notorious being Three Mile Island). If the cooling and emergency core cooling systems fail in American (light water) reactors, then the core melts and ’containment failure’ is likely, with the result that an area of 40,000 square miles could be radioactively contaminated. In the event of the worst type of accident in a very small reactor, a steam explosion in the reactor vessel, about 45,000 people would be killed instantly and at least 100,000 would die as a result of the accident, property damages would exceed $17 billion and an area the size of Pennsylvania would be destroyed. Modern nuclear reactors are about five times the size of the reactor for which 31 these conservative US government figures are given : the consequences of a similar accident with a modern reactor would accordingly be much greater still. The consigner in risking the lives, well-being and property of the passengers on the train has acted inadmissibly. Does a government-sponsored private utility act in a way that is anything other than much less responsible in siting a nuclear reactor in a community, in planting such a dangerous package on the community train. The answer will be No, if the analogy holds good and the consigners’ action is, as we would ordinarily sible. suppose, inadmissible and irrespon­ The proponents of nuclear power have in effect argued to the contrary, while at the same time endeavouring to shift the dispute out of the ethical arena and into a technological dispute as to means (in accordance with the Old Paradigm). It has been contended, firstly, what contrasts with the train example, that there is no real possibility of a catastrophic nuclear accident. Indeed in the 32 influential Rassmussen report “ - which was extensively used to support public confidence in US nuclear fission technology - an even stronger, an incredibly strong, improbability claim was stated: namely, the likelihood of a catastrophic nuclear accident is so remote as to be Almost) impossible. The main argument for this claim derives from the assumptions and estimates of the report itself. These assumptions like the claim are undercut by nuclear incidents that came very close to accidents, incidents which reflect what happens in a reactor rather better than mathematical models. As with the storage of nuclear wastes, so with the operation of nuclear reactors, it is important to look at what happens in the actual world of technological limitatioms and human error, of waste leakage and reactor incidents and quite possibly accidents, not in an ideal world far removed from the actual, a technological dream world where there is no real possibility of a nuclear �28. catastrophe. In such an ideal nuclear world, where waste disposal were fool-proof and reactors were accident-proof, things would no doubt be morally different. But we do not live in such a world. According to the Rasmussen report its calculation of extremely low accident probabilities is based upon reasonable mathematical and technological assumptions and is methodologically sound. This is very far from being the case. The under­ lying mathematical methods, variously called "fault tree analysis" and "reliability estimating techniques", are unsound, because they exclude as not credible" possibilities or as "not significant" branches that are real possibilities, which may well be realised in the real world. It is the eliminations that are otherworldly. In fact the methodology and data of the report 33 has been soundly and decisively criticized. And it has been shown that there is a real possibility, a non-negligible probability, of a serious accident. It is contended, secondly, that even if there is a non-negligible probability of a reactor accident, still it is acceptable, being of no greater order than risks of accidents that are already socially accepted. here we encounter again that insidious engineering approach to morality built into models of an economic cast, e.g. benefit-cost balance sheets, risk assessment models, etc. Risk assessment, a sophistication of transaction or trade-off models, purports to provide a comparison between the relative risks attached to different options, e.g. energy options, which settles their ethical status. The following lines of argument are encountered in a risk assessment as applied to energy options: (i) if option a imposes costs on fewer people than option b then option a is preferable to option b; (ii) option a involves a total net cost in terms of cost to people (e.g. deaths, injuries, etc.) which is less than that of option b, which is already accepted; 34 therefore option a is acceptable. For example, the number likely to be killed by nuclear power stations is less than the. likely number killed by cigarette smoking or in road accidents, which are accepted: so nuclear power stations are acceptable. A little reflection reveals that this sort of risk assessment argument involves the same kind of fallacy as transaction models. It is far too simple-minded, and it ignores distributional and other relevant aspects of the context. In order to obtain an ethical assessment we should need a much fuller picture and we should need to know at least these things:- do the costs and benefits go to the same parties; and is the person who undertakes the risks also the person who receives the benefits or �29, primarily, as in driving or cigarette smoking, or are the costs imposed on other parties who do not benefit? It is only if the parties are the same in the case of the options compared, and there are no such distributional problems, that a comparison on such a basis would be valid. This is rarely the case, and it is not so in the case of risk assessments of energy options. Secondly, does the person incur the risk as a result of an activity which he knowingly undertakes in a situation where he has a reasonable choice, knowing it entails the risk, etc., and is the level of risk in proportion to the level of the relevant activity, e.g. as in smoking? Thirdly, for what reason is the risk imposed: is it for a serious or a relatively trivial reason? A risk that is ethically acceptable for a serious reason may not be ethically acceptable for a trivial reason. Both the arguments (i) and (ii) are often employed in trying to justify nuclear power. The second argument (ii) involves the fallacies of the first (i) and an additional set, namely that of forgetting that the health risks in the nuclear sense are cumulative, and already high if not, some say, too high. The maxim "If you want the benefits you have to accept the costs" is one thing and the maxim "If I want the benefits then you have to accept the costs (or some of them at least)" is another and very different thing. It is a widely accepted moral principle, already argued for by way of examples and already invoked, that one is not, in general, entitled to simply transfer costs of a significant kind arising fron an activity which benefits oneself onto other parties who are not involved in the activity and are not beneficiaries. This transfer principle is especially clear in cases where the significant costs include an effect on life or health or a risk thereof, and where the benefit to the benefitting party is of a noncrucial or dispensible nature, because, e.g. it can be substituted for or done without. Thus, for instance, one is not usually entitled to harm, or risk harming, another in the process of benefitting oneself. Suppose, for another example, we consider a village which produces, as a result of an industrial process by which it lives , a noxious waste material which is expensive and difficult to dispose of and yet creates a risk to life and health if undisposed of. Instead of giving up their industrial process and turning to some other way of making a living such as farming the surrounding countryside, they persist with this way of life but ship their problem on a one-way delivery service, on the train, to the next village. The inhabitants of this village are then forced to face the problem either of undertaking the expensive and difficult disposal process oor of sustaining risks to their own lives and health or else leaving the village and their livelihoods. transfer of costs as morally unacceptable. Most of us would see this kind of �30. From this arises a necessary condition for energy options: that to be morally acceptable they should not involve the transfer of significant costs or risks of harm onto parties who are not involved, do not use the energy source or do not benefit correspondingly from its use. Included in the scope of this condition are not only future people and future generations (those of the next villages) but neighbours of nuclear reactors, especially, as in third world countries, neighbours who are not nuclear power users. The distribution of costs and damage in such a fashion, i.e. on to non-beneficiaries is a characteristic of certain widespread and serious forms of pollution, and is one of its most objectionable moral features. It is a corollary of the condition that we should not hand the world on to our successors in substantially worse shape than we received it - the l_ramsmission. principle. For if we did then that would be a significant transfer of costs. (The corollary can be independently argued for on the basis of certain ethical theories). VI. OTHER SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL RISKS AND COSTS OF NUCLEAR DEVELOPMENT, ESPECIALLY NUCLEAR WAR. The problems already discussed by no means exhaust the environmental, health and safety risks and costs in^or arising from?the nuclear fuel cycle. The full fuel cycle includes many stages both before and after reactor operation, apart from waste disposal, namely mining, milling, conversion, enrichment and preparation, reprocessing spent fuel, and transportation of materials. Several of these stages involve hazards. Unlike the special risks in the nuclear cycle - of sabotage of plants, of theft of fissionable material, and of the further proliferation of nuclear armaments - these hazards have parallels, if not exact equivalents, in other very polluting methods of generating power, e.g. ’workers in the uranium mining industry sustain ^the same risk of fatal and nonfatal injury as workers in the coal industry".38 Furthermore, the various (often serious) hazards encountered in working in some sectors of uranium fabrication should be differently viewed from those resulting from location I for instance from already living where a reactor is built or wastes are dumped. For an occupation is, in principle at any rate, chosen (as is occupational relocation), and many types of hazards incurred in working with radioactive material are now known in advance of choice of such an occupation, with where one already lives things are very different. The uranium-miner s choice of occupation can be compared with the airline pilot’s choice, whereas the Pacific Islander’s "fact" of location cannot be. The social issue of arrangements that contract occupational choices and opportunities and often at least ease people into hazardous occupations such as uranium or tin or coal mining (where the risks, in contrast to airline piloting, are mostly not duly compensated), while very important, is not an issue newly produced by nuclear associated occupations. �31. Other social and environmental problems - though endemic where large-scale industry operates in societies that are highly inegalitarian and include sectors that are far from affluent - are more irdtimately linked with the nuclear power cycle. Though pollution is a common and generally undesirable component of large-scale industrial operation, radioactive pollution, such as uranium mining for instance produces, is especially a legacy of nuclear development, and a specially undesirable one, as enormous rectification estimates for dead radio­ active lands and waterways reveal. Though sabotage is a threat to many large industries, so that modern factory complexes are often guarded like concentration camps (but from us on the outside), sabotage of a nuclear reactor can have dire consequences, of a different order of magnitude from most industrial sabotage (consider again the effects of core meltdown). Though theft of material from more dubious enterprises such as munitions works can pose threats to populations at large and can assist terrorism, no thefts for allegedly peaceful enterprises pose problems of the same order as theft of fissionable material. No other industry produces materials which so readily permit of fabrication into such massive explosives. No other industry is, to sum it up, so vulnerable on so many fronts. In part to reduce it£ vulnerability, in part because of its long and continuing association with military activities, the nuclear industry is subject to, and encourages, several practices which (certainly given their scale) run counter to basic features of free and open societies, crucial features such as personal liberty, freedom of association and of expression, and free access to information. These practices include secrecy, restriction of information, formation of special police and guard forces, espionage, curtailment of civil liberties. Already operators of nuclear installations are given extraordinary powers, in vetting employees, to investigate the background and activities not only of employees but also of their families and sometimes even of their friends. The installations themselves become armed camps, which especially offends British sensibilities. The U.K. Atomic Energy (Special Constables) Act of 1976 created a special armed force to guard nuclear installations and made it answerable ... to the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority. ■JLhee-e- developments^in the IJnd t^d —and worjc in West Gcmafiy-ji presage along with nuclear development increasingly authoritarian and anti-democratic societies. That nuclear development appears to force such political consequences tells heavily against it. �32. Nuclear development is further indicted politically by the direct connection of nuclear power with nuclear war. It is fortunately true that ethical questions concerning nuclear war - for example, whether a nuclear war is justified, or just, under any circumstances, and if so what circumstances - are distinguishable from those concerning nuclear power. Undoubtedly, however, the spread of nuclear power is substantially increasing the technical means for engaging in nuclear war and so, to that extent, the opportunity for, and chances of, nuclear engagement. Since nuclear wars are never accountable positive goods, but are at best the lesser of major evils, nuclear wars are always highly ethically undesirable. The spread of nuclear power accordingly expands the opportunity for, and chances of, highly undesirable consequences. Finally the latter, so increasing these chances and opportunities, is itself undesirable, and therefore what leads to it, nuclear development, is also undesirable. The details and considerations that fill out this argument, from nuclear war against nuclear development, are many. They are firstly technical, that it is a relatively straightforward and inexpensive matter to make nuclear explosives given access to a nuclear power plant? secondly political, that nuclear engagements once instituted likely to escalate and that those who control (or differently are likely to force access to) nuclear power plants do not shrink from nuclear confrontation and are certainly prepared to toy with nuclear engagement (up to ’’strategic nuclear strikes” at least); and thirdly ethical, that wars invariably have immoral consequences, such as massive damage to involved parties, however high sounding their justification is. Nuclear wars are certain to be considerably worse as regards damage inflicted than any previous wars (they are likely to be much worse than all previous wars put together), because of the enormous destructive power of nuclear weapons, and the extent of spread of their radioactive effects, and because of the expected rapidity and irreversibility of any such confrontations. The supporting considerations are, fourthly, drawn from decision theory, and are designed to show that the chances of such undesirable outcomes is itself undesirable. The core argument is in brief this (the argument will be elaborated in section VIII):- Energy choice between alternative options is a case of decision making under uncertainty, because in particular of the gross uncertainties involved in nuclear development. In cases of this type the appropriate rational procedure is to compare worst consequences of each alternative, to reject those alternatives with the worst of these worst consequences (this is a pretty uncontroversial part of the maximin rule which enjoins selection of the alternative with the best worst consequences). The nuclear alternative has, in particular because of the real possibility of a nuclear war, the worst worst consequences and is accordingly a particularly undesirable alternative. �33. VII. CONFLICT ARGUMENTS, AND UNCOVERING THE IDEOLOGICAL BASES OF NUCLEAR DEVELOPMENT. As with nuclear war, so given the cumulative case against nuclear development, only one justificatory route remains open, that of appeal to important overriding circumstances. That appeal, to be ethically acceptable, must go far beyond merely economic considerations. For, as already observed, the consigner’s action cannot be justified by purely economistic arguments, such as that his profits would rise, the firm or the village would be more prosperous, or by appealing to the fact that some possibly uncomfortable changes would otherwise be needed. The transfer principle on which this assessment was based, that one was not usually entitled to create a serious risk to others for these sorts of reasons, applied more generally and, in particular, applied to the nuclear case. For this reason the economistic arguments which are those most commonly advanced under the Old Paradigm to promote nuclear development - e.g. cheapness, efficiency, profitability for electricity utilities, and the need otherwise for uncomfortable changes such as restructuring of employment, investment and consumption - do not even begin to show that the nuclear alternative is an acceptable one. Even if these economistic assumptions about benefits to present people were correct ~ it will be contended that most of them are not - the arguments would fail because economics (like the utilitarianism from which it characteristically derives) has to operate within the framework of moral constraints, and not vice versa. What do have to be considered are however moral conflict arguments, that is arguments to the effect that, unless the prima facie unacceptable (nuclear) alternative is taken, some even more unacceptable alternative is the only possible outcome, and will ensue. For example, in the train parable, the consigner may argue that his action is justified because unless it is taken his village will starve. It is by no means clear that even such a justification as this would be sufficient, especially where the risk to the passengers is high, as the case seems to become one of transfer of costs and risks onto others, but such a moral situation would no longer be so clearcut, and one would perhaps hesitate to condemn any action taken in such circumstances. Some of the arguments advanced to show moral conflict are based on competing commitments to present people, and others on competing obligations to future people, both of which are taken to override the obligations not to impose on the future significant risk of serious harm. The structure of such moral conflict arguments is based crucially on the presentation of a genuine and exhaustive set of alternatives (or at least practical alternatives) and upon showing that the only alternatives to admittedly morally undesirable actions are even more undesirable ones. If some practical alternative which is not morally worse than the action to be justified is overlooked, suppressed, or neglected in the argument - for example, if in the village case it turns out that the villagers have another option �34. to starving or to the sending off of the parcel, namely earning a living in some other way - then the argument is defective and cannot readily be patched. Just such a suppression of practicable alternatives has occurred in the argument designed to show that the alternatives to the nuclear option are even worse than the option itself, and that there are other factual defects in these arguments as well. In short, the arguments depend essentially on the presentation of false dichotomies. A first argument, the poverty argument, is that there is an overriding obligation to the poor, both the poor of the third world and the poor of industrialised countries. Failure to develop nuclear energy, it is often claimed, would amount to denying them the opportunity to reach the standard of affluence we currently enjoy and would create unemployment and poverty in the industrialised nations. The unemployment and poverty argument does not stand up to examination either for the poor of the industrial countries or for those of the third world. There is good evidence that large-scale nuclear energy will help to increase unemployment and poverty in the industrial world, through the diversion of very much available capital into an industry which is not only an exceptionally poor provider of direct employment, but also helps to reduce available jobs through encouraging substitution of energy use for labour use.^ The argument that nuclear energy is needed for the third world is even less convincing. Nuclear energy is both politically and economically inappropriate for the third world, since it requires massive amounts of capital, requires numbers of imported scientists and engineers, but creates negligible local employment, and depends for its feasibility upon, what is largely lacking, established electricity transmission systems and back-up facilities and sufficient electrical appliances to plug into the system. Politically it increases foreign dependence, adds to centralised entrenched power and reduces the chance for change in the oppressive political 41 structures which are a large part of the problem. The fact that nuclear energy is not in the interests of the people of the third world does not of course mean that it is not in the interests of, and wanted by, their rulers, the westernised and often military elites in whose interests the economies of these countries are usually organised, and wanted often for military purposes. It is not paternalistic to examine critically the demands these ruling elites may make in the name of the poor. �35. The poverty argument is then a fraud. help the poor. Nuclear energy will not be used to Both for the third world and for the industrialised countries there are well-known energy-conserving alternatives and the practical option of developing other energy sources, alternatives some of which offer far better prospects for helping the poor. It can no longer be pretended that there is no alternative to nuclear development: indeed nuclear development is itself but a bridging, or stop-gap, procedure on route to solar or perhaps fusion development. And there are various alternatives: coal and other fossil fuels, geothermal, and a range of solar options (including as well as narrowly solar, wind, water, tidal and plant power), 42 each possibly in combination with conservation measures. Despite the availability of alternatives, it may still be pretended that nuclear development is necessary for affluence (what will emerge is that it is advantageous for the power and affluence of certain select groups). Such an assumption really underlies part of the poverty argument, which thus amounts to an elaboration of the trickledown argument (much favoured within the Old Paradigm setting). runs:- For the argument Nuclear development is necessary for (continuing and increasing) affluence. Affluence inevitably trickles down to the poor. development benefits the poor. Therefore nuclear First, the argument does not on its own show anything specific about nuclear power: for it works equally well if ’energy' is substituted for ’nuclear’. It has also to be shoum, what the next major argument will try to claim, that nuclear development is unique among energy alternatives in increasing affluence. The second assumption, that affluence Inevitably trickles down, has now been roundly refuted, both by recent historical data, which show increasing affluence (e.g. in terms of GNP averaged per capita) coupled with increasing poverty in several countries, both developing and developed, and through economic models which reveal how ’affluence” can increase without redistribution occurring. Another major argument advanced to show moral conflict appeals to a set of supposedly overriding and competing obligations to future people. We have, it is said, a duty to pass on the immensely valuable things and institutions which our culture has developed. Unless our high-technology, high energy industrial society is continued and fostered, our valuable institutions and traditions will fall into decay or be swept away. The argument is essentially that without nuclear power, without the continued level of material wealth it alone is assumed to make possible, the lights of our civilization will go out. Future people will be the losers. 4: �36. The lights-going-out argument does raise questions as to what is valuable in our society, and of what characteristics are necessary for a good society. But for the most part these large questions, which deserve much fuller examination, can be avoided. The reason is that the argument adopts an extremely uncritical position with respect to present high-technology societies, apparently assuming that they are uniformly and uniquely valuable. It assumes that technologic society is unmodifiable, that it cannot be changed in the direction of energy conservation or alternative (perhaps high technology) energy sources without collapse. It has to be accepted and assessed as a whole, and virtually unlimited supplies of energy - such as nuclear and only nuclear power is alleged to furnish - are essential to maintain this whole. These assumptions are hard to accept. The assumption that technological society's energy patterns are unmodifiable is especially so — after all it has survived events such as world wars which have required major social and technologic^ restructuring and consumption modification. If western society's demands for energy are totally unmodifiable without collapse, not only would it be committed to a program of increasing destruction, but one might ask what use its culture could be to future people who would very likely, as a consequence of this destruction, lack the resource base which the argument assumes to be essential in the case of contemporary society. There is also difficulty with the assumption of uniform valuableness; but if this is rejected the question becomes not: what is necessary to maintain existing high-technological society and its political institutions, but rather, what is necessary to maintain what is valuable in that society and the political institutions which are needed to maintain those valuable things. While it may be easy to argue that high energy consumption centrally controlled is necessary to maintain the political and economic status quo, it is not so easy to argue that it is essential to maintain what is valuable, and it is what is valuable, presumably that we have a duty to pass on to the future. The evidence, for instance from history, is that no very high level of material affluence or energy consumption is needed to maintain what is valuable. There is good reason in fact to believe that a society with much lower energy and resource consumption would better foster what is valuable than our own. But even if a radical change in these directions is independently desirable, as we should argue, it is not necessary to presuppose such a change, in the short term at least, in order to see that the assumptions of the lights-going-out argument are wrong. No enormous reduction of well-being is required to consume less energy than at �37. present, and certainly far less than the large increase over present levels of 44 consumption which is assumed in the usual economic case for nuclear energy. What the nuclear strategy is really designed to do then is not to prevent the lights going out in western civilisation, but to enable the lights to go on burning all the time - to maintain and even increase the wattage output of the Energy Extravaganza. In fact there is good reason to think that, far from the high energy consumption society fostering what is valuable, it will, especially if energy is obtained by nuclear fission means, be positively inimical to it. A society which has become heavily dependent upon an extremely high centralised, controlled and garrisoned, capital- and expertise-intensive energy source, must be one which is highly susceptible to entrenchment of power, and one in which the forces which control this energy source, whether capitalist or bureaucratic, can exert enormous power over the political system and over people’s lives, even more than they do at present. Such a society would, almost inevitably tend to become authoritarian and increasingly anti-democratic, as an outcome, among other things, of its response to the threat posed by dissident groups in the nuclear 45 situation. Nuclear development may thus help in passing on to future generations some of the worst aspects of our society - the consumerism, alienation, destruction of nature, and latent authoritarianism - while many valuable aspects, such as the degree of political freedom and those opportunities for personal and collective autonomy which exist, would be lost or diminished: political freedom, for example, is a high price to pay for consumerism and energy extravagance. But it is not the status quo, but what is valuable in our society, presumably, that we have some obligation to pass on to the future, and if possible enhance. Again, as in the case of the poverty arguments, clear alternatives, alternative social, economic and political choices, which do not involve such unacceptable consequences, are available. The alternative to the high technology- nuclear option is not a return to the cave, the loss of all that is valuable, but either the adoption of an available alternative such as coal for power or, rather, the development of alternative technologies and lifestyles which offer far greater scope for the maintenance and further development of what is valuable in our society than the highly centralised nuclear option. The lights- going-out argument, as a moral conflict argument, accordingly fails, because it also is based on a false dichotomy. �38, Thus the further escape route, the appeal to moral conflict, is, like the If then we apply - as we have argued we should - appeal to futurity, closed. the same standards of morality to the future as we ought to acknowledge for the present, the conclusion that large-scale nuclear development is a crime against the future is inevitable. Closed also, in the same way, are the escape routes to other arguments — from reactor melt-down, radiation emissions, and so on for rejecting nuclear development as morally unacceptable, for saying that it is not only a moral crime against the distant future but also a crime against the present and immediate future. In sum, nuclear development is morally unacceptable on several grounds. A corollary is that only political arrangements that are morally unacceptable will support the impending nuclear future. VIII. A NUCLEAR FUTURE IS NOT A RATIONAL CHOICE, EVEN IN OLD PARADIGM TERMS. The argument thus far, to anti-nuclear conclusions, has relied upon, and defended premisses that would be rejected under the Old Paradigm; for example, such theses as that the interests and utilities of future people are not discounted (in contrast to the temporally-limited utilitarianism of market- centred economic theory), and that serious costs and risks to health and life cannot admissibly be simply transferred to uninvolved parties (in contrast to the transfer and limited compensation assumptions of mainstream economic theory). To close the case, arguments will now be outlined which are designed to show that even within the confines of the Old Paradigm, choosing the nuclear future is not a rational choice. Large-scale nuclear development is not just something that happens, it requires, on a continuing basis, an immense input of capital and energy. Such investment calls for substantial reasons; for the investment should be, on Old Paradigm assumptions, the best among feasible alternatives to given economic ends. Admittedly so much capital has already been invested in nuclear fission research and development, in marked contrast to other newer rival sources or power, that there is strong political incentive to proceed - as distinct from requisite reasons for further capital and energy inputs. The reasons can be divided roughly into two groups, front reasons, which are the reasons given (out), and which are, in accordance with Old Paradigm percepts, publicly economic (in that they are approved for public consumption), and the real reasons, which involve private economic factors and matters of power and social. control. �The main argument put up, an economic growth argument, upon which variations are played, is the following version of the lights-going-out argument (with economic growth duly standing in for material wealth, and even for what is Nuclear power is necessary to sustain economic growth. valuable!):- Economic growth is desirable (for all the usual reasons, e.g. to increase the size of the pie, to avoid or postpone redistribution problems, and connected social Therefore nuclear power is desirable. The first premiss is A6 part of US energy policy, and the second premiss is supplied by standard unrest, etc.). economics textbooks. But both premisses are defective, the second because what is valuable in economic growth can be achieved by selective economic growth, which jettisons the heavy social and environmental costs carried by unqualified economic growth.More to the point, since the second premiss is an assumption of the dominant paradigm, the first premiss (or rather an appropriate and less vulnerable restatement of it) fails even on Old Paradigm standards. For of course nuclear power is not necessary given that there are other, perhaps costlier alternatives. The premiss usually defended is some elaboration of the premiss : Nuclear power is the economically best way to sustain economic growth, ’economically best’ being filled out as 'most efficient’, ’cheapest’, ’having most favourable benefit-cost ratio’, etc. Unfortunately for the argument, and for nuclear development schemes, nuclear power is none of these things a good deal of economic cheating (easy to do) is done. decisively, unless Much data, beginning with the cancellation of nuclear plant orders, can^ be assembled to show as much. Yet the argument requires a true premiss, not an uncertain or merely possible one, if it is to succeed and detachment is to be permitted at all, and evidently true premisses if the argument is to be decisive. The data to be summarised splits into two parts, public (governmental) analyses, and private (utility) assessments. Virtually all available data concerns the USA; in Europe, West and East, true costs of uniformly "publicly^ controlled” nuclear power are generally not divulged. Firstly, the capital costs of nuclear plants, which have been rising much more rapidly than inflation, now exceed those of coal-fired plants. Romanoff has estimated that capital costs of a nuclear generator (of optimal capacity) 49 will exceed comparable costs of a coal-fired unit by about 26% in 1985. And capital costs are only one part of the equation that now tell against private utility purchase of new nuclear plants. rather decisively Another main factor is the poor performance and low reliability of nuclear generators. Coney showed that nuclear plants can only generate about half the electricity they were designed to produce, and that when Atomic Energy Commission estimates of relative costs of nuclear and coal power, which assumed that both operated at 80% of design capacity, were adjusted accordingly, nuclear generated power proved to be far more �40. expensive than estimated. The discrepancy between actual and estimated capacity is especially important because a plant with an actual capacity factor of 55% produced electricity at a cost about 25% higher than if the plant had performed at the manufacturers’ projected capacity rate of 70-75%. The low reliability of nuclear plants (per kilowatt output) as compared with the superior reliability of smaller coal-fired plants adds to the case, on conventional economic grounds of efficiency and product production costs, against nuclear power. These unfavourable assessments are from a private (utility) perspective, before the very extensive public subsidization of nuclear power is duly taken into account. The main subsidies are through research and development, by way of insurance (under the important but doubtfully constitutional Price-Anderson Act^), in enrichment, and in waste management. It has been estimated that charging such costs to the electricity consumer would increase electricity bills for nuclear power by at least 25% (and probably much more). When official US cost/benefit analyses favouring nuclear power over coal are examined, it is found that they inadmissibly omit several of the public costs involved in producing nuclear power. For example, the analyses ignore waste costs on the quite inadmissible ground that it is not known currently what the costs involved are. But even using actual waste handling costs (while wastes await storage) is enough to show that coal power is preferable to nuclear. When further public costs, such as insurance against accident and for radiation damage, are duly taken into account, the balance is swung still further in favour of alternatives to nuclear and against nuclear power. In short, even on proper Old Paradigm accounting, the nuclear alternative should be rejected. Nuclear development is not economical, it certainly seems; it has been kept going not through its clear economic viability, but by massive public subsidization, of several types. In USA, to take a main example where information is available, nuclear development is publicly supported through heavily subsidized or sometimes free research and development, .th«xugh the Price-Anderson Act^ which sharply limits both private and public liability, i.e. which in effect provided the insurance subsidy making corporate nuclear development economically feasible, and through government agreement to handle all radioactive wastes. While the Old Paradigm strictly construed cannot support uneconomical developments, contemporary liberalisation of the Paradigm does allow for uneconomic projects, seen as operated in the public interest, in such fields as social welfare. Duly admitting social welfare and some equity principles �41. in the distribution of wealth (not necessarily of pollution) leadsjtne modern version of the Old Paradigm, called the-Modified Old Paradigm. The main changes from the Old Paradigm are (as with state socialism) as emphasis of economic factors, e.g. individual self-help is down-played, wealth is to a small extent redistributed, e.g. through taxation, market forces are regulated or displaced (not in principle eliminated, as with state socialism). Now it has been contended - outrageous though it should now seem - that nuclear power is in the public interest as a means to various sought public ends, for example, aparL^from those already mentioned such as energy for growth and cheap electricity, and such as plentiful power for heating and cooking and appliance brown-outs and the like.1 use, avoidance of shortages, rationing, Since 4^ alternative power sources, such as coal, could serve s^me ends given power was supplied with suitable extravagance, the argument has again to show that the choice of nuclear power over other alternatives is best in the requisite respects, in serving the public interest. Such an argument is a matter for decision theory, under which head cost-benefit analyses which rank alternatives also fall as special cases. Decision theory purports to cover theoretically the field of choice between alternatives; it is presented as the theory which deals with the^ problem of choosing one. course of action among several possible courses . Thus the choice of alternative modes of energy production, the energy choice problem, becomes an exercise in decision theory; and the nuclear choice is often’justified” in Old Paradigm terms through appeal to decision theory. But though decision theory is in principle comprehensive, as soon as it is put to work in such practical cases as energy choice, it is very considerably contracted in scope, several major assumptions are surreptitiously imported, and what one is confronted with is a depauperate theory drastically pruned down to conform with the narrow utilitarianism of mainstream economic theory. The extent of reduction can be glimpsed by comparing, to take one important example, a general optimisation model for decision (where uncertainty is not gross) with comparable decision theory methods, such as the expected utility model. The general model for best choice among alternatives specifies maximisation of expected value subject to constraints, which may include ethical constraints excluding certain alternatives under given conditions. Expected utility models demote value to utility, assuming thereby measurability and transference properties that may not obtain, and eliminate constraints altogether (absorbing what is forbidden, for example, as having a high disutility, but one that can be compensated for nonetheless). Thus, in �particular, ethical constraints against nuclear development are replaced, in Old Paradigm fashion, by allowance in principle for compensation for damage sustained. Still it is with decision making in Old Paradigm terms that we are now embroiled, so no longer at issue are the defective (neo-classical) economic assumptions made in the theory, for example as to the assessment of everything to be taken into account through utility (which comes down to monetary terms ■ everything worth accounting has a price), and as to the legitimacy of transferring with limited compensation risks and costs to involved parties. The energy choice problem is, so it has commonly been argued in the assumed Old Paradigm framework, a case of decision under uncertainty. It is not a case of decision under risk (and so expected utility models are not applicable), because some possible outcomes are so uncertain that, in contrast to the case of risk, no (suitably objective) quantifiable probabilities can be assigned to them. Items that are so uncertain are taken to include nuclear war and core meltdown of a reactor, possible outcomes of nuclear development : widespread radio­ active pollution is, by contrast, not uncertain. The correct rule for decision under uncertainty is, in the case of energy choice, maximin, to maximize the minimum payoff, so it is sometimes contended. In fact, once again, it is unnecessary for present purposes to decide which energy option is selected, but only whether the nuclear option is rejected. Since competing selection rules tend to deliver the same rejections for options early rejected as the nuclear options, a convergence in the rejection of the nuclear option can be effected. All rational roads lead, not to Rome, but to rejection of the nuclear option. A further convergence can be effected also, because the best possible (economic) outcomes of such leading options as coal and a hydroelectric mix are very roughly of the same order as the nuclear option (so Elster contends, and his argument can be elaborated). Under these o conditions complex decision rules (such as the Arrow-Horwicz rule) which take ---- ----------outcomes ------------ ------4^-^ account of both best possible and ^ost- possible under reduce to the maximin rule. each option Whichever energy option is selected under the maximum rule, the nuclear option is certainly rejected since there are options where worst outcomes are substantially better than that of the nuclear option (just, consider the scenario if the nuclear nightmare, not the nuclear dream, is realised). Further application of the rejection rule will reject the fossil fuel (predominantly coal) option, on the basis of estimated effects on the earth’s climate from burning massive quantities of such fuels. �43. Although the rejection rule coupled with position several rivals to maximin each proposed, enjoys a privileged for decision under uncertainty have been of which has associated rejection rules. rules, such as the risk- added which ’assesses maximin Some of these reasoning criticised by Goodin (pp.507-8), the riskiness of a policy in terms of the increment of risk it adds to those pre-existing in the status quo, rather than in terms of the absolute value of the risk associated with the policy’ are decidedly and rather than offering a rational decision procedure appears to afford protection of the (nuclear) status quo. What will be argued, or rather dubious, what Goodin has in effect argued for us, is that wherever one of these rival rules is applicable, and not dubious, it leads to rejection of the nuclear option. For example, the keep-options-open or allow-for-reversibility (not an entirely unquestionable rule rule ’of strictly limited applicability’) excludes the nuclear option because ’nuclear plants and their by-products have an air of irreversibility ... ’’One cannot the way one can abandon simply abandon a coal-fired plant"’ (p.506). a nuclear reactor The compare-the- alternatives rule* in ordinary application, leads back to the cost-benefit assessments, which, as already observed, tell decisively against a nuclear option when costing is done properly. The maximise-sustainable-benefits rule, which ’directs us to opt for the policy producing the highest level of net benefits which can be sustained indefinitely’, ’decisively favours renewable Other lesser rules Goodin discusses, sources’, ruling out the nuclear option. which have not really been applied in the nuclear debate, and which lead yet further from the Old Paradigm framework, harm-avoidance and protecting-the- vulnerable. also yield/ the same nuclear-excluding results. Harm-avoidance, in particular, points ’decisively in favour of "alternative" and "renewable" energy sources ... combined with strenuous efforts at energy conservation’ The upshot is evident: whatever reasonable decision rule is adopted (p.442). the result is the same, a standards. nuclear choice is rejected, even by Old Paradigm Nor would reversion to an expected utility analysis alter this conclusion; for such analyses are but glorified cost-benefit analyses, with probabilities duly multiplied in, and the conclusion is as before from cost-benefit considerations, against a nuclear choice. The Old Paradigm does not, it thus appears, sustain the nuclear juggernaut: nor does its Modification. The real reasons for the continuing development program and the heavy commitment to the program have to be sought elsewhere, outside the Old Paradigm, at least as preached. It is, in any case, sufficiently evident that contemporary economic behaviour does not accord with Old Paradigm percepts, practice does not accord with neo-classical economic �theory nor, to consider the main modification, with social theory. democratic There are, firstly, reasons of previous commitment, when nuclear power, cleverly promoted at least, looked a rather cheaper and safer deal, and certainly profitable one: corporations so committed are understandably keen to realise returns on capital already invested. There are also typical self-interest reasons for commitment to the program, that advantages accrue to some, like those whose field happens to be nuclear engineering, that profits accrue to some, like giant corporations, that are influential in political affairs, and as a spin-off profits accrue to others, and so on. There are. just as important, ideological reasons, such as a belief in the control of both political and physical power by technocratic-entreprenial elite, a belief in social control from above, control which nuclear power offers far more than alternatives, some of which (vaguely) threaten to alter the power base, a faith in the unlimitedness of technological enterprise, and nuclear in particular, so that any real problems that arise will be solved as development proceeds. Such beliefs are especially conspicuous in the British scene, among the governing and technocratic classes. Within contemporary corporate capitalism, these sorts of reasons for nuclear development are intimately linked, because those whose types of enterprise benefit substantially from nuclear development are commonly those who hold the requisite beliefs. along with its state It is then, contemporary corporate enterprise image, that fuels the nuclear juggernaut. To be sure, corporate capitalism, which is the political economy largely thrust upon us in western nations, is not necessary for a nuclear future; a totalitarian state of the type such capitalism often supports in the third world will suffice. But, unlike a hypothetical state that does conform to precepts of the Old Paradigm, it is sufficient for a nuclear future - evidently, since we are well embarked on such a future. The historical route by which the world reached its present advanced threshold to a nuclear future confirms this diagnosis. split into two main cases, the national This diagnosis can be development of nuclear power in the US? and the international spread of nuclear technology for which the US has been largely responsible. the Eastern bloc is which had in 1977 only nuclear plants. By comparison with the West, nuclear power production in and is largely confined to the Soviet Union small about one -sixth the wattage output of US Nuclear development in USSR has been, of course, a state controlled and subsidized venture, in which there has been virtually no public participation or discussion; but Russian technology has not been exported else­ where to any great extent. American technology has. �45. The 60s were, because of the growth in electricity demand, a period of great expansion of the electrical utilities in the US. These companies were encouraged to build nuclear plants, rather than coal or oil burning plants, for several state controlled or influenced reasons:- Firstly, owing to governmental regulation procedures the utilities could (it then seemed) earn a higher rate of profit on a nuclear plant than a fossil fuel one. Secondly, the US government arranged to meet crucial costs and risks of nuclear operation, and in this way, and more directly through its federal agencies, actively encouraged a nuclear choice and nuclear development. In particular, state limitation of liability and shouldering of part of insurance for nuclear accidents and state arrangements to handle nuclear wastes were what made profitable private utility operation appear feasible and resulting in nuclear investment. In the 70s, though the state subsidization continued, the private ’high costs of construction combined with low capacity cO , factors and poor reliability have wiped out the iyst advantage that nuclear power picture changed : had enjoyed in the US. Much as the domestic nuclear market in the US is controlled by a few corporations, so the world market is dominated by a few countries, predominantly and first of all the US, which through its two leading nuclear companies, Westinghouse and General Electric, has been the major exporter of nuclear 55 technology. ' These companies were enabled to gain entry into European and subsequently world markets by US foreign policies, basically the "Atoms for Peace" program supplemented by bilateral agreements providing for US technology, research, enriched uranium and financial capital. ’The US offered a Estate subsidized] nuclear package that Europe could not refuse and with which the British could not compete*. In the 70s the picture of US domination of Common Market nuclear technology had given way to subtler influence: American companies held dudlJug with relevant governments) substantial interests in European and Japanese nuclear companies and held licences on the technology which remained largely American. Meanwhile in the 60s and 70s the US entered into bilateral agreements for civilian use of atomic energy with many other countries, for example, Argentina, Brasil, Columbia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Portugal, South Africa, Taiwan, Turkey, Venezuela, South Vietnam. The US proceeded, Spain, in this way, to ship nuclear technology and nuclear materials in great quantities round the world. It also proceeded to spread nuclear technology through the International Atomic Energy Agency, originally designed to control and safeguard nuclear operations, but most of whose *budget and activities ... have gone to promote nuclear activities’. �46. A main reason for the promotion and sales pressure on Third World countries has been the failure of US domestic market and industrial world markets for reactors. Less developed countries offer a new frontier where reactors can be built with easy public financing, where health and safety regulations are loose and enforcement rare, where public opposition is not permitted and where weak and corrupt regimes offer easy sales. [For] ... the US has considerable leverage with many of these countries. We know from painful experience that many of the worst dictatorships in the planet would not be able to stand without overt and covert US support. Many of those same regimes are now^ pursuing the nuclear path, for all the worst reasons. It is evident from this sketch of the ways and means of reactor proliferation that not only have practices departed far from the framework of the Old Paradigm and five social Modification, but that the practices (or corporate capitalism and associated third world imperialism) involve much that is ethically unacceptable, whether percepts; for principles such as by older, modified, or alternative thos and self-determination are grossly violated. IX. SOCIAL OPTIONS : SHALLOWER AND DEEPER ALTERNATIVES. The future energy option that is most often contrasted with nuclear power, namely coal power, while no doubt preferable to nuclear power, is hardly acceptable. For it carries with it the likelihood of serious (air) pollution and associated phenomena such as acid rain and atmospheric heating, not to mention the despoliation caused by extensive strip mining, all of which result from its use in meeting very high projected consumption figures. Such an option would also fail, it seems, to meet the necessary transfer condition, because it would impose widespread costs on nonbeneficiaries for some concentrated benefits to some profit takers and to some users who do not pay the full costs of production . i 58 and replacement. To these conventional main options a third is often added which emphasizes softer and more benign technologies, such as those of solar energy and, in Northern Europe, hydroelectricity. The deeper choice, which even softer paths tend to neglect, is not technological but social, and involves both conservation measures and the restructuring of production away from energy intensive uses: at a more basic level there is a choice between consumeristic and nonconsumeristic futures. These more fundamental choices between social alternatives, conventional technologically-oriented discussion of energy options tends to be obscure. It is not just a matter of deciding in which way to meet �47. given and unexamined goals (as the Old Paradigm would imply), but also a matter of examining the goals. That is, we are not merely faced with the question of comparing different technologies or substitute ways of meeting some fixed or given demand or level of consumption, and of trying to see whether we can meet this with soft rather than hard technologies; we are also faced, and primarily, with the matter of examining those alleged needs and the cost of a society that creates them. It is not just a question of devising less damaging ways to meet these alleged needs conceived of as inevitable and unchangeable. (Hence there are solar ways of producing unnecessary trivia no one really wants, as opposed to nuclear ways.) Naturally this is not to deny that these softer options are superior because of the ethically unacceptable features of the harder options. But it is doubtful that any technology, however benign in principle, will be likely to leave a tolerable world for the future if it is expected to meet unbounded and uncontrolled energy consumption and demands. Even the more benign technologies such as solar technology could be used in a way which creates costs for future people and are likely to result in a deteriorated world being handed on to them. Consider, for example, the effect on the world’s forests, which are commonly counted as a solar resource, of use for production of methanol or of electricity by woodchipping (as already planned by forest authorities and contemplated by many other energy organisations). While few would object to the use of genuine waste material for energy production, the unrestricted exploitation of forests - whether it goes under the name of ’’solar energy' or not - to meet ever increasing energy demands could well be the final indignity for the world s already hard-pressed natural forests. The effects of such additional demands on the maintenance of the forests are often dismissed, even by soft technologicalists, by the simple expedient of waving around the label 'renewable resources'. Many forests are in principle renewable, it is a true, given a certain (low) rate and kind of exploitation, but in fact there are now very few forestry operations anywhere in the world where the forests are treated as completely renewable in the sense of the renewal of all their values. In many regions too the rate of exploitation which would enable renewal has already been exceeded, so that a total decline is widely thought to be imminent if not already well advanced. It certainly has begun in many regions, and for many forest types (such as rainforest types) which are now, and very rapidly, being lost for the future. The adaition of a major further and not readily limitable demand pressure, that for energy, on top of present pressures is one which anyone with a realistic appreciation of the conduct of contemporary forestry operations, who is also concerned with long-term conservation of the forests and remaining natural communities, must regard with alarm. The result of massive deforestation for energy purposes, �48. resembling the deforestation of England at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, again for energy purposes, would be extensive and devastating erosion in steeper lands and tropical areas, desertification in more arid regions, possible climatic change, and massive impoverishment of natural ecosystems. Some of us do not want to pass on - we are not entitled to pass on - a deforested world to the future, any more than we want to pass on one poisoned by nuclear products or polluted by coal products. In short, a mere switch to a more benign technology - important though this is - without any more basic structural and social change is inadequate. Nor is such a simple technological switch likely to be achieved. It is not as if political pressure could oblige the US government to stop its nuclear program (and that of the countries it influences, much of the world), in the way pressure appeared to succeed in halting the Vietnam war. While without doubt it would be good if this could be accomplished, it is very unlikely given the integration of political powerholders with those sponsoring nuclear development. The deeper social options involve challenging and trying to change a social structure which promotes consumerism, consumption far beyond genuine needs, and an economic structure which encourages increasing use of highly energy-intensive modes of production. This means, for instance, trying to change a social structure in which those who are lucky enough to make it into the work force, are cogs in a production machine over which they have very little real control and in which most people do unpleasant or boring work from which they derive very little real satisfaction in order to obtain the reward of consumer goods and services. A society in which social rewards are obtained primarily from products rather than processes, from consumption, rather than from satisfaction in work and in social relations and other activities, is virtually bound to oe one which generates a vast amount of unnecessary consumption. (A production system that produces goods not to meet genuine needs but for created and non- genuine needs is virtually bound to overproduce.) Consumption frequently becomes a substitute for satisfaction in other areas. The adjustments focussed upon are only parts of the larger set of adjustments involved in socially implementing the New Paradigm, the move away from consumerism is for example part of the more general shift from materialism and materialist values. The social change option tends to be obscured in most discussions of energy options and of how to meet energy needs, in part because it does question underlying values of current social arrangements. The conventional discussion proceeds by taking alleged demand (often conflated with wants or needs ^) as unchallengeable, and the issue to be one of which technology can �49. be most profitably employed to meet them. This effectively presents a false choice, and is the result of taking needs and demand as lacking a social context so that the social structure which produces the needs is similarly taken as unchallengeable and unchangeable. It is commonly argued by representatives The point is readily illustrated. of such industries as transportation and petroleum, as for example by McGrowth of the XS Consumption Co., that people want deep freezers, air conditioners, power boats, ... It would be authoritarian to prevent them from satisfying these wants. Such an argument conveniently ignores the social framework in which such needs and wants arise or are produced. To point to the determination of many such wants at the framework level is not however to accept a Marxist approach according to which they are entirely determined at the framework level (e.g. by industrial organisation) and there is no such thing as individual choice or determination at all. It is to see the social framework as a major factor in determining certain kinds of choices, such as those for travel, and to see apparently individual choices made in such matters as being channelled and directed by a social framework determined largely in the interests of corporate and private profit and advantage. The social change option is a hard option - at least it will be difficult to obtain politically - but it is the only way, so it has been argued, of avoiding passing on serious costs to the future. And there are other sorts of reasons than such ethical ones for taking it: it is the main, indeed the only sort of option 62 open to those who take a deeper ecological perspective , a perspective integral with the New Paradigm but not essential to radical departure from the dominant paradigm. The ethical transmission requirement defended accordingly requires, hardly surprisingly, social and political adjustment. The social and political changes that the deeper alternative requires will be strongly resisted because they and power structure. mean changes in current social organisation To the extent that the option represents some kind of threat to parts of present political and economic arrangements it is not surprising that official energy option discussion proceeds by misrepresenting and often obscuring it. But difficult though a change will be, especially one with such far-reaching effects on the prevailing power structure, is to obtain, it is imperative to try : we are all on the nuclear train. �FOOTNOTES 1. All but the last line of the quote is drawn from Goodin, p. 417; the last line is from the Fox Report, p. 6. While it is unnecessary to know much about the nuclear fuel cycle in order to consider ethical and social dimensions of nuclear power, it helps to know a. little. & Abbotts, Gyorgy. The basics are presented in many texts, e.g. Nader Of course in order to assess fully reports as to such important background and stage-setting matters as the likelihood of a core meltdown of a (lightwater) reactor, much more information is required. For many assessment purposes however, some knowledge of economic fallacies and decision theory is at least as important as knowledge of nuclear technology. 2. As to the first, see references cited in Goodin, p. 417, footnote 1. As regards the second see Cotgrove and Duff, and some of the references given therein. 3. Cotgrove and Duff, p. 339. 4. The table is adapted from Cotgrove and Duff, p. 341; compare also Catton and Dunlap, especially p. 34. 5. See, e.g., Gyorgy, pp. 357-8. 6. For one illustration, see the conclusions of Mr Justice Parker at the Windscale inquiry (The Windscale Inquiry Vol. 1., Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, London, 1978), discussed in both Cotgrove and Duff, p. 347 and in Goodin, p. 501 ff. 7. Much as with the argument of one theory or position against another. One can argue both, from one’s own position against the other, and in the other’s own terms against the other. 8. As well as screening the debate from the public such manoeuvres favour the (pro-)nuclear establishment, since they (those of the alliance of military, large industry, and government) control much of the information and (subject to minor qualifications) can release what, and only what, suits them. 9. This is a conclusion of several governmental inquiries and is conceded by some leading proponents of nuclear development; for requisite details up to 1977 see Routley (a). The same conclusion has been reached in some, but not all, more recent official reports, see, e.g., �2 10. For some details see Gyorgy, p. 60 ff. 11. See the papers, and simulations, discussed in Goodin, p. 428. 11a. Naturally the effect on humans is not the only factor that has to be taken into account in arriving at moral assessments. Nuclear radiation, unlike most ethical theories, does not confine its scope to human life and welfare. But since the harm nuclear development may afflict on non-human life, for example, can hardly improve its case, it suffices if the case against it can be made out solely in terms of its effects on human life in the conventional (Old Paradigm) way. 12. On the pollution and waste disposal record of the nuclear industry, see Nader and Abbotts, Lovins and Price, and Gyorgy. On the more general problem of effective pollution controls, see also, Routley (a), footnote 7. 13. Back of thus Humanity Unlimited assumption is the idea of Man replacing God. First God had unlimited power, e.g. over nature, then when during the Enlightenment Man replaced God, Man was to have unlimited power. Science and technology were the tools which were to put Man into the position of unlimitedness. More recently nuclear power is seen as providing man at least with unlimited physical power, power obtained through technology, [ability to manage technology represents the past] 14. On such limitation theorems, which go back to Finsler and Godel on one side and to Arrow on the other, see, e.g. Routley 80. All these theorems mimic paradoxes, semantical "paradoxes" on one side and voting "paradoxes other. on the Other different limitation results are presented in Routley 81. It follows that there are many problems that have no solution and much that is necessarily unknowable. Limitative results put a serious dent in the progress picture. According the Dominant Western Worldview, the history of humanity is one of progress; for every problem there is a solution, and thus progress need never cease (Catton and Dunlap, p. 34). 15. See Lovins and Price. 15a. The points also suggest a variant argument against a nuclear future, namely . A nuclear future narrows the range of opportunities open to future generations. . ’What justice requires ... is that the overall range of opportunities open to successor generations should not be narrowed’ (Barry, p.243). Therefore, a nuclear future contravenes requirements of justice. �3 16. For examples, and for some details of the history of philosophers’ positions on obligations to the future, see Routley (a). 17. Passmore, p. 91. Passmore’s position is ambivalent and, to all appearances, inconsistent. It is considered in detail in Routley (a), as also is Rawls’ position. 18. For related criticisms of the economists’ arguments for discounting, and for citation of the often eminent economists who sponsor them, see Goodin, pp. 429-30. 19. The reasons (not elaborated here) are that the properties are different e.g. a monetary reduction of value imposes a linear ordering on values to which value rankings, being only partial orderings, do not conform. 20. Goodin however puts his case against those rules in a less than satisfactory fashion. What he claims is that we cannot list all the possible outcomes in the way that such rules as expected utility maximization presupposes, e.g. Goodin suggests that we cannot list all the things that can go wrong with a nuclear power plant or with waste storage procedures. But outstanding alternatives can always be comprehended logically, at worst by saying "all the rest” (e.g. ~p covers everything except p). For example, outcomes Goodin says cannot be listed, can be comprehended along such lines as "plant breakdown through human error”. Furthermore the different more appropriate rules Goodin subsequently considers also require listing of "possible" outcomes. are really two points. Goodin’s point can be alternatively stated however. There The first trouble is that such ragbag alternatives cannot in general be assigned required quantitative probabilities, and it is at that point that applications of the models breaks down. The breakdown is just what separates decision making under uncertainty from decision making under risk. Secondly, many influential applications of decision theory methods, the Rasmussen Report is a good example, do, illegitimately, delete possible alternatives from their modellings. 21. Discount, or bank, rates in the economists' sense are usually set to follow the market, cf. P.A. Samuelson, EcOYiorri'icsi 7th Edition, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1967, p.351. 22. A real possibility is one which there is evidence for believing could eventuate. A real possibility requires producible evidence for its consideration. 23. Thus the rates have little moral relevance. The contrast is with mere logical possibility. �4 24. Such a principle is explicit both in classical utilitarianism (e.g. Sidgwick p. 414), and in a range of contract and other theories from Kant and Rousseau to Rawls (p.293). How the principle is argued for will depend heavily, however, on the underlying theory; and we do not want to make our use depend heavily on particular ethical theories. 25. The latter question is taken up in section VII; see especially, the Poverty argument. 26. SF, p. 27. Shrader-Frechette is herself somewhat critical of the carte blanche adoption of these methods, suggesting that ’whoever affirms or denies the desirability of ... [such] standards is, to some degree, symbollically assenting to a number of American value patterns and cultural norms’ 27. (p. 28). The example parallels the sorts of counterexamples often advanced to utilitarianism, e.g. the admissible lynching of pleasure given to the large lynching party. of an innocent person because For the more general case against utilitarianism, see ... 28. US Atomic Energy Commission, Comparative Risk-Cost-Benefit Study of Alternative sources of Electrical Energy (WASH-1224), US Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., December 1974, p.4-7 and p. 1-16. 29. As SF points out, p.37-44., in some detail. As she remarks, ... since standards need not be met, so long as the NRC [Nuclear Regulatory commission] judges that the licence shows ’a reasonable effort’ at meeting them, current policy allows government regulators to trade human health and welfare for the [apparent] good intentions of the promotors of technology. [Such] good intentions have never been known to be sufficient for the morality of an act (p. 39). The failure of state regulation, even where the standards are as mostly not very demanding, and the alliance of regulators with those they are supposed to be regulating, are conspicuous features of modern environmental control, not just of (nuclear) pollution control. 30. �31. The figures are those from the original Brookhaven Report: possibilities and consequences of major 'Theoretical accidents in large nuclear plants’, USAEC Report WASH-740, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1957. This report was requested in the first place because the Commission bn Atomic Energy wanted positive safety conclusions "to reassure the private insurance companies" so that they would provide coverage for the nuclear industry. Since even the conservative statistics of the report were alarming it was suppressed and its data were not made public until almost 20 years later, after a suit was brought as a result of the Freedom of Information Act (Shrader-Frechette, pp. 78-9). 32. Atomic Energy Commission, Reactor Safety Study: An Assessment of Accident Risks in US Commercial Nuclear Power Plants, Government Printing Office Washington, D.C., 1975. This report, the only allegedly complete study, concluded that fission reactors presented only a minimal health risk to the public. Early in 1979, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (the relevant organisation that superseded the troubled Atomic Energy Commission) withdrew its support for the report, with the result that there is now no comprehensive analysis of nuclear power approved by the US Government. 32a. Most present and planned reactors are of this type: see Gyorgy. 33. 34. Even then relevant environment factors may have been neglected. 35. There are variations on (i) and (ii) which multiply costs against numbers such as probabilities. In this way risks, construed as probable costs, can be taken into account in the assessment. (Alternatively, risks may be assessed through such familiar methods as insurance.) A principle varying (ii), and formulated as follows: (ii’)a is ethically acceptable if (for some b) a includes no more risks than b and b is socially accepted, was the basic ethical principle in terms of which the Cluff Lake Board of Inquiry recently decided that nuclear power development �in Saskatchewan is ethically acceptable: see Cluff Lake Board of Inquiry Final Report, Department of Environment, Government of Saskatchewan, 1978, p. 305 and p. 288. In this report, a is nuclear power and b is either activities clearly accepted by society as alternative power sources. In other applications b has been taken as cigarette smoking, motoring, mining and even the Vietnam War (!) The points made in the text do not exhaust the objections to principles (i) - (ii’). The principles are certainly ethically substantive, since an ethical consequence cannot be deduced from nonethical premisses, but they have an inadmissible conventional character. For look at the origin of b: b may be socially accepted though it is no longer socially acceptable, or though its social acceptibility is no longer so clearcut and it would not have been socially What accepted if as much as is now known had been known when it was introduced. is required in (ii’), for instance, for the argument to begin to look, convincing is then ’ethically acceptable’ rather than ’socially accepted'. But even with the amendments the principles are invalid, for the reasons given in the text. It is not disconcerting that these arguments do not work. It would be sad to see yet another area lost to the experts, namely ethics to actuaries. 36. A main part of the trouble with the models is that they are narrowly utilitarian, and like utilitarianism they neglect distributional features, involve naturalistic fallacies, etc. Really they try to treat as an uncon­ strained optimisation what is a deontically constrained optimisation: see R. and V. Routley ’An expensive repair kit for utilitarianism’. 37. Apparent exceptions to the principle such as taxation (and redistribution of income generally) vanish when wealth is construed (as it has to be if taxation is to be properly justified) as at least partly a social asset unfairly monopolised by a minority of the population. Examples such as that of motoring dangerously do not constitute counterexamples to the principle; for one is not morally entitled to so motor. 38. SF, p. 39. Goodin, p. 433. 40. On all these points see R. Grossman and G. Daneker, Guide to Jobs and 15, where references are also cited. Energy, Environmentalists for Full Employment, Washington DC, 1977, pp.1-7, and also the details supplied in substantiating the interesting case of Commoner On the absorption of available capital by the nuclear industry, see as well E18], p. 23. On the employment issues, see too H.E. Daly in L9 J, p. 149. �A more fundamental challenge to the poverty argument appears in I. Illich, Energy and Equality, Calden and Boyars, London 1974, where it is argued that the sort of development nuclear energy represents is exactly the opposite of what the poor need. 41. For much more detail on the inappropriateness see E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful, Blond and Briggs, London, 1973. As to the capital and other requirements, see [2], p. 48, and also [7] and [9]. For an illuminating look at the sort of development high-energy technology will tend to promote in the so-called underdeveloped countries see the paper of Waiko and other papers in The Melanesian Environment (edited J.H. Winslow), Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1977. 42. A useful survey is given in A. Lovins, Energy Strategy: The Road Not Taken, Friends of the Earth Australia, 1977 (reprinted from Foreign Affairs, October 1976); see also [17], [6], [7], [14], p. 233 ff, and Schumacher, op. cit. 43. An argument like this is suggested in Passmore, Chapters 4 and 7, with respect to the question of saving resources. In Passmore this argument for the overriding importance of passing on contemporary culture is underpinned by what appears to be a future-directed ethical version of the Hidden Hand argument of economics - that, by a coincidence which if correct would indeed be fortunate, the best way to take care of the future (and perhaps even the only way to do so, since do-good intervention is almost certain to go wrong) is to take proper care of the present and immediate future. The argument has all the defects of the related Chain Argument discussed above and others. 44. See Nader and Abbotts, p. 66, p. 191, and also Commoner. 45. Very persuasive arguments to this effect have been advanced by civil liberties groups and others in a number of countries: see especially M. Flood and R. Grove-White, Nuclear Prospects. A comment on the individual, the State and Nuclear Power, Friends of the Earth, Council for the Protection of Rural England and National Council for Civil Liberties, London, 1976. 46. 'US energy policy, for example, since the passage of the 1954 Atomic Energy Act, has been that nuclear power is necessary to provide ”an economical and reliable basis” needed "to sustain economic growth” (SF, p.lll, and references there cited). �There are now a great many criticisms of the second premiss in the literature. For our criticism, and a reformulation of the premiss in terms of selective economic growth (which would exclude nuclear development), see Routley (b), and also Berkley and Seckier. To simple-mindedly contrast economic growth with no-growth, in the fashion of some discussions of nuclear power, c.f. Elster, is to leave out alternatives; the contraction crucial of course much simplifies the otherwise faulty case for unalleged growth. 48. In UK and USSR nuclear development is explicitly in the public domain, in such countries as France and West Germany the government has very substantial interests in main nuclear involved companies. Even as regards nuclear plant operation in the US, it is difficult to obtain comprehensive data. Estimates of cost very dramtically according to the sample of plants chosen and the assumptions made concerning the measurement of plant performance (Gyorgy, p. 173). 49. 50. See Kalmanoff, p. See Comey. 51. Ref. to what it has to say about Price Anderson Act. 52. Full ref to SF onargument from ignorance etc. 53. These e.g. Elster, p. 377. 54. A recent theme in much economic literature is that Bayesian decision On decision theory see also, theory and risk analysis can be universally applied. The theme is upset as soon as one steps outside of select Old Paradigm confines. In any case, even within these confines there is no consensus at all on, and few (and widely diverging) figures for,the probability of a reactor core meltdown, and no reliable estimates as to the likelihood of a nuclear confrontation. Thus Goodin argues (in 78) that 'such uncertainties plague energy theories' as to 'render expected utility calculations impossible’. 55. For details see Gyorgy, p. 398 ff., from which presentation of the international story is adapted. �7 56. Gyorgy, p. 307, and p. 308. points, see Chomsky 57. For elaboration of some of the important and Hermann. Whatever one thinks of the ethical principles underlying the Old Paradigm or its Modification - and they do form a coherent set that many people can respect - these are not the principles underlying contemporary corporate capitalism and associated third-world imperialism. 58. Certainly practical transitional programs may involve temporary and limited use of unacceptable long term commodities such as coal, but in presenting such practical details one should not lose sight of the more basic social and structural changes, and the problem is really one of making those. Similarly practical transitional strategies should make use of such measures as environmental (or replacement) pricing of energy i.e. so that the price of some energy unit includes the full cost of replacing it by an equivalent unit taking account of environmental cost of production. Other (sometimes cooptive) strategies towards more satisfactory alternatives should also, of course, be adopted, in particular the removal of institutional barriers to energy conservation and alternative technology (e.g. local government regulations blocking these), and the removal of state assistance to fuel and power industries. 59. Symptomatic of the fact that it is not treated as renewable is that forest economics do not generally allow for full renewability - if they did the losses and deficits on forestry operations would be much more striking than they already are often enough. It is doubtful, furthermore, that energy cropping of forests can be a fully renewable operation if net energy production is to be worthwhile; see, e.g. the argument in L.R.B. Mann ‘Some difficulties with energy farming for portable fuels’, and add in the costs of ecosystem maintenance. 60. For an outline and explanation of this phenomena see Gyorgy, and also Woodmansee. 61. The requisite distinction is made in several places, e.g. Routley (b), and (to take one example from the real Marxist literature), Baran and Sweezy. 62. The distinction between shallow and deep ecology was first emphasised by Naess. For its environmental importance see Routley (c) further references are cited). (where �/bU/ REFERENCES. In order to contain references to a modest length, reference to primary sources has often been replaced by reference through secondary sources. Generally the reader can easily trace the primary sources. For those parts of the text that overlap Routley (a), fuller references will be found by consulting the latter article. S. Cotgrove and A. Duff, ’Environmentalism, middle-class radicalism and politics’, Sociological Review 28 (2) (1980), 333-51. R.E. Goodin, ’No moral nukes’, Ethics 90 (1980), 417-49. A. Gyorgy and Friends, No Nukes: everyone’s guide to nuclear power, South End Press, Boston, Mass., 1979. R. Nader and J. Abbotts, The Menace of Atomic Energy, Outback Press, Melbourne, 1977. R. and V. Routley, 'Nuclear energy and obligations to the future', Inquiry 21 (1978), 133-79 (cited as Routley (a)). Fox Report: Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry First Report, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1977. K.S. Schrader-Frechette, Nuclear Power and Public Policy, Reidel, Dordrecht, 1980 (referred to as SF). W.R. Catton, Jr., and R.E. Dunlap, ’A new ecological paradigm for post-exuberant sociology’, American Behavioral Scientist 24 (1980) 15-47. United States Interagency Review group on Nuclear Waste Management, Report to the President, Washington. 29442) (Dept, of Energy) 1979. (Ref. No. El. 28. TID- (cited as US(a)). A.B. Lovins and J.H. Price, Non-Nuclear Futures: The Case for an Ethical Energy Strategy, Friends of the Earth International, San Francisco, 1975. R. Routley, ’On the impossibility of an orthodox social theory and of an orthodox solution to environmental problems’, Logique et Analyse, 23 (1980), 145-66. R. Routley, ’Necessary limits for knowledge: unknowable truths’, in Essays in honour of Paul Weingartner, (ed. E. Morscher), Salzberg, 1980. J. Passmore, Man’s Responsibility for Nature, Duekworth, London, 19 74. �2. R. and V. Routley, The Fight for the Forests, Third Edition, RSSS, Australian National University, 1975 (cited as Routley (b)). J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1971. P.W. Berkley and D.W. Seckier, Economic Growth and Environmental Decay, Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch, New York, 1972. J. Elster, ’Risk, uncertainty and nuclear power’, Social Science Information 18 (3) (1979) 371-400. J. Robinson, Economic Heresies, Basic Books, New York, 1971. B. Barry, 'Circumstances of Justice and future generations’ in Obligations to Future Generations (ed. R.T. Sikora and B. Barry), Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1978. II. Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, Macmillan, London, 1962 (reissue). B. Commoner, The Poverty of Power, Knopf, New York, 1975. N. Chomsky and E.S. Herman, The Political Economy of Human Rights, 2 vols., Black Rose Books, Montreal, 1979. J. Woodmansee, The World of a Giant Corporation, North Country Press, Seattle, Washington, 1975. P.A. Bd\ran and P. Sweezy, Monopoly Capital, Penguin, 1967. A. Naess, 'The shallow and the deep, long range ecology movement. A summary’, Inquiry 16 (1973) 95-100. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document issue of nuclear power raises many basic issues in ethics. The By means of an example, we argue sorts of transfers of costs, benefits from a illegitimacy of certain the for transfers from one party who obtains given course of action, onto other parties who do The inadequate methods currently available not. nuclear power wastes mean that transfer of serious could permit risks onto costs and the arguments for future these crucial ethical ignore the i)7pra 1 to Social Dimensions Ethical and Nuclear Power are not the acceptability of by the fact such an illegitimate future people. that Many of such risks on imposing transfer the We argue issues. that transfer principles give rise constraints on action such removed for storing nuclear those affected future and are not present people. The nuclear issue and associated arguments also raise in a highly topical w3y really ’need' allow for, or are and all is such needs framework? many basic issues in the consumer in part theory. items nuclear power is it authoritarian or wrong to Are existing democratic mechanisms framework adequate, and excessive question prevent what lives? The approach to all are these basic elements pure or do we need to assume both, alterable social the answer to kinds of social changes would framework and over social their own crucially on intera ction are conceived they social wholes, individuals, are distinct and irreducible, argue? R. the allow for more adequate these questions depends how the underlying elements of to If such.concentrations of power and control by people over the social supposed they give inadequate control or do concentrations of power? is affirmative, people for control over I last Do frustrate such needs, imposed by a particular, the social permit social Routley as we shall NUCLEAR POWER - ETHICAL, ■•MB SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ptMENSIONS Wl/, I. COMPETING PARADIGMS AND THE NUCLEAR DEBATE. One hardly needs initiation into the dark mysteries of nuclear physics to contribute usefully to the debate now widely ranging over nuclear power. While many important empirical questions are still unresolved, these do not really lie at the centre of the controversy. Instead, it is a debate about values ... many of the questions which arise are social and ethical ones. Sociological investigations have confirmed that the nuclear debate is primarily one over what is worth having or pursuing and over what we are entitled to do They have also confirmed that the debate is polarised along the 2 lines of competing paradigms. According to the entrenched paradigm discerned, to others. that constellation of values, attitudes and beliefs often called the Dominant Social Paradigm (hereafter the Old Paradigm), economic criteria become the benchmark by which a wide range of individual and social action is judged ahd evaluated. And belief in the market and market mechanisms is quite central. Clustering around this core belief is the conviction that enterprise flourishes best in a system of risks and rewards, that differentials are necessary ..., and in the necessity for some form of division of labour, and a hierarchy of skills and expertise. In particular, there is a belief in the competence of experts in general and of scientists in particular. ... there is an emphasis on quantification. The rival world viewT, sometimes called the Alternative Environmental Paradigm (the New Paradigm) differs on almost every point, and, according to sociologists, in ways summarised in the following table A Dominant Social Paradigm CORE VALUES Material (economic growth, progress and development) Natural environment valued as resource Alternative Environmental Paradigm Domination over nature Non-material (self-realisation) Natural environment intrinsically valued Harmony with nature ECONOMY* Market forces Risk and reward Rewards for achievement Differentials Individual self-help Public interest Safety Incomes related to need Egalitarian Collective/social provision POLITY Authoritative structures (experts influential) Hierarchical Law and order Action through official institutions Participative structures (citizen/ worker involvement) Non-hierarchical Liberation Direct action SOCIETY Centralised Large-scale Associational Ordered Decentralised Small-scale Communal Flexible NATURE Ample reserves Nature hostile/neutral Environment controllable Earth's resources limited Nature benign Nature delicately balanced KNOWLEDGE Confidence in science and technology Rationality of means (only) Limits to science Rationality of ends State socialism, as practised in most of the "Eastern bloc", differs as to economic organisation, the market in particular being replaced system by a command system). But since there is virtually no debate confines of state socialism, that minor variant on the Old Paradigm from the Old Paradigm really only by central planning (a market over a nuclear future within the need not be delineated here. 2 No doubt t’ne competing paradigm picture is a trifle simple (and subsequently it is important to disentangle a Modified Old Paradigm, which softens the old economic assumptions with social welfare requirements: really and instead of a New Paradigm there are rather counterparadigms, a cluster of not very well worked out positions that diverge from the cluster marked out as the Old Paradigm). Nonetheless it is empirically investigable, and, most important, it enables the nuclear debate to be focussed. Large- scale nuclear development, of the sort now occurring in much of the world, runs counter to leading tenets (such as societal features) of the New Paradigm. Indeed to introduce ethical and social dimensions into the assessment of nuclear power, instead of or in addition to merely economic factors such as cost and efficiency, is already to move somewhat beyond the received paradigm. For under the Old Paradigm, strictly construed, the nuclear debate is confined to the terms of the narrow utilitarianism upon which contemporary economic practice is premissed, the issues to questions of economic means (to assumed economistic ends) along with technological, social engineering and other instrumental details: whatever falls outside these terms is (dismissed as) irrational. Furthermore, nuclear development receives its support from adherents of the Old Paradigm. Virtually all the arguments in favour of it are set within the assumption framework of the Old Paradigm, and without these assumptions the case for the nuclear future the world is presently committed to fails. But in fact the argument for a nuclear future from the Old Paradigm is itself broken-backed and ultimately fails, unless the free enterprise economic assumptions are replaced by the ethically unacceptable assumptions of advanced (corporate) capitalism. The two paradigm picture also enables our case against a nuclear future (a case written from outside the Old Paradigm) to be structured. main parts?:- There are two It is argued, firstly, from without the Old Paradigm, that nuclear development is ethically unjustifiable; but that, secondly, even from within the framework of the ethically dubious Old Paradigm, such development is unacceptable, since significant features of nuclear development conflict with indispensible features of the Paradigm (e.g. costs of project development and state subsidization with market independence and criteria for project selection). It has appeared acceptable from within the dominant paradigm only because ideals do not square with practice, only because the assumptions of the Old Paradigm are but very rarely applied in contemporary political practice, 3 the place of pure (or mixed) capitalism having been usurped by corporate capitalism. It is because the nuclear debate can be carried on within the framework of the Old Paradigm that the debate - although it is a debate about values, because of the conflicting values of the competing paradigms - is not just a debate about values; it is also a debate within a paradigm as to means to already assumed (economistic) ends, and of rational choice as to energy options within a predetermined framework of values. (In this corner belong, as explained in section VIII, most decision theory arguments, arguments often considered as encompassing all the nuclear debate is ethically about, best utilitarian means to predetermined ends.) For another leading characteristic of the nuclear debate is the attempt, under the dominant paradigm to remove it from the ethical and social sphere, and to divert it into specialist issues - whether over minutiae and contingencies of present technology or over medical 8 or legal or mathematical details. The double approach can be applied as regards each of the main problems nuclear development poses. There are many interrelated problems, and the argument is further structured in terms of these. For in the advancement and promotion of nuclear power we encounter a remarkable combination of factors, never before assembled: establishment, on a massive scale, of an industry which involves at each stage of its processing serious risks and at some stages of production possible catastrophe, which delivers as a by-product radioactive wastes which require up to a million years’ storage but for which no sound and economic storage methods are known, which grew up as part of the war industry and which is easily subverted to deliver nuclear weapons, which requires for its operation considerable secrecy, limitations on the flow of information and restrictions on civil liberties, which depends for its economics, and in order to generate expected profits, on substantial state subsidization, support, and intervention. with problems. It is, in short, a very high techological development, beset A first important problem, which serves also to exemplify ethical issues and principles involved in other nuclear power questions, is the unresolved matter of disposal of nuclear wastes. II. THE NUCLEAR WASTE DISPOSAL PROBLEM, AND THE TRAIN PARABLE. A long distance country train has just pulled out. crowded carries both passengers and freight. The train which is At an early stop in the journey someone consigns as freight, to a far distant destination, a package which contains a highly toxic and explosive gas. This is packaged in a very thin container which, as the consigner is aware, may not contain the gas for the 4 full distance for which it is consigned, and certainly will not do so if the train should strike any real trouble, for example if there is a breakdown and the interior of the train becomes very hot, if the train should be derailed or involved in a collision, or if some passenger should interefere inadvertently or deliberately with the freight, perhaps trying to steal some of it. All of these sorts of contingencies have occurred on some previous journeys. If the container should break the resulting disaster would probably kill at least some of the people on the train in adjacent carriages, while others could be maimed or incur serious diseases. Most of us would roundly condemn such an action. consigner of the parcel say to try to justify it? What might the He might say that it is not certain that the gas will escape and that it is mere speculation to suppose it will, that the world needs his product and it is his duty to supply it, and that in any case he is not responsible for the train or the people on it. These sorts of excuses however would normally be seen as ludicrous when set in this What is worth remarking is that similar excuses are not always so seen I when the consigner, again a ’’responsible” businessman, puts his workers’ health context. or other peoples’ welfare at risk. Suppose he ways that it is his own and others’ pressing needs which justify his action. The company he controls, which produces the material as a by-product, is in bad financial straits, and could not afford to produce a better container even if it knew how to make one. If the company fails, he and his family will suffer, his employees will lose their jobs and have to look for others, and the whole company town, through loss of spending and the cancellation of the Multiplier Effect, will be worse off. The poor and unemployed of the town, whom he would otherwise have been able to help, will suffer especially. Few people would accept such a story, even if correct, as justification Even where there are serious risks and costs to oneself or some group for whom one is concerned one is usually considered not to be entitled to simply transfer the heavy burden of those risks and costs onto other uninvolved parties, especially where they arise from one’s own, or one’s group’s, chosen life-style. The matter of nuclear waste disposal has many moral features which resemble the train case. progresses. How fitting the analogy is will become apparent as the argument There is no known proven safe way to package the highly toxic wastes generated by the nuclear plants that will be spread around the world as 9 large-scale nuclear development goes ahead. The waste problem will be much more serious than that generated by the 50 or so reactors in use at present, with 5. each one of the 2000 or so reactors envisaged by the end of the century producing, on average, annual wastes containing 1000 times the radioactivity of the Hiroshima bomb. Much of this waste is extremely toxic. For example, a millionth of a gramme of plutonium is enough to induce a lung cancer. Wastes will include the reactors themselves, which will have to be abandoned after their expected life times of perhaps 40 years, may require and which, some have estimated, million years to reach safe levels of radioactivity. Nuclear wastes must be kept suitably isolated from the environment for their entire active lifetime. For fission products the required storage period averages a thousand years or so, and for transuranic elements, which include plutonium, there is a half to a million year storage problem. Serious problems have arisen with both short-term and proposed long-term methods of storage, even with the comparatively small quantities of waste produced over the last twenty years.Short-term methods of storage require continued human inter­ vention, while proposed longer term methods are subject to both human inter­ ference and risk of leakage through non-human factors. No one with even a slight knowledge of the geological and climatic history of the earth over the last million years, a period whose fluctuations in climate we are only just beginning to guage and which has seen four Ice Ages, could be confident that a rigorous guarantee of safe storage could be provided for the vast period of time involved. Nor does the history of human affairs over the last 3000 years give ground for confidence in safe storage by methods requiring human intervention over perhaps a million years. Proposed long-term storage methods such as storage in granite formations or in salt mines, are largely speculative and relatively untested, and have already proved to involve difficulties with attempts made to put them into practice. Even as regards expensive recent proposals for first embedding concentrated wastes in glass and encapsulating the result in multilayered metal containers before rock deposit, simulation models reveal that radioactive material may not remain suitably isolated from human environment.^ In short, the best present storage proposals carry very real possibilities of irradiating future people and damaging their environment , Given the heavy costs which could be involved for the future, and given the known limits of technology, it is methodologically unsound to bet, as nuclear nations have, on the discovery of safe procedures for storage of wastes. Any new procedures (required before 2000) will probably be but variations on present proposals, and subject to the same inadequacies. For instance, none of the proposed methods for safe storage has been properly tested, and they may well prove to involve unforeseen difficulties and risks when an attempt is made to put them into practice on a commercial scale. provide a rigorous guarantee of Only a method that could safety over the storage period, that placed safety beyond reasonable doubt, would be acceptable. It is difficult to see how such rigorous guarantees could be given concerning either the geological or future human factors. But even if an economically viable, rigorously safe long term storage method could be devised, there is the problem of guaranteeing that it would be universally and invariably used. The assumption that it would be (especially if, as appears likely, such a method proved expensive economically and politically) seems to presuppose a level of efficiency, perfection and concern for the future which has not previously been encountered in human affairs, and has certainly not been conspicuous in the nuclear industry. 12 Again, unless we assume continuous and faultless guarding of long term storage sites through perhaps a million years of possible future human activity, weapons- grade radioactive material will be accessible, over much of the million year storage period, to any party who is in a position to retrieve it. The assumption that a way will nonetheless be found, before 2000, which gets around the wastestorage problem (no longer a nere disposal problem) is accordingly not rationally based, but is rather like many assumptions of ways, an article of faith. It is an assumption supplied by the Old Paradigm, a no limitations assumption, that there are really no (development) problems that cannot be solved technologically (if not in a fashion that is always immediately economically feasible). The assumption has played part in development plans and practice. technological optimism (not to say hubris an important It has not only encouraged an unwarranted ), that there are no limits to what humans can accomplish, especially through science; it has led to the embarcation on projects before crucial problems have been satisfactorily solved or a solution is even in sight, and it has led to the idea that technology can always be suitably controlled. It has also led, not surprisingly, to disasters. There are severe limits on what technology can achieve (some of which are becoming known in the form of limitation theorems^); and in addition there are human limitations which modern technological developments often fail to take due account of (risk analysis of the likelihood of reactor accidents is a relevant example, discussed below). The original nuclear technology dream was that nuclear fission would provide unlimited energy (a 'clean unlimited supply of power'). shattered. and nuclear That dream soon The nuclear industry apparently remains a net consumer of power, fission will be but a quite short-term supplier of power. The risks imposed on the future by proceeding with nuclear development are, then, significant. Nuclear fission creates wastes which may remain toxic for a million years, but even with the (suspect) breeder reactor it could be an energy source for only perhaps 150 years. It will do nothing for the energy problems of the people of the distant future whose lives could be seriously affected by the wastes. Thus perhaps 40,000 generations of future people could be forced to bear significant risks resulting from the provision of the (extravagant) energy use of only a small proportion of the people of .10 generations Nor is the risk of direct harm from the escape or misuse of radioactive materials the only burden the nuclear solution imposes on the future. Because the energy provided by nuclear fission is merely a stop gap, it seems probable that in due course the same problem, that of making a transition to renewable sources of energy, will have to be faced again by a future population which will probably, again as a result of our actions, be very much worse placed to cope For they may well have to face the change to renewable resources in an with it. over-populated world not only burdened with the legacy of our nuclear wastes, but also in a world in which, if the nuclear proponents’ dreams of global industrialisation are realised, more and more of the global population will have become dependent on high energy consumption and associated technology and heavy resource use and will have lost or reduced its ability to survive without it. It will, moreover, probably be a world which is largely depleted of non-renewable resources, and in which such renewable resources as forests and soils as remain, resources which will have to form a very important part of the basis of life, are in a run-down condition. Such points tell against the idea that future people must be, if not direct beneficiaries of nuclear fission energy, at least indirect beneficiaries. It is for such reasons that the train parable cannot be turned around to work in favour of nuclear power, with for example, the nuclear train bringing relief as well as wastes to a remote town powered (only) by nuclear power. The'Solution" then is to buy time for contemporary industrial society at a price which not only creates serious problems for future people but which reduces their ability to cope with those problems. Like the consigner in the train parable, contemporary industrial society proposes, in order to get itself out of a mess arising from its chosen life style - the creation of economies dependent on an abundance of non-renewable energy, which is limited in supply - to pass on costs and risks of serious harm to others who will obtain no corresponding benefits. The ’’solution” may enable the avoidance of some uncomfortable changes 8. in the lifetime of those now living and their immediate descendants, just as the consigner’s action avoids uncomfortable changes for him and his immediate surroundings, but at the expense of passing heavy burdens to other uninvolved parties, whose opportunity to lead decent lives may be seriously jeopardised. Industrial society has - under each paradigm, so it will be argued - clear alternatives to this action, which is taken essentially to avoid changing corporately-controlled patterns of consumption and protect the interest of those comparatively few who benefit from them. If we apply to the nuclear situation, so perceived, the standards of behaviour and moral principles generally acknowledged (in principle if perhaps often not in fact) in the contemporary world, it is not easy to avoid the conclusion that nuclear development involves gross injustice with respect to the future.There appear to be only two plausible moves that might enable the avoidance of such a conclusion. First, it might be argued that the moral principles and obligations which we acknowledge for the contemporary world and the immediate future do not apply because the recipients of the nuclear parcel are in the non-immediate future. Secondly, an attempt might be made to appeal to overriding circumstances, for to reject the consigner’s action in the circum­ stances outlined is not of course to imply that there are no circumstances in which such an action might be justifiable, or at least where the matter is less clearcut. It is the same with the nuclear case. Just as in the case of the consigner of the package there is a need to consider what these justifying circumstances might be, and whether they apply in the present case. We consider these possible escape routes for the proponent of nuclear development in turn, beginning with the question of our obligations to the future. Resolution of this question casts light on other ethical questions concerning nuclear develop­ ment. It is only when these have been considered that the matter of whether there are overriding circumstances is taken up again (in section VII). Ill OBLIGATIONS TO THE (DISTANT) FUTURE. The especially problematic area is that of the distant (i.e. non-immediate) future, the future with which people alive today will have no direct contact: by comparison, the immediate future gives fewer problems for most ethical theories. In fact the question of obligations to future people presents tests which a number of ethical theories fail to pass, and also has serious repercussions in political philosophy as regards the adequacy of accepted (democratic and other) institutions which do not take due account of the interests of future creatures. 9. Moral philosophers have, predictably, differed on the issue. A good many of the philosophers who have explicitly considered the question have come down in favour of the same considerations being given to the rights and interests of future people as to those of contemporary or immediately future people. Other philosophers have tended to fall into three categories - those who acknowledge obligations to the future but who do not take them seriously or who assign them a lesser weight, those who deny or who are committed by their general moral position to denying that there are moral obligations beyond the immediate future, and those who come down with admirable philosophical caution, on both sides of the issue, but with the weight of the argument favouring the view underlying prevailing economic and political institutions, that there are no moral obligations to the future beyond perhaps those to the next generation. According to the most extreme of these positions against moral obligations to the future, our behaviour with respect to the future is morally unconstrained, there are no moral restrictions on acting or failing to act deriving from the effect of our actions on future people. Of those philosophers who say, or whose views imply that we do not have obligations to the (non-immediate) future, who have opted for the unconstrained position, many have based this view on accounts of moral obligation which are built on relations which presuppose some temporal or spatial contiguity. Thus moral obligation is seen as grounded on or as presupposing various relations which could not hold between people widely separated in time (or sometimes in space). For example, obligation is seen as grounded in relations which are proximate or of short duration and also non-transitive. Among such suggested bases or grounds of moral obligation, or requirements on moral obligation, which would rule out obligations to the nonimmediate future are these:- Firstly there are those accounts which require that someone to whom a moral obligation is held be able to claim his rights or entitlement. People in the distant future will not be able to claim rights and entitlements as against us, and of course they can do nothing effective to enforce any claims they might have for their rights against us. Secondly, there are those accounts which base moral obligations on social or legal convention, for example a convention which would require punishment of offenders or at least some kind of social enforcement. But plainly these and other conventions will not hold invariant over change in society and amendment of legal conventions and so will not be invariant over time. Also future people have no way of enforcing their interests or punishing offenders, and there could be no guarantee that any contemporary institutions would do it for them. 10. Both the view that moral obligation requires the context of a moral community and the view that it is contractually based appear to rule out the distant future as a field of moral obligation as they not only require a commonality or some sort of common basis which cannot be guaranteed in the case of the distant future, but also a possibility of interchange or reciprocity of action which cannot apply to the future. Where the basis of moral obligation is seen as mutual exchange the interests of future people must be set aside because they cannot change the past and cannot be parties to any mutual contract. The exclusion of moral obligations to the distant future also follows from those views which attempt to ground moral obligations in non-transitive relations of short duration such as sympathy and love. As well there are difficulties about love and sympathy for (non-existent) people in the far distant future about whose personal qualities and characteristics one must know very little and who may well be committed to a life-style for which one has little or no sympathy. On the current showing in the case of nuclear energy it would be easy to conclude that contemporary society lacks both love and sympathy for future people; and it would appear to follow from this that contemporary people had no obligations concerning future people and could damage them as it suited them. What all these views have in common is a picture of obligation as something acquired, either individually or institutionally, something which is conditional on doing something or failing to do something (e.g. participating in the moral community, contracting), or having some characteristic one can fail to have (e.g. love, sympathy, empathy). Because obligation therefore becomes conditional, features usually (and correctly) thought to characterise obligation such as universality of application and necessitation (i.e. the binding features) are lost, especially where there is a choice whether or not to do the thing required to acquire the obligation, and so as to whether to acquire it. The criteria for acquisition suggested are such as to exclude people in the distant future. The view that there are no moral constraints with respect to future people, that one is free to act however one likes with respect to them, is not however sustainable. Consider, for example, a scientific group which, tor no particular reason other than to test a particular piece of technology, places in orbit a cobalt bomb set off by a triggering device designed to go off several hundred years from the time of its despatch. No presently living person and none of their immediate descendants would be affected, but the population of the earth in the distant future would be wiped out as a result of the action. direct and predictable The unconstrained position clearly implies that this is an acceptable moral enterprise, that whatever else we might legitimately criticize in the scientists’ experiment, perhaps its being over-expensive or badly designed, we cannot lodge a moral protest about the damage it will do to future people. the following sort The unconstrained position also endorses as morally acceptable of policy:- A firm discovers it can make a handsome profit from mining, processing and manufacturing a new type of material which, although it causes no problem for present people or their immediate descendants, will over a period of hundreds of years decay into a substance which will cause an enormous epidemic of cancer among the inhabitants of the earth at that time. According to the unconstrained view the firm is free to act in its own interests, without any consideration for the harm it does remote future people. Such counterexamples to the unconstrained view, which are easily varied and multiplied, might seem childishly obvious. Yet the unconstrained position concerning the future from which they follow is far from being a straw man; not only have several philosophers endorsed this position, but it is a clear implication of many currently popular views of the basis of moral obligation, as well as of prevailing economic theory. It seems that those who opt for the unconstrained position have not considered such examples, despite their being clearly implied by their position. We suspect that - we would certainly hope that - when it is brought out that the unconstrained position admits such counterexamples, that being free to act implies among other things being free to inflict pointless harm for example, most of those who opted for the unconstrained position would want to assert that it was not what they intended. What many of those who have put forward the unconstrained position seem to have had in mind in denying moral obligation is rather that- future people can look after themselves, that we are not responsible for their lives. The popular view that the future can take care of itself also seems to assume a future causally independent of the present. But it is not. It is not as if, in the counter­ example cases or in the nuclear case, the future is simply being left alone to take care of itself. Present people are influencing it, and in doing so thereby acquire many Of the same sorts of moral responsibilities as they do in causally affecting the present and immediate future, namely the obligation to take account in what they do of people affected and their interests, to be careful in their actions, to take account of the genuine probability of their actions causing harm, and to see that they do not act so as to rob future people of the chance of a good life. 12. Furthermore, to say that we are not responsible for the lives of future people does not amount to the same thing as saying that we are free to do as we like with respect to them, that there are no moral constraints on our action involving them. In just the same way, the fact that one does not have or has not acquired an obligation to some stranger with whom one has never been involved, that one has no responsibility for his life, does not imply that one is free to do what one likes with respect to him, for example to rob him or to pursue some course of action of advantage to oneself which could seriously harm him. These difficulties for the unconstrained position arise in part from the (sometimes deliberate) failure to make an important distinction between acquired or assumed obligation toward somebody, for which some act of acquisition or assumption is required as a qualifying condition, and moral constraints, which require, for example, that one should not act so as to damage or harm someone, and for which no act of acquisition is required. There is a considerable difference in the level and kind of responsibility involved. In the first case one must do something or be something which one can fail to do or be, e.g. have loves, synpathy, be contracted. In the second case responsibility arises as a result of being a causal agent who is aware of the consequences or probable consequences of his action, and thus does not have to be especially acquired or assumed. Thus there is no problem about how the latter class, moral constraints, can apply to the distant future in cases where it may be difficult or impossible for acquisition or assumption conditions to be satisfied. They apply as a result of the ability to produce causal effects on the distant future of a reasonably predictable nature. Thus also moral constraints can apply to what does not (yet) exist, just as actions can cause results that do not (yet) exist. While it may perhaps be the case that there would need to be an acquired or assumed obligation in order for it to be claimed that contemporary people must make special sacrifices for future people of an heroic kind, or even to help them especially, only moral constraints are needed in order for us to be constrained from harming them. Thus, to return to the train parable, the consigner cannot argue in justification of his action that he has never assumed or acquired responsibility for the passengers, that he does not know them and therefore has no love or sympathy for them and that they are not part of his moral community, in short that he has no special obligations to help them. All that one needs to argue concerning the train, and the nuclear case, is that there are moral constraints against harming, not that there are specially acquired obligations to take responsibility for the lives of people involved. There has been an attempt to represent all obligations to the distant future in terms of heroic self-sacrifice, something which cannot of course be morally required. But in view of the distinctions between constraints and acquired obligation and between obligation and supererogation this is just 13. to misrepresent the position of these obligations. For example, one is no more engaging in heroic self-sacrifice by not forcing future people into an unviable life position or by refraining from causing then direct harm than the consigner is resorting to heroic self-sacrifice in refraining from placing his dangerous package on the train. The conflation of moral restraints with acquired obligation, and the attempt therewith to view all constraints as acquired and to write off nonacquired constraints, is facilitated through the use of the term ’moral obligation’ both to signify any type of deontic constraints and also to indicate rather something which has to be assumed or required. The conflation is encouraged by reductionist positions which, in attempting to account for obligation in general, mistakenly endeavour to collapse all obligations. Hence the equation, and some main roots of the unconstrained position, of the erroneous belief that there are no moral constraints concerning the distant future. The unconstrained view tends to give way, under the weight of counter­ examples, to more qualified, and sometimes ambivalent, positions, for example the position that our obligations are to immediate posterity, we ought to try to improve the world so that we shall be able to hand it over to our immediate successors in a better condition, and that is all; there are in practice no obligations to the distant future. 17 A main argument in favour of the latter theme is that such obligations would in practice be otiose. Everything that needs to be accounted for can be encompassed through the chain picture of obligation as linking successive generations, under which each generation has obligations, based on loves or sympathy, only to the succeeding generation. account. There are at least three objections to this chain First, it is inadequate to treat constraints concerning the future as if they applied only between generations, as if there were no question of constraints on individuals as opposed to whole generations, since individuals can create causal effects, e.g. harm, on the future in a way which may create individual responsibility, and which often cannot be sheeted home to an entire generation. Nuclear power and its wastes, for example, are strictly the responsibility of small groups of power-holders, not a generational responsibility. Secondly, such chains, since non-transitive, cannot yield direct obligations to the distant future. But for this very reason the chain picture cannot be adequate, as examples again show. For the picture is unable to explain several of the cases that have to be dealt with, e.g. the examples already discussed which show that we can have a direct effect on the distant future without affecting the next generation, who may not even be able to Influence matters. 14. Thirdly, improvements for immediate successors may be achieved at the expense of disadvantages to people of the more distant future. Improving the world for immediate successors is quite compatible with, and may even in some circumstances be most easily achieved by, ruining it for less immediate successors. Such cases can hardly be written off as ’’never-never land" examples since many cases of environmental exploitation might be seen as of just this type. e.g. not just the nuclear case but also the exhaustion of non-renewable resources and the long-term depletion of renewable resources such as soils and forests through overuse. If then such obvious injustices to future people arising from the favouring or exclusive concern with immediate successors are to be avoided, obligations to the future will have to be seen as in some way fairly distributed over time, and not merely as accruing to particular generations in the way the chain picture suggests. IV. ATTEMPTS TO QUALIFY OBLIGATIONS TO THE FUTURE : ECONQMISTIC UNCERTAINTY AND INDETERMINACY ARGUMENTS. While there are grave difficulties for the unconstrained position, qualification leads to a more defensible position. According to the main qualified position we are not entirely unconstrained with respect to the distant future, there are obligations, but these are not so important as those to the present, and the interests of distant future people cannot weigh very much in the scale against those of the present and immediate future. The interests of future people then, except in unusual cases, count for very much less than the interests of present people. Hence such things as nuclear development and various exploitative activities which benefit present people should proceed, even if people of the distant future are (somewhat) disadvantaged by them. The qualified position appears to be widely held and is implicit in prevailing economic theories, where the position of a decrease in weight of future costs and benefits (and so of future interests) is obtained by application over time of a discount rate, so discounting costs and risks to future people. The attempt to apply economics as a moral theory, something that is becoming increasingly common, can lead then to the qualified position. objectionable in such an approach is that What is economics should operate within the bounds of moral (deontic) constraints, just as in practice it operates within legal constraints, not determine what those constraints are. There are moreover alternative economic theories and simply to adopt, without further ado, one which discounts the future is to beg many questions at issue. 15. Among the arguments that economists offer for generally discounting the future, the most threadbare is based on the assumption that future generations will be better off than present ones, and so better placed to handle 18 the waste problem. Since there is mounting evidence that future generations may well not be better off than present ones, especially in things that matter, no argument for discounting the interests of future generations on this basis can carry much weight. Nor is that all that is wrong with the argument. For it depends at base on the assumption that poorer contemporaries would be making sacrifices to richer successors in foregoing such (allegedly beneficial) developments as nuclear power. sacrifice argument. That is, it depends on the already scotched In any case, for the waste disposal problem to be legitimately bequeathed to the future generations, it would have to be shown, what recent economic progress hardly justifies, that future generations will be, not just better off, but so much better off and more capable that they can duly absorb the nuclear waste burden. A more plausible argument for discounting is directly in terms of opportunity costs. It is argued, from the fact that a dollar gained now is worth much more than a dollar received in the non-immediate future (because the first dollar could meanwhile be invested at compound interest), that discounting is required to obtain equivalent monetary values, and so for efficient allocation of resources. Similarly it is argued, by virtue again of equalization of monetary value, that compensation - which is what the waste problem is taken to come to economically - costs much less now than later. Thus a few pennies set aside (e.g. in a trust fund) now or in the future, if need be, will suffice to compensate eventually for any victims of remote radioactive waste leakage. There are, presently at least, insurmountable practical difficulties about applying such discounting, e.g. how to determine appropriate future discount rates. A more serious objection is that applied generally, the argument presupposes, what is false, that compensation, like value, can always be converted into monetary equivalents, that people (including those outside market frameworks) can be monetarily compensated for a variety of damages, including cancer and loss of life. There is no compensating a dead man, or for a lost species. In fact the argument presupposes a double reduction neither part of which can succeed: it is not just that value cannot in general be represented at all adequately 19 monetarily, but (as against utilitarianism, for example) that constraints and obligations can not be somehow reduced to matters of value. It is also presupposed that all decision methods, suitable for requisite nuclear choices, 16. are bound to apply discounting. This is far from so : indeed Goodin argues that, on the contrary, more appropriate decision rules do not allow discounting, and discounting only works in practice with expected utility rules (such as underlie cost-benefit and benefit-risk analyses), which are, he contends strictly inapplicable for nuclear choices (since not all outcomes can be duly determined and assigned probabilities, in the way that application of the rules requires.). 20 As the preceding arguments reveal, the discounting move often has the same result as the unconstrained position. If, for instance, we consider the cancer example and reduce costs to payable compensation, it is evident that over a sufficiently long period of time discounting at current prices would lead to the conclusion that there are no recoverable damages and so, in economic terms, no constraints. In short, even certain damage to future people could be written off. One way to achieve the bias against future people is by the application of discount rates which are set in accord with the current economic horizons of no 21 more than about 15 years, and application of such rates would simply beg the question against the interests and rights of future people. Where there is certain future damage of a morally forbidden type, for example, the whole method of discounting is simply inapplicable, and its use would violate moral constraints. Another argument for the qualified position, which avoids the objections from cases of certain damage, comes from probability considerations. The distant future, it is argued, is much more uncertain than the present and immediate future, so that probabilities are consequently lower, perhaps even approaching or coinciding with zero for any hypothesis concerning the distant future. But then if we take account of probabilities in the obvious way, by simply multiplying them against costs and benefits , it is evident that the interests of future people, except in cases where there is an unusually high degree of certainty, must count for (very much) less than those of present and neighbouring people where (much) higher probabilities are attached. So in the case of conflict between the present and the future where it is a question of weighing certain benefits to the people of the present and the immediate future against a much lower probability of indeterminate costs to an indeterminate number of distant future people, the issue would normally be decided in favour of the present, assuming anything like similar costs and benefits were involved. But of course it cannot be assumed that anything like similarly weighted costs and benefits are involved in the nuclear case, especially if it is a question of risking poisoning some of the earth for half a million or so years, with consequent risk of serious harm to thousands of generations of future people, in order to obtain doubtful benefits for some present people, in the shape of the opportunity to maintain corporation profitability or to continue unnecessarily high energy use. And even if the costs and benefits were comparable or evenly weighted, 17. such an argument would be defective, since an analogous argument would show that the consigner’s action is acceptable provided the benefit, e.g. the profit, he stood to gain from imposing significant risks on other people, was sufficiently large. Such a cost-benefit or risk-benefit approach to moral and decision problems, with or without the probability frills, is quite inadequate where different parties are concerned or to deal with cases of conflict of interest or moral problems where deontic constraints are involved, and commonly yields counterintuitive results. For example, it would follow on such principles that it is permissible for a firm to injure, or very likely injure, some, innocent party provided the firm stands to make a sufficiently large gain from it. But the costs and benefits involved are not transferable in any simple or general way from one party to another . Transfers of this kind, of costs and benefits involving different parties, commonly raise moral issues - e.g. is x entitled to benefit himself by imposing costs on y - which are not susceptible to a simple cost-benefit approach of the sort adopted in promotion of nuclear energy, where costs to future people are sometimes dismissed with the soothing remark that any development involves costs as well as benefits. The limitations of transfer point is enough to invalidate the comparison, heavily relied on in building a case for the acceptability of the nuclear risk, between nuclear risks and those from such activities as airplane travel or cigarette smoking. In the latter case those who supposedly benefit from the activity are also, to an overwhelming extent, those who bear the serious health costs and risks involved. In contrast the users and supposed beneficiaries of nuclear energy will be risking not only, or even primarily, their own lives and health, but also that of others who may be non-beneficiaries and who may be spatially or temporally removed, and these risks will not be in any direct way related to a person’s extent of use. The transfer objection is essentially the same as that to the utilitarian's (happiness) sums as a way of solving moral conflict between different parties, and the introduction of probability considerations - as in utilitarian decision methods such as expected utility rules - does not change the principles involved but merely complicates the analysis. One might further object to the probability argument that probabilities involving distant future situations are not always less than those concerning the immediate future in the way the argument supposes, and that the outcomes of some moral problems do not depend on a high level of probability anyway. reveals, In some sorts of cases it is enough, as the train parable that a significant risk is created; such cases do not depend critically on high probability assignments. 18. Uncertainty arguments in various forms are the most common and important ones used by philosophers, economists and others to argue for the position that we cannot be expected to distant future. take serious account of the effects of our actions on the There are two strands to the uncertainty argument, capable of separation, but frequently tangled up. Both arguments are mistaken, the first on a Priori grounds, the second on a posteriori grounds. The first argument is a generalised uncertainty argument which runs as follows:- In contrast to the exact information we can obtain about the present, the information we can obtain about the effects of our actions on the distant future is unreliable, fuzzy and highly speculative. But we cannot base assessments of how we should act on information of this kind, especially when accurate information is obtain­ able about the present which would indicate different action. Therefore we must regretfully ignore the uncertain effects of our actions on the distant future. More formally and crudely: One only has obligations to the future if these obligations are based on reliable information at present as regards the distant future. Therefore one has no obligations to the distant future. This first argument is essentially a variant on a sceptical argument in epistemology concerning our knowledge of the future (formally, replace ’obligations' by 'knowledge' in the crude statement of the argument above). The main ploy is to considerably overestimate and overstate the degree of certainty available with respect to the present and immediate future, and the degree of certainty which is required as the basis for moral consideration with respect to the present and with respect to the future. Associated with this is the attempt to suggest a sharp division as regards certainty between the present and immediate future on the one hand and the distant future on the other. We shall not find, we suggest, that there is any such sharp or simple division between the distant future and the adjacent future and the present, at least with respect to those things in the present which are normally subject to moral constraints. We can and constantly do act on the basis of such "unreliable" information, as the sceptic as regards the future conveniently labels "uncertainty"; for sceptic­ proof certainty is rarely, or never, available with respect to much of the present and immediate future. In moral situations in the present, action often takes account of risk and probability, even quite low probabilities. Consider again the train example. We do not need to know for certain that the container will break and the lethal gas escape. In fact it does not even have to be probable, in the relevant sense of more probable than not, in order for us to condemn the consigner's action. risk of harm in this sort of case. It is enough that there is a significant It does not matter if the decreased well­ being of the consigner is certain and that the prospects of the passengers quite uncertain, the resolution of the problem is nevertheless clearly in favour of the so-called "speculative" and "unreliable". But if we do not require certainty of action to apply moral constraints in contemporary affairs, why should we require a much higher standard of certainty in the future? Why should we require for the future, epistemic standards which the more familiar sphere of moral action concerning the present and adjacent future does not need to meet? The insistence on certainty as a necessary condition before moral consideration can be given to the distant future, then, amounts to an eipstemic double standard. But such an epistemic double standard, proposed in explaining the difference between the present and the future and to justify ignoring future peoples interests, in fact cannot itself provide an explanation of the differences, since it already presupposes different standards of certainty appropriate to each class, which difference is in turn in need of justification. The second uncertainty argument is a practical uncertainty argument, that whatever our theoretical obligations to the future, we cannot in practice take the interests of future people into account because uncertainty about the distant future is so gross that we canmot determine what the likely consequences of actions on it will be and therefore, however good our intentions to the people of the distant future are, in practice we have no choice but to ignore their interests. Uncertainty is gross where certain incompatible hypotheses are as good as one another and there is no rational ground for choosing between them. this way:- The second uncertainty argument can be put alternatively If moral principles are. like other principles, implicational in form, that is of such forms as "if x has character h then x is wrong, for every (action) x”, then what the argument claims is that we cannot ever obtain the information about future actions which would enable us to detach the antecedent of the implication. So even if moral principles theoretically apply to future people, in practice they cannot be applied to obtain clear conclusions or directions concerning contemporary action action of the It is wrong to do x” type. Many of the assumptions of the second argument can be conceded. If the distant future really is so grossly uncertain that in every case it is impossible to determine in any way that is better than chance what the effects of present action will be, and whether any given action will help or hinder future people, then moral principles, although they may apply theoretically to the future, will in practice not be applicable to obtain any clear conclusions about how to act. on action. Hence the distant future will impose no practical moral constraints However the argument is factually incorrect in assuming that the future always is so grossly uncertain or indeterminate. Admittedly there is often a high degree of uncertainty concerning the distant future, but as a matter of (contingent) fact it is not always so gross or sweeping as the 20, argument has to assume. There are some areas where uncertainty is not so great as to exclude constraints on action, especially when account is taken of the point, which was noticed in connection with the first argument, that complete certainty is commonly not required for moral constraints and that all that may be needed in some cases is the creation of a significant risk. Again there is considerable uncertainty about many factors which are not highly, or at all, morally relevant, but this does not extend to many factors which are of much greater importance to moral issues. For example, we may not have any idea what the fashions will be in a hundred years in names or footwear, or what flavours of ice cream people will be eating if any, but we do have excellent reason to believe, especially if we consider 3000 years of history, that what people there are in a hundred years are likely to have material and psychic needs not entirely unlike our own, that they will need a healthy biosphere for a good life; that like us they will not be immune to radiation; that their welfare will not be enhanced by a high incidence of cancer or genetic defects, by the destruction of resources, or the elimination from the earth of that wonderful variety of non-human life which at present makes it such a rich and interesting place. For this sort of reason, the second uncertainty argument should be rejected. The case of nuclear waste storage, and of uncertainty of the effects of it on future people, is one area where uncertainty in morally relevant respects is not so great as to preclude moral constraints on action, where we can ascertain if not absolute certainties at least probabilities of the same sort of order as are considered sufficient for the application of moral principles in parallel contemporary cases, 'especially where spatially remote people are involved. In particular there is not gross indeterminacy or uncertainty; it is simply not true that incompatible hypotheses about what may happen are as good as each other. It is plain that nuclear waste storage does impose significant risks of harm on future people, and, as is evident from the train example, the significant risk of harm is enough in cases of this type to make moral constraints applicable. In terms of the defects of the preceding uncertainty arguments, we can see the defects in a number of widely employed uncertainty arguments used to write off probable or possible harm to future people as outside the scope of proper consideration. Most of these popular moves employ both of the uncertainty arguments as suits the case, switching from one to the other in a way that is again reminiscent of sceptical moves. For example, we may be told that we cannot really take account of future people because we cannot be sure that they will exist or that their tastes and wants will not be completely different from our own, to the point where they will not suffer from our exhaustion of resources or from the 21. things that would affect us. But this is to insist upon complete certainty of a sort beyond what is required for the present and immediate future, where there is also commonly no guarantee that some disaster will not overtake those we are morally committed to. Again we may be told that there is no guarantee that future people will be worthy of any efforts on our part, because they may be Even if one is morons or forever plugged into enjoyment or other machines. prepared to accept the elitist approach presupposed - according to which only those who meet certain properly civilized or intellectual standards are eligible for moral consideration — what we are being handed in such arguments as a serious defeating consideration is again a mere outside possibility like the sceptic who says that solid-looking desk in front of us is perhaps only a facade, not because he has any particular reason for doing so, but because he hasn't looked around the back, drilled holes in it, etc. etc. Neither the contemporary nor the historical situation gives any positive reason for supposing that a lapse into universal moronity or universal—pleasure-machine escapism is a serious possibility, as opposed to a logical possibility. We can contrast with these mere logical possibilities the very real historically supportable risks of escape of nuclear waste or decline of a civilisation through destruction of its resource base. The possibilities just considered in these uncertainty arguments of sceptical character are not real possibilities. Another argument which may consider a real possibility, but still does not succeed in showing that it is acceptable to proceed with an action which would appear to be harmful to future people, is often introduced in the nuclear waste case. This is the argument that future people may discover a rigorously safe and permanent storage method for nuclear wastes before they are damaged by escaped waste material. Let us grant for the sake of the argument that this is a real possibility (though physical arguments may show that it is not). This still does not affect the fact that there is a significant risk of serious damage and that the creation of a significant risk is enough to rule out an action of this type as morally impermissible. In just the same way, future people may discover a cure for cancer: that this appears to be a live possibility, and not merely a logical possibility, does not make the action of the firm earlier discussed, of producing a substance likely to cause cancer in future people, morally admissible. The fact that there was a real possibility of future people avoiding the harm would show that actions of these sorts were admissible only if what was required for inadmissibility was certainty of harm or a very high probability of it. In such cases before such actions could 22. be considered admissible what would be required is far more than a possibility, 22 real or not - it is at least the availability of an applicable, safe, and rigorously tested, not merely speculative, technique for achieving it, something that future people could reasonably be expected to apply to protect themselves. The strategy of these and other uncertainty arguments is fairly clear then, and may be brought out by looking yet again at the train example where the consigner says that he cannot be expected to take account of the effect of his actions on the passengers because they may find an effective way to deal with his parcel or some lucky or unlucky accident may occur, e.g. the train may break down and they may all change to a different transport leaving the parcel behind, or the train may crash killing all the passengers before the container gets a chance to leak. These are all possibilities of course, but there is no positive reason to believe that they are any more than that, that is they are not live possibilities. The strategy is to stress such remote possibilities in order to create the false impression that there is gross uncertainty about the future, that the real possibility that the container will break should be treated in the same way as these mere logical possibilities, that uncertainty about the future is so great as to preclude the consigner’s taking account of the passengers’ welfare and the real possibility of harm from his parcel and thereby to excuse his action. A related strategy is to stress a real possibility, such as finding a cure for cancer, and thereby imply that this removes the case for applying moral constraints. This move implicitly makes the assumptions of the first argument, that certainty of harm, or at least a very high probability of harm is required before an action can be judged morally inadmissible, and the point of stressing the real possibility of avoidance of damage is to show that this allegedly required high degree of certainty or probability cannot be attained. That is, the strategy draws attention to some real uncertainty implying that this is sufficient to defeat the application of moral constraints. But, as we have seen, this is often not so. Closely related to uncertainty arguments are arguments premissed on the indeterminacy of the future. In particular it is argued that the indeterminacy, for example, with respect to the number and exact character of people at future times, would at least prevent the interest of future people being taken into account where there is a conflict with the present. Since their numbers are indeterminate and their interests unknown how, it is asked, can we weigh their competing claims against those of the present and immediate future where this information is available in a more or less accurate form? The question is raised particularly by problems of sharing fixed quantities of resources among present and future people, for example oil, when the numbers of the latter are indeterminate. Such problems are indeed difficult, but they are not resolved by ignoring the claims of the future, any more than the problems raised by the need to take account in decision-making of factors difficult to quantify are resolved by 23. ignoring such factors. Nor are distributional problems as large and representative of a class of moral problems concerning the future as the tendency to focus on them would suggest. It can be conceded that there will be cases where the indeterminacy of aspects of the future will make conflicts very difficult to resolve or indeed irresoluble - a realistic ethical theory will not deliver a decision procedure - but there will equally be other conflict cases where the level of indeterminacy does not hinder resolution of the issue, e.g. the train example which is a conflict case of a type. In particular, there will be many cases which are not solved by weighing numbers, numbers of interests, or whatever, cases for which one needs to know only the most general probable characteristics of future people. The crucial question which emerges is then: are. there any features of future people which would disqualify them from full moral consideration or reduce their claims to such below those of present people? principle None. The answer is : in Prima facie, moral principles are universalisable, and lawlike, in that they apply independently of position in space or in time, for example. But universalisability of principles is an outcome of those ethical theories which are capable of dealing satisfactorily with the present: in other words, a theory that did not allow properly for the future would be found to have defects as regards the present, to deal unjustly or unfairly with some present people, e.g. those remotely located, those outside some select subgroup, such as (white­ skinned) humans, etc. The only candidates for characteristics that would fairly rule out future people are the logical features we have been looking at, such as uncertainty and indeterminacy; but, as we have argued, it would be far too sweeping to see these features as affecting the moral claims of future people in a general way. These special features only affect certain sorts of cases (e.g. the determination of best probable or' practical course of action given only present information). In particular, they do not affect cases of the sort being considered, nuclear development, where highly determinate or certain information about the numbers and characteristics of the class likely to be harmed is not required, nor is certainty of damage. To establish obligations to the future a full universalizability principle is not required : it is enough that the temporal position of a person cannot affect his entitlement to just and fair treatment, to full moral 24 consideration; inversely, that it is without basis to discriminate morally against a person in virtue of his temporal position. As a result of this 23a, universalizability, there are the same general obligations to future people as to the present; and thus there is the same obligation to take account of them and their interests in what we do, to be careful in our actions, to take account of the probability (and not just the certainty) of our actions causing harm or damage, and to see, other things being equal, that we do not act so as to rob them of what is necessary for the chance of a good life. and indeterminacy do not relieve us of these obligations. Uncertainty If in a closely comparable case concerning the present the creation of a significant risk is enough to rule out an action as immoral, and there are no independent grounds for requiring greater certainty of harm in the future case under consideration, then futurity alone will not provide, adequate grounds for proceeding with the action, thus discriminating against future people. Accordingly we cannot escape, through appeal to futurity, the conclusion already tentatively reached, that proposals for nuclear development in the present and likely future state of technology and practices for future waste disposal are immoral. Before we consider (in section VII.) the remaining escape route from this conclusion, through appeal to overriding circumstances, it is important to pick up the further case (which heavily reinforces the. tentative conclusion) against nuclear development, since much of it relies on ethical principles similar to those that underlie obligations to the future, and since it too is commonly met by similar appeal to extenuating circumstances. V. PROBLEMS OF SAFE NUCLEAR OPERATION: REACTOR EMISSIONS, AND CORP: MELTDOWN. The ethical problems with nuclear power are by no means confined to future creatures. Just as remoteness in time does not erode obligations or entitlements to just treatment, neither does location in space, or a particular geographical position. First of all, the problem of nuclear waste disposal raises serious questions of distributive justice not only across time, across generations, but also across space. Is one state or region entitled to dump its radioactive pollution in another state’s or region’s yard or waters? When that region receives no due compensation (whatever that would amount to, in such a case), and the people do not agree (though the leaders imposed upon them might)? The answer, and the arguments underpinning the answer, are both like those already given in arguing to the tentative conclusion concerning the injustice of imposing radioactive wastes upon future people. But the cases are not exactly the same: USA and Japan cannot endeavour to discount peoples of the Pacific in whose regions they propose to drop some of their radioactive pollution in quite the same way they can discount, people of two centuries hence. (But what this consideration really reveals is yet another flaw in the idea that entitlement to just treatment can be discounted over time .) Ethical issues of distributive justice, as to equity, concern not only the spatio-temporal location of nuclear waste, but also arise elsewhere in the assessment of nuclear development; in particular, as regards the treatment of those in the neighbourhood of reactors, and, differently, as regards the distribution of (alleged) benefits and costs from nuclear power across nations. People living or working in the vicinity of a nuclear reactor are subject to special costs and risks: firstly, radioactive pollution, due to the fact that reactors discharge radioactive materials into the air and water near the plant, 25 25. and secondly catastrophic accidents, such as (steam) explosion of a reactor. An immediate question is whether such costs and risks can be imposed, with any ethical legitimacy, on these people, who frequently have little or no say in their imposition, and who have mostly not been informed of any choices regarding the "risk/benefit tradeoffs” of nuclear technology. That they are so imposed, without local participation, indeed often without local input or awareness as with local opposition, reveals one part of the antidemocratic face of nuclear development, a part that nuclear development shares however with other largescale polluting industry, where local participation and questions, fundamental to a genuine democracy of regional determination and popular sovereignty, are commonly ignored or avoided. The ’’normal” emission, during plant operation, of low level radiation carries carcinogenic and mutagenic costs. While there are undoubtedly costs, there remains, however, substantial disagreement over the likely number of cancers and precise extent of genetic damage induced by exposure to such radiation, over the local health costs involved. Under the Old Paradigm, which (illegitimately) permits free transfer of costs and risks from one person to another, the ethical issue directly raised is said to be: what extent of cancer and genetic damage, if any, is permissibly traded for the advantages of nuclear power, and under what conditions? Under the Old Paradigm the issue is then translated into decision-theoretic questions, such as to ’how to employ risk/benefit analysis as a prelude to government regulation’ and ’how to determine what is an 26 acceptable level of risk/safety for the public. The Old Paradigm attitude, reflected in the public policy of some countries that have such policies, is that the economic benefits conferred by allowing radiation emissions outweigh the costs of an increase in cancer and genetic damage. An example will reveal that such evaluations, which rely for what appeal they have on a dubious utilitarianism, will not pass muster. It is a pity about Aunt Ethyl getting cancer, but it’s nice to have this air conditioner working in summer. Such frequently trivial and rather inessential benefits, which may be obtained alternatively, e.g. by modification of houses, in no way compensate for the agony of cancer. The point is that the costs to one party are not justified, especially when such benefits to other parties can be alternatively obtained without such awful costs, and morally indefensible, being imposed. People, minorities, whose position is particularly compromised are those who live within 50 miles of a nuclear plant. (Children, for example, are in a 26. particularly vulnerable position, since they are several times more likely to contract cancer through exposure than normal adults). In USA, such people bear a risk of cancer and genetic damage of as much as 50 times that borne by the population at large. A non-negligible percentage (in excess of 3% of those exposed for 30 years) of people in the area will die, allegedly for the sake of the majority who are benefitted by nuclear power production (allegedly, for the real reasons for nuclear development do not concern this silent majority). Whatever charm the argument from overriding benefits had, even under the Old Paradigm, vanishes once it is seen that there are alternative, and in several respects less expensive, ways of delivering the real benefits involved. There are several other tricks used in showing that tiie imposition of radiation on minorities, most of whom have little or no genuine voice in the location of reactors in their environment and cannot move away without serious losses, is quite (morally) acceptable. One cheaper trick, deployed by the US Atomic Energy Commission,^ is to suppose that it is permissible to double, through nuclear technology, the level of (natural) radiation that a population has received with apparently negligible consequences, the argument being that the additional amount (being equivalent to the "natural” level) is also likely to have negligible consequences. The increased amounts of radiation - with their large man-made component - are then accounted normal, and, of course, so it is then claimed, what is normal is morally acceptable. in this argument is sound. None of the steps Drinking one bottle of wine a day may have no ill- effects, whereas drinking two a day certainly may affect a person s well-being, and while the smaller intake may have become normal for the person, the larger one will, under such conditions, not be. Finally, what is or has become normal, e.g. two murders or twenty cancers a day in a given city, may be far from acceptable In fact, even the USA, which has strict standards by comparison with most other countries with planned nuclear reactors, permits radiation emissions very substantially in excess of the standards laid down; so the emission situation is worse than mere consideration of the standards would disclose. Furthermore, the monitoring of the standards "imposed" is entrusted to the nuclear operators themselves, scarcely disinterested parties. Public policy is determined not so as to guarantee public health, but rather to serve as a private nuclear operations proceed relatively unhampered. public pacifier while 27. While radioactive emissions are an ordinary feature of reactor operation, breakdown is, hopefully, not: an accident of magnitude is accounted, by official definition, an ’extraordinary nuclear occurrence’. But such accidents can happen, 3 and almost have on several occasions (the most notorious being Three Mile Island). If the cooling and emergency core cooling systems fail in American (light water) reactors, then the core melts and ’containment failure’ is likely, with the result that an area of 40,000 square miles could be radioactively contaminated. In the event of the worst type of accident in a very small reactor, a steam explosion in the reactor vessel, about 45,000 people would be killed instantly and at least 100,000 would die as a result of the accident, property damages would exceed $17 billion and an area the size of Pennsylvania would be destroyed. Modern nuclear reactors are about five times the size of the reactor for which 31 these conservative US government figures are given : the consequences of a similar accident with a modern reactor would accordingly be much greater still. The consigner in risking the lives, well-being and property of the passengers on the train has acted inadmissibly. Does a government-sponsored private utility act in a way that is anything other than much less responsible in siting a nuclear reactor in a community, in planting such a dangerous package on the community train. The answer will be No, if the analogy holds good and the consigners’ action is, as we would ordinarily sible. suppose, inadmissible and irrespon­ The proponents of nuclear power have in effect argued to the contrary, while at the same time endeavouring to shift the dispute out of the ethical arena and into a technological dispute as to means (in accordance with the Old Paradigm). It has been contended, firstly, what contrasts with the train example, that there is no real possibility of a catastrophic nuclear accident. Indeed in the 32 influential Rassmussen report “ - which was extensively used to support public confidence in US nuclear fission technology - an even stronger, an incredibly strong, improbability claim was stated: namely, the likelihood of a catastrophic nuclear accident is so remote as to be Almost) impossible. The main argument for this claim derives from the assumptions and estimates of the report itself. These assumptions like the claim are undercut by nuclear incidents that came very close to accidents, incidents which reflect what happens in a reactor rather better than mathematical models. As with the storage of nuclear wastes, so with the operation of nuclear reactors, it is important to look at what happens in the actual world of technological limitatioms and human error, of waste leakage and reactor incidents and quite possibly accidents, not in an ideal world far removed from the actual, a technological dream world where there is no real possibility of a nuclear 28. catastrophe. In such an ideal nuclear world, where waste disposal were fool-proof and reactors were accident-proof, things would no doubt be morally different. But we do not live in such a world. According to the Rasmussen report its calculation of extremely low accident probabilities is based upon reasonable mathematical and technological assumptions and is methodologically sound. This is very far from being the case. The under­ lying mathematical methods, variously called "fault tree analysis" and "reliability estimating techniques", are unsound, because they exclude as not credible" possibilities or as "not significant" branches that are real possibilities, which may well be realised in the real world. It is the eliminations that are otherworldly. In fact the methodology and data of the report 33 has been soundly and decisively criticized. And it has been shown that there is a real possibility, a non-negligible probability, of a serious accident. It is contended, secondly, that even if there is a non-negligible probability of a reactor accident, still it is acceptable, being of no greater order than risks of accidents that are already socially accepted. here we encounter again that insidious engineering approach to morality built into models of an economic cast, e.g. benefit-cost balance sheets, risk assessment models, etc. Risk assessment, a sophistication of transaction or trade-off models, purports to provide a comparison between the relative risks attached to different options, e.g. energy options, which settles their ethical status. The following lines of argument are encountered in a risk assessment as applied to energy options: (i) if option a imposes costs on fewer people than option b then option a is preferable to option b; (ii) option a involves a total net cost in terms of cost to people (e.g. deaths, injuries, etc.) which is less than that of option b, which is already accepted; 34 therefore option a is acceptable. For example, the number likely to be killed by nuclear power stations is less than the. likely number killed by cigarette smoking or in road accidents, which are accepted: so nuclear power stations are acceptable. A little reflection reveals that this sort of risk assessment argument involves the same kind of fallacy as transaction models. It is far too simple-minded, and it ignores distributional and other relevant aspects of the context. In order to obtain an ethical assessment we should need a much fuller picture and we should need to know at least these things:- do the costs and benefits go to the same parties; and is the person who undertakes the risks also the person who receives the benefits or 29, primarily, as in driving or cigarette smoking, or are the costs imposed on other parties who do not benefit? It is only if the parties are the same in the case of the options compared, and there are no such distributional problems, that a comparison on such a basis would be valid. This is rarely the case, and it is not so in the case of risk assessments of energy options. Secondly, does the person incur the risk as a result of an activity which he knowingly undertakes in a situation where he has a reasonable choice, knowing it entails the risk, etc., and is the level of risk in proportion to the level of the relevant activity, e.g. as in smoking? Thirdly, for what reason is the risk imposed: is it for a serious or a relatively trivial reason? A risk that is ethically acceptable for a serious reason may not be ethically acceptable for a trivial reason. Both the arguments (i) and (ii) are often employed in trying to justify nuclear power. The second argument (ii) involves the fallacies of the first (i) and an additional set, namely that of forgetting that the health risks in the nuclear sense are cumulative, and already high if not, some say, too high. The maxim "If you want the benefits you have to accept the costs" is one thing and the maxim "If I want the benefits then you have to accept the costs (or some of them at least)" is another and very different thing. It is a widely accepted moral principle, already argued for by way of examples and already invoked, that one is not, in general, entitled to simply transfer costs of a significant kind arising fron an activity which benefits oneself onto other parties who are not involved in the activity and are not beneficiaries. This transfer principle is especially clear in cases where the significant costs include an effect on life or health or a risk thereof, and where the benefit to the benefitting party is of a noncrucial or dispensible nature, because, e.g. it can be substituted for or done without. Thus, for instance, one is not usually entitled to harm, or risk harming, another in the process of benefitting oneself. Suppose, for another example, we consider a village which produces, as a result of an industrial process by which it lives , a noxious waste material which is expensive and difficult to dispose of and yet creates a risk to life and health if undisposed of. Instead of giving up their industrial process and turning to some other way of making a living such as farming the surrounding countryside, they persist with this way of life but ship their problem on a one-way delivery service, on the train, to the next village. The inhabitants of this village are then forced to face the problem either of undertaking the expensive and difficult disposal process oor of sustaining risks to their own lives and health or else leaving the village and their livelihoods. transfer of costs as morally unacceptable. Most of us would see this kind of 30. From this arises a necessary condition for energy options: that to be morally acceptable they should not involve the transfer of significant costs or risks of harm onto parties who are not involved, do not use the energy source or do not benefit correspondingly from its use. Included in the scope of this condition are not only future people and future generations (those of the next villages) but neighbours of nuclear reactors, especially, as in third world countries, neighbours who are not nuclear power users. The distribution of costs and damage in such a fashion, i.e. on to non-beneficiaries is a characteristic of certain widespread and serious forms of pollution, and is one of its most objectionable moral features. It is a corollary of the condition that we should not hand the world on to our successors in substantially worse shape than we received it - the l_ramsmission. principle. For if we did then that would be a significant transfer of costs. (The corollary can be independently argued for on the basis of certain ethical theories). VI. OTHER SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL RISKS AND COSTS OF NUCLEAR DEVELOPMENT, ESPECIALLY NUCLEAR WAR. The problems already discussed by no means exhaust the environmental, health and safety risks and costs in^or arising from?the nuclear fuel cycle. The full fuel cycle includes many stages both before and after reactor operation, apart from waste disposal, namely mining, milling, conversion, enrichment and preparation, reprocessing spent fuel, and transportation of materials. Several of these stages involve hazards. Unlike the special risks in the nuclear cycle - of sabotage of plants, of theft of fissionable material, and of the further proliferation of nuclear armaments - these hazards have parallels, if not exact equivalents, in other very polluting methods of generating power, e.g. ’workers in the uranium mining industry sustain ^the same risk of fatal and nonfatal injury as workers in the coal industry".38 Furthermore, the various (often serious) hazards encountered in working in some sectors of uranium fabrication should be differently viewed from those resulting from location I for instance from already living where a reactor is built or wastes are dumped. For an occupation is, in principle at any rate, chosen (as is occupational relocation), and many types of hazards incurred in working with radioactive material are now known in advance of choice of such an occupation, with where one already lives things are very different. The uranium-miner s choice of occupation can be compared with the airline pilot’s choice, whereas the Pacific Islander’s "fact" of location cannot be. The social issue of arrangements that contract occupational choices and opportunities and often at least ease people into hazardous occupations such as uranium or tin or coal mining (where the risks, in contrast to airline piloting, are mostly not duly compensated), while very important, is not an issue newly produced by nuclear associated occupations. 31. Other social and environmental problems - though endemic where large-scale industry operates in societies that are highly inegalitarian and include sectors that are far from affluent - are more irdtimately linked with the nuclear power cycle. Though pollution is a common and generally undesirable component of large-scale industrial operation, radioactive pollution, such as uranium mining for instance produces, is especially a legacy of nuclear development, and a specially undesirable one, as enormous rectification estimates for dead radio­ active lands and waterways reveal. Though sabotage is a threat to many large industries, so that modern factory complexes are often guarded like concentration camps (but from us on the outside), sabotage of a nuclear reactor can have dire consequences, of a different order of magnitude from most industrial sabotage (consider again the effects of core meltdown). Though theft of material from more dubious enterprises such as munitions works can pose threats to populations at large and can assist terrorism, no thefts for allegedly peaceful enterprises pose problems of the same order as theft of fissionable material. No other industry produces materials which so readily permit of fabrication into such massive explosives. No other industry is, to sum it up, so vulnerable on so many fronts. In part to reduce it£ vulnerability, in part because of its long and continuing association with military activities, the nuclear industry is subject to, and encourages, several practices which (certainly given their scale) run counter to basic features of free and open societies, crucial features such as personal liberty, freedom of association and of expression, and free access to information. These practices include secrecy, restriction of information, formation of special police and guard forces, espionage, curtailment of civil liberties. Already operators of nuclear installations are given extraordinary powers, in vetting employees, to investigate the background and activities not only of employees but also of their families and sometimes even of their friends. The installations themselves become armed camps, which especially offends British sensibilities. The U.K. Atomic Energy (Special Constables) Act of 1976 created a special armed force to guard nuclear installations and made it answerable ... to the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority. ■JLhee-e- developments^in the IJnd t^d —and worjc in West Gcmafiy-ji presage along with nuclear development increasingly authoritarian and anti-democratic societies. That nuclear development appears to force such political consequences tells heavily against it. 32. Nuclear development is further indicted politically by the direct connection of nuclear power with nuclear war. It is fortunately true that ethical questions concerning nuclear war - for example, whether a nuclear war is justified, or just, under any circumstances, and if so what circumstances - are distinguishable from those concerning nuclear power. Undoubtedly, however, the spread of nuclear power is substantially increasing the technical means for engaging in nuclear war and so, to that extent, the opportunity for, and chances of, nuclear engagement. Since nuclear wars are never accountable positive goods, but are at best the lesser of major evils, nuclear wars are always highly ethically undesirable. The spread of nuclear power accordingly expands the opportunity for, and chances of, highly undesirable consequences. Finally the latter, so increasing these chances and opportunities, is itself undesirable, and therefore what leads to it, nuclear development, is also undesirable. The details and considerations that fill out this argument, from nuclear war against nuclear development, are many. They are firstly technical, that it is a relatively straightforward and inexpensive matter to make nuclear explosives given access to a nuclear power plant? secondly political, that nuclear engagements once instituted likely to escalate and that those who control (or differently are likely to force access to) nuclear power plants do not shrink from nuclear confrontation and are certainly prepared to toy with nuclear engagement (up to ’’strategic nuclear strikes” at least); and thirdly ethical, that wars invariably have immoral consequences, such as massive damage to involved parties, however high sounding their justification is. Nuclear wars are certain to be considerably worse as regards damage inflicted than any previous wars (they are likely to be much worse than all previous wars put together), because of the enormous destructive power of nuclear weapons, and the extent of spread of their radioactive effects, and because of the expected rapidity and irreversibility of any such confrontations. The supporting considerations are, fourthly, drawn from decision theory, and are designed to show that the chances of such undesirable outcomes is itself undesirable. The core argument is in brief this (the argument will be elaborated in section VIII):- Energy choice between alternative options is a case of decision making under uncertainty, because in particular of the gross uncertainties involved in nuclear development. In cases of this type the appropriate rational procedure is to compare worst consequences of each alternative, to reject those alternatives with the worst of these worst consequences (this is a pretty uncontroversial part of the maximin rule which enjoins selection of the alternative with the best worst consequences). The nuclear alternative has, in particular because of the real possibility of a nuclear war, the worst worst consequences and is accordingly a particularly undesirable alternative. 33. VII. CONFLICT ARGUMENTS, AND UNCOVERING THE IDEOLOGICAL BASES OF NUCLEAR DEVELOPMENT. As with nuclear war, so given the cumulative case against nuclear development, only one justificatory route remains open, that of appeal to important overriding circumstances. That appeal, to be ethically acceptable, must go far beyond merely economic considerations. For, as already observed, the consigner’s action cannot be justified by purely economistic arguments, such as that his profits would rise, the firm or the village would be more prosperous, or by appealing to the fact that some possibly uncomfortable changes would otherwise be needed. The transfer principle on which this assessment was based, that one was not usually entitled to create a serious risk to others for these sorts of reasons, applied more generally and, in particular, applied to the nuclear case. For this reason the economistic arguments which are those most commonly advanced under the Old Paradigm to promote nuclear development - e.g. cheapness, efficiency, profitability for electricity utilities, and the need otherwise for uncomfortable changes such as restructuring of employment, investment and consumption - do not even begin to show that the nuclear alternative is an acceptable one. Even if these economistic assumptions about benefits to present people were correct ~ it will be contended that most of them are not - the arguments would fail because economics (like the utilitarianism from which it characteristically derives) has to operate within the framework of moral constraints, and not vice versa. What do have to be considered are however moral conflict arguments, that is arguments to the effect that, unless the prima facie unacceptable (nuclear) alternative is taken, some even more unacceptable alternative is the only possible outcome, and will ensue. For example, in the train parable, the consigner may argue that his action is justified because unless it is taken his village will starve. It is by no means clear that even such a justification as this would be sufficient, especially where the risk to the passengers is high, as the case seems to become one of transfer of costs and risks onto others, but such a moral situation would no longer be so clearcut, and one would perhaps hesitate to condemn any action taken in such circumstances. Some of the arguments advanced to show moral conflict are based on competing commitments to present people, and others on competing obligations to future people, both of which are taken to override the obligations not to impose on the future significant risk of serious harm. The structure of such moral conflict arguments is based crucially on the presentation of a genuine and exhaustive set of alternatives (or at least practical alternatives) and upon showing that the only alternatives to admittedly morally undesirable actions are even more undesirable ones. If some practical alternative which is not morally worse than the action to be justified is overlooked, suppressed, or neglected in the argument - for example, if in the village case it turns out that the villagers have another option 34. to starving or to the sending off of the parcel, namely earning a living in some other way - then the argument is defective and cannot readily be patched. Just such a suppression of practicable alternatives has occurred in the argument designed to show that the alternatives to the nuclear option are even worse than the option itself, and that there are other factual defects in these arguments as well. In short, the arguments depend essentially on the presentation of false dichotomies. A first argument, the poverty argument, is that there is an overriding obligation to the poor, both the poor of the third world and the poor of industrialised countries. Failure to develop nuclear energy, it is often claimed, would amount to denying them the opportunity to reach the standard of affluence we currently enjoy and would create unemployment and poverty in the industrialised nations. The unemployment and poverty argument does not stand up to examination either for the poor of the industrial countries or for those of the third world. There is good evidence that large-scale nuclear energy will help to increase unemployment and poverty in the industrial world, through the diversion of very much available capital into an industry which is not only an exceptionally poor provider of direct employment, but also helps to reduce available jobs through encouraging substitution of energy use for labour use.^ The argument that nuclear energy is needed for the third world is even less convincing. Nuclear energy is both politically and economically inappropriate for the third world, since it requires massive amounts of capital, requires numbers of imported scientists and engineers, but creates negligible local employment, and depends for its feasibility upon, what is largely lacking, established electricity transmission systems and back-up facilities and sufficient electrical appliances to plug into the system. Politically it increases foreign dependence, adds to centralised entrenched power and reduces the chance for change in the oppressive political 41 structures which are a large part of the problem. The fact that nuclear energy is not in the interests of the people of the third world does not of course mean that it is not in the interests of, and wanted by, their rulers, the westernised and often military elites in whose interests the economies of these countries are usually organised, and wanted often for military purposes. It is not paternalistic to examine critically the demands these ruling elites may make in the name of the poor. 35. The poverty argument is then a fraud. help the poor. Nuclear energy will not be used to Both for the third world and for the industrialised countries there are well-known energy-conserving alternatives and the practical option of developing other energy sources, alternatives some of which offer far better prospects for helping the poor. It can no longer be pretended that there is no alternative to nuclear development: indeed nuclear development is itself but a bridging, or stop-gap, procedure on route to solar or perhaps fusion development. And there are various alternatives: coal and other fossil fuels, geothermal, and a range of solar options (including as well as narrowly solar, wind, water, tidal and plant power), 42 each possibly in combination with conservation measures. Despite the availability of alternatives, it may still be pretended that nuclear development is necessary for affluence (what will emerge is that it is advantageous for the power and affluence of certain select groups). Such an assumption really underlies part of the poverty argument, which thus amounts to an elaboration of the trickledown argument (much favoured within the Old Paradigm setting). runs:- For the argument Nuclear development is necessary for (continuing and increasing) affluence. Affluence inevitably trickles down to the poor. development benefits the poor. Therefore nuclear First, the argument does not on its own show anything specific about nuclear power: for it works equally well if ’energy' is substituted for ’nuclear’. It has also to be shoum, what the next major argument will try to claim, that nuclear development is unique among energy alternatives in increasing affluence. The second assumption, that affluence Inevitably trickles down, has now been roundly refuted, both by recent historical data, which show increasing affluence (e.g. in terms of GNP averaged per capita) coupled with increasing poverty in several countries, both developing and developed, and through economic models which reveal how ’affluence” can increase without redistribution occurring. Another major argument advanced to show moral conflict appeals to a set of supposedly overriding and competing obligations to future people. We have, it is said, a duty to pass on the immensely valuable things and institutions which our culture has developed. Unless our high-technology, high energy industrial society is continued and fostered, our valuable institutions and traditions will fall into decay or be swept away. The argument is essentially that without nuclear power, without the continued level of material wealth it alone is assumed to make possible, the lights of our civilization will go out. Future people will be the losers. 4: 36. The lights-going-out argument does raise questions as to what is valuable in our society, and of what characteristics are necessary for a good society. But for the most part these large questions, which deserve much fuller examination, can be avoided. The reason is that the argument adopts an extremely uncritical position with respect to present high-technology societies, apparently assuming that they are uniformly and uniquely valuable. It assumes that technologic society is unmodifiable, that it cannot be changed in the direction of energy conservation or alternative (perhaps high technology) energy sources without collapse. It has to be accepted and assessed as a whole, and virtually unlimited supplies of energy - such as nuclear and only nuclear power is alleged to furnish - are essential to maintain this whole. These assumptions are hard to accept. The assumption that technological society's energy patterns are unmodifiable is especially so — after all it has survived events such as world wars which have required major social and technologic^ restructuring and consumption modification. If western society's demands for energy are totally unmodifiable without collapse, not only would it be committed to a program of increasing destruction, but one might ask what use its culture could be to future people who would very likely, as a consequence of this destruction, lack the resource base which the argument assumes to be essential in the case of contemporary society. There is also difficulty with the assumption of uniform valuableness; but if this is rejected the question becomes not: what is necessary to maintain existing high-technological society and its political institutions, but rather, what is necessary to maintain what is valuable in that society and the political institutions which are needed to maintain those valuable things. While it may be easy to argue that high energy consumption centrally controlled is necessary to maintain the political and economic status quo, it is not so easy to argue that it is essential to maintain what is valuable, and it is what is valuable, presumably that we have a duty to pass on to the future. The evidence, for instance from history, is that no very high level of material affluence or energy consumption is needed to maintain what is valuable. There is good reason in fact to believe that a society with much lower energy and resource consumption would better foster what is valuable than our own. But even if a radical change in these directions is independently desirable, as we should argue, it is not necessary to presuppose such a change, in the short term at least, in order to see that the assumptions of the lights-going-out argument are wrong. No enormous reduction of well-being is required to consume less energy than at 37. present, and certainly far less than the large increase over present levels of 44 consumption which is assumed in the usual economic case for nuclear energy. What the nuclear strategy is really designed to do then is not to prevent the lights going out in western civilisation, but to enable the lights to go on burning all the time - to maintain and even increase the wattage output of the Energy Extravaganza. In fact there is good reason to think that, far from the high energy consumption society fostering what is valuable, it will, especially if energy is obtained by nuclear fission means, be positively inimical to it. A society which has become heavily dependent upon an extremely high centralised, controlled and garrisoned, capital- and expertise-intensive energy source, must be one which is highly susceptible to entrenchment of power, and one in which the forces which control this energy source, whether capitalist or bureaucratic, can exert enormous power over the political system and over people’s lives, even more than they do at present. Such a society would, almost inevitably tend to become authoritarian and increasingly anti-democratic, as an outcome, among other things, of its response to the threat posed by dissident groups in the nuclear 45 situation. Nuclear development may thus help in passing on to future generations some of the worst aspects of our society - the consumerism, alienation, destruction of nature, and latent authoritarianism - while many valuable aspects, such as the degree of political freedom and those opportunities for personal and collective autonomy which exist, would be lost or diminished: political freedom, for example, is a high price to pay for consumerism and energy extravagance. But it is not the status quo, but what is valuable in our society, presumably, that we have some obligation to pass on to the future, and if possible enhance. Again, as in the case of the poverty arguments, clear alternatives, alternative social, economic and political choices, which do not involve such unacceptable consequences, are available. The alternative to the high technology- nuclear option is not a return to the cave, the loss of all that is valuable, but either the adoption of an available alternative such as coal for power or, rather, the development of alternative technologies and lifestyles which offer far greater scope for the maintenance and further development of what is valuable in our society than the highly centralised nuclear option. The lights- going-out argument, as a moral conflict argument, accordingly fails, because it also is based on a false dichotomy. 38, Thus the further escape route, the appeal to moral conflict, is, like the If then we apply - as we have argued we should - appeal to futurity, closed. the same standards of morality to the future as we ought to acknowledge for the present, the conclusion that large-scale nuclear development is a crime against the future is inevitable. Closed also, in the same way, are the escape routes to other arguments — from reactor melt-down, radiation emissions, and so on for rejecting nuclear development as morally unacceptable, for saying that it is not only a moral crime against the distant future but also a crime against the present and immediate future. In sum, nuclear development is morally unacceptable on several grounds. A corollary is that only political arrangements that are morally unacceptable will support the impending nuclear future. VIII. A NUCLEAR FUTURE IS NOT A RATIONAL CHOICE, EVEN IN OLD PARADIGM TERMS. The argument thus far, to anti-nuclear conclusions, has relied upon, and defended premisses that would be rejected under the Old Paradigm; for example, such theses as that the interests and utilities of future people are not discounted (in contrast to the temporally-limited utilitarianism of market- centred economic theory), and that serious costs and risks to health and life cannot admissibly be simply transferred to uninvolved parties (in contrast to the transfer and limited compensation assumptions of mainstream economic theory). To close the case, arguments will now be outlined which are designed to show that even within the confines of the Old Paradigm, choosing the nuclear future is not a rational choice. Large-scale nuclear development is not just something that happens, it requires, on a continuing basis, an immense input of capital and energy. Such investment calls for substantial reasons; for the investment should be, on Old Paradigm assumptions, the best among feasible alternatives to given economic ends. Admittedly so much capital has already been invested in nuclear fission research and development, in marked contrast to other newer rival sources or power, that there is strong political incentive to proceed - as distinct from requisite reasons for further capital and energy inputs. The reasons can be divided roughly into two groups, front reasons, which are the reasons given (out), and which are, in accordance with Old Paradigm percepts, publicly economic (in that they are approved for public consumption), and the real reasons, which involve private economic factors and matters of power and social. control. The main argument put up, an economic growth argument, upon which variations are played, is the following version of the lights-going-out argument (with economic growth duly standing in for material wealth, and even for what is Nuclear power is necessary to sustain economic growth. valuable!):- Economic growth is desirable (for all the usual reasons, e.g. to increase the size of the pie, to avoid or postpone redistribution problems, and connected social Therefore nuclear power is desirable. The first premiss is A6 part of US energy policy, and the second premiss is supplied by standard unrest, etc.). economics textbooks. But both premisses are defective, the second because what is valuable in economic growth can be achieved by selective economic growth, which jettisons the heavy social and environmental costs carried by unqualified economic growth.More to the point, since the second premiss is an assumption of the dominant paradigm, the first premiss (or rather an appropriate and less vulnerable restatement of it) fails even on Old Paradigm standards. For of course nuclear power is not necessary given that there are other, perhaps costlier alternatives. The premiss usually defended is some elaboration of the premiss : Nuclear power is the economically best way to sustain economic growth, ’economically best’ being filled out as 'most efficient’, ’cheapest’, ’having most favourable benefit-cost ratio’, etc. Unfortunately for the argument, and for nuclear development schemes, nuclear power is none of these things a good deal of economic cheating (easy to do) is done. decisively, unless Much data, beginning with the cancellation of nuclear plant orders, can^ be assembled to show as much. Yet the argument requires a true premiss, not an uncertain or merely possible one, if it is to succeed and detachment is to be permitted at all, and evidently true premisses if the argument is to be decisive. The data to be summarised splits into two parts, public (governmental) analyses, and private (utility) assessments. Virtually all available data concerns the USA; in Europe, West and East, true costs of uniformly "publicly^ controlled” nuclear power are generally not divulged. Firstly, the capital costs of nuclear plants, which have been rising much more rapidly than inflation, now exceed those of coal-fired plants. Romanoff has estimated that capital costs of a nuclear generator (of optimal capacity) 49 will exceed comparable costs of a coal-fired unit by about 26% in 1985. And capital costs are only one part of the equation that now tell against private utility purchase of new nuclear plants. rather decisively Another main factor is the poor performance and low reliability of nuclear generators. Coney showed that nuclear plants can only generate about half the electricity they were designed to produce, and that when Atomic Energy Commission estimates of relative costs of nuclear and coal power, which assumed that both operated at 80% of design capacity, were adjusted accordingly, nuclear generated power proved to be far more 40. expensive than estimated. The discrepancy between actual and estimated capacity is especially important because a plant with an actual capacity factor of 55% produced electricity at a cost about 25% higher than if the plant had performed at the manufacturers’ projected capacity rate of 70-75%. The low reliability of nuclear plants (per kilowatt output) as compared with the superior reliability of smaller coal-fired plants adds to the case, on conventional economic grounds of efficiency and product production costs, against nuclear power. These unfavourable assessments are from a private (utility) perspective, before the very extensive public subsidization of nuclear power is duly taken into account. The main subsidies are through research and development, by way of insurance (under the important but doubtfully constitutional Price-Anderson Act^), in enrichment, and in waste management. It has been estimated that charging such costs to the electricity consumer would increase electricity bills for nuclear power by at least 25% (and probably much more). When official US cost/benefit analyses favouring nuclear power over coal are examined, it is found that they inadmissibly omit several of the public costs involved in producing nuclear power. For example, the analyses ignore waste costs on the quite inadmissible ground that it is not known currently what the costs involved are. But even using actual waste handling costs (while wastes await storage) is enough to show that coal power is preferable to nuclear. When further public costs, such as insurance against accident and for radiation damage, are duly taken into account, the balance is swung still further in favour of alternatives to nuclear and against nuclear power. In short, even on proper Old Paradigm accounting, the nuclear alternative should be rejected. Nuclear development is not economical, it certainly seems; it has been kept going not through its clear economic viability, but by massive public subsidization, of several types. In USA, to take a main example where information is available, nuclear development is publicly supported through heavily subsidized or sometimes free research and development, .th«xugh the Price-Anderson Act^ which sharply limits both private and public liability, i.e. which in effect provided the insurance subsidy making corporate nuclear development economically feasible, and through government agreement to handle all radioactive wastes. While the Old Paradigm strictly construed cannot support uneconomical developments, contemporary liberalisation of the Paradigm does allow for uneconomic projects, seen as operated in the public interest, in such fields as social welfare. Duly admitting social welfare and some equity principles 41. in the distribution of wealth (not necessarily of pollution) leadsjtne modern version of the Old Paradigm, called the-Modified Old Paradigm. The main changes from the Old Paradigm are (as with state socialism) as emphasis of economic factors, e.g. individual self-help is down-played, wealth is to a small extent redistributed, e.g. through taxation, market forces are regulated or displaced (not in principle eliminated, as with state socialism). Now it has been contended - outrageous though it should now seem - that nuclear power is in the public interest as a means to various sought public ends, for example, aparL^from those already mentioned such as energy for growth and cheap electricity, and such as plentiful power for heating and cooking and appliance brown-outs and the like.1 use, avoidance of shortages, rationing, Since 4^ alternative power sources, such as coal, could serve s^me ends given power was supplied with suitable extravagance, the argument has again to show that the choice of nuclear power over other alternatives is best in the requisite respects, in serving the public interest. Such an argument is a matter for decision theory, under which head cost-benefit analyses which rank alternatives also fall as special cases. Decision theory purports to cover theoretically the field of choice between alternatives; it is presented as the theory which deals with the^ problem of choosing one. course of action among several possible courses . Thus the choice of alternative modes of energy production, the energy choice problem, becomes an exercise in decision theory; and the nuclear choice is often’justified” in Old Paradigm terms through appeal to decision theory. But though decision theory is in principle comprehensive, as soon as it is put to work in such practical cases as energy choice, it is very considerably contracted in scope, several major assumptions are surreptitiously imported, and what one is confronted with is a depauperate theory drastically pruned down to conform with the narrow utilitarianism of mainstream economic theory. The extent of reduction can be glimpsed by comparing, to take one important example, a general optimisation model for decision (where uncertainty is not gross) with comparable decision theory methods, such as the expected utility model. The general model for best choice among alternatives specifies maximisation of expected value subject to constraints, which may include ethical constraints excluding certain alternatives under given conditions. Expected utility models demote value to utility, assuming thereby measurability and transference properties that may not obtain, and eliminate constraints altogether (absorbing what is forbidden, for example, as having a high disutility, but one that can be compensated for nonetheless). Thus, in particular, ethical constraints against nuclear development are replaced, in Old Paradigm fashion, by allowance in principle for compensation for damage sustained. Still it is with decision making in Old Paradigm terms that we are now embroiled, so no longer at issue are the defective (neo-classical) economic assumptions made in the theory, for example as to the assessment of everything to be taken into account through utility (which comes down to monetary terms ■ everything worth accounting has a price), and as to the legitimacy of transferring with limited compensation risks and costs to involved parties. The energy choice problem is, so it has commonly been argued in the assumed Old Paradigm framework, a case of decision under uncertainty. It is not a case of decision under risk (and so expected utility models are not applicable), because some possible outcomes are so uncertain that, in contrast to the case of risk, no (suitably objective) quantifiable probabilities can be assigned to them. Items that are so uncertain are taken to include nuclear war and core meltdown of a reactor, possible outcomes of nuclear development : widespread radio­ active pollution is, by contrast, not uncertain. The correct rule for decision under uncertainty is, in the case of energy choice, maximin, to maximize the minimum payoff, so it is sometimes contended. In fact, once again, it is unnecessary for present purposes to decide which energy option is selected, but only whether the nuclear option is rejected. Since competing selection rules tend to deliver the same rejections for options early rejected as the nuclear options, a convergence in the rejection of the nuclear option can be effected. All rational roads lead, not to Rome, but to rejection of the nuclear option. A further convergence can be effected also, because the best possible (economic) outcomes of such leading options as coal and a hydroelectric mix are very roughly of the same order as the nuclear option (so Elster contends, and his argument can be elaborated). Under these o conditions complex decision rules (such as the Arrow-Horwicz rule) which take ---- ----------outcomes ------------ ------4^-^ account of both best possible and ^ost- possible under reduce to the maximin rule. each option Whichever energy option is selected under the maximum rule, the nuclear option is certainly rejected since there are options where worst outcomes are substantially better than that of the nuclear option (just, consider the scenario if the nuclear nightmare, not the nuclear dream, is realised). Further application of the rejection rule will reject the fossil fuel (predominantly coal) option, on the basis of estimated effects on the earth’s climate from burning massive quantities of such fuels. 43. Although the rejection rule coupled with position several rivals to maximin each proposed, enjoys a privileged for decision under uncertainty have been of which has associated rejection rules. rules, such as the risk- added which ’assesses maximin Some of these reasoning criticised by Goodin (pp.507-8), the riskiness of a policy in terms of the increment of risk it adds to those pre-existing in the status quo, rather than in terms of the absolute value of the risk associated with the policy’ are decidedly and rather than offering a rational decision procedure appears to afford protection of the (nuclear) status quo. What will be argued, or rather dubious, what Goodin has in effect argued for us, is that wherever one of these rival rules is applicable, and not dubious, it leads to rejection of the nuclear option. For example, the keep-options-open or allow-for-reversibility (not an entirely unquestionable rule rule ’of strictly limited applicability’) excludes the nuclear option because ’nuclear plants and their by-products have an air of irreversibility ... ’’One cannot the way one can abandon simply abandon a coal-fired plant"’ (p.506). a nuclear reactor The compare-the- alternatives rule* in ordinary application, leads back to the cost-benefit assessments, which, as already observed, tell decisively against a nuclear option when costing is done properly. The maximise-sustainable-benefits rule, which ’directs us to opt for the policy producing the highest level of net benefits which can be sustained indefinitely’, ’decisively favours renewable Other lesser rules Goodin discusses, sources’, ruling out the nuclear option. which have not really been applied in the nuclear debate, and which lead yet further from the Old Paradigm framework, harm-avoidance and protecting-the- vulnerable. also yield/ the same nuclear-excluding results. Harm-avoidance, in particular, points ’decisively in favour of "alternative" and "renewable" energy sources ... combined with strenuous efforts at energy conservation’ The upshot is evident: whatever reasonable decision rule is adopted (p.442). the result is the same, a standards. nuclear choice is rejected, even by Old Paradigm Nor would reversion to an expected utility analysis alter this conclusion; for such analyses are but glorified cost-benefit analyses, with probabilities duly multiplied in, and the conclusion is as before from cost-benefit considerations, against a nuclear choice. The Old Paradigm does not, it thus appears, sustain the nuclear juggernaut: nor does its Modification. The real reasons for the continuing development program and the heavy commitment to the program have to be sought elsewhere, outside the Old Paradigm, at least as preached. It is, in any case, sufficiently evident that contemporary economic behaviour does not accord with Old Paradigm percepts, practice does not accord with neo-classical economic theory nor, to consider the main modification, with social theory. democratic There are, firstly, reasons of previous commitment, when nuclear power, cleverly promoted at least, looked a rather cheaper and safer deal, and certainly profitable one: corporations so committed are understandably keen to realise returns on capital already invested. There are also typical self-interest reasons for commitment to the program, that advantages accrue to some, like those whose field happens to be nuclear engineering, that profits accrue to some, like giant corporations, that are influential in political affairs, and as a spin-off profits accrue to others, and so on. There are. just as important, ideological reasons, such as a belief in the control of both political and physical power by technocratic-entreprenial elite, a belief in social control from above, control which nuclear power offers far more than alternatives, some of which (vaguely) threaten to alter the power base, a faith in the unlimitedness of technological enterprise, and nuclear in particular, so that any real problems that arise will be solved as development proceeds. Such beliefs are especially conspicuous in the British scene, among the governing and technocratic classes. Within contemporary corporate capitalism, these sorts of reasons for nuclear development are intimately linked, because those whose types of enterprise benefit substantially from nuclear development are commonly those who hold the requisite beliefs. along with its state It is then, contemporary corporate enterprise image, that fuels the nuclear juggernaut. To be sure, corporate capitalism, which is the political economy largely thrust upon us in western nations, is not necessary for a nuclear future; a totalitarian state of the type such capitalism often supports in the third world will suffice. But, unlike a hypothetical state that does conform to precepts of the Old Paradigm, it is sufficient for a nuclear future - evidently, since we are well embarked on such a future. The historical route by which the world reached its present advanced threshold to a nuclear future confirms this diagnosis. split into two main cases, the national This diagnosis can be development of nuclear power in the US? and the international spread of nuclear technology for which the US has been largely responsible. the Eastern bloc is which had in 1977 only nuclear plants. By comparison with the West, nuclear power production in and is largely confined to the Soviet Union small about one -sixth the wattage output of US Nuclear development in USSR has been, of course, a state controlled and subsidized venture, in which there has been virtually no public participation or discussion; but Russian technology has not been exported else­ where to any great extent. American technology has. 45. The 60s were, because of the growth in electricity demand, a period of great expansion of the electrical utilities in the US. These companies were encouraged to build nuclear plants, rather than coal or oil burning plants, for several state controlled or influenced reasons:- Firstly, owing to governmental regulation procedures the utilities could (it then seemed) earn a higher rate of profit on a nuclear plant than a fossil fuel one. Secondly, the US government arranged to meet crucial costs and risks of nuclear operation, and in this way, and more directly through its federal agencies, actively encouraged a nuclear choice and nuclear development. In particular, state limitation of liability and shouldering of part of insurance for nuclear accidents and state arrangements to handle nuclear wastes were what made profitable private utility operation appear feasible and resulting in nuclear investment. In the 70s, though the state subsidization continued, the private ’high costs of construction combined with low capacity cO , factors and poor reliability have wiped out the iyst advantage that nuclear power picture changed : had enjoyed in the US. Much as the domestic nuclear market in the US is controlled by a few corporations, so the world market is dominated by a few countries, predominantly and first of all the US, which through its two leading nuclear companies, Westinghouse and General Electric, has been the major exporter of nuclear 55 technology. ' These companies were enabled to gain entry into European and subsequently world markets by US foreign policies, basically the "Atoms for Peace" program supplemented by bilateral agreements providing for US technology, research, enriched uranium and financial capital. ’The US offered a Estate subsidized] nuclear package that Europe could not refuse and with which the British could not compete*. In the 70s the picture of US domination of Common Market nuclear technology had given way to subtler influence: American companies held dudlJug with relevant governments) substantial interests in European and Japanese nuclear companies and held licences on the technology which remained largely American. Meanwhile in the 60s and 70s the US entered into bilateral agreements for civilian use of atomic energy with many other countries, for example, Argentina, Brasil, Columbia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Portugal, South Africa, Taiwan, Turkey, Venezuela, South Vietnam. The US proceeded, Spain, in this way, to ship nuclear technology and nuclear materials in great quantities round the world. It also proceeded to spread nuclear technology through the International Atomic Energy Agency, originally designed to control and safeguard nuclear operations, but most of whose *budget and activities ... have gone to promote nuclear activities’. 46. A main reason for the promotion and sales pressure on Third World countries has been the failure of US domestic market and industrial world markets for reactors. Less developed countries offer a new frontier where reactors can be built with easy public financing, where health and safety regulations are loose and enforcement rare, where public opposition is not permitted and where weak and corrupt regimes offer easy sales. [For] ... the US has considerable leverage with many of these countries. We know from painful experience that many of the worst dictatorships in the planet would not be able to stand without overt and covert US support. Many of those same regimes are now^ pursuing the nuclear path, for all the worst reasons. It is evident from this sketch of the ways and means of reactor proliferation that not only have practices departed far from the framework of the Old Paradigm and five social Modification, but that the practices (or corporate capitalism and associated third world imperialism) involve much that is ethically unacceptable, whether percepts; for principles such as by older, modified, or alternative thos and self-determination are grossly violated. IX. SOCIAL OPTIONS : SHALLOWER AND DEEPER ALTERNATIVES. The future energy option that is most often contrasted with nuclear power, namely coal power, while no doubt preferable to nuclear power, is hardly acceptable. For it carries with it the likelihood of serious (air) pollution and associated phenomena such as acid rain and atmospheric heating, not to mention the despoliation caused by extensive strip mining, all of which result from its use in meeting very high projected consumption figures. Such an option would also fail, it seems, to meet the necessary transfer condition, because it would impose widespread costs on nonbeneficiaries for some concentrated benefits to some profit takers and to some users who do not pay the full costs of production . i 58 and replacement. To these conventional main options a third is often added which emphasizes softer and more benign technologies, such as those of solar energy and, in Northern Europe, hydroelectricity. The deeper choice, which even softer paths tend to neglect, is not technological but social, and involves both conservation measures and the restructuring of production away from energy intensive uses: at a more basic level there is a choice between consumeristic and nonconsumeristic futures. These more fundamental choices between social alternatives, conventional technologically-oriented discussion of energy options tends to be obscure. It is not just a matter of deciding in which way to meet 47. given and unexamined goals (as the Old Paradigm would imply), but also a matter of examining the goals. That is, we are not merely faced with the question of comparing different technologies or substitute ways of meeting some fixed or given demand or level of consumption, and of trying to see whether we can meet this with soft rather than hard technologies; we are also faced, and primarily, with the matter of examining those alleged needs and the cost of a society that creates them. It is not just a question of devising less damaging ways to meet these alleged needs conceived of as inevitable and unchangeable. (Hence there are solar ways of producing unnecessary trivia no one really wants, as opposed to nuclear ways.) Naturally this is not to deny that these softer options are superior because of the ethically unacceptable features of the harder options. But it is doubtful that any technology, however benign in principle, will be likely to leave a tolerable world for the future if it is expected to meet unbounded and uncontrolled energy consumption and demands. Even the more benign technologies such as solar technology could be used in a way which creates costs for future people and are likely to result in a deteriorated world being handed on to them. Consider, for example, the effect on the world’s forests, which are commonly counted as a solar resource, of use for production of methanol or of electricity by woodchipping (as already planned by forest authorities and contemplated by many other energy organisations). While few would object to the use of genuine waste material for energy production, the unrestricted exploitation of forests - whether it goes under the name of ’’solar energy' or not - to meet ever increasing energy demands could well be the final indignity for the world s already hard-pressed natural forests. The effects of such additional demands on the maintenance of the forests are often dismissed, even by soft technologicalists, by the simple expedient of waving around the label 'renewable resources'. Many forests are in principle renewable, it is a true, given a certain (low) rate and kind of exploitation, but in fact there are now very few forestry operations anywhere in the world where the forests are treated as completely renewable in the sense of the renewal of all their values. In many regions too the rate of exploitation which would enable renewal has already been exceeded, so that a total decline is widely thought to be imminent if not already well advanced. It certainly has begun in many regions, and for many forest types (such as rainforest types) which are now, and very rapidly, being lost for the future. The adaition of a major further and not readily limitable demand pressure, that for energy, on top of present pressures is one which anyone with a realistic appreciation of the conduct of contemporary forestry operations, who is also concerned with long-term conservation of the forests and remaining natural communities, must regard with alarm. The result of massive deforestation for energy purposes, 48. resembling the deforestation of England at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, again for energy purposes, would be extensive and devastating erosion in steeper lands and tropical areas, desertification in more arid regions, possible climatic change, and massive impoverishment of natural ecosystems. Some of us do not want to pass on - we are not entitled to pass on - a deforested world to the future, any more than we want to pass on one poisoned by nuclear products or polluted by coal products. In short, a mere switch to a more benign technology - important though this is - without any more basic structural and social change is inadequate. Nor is such a simple technological switch likely to be achieved. It is not as if political pressure could oblige the US government to stop its nuclear program (and that of the countries it influences, much of the world), in the way pressure appeared to succeed in halting the Vietnam war. While without doubt it would be good if this could be accomplished, it is very unlikely given the integration of political powerholders with those sponsoring nuclear development. The deeper social options involve challenging and trying to change a social structure which promotes consumerism, consumption far beyond genuine needs, and an economic structure which encourages increasing use of highly energy-intensive modes of production. This means, for instance, trying to change a social structure in which those who are lucky enough to make it into the work force, are cogs in a production machine over which they have very little real control and in which most people do unpleasant or boring work from which they derive very little real satisfaction in order to obtain the reward of consumer goods and services. A society in which social rewards are obtained primarily from products rather than processes, from consumption, rather than from satisfaction in work and in social relations and other activities, is virtually bound to oe one which generates a vast amount of unnecessary consumption. (A production system that produces goods not to meet genuine needs but for created and non- genuine needs is virtually bound to overproduce.) Consumption frequently becomes a substitute for satisfaction in other areas. The adjustments focussed upon are only parts of the larger set of adjustments involved in socially implementing the New Paradigm, the move away from consumerism is for example part of the more general shift from materialism and materialist values. The social change option tends to be obscured in most discussions of energy options and of how to meet energy needs, in part because it does question underlying values of current social arrangements. The conventional discussion proceeds by taking alleged demand (often conflated with wants or needs ^) as unchallengeable, and the issue to be one of which technology can 49. be most profitably employed to meet them. This effectively presents a false choice, and is the result of taking needs and demand as lacking a social context so that the social structure which produces the needs is similarly taken as unchallengeable and unchangeable. It is commonly argued by representatives The point is readily illustrated. of such industries as transportation and petroleum, as for example by McGrowth of the XS Consumption Co., that people want deep freezers, air conditioners, power boats, ... It would be authoritarian to prevent them from satisfying these wants. Such an argument conveniently ignores the social framework in which such needs and wants arise or are produced. To point to the determination of many such wants at the framework level is not however to accept a Marxist approach according to which they are entirely determined at the framework level (e.g. by industrial organisation) and there is no such thing as individual choice or determination at all. It is to see the social framework as a major factor in determining certain kinds of choices, such as those for travel, and to see apparently individual choices made in such matters as being channelled and directed by a social framework determined largely in the interests of corporate and private profit and advantage. The social change option is a hard option - at least it will be difficult to obtain politically - but it is the only way, so it has been argued, of avoiding passing on serious costs to the future. And there are other sorts of reasons than such ethical ones for taking it: it is the main, indeed the only sort of option 62 open to those who take a deeper ecological perspective , a perspective integral with the New Paradigm but not essential to radical departure from the dominant paradigm. The ethical transmission requirement defended accordingly requires, hardly surprisingly, social and political adjustment. The social and political changes that the deeper alternative requires will be strongly resisted because they and power structure. mean changes in current social organisation To the extent that the option represents some kind of threat to parts of present political and economic arrangements it is not surprising that official energy option discussion proceeds by misrepresenting and often obscuring it. But difficult though a change will be, especially one with such far-reaching effects on the prevailing power structure, is to obtain, it is imperative to try : we are all on the nuclear train. FOOTNOTES 1. All but the last line of the quote is drawn from Goodin, p. 417; the last line is from the Fox Report, p. 6. While it is unnecessary to know much about the nuclear fuel cycle in order to consider ethical and social dimensions of nuclear power, it helps to know a. little. & Abbotts, Gyorgy. The basics are presented in many texts, e.g. Nader Of course in order to assess fully reports as to such important background and stage-setting matters as the likelihood of a core meltdown of a (lightwater) reactor, much more information is required. For many assessment purposes however, some knowledge of economic fallacies and decision theory is at least as important as knowledge of nuclear technology. 2. As to the first, see references cited in Goodin, p. 417, footnote 1. As regards the second see Cotgrove and Duff, and some of the references given therein. 3. Cotgrove and Duff, p. 339. 4. The table is adapted from Cotgrove and Duff, p. 341; compare also Catton and Dunlap, especially p. 34. 5. See, e.g., Gyorgy, pp. 357-8. 6. For one illustration, see the conclusions of Mr Justice Parker at the Windscale inquiry (The Windscale Inquiry Vol. 1., Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, London, 1978), discussed in both Cotgrove and Duff, p. 347 and in Goodin, p. 501 ff. 7. Much as with the argument of one theory or position against another. One can argue both, from one’s own position against the other, and in the other’s own terms against the other. 8. As well as screening the debate from the public such manoeuvres favour the (pro-)nuclear establishment, since they (those of the alliance of military, large industry, and government) control much of the information and (subject to minor qualifications) can release what, and only what, suits them. 9. This is a conclusion of several governmental inquiries and is conceded by some leading proponents of nuclear development; for requisite details up to 1977 see Routley (a). The same conclusion has been reached in some, but not all, more recent official reports, see, e.g., 2 10. For some details see Gyorgy, p. 60 ff. 11. See the papers, and simulations, discussed in Goodin, p. 428. 11a. Naturally the effect on humans is not the only factor that has to be taken into account in arriving at moral assessments. Nuclear radiation, unlike most ethical theories, does not confine its scope to human life and welfare. But since the harm nuclear development may afflict on non-human life, for example, can hardly improve its case, it suffices if the case against it can be made out solely in terms of its effects on human life in the conventional (Old Paradigm) way. 12. On the pollution and waste disposal record of the nuclear industry, see Nader and Abbotts, Lovins and Price, and Gyorgy. On the more general problem of effective pollution controls, see also, Routley (a), footnote 7. 13. Back of thus Humanity Unlimited assumption is the idea of Man replacing God. First God had unlimited power, e.g. over nature, then when during the Enlightenment Man replaced God, Man was to have unlimited power. Science and technology were the tools which were to put Man into the position of unlimitedness. More recently nuclear power is seen as providing man at least with unlimited physical power, power obtained through technology, [ability to manage technology represents the past] 14. On such limitation theorems, which go back to Finsler and Godel on one side and to Arrow on the other, see, e.g. Routley 80. All these theorems mimic paradoxes, semantical "paradoxes" on one side and voting "paradoxes other. on the Other different limitation results are presented in Routley 81. It follows that there are many problems that have no solution and much that is necessarily unknowable. Limitative results put a serious dent in the progress picture. According the Dominant Western Worldview, the history of humanity is one of progress; for every problem there is a solution, and thus progress need never cease (Catton and Dunlap, p. 34). 15. See Lovins and Price. 15a. The points also suggest a variant argument against a nuclear future, namely . A nuclear future narrows the range of opportunities open to future generations. . ’What justice requires ... is that the overall range of opportunities open to successor generations should not be narrowed’ (Barry, p.243). Therefore, a nuclear future contravenes requirements of justice. 3 16. For examples, and for some details of the history of philosophers’ positions on obligations to the future, see Routley (a). 17. Passmore, p. 91. Passmore’s position is ambivalent and, to all appearances, inconsistent. It is considered in detail in Routley (a), as also is Rawls’ position. 18. For related criticisms of the economists’ arguments for discounting, and for citation of the often eminent economists who sponsor them, see Goodin, pp. 429-30. 19. The reasons (not elaborated here) are that the properties are different e.g. a monetary reduction of value imposes a linear ordering on values to which value rankings, being only partial orderings, do not conform. 20. Goodin however puts his case against those rules in a less than satisfactory fashion. What he claims is that we cannot list all the possible outcomes in the way that such rules as expected utility maximization presupposes, e.g. Goodin suggests that we cannot list all the things that can go wrong with a nuclear power plant or with waste storage procedures. But outstanding alternatives can always be comprehended logically, at worst by saying "all the rest” (e.g. ~p covers everything except p). For example, outcomes Goodin says cannot be listed, can be comprehended along such lines as "plant breakdown through human error”. Furthermore the different more appropriate rules Goodin subsequently considers also require listing of "possible" outcomes. are really two points. Goodin’s point can be alternatively stated however. There The first trouble is that such ragbag alternatives cannot in general be assigned required quantitative probabilities, and it is at that point that applications of the models breaks down. The breakdown is just what separates decision making under uncertainty from decision making under risk. Secondly, many influential applications of decision theory methods, the Rasmussen Report is a good example, do, illegitimately, delete possible alternatives from their modellings. 21. Discount, or bank, rates in the economists' sense are usually set to follow the market, cf. P.A. Samuelson, EcOYiorri'icsi 7th Edition, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1967, p.351. 22. A real possibility is one which there is evidence for believing could eventuate. A real possibility requires producible evidence for its consideration. 23. Thus the rates have little moral relevance. The contrast is with mere logical possibility. 4 24. Such a principle is explicit both in classical utilitarianism (e.g. Sidgwick p. 414), and in a range of contract and other theories from Kant and Rousseau to Rawls (p.293). How the principle is argued for will depend heavily, however, on the underlying theory; and we do not want to make our use depend heavily on particular ethical theories. 25. The latter question is taken up in section VII; see especially, the Poverty argument. 26. SF, p. 27. Shrader-Frechette is herself somewhat critical of the carte blanche adoption of these methods, suggesting that ’whoever affirms or denies the desirability of ... [such] standards is, to some degree, symbollically assenting to a number of American value patterns and cultural norms’ 27. (p. 28). The example parallels the sorts of counterexamples often advanced to utilitarianism, e.g. the admissible lynching of pleasure given to the large lynching party. of an innocent person because For the more general case against utilitarianism, see ... 28. US Atomic Energy Commission, Comparative Risk-Cost-Benefit Study of Alternative sources of Electrical Energy (WASH-1224), US Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., December 1974, p.4-7 and p. 1-16. 29. As SF points out, p.37-44., in some detail. As she remarks, ... since standards need not be met, so long as the NRC [Nuclear Regulatory commission] judges that the licence shows ’a reasonable effort’ at meeting them, current policy allows government regulators to trade human health and welfare for the [apparent] good intentions of the promotors of technology. [Such] good intentions have never been known to be sufficient for the morality of an act (p. 39). The failure of state regulation, even where the standards are as mostly not very demanding, and the alliance of regulators with those they are supposed to be regulating, are conspicuous features of modern environmental control, not just of (nuclear) pollution control. 30. 31. The figures are those from the original Brookhaven Report: possibilities and consequences of major 'Theoretical accidents in large nuclear plants’, USAEC Report WASH-740, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1957. This report was requested in the first place because the Commission bn Atomic Energy wanted positive safety conclusions "to reassure the private insurance companies" so that they would provide coverage for the nuclear industry. Since even the conservative statistics of the report were alarming it was suppressed and its data were not made public until almost 20 years later, after a suit was brought as a result of the Freedom of Information Act (Shrader-Frechette, pp. 78-9). 32. Atomic Energy Commission, Reactor Safety Study: An Assessment of Accident Risks in US Commercial Nuclear Power Plants, Government Printing Office Washington, D.C., 1975. This report, the only allegedly complete study, concluded that fission reactors presented only a minimal health risk to the public. Early in 1979, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (the relevant organisation that superseded the troubled Atomic Energy Commission) withdrew its support for the report, with the result that there is now no comprehensive analysis of nuclear power approved by the US Government. 32a. Most present and planned reactors are of this type: see Gyorgy. 33. 34. Even then relevant environment factors may have been neglected. 35. There are variations on (i) and (ii) which multiply costs against numbers such as probabilities. In this way risks, construed as probable costs, can be taken into account in the assessment. (Alternatively, risks may be assessed through such familiar methods as insurance.) A principle varying (ii), and formulated as follows: (ii’)a is ethically acceptable if (for some b) a includes no more risks than b and b is socially accepted, was the basic ethical principle in terms of which the Cluff Lake Board of Inquiry recently decided that nuclear power development in Saskatchewan is ethically acceptable: see Cluff Lake Board of Inquiry Final Report, Department of Environment, Government of Saskatchewan, 1978, p. 305 and p. 288. In this report, a is nuclear power and b is either activities clearly accepted by society as alternative power sources. In other applications b has been taken as cigarette smoking, motoring, mining and even the Vietnam War (!) The points made in the text do not exhaust the objections to principles (i) - (ii’). The principles are certainly ethically substantive, since an ethical consequence cannot be deduced from nonethical premisses, but they have an inadmissible conventional character. For look at the origin of b: b may be socially accepted though it is no longer socially acceptable, or though its social acceptibility is no longer so clearcut and it would not have been socially What accepted if as much as is now known had been known when it was introduced. is required in (ii’), for instance, for the argument to begin to look, convincing is then ’ethically acceptable’ rather than ’socially accepted'. But even with the amendments the principles are invalid, for the reasons given in the text. It is not disconcerting that these arguments do not work. It would be sad to see yet another area lost to the experts, namely ethics to actuaries. 36. A main part of the trouble with the models is that they are narrowly utilitarian, and like utilitarianism they neglect distributional features, involve naturalistic fallacies, etc. Really they try to treat as an uncon­ strained optimisation what is a deontically constrained optimisation: see R. and V. Routley ’An expensive repair kit for utilitarianism’. 37. Apparent exceptions to the principle such as taxation (and redistribution of income generally) vanish when wealth is construed (as it has to be if taxation is to be properly justified) as at least partly a social asset unfairly monopolised by a minority of the population. Examples such as that of motoring dangerously do not constitute counterexamples to the principle; for one is not morally entitled to so motor. 38. SF, p. 39. Goodin, p. 433. 40. On all these points see R. Grossman and G. Daneker, Guide to Jobs and 15, where references are also cited. Energy, Environmentalists for Full Employment, Washington DC, 1977, pp.1-7, and also the details supplied in substantiating the interesting case of Commoner On the absorption of available capital by the nuclear industry, see as well E18], p. 23. On the employment issues, see too H.E. Daly in L9 J, p. 149. A more fundamental challenge to the poverty argument appears in I. Illich, Energy and Equality, Calden and Boyars, London 1974, where it is argued that the sort of development nuclear energy represents is exactly the opposite of what the poor need. 41. For much more detail on the inappropriateness see E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful, Blond and Briggs, London, 1973. As to the capital and other requirements, see [2], p. 48, and also [7] and [9]. For an illuminating look at the sort of development high-energy technology will tend to promote in the so-called underdeveloped countries see the paper of Waiko and other papers in The Melanesian Environment (edited J.H. Winslow), Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1977. 42. A useful survey is given in A. Lovins, Energy Strategy: The Road Not Taken, Friends of the Earth Australia, 1977 (reprinted from Foreign Affairs, October 1976); see also [17], [6], [7], [14], p. 233 ff, and Schumacher, op. cit. 43. An argument like this is suggested in Passmore, Chapters 4 and 7, with respect to the question of saving resources. In Passmore this argument for the overriding importance of passing on contemporary culture is underpinned by what appears to be a future-directed ethical version of the Hidden Hand argument of economics - that, by a coincidence which if correct would indeed be fortunate, the best way to take care of the future (and perhaps even the only way to do so, since do-good intervention is almost certain to go wrong) is to take proper care of the present and immediate future. The argument has all the defects of the related Chain Argument discussed above and others. 44. See Nader and Abbotts, p. 66, p. 191, and also Commoner. 45. Very persuasive arguments to this effect have been advanced by civil liberties groups and others in a number of countries: see especially M. Flood and R. Grove-White, Nuclear Prospects. A comment on the individual, the State and Nuclear Power, Friends of the Earth, Council for the Protection of Rural England and National Council for Civil Liberties, London, 1976. 46. 'US energy policy, for example, since the passage of the 1954 Atomic Energy Act, has been that nuclear power is necessary to provide ”an economical and reliable basis” needed "to sustain economic growth” (SF, p.lll, and references there cited). There are now a great many criticisms of the second premiss in the literature. For our criticism, and a reformulation of the premiss in terms of selective economic growth (which would exclude nuclear development), see Routley (b), and also Berkley and Seckier. To simple-mindedly contrast economic growth with no-growth, in the fashion of some discussions of nuclear power, c.f. Elster, is to leave out alternatives; the contraction crucial of course much simplifies the otherwise faulty case for unalleged growth. 48. In UK and USSR nuclear development is explicitly in the public domain, in such countries as France and West Germany the government has very substantial interests in main nuclear involved companies. Even as regards nuclear plant operation in the US, it is difficult to obtain comprehensive data. Estimates of cost very dramtically according to the sample of plants chosen and the assumptions made concerning the measurement of plant performance (Gyorgy, p. 173). 49. 50. See Kalmanoff, p. See Comey. 51. Ref. to what it has to say about Price Anderson Act. 52. Full ref to SF onargument from ignorance etc. 53. These e.g. Elster, p. 377. 54. A recent theme in much economic literature is that Bayesian decision On decision theory see also, theory and risk analysis can be universally applied. The theme is upset as soon as one steps outside of select Old Paradigm confines. In any case, even within these confines there is no consensus at all on, and few (and widely diverging) figures for,the probability of a reactor core meltdown, and no reliable estimates as to the likelihood of a nuclear confrontation. Thus Goodin argues (in 78) that 'such uncertainties plague energy theories' as to 'render expected utility calculations impossible’. 55. For details see Gyorgy, p. 398 ff., from which presentation of the international story is adapted. 7 56. Gyorgy, p. 307, and p. 308. points, see Chomsky 57. For elaboration of some of the important and Hermann. Whatever one thinks of the ethical principles underlying the Old Paradigm or its Modification - and they do form a coherent set that many people can respect - these are not the principles underlying contemporary corporate capitalism and associated third-world imperialism. 58. Certainly practical transitional programs may involve temporary and limited use of unacceptable long term commodities such as coal, but in presenting such practical details one should not lose sight of the more basic social and structural changes, and the problem is really one of making those. Similarly practical transitional strategies should make use of such measures as environmental (or replacement) pricing of energy i.e. so that the price of some energy unit includes the full cost of replacing it by an equivalent unit taking account of environmental cost of production. Other (sometimes cooptive) strategies towards more satisfactory alternatives should also, of course, be adopted, in particular the removal of institutional barriers to energy conservation and alternative technology (e.g. local government regulations blocking these), and the removal of state assistance to fuel and power industries. 59. Symptomatic of the fact that it is not treated as renewable is that forest economics do not generally allow for full renewability - if they did the losses and deficits on forestry operations would be much more striking than they already are often enough. It is doubtful, furthermore, that energy cropping of forests can be a fully renewable operation if net energy production is to be worthwhile; see, e.g. the argument in L.R.B. Mann ‘Some difficulties with energy farming for portable fuels’, and add in the costs of ecosystem maintenance. 60. For an outline and explanation of this phenomena see Gyorgy, and also Woodmansee. 61. The requisite distinction is made in several places, e.g. Routley (b), and (to take one example from the real Marxist literature), Baran and Sweezy. 62. The distinction between shallow and deep ecology was first emphasised by Naess. For its environmental importance see Routley (c) further references are cited). (where /bU/ REFERENCES. In order to contain references to a modest length, reference to primary sources has often been replaced by reference through secondary sources. Generally the reader can easily trace the primary sources. For those parts of the text that overlap Routley (a), fuller references will be found by consulting the latter article. S. Cotgrove and A. Duff, ’Environmentalism, middle-class radicalism and politics’, Sociological Review 28 (2) (1980), 333-51. R.E. Goodin, ’No moral nukes’, Ethics 90 (1980), 417-49. A. Gyorgy and Friends, No Nukes: everyone’s guide to nuclear power, South End Press, Boston, Mass., 1979. R. Nader and J. Abbotts, The Menace of Atomic Energy, Outback Press, Melbourne, 1977. R. and V. Routley, 'Nuclear energy and obligations to the future', Inquiry 21 (1978), 133-79 (cited as Routley (a)). Fox Report: Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry First Report, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1977. K.S. Schrader-Frechette, Nuclear Power and Public Policy, Reidel, Dordrecht, 1980 (referred to as SF). W.R. Catton, Jr., and R.E. Dunlap, ’A new ecological paradigm for post-exuberant sociology’, American Behavioral Scientist 24 (1980) 15-47. United States Interagency Review group on Nuclear Waste Management, Report to the President, Washington. 29442) (Dept, of Energy) 1979. (Ref. No. El. 28. TID- (cited as US(a)). A.B. Lovins and J.H. Price, Non-Nuclear Futures: The Case for an Ethical Energy Strategy, Friends of the Earth International, San Francisco, 1975. R. Routley, ’On the impossibility of an orthodox social theory and of an orthodox solution to environmental problems’, Logique et Analyse, 23 (1980), 145-66. R. Routley, ’Necessary limits for knowledge: unknowable truths’, in Essays in honour of Paul Weingartner, (ed. E. Morscher), Salzberg, 1980. J. Passmore, Man’s Responsibility for Nature, Duekworth, London, 19 74. 2. R. and V. Routley, The Fight for the Forests, Third Edition, RSSS, Australian National University, 1975 (cited as Routley (b)). J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1971. P.W. Berkley and D.W. Seckier, Economic Growth and Environmental Decay, Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch, New York, 1972. J. Elster, ’Risk, uncertainty and nuclear power’, Social Science Information 18 (3) (1979) 371-400. J. Robinson, Economic Heresies, Basic Books, New York, 1971. B. Barry, 'Circumstances of Justice and future generations’ in Obligations to Future Generations (ed. R.T. Sikora and B. Barry), Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1978. II. Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, Macmillan, London, 1962 (reissue). B. Commoner, The Poverty of Power, Knopf, New York, 1975. N. Chomsky and E.S. Herman, The Political Economy of Human Rights, 2 vols., Black Rose Books, Montreal, 1979. J. Woodmansee, The World of a Giant Corporation, North Country Press, Seattle, Washington, 1975. P.A. Bd\ran and P. Sweezy, Monopoly Capital, Penguin, 1967. A. Naess, 'The shallow and the deep, long range ecology movement. A summary’, Inquiry 16 (1973) 95-100.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 106, Item 4: Draft of Nuclear power - ethical and social dimensions ; Draft of Nuclear power - ethical, social and political dimensions Subject The topic of the resource Two draft papers. First paper, typescript, corrections with whiteout, undated. Second paper, typescript (photocopy) of draft, with handwritten emendations, undated. Paper published, Routley R and Routley V (1982) 'Nuclear power—some ethical and social dimensions', in Regan T and VanDeVeer D (eds) And justice for all: new introductory essays in ethics and public policy, Rowman and Littlefield. Description An account of the resource Papers housed in unnumbered folder marked Australia's Defence. Item number assigned by library staff. One of four papers digitised from item 2. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Routley&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Routley</a> <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=val+routley&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Val Routley</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, <span>Box 106, Item 4</span> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, <a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a>. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [62] leaves. 51.91 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:f644a2a">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:f644a2a</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1982-01-01 Box 106: Culture, Politics, Environment, Economics [War and Peace] https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/a2d897c3f43419ae04104b4b7a0919b7.pdf 0ec140abbbef068d6ca7a2d80321fb03 PDF Text Text NUCLE AR POWER - I. ETHIC AL, SOC I AL AND POLltt AAL DI MiN S I ONS COMPETING PARADIGMS AN D THE NU CLEAR DEBAT E. 1870 One ha rdly needs initia t i on i nt o the dark my s te ri e s of nucl ear ph ys i cs to contribu te use f ully t o t he debat e no w wid e l y r anging ov e r nuc lear powe r . While ma ny i mpo r tan t empi rica l que stions ar e s t i ll unr e s olved, t hese do not r e a lly l i e a t th e ce nt r e of t he con t r ove rsy. In st e ad, it is a de ba t e about val ue s . .. ma ny of the que s tions ~hi ch a ri s e are s oc i al an d et hica l one s . 1 Socio logical inves tigation s have conf i rme d that th e n ucl ea r deba t e is primaril y one ove r what is wor th having or pursuing and over what we a re ent i t l ed to do to o th e rs . They ha ve also confirme d tha t t he debate i s polaris ed a lon g t he li nes o f compe ting paradigm s. 2 Accordin g to the entre nc he d parad i gm dis ce rn e d, that conste llation of value s , attitude s and be liefs o fte n ca ll e d t he Domi nan t So ci a l Pa radigm (hereaft er the Old Paradigm ), economic criteria be come the be nchmark by whi ch a wi de ran ge of individu al and social action is judged and e va luat e d . And be li e f in the market and marke t mechan isms is quit e ce ntral . Clust e rin g around this core belief is the convicti on th a t e nt e r p r i s e flou r is hes bes t i n a system of r isks and rewards, that di ffe r e nti als a r e neces sary ..• , and in the nece ssity for some fo r m o f di vis i on of labour, and a hi e rarchy of skills and exper t is e . In pa rt i cul a r, t here i s a be li e f in th e comp e t e nce o f e xperts i n gener a l and of sci entis t s in pa r ticular . the re is an empha s i s on q uantif i ca t ion . 3 The ri v a l world view , sometime s c all e d t he Alte rnative Environm e ntal Par ad igm (the New Paradi gm) dif f ers on almos t e ve ry pcint , and, acco rdin g t o so ciologi sts , in ways summari sed i n th e fo llowing t a bl e 4 Domi nant Socia l Para digm CORE VALUES Ma te r i a l (e conomic growth , progress an d dev elopmen t ) Na tu ra l env ironment va lu e d as resourc e Dom i nat i on over na t ur e Al t e rn a tive Env ir onme nt al Pa rad igm Non-ma terial (se l f -r eali sa t io n) Na t ural e nvir onm e nt i ntrin s i cally valu ed Ha r mo ny with na tu r e ECONOMY* Ma rket forces Ri s k a nd rewa r d Rewa r ds for ach i evemen t Diff e rent i a l s Individ ua l se lf-help Public i nte r es t Sa fety Incomes r elat ed t o nee d Egali t a r ian Co ll ective/soc i al provi s i on PO LITY Authori t at iv e s t ru c t ures (e xp e r t s in flue ntia l) Hi e r a r ch1.c a l Law and order Ac t io n through o ffi c ia l i nst it ut io ns Pa rtic ip a tive s t ruc t ur e s ( ci ti zen/ wo r ke r invo lveme n t ) No n- hi era r chical Liberation Di r ec t a c ti o n SOCIETY Ce ntr a lised La r ge-s ca le As socia tional Or der ed Dece ntr a l ised Small - s ca l e Communa l Flexib l e NATURE Ampl e rese r ves Nature host il e/ ne u t r a l Envi r onmen t cont roll a ble Earth ' s r esou r c e s lim i ted Nature be nign Na t ure de l i ca t el y ba l a nc ed KNOWLEDGE Co nf idence in sc i ence and t ec hnology Ra t i onal i t y of mea ns (only) Li mit s t o sc i e nce Rati ona lit y of en ds *Stat e socia l ism , as pr a ctised i n mo s t of t he " Eastern b l oc" , di ffers as to eco nomi c o r ganisation , t he ma r ket i n pa r ticula r be i ng rep l ac ed sys tem hy ~ comma nd sy st e m) . Bu t sin c e t he r e i s v irt ual l y no debate r·o ni i nes 'l l s r a t <! ., ociali sm , 5 that mJnnr va riant on th e Old Para digm from t he Ol d Pa rad i gm r eall y on ly by cen t ral planning (a ma r ke t over o nu c lea r futu r e within t he ne ed no t be de lineat ed he r e . �2 No doubt the competing paradigm picture is a trifle simple (and subs equently it is important to disentangle a Modified Old Paradigm, which softens the old econ omic assumptions with social welfa r e requirements : really and instead of a New Paradigm there are rather count erpa radigms, a cluster of not very well worked out positions that diverge from the cluster marked out as the Old Paradigm) . Nonetheless it is empi rically investigable, and, most important, it enables the nuclear debate to be focuss ed . Large - scale nuclear development, of the sort now occurring in much of the world , runs counter to leading tenets (such as societal features) of the New Pa radigm. Indeed to introduce ethical and social dimensions into the assessment of nucl ear power, instead of or in addition to merely economic factors such as cost and efficiency, is already to move somewhat beyond the recei ved paradigm. For under the Old Paradigm, strictly construed, th e nuclear debate is confined to the tenns of the narrow utilitarianism up on which contemporary economic practice is p r emisse d, the issues to questions of economic means (to assumed economistic ends) along with technological, social engineering and other instrumental details : whatever falls outside these terms is ( dismissed as) . . 1.6 irrationa Furthermore, nuclear development rece ive s its support from adherents of the Old Paradigm. Virtually all the arguments in favour of it are set within the assumption frame.work of the Old Paradigm, and without these assumptions the case for the nuclear future the world is presently committed to fails . But in fact the argument for a nuclear future from the Old Paradigm is itself broken-backed and ultimat ely fails, unless the free enterprise economic assumptions are replaced by th e ethically unacceptable assumptions of advanced (corporate) capitalism . The two paradigm picture also enables our case against a nuclear future (a case written from outside the Old Paradigm) to be structured. . 7 main parts : - There are two It is argue d, firstl y , from without the Old Paradigm, that nuclear development is ethically unjustifiable; but that, secondly, even from within the framework of the ethically dubious Old Paradigm, such development is unacceptable, since significant features of nuclear development conflict with indispensible features of the Paradigm (e . g . co sts of project development and state subsidization with market independence and crite ria for project selection) . It has appeared acceptable from within the dominant paradigm only because ideals do not square with practice, only because the assumptions of th e Old Paradigm are but very rarely applied in contemporary political practice, �3 th e place of pure (or mixed) capitalism having been usurped by corporate capitalism. It is because the nuclear debate can be carried on within th e framework of the Old Paradigm that the debate - although it is a debate about values, because of the conflicting values of the competing paradigms - is not just a debate about values; it is also a debate within a paradigm as to means to already assumed (economistic) ends, and of rational choice as to energy options within a predetermined framework of values. (In this corner belong, as explained in section VIII, most decision theory argume nts, arguments often considered as encompassing all the nuclear debate is ethically about, best utilitarian me ans to predetermined ends . ) For another leading characteristic of the nuclear deb a te is the attempt, under the dominant paradigm to remove it from the ethical and social sphere, and to divert it into specialist issues whe th e r over minutiae and contingenci es of present techno l ogy o r ove r medical or legal or mathematical details. 8 The double approach can be applied as regards each of t he main problems nuclear development poses. There are many i nte rr ela t ed problems, and the argument is further structured in terms of these. For in the advancement and promotion of nucle ar power we encounter a remarkable combination of factors, never befo re assembled : establishment, on a massive scale , of an industry which involves at each stage of its processing serious risks and at some stages of p roduction possible catastrophe , which delivers as a by-product rad ioactive wastes which require up to a million years' storage but for which no sound and e conomic storage methods are known, which grew up as part of the war industry and which is easily subverted to deliver nuclear weapons, which r equires for i t s operation considerable secrecy, limitations on the flow of informa tion and r es trictions on civil liberties, which depends for its economics, and in orde r to generate expected profits, on substantial state subsidization, supper½ and intervention. with problems. It is, in short, a very high techological develo pmen t, beset A first important problem, which serves also to exemplify e thical issues and principles involved in other nuclear power que st i on s , is th e unreso l ved matter of disposal of nuclear wastes. II . THE NUCLEAR WASTE DISPOSAL PROBLEM, AND THE TRAIN PARABLE . A long distance country train has just pulled out. crowded carries both pass e ngers and fr e i gh t. The train which is At an early stop in the journey someon e con signs as freight, to a far distant destination, a package which contains a high ly toxic and exp losive gas. This is packaged in a very thin container which, as the consigner is aware, may not contain th e gas for the �4 full distance for which it is consigned, and certainly will not do so if th e train should strike any real trouble, for example if there is a breakdown and the interior of the train becomes very hot, if the train should be derailed or involved in a collision, or if some passenger should interefere inadvertently o r deliberately with the freight, perhaps trying to steal some of it. these sorts of contingencies have occurred on some previous journeys. All of If the container should break the resulting disaster would probably kill at least some of the people on the train in adjacent carriages, while othe r s could be maimed or incur serious diseases. Most of us would roundly condemn such an action. consigner of the parcel say to try to justify it? What might the He might say that it is not certain that the gas will escape and that it is mere speculation to suppose it will , that the world needs his pr~uct and it is his duty to supply it , and that in a ny case he is not responsible for th e train or the people on it. These sorts of excuses however wo uld norrrally be seen as ludicrous when set in this context . What is worth remarking is that similar excuses are not always so seen I when the consigner, again a "responsible" b usin essman , puts his workers ' health or other peoples ' welf are at risk. Suppose he ways that it is hi s own and otherd press ing needs which justify his action. The company he controls,which produces the material as a by-product , is in bad financia l straits, and could not afford to produce a better container even if it knew how to make one. If the company fails , he and his family will suffer, his employees will lose their jobs and have to look for others, and th e whole company town, through loss of spending and the cancellation of the Multiplier Effe ct, will be worse off. The poor and unemployed of the town, whom he would otherwise have been able to help, will suffer espe cially. Few people would accept such a story, even if correct, as justification . Even where there are serious risks and costs to ones e lf or some group for whom one is concerned one is usually considered not t o be entitled to simply transfer the heavy burden of those risks and costs onto other uninvolved parties, especially where they a ri se from one's own, or one's group 's, chosen life-style. The matter of nuclear waste disposal has many moral features which resemble the train case . How fitting the analogy is will become apparent as th e argument progresses . There is no known proven safe way to package th e highly toxic wastes generated by the nuclear plants that will be spread around th e world as large- scale nuclear development goes ahead. 9 The waste problem will be much more serious than that generated by the 50 or so reactors in use at present, with �5. each one of the 2000 or so reactors envisaged by the end of the century producing, on average , annual wastes containing 1000 times the radioactivity of the Hiroshima bomb . Much of this waste is extremely t oxic . For example, a millionth of a gramme of plutonium is enough to induce a lung cancer . Wastes will include the reactors themselves, which will have to be abandoned after the ir expected life times of perhaps 40 years , and which, some have estimated, may require l½ million years to reach saf e levels of radioactivity. Nuclear wastes must be kept suitably isolated from the environ ment fo r th e ir entire active lifetime. For fission products the required storage period a ve rages a thousand years or so, and for transuranic elements, which include plutonium, there is a half to a million yea r storage problem . Serious problems have aris en with both short-term and proposed long-t erm methods of storage, e ven with th e comparatively small quantities of waste produced ove r th e last 10 twenty years. Short-term methods of storage require continued human in t e rven tion, while proposed longer term methods are subject to both human i nterference and risk of leakage through non-human factors . No one with even a slight knowledge of the geological and climatic history of the earth over the last million years, a period whose flu ctua tion s in climate we are only just beginning to guage and which has seen four Ice Ages , could be confident that a rigorous guarantee of safe storage could be provided for the vast period of time involved. Nor does the history of human affa irs over the last 3000 years give ground for confidence in safe storage by methods requiring human intervention over perhaps a million years . Proposed long-term storage methods such as storage in granite formations or in salt mines, are largely speculative and relatively untested, and have already pro ved to involve difficulties with attempts made to put them into practice. Even as regards expensive recent proposals for first embedding concentrated wastes in glass and encapsulating the r e sult in multilayered metal containe rs before rock deposit , simulation mo dels reveal that radioactive material may not rema in suitably is ola ted from human environment . 11 In short, the best pres ent storage proposals carry very real possibilities of irradiating future people and . h . . lla d amaging t eir environment. Given the heavy costs which could be involve d fo r the future, and given the known limits of technology, it is methodological ly unsound to bet, as nuclear nations have, on the discovery of safe procedures for storage of wastes. Any new procedures (required before 2000) will probably be but variations on present proposals, and subject to the same inadequacies. For instance , none of the proposed methods for safe storage has been properly test e d, and they may �6. well prove to involve unforeseen difficultie s and risks when an attemp t is made to put them into practice on a commercial scale. Only a method that could provide a rigorous guaran t ee of safety over the storage period, that placed safety beyond reasonable doubt, would be acceptable. It is difficult to see how such rigorous guarantees could be given concerning either the geological or future µuman factors . But even if an economicall y viable, rigorously safe long t e rm storage method could be devised , there is the problem of gua rantee ing that it would be universally and invariably used. The assumption that it would be (especially if, as appears likely, such a method proved expensive economicall y and politically ) seems to p r esuppose a level of efficiency, pe rfection and concern for the f u ture which has not previously been e ncountere d in human affairs, and has certainly not been conspicuous in the nucl ea r industry. 12 Again, unless we assume continuous and faultless guarding of long t e rm storage sites through pe rhaps a million years of possible future human activity, weaponsgrade radioactive material will be accessible , over much of the million year storage peri od, to any party who is in a position to retrieve it. Th e assumption that a way will nonetheless be found , before 2000, which gets around the wastestorag e problem (no longer a nere disposal problem) is accordingly not rationally based, but is rather like many assumpti ons of way s , an article of faith . It is an assunption supplied by the Old Par adigm, a no limitations ass ump tion , that there are really no (developmen t) problems that cannot be solved technologic ally (if not in a fash i on that is always immediately economi cally feasible). The assumption has played an important part in development plans and pra ctic e. It has not only encouraged an unwarrant e d technolog ical optimism (not to say hubris 13 ), that there are no limits to what humans can accomplish , es pe cially through science ; it has led t o the embarcation on projects before crucial problems have been satisfactor ily solved or a solution is even in sight , and it has led to th e idea that technology can always be suitably controlled . It has also led, not surprisingl y, to disasters . There are severe limits on what technology can achieve (some of which a r e becoming known in the form of limitation theorems 14 ); and in addition there are human limitations which modern technologic al development s often fail to take due account of (risk a nalysis of the likelihood of reactor accidents is a relevant example, discuss e d below) . The original nuclear technology dream was that nuclear fissi on would provide unlimi t ed energy (a 'clean unlimited supply of power '). That dr e am soon shattered. The nu clear industry apparently remains a net consume r of power, and nuclear fission will be but a quite shor t-t erm supplier of power. 15 �) 7. The risks imposed on the future by proceeding with nuclea r development are , then, significant. Nuclear fission creates wastes which may remain toxic for a million years, but even with the (suspect) breeder r eactor it could be an energy source for only perhaps 150 years. It will do nothing for the energy problems of the people of the distant future whose lives could be se riously affected by the wastes. Thus perhaps 40,000 generations of futur e people could be fo rced to bear significant risks resulting from the provision of the (extravagant) energy use of only a small proportion of the people o f 10 generations. Nor is the risk of direct harm from the escape or misuse of radioactive materials th e only burden the nuclear solution imposes on the fu ture . Because the energy provided by nuclear fission is merely a stop gap, it seems probable that in due course the same problem , that of making a transition t o renewable sources of energy, will have to be faced again by a future population which will probably , again as a result of our actions, be very much worse placed to cope with it . For they may well have to face the change to renewable res ources in an over- populated world not only burdened with the legacy of our nuclear wastes, but also in a world in which, if the nuclear proponents' dreams of global industrialisation are realised , more and more of the global population will have become dependent on high energy consumption and associat ed technology and heavy resource use and will have lost or reduced its ability to survive without it . It will , moreover, probably be a world which is larg ely depleted of non-renewable resources, and in which su ch r enewable r eso urces as forests and soils as remain, resources which will have to form a very important part of the basis of life , 15a are in a run-down condition. Such points tell against th e idea th a t future people mGst be , if not direct beneficiaries of nuclear fission energy , at least indirect beneficiaries . It is for such reasons th at the train pa rabl e cannot be turned around to work in favour of nuclear power, with for exampl e , the nuclear train bringing relief as well as wastes to a remote town powered (onl y) by nuclear power. The 'solution" then is to buy time for contemporary industrial society at a price which not only creates serious problems for future people but which reduces their ability to cope with those problems . Like the consigner in the train parable, contemporary industrial society proposes, in order to ge t itself out of a mess arising from its chosen life style - the creation of e conomies dependent on an abundance of non-renewable energy, which is limited in supply - to pass on costs and risks of serious harm to others who will obtain no corresponding benefits . The " solution" may enable the avoidance of some uncomfortable changes �8. in the lifetime of those now living and their immediate descendants, just as the consigner's action avoids uncomfortable changes for him and his immediate surroundings, but at the expense of passing heavy burdens to other uninvolved parties, whose opportunity to lead decent lives may be seriously jeopardised. Industrial society has - under each paradigm, so it will be argued - cl e ar alternatives to · this action, which is taken essentially to avoid changing corporately-controlled patterns of consumption and protect the interest of those comparatively few who benefit from them . If we apply to the nuclear situation, so perceived , the standards of behaviour and moral principles generally acknowledged (in principle if perhaps of t en not in fact ) in the contemporary wo rld, it is not easy to avoid the conclusion that nuclear development involves gross injustice with respect to 15a th e future . There appear to be only two plausible moves that might enable the avoidance of such a conclusion. First, it might be argued that the moral principles and obligations which we acknowledge for the contemporary world and the immediate future do not apply because the recipients of the nuclear pa rcel are in the non-immediate future. Secondly, an attempt might be made to appeal to overriding circumstances, for to reject the consigner's action in the circumstances outlined is not of course to imply that there are no circumstances in which such an action might be justifiable, or at least whe re the matter is less clearcut. It is the same with the nuclear case . Just as in the cas e of the consigner of the package there is a need to consider what these justifying circumstances might be, and whether they apply in th e present case. We consider these possible escape routes for the proponent of nuclear development in turn, beginning with the ques tion of our obligations to the future. Resolution of this question casts light on other ethical questions concerning nuclear development. It is only when these have been considered that the matter of whether there are overriding circumstances is taken up again (in section VII). III OBLIGATIONS TO THE (DISTANT) FUTURE. The especially problematic area is that of the distant (i.e . non-immediat e) fut ure, the futur e with which people alive today will have no direct contact: by comparison, the immediate future gives fewer problems for most ethical theories. In fact the question of obliga tions to future people presents tests which a number of ethical theories fail to pass , and also has serious repercussions in political philosophy as regards the adequacy of accepted (democra ti c and other) institutions which do not take due account of the interests of future creatures. �9. Moral philosophers have, predictably, differed on the issue. A good many of the philosophers who have explicitly considered the question have come down in favour of the same considerations being given to the rights and interests of future people as to those of contemporary or immediately future people. Other philosophers have tended to fall into three categories - those who acknowledge obligations to the future but who do not take them seriously or who assign them a lesser weight, those who deny or who are committed by their general moral position to denying that there are moral obligations beyond the immediate future, and those who come down with admirable philosophical caution, on both sides of the issue, but with the weight of the argument favouring the view underlying prevailing economic and political institutions, that th ere are no moral obligations to the future beyond perhaps those to the next gene ration . According to the most extreme of these positions against moral obligations to the future, our behaviour with respect to the future is morally unconstrained, there are no moral restrictions on a ct ing or failing to act deriving from the ef fect of our actions on future people . Of those philosophers who say , or whose views imply that we do not have obligations to the (non-immediate) future, who have opted for the unconstrained position, many have based this view on accounts of moral obligation which are built on relations which presuppose some temporal or spatial contiguity . Th us moral obligation is seen as grounded on or as presupposing various relations which could not hold between people widely separated in time ( o r sometimes in space) . Fo r example, obligation is seen as grounded in relations which are proximate or of short duration and also non-transitive . Among su ch suggested bases or grounds of moral obligation, or r eq uirements on moral obligation , which would rule out obligations to the nonimmediate future are these :- Firstly there are those accounts which require that someone to whom a moral obligation is held be able to claim his r ights or en titlement . People in the distant future will not be able to claim rights and entitlements as against us, and of course they can do nothing effective to e nforce any claims they might have for their rights against us. Secondly , there a re those accounts which base moral obligations on social or legal convention, for example a convention which would require punishment of offenders or at least some kind of social enforcement . But plainly these and other conventions will not hold invariant over change in society and amendment of legal conventions and so will not be invariant over time. Also future people have no way of enforcing their interests or punishing offenders, and there couid be no guarantee that any contemporary institutions would do it for them . �10. Both the view that moral obligation requires the cont ex t of a moral community and the view that it is contractually based appear to rul e out th e distant future as a field of moral obligation as they not only require a commonality or some sort of common basis which cannot be guaranteed in the case of the distant future, but also a possibility of interchange or reciprocity of action which cannot apply to the future. Where the basis of moral obligation is seen as mutual exchange the interests of future people must be set aside because they cannot change the past and cannot be parties to any mutual contract. The exclusion of moral obligations to the distant future also follows from those views which attempt to ground moral obligations in non-transitive r ela tions of short duration such as sympathy and love. As well there are difficulties about love and sympathy for (non-existent ) people in the far distant futu r e about whose personal qualities and characteristics one must know very little and who may well be committed to a life-style for which one has l ittle or no sympa th y . On the current showing in the case of nuclear energy it would be easy to conclude that contemporary society lacks both love and sympathy for future peop l e ; and it would appear to follow from this that contemporary people had no obligations concerning future people and could damage them as it suited them. What all these views have in common is a picture of obligation as some thing acquired, either individually or institutionally , something which is conditional on doing something or failing to do something (e.g. pa rticipatin g in the moral community, contracting), or having some characteristic one can fail to have (e . g . love, sympathy, empathy). 16 Because obligation therefore becomes conditional, features usually (and correctly) thought to characterise obligation such as universality of application and necessitation (i.e. the binding features) are lost, especially where there is a choice wh e ther or not to do the thing required to acquire the obligation, and so as to whether to acquire it. The criteria for acquisition suggested are such as to exclude people in the distant future. The view that there are no moral constraints with respect to future people, that one is free to act however one likes with respect to them, is not however sustainable. Consider, for example , a scientific group which, for no particular reason other than to test a particular piece of technology, places in orbit a cobalt bomb set off by a triggering device designed to go off several hundred years from the time of its despatch . No presently living person and none of their immediate descendants would be affected, but the population of ... �11. the earth in the distant future would be wiped out as a direct and predictab le result of the action. The unconstra ined position clearly implies that this is an acceptabl e moral enterpris e, that whatever else we might legitimat ely criticize in the scientis ts' experimen t, perhaps its being ove r-e xpensive or badly designed, we cannot lodge a moral protest about the damage it will do to futu re people . The unconstra ined position also endorses as morally acceptabl e the following sort of policy: - A firm discovers it can make a handsome profit from mining , processin g and manufactu ring a new type of material which, although it causes no problem for present people or their immediate descendan ts, will over a pe ri od of hundreds of years decay into a substance which will cause an enormous ep idemi c of cancer among the inhabitan ts of the earth at that time . According to the unconstra ined view the firm is free to act in its own interests , without any considera tion for the harm it does r emote future people. Such counterex amples to the unconstra ined view, which are easily vari e d and multiplie d , might seem childii>hl y obvious. Yet the unconstra ined position concernin g the future f rom which they follow is far from being a straw man ; not only have several philosoph ers endorsed this position, but it is a cl e ar implicati on of many currently popular views of the basis of moral obligatio n, as well as of prevailin g e conomic theory. It seems that those who opt for the unconstra ined position have not considere d such examples , despite their being clearly implied by their position. We suspect that - we would certainly hope that - when it is brought out that the unconstra ined position admits such counterex amples , that being free to act implies among other thin gs being free to inflict pointless harm for example, most of those who opted for the unconstra ined position would want to assert that it was not what they intended. What many of those who have put forward the unconstra ined position seem to have had in mind in denying moral obligatio n is rather that · future people can look after themselve s, that we are not responsib le for their lives. The popular view that the future can take care of itself also seems to assume a future causal l y independe nt of the present. But it is not. It is not as if, in the counterexample cases or in the nuclear case, the future is simply being left alone to take care of itself . Present people are influenci ng it , and in doing so thereby acquire many of the same sorts of moral responsi bilities as they do in causally affecting the present and immediate future, namely the obli gation to tak e accoun t i n what they do of people affected and their interests , to be care ful in their actions, to take account of the genuine probabili ty of their actions causing harm, and to see that th ey do not act so as to rob future people of the chance of a good life. �12. Furth e rmore, to say that we are not respon s ible f o r th e lives o f future people does not amount to th e same thing as sayin g t hat we are fr ee to do as we like with r es pe ct to them , that there are no moral constraints on our act io n involving th e m. In just th e same way , th e fact that on e does no t hav e o r ha s not acquired an obliga tion to some stran ge r with whom one has ne ver been i nvolved , that on e has no responsibil ity for his life, does not imply that on e is fr ee t o do what on e like s with respect to him, for e xample to r ob him or to pursue some course of action of advantage to on e self which could s e riously ha rm him. These difficultie s for the uncons trained position arise in part from the (sometime s deliberate) failure to make an important distinction betwe e n acquired or assume d obligation toward somebody , for which some act of acquisition or a s sumption is required as a qualifying condition , and moral constraints , which require, for example, that one should not act so as t o damage or harm someone , a n d for which no act of acquisition is required. There i s a conside rable di ffer ence in the level and kind of responsibil ity involved. In the first cas e on e must do something or be something which one can fail to do or be, e . g. have loves, sy!ll)athy, be contracted. In the second case responsibil it y arises as a r e sult of being a causal agent who is aware of the cons eque nces o r probable consequence s of his action, and thus does not have to be es pecially acquired or assumed. Thus there is no problem about how the latt e r class , moral c onstra ints, can apply to the distant future in cases where it may be difficult o r i mpossible for acquisition or assumption conditions to be satisfi e d . They appl y a s a result o f th e abil i t y to produce causal effects on the distant future of a r eas onably pr e dict a ble nature . Thus also moral constraints can apply to what do e s not (ye t) e xist, just as actions can cause results that do not (yet) exist . Wh ile it may pe rhaps be the case that there would need to be an acquired or a ssume d ob liga tion in order for it to be claimed that contemporar y people mus t make special sacrifices f or future people of an heroic kind, or even to he lp them e s pe cially, only moral constraints are needed in order for us to be constrain e d from harming them . Thus, to return to the train parable, the consigne r cannot argue in justificatio n of his action that he has never assumed or acquired re s ponsibility for the passengers, that he does not know them and therefore has no l ove or sympathy for th em and that t hey are not part of his moral community , in short that he has no special obligations to help them. All that one ne eds to argue concerning the train, and the nuclear case , is that there are mo ral constrain ts against harming, not that there are specially acquired obligations to take responsibil ity for the live s of people involved . There has been an attempt to represent all obligations to the distant future in terms of heroic self- sacrifice, something which cannot of course be morally required. But in view of the distinction s between constraints and acquired obligation and between obligation and supererogat ion this is just �13 . to misrep resent the positio n of these obliga tions. For exampl e, one is no more engagin g in heroic self-sa crifice by not forcing future people into an unviab le life positio n or by refrain ing from causing then direct harm than the consign er is resorti ng to heroic self-sa crifice in re frainin g from placing his dangero us package on the train. The conflat ion of moral restrai nts with acquire d obliga tion, and the attemp t there~ ith to view all constra ints as acquire d and to write off nonacq uired constr aints, is facilit ated through the use of the term ' moral obligat ion ' both to signify any type of deontic constra ints and also to indicat e r athe r someth ing which has to be assumed or require d . The conflat ion is encoura ged by reduct ionist positio ns which, in attemp ting to accoun t for obligat ion in genera l, mistake nly endeavo ur to collaps e all obligat ions . Hence the equa ti on , and some main roots of the uncons trained positio n, of the erron eous belief that there are no moral constr aint s concern ing the distant future. The uncons trained view tends to give way , under the weight of counte rexampl es , to more qualifi ed, and sometim es ambiva lent, positio ns , for example the positio n that our obliga tions are to immedi ate poster ity, we ought to try to improve the world so that we shall be able to hand it over to our immedi ate succes sors in a better conditi on, and that is all; 17 there are in practic e no obliga tions to the distan t futur e . A main argume nt in favour of the latter theme is that such obliga tions would in practic e be otiose . Everyth ing that needs to be accoun ted for can be en compass ed through the chain picture of obliga tion as linking succes sive genera tions, under which each genera tion has obliga tions, based on loves or sympath y , only to the succeed ing genera tion . The re are at least three objecti ons to this chain accoun t. First, it is inadeq uate to treat constr aints concern ing the future as if they applied only between genera tions, as if there were no questio n of constr aints on individ uals as opposed to whole genera tions, since individ uals can create causal effects , e . e. harm, on the future in a way which may create individ ual respon sibility , and which often cannot be sheeted home to an e ntire genera tion . Nuclea r power and its wastes , for exampl e, are strictl y the respon sibility of small groups of power- hol ders, not a genera tional respon sibility . Second ly, such chains, since non-tr ansitiv e, cannot yield direct obligat ions to the distan t future . But for this very r eason the chain pict ure cannot be adeq uate, as exampl es again show. For the pic ture is unable to explain severa l of the cases that have to be dealt with, e.g. the exampl es already discuss ed which show that we can have a direct effect on the distan t future withou t affecti ng the next genera tion, who may not even be able to influen ce matters . �14. Thirdly, improvement s fo r immediate successors may be achieved at th e expense of disadvantag es to people of the more distant future . Improving the world for immediate successors is quite compatible with, and may even in some circumstanc es be most easily achieved by , ruining it for less immediate successors . Such cases can hardly be written off as "ne ver- never land" examples since many cases of environment al exploitatio n might be seen as of just this type. e . g . not just the nuclear case but also the exhaustion of non-renewab le resources and the long- term depletion of renewable resources such as soils and forests through overus e . If then such obvious injustices to future people arising from th e fa vouring or exclusive concern with immediate successors are to be avoided, obligations to the future will have to be seen as in some way fairly distributed ove r time, and not merely as accruing to particular generations in the way the chain picture suggests . IV . ATTEMPTS TO QUALIFY OBLIGATIONS TO THE FUTURE: ECONOMISTIC UNCERTAINTY AND INDETERMINACY ARGUMENTS. While there are grave difficultie s for the unconstrain ed position, qualificatio n leads to a more defensible position. According to the main qualified position we a r e not entirely unconstrain ed with respe ct to the distant future , there are obligations , but these are not so important as those to the present, and the interests of distant future people cannot weigh very much in the scale against those of the pres ent and immediate future . The interests of future people then, except in unusual cases, coun t for very much l ess than the interests of present people. Hence such thin gs as nuclear development and various exploitativ e activities which benefi t present people should proceed, even if people of the distant future are (somewha t) disadvantag ed by them . The qualified position appears to be widely held and is implicit in prevailing economic theories , where the position of a decrease in weight of future costs and benefits (and so of future interests) is obtained by application over time of a discount rate , so dis counting costs and risks to future people. a t tempt to apply economics as a moral theory, something that is becoming increasingl y common , can lead then to the qualified position. What is objectionab le in such an approach is that The economics should operate within the bounds of moral (deontic) constraints , just as in practice it operates within legal constraints , not detennine what those constraints are. There are moreover alternative economic theories and simply to adopt, without further ado, one which discounts the future is to beg many questions at issue. �15. Among the arguments that economists offer for generally discounting the future, the most threadbare is based on the assumption that future generations will be better off than present ones, and so better placed to handle th e waste problem. 18 Since there is mounting evidence that future ge ne rations may well not be better off than present ones, especially in things that matter, no argume nt for discounting the interest s of future gcncrntionfl on thi s can carry much weight. Nor is that all that is wrong with the argument. biH:1i. B For it depends at base on the assumption that poorer contemporar ies would be making sacrifices to richer successors in foregoing such (allegedly beneficial) development s as nuclear power . That is, it depends on the already scotched sacrifice argument . In any case, for the waste disposal problem to be legitimatel y bequeathed to the future gene rations, it would have to be shown, what recent economic progress hardly justifies, that future generations will be , not just better off , but so much better off and more capable that they can duly absorb the nuclear waste burden. A more plausible argument for discounting is directly in terms of opportunity costs. It is argued , from the fact that a dollar gained now is worth much more than a dollar received in the non-immedia te future (because the first dollar could meanwhile be invested at compound interest), that discounting is required to obtain equivalent monetary values, and so for efficient allocation of resources . Similarly it is argued, by virtue again of equalizatio n of monetary value, that compensatio n - which is what the waste problem is taken to come to economica lly - costs much less now th an later . Thus a few pennies set aside (e.g . in a trust fund) now or in the future, if need be, will suffice to compensate eventually for any victims of remote radioactive waste leakage. There are, presently at least , insurmounta ble practical difficultie s about applying such discounting , e . g . how to de t ermine appropriate future discount rates . A more serious objection is that applied generally, the argument presupposes , what is false, that compensatio n, like value, can always be converted into monetary e quivalents , that peo ple (including those outside market frameworks) can be monetarily compensated for a variety of damages, i n cluding cancer and loss of life . There is no compensatin g a dead man, or for a lost species. In fact the argument presupposes a do uble reduction neither part of which can succeed : it is not just that value cannot in general be represented at all adequately monetarily , 19 but (as against utilitariani sm, for example) that constraints and obligations can not be somehow reduced to mat t ers of value . It is also presupposed that all decision me thods, suitable for requisite nuclear choices, �16. are bound to apply discounti ng . This is far from so : indeed Goodin argues that, on the contrary, more appropria te decision rules do not allow discounti ng, and discounti ng only works in practice with expected utility rules (such as underlie cost-bene fit and benefit-r isk analyses) , which are, he contends strictly inapplica ble for nuclear choices (since no t all outcomes can be duly determine d and assigned probabil ities, in the way that applicatio n of the rules requires. ). 20 As the preceding arguments reveal, the discounti ng move often has the same result as the unconstra ined position . If, for instance, we consider the cancer example and reduce costs to payable compensa tion, it is evident that over a sufficien tly long period of time discounti ng at curren t prices would lead to the conclusio n that there are no recoverab le damages and so , in economic terms, no constrain ts . In short, even certain damage to future people could be written off. One way to achieve the bias against future people is by the applicatio n of discoun t rates which are set in accord with the current economic horizons of no more than about 15 years, 21 and applicati on of such rates would simply beg the question against the i.nterests and rights of future pe ople . Where there is certain future damage of a morally forbidden type, for example , the whole method of discounti ng is simply inapplica ble, and its use would violate moral constrain ts . Another argument for the qualified position, which avoids th e objection s from cases of certain damage, comes from probabili ty considera tions. The distant future, it is argued , is much more uncertain than t he present and itillue diate fut ure, so that probabili ties are consequen tly lower, perhaps even approachi ng or coincidin g with zero for any hypothesi s concernin g the distant future. But then if we take ac count of probabil iti es in the obvious way , by simply multiplyi ng th e m against costs and benefits , it is evident that the interests of future people , except in cases where there is an unusually high degree of certainty , must count for (very much) less than those of present and neighbour ing people where (much ) high~r probabil ities are attached. So in the case of confl ict between the present and the future where it i s a question of weighing certain benefits to the people of the present and the immediat e future against a much lower probabili ty of indetenni nate costs to an indetermi nate number of distant future people, the issue would normally be decided in favour of the present, assuming anything like similar costs and benefits were involved . But of course it cannot be assumed that anything like similarly weighted costs and benefits are involved in the nucle ar case, especial ly if it is a question of risking poisoning some of the earth for half a million or so years , with consequen t risk of serious harm to thousands of ge nerations of future people, in order to obtain doubtful benefits for some present people, in the shape of the opportuni ty to maintain corporati on profitabi lity or to continue unnecess arily high energy use. And even if the costs an d benefits were comparabl e or evenly weighted, �" 17. such an argument would be defective, since an analogous argument would show that the consigner's action is acceptable provided the benefit, e.g. the profit he stood to gain from imposing significant risks on other people, was s ufficiently large. Such a cost-benefi t or risk-benefi t approach to moral and decision problems , with o r without the probability frills , is quite inadequate where different parties are concerned or to deal with cases of conflict of interest or moral problems where deontic constraints are involved, and commonly yields counterintu itive results. For example, it would follow on such principles that it is permissible for a firm to injure, or very likely injure, some innocent party provided the firm stands to make a sufficiently large ga in from it. But the costs and benefits involved are not transferabl e in any simple or general way from one party to another . Transfers of this kind, of costs and benefits involving different parties, commonly rais e moral issues - e.g. is x entitled to benefit himself by imposing costs on y - which are not susceptible to a simple cost-benefi t approach of the sort adopted in promotion of nuclear energy, where costs to future people are sometimes dismissed with the soothing remark that any development involves costs as well as benefits. The limitations of tran sfer point is enough to invalidate the comparison, heavily relied on in building a case for the acceptabili ty of the nuclea r risk, between nuclear risks and those from such activities as airplane travel or cigarette smoking . In the latter case those who supposedly benefit from the activity are also, to an overwhelmin g extent, those who bear the serious health costs and risks involved . In contrast the users and supposed beneficiari es of nuclear energy will be r isking not only, or even primarily, their own lives and health, but also that of others who may be non-benefic iaries and who may be spatially or temporally removed, and these risks will not be in any dire ct way related to a person ' s extent of use . The transfer objection is essentially the same as that to the utilitarian ' s (happiness) sums as a way of solving moral conflict between different parties, and the introductio n of p r obability consideratio ns - as in utilita r ian de cision methods such as expected utility rules - does not change the principles involved but merely complicates the analysis . One might further object to the probability argument that probabiliti es involving distant future situations are not always less than those concerning the immediate future in the way the argument supposes , and that the outcomes of some morai prob l ems do not depend on a high level of probability anyway . In some sorts of cases it is enough, as the train parable reveals , that a significant risk is created ; such cases do not depend critically on high probability assignments . �18 . Uncerta inty argumen ts in various forms are the most common and importan t ones used by philo s ophers, economi sts and others to argue f or the position that we cannot be expe cted to distant future . take serious ac count of the effects of our actions on th e There are two strands to the uncertai nty argumen t, capable of s eparatio n , but frequen tly tangled up. Both argumen ts are mistaken , the first on a priori grounds, the second on a posterio ri grounds. The first argumen t is a gene ralised uncerta inty argumen t which runs as fol lows :- In contras t to the exa ct informa tion we can obtain about the present, the informa tion we can obtain about the effects of our a-ctions on the di s tant future is unreliab le, fuzzy and highly specula tive. But we cannot base assessm ents of how we shoul d act on informa tion of this kind, especia lly when accurate informa tion is obtainable about the present which would indicate differen t act ion. Therefo re we must r eg retfully ignore the uncertai n effects of our actions on the distant fut ure. More formally and crudely: One only has obligati ons to the futur e if t hese obliga tions are based on reliable in forma tion at present as regards th e distant future. Therefo re one has no obligati ons to the distant future. This first argumen t is essentia lly a variant on a sceptica l argwnen t in epistemo logy concerni ng our knowledg e of the future (formall y, replace 'obligat ions ' by 'knowled ge' in the crude stateme nt of the argumen t above). The main ploy is to conside rably overesti mate and oversta te the degree of certaint y availabl e with r es pect to the present and immedia t e future, and the degree of certaint y which is required as the basis fo r moral conside ration with r espect to the present and with respect to the f uture. Associa ted with thi s is the attempt to sugges t a sharp division as regards certaint y between the present and immedia te future on the one hand and the distant future on the other . We shall not find, we suggest , that there is any such sharp or simple divi sion between the distant future and the adjacen t future and the present, at l east with re spect to those things in th e pres e nt which are normally subject to moral constra ints. We can and constan tly do act on the basis of such "unrelia ble " informa tion, as the sceptic as regards the future conveni ently labels "unce rta i nty"; for scepticproof certaint y is rarely, or never, availab le with respect to much of the present and immedia te future . In moral situatio ns in the pres e nt, action often takes acco unt of risk and probabi lity , even quite low probab iliti es . Conside r again the train example. We do not need to know for certain that the containe r will break and the lethal gas escape . In fact it does not even have to be probable , in the relevan t sense of more probable than not, in order for us to condemn the consign er's action. It is enough that there is a signific ant risk of harm in this sort of case. It does not matter if the decrease d wellb eing of the consigne r is certain and that the prospec ts of the passeng ers quite uncertai n, the resoluti on of the problem is neverth eless clearly in fa vour of the so-calle d "specul ative" and "unrelia ble". But if we do not require certaint y of action to apply moral constra ints in cont emporary affairs, why �19. should we require a much higher standard of certainty in the future? Why should we require for the future, ep istemic standards which the more familiar sphere of moral act ion concerning the present and adjacent futur e does not need to meet? The insistence on certainty as a necessary condition before moral consi deration ca n be given to the distant future, then, amounts to an eipstemic double standard. But such an epistemic double standard, proposed in explaining th e difference between the present and the future a nd to justify ignoring future peoples' interests, in fact cannot itself provide an explanation of the differences, since it already presupposes different standards of certainty appropriate to e ach class, which difference is in turn in need of justification. The second uncertainty argument is a practical unc e rtainty argument, that whatever our theoretical obligations to the future, we cannot in practice take the interests of future people into account becaus e uncertainty about the distant future is so gross th a t we canmot determine what the lik ely cons equences of actions on it will be and therefore, however good our intentions to the people of the distant future are, in practice we have no choice but to ignore their interests. Uncertainty is gross where certain incompatible hypotheses are as good as one another and there is no rati onal ground for ch oosing between them. this way : - The seco!ld uncertainty argume nt can be put alternatively If moral principles are. like other principles, implicational in form, that is of such forms as "if x has character h then x is wrong, for eve r y (action) x", then what the argument claims is that we cannot ever obtain the info rmation about future actions which would enable us to detach the an tecedent of the implication . So even if moral principles theoretically apply to future people, in practice they cannot be applied to obtain cl ear conclusions or dire ctions concerning contemporary action action of th e "It is wrong to do x" type. Many of the assumptions of the second argument can be conceded. If th e distant future really is so grossly uncertain that in every case it is impossible to determine in any way that is better than chance what th e effects of present action will be, and whether any given action will help or hinder future people, then moral principles, although they may apply theoretically to th e future, will in practice not be applicable to obtain an y clea r conclusions about how to act. on action . Hence the distant future will impose no practical moral constraints However the argument is factually incorrect in assuming that the future always is so grossly uncertain or indeterminate . Admittedly there is often a high degree of uncertainty concerning the distant future , but as a matter of (contingent) fact it is not always so gross or sweeping as the �" 20 . argument has to assume . There are some areas where un certainty is not so grea t as to ex clude constraints on action, especially when account is taken of the point , which was noticed in connection with the first argument, that complete certain ty is commonly not required for moral constraints and that all that may be needed in some cases is the creation of a significant risk. Again there is considerable uncerta inty about many factors which are not highly, or at all, morally r e levant, but this does not extend to many factors which are of much greater importance t o moral is sues . For example, we may not have any idea what the fashions will be in a hundred years in names or footwear, or what flavour s of ice cream people will be eating if any, but we do have excellent reason to believe, espe cially if we consider 3000 years of history, that what peop le there are in a hundred years are likely to have material and psychic needs not entirely unli ke our own, that they will need a healthy biosphere for a good life; that like us they will not be immune to radiation; that their welfare will not be enhanced by a high incidence of cancer or ge netic defec ts, by the destruction of resources, or the elimination from the ear th of that wonderful variety of non-human life which at present makes it such a rich and interesting place . For this sort of r eason , the second uncertainty argument should be rejected. The case of nuclear waste storage, and of uncertainty of the effects of it on future people, is one area where uncertainty in morally relevant respects is not so great as to preclude moral constraints on action, where we can ascertain if not absolute certainties at least probabilities of the same sort of orde r as are considered sufficient for the application of moral principles in parallel contemporary cases, especially where spatially remote people are involved. In particular there is not gross indeterminacy or uncertainty; it is simply not true that incompatible hypotheses about what may happen are as good as each other. It is plain that nuclear waste storage does impose significant risks of harm on future people, and, as is evident from the train example, the significant risk of harm is enough in cases of this type to make moral constraints applicable. In terms of the defects of the preceding uncertainty arguments, we can see the defects in a number of widely employed uncertainty arguments used to write off probable or possible harm to future people as outside the scope of prope r consideration. Most of these popular moves employ both of the uncer taint y arguments as suits the case, switching from one to the other in a way that is again reminiscent of sceptical moves . For example, we may be told that we cannot r eally take account of future people because we cannot be sure that th ey will exis t or that their tast es and wants will not be completely different from our own, to the point where they will not suffer from our exhaustion of resources or from the �21. things that would affect us. But this is to insist upon compl e t e ce r taint y of a sort be yond what is required for the pre sent and imme diate future, whe r e there i s also commonly no guarantee that some disast e r will not overtake t hose we are mo rally cowmi tted to. Again we may be told that th e r e i s no guarant ee that future peopl e will be worthy of any e fforts on our part, because th ey may be mo rons or for ever plugged into enjoyme nt or other machin es . Even if on e is prepare d t o accept the elitist approach presupposed - according to which only those who meet certain properly civilized or int e ll e ctual standards a r e e ligible for moral consideration - what we are being han de d in such ar guments as a serious defeating consideration is a gain a mere outside possibility li ke the sceptic who says that solid-looking desk in front of us is pe rhaps only a facade, not because he has any particular r e ason for doing so, but bec ause he hasn't looked around the back , drilled holes in it, etc. etc . Ne ith e r the cont emporary nor the historical situation gives any positive reason for supposing that a lapse into universal moronity or universal-pleas ure-machine escapism is a serious possibility, as opposed to a logical possibility. We can contrast with th e se me re logical possibilities the very real historically supportab l e risks of escape of nuclear waste or decline of a civilisation through destruction of its resource base. The possibilities just considered in these uncertainty argume n t s of sceptical character are not real possibilities. Another argument which may consider a real possibility, but still does not succee d in showing th a t it is a c ce ptab l e to proceed with an action which would appear to be harmful to future , people, is often introduced in the nuclear waste cas e . This is the argument that future p eople may discover a rigorously safe and permanent storage me thod for nuclear was tes before they are damaged by escaped waste material . Let us grant for the sake of the argument that this is a real possibility (though physical arguments may show that it is not) . This still does not affect the fact that there is a significant risk of serious damage and that the creation of a significant risk is enough to rule out an action of this type as morally impermissible . In just the same way, future people may discover a cure for cancer : that this appears to be a live possibility, and not merely a logi cal possibility, does not make the action of the firm earlier discussed, of producing a substance likely to cause cancer in future people, morally admissible . The fact that there was a real possibility of future people avoiding the harm would show that actions of these s orts were admissible only j_f what was required for inadmissibility was certainty of harm or a very high probability of it . In such cases before such actions could �22. be conside r e d admissible what would be required is far more than a possibility, 22 real or not - it is at least the availability of an applicable, safe, and rigorously tested, not merely speculative, technique for achieving it, something that future people could reasonably be expected to apply to protect th emselves . The strategy of these and other uncertainty arguments is fairly clear then, and may be brought out by looking yet again at the train example wh ere the consigner says that he cannot be expected to take account of th e effec t of his actions on the passengers b ec ause they may find an effective way to deal with his parcel or some lucky or unlucky accident may occur, e.g . the train may break down and they may all change to a different transport leaving the parcel behind, or the train may crash killing all the passengers before the container gets a chance to leak. These are all possibilities of course, but there is no positi ve r eason to believe that they are any more than that, that is they are not live possibilities. The strategy is to stress such remote possibilities in order to create the false impression that there is gross uncertainty about the future, that the real possibility that the container will break should be treated in the same way as these mere logical possibilities, that uncertainty about the future is so great as to preclude the consigner's taking account of the passengers' welf are and th e real possibility of harm from his parcel and thereby to excuse his action. A related strategy is to stress a real possibility, such as finding a cure for cancer, and thereby imply that this removes the case for applying moral constraints. This move implicitly makes the assumptions of the first argument, that certainty of harm, or at least a very high probability of harm is required before an action can be judged morally inadmissible, and the point of stressing the re al possibility of avoidance of damage is to show that this allegedly r eq uired high degree of certainty or probability cannot be attained. That is, the strate gy draws attention to some real uncertainty implying that this is sufficient to defeat th e application of moral constraints . But, as we have seen, this is often not so. Closely related to uncertainty arguments are arguments premissed on the indeterminacy of the future . In particular it is argued that the indeterminacy, for example , with respect to the number and exact character of people at future times, would at least prevent the interest of future people being taken into account where there is a conflict with the present . Since th e ir numbers are ind eterminate and their interests unknown how, it is asked, can we weigh their competing claims against those of the present and immediate future where this information is available in a more or less accurate form? The question is rais ed particularly by problems of sharing fixed quantities of resources among present and future people, for example oil, when the numbers of the latte r are indeterminate. Such problems are indeed difficult, but they are not resolved by ignoring the claims of the future, any more than the problems raised by the need to take account in decision-making of factors difficult to quantify are resolved by �23, ignoring such factors. Nor are distributio nal problems as large and representat ive of a class of moral prob lems concerning the future as the tendency to focus on them would suggest. It can be conceded that there will be cases where the indetermina cy of aspects of the future will make conflicts very difficult to resolve or indeed irresoluble - a realistic ethical theory will not deliver a decision procedure - but there will equally be othe r conflict cases where the level of indetermina cy does not hinder resolution of the issue, e . g . the train example which is a conflict case of a t ype . In particular, th e re will be many cases which are not solved by weighing numb ers , n umbers of interests, or whatever , cases for which one needs to know only the most general probable characteris tics of future people . The crucial question which emerges is then : are there any features of futu re people which would disqualify them from full moral consideratio n o r r e duce thei r claims to such below those of present people? The answe r is: in principle None . Prima facie, moral principles are universalis able , and lawlike, in that they ap ply independent ly of position in space or in time, for examp le. But universalis ability of principles is an outcome of those ethical theories whi ch are capable of dealing satisfactor ily with the pres ent : in other words, a theory that did not allow properly for the future would be found to have defects as regards th e present, to deal unjustly or unfairly with some present people, e .g. those remotely located, those outside some select subgroup, such as (whit e skinned) humans , etc . The only candidates for characteris tics that would fairly rule out future people are the logical features we have been looking at, such as uncertainty and indetermina cy; but, as we have argued, it would be far too sweeping to see thes e features as affecting the moral claims of future people in a general way. These special features only affect certain sorts of cases (e.g. the determinatio n of best probable of practical course of action given only present information ) . In particular, they do not affect cases of th e so~t be ing considered, nuclear development , where highly determinate or certain infonnation about the numbers and characteris tics of the class likely to be harmed is not required, nor is certainty of damage. To establish obligations to the future a full universaliz ability principle is not required: it is enough that the temporal position of a person cannot affect his entitlement to just and fair treatment, to full moral consideratio n; 24 inversely, that it is without basis to discriminat e morally against a person in virtue of his temporal position . As a result of this �. 23a. universalizabi lity, there are the same general obligations to future peo ple as to the present; and thus there i s the same obligation to take account of them and thei r interests in what we do, to be careful in our actions, to take account of the probability (and not just the certainty) of our actions causing harm or damage , and to see, other things being equal, that we do not act so as to rob them of what is necessary for the chance of a good life . Uncertainty and inde t e rminacy do not relieve us of these obligations. If in a closely comparable case concerning the present the creation of a significant risk is enough to rule out an action as immoral, and there are no independent grounds for requiring greater certainty of �24. harm in the future case under conside ration, then futurity alone will not provide adequate grounds for proceed ing with the action, thus discri mina ting against future people. Accordin gly we cannot escape, through appeal to futurity , the conclusi on already tentativ ely reached, that proposa ls for nuclear developm ent in the present and likely future state of technolo gy and practice s for future waste disposa l are immoral. Before we conside r (in section VII) the remainin g escape route from this conclusi on, through appeal to overridi ng circumst ances , it is importan t to pick up th e further case (which heavily r einforce s the tentativ e conclusi on) against nuclear developm ent, since much of it relies on ethical princip les similar to those that underlie obligati ons to the future, and since it too is commonly met by similar appeal to extenua ting ci rc umstanc es. V. PROBLEMS OF SAFE NUCLEAR OPERATION: REACTOR EMISSIONS, AND CORE MELTDOWN . The eth ical problems with nuclear power are by no means confined to futur e creature s. Just as remoten ess in time does not erode obligati ons or enti tl emen ts t o just treatmen t, neither does location in spac e , or a particu lar geograp hical position . First of all, the problem of nuclear waste disposa l rais es serious question s of distribu tive justice not only across time, across generat i ons, but also across space. Is one state or region entitled to dump its radioac tive polluti on in another state's or region's yard or water s? When that region receives no due compens ation (whateve r that would amount to, in such a case), and the people do not agree (though the leaders imposed upon them might)? The answer, and the argumen ts underpin ning the answer, are both like those already given in arguing to the tentativ e conclusi on concerni ng the injustic e of imposing radioac tive wastes upon future people. But the cases are not exactly the same: USA and Japan cannot endeavo ur to discoun t peoples of the Pacific in whose regions they propose to drop some of their radioac tive pollutio n in quite the same way the y can discoun t people of two centurie s hence . (But what this conside ration really reveals is yet another flaw in the idea that entitl ement to just treatmen t can be discoun ted over time.) Ethical issues of distribu tive justice, as to equity , concen1 not only the spatio-t emporal location of nuclear waste, but also arise elsewher e in the assessm ent of nuclear developm ent; in particu lar, a s regards the treatmen t of those in the neighbou rhood of reactors , and, dif fe rently, as regards the • distribu tion of (alleged ) benefits and costs from nuclear power across nations. 25 People living or working in the vicinity of a nuclear reactor are subject to special costs and risks : firstly, radioac tive pollutio n, due to the fact that reactors discharg e radioac tive materia ls into the air and water near the plant, �25 . and secondly catast rop hic accidents, such as (steam) explosion of a reactor . immediate question is whether such costs an d risks can be imposed, with any An eth ical legitimacy, on these people, who frequently have little or no say in their imposition, and who have mostly not been informed of any choices regarding the "risk/benefit tradeoffs" of nuclear technology. That they are so imposed, without local participation, indeed often without local input or awareness as with local opposition, reveals one part of the antidemocratic face of nuclear development, a part that nuclear development shares however with otl1er largescale polluting industry, where local participation and que stions, fundamental to a genuine democracy of regional det ermination and popular sovereignty , are commonly ignored or avoided. The "normal" emission, during plant operation, of low level radiation car ri es carcinogenic and mutagenic costs . While the re are undoubtedly costs, there remains, however, substantial disagreement over the likely numbe r of cancers and precise ex tent of genetic damage induced by exp os ure to such rad iation , over the local health costs involved. Under t he Old Paradigm, whi ch (ill egi timately) permits free transfer of costs and risks from one person to another, the e thical issue directly raised is said to be: what extent of cancer and genetic damage, if any, is permissibly traded for the advantages of nucl ear power, and under what conditions? Under the Old Paradigm the issue is th en translat e d into decision-theor etic questions, such as to 'how to employ risk/benefit analysis as a prelude to government regulation' and ' how to determine what is an acceptab le level of risk/safe ty for the public. 26 The Old Paradigm attitude, reflected in the public policy of some countries that have such policies, is that the economic benefits conferred by allowing radiation emissions outweigh the costs of an increase in cancer and genetic damage . An example will reveal that such evaluations, which rely for what appeal th ey have on a dubious utilitarianism, will not pass muster. It is a pity about Aunt Ethyl getting cancer, but it's nice to have this air con ditioner working in summer . Such frequently trivial and rather inessential benefits, which may be obtained alternatively, e.g. by modification of houses, in no way comp ensate for the agony of cancer . 27 The point is that the costs to one party a r e not justified, especially when such benefits to other parties can be alte rnatively obtained without such awful costs , and morally indef ensible , being imposed . People, minorities, whose position is particularly compromised are those who live within 50 miles of a nuclear plant . (Children , for example, are in a �26. particularl y vulnerable position, since they are severa l times more likely to contract cancer through exposure than normal adults). In USA, such people bear a risk of cancer and genetic damage of as much as 50 times that borne by the population at large. A non-negligi ble percentage (in excess of 3% of those exposed for 30 years) of people in the area will die, all egedly for the sake of the majority who are benefitted by nuclear powe r production (allegedly, for th e real reasons for nucl e ar development do not concern this silent majority) . Whatever charm the argument from overriding benefits had, e ve n unde r the Old Paradigm, vanishes once it is seen that t he re are alternative , and in several respects less expensive, ways of deliveri ng the r eal benefi ts involved. There are several other tricks used in showing that the imposition of r adia tion on minorities, most of whom have little or no genuine voice in the location of reactors in their environment and cannot move away without serio us losses, is quite (morally) acceptable. One ch eape r trick, deployed by the US Atomic Energy Commission, 28 is to suppose that it is permissible to double, through nuclear technology, the level of (natural) radiation that a pop ulation has received with apparently negligible consequence s, th e argument being that the additional amount (being equivalent to the "natural" level) is also likely to have negligible consequence s. The increased amounts of radiation - with their large man-made component - are then accounted no rmal, and, of course, so it is th en claimed, what is normal is morally acceptable. None of the steps in this argument is sound. Drinking one bottle of wine a day may have no illeffects, whereas drinking two a day certainly may affe ct a person's well-being; and while the smaller intake may have become normal for the person, the larger one will, unde r such conditions, not be. Finally, what is or has become normal, e . g. two murde rs or twenty cancers a day in a given city, may be far from acceptabl e . In fact, even the USA, which has strict standards by comparison with most other countries with planned nuclear reactors, permits ra diation emissions very sub s tantially in excess of the standards laid down; so the emission situation is worse than me re consideratio n of the standards would disclose. Furthermore , the monitoring of the standards "imposed" is entrusted to th e nuclear op erators themselves, scarcely disintereste d parties . Public policy is determin ed no t so as to guarantee public he alth, but rather to serve as a ' public pacifier' wh ile private nuclear operations proceed relatively unhampered . 29 �2 7. While radioacti ve emissions are nn ordinary feature of react o r op e ration, breakdown is, hopefully , not: an accident of magnitude is accounted , by official definitio n, an 'extraord inary nuclear occurrenc e'. But such accidents can happen, and almost have on several occasions (the most notorious being Three Mile Island). 30 If the cooling and emergency core cooling systems fail in American (light water) 30a r e actors , then the core melts and 'containm ent failure' is likely, with the r e sult that an area of 40,000 square miles could be radioacti vely contamina ted . I n the event of the worst type of accident in a very small reactor, a steam explosion in the reactor vessel, about 45,000 people would be killed instantly and at least 100,000 would die as a result of the accident , prope rt y da mages would exceed $1 7 billion and an area the size of Pennsylva nia would be destroyed . Mod e rn nuclear reactors are about five times the size of the reactor for which . . 31 t h ese conservat ive Us governmen t f'igures are given t he con s equences of a s imilar accident with a modern reactor would according l y be much great e r still. Th e consigner in risking the lives, we ll-being and property of the passenger s on the train has acted inadmissi bly. Does a governme nt-sponsor ed private utility act in a way that is anything other th an much less responsib le in siting a nuclear reactor in a community , in planting such a dangerous package on the community train. The answer will be No, if the analogy holds good and the consigner s ' action is , as we would ordinaril y ·suppo se , inadmissi ble and i rrespon- sible. The proponent s of nuclear power have in effect argued to the cont rary, while at the same time endeavour ing to shift the dispute out of the ethical arena and into a technolog ical dispute as to means (in accordanc e with the Old Paradigm) . It has been contended , firstly, what con trasts with the train example, that there is no real possibili ty of a catas trophic nuclear accident . Indeed in the influenti al Rassmusse n report 32 - which was extensive ly used to support public confidenc e in US nuc lear fission technolog y - an even stronger, an incredibl y strong , improbab ility claim was stated: n amely , the likelihoo d of a catastrop hic nucle ar accident is so remote as to be '3.lmost) impossi.bl e. The main argument for this claim de rives from the assumptio ns and estimates of the report i.tself . These assumptio ns like the claim are undercut by nuclear incidents that came very close to accidents , incidents which reflect what happens in a reactor rather better than mathemat ical models. As with the storage of nuclear wastes, so with the operation of nuclear reactors, it is important to look at what happens in the actual world of technolog ical limitatiom s and human error, of waste leakage and r eactor inciden t s and quite possibly accidents , not in an ideal world far removed from the actual , a technolog ical dream world whe re there is no real possibili ty of a nuclear �28, catastrophe. In such an ideal nuclea r world, wh e re wa s t e disposal we r e fool-proof and reactors we re accident-proof, thin gs would no doubt be morally different. But we do no t live in s u ch a world . According to the Rasmuss en r e port its calc ulat ion of extremely low accident probabilities is based upon reasonable mathematical and technological a ssumptions and is methodo logically sound. This is ve ry far from being the cas e . The under- ly ing mathematical methods, variousl y called "fault tree analysis " and "reliability estimating techniques", a r e unsound, because they exclude as "not credible" po s sibilities or as "not significant" branches that are re a l possibilities, which may well be realised in the real world. It is the eliminations that are othe rworldly . In fact the me thodology and dat a of the report · · 1 y cr1.t1.c1.ze h as b een soun dl y an d d ec1.s1.ve . · · d . JJ And 1.t . h as b een s h own t1at I t he r e is a real possibili t y, a non-negligible probability, of a serious accident . It is contended, secondly, that even if there is a non-negli gib l e prob abi li ty of a reactor accident, still it is acceptable, be ing of no greater orde r than risks of accidents t hat ar e already socially accepted. Here we enco unt e r agai n that insidious e ngin e ering approach to morality built into mod e ls of an e conomic cast, e.g. benefit - cost balance s heets , risk assessment mode ls, et c. Risk assessment, a sophistica ti on of trans ac tion or tr ade -off mode ls, pur.-ports to p ro vide a compari s on between th e relative ri sks at tach ed to different options, e . g . e nergy options, which settl es th e ir ethical status . The fo llowing lines of argume nt are encountered in a risk assessme nt as applied to energy options: (i) if option a imposes costs on fewer people than option b then option a is preferable to option b; (ii ) option a involves a total net cost in terms of cost to people (e.g. deaths, injuries , etc .) which is less than th at of option b, which is already accepted; there for e op tion a is acceptable . 34 For example, the number likely to be killed by nuclear power stations is less than the likely number killed by cigarette smoking or in road accident s , which a r e accepted: so nuclear power stations are acceptable . A little reflection reveals that this sort of risk assessment argt.mlent involves the same kind of fallacy as transaction models. I t is far too simple -minded, and it ignores distrib ut ional and other r e l e vant aspect s of the context. In o rde r to ob tain an ethical assessment we s hould need a much fuller pi cture and we sho uld nee d to know at least t he s e thin gs :- do the costs and benef it s go to th e same parti es ; and is the person who undertakes the risks also t he person who receives the benefits or �29. primar ily, as in driving or cigare tte smokin g, or are the costs impos e d on other parties who do not benefi t? It is only if the parties are the same in the case of th e options compar ed, and there are no such distrib utiona l problem s, that a compar ison on such a basis would be val.id. 35 This is rarely the cas e , and it is not so in the case of risk assessm ents of energy options . Second ly, does the person incur the risk as a result of an activit y which he knowin gly underta kes in a situati on where he has a r easona ble choice, knowing it entails the risk, etc ., and is the level of risk in propor tion to the le~el of the rel evant ac tivity, e.g. as in smoking ? Thirdly , for what reason is the risk imposed : is it for a s e rious or a relativ ely trivial reason? A risk that is e thica lly accepta ble for a serious reason may not be ethica lly accepta ble for a trivial reason. Both the argume nts (i) and (ii) are often employe d in trying to justify nuclea r power. The second argume nt (ii) involve s the fallaci es of th e firs t (i) and an additio nal set , namely that of forgett ing that the health risks in the 36 nuclea r s e nse are cumula tive , and already high if not , some say , too high. The maxim "If you want the benefi ts you have to accept th e costs " is one thing and the maxim "If I want the benefi ts then you have to accept the costs (or some of them at least)" is anothe r and very differe nt thin g . It is a widely accepte d moral princip le, already argued for by way of exampl es and already invoked , that one is not, in genera l, entitle d to simply transfe r cos ts of a signifi cant kind arising fron an activit y which benefi ts onesel f onto other parties who are not involve d in the activit y and are not benefi ciaries 37 . This transfe r princip le is especi ally clear in cases where the signifi cant costs include an effect on life or health or a risk thereof , and where the benefi t to the benefi tting par ty :is of a noncru cial or dispen sible nature , becaus e, e . g. it can be substit uted for or done withou t. Thus, for instanc e , one is not usually entitle d to harm , or risk harmin g, anot her in the process of be nefitti ng onesel f . Suppose , for anothe r example , we consid er a village which produc es, as a result of an indust rial process by which it lives, a noxious waste materi al which is expens ive and difficu lt to dispose of and yet creates a risk to life and health if undispo sed of. Instead of giving up thei r i.ndus trial process and turning to some other way of making a living such as farming the surroun ding country side, they persis t with this way of life but ship their problem on a one-way deliver y service , on the train, to the next village . The inhabi tants of this village are then forced to face the problem either of under taking the expens ive and difficu lt dispos al process oor of sustain ing risks to thei r own lives and health or else leaving the village and their livelih oods. Most of us would see this kind of transfe r of co s ts as morally unacce ptable . �JO. From this arises a necessary condition for ene rgy options: that to be morally acceptable they should not involve the trans fer of significant costs or risks of harm onto parties who are not involved, do not use the energy source or do not benefit correspondingly from its us e . Included in the scope of this condition are not only future people and future generations (those of the next vil lages) but neighbours of nuclear reactors , especially, as in third world co untries, neighbours who are not nuclear powe r users. The distribution of costs and damage in such a fashion, i.e. on to non-beneficiaries is a characteristic of certain wide spread and serious forms of pollution, a nd is one of its most obje ctionable moral features. It is a corollary of the condition that we sho ul d not hand the world on t o our successors in substantially worse shape than we received it - t he tramsmission principle. For if we did then that would be a signi ficant transfe r of costs . (The corollary can be independerltly argued for on the basis of certain e t hic al theories) . VI . OTHER SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL RISKS AND COSTS OF NUCLEAR DEVELOPMENT, ESPECIALLY NUCLEAR WAR. The problems already discuss ed by no means exhaus t the envi ronme ntal, health and safety risks and costs in or arising from th e nuclea r fuel cycle. The full fuel cycle include s man y sta ges both before and after r eacto r operation , apart from waste disposal, namely mining , milling, conversion, enrichment and preparation, reprocessing spent fuel, and trans po rtati on of materials. Seve ral of these stages involve hazards. Unlike the special risks in the nuclear cycle - of sabotage of plants, of theft of fissionab le material, and of the further prolife ration of nuclear armaments - thes e hazard s have parallels, if not exact equival ents, in other very polluting method s of generating power, e . g. "workers in the uranium mining industry sustain 'the same risk' of 38 fatal and nonfatal injury as workers in the coal industry". Furth ermo re, the various (often serious) hazards encountered in working in some sectors of uranium fabrication should be differently viewed from those resultin g from location, for instance from already living where a reactor is built or wastes are dumped. For an occupation is, in principle at any rate, chosen (as is occupational relocation), and many types of hazards incurred in workin g with radio a ctive material are now known in advance of choice of such a n occupation: with where one al re ady lives things are very different. The uranium mine r's choice of occup ation can be compared with the airline pilot's choice, whe r eas t he Pacific Islander ' s "fact" of location cannot be. The social issue o f arrangements that contract occupational choices and opportuni ti es and often a t l east ease peo ple into hazardous occupations such as uranium or tin or coal mining (where the risks, in contrast to airline piloting, are mostly not duly compensated), while very important, i s not an i ssue newly produced by nuclear associated occupa tions . �31. Other social and environm ental problems - though endemic where large-sca le industry operates in societies that are highly inegalita rian and include sectors that are far from affluent - are more imtimatel y linked with the nucle ar power cycle. Though pollu tion is a common and generally undesirab le component of large-sca le industria l operation , radioacti ve pollution , such as uranium mining for instance produces, is especiall y a legacy of nuclear developme nt, and a specially undesirab le one , as enormous rectifica tion estimates for de ad radioactive lands and waterways reveal . Though sabotage is a threat t o many large industrie s , so that modern factory complexes are often guarded like concentra tion camps (but from us on the outside), sabotage of a nuclear reactor can have dire consequen ces, of a different order of magnitude from most industria l sabotage (consider again the effects of core meltdown) . Though theft of material from more dubious enterpris es such as munitions works can pose threa ts to populatio ns at large and can assist terrorism , no thefts for allegedly peaceful enterp rises pose problems of the same order as theft of fissionab le material . No other industry produces materials which so readily permit of fabricatio n into such massive explosive s. No other industry is, to sum it up, so vulnerabl e on so many fronts. In part to reduce it, vulnerab ility, in part because of its long and continuin g associati on with military activitie s, the nuclear industry is subject to, and encourage s, several practices which (certainly given their scale) run counter to basic features of free and open societies , crucial features such as personal liberty, freedom of associati on and of expressio n, and free access to informati on . These practices include secrecy , restricti on of infonnati on, formation of speci al police and guard forces, espionage , curtailme nt of civil lib e rties. Already operators of nuclear installat ions are given extraordi nary powers, in vetting employees , to investiga t e the backgroun d and activitie s not only of employees but also of their families and sometimes even of their friends. The installati ons themselve s become armed camps, which especiall y offends British sensibili ties. The U.K. Atomic Energy (Special Constable s) Act of 1976 created a special armed force to guard nuclear installat ions and made it answerabl e ..• to the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority . 39 These developme nts in the United Kingdom, and worse in West Germany, presage along with nuclear developme nt increasin gly authorita rian and anti-demo cratic societies . That nuclear developme nt a ppears to force such political consequen ces tells heavily against it. �32. Nuclear developme nt is further indicted political ly by the dire ct connectio n of nuclear power with nuclear war. It is fortunate ly true that e thical questions concernin g nuclear war - for example, whether a nucle ar war is justified , or just, under any circumsta nces , and if so what circums tances are distingui shable from those concernin g nuclear power. Undoubted ly , however, t he spread of nuclear powe r is substanti ally increasin g the technical me ans for engaging in nuclear war and so, to that extent, the opportuni ty for , and chances of, nuclear engagemen t. Since nuclear wars are neve r account able positive goods , but are at best the lesser of major evils, nuclear wars are always highly ethically undesirab le . The spread of nuclear power according ly expands the opportuni ty for, and chances of, highly undesirab le consequen ces. Finally the la tt e r, so increasin g thes e chances and opportun ities, is itself undesirab le, and therefore what leads to it, nuclear developme n t, is also undesirab le . The details and considera tions that fill out this argume nt, from nuclea r war against nuclear developme n t, are many. They are fir stly technical , that it is a relativel y straightfo rward and inexpensi ve matte r to make nuclear explosive s given access to a nuclear powe r plant, secondly political , that nuclear engagemen ts once institute d likely to escalate and that those who control (or different ly are likely to force access to) nuclear power plant s do not shrink from nuclear confronta tion and are certainly prepared to toy with nuclear engagemen t (up to "strategi c nuclear strikes" at least) , and thirdly ethical, that wars invariabl y have immoral consequen ces, such as mas sive damage to involved parties, however high sounding their justifica tion is. Nucl ea r wars are certain to be considera bly worse as regards damage inflicted than any pr e vious wars (they are likely to be much worse than all previous wars p ut together) , because of th e enormous destructi ve power of nuclear weapons, and the extent of spread of their radioacti ve effec ts, and because of the expected rapidity and irreversi bility of any such confronta tions . The supportin g considera tions are, fourthly, drawn from decision theory, and a r e designed to show that the chances of such undesirab l e out comes is itself und e sirable . The core argument is in brief this (the argument will be elaborate d in section VIII):- Energy choice between alternativ e options is a case of de ci sion making under uncertain ty , because in particula r of th e gross uncertain ties involved in nuclear developme nt. In cases of this type the ap propriate rational procedure is to compare worst cons equences of each alternati ve, to reject those alternati ves with th e wor s t of these worst consequen ces (this is a pretty uncontrov ersial part of th e maximin rule which enjoins selection of the alternati ve with the best worst consequen ces) . The nuclear alternati ve has, in particula r because of the r e al possibili ty of a nuclear war, the worst worst consequen ce~ and is according ly a particula rly undesirab le alternati ve. �33. VII. CONFLICT ARGUMENTS,AND UNCOVERING THE IDEOLOGICAL BASES OF NUCLEAR DEVELOPMENT. As with nuclear war, so given the cumulative case against nuclear development , only one justificatory route r emains open, that of app e al to important overriding circumstances. That appeal, to be ethically acceptable, must go far beyond merely economic considerations. For, as already observed , the consigne r's action cannot be justifi ed by purely economistic argume nts, such as that his profits would ris e , the firm or the village would be more prosperous , or by appealing to the fact that some possibly uncomfortable changes would otherwise be needed. The transfer principle on which this assessment was based, that one was not usually entitl ed to cre ate a serious risk to othe rs for these sorts of reasons, applied more generally and, in parti cular, applied to the nuclear case. For this r eason the economistic arguments which are those most commonly advanced under th e Old Paradi gm to promote nuclear development - e .g. cheapness, efficiency, profitability for electri city utilities, and the need otherwise fo r uncomfortable changes such as restructuring of employment, investment and consumption - do not even begin to show that the nuclear alternative is an acceptable one. Even if these econornistic assumptions about benefits to present people were correct - it will be contended that most of them are not - the arguments would fail because economics (like the utilitarianism from which it characteristica lly derives) has to operate within the framework of moral constraints, and not vic e versa . What do have to be considered are however moral confli ct arguments, that is arguments to the effe ct that, unless the prima facie unacceptable (nuclear) alt e rnative is taken, some even more unacceptable alternative is the only possible outcome, and will ensue . For example, in the train parable, the consigner may a rgue that his action is justified becaus e unless it is take n his village will starve. It is by no means clear that even such a justification as this would be sufficient, especially where the risk to the passengers is high, as the case seems to become one of transfer of costs and risks onto others; but such a moral situation would no longer be so clearcu t, and one would perhaps hesitate to condemn any action taken in such circumstances. Some of the arguments advanced to show moral confl i ct are based on competin f commitments to present people, and others on competing obligatio ns to future people . both of which are taken to override the obligations not to impos e on the future significant risk of serious harm. The structure of such moral conflict arguments is based crucially on the presentation of a genuine and e xhaustive set of alternatives (or a t ].east practical alternatives ) and upon showing that the only alterna tives to admittedly mo rally undesirable actions are even more undesirable ones. If some practical alternative which is not morally worse than the action to be justified is overlooked, suppressed, or neglected in th e argument - for example, if in the village case it turns out that the villagers have another option �to starvi ng or to the sendin g off of the parce l, name l y ea rning a liv ing in some other way - then the argum ent is defect ive and cannot r eadily be patche d . Just s uch a suppre ssion of practi cable altern atives has occurr ed in the argum ent design ed to show that the altern atives to the nuclea r option are even worse than the option itself , and that there are other factua l defect s in thes e argum ents as well. .In short, the argum ents depend essen tially on the presen tation of false dichot omies . A first argum ent, the povert y argum ent , is that there is an ove rridin g ob li gation to the poor , both the poor of the third world and the poor of indus trialis ed countr ies . Failur e to develo p nuclea r energy , it is often claime d, would amoun t to denyin g them the oppor tunity to reach the standa rd of afflue nce we curren tly enjoy and would create unemp loymen t and povert y in th e indus triali s e d n a tions. The unemp loymen t and povert y argume nt does not stand up to exami nati on eithe r for t he poor of th e indus trial countr ies or for thos e of th e thir d world. The re is good eviden ce that large- scale nuclea r energy will help to increa se unemp loymen t and povert y in the indus trial world, throug h the divers i on of very much availa ble capita l into an indust ry which is not only an excep tional ly poo r provi der of di rect employ ment , but also helps to reduce availa bl e jobs throug h encour aging substi tution o f energy use for labour use. 40 The argume n t that nuclea r ene rgy is needed for the third world is even less convin cing. Nuclea r energy is both politi cally and econom ically inapp ropria te for th e third world, since it requir es massiv e amoun ts of capita l , requir es numbe rs of import ed sci en tists and engine ers, but create s neglig ible local employ ment, and depend s for its feasib ility upon, what is largel y lackin g , establ ished electr icity transm ission system s and back-u p facili ties and suffic ient electr ical applia nce s to plug into the system . Politi cally it increa ses foreig n depend ence, adds to ce ntrali sed entren ched power and reduc es the chance for change in the oppres sive politi cal struct ures which are a large part of the proble m . 41 The fa c t that nuclea r energy is not in the intere sts of the people of t he third world does not of course mean that it is not in the intere sts of, and wanted by, their rulers , the wester nised and often milita ry elites in whose intere sts the econom ies of thes e countr ies are usuall y organi sed, and wanted often for milita ry purpos es . It is not patern alistic to examin e critic ally the demand s these ruling elites may make in the name of the poor. �35 . The po verty argume nt is then a fraud. Nuclear ene r gy will not be used t o help th e poor. Both for the third world and for the industr ialised co untrie s there are well-kno wn energy-c onservin g alternat ives and the practi cal option of developi ng oth e r energy sources, alternat ives some of which offer f a r bette r prospec ts for helping the poor . It can no longer be pretende d that there is no alt e rnative to nuclear de velopme nt: indeed nuclear de velopme nt is itself but a bridging , or stop-gap , procedu re on route to solar or perhap s fusion deve lopment . And there a r e various alternat ives : coal and other fossil fuels, geotherm al, and a range of solar op tions (includi ng as well as narrowly solar, wind, water, tidal and plant power), each po ss ibly in combina tion with cons e rvation measures ~ 2 Despit e the availab ility of alterna tives, it may still be pre t e nde d that nuclea r deve lopment is ne cess ary fo r affluenc e (what will emerge is that it is advantag eous for the power and aff luence of ce rtain select groups ) . Such an assumpt ion really und erlies part o f t he pover ty argumen t, which thus amounts to an elabora tion of th e trickledown argumen t (much f avoured within the Old Paradigm se tting) . For the a rgument runs : - Nuc l ea r developm ent is necessar y for (continu ing an d in c r eas in g) affluenc e. Affluenc e inevitab ly tr i ckl es down to th e poor. Th e r e for e nuclear developm ent benefits the poor . First, the argumen t does not on i ts own sh ow a nything specific about nuclear power : for it works equally well if ' ene r gy ' is substitu ted f or ' nuclear ' . It has also to be shown , what the next major argumen t will try to claim, that nuclear developm ent is unique among e ne rgy alternat ives in increasi ng affluenc e . The second assumpt ion , that affluenc e inevitab ly trickles down, has now been roundly refuted , both by r ecent historic al da ta, which show increasi ng affluenc e ( e .g. in terms of GNP averaged per capita) co upled with increasi ng poverty in several countrie s, both developi ng and de veloped , and th r ough economic models which reveal how "affluen ce" can increase withou t r e dist ribution occur ring . Another maj o r argumen t a dvanced to show moral conflic t app eals to a set of suppos e dly ove rr iding and competin g obligati ons to future people . We have, it is said , a du ty to pass on the immense ly valuable things and institut ions which our culture has develope d . Unless our high-tec hnology , high ene r gy industr ial society is continue d and fo s tered, our valuab l e institut ion s and tra ditions will fall into de cay or be swept away. The ar gument is essentia lly th a t without nuclear powe r, withou t th e conti n ued level of materia l wealth 43 it alone is assumed to make possible , the li gh ts of our civiliza ti on wil l go out. Fut ure people will be th e los e rs. �36, The lights-goin g-out argument doe s rais e quest ions as to what is valuable in o ur society, and of what characteris tics are necess ary for a good society . But for the most part th ese large questions, which deserve much full e r ex amination , can be avoided . The reason is that the argument adopts an extremely un critical position with re spe ct to present high-techno logy societi es , apparently assuming that they are uniformly and uniquely valuable . It assumes that technologi c society is unmodifiabl e , that it cannot be changed in the direction of energy conse rvation or alternative (perhaps high technology) energy sources without collapse. It has to be accepted and assessed as a whole, and virtually unlimited supplies of ene rgy - such as nuclear and only nuclear power is a ll eged t o furnish ar e essential to maintain this whole. These assumptions are hard to accept. The assumption that technologic al so c ie ty's energy patterns are unmodifiabl e is especially so - after all it has survived events such as world wars which have r equired major social and technologic a r es tructuring and consumption modificatio n. If western society ' s demands for energy a re totally unmodifiabl e without collapse, not only would it be committed to a program of increasing destruction , but one might ask what use its culture co uld be to future people who would very likely , as a consequence of this destruction , lack the resource base which th e argument assumes to be essential in the case of contemporar y society. There is also difficulty with th e assumption of uniform valuablene ss; but if this is rejected the question be comes not: what is necessary to maintain exis ting high-techno logical society and its political institution s, but rather: what is necessary to maintain what is valuable in that society and th e political institution s which are needed to maintain those valuable things . While it may be easy to argue that high energy consumption centrally controlled is necessary to maintain the political and economic status quo, it is not so easy to a rgu e that it is e ssential to maintain what is valuable, and it is what is valuable, presumably that we have a du ty to pass .on to the fut ure. The evidence, for instan ce from history, is that no very high level of material affluence or energy consumption is needed to maintain what is valuable. The re is good reason in fact to believe that a society with much lower energy and resource consumption would better foster what is valuable than our own. But e ve n if a radical change in these di rec tions is independent ly desirable, as we should arg ue, it is not necessary to presuppose such a change, in the short term at least, in order to see that the assumptions of the lights-goin g-out a rgument a re wrong. No enormous reduction of well-b e ing is required to consume less energy than at �37. present , and certainly far less than the large increase over present levels of consumption which is assumed in the usu al economic case for nucl ear energy . 44 What the nuclear strategy is really designed to do then is not to preven t the lights going out in west e rn civilisation , but to enable th e lights to go on burning all the time - to maintain and even increase the wattage output of th e Energy Extravaganza. In fact there is good reason to think that, far from the high e nergy consumption society fostering what is valuable, it will, es pecially if e nergy is obtained by nuclear fission means , be positively inimical to it. A society which has become heavily dependent upon an ext remely high centralised, controlled and garrisoned, capital- and expertise-intensive energy source, must be one which is highly susce ptible to entrenchment of power, and one in which the forces which control this energy source , whether capitalist or bureaucratic, can exert enormous power over the political system and over people's lives, even more than they do at present. Such a society would, almost inevitably t e nd to become autho ritarian and increasingly anti-democratic, as an outcome, among other things, of its response to the threat pos ed by dissident groups in the nuclea r . . situation. 45 Nuclear development may thus help in passing on to future generations some of th e worst aspects of our society - the consumerism, alienation, destruction of nature, and latent authoritarianism - while many valua ble asp e cts, such as the degree of political freedom and those opportunities for p ersonal and collective autonomy which exist , would be lost or diminish e d: political freedom , for example, is a high price to pay for consume ri sm and energy extravagance. But it is not the status quo, but what is valuable in our society, presumably, that we have some obligation to pass on to the future, and if possible enhance. Again, as in the case of the poverty arguments, clear alternatives, alternative social, economic and political choices, which do not involve such unacceptable consequences, are available. The alternative to the high technologynuclear option is not a return to the cave, the loss of all that is valuable, but either the adoption of an available alternative such as coal for power or, rath e r, the development of alternative technologies and lifestyles which offer far greater scope for the maintenance and further development of what is valuable in our society than the highly centralised nuclear option. The lights- going-out argumen t, as a moral conflict argument, accordingly fails, because it also is based on a false dichotomy. �38 . Thus the further escape route, the appeal to moral conflict, is, like the appeal to fut urity, closed. If then we apply - as we have argued we should - the same standards of morality to the future as we ought to acknowledge for the present, the conclusion that large-scal e nuclear developmen t i s a crime agains t the future is inevitable . Closed also, in the same way, are the escape routes to other ar_guments - from reactor melt-down, radiation emissions, and so on for rejecting nuclear development as morally unacceptable, for saying that it is not only a moral crime against the distant future but also a crime against the present and immediate future . In sum, nuclear development is morally unacceptable on several grounds. A corollary is that only political arrangements that are morally unacceptable will support the impending nuclear future. VIII. A NUCLEAR FUTURE IS NOT A RATIONAL CHOICE, EVEN IN OLD PARADIGM TERMS. The arg ument thus far, to anti-nuclear conclusions, has r elied upon, and defended premisses that would be rejected under the Old Paradigm; for examp l e, such theses as that the interests and utilities of future people are not discounte d (in contrast to the temporally-limited utilitarianism of marketcentred economic theory ), and that serious costs and risks to health and life cannot admissibly be simply transferred to uninvolved parties (in contrast to the transfer and limited compensation assumptions of mainstream economic theory). To close the cas e, arguments will now be outlined which are designed to show that even within the confines of the Old Paradigm, choosing the nuclear future is not a rational choice . Large-scale nucl ear developme nt is not just something that happens, it requires, on a continuing basis, an immense input of capital and energy . Such investment calls for substantial reasons; for the investment should be, on Old Paradigm assumptions, the best among feasible alt ernatives to given economic ends. Admi t tedly so much capital has already been invested in nucle ar fission research and development, in marka:l. contrast to other newer rival sources of power, that there is strong political incentive to proceed - as distinct from requisite reasons for further capital and energy inputs. The reasons can be divided roughly into two groups, front reasons, which are the reasons given (ou t) , and which are, in accordance with Old Paradigm percepts, pub l icly eco nomic (in that they are app roved for public consumption), and th e r ea l r ea s ons , which involve private economic factors and matters of power and social control. �39. The main argument put up, an economic growth argument, upon which variations are played, is the following version of the lights-going -out argument (with economic growth duly standing in for material wealth, and even for what is valuable!): - Nuclear power is necessary to sustain economic growth. Economic growth is desirable (for all the usual reasons, e . g. to increas e the size of the pie, to avoid or postpone redistributi on problems, and connected social unr e st, e tc.). Therefore nuclear power is desirable. The first premiss is part of US energy policy, 46 and the second premiss is supplied by standard economics textbooks . But both premisses are defective, the second because what is valuable in economic growth can be achieved by selective economic growth, which jettisons the heavy social and environmen tal costs carried by unqualified 47 economi c growth . More to the point, since the second premiss is an assumption of the dominant paradigm, the first premiss (or rath e r an appropriate and less vulne rabl e restatement of it) fails even on Old Paradigm standards. For of course nuclear power is not necessary given that there are other, perhaps costlier alt e rnatives . The premiss usually defended is some elaboration of th e premiss Nuc lear power is the economicall y best way to sustain economic growth, 'economicall y best' being filled out as ' most efficient', 'cheapest ' , 'having most favourable benefit-cos t ratio', etc. Unfortunate ly for the argument, and for nuclear development schemes, nuclear power is none of these things decisively, unless a goo d deal of economic cheating (easy to do) is done. Much data, beginning with th e cancellatio n of nuclear plant orders, can't be assembled to show as much. Yet the argument requires a true premiss, not an uncertain or merely possible one, if it is to succeed and detachment is to b e permitted at all, and evidently true premisses if the argument is to be decisive. The data to be summarised splits into two parts, public ( governmenta l) analyses, and private (utility) assessments . Virtually all available data concen1s the USA; in EuroZS, West and East, true cos ts of uniformly "publicly= controlled" nuclear power are generally not divulged. Firstly, the capital costs of nuclear plants, which have been rising much more rapidly than inflation, now exceed those of coal-fired plants . Komanoff has estimated that capital costs of a nuclear generator (of optimal capacity) will exceed comparable costs of a coal-fired unit by about 26 % in 1985. 49 And capital costs are only one part of the equation that now tell rather decisively against private utility purchase of new nuclear plants . Another main factor is the poor performance and low reliability of nuclear generators . Coney showed that nuclear plants can only generate about half the elect ricit y th ey were designed to produ ce , and that when Atomic Energy Commis sion estimates of relative costs of nuclear and coal power, which assumed that both opera t ed at 80% of design capacity , were adjusted accordingly , nuclear generated power proved to be far more �40. . h . d 50 expensive tan estimate. The discrepancy between actual and estimated capacity is especially important because a plant with an ac tual capacity factor of 55 % produced electricity at a cost about 25% high e r than if the plant had performed at the manufacturers' projected capacity rate of 70-75%. The low reliability of nuclear plants (p e r kilowatt output) as compared with the superior r e liability of smaller coal-fired plants adds to the case, on conventional economic grounds of ef ficienc y and product production costs , against nuclear powe r . Thes e unfavourable assessments are from a privat e (utility) perspective, before the very extensive public subsidization of nuclear power is duly taken into account . The main subsidies are through research and development , by way of insurance (under the important but doubtfully constitutional Price-Anderson 51 Act ), in en richme n 4 and in waste management . It has been estimated that charging such costs to the electricity consumer would increase electricity bills for nucl ea r power by at least 25% ( and probably much more) . Wh en official US cost/benefit analyses favouring nuclear power over coal are examined, it is f ound that they inadmissibly omit seve ral of the public costs i nvolve d in producing nuclear power . For example, the analyses igno re waste costs on the quite inadmissible ground that it is not known curren tly wha t t he costs involved are . But even using actual waste handling cos t s (while wastes await s torage) is enough to show that coal power is preferable to nuc l ear . 52 When further public costs, such as insurance against accident and for radiation damage , are dul y taken into account, the balance is swung stil l further i n favo ur of al te rnatives to nuclear and aga i nst nuclear power . In short , eve n on proper Old Par a digm accounting, the nu c l ear alte rn at iv e s hould be rejected. Nuclear development is not economical, it certainly se ems ; it has b een kept going n~ through its clear economic v iability, but by massive pub li c s ubsidization , of s e vera l types . In USA, to take a main examp le where information is available , nuclear developme nt is publicly supported through heavily subsidized or somet i mes free research and development , thro ugh the Price-Anderson Act, which sharply limits both private and public liability, i . e . wh ich in ef fe ct p rovided t he insurance subsidy making corporat e nuclear development e conomicall y f e asibl e, and through government ag r eement to handle all r adioactive wastes . While the Old Paradigm str ictly construed c annot sup port un economical developments, cont empo rary liberalisation of the Paradigm do e s allow fo r un economi c projects, seen as operated in the public interest, in such fields as soc ial welfare. Duly admitting s ocial welfare and some equity pr i nciples �41, i n th e dist ribut ion of wealt h (not necessa rily of pol l ution) l e ads the modern version of the Old Paradigm , called the Mo dified Old Paradigm . The main changes from the Old Paradigm are (as with state socialism) as emphasis of economic facto rs, e . g . individual self-he lp is down- played , wealth is to a small extent redistributed, e.g . through t:axation , market forces are re gulated or disp la ced (not in principle eliminat e d, as with stat e s ocialism). Now it has been cont ended - outrageous though it should now se e m - that nuclear powe r is i n the public interest as a means to various sought public ends, for example , apart from those already mentioned suc h as energy fo r growth and che ap e l ect ricity, and such as plantiful powe r f or heating and cooking a nd app lian ce use , avoidan ce of shortages , rat ioning , brown-outs and the like . Since alternative power sources, such as coal, could s e rve some ends given power was supplied with suitable extravagance, the argumen t has aga in to show that t he cho ice of nucle ar power over other a lterna tives is best in the requ isite respects, in s erving the public interes t. Such a n ar gumen t is a matter for decision theory, unde r which head cost -bene f i t analyse s which rank alternatives a l so fall as special cases . Decision theory purports to cover th eo r e tically the field of choice b e tween alte rnatives; it is present ed as the theory which ' dea l s with t he . pro bl em o f c h oosing one cours e o f acti. on among s e vera 1 poss1'bl. e cou r ses 1 . 53 Th us the choice of alt e rnati~ modes of energy pro duc ti on, t he ene r gy choice problem, be comes an exercise in decision theory; and the nucl ea r choice is often ''.justi f ied" in Old Paradigm terms t h rough app e al to decision t heo ry. But though decision theory is in principle comp rehens ive , as soon as it is put to work in such practi cal cases as energy choice, it is very considerably contracted in scope, several major assumptions are surreptitiously imported, and what one is confronte d with is a depauperate theory drastically pruned down to confo r m with the narrow utilitarianism of mainstream e conomic theory . The extent of reduction can be glimpsed by comp a ring , to take one imp ortant example , a general optimisation model for decision (wh ere uncertainty is not gross) with comparab le decision the ory methods, such as th e expe cted uti lity model. The general model for best choice among alte rnatives specifies maximisation of expected value subject to constrain ts, which may include et hical constraints ex clud ing cert a in alt e rnati ves under gi ven cond itions . Expected utility models dEmote value to utility, assuming thereby measurability and transference prop e rt ies t hat may not obtain, and elimina te constraints altoget her (absorbing what is fo rbidden, fo r examp le , as having a hi gh dis u tili ty, but one that can be compensate d for none th eless ). Thus , in �42. particula r, e thical constrain ts against nuclear developme nt are replaced, in Old Paradigm fashion, by allowance in principle for compensat ion for damage sustained . Still it is with decision making in Old Paradigm terms that we are now embroiled , so no longer at issue are the defective (nee-clas sical) economic assumptio ns made in the theory, for example as to the assessmen t of everythin g t o be taken into account through utility (which comes down to monetary terms : everythin g worth accountin g has a price), and as to the legitimac y of transferr ing with limited compensat ion risks and costs to involved parties. The energy choice problem is, so it has commonly been argued in the assumed Old Paradigm framework , a case of decision under uncertain ty . It is not a case of decision under risk (and so expected utility models are not applicabl e), be cause some possible outcomes are so unce rtain that, in contrast to the case of risk, no (suitably objective ) quantifia ble probabil ities can be assigned to them. It ems that are so uncertain are taken to include nuclear war and core me ltdown of a reactor, possible outcomes of nuclear de velopment : 54 widesprea d radioactive pollution is, by contrast, not uncertain . The correct rule for decision under uncertain ty is, in the case of energy ch oice , maximin, to maximize the minimum payoff, so it is sometimes contended . In fact, on ce again, it is unnecessa ry for present purposes to decide which energy option is selected, but only whether the nuclear option is rejected . Since competing selection rules tend to deliver the same rejection s for options early rejected as the nuclear options, a convergen ce in the rejection of the nuclear option can be effected . All rational roads lead, not to Rome, but to rejection of the nuclear option . A further convergen ce can be effected also , because the best possible (economic ) outcomes of such leading options as coal and a hydroelec tric mix are very roughly of the same order as the nuclear option (so Elster contends, and his argument can be elabo rated). Unde r these condition s complex decision rules (such as the Arrow-Hor wicz rule) which take account of both best possible and most possible outcomes under each option reduce to the maximin rule . Whichever energy option is selected under the maximum rule, the nuclear option is certainly rejected since there are options where worst outcomes are substanti ally better than that of the nuclear option (just consider the scenario if the nuclear nightmare , not th e nuclear dream, is realised) . Further applicati on of the rejection rule will reject the fossil fuel (predomin antly coal) option, on the basis of estimated effe cts on the earth 's climate from burning massive quantitie s of such fuels . �43. Although the rejection rule coupled with maximin position several rivals to maximin proposed, each enjoys a privileged for decision under uncertainty have been of which has associated rejection rules. Some of these rules , such as the risk- added reasonin g criticised by Goodin (pp.507-8), which 'assesses the riskiness of a policy in terms of the increment of risk it adds to those pre-existin g in the status quo, rather than in te rms of th e absolute value of the risk associated with the policy' are decidedly dubious, and rather than offering a rational decision procedure appears t o afford protection of the (nuclear) status quo. ~~at will be argued, or rather what Goodin has in effect argued for us, is that wherever one of these rival rules is applicable, and not dubious, it leads to rejection of the nuclear option . For example , the keep -options-op en or allow-for-r eversibility (not an entirely unquestiona ble rule rule 'of strictly limited applicabili ty') e xcludes the nuclear option because 'nuclear plants and their by-products have an air of irreversibi lity ... " One cannot simply abandon a nuclear reactor the way one can abandon a coal-fired plant"' (p.506). The compare-the alt e rnatives rule, in ordinary application , leads back to th e cost -b e nefit assessments , which, as already observed, tell decisively against a nuclear option when costing is done properly. The maximise-s ustainable-b enefits rule, which ' directs us to opt for th e policy producing the highest level of net b enefits which can be sustained indefinitel y', 'decisively favours r e newable sources ', ruling out the nuclear option. Other lesser rules Goodin discusses, which have not really been applied in the nuclear debate, and which lead yet further from the Old Paradigm framework, harm-avoida nce and protecting- thevulnerable als o yields th e same nuclear-exc luding results. Harm-avoida nce, in particular, points 1 decisively in favour of "alt ernative" and "renewable " energy sources ... combined with strenuous efforts at energy cons ervation' (p.442) . The upshot is evident: whatever reasonable decision rule is adopted the result is the same, a nuclear choice is rejected, even by Old Paradigm standards . Nor would reversion to an expected utility analysis alter this conclusion; for such analyses are but glorified cost-benefi t analyses,wi th probabiliti es duly multiplied in, and the conclusion is as before from cost-b enefit co nsideration s, against a nuclear choice. The Old Paradigm does not, it thus appears, sustain the nuclear juggernaut : nor does its Modificatio n. The real reasons for the continuing development program and the heavy commitment to the program have to be sought elsewhere, outside the Old Paradigm, at least as preached. It is, in any case, sufficientl y evident that contemporar y e conomic behaviour does not accord with Old Paradigm percepts, practice does not accord with nee-classic al economic .... �44. th eory nor, to consider the main modification , with social democratic th eory . There are , firstly, reasons of previous commitment, when nuclear power, cleverly promoted at least, looked a rather cheaper and safer deal, and certainly profitable one : corporations so committed are understandably ke en to realise returns on capital already invested . There are also typical self-interest reasons fo r commitment to the program, that advantages accrue to some, like those whose field happens to be nuclear engineering, that profits accrue to some, like giant corporations, that are influential in politica l affairs, and as a spin-off profits accrue to others , and so on . The r e are just as important, ideological reasons, such as a belief in the control of both political and physical power by t e chnocratic-entrepre nial elite, a belief in socl al control from above , control which nuclear powe r o f f ers f a r mo r e tlwn alternatives, some of which (vaguely) threaten to alter th e power bas e , a f a ith in th e unlimitedness of t e chnological enterprise, and nuclear in particular , so that any real probl ems that arise will be solved as development proceeds. Such b e li e f s are especially conspicuous in the British scene, among the gove rning and technocratic classes. Within contemporary corporate capitalism, thes e sorts of reasons for nuclear development are intimately linked, because thos e whos e types of enterprise benefit substantially from nuclear developme nt are commonly those who hold the requisite beliefs . It is then, contemporary corporate capitalsim, along with its state e n t erprise image, that fuels the nuclear juggernaut. To be sure , corporate capitalism , which is the political economy largely thrust upon us in we stern nations, is not necessary for a nuclear future; a totalitarian state of the t ype such capitalism often supports in the third world will suffice . But, unlike a hypothetical state that does conform to precepts of the Old Paradigm, it is sufficient for a nuclear future - evidently, since we are well embarked on such a future. The historical route by which the world reached its present advanced threshold to a nuclear future confirms this diagnosis. split into two main cases, the notional US This diagnosis can be development of nuclear power in the and the international spread of nuclear technology for which the US has been largely responsible . By comparison with the West, nuc lear power production i n th e small Eastern bloc is and is largely confined to the Soviet Union which had in 19 77 only about nuclear plants . one -sixth the wattage output of US Nuclear development in USSR has been, of course, a state controlled and subsidized venture, in which there has been virtually no public participation or discussion; but Russian technology has not been exported elsewhere to any great extent . American technology has . �45, The 60s were, because of the growth in electrici ty demand, a period of great expansion of the elec trical utilities in the US . These companies we re e ncouraged to build nuclear plants, rather than coal or oil burning plants, for several state controlle d or influence d reasons:- Firs tly, owing to governme ntal regulatio n procedure s the utilities could (it then seemed) earn a higher rate of profit on a nuclear plant than a fossil fuel one. Secondly , the US governmen t arranged to meet crucial costs and risks of nuclear operation , and in this way, and more directly through its federal agencies , actively encourage d a nuclear choice and nuclea r deve lopment. In particula r, state limitatio n of liability and shoulderi n g of part o f insurance for nu clear accidents and state arrangeme nts to handle nuclear wastes were what made profit able private utility operation appear feasibl e and r esulting in nuclea r investmen t. In the 70s, though the state subsidiza tion continued , the private pict ur e changed : 'high costs of construct ion combine d with low capacity factors and poor r eli ability have wiped out the last advantage that nuclear power ' had enjoyed in the US. Much as the domestic nuclear market in th e US is con trolled by a few co rpor ations , so the world mark et is dominated by a few countries , predomina ntly and first of all the US, which through its two leadi ng nuclear companies , We stinghous e and Gen e ral Electric, has been the major exporter of nuclear technolog y. 55 These companies were enabled to gain entry into European and subsequen tly world markets by US foreign policies, ba sically th e " Ato ms for Peace" program supplemen ted by bilateral agreement s providing for US technolog y , r e search, enri ched uranium and financial capital. ' The US offered a [ s tat e s ub si dize d ] nuclear package that Europe could not refus e and with whi ch the British could not compete'. In the 70s the picture of US dominatio n of Common Market nuclear technolog y had given way to subtler influence : American companies held (actually dealing with relevant governmen ts) substanti al interests in Europ ean and Japanese nuclear companies and held licences on the technolog y which remained largely American. Meanwhile in the 60s and 70s the US entered into bilateral ag re ements for civilian use of atomic energy with many other countries , for example, Argentina , Brasil, Columbia, India, Indonesia , Iran, Ire l and, Israel , Pakistan, Philippin es, South Korea, Portugal, South Africa, Spa in, Taiwan, Turk ey , Venezuela , South Vi etnam. The US proceeded , in this way, to ship nuclear technolog y and nuclear materials in gre at quantitie s round th e world. It also proceeded to spread nuclear t echnology t hrough th e Internati onal Atomic Ene rgy Agency , originall y de si gne d to control and saf eg uard nuclear ope rati ons, but most of whos e ~udget and activitie s • .. have gone to promote nu c l ear activitie s' . �46. A main reason for th e promotion and sales pressure on Third World countries has been the failure of US domestic market and industrial world markets for reactors. Less developed countries offer a new frontier where reactors can be built with easy public financing, where health and safe t y regulations are loose and enforcement rar e , where public opposition is not pennitted and where weak and corrupt regimes offer easy sales. [Forj ..• the US has considerabl e leverage with many of these countries. We know from painful expe rience that many of the worst dictatorshi ps in the planet would not be able to stand without overt and covert US support . Many of those same regimes are now pursuing the nuclear path, for all the worst reasons. 56 It is e v ident from this sketch of the ways and means of r eactor proliferatio n that not only have practices departed far from the framework of the Old Paradigm and the social Modificatio n, but that the practices (of corp orate capitalism and associated third world imperialism ) involve much that is eth ically unacceptabl e, whether by olde r, modif ied, or alternative 57 percepts; for principles such as those and self-d e termination are grossly vio late d. IX. SOCIAL OPTIONS : SHALLOWER AND DEEPER ALTERNATIVES . The futur e energy option that is most often contrasted with nuclear power, namely coal power, while no doubt preferable to nuclear power, is hardly acceptable . For it carries with it the likelihood of serious (air) pollution and associ ated phe nomena such as acid rain and atmospheric heating, not to ment ion the despoliatio n caused by extensive strip mining , all of which result from its us e in meeting very high projected consumption figures. Such an option would also fail, it seems, to meet the necessary transfer condition, because it would impose widespread costs on nonbenefic iaries for some concentrate d benefits to some profit takers and to some users who do not pay the full costs of production 58 and replacement . To these conventiona l main options a third is often added which emphasizes softer and more benign technologie s, such as those of solar energy and, in Northern Europe, hydroele ctricity . The deeper choice, which even softer paths tend to neglect, is not technologic al but social , and involves both conservatio n measures and the restruct urin g of production away from energy intensive uses: at a more basic level there is a choice between consumerist ic and nonconsume ristic futures. These more fundamental choices between social alternative s , conventiona l t echnologica lly-oriented discussion of energy options tends to be obscure. It is not just a matter of de ciding in which way to meet �4 7. give n and unexamine d goals (as the Old Paradigm would imply), but als o a matter of examining the goals. That is, we are not merely faced with the question of comparing different technolog ies or substitut e ways of meeting some fi xed or give n demand or level of consumpti on, and of trying to see whether we can meet this with s oft rather than hard technolog ies; we are also fac e d, and pr i ma rily, with th e matter of examining those alleged needs and the cost of a society t hat creates them . It is not just a question of devising less damaging ways to mee t these alleged needs conceived of as inevitabl e and unchangea ble . (Hence there are solar ways of producing unnecessa ry trivia no one really wants, as opposed to nuclear ways.) Na turally this is not to deny that th e se softer options are sup e rior because of the ethically unaccepta ble features of the harder options. But it is doubtful that any technolog y, howe ver benign in principle , will be likely to leave a tolerable world for the future if it is expect e d to meet unbounded and uncontrol led energy consumpti on and demands. Even the more benign technolog ies such as solar technolog y could be used in a way which creates costs for future people and are likely to result in a deteriora ted world being hand e d on to them . Consider, for example, the effect on the world's forest s , which are commonly counted as a solar resource, of use for productio n of methanol or o f e lectricit y by woodchipp ing (as already planned by forest authoriti es and contempla ted by many other energy organisat ions) . While few would object to t he use of genui ne waste material for energy productio n, the unrestric ted exploi t ation of forests - whether it goes under the name of " solar energy" or not. - to meet e ver increasin g energy demands could well be the final indignity for the world's already hard-pres sed natural forests. The effects of such additiona l demands on the maintenan ce of the forests are often dismissed , even by soft technolo gicalists, by the simpl e expedient of waving around the label 'renewabl e resources '. Many forests are in principle renewable , it is a true, given a certain (low) rate and kind of exploitat ion , but in fact there are now very few forestry operation s anywhere in the world where the forests are treated as completel y renewable in the sense of the renewal of all their values. 59 In many regions too the rate of e xploitatio n which would enable renewal has already been exceeded, so that a total decline is widely thought to be imminent if not already well advanced . It certainly has begun in many regions, and for many forest types (such as rainfores t types) which are now, and very rapidly, being lost for the future. The addition of a major further and not readily limitable demand pressure, that for energy, on top of present pressures is one which anyone with a realistic appreciat ion of the conduct of contempor ary forestry operation s, who i s also concerned with long-t erm conservat ion of the forests and remaining natural communiti e s, must regard with alarm. The result of massive deforesta tion for energy purposes, �48, r esemb li n g the deforesta tion of England at the beginning of th e Industrial Revolution, again for ene rgy purposes, would be extensive and devastating erosion in s t eeper lands and trop i cal are as , dese rtification in more a rid r egions, possib le climatic change, and massive impoverishm en t of na tural ecosystems . Some of us do not wa nt to pass on - we are not entitled to pass on - a de fores ted world to the future, any more than we want t o pass on on e poisone d by nuclear products or polluted by coal p roduct s . In sh or t, a mere swi t ch t o a more benign t e chnology - important though this i s - wi th out any more bas ic structural and social change is inadequate . Nor is such a simple technolo gi cal swi. tch likely to be achieved. It is not as if political pressure could oblige the US government to stop its nuc lear program (and that of the countrie s it influences, much of the world), in the way pressure appeared to succeed in halting the Vietnam war. While without doubt it would be good if this could be accomplishe d, it is ve ry un likely give n th e inte gration of political powe rholders with those sponsoring nuclear de velopment . 60 The deeper social options involve challenging and trying to change a social structure which promotes consumerism , consumption far beyo nd genuine needs, a nd a n e conomic s tructure which en coura ge s increasing use of highly energy-inte nsive mode s of prod uc tion. This means, for instance, trying to change a social stru c ture in which those who are lucky enough to make it into the work f o rce are cogs i n a production machine over which they have ve ry little r eal cont r ol an d in which most people do unpleasant or boring work fro m which they derive very 1i t tle real satisfactio n in orde r to obta i n the r eward of consume r goo ds and services . A society in which social rewards are obtained primarily from prod ucts rather than proc es s e s, fro m consumption , rath e r than from satisfac tion in work an d in social r e lations and oth er activities , is virtually bound to be one which generates a vast amount of unn e cessary consumption . (A production system that produces goods not to meet genuine needs but fo r created and nongenuine needs is virtually bound to overproduce . ) Consumption frequently be comes a substitute for satisfaction in other areas. The adjustments focussed upon are only parts of the large r set of adjustments involved in s ocially implementin g the New Paradigm , the move away f rom consumerism is for examp le part of th e more ge ner al shift from ma t eri al ism and ma terialist values . The social change option tends to be obscured in mos t dis cussions o f energy options and of how to meet energy needs, in part because it do e s que stion unde rlying values of current social arrangemen ts . The conventiona l discussion proceeds by taking alleged demand (often conflated with wants or 61 n ee ds ) as unchall e ngeable, and th e iss ue to be on e of which t ech nology can �49. be most profi tably employed to meet th em. This e ffectiv e ly pre s en ts a f a l se choice, and is the result of taking needs and demand a s lacking a s ocial contex t so that the social structure which produces the needs is similarly take n as unchallengeable and unchangeable . The point is readily illustrated. It is commonly argue d by representat i ves of such industries as trans!X)rtation and petroleum, as for exampl e by McGrowth of the XS Consumption Co., that people want deep freezers, air conditioners, powe r boats, ... It would be authoritarian to prevent th em from satisfying th e se wants. Such an argument conveniently ignores the social framework in which such nee ds and wants arise or are produced. To point to th e de t e rmination of many such wants at the framework level is not however to accept a Marxist approach a ccording to which they are entirely de t ermined at the framewo rk level ( e .g. by indu s trial organisation) and th e r e is no such thing as indivi dual ch oic e or de termination at all. It is to s ee the soci a l framework as a major f a c t o r i n de t e rmining certain kinds of choices, such as those for travel , a n d t o see ap pare ntly individual choices made in such matte rs as being channelle d a nd dire cte d by a social framework de t e rmined l argely i n th e inte r es t s o f corporat e an d private pro f it and advantage . The so cial change option is a hard option - at l e ast it wil l b e difficult to obtain pol itically - but it is the only way , so it has been argued , of a voidin g passing on serious costs to the future. And there are other sorts of r easons t han suc h ethical ones for taking it: it is the main, indeed the only sort of option open to those who take a deeper ecological perspective 62 , a perspective integ ral with the New Paradigm but not essential to radical departure from the dominant paradigm. The ethical transmission requirement defended accordingl y requires, hardly surprisingly, social and pol i tical adjustment. The social and political changes that the deeper alternative require s will be strongly resisted because they and power structure. mean changes in current social organisation To the extent that the option repre sents some kind of threat to parts of present political and economic arrangements it is not surp r ising that official energy option discussion proceeds by misre pres enting and often ob scuring i t . But difficult though a change will be , es pec ially one with s uch f a r - r eaching e ffects on th e prevailing power struc tur e , is to obt ai n, it is imp e rative t o try: we are al l on the n uclear train. �FOOTNOTES 1. All but the last line of the quote is drawn from Goodin, p. 417; the last line is from the Fox Report, p. 6. While it is unnecessary to know much about the nuclear fuel cycle in order to consider ethical and social dimensions of nuclear power, it helps to know a little. & Abbotts , Gyorgy. The basics are presented in many texts, e . g. Nader Of course in order to assess fully reports as to such important background and stage-settin g matters as the likelihood of a core meltdown of a (lightwater ) reactor, much more information is required. For many assessment purposes however, some knowledge of economic fallacies and decision theory is at least a s important as knowledge of nuclear technology. 2. to the first, see references cited in Goodin , p . 417, footnote 1. As regards the second see Cot grove and Duff, and some of the references As given therein. 3. Cot grove and Duff, p. 339. 4. The table is adapted from Cotgrove and Duff, p. 341; Catton and Dunlap, especially p. 34 . 5. compare also See, e.g ., Gyorgy , pp . 357- 8. 6. For one illustration , see the conclusions of Mr Justice Parker at the Windscale inquiry (The Windscale Inquiry Vol. 1., Her Majesty 's Stationery Office , London, 1978), discussed in both Cotgrove and Duff , p. 347 and in Goodin, p. 501 ff. 7. Much as with the argument of one theory or position against another . One can argue both from one's own position against the other, and in the other's own terms against the other. 8. As well as screening the debate from the public such manoeuvres favour the (pro-)nucle ar establishme nt, since they (those of th e alliance of military, large industry, and government) control much of the information and (subject to minor qualificatio ns) can release what, and only what , suits them. 9. This is a conclusion of several governmenta l inquiries and is conceded by some leading proponents of nuclear deve lopment; for requisite details up to 1977 see Routley (a). The same conclus ion has been reached in some, but not all, more recent official reports, see , e . g., �2 10. For some details see Gyorgy, p. 60 ff. 11 . Se e the papers, and simulations, discussed in Goodin, p. 428. lla. Naturally the effect on humans is not the only factor that has to be taken into account in arriving at moral assessments. Nuclea r radi ation , unlike most ethical theories, does not confine its scope to human life and welfare. But since the harm nuclear development may afflict on non-human life, for exampl e , can hardly improve its case, it suffices if the case against it can be made out solely in terms of its effects on human life in the convent ional (Old Paradigm) way. 12. On the pollution and waste disposal record of the nuclear industry, see Nader and Abbotts, Lovins and Price, and Gyorgy. On the more general problem of effective pollution controls, see also, Routley (a), footnote 7. 13. Back of thus Humanity Unlimited assumption is the idea of Man replacing God. First God had unlimited power, e.g. over nature, then when during the Enlightenment Man replaced God, Man was to have unlimited power. Science and technology were the tools which were to put Man into the position of unlimitedness. More recent l y nuclear power is seen as providing man at least with unlimited physical power, power obtained through technology. [ability to manage technology repr esent s the past] 14 . On such l imitation theorems, which go back to Finsler and Godel on one side and to Arrow on the other, see, e.g. Routley 80. All these theorems mimic paradoxes, semantical "paradoxes" on one side and vot ing "p aradoxes" on the other. Other different limitation resu1 ts are presented in Routley 81 . It follows that there are many problems that have no solution and much that is n e cessarily unknowable. Limitative results put a serious dent in the progress picture. According th e Dominant Western Worldview, the history of humanity is one of progress; for every problem there is a solution, and thus progress need never cease (Catton and Dunlap, p . 34) . 15. See Lovins and Price . 15a . The points also suggest a variant argument against a nuclear future, namely A nuclear future narrows the range of opportunities open to future generations. 'What justice requires ... is that the overall range of opportunities open to successor generations should not be narrowed' (Barry, p. 24 3). Therefor e ~ a nuclear f utur e contrav enes r equirements of justice . �3 16. For examples , and for some details of the history of philosoph e rs' positions on obligatio ns to the future, see Routley (a). 17 . Passmore, p. 91. Passmore' s position is ambivalen t and , to all appearanc es, inconsist ent. It is considere d in detail in Routley (a), as also is Rawls ' position. 18. For related criticism s of the e conomists ' arguments for discounti ng, a nd for citation of the often eminent economist s who sponsor them, see Goodin , pp. 429-30. 19. The reasons (not elaborate d here) are that the propertie s are different e . g. a monetary reduction of value imposes a linear ordering on values to which value rankings , being only partial orderings , do not conform. 20. Goodin however puts his case against those rules in a less than satisfact ory fashion . What he claims is tha t we cannot list all the possible outcomes in the way that such rules as expe ct ed util ity maximiza tion presuppos es, e.g. Goodin suggests that we cannot list all the things that can go wrong with a nuclear power plant or with waste storage procedure s. But outstandi ng alternativ es can always be comprehen ded logically , at worst by saying "all the rest" (e.g. "'P covers everythin g except p). For example , outcomes Goodin says cannot be listed, can be comprehen ded along such lines as "plant breakdown through human error". Furthermo re the different more app ropriate rules Goodin subsequen tly considers also requir e listing of "possible " outcomes . Goodin's point can be alternati vely stated however. There are really two points. The first trouble is that such ragbag alternati v es cannot in general be assigned required quantitat ive probabil ities, and it is at that point that applicati ons of the models breaks dovm. The breakdown is just what separates decision making under uncertain ty from decision making under risk. Secondly, many influenti al applicatio ns of decision theory methods, the Rasmussen Report is a good example, do, illegitim ately, delete possible alternati ves from their modelling s. 21 . Discount, or bank, rates in the economis ts' sense are usually set to follow the market, cf. P.A. Samuelson , Economics , 7th Edition, McGraw-H ill, New York , 1967, p.351. 22 . Thus the rates have little moral relevance . A real possibili ty is one which there is evidence for believing could eventuate . A real possibili ty requires producibl e evidence for its considera tion . The contrast is with mere logical possibili ty. 23. �4 24. Such a princip le is explici t both in classica l utilitar iani s m (e.g. Sidgwick p. 414) , and in a range of contrac t and other theories from Kant and Rousseau to Rawl s (p.293). How the princip le is argu ed for will depe nd heavily , however, on the underlyi ng theory; and we do not want to make our use depend he avily on particu lar ethical theories . 25. The latter question is taken up in section VII; see especia lly, the Poverty argumen t. 26 . SF, p. 27. Shrader -Freche tte is herself somewha t critical of the carte blanche adoption of these methods , suggesti ng that ' whoever aff irms or den ies the desirab ility of ... [such] standard s is, to some degree, symboll ically assentin g to a number of American value patterns and cu l tural norms' (p. 28 ). 27. The examp le paralle ls the sorts of countere xamp les often advance d to utilitar ianism, e.g. the admissi ble lynching of an innocen t person because of pleasure given to the large lynching party. against utilitar ianism, see ... For the more general case 28 . US Atomic Energy Commissi on , Compara tive Risk-Co st-B en ef it Study of Alterna tive sources of Electric al Energy (WASH-1224), US Governm ent Printing Office , Washing ton, D.C., Decembe r 1974 , p.4-7 and p. 1-16. 29 . As SF points out, p.37-44 ., in some detail. As she remarks, ... since standard s need not be met, so long as the NRC [Nuclea r Regulato ry commiss ion] judges that the licence shows 'a reasonab le effort' at meetin g them, current policy allows governm ent regulato rs to trade human health and welfare for the [apparen t ] good intentio ns of the promo tors of technolo gy. [Such] good intentio ns have never been known to be sufficie nt for the morality of an act (p. 39). The failure of state regulati on, even where the standard s are as mostl y not very demandin g, and the alliance of regulato rs with those th ey a re s upposed t o be r eg ulating, are conspicu ous features of modern environm ental control, not just of (nuclear ) pollutio n control. 30 . �31 . The figures are thos e from the origin al Bro okhaven Report: ' Theo r e t ical possib ilities and consequ ences of major accide nts in large nuclea r plants ', USAEC Report WASH-740, Governm ent Printin g Office , Washin gton , D. C., 1957. This r e port was r eques ted in the first place because the Commis sion on Atomic Energy wanted pos i tive safe t y conc l usions "to r eass ure th e private insuran ce compan ies" so that they would pr ovid e coverag e for th e nuclea r indust ry. Since even th e cons e rvative statist ics of the r eport we r e alannin g it was supp r essed and its data we r e not made public until. almost 20 years later, after a suit was brough t as a r esult of the Freedom of Inform ation Act (Shrad er-Frec hette, pp. 78-9). 32 . Atomic Energy Commis sion, Re actor Safe ty Study: An Ass e ssment of Acc ident Risks in US Comme rcial Nuclea r Power Plants , Governm ent Printin g Offi ce , Washin gton, D.C., 1975 . This report, the only alleged ly comple te study , conclud ed that fission reactor s presen ted only a minima l health risk t o the public . Early in 1979, th e Nuclea r Regula tory Commis sion (th e r elevan t organ isation that superse ded the trouble d Atomic Energy Commis sion) withdre w i ts suppor t for the report, with the result that there is now no compreh ensive analys is of nuclea r power approve d by the US Governm ent. 32a . Most presen t and planned r eactors are of this type: see Gyo r gy . 33 . 34 . Even then relevan t environ ment factors may have been neglec t ed . 35. There are variati ons on (i) and (ii) which multip ly costs agains t number s such as probab ilities. In this way risks, constru ed as probab le cos ts, can be taken into accoun t in the assessm ent. (Alt e rnative ly, risks may be assesse d through such familia r method s as insuran ce.) A princip le varying (ii), and fonnula ted as follows : (ii ) a is ethica lly accepta ble if (for some b) a include s no more risks than b and b is sociall y acce pted. was the basic ethica l princip le in terms of which the Cluff Lak e Board of Inquiry recentl y decided that nuclea r power de velo pme nt 1 �in Saskat chewan is ethically acceptable : s e e Cluff Lake Board of Inquiry Final Report, Departme nt of Environment , Government of Saskatchewa n, 1978, p. 305 and p . 288 . In this report, a is nuclear power and bis either a ctiviti e s clearl y accepted by society as alternative power sources. In other application s b has been taken as cigarette smoking, motoring, mining and even the Vietna m War(!) The points made in the text do not exhaust the objections to principles (i) - (ii'). The principles are certainly ethically substantive , since an ethical consequence cannot be deduced from nonethical premisses, but they have an inadmissibl e conventiona l character. For l ook at the origin of b: b may be socia lly accepted though it is no longer socially acceptable, or though its social acceptibili ty is no longer so cle arcut and it would not have been socially accepted if as much as is now known had been known when it was introduced. 'What is required in (ii'), for instance, for the argument to begin to look convincing is then 'ethically acceptable' rather than 'socially accepted'. But even with th e amendments the principles are invalid , for the reasons given in the text. It is not disconcertin g that thes e arguments do not work . It would be sad to see yet another area lost to the exper ts, namely ethics to actuaries. 36. A main part of the tr oubl e with the models is that they are narrowly utilitarian , and like utilitariani sm they neglect distributio nal features , involve na tu ralistic fallacies, et c. Really they try to treat as an uncon- straine d optimisatio n what is a deontically constraine d optimisatio n : V. Routley 'An expensive repair kit for utilitarian ism'. s ee R. and 37. Ap parent exceptions to the principle such as taxation (and redistr i bution of income generally) vanish when wealth is construed (as it has to be i f taxation is to be properly justified) as at least partly a social asset unfairly monopolised by a minority of the population . Example s such as that of motoring dangerously do not constitute counterexam ples to the principle; for one is not morally entitled to so motor. 38. SF, p. 15, where references are also cited. 39 . Goodin, p. 433. 40 . On all these points see R. Grossman and G. Daneker, Guide to Jobs and Energy , Environment a lists for Full Employment, Washington DC, 1977, pp.1-7, and also the details supplied in substantiat ing th e interesting case of Commoner [7 ] . On the absorption of available capital by the nuclear industry, see as well [18], p. 23 . On th e employment issues, see too H. E. Daly in [ 9], p. 149. �7 A more fundamental challenge to the poverty argument appears in I. Illich, Ene rgy and Equality , Calden and Boyars, London 1974, where it is argued that the sort of development nuclear energy represents is exactly th e opp osite of what the poor need. 41 . For much more deta il on the inappropria teness see E.F . Schumacher, Sma ll is Beauti ful, Blond and Briggs, London, 1973. As to the capital and o ther requirement s, see [2] , p. 48 , and also [7] and [9] . For an illuminatin g l ook at the sort of d evelopmen t high - energy t e chnolo gy will t end to promote in the so-called unde rdeveloped countri es see the pap e r of Waiko and other papers in The Melanesian Envfr•onment (edited J . H. Wins l ow), Au s tr a l ian National University Press, Canb e rr a, 1977. 42 . A useful survey is given in A. Lovins , Energy Strategy : The Road Not Taken , Fr iends of the Earth Australia, 1977 (reprinted from Fo 1°eign Affair•s , Oc tob e r 1976); s ee also [ 17], [6 ] , [ 7], [14] , p . 233 ff, and Schumacher, op . cit . 43 . An argument like this is suggested in Passmo re, Chapters 4 and 7, with respect to the question of saving resources. In Passmore this argument for the ove rriding importance of passing on contemporar y culture is underpinn e d by what appears to be a future-dire cted ethical version of the Hidden Hand argument of economics - that, by a coincidence which if correct would indeed he fortunate, the best way to take care of the future (and perhaps even the only way to do so, since do-good interventio n is almost certain to go wrong) is to take proper care of t he present and immediate future. The argument has all t he defects of the related Chain Argument discussed above and others. 44. See Nader and Abbotts, p. 66, p . 191, and also Commoner . 45 . Very persuasive arguments to this effect have been a dvanced by civ il liberties groups and others in a number of countri e s: see especially M. Flood and R. Grove-White , Nuclear Pr ospects. A comment on the individual , the State and Nuclear Power , Friends of the Earth, Council for the Protection of Rural England and National Council for Civil Liberties , London, 1976. 46. ' US energy policy, for example , since the passage of the 1954 Atomic Energy Act , has been that nuclear powe r is necessary to provide "an e conomical and reliable basis" n eed ed "to sustain economic growth" (SF, p . 111, and r efe rences there cit e d) . �47. There are now a great many criticism s of the second premiss in th e literat ure . For our criticism , and a r e formulati on of the premiss in terms of selec tive economic growth (which would exclude nu clear developm ent), see Routley (b) , and also Berkley and Seckler. To simple-mi ndedly contrast e conomic growth with no-growth , in the fa shion of some discussio ns of nuclear power, c . f . Elster, is to leave out crucial alte rnatives ; the contracti on of course much simplifie s the otherwise faulty case for unalleged growth. 48. In UK and USSR nuclear developme nt is explicitl y in the public domain, in such countries as France and West Germany the governmen t has very s ubstantia l interests in main nuclear involved companies . Even as regards nuclear plant operation in the US, it is difficult to obtain comprehen sive data. Estimates of cost very dramtical ly according to the sample of plants chosen and the assumptio ns made concernin g the measureme nt of plant performan ce (Gyorgy, p. 173). 49 . See Kalmanoff , p . 50. See Corney. 51. Ref. to what it has to say about Price Anderson Act. 52. Full ref to SF on argument from ignorance etc. 53 . These e . g. Elster, p. 377. On deci sion theory see also, 54 . A recent theme in much economic literatur e is that Bayesian dec ision theory and risk analysis can be universal ly applied . The theme is upset as soon as one steps outside of select Old Paradigm confines. In any case , even within these confines there is no consensus at all on, a nd few (and widely diverging ) figures for the probabili ty of a reactor core meltdown, an d no reliable estimates as to the likelihoo d of a nuclear confronta t i on. Thus Goodin argue s (in 78) that 'such uncertain ties plague energy theories' as to 'rend er expected utility calculati ons impossibl e '. 55 . For details see Gyorgy, p. 398 ff ., from which presentat ion of the internati onal story is adapted. �1 56. Gyo rgy, p . 307, and p. 308. points, see Chomsky For elaborati on of some of th e important and Hermann. 57. Whatever one thinks of the ethical principle s underlyin g the Old Paradigm or its Modificat ion - and they do form a coherent set th at many people can respect - these are not the principle s unde rlying contempor ary corporate capitalism and associate d third-wor ld i.mperialis m. 58. Certainly practical transitio nal programs may involve tempo rary and limited us e of unaccepta ble long t erm commoditi es such as coal, but in presentin g su ch practical details one should not lose sigh t of the more basic social and structura l changes, and the problem is really one of making those. Similarly practical transitio nal strategie s should make use of such measures as en vironment al (or replaceme nt) pricing of energy i . e . so that the price of some energy unit includes the full cost of r e placing it by an equivalen t unit taking account of environm ental cost of productio n. Other (sometime s coopU.ve) s trategies towards more satisfact ory alternativ es should a lso, of course , be adopted, in particula r the removal of institutio nal barriers to energy conservat ion and alternati ve technolog y (e . g. local governmen t regulatio ns blocking these), and the removal of state assistanc e to fuel and power industrie s. 59. Symptoma tic of the fact that it is not treated as r enewable is that forest economics do not generally allow for full renewabi lity - if th ey did the losses and deficits on forestry operation s would be much more s triking tha n t hey already are often enough. It is doubtful, furthermo re, that energy cropping of forests can be a fully r e newable operation if net energy productio n is to be worthwhil e; see, e.g . the argument in L. R.B . Mann 'Some difficult ies with energy farming for portable fuels', and add in the costs of e cosystem maintenan ce. 60. For an outline and explanati on of this phenomena see Gyorgy, and also Woodmansee . 61 . The requisite distinctio n is made in several places , e . g . Routley (b), and (to take one example from the real Marxist literatur e), Baran and Sw eezy . 62 . The distinctio n between shallow and deep ecology was first emphasise d by Naess. For its environm en tal i mpo rtance see Routl ey (c) (wher e further reference s are cited) . �• REFERENCES . In o rde r to contai n refe r e n ces to a modes t length, r efrre ncc to primary sources has often been replaced by referen ce through secondary sources . Generally the reader can easily trace the primary sour ces . For those parts of the text that ove rlap Routley (a), fuller references wil l be found by consulting the latter article. S. Cotgrove and A. Duff, 'Environmen talism, middle-clas s radicalism an d politics', Sociologica l Review 28 (2) (1980), 333-51. R.E . Goodin, 'No moral nukes ', Ethics 90 (1980), 417-49. A. Gyorgy and Friends , No Nukes: everyone's guide to nuclear power, South End Press, Boston, Mass., 1979. R. Nader and J. Abbotts, The Menace of Ato mic Energy, Outb ack Press , Melbourn e , 1977. R. a nd V. Routley, 'Nuclear energy and obligations to the future', Inquiry 21 ( 1978), 133-79 (cited as Routley (a)). Fox Repo rt: Ranger Uranium Environmen tal I nquiry First Report , Australian Go vernmen t Publishing Service, Canberra , 1977. K.S. Schrader-Fr echet te, Nu clea r Power and Publi c Policy, Reidel, Do rdrecht, 1980 (refe rred to as SF). W. R. Cat ton, Jr., and R. E. Dunlap, 'A new ecol ogical paradigm for post - ex uber an t sociology', Ame rican Behavioral Scientist 24 (1980) 15-47 . Unite d States Interagency Review group on Nuclea r Waste Managemen t, Repo rt to the President, Wash i ngton. (Dept. of Energy) 1979. (Ref. No . El. 28 . TID29442) (cited as US(a)) . A.B . Lovins and J.H. Price, Non-Nuc lear Futures : The Case for an Eth ical Energy Strategy, Friends of the Earth Internation al, San Fran cisco , 1975. R. Routley , 'On the impossibili ty of an ortho dox social theory and of an orthodox solution to environmen tal problems', Logique et Analyse, 23 (1980), 145-66. R. Routl ey , 'Necessa r y limits for knowledge: unknowable tru ths', in Es says in honour of Paul Wei nga rtner, (ed. E. Norscher ), Salzberg, 1980. J. Passmore , Man's Responsibi lity for Nature, Du ckworth , London, 1974 . �,,,. .-2. R. and V. Routley, The Fight for the Forests, Third Editi on, RSSS, Austra lian National University, 1975 (cited as Routley (b)). J . Rawls , A Theory of Justice, Harvard Unive rsit y Press, Cambridge , Mass., 19 71. P . hl . Berkl ey a nd D.W . Seckler, Economic Gr owth and Environment a l Dec ay, Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch , New York, 1972 . J . Elster, 'Risk, uncertainty and nuclear power' , Soci al Science Information 18 (3) (1979) 371-400. J. Robinson , Economic Heresi e s, Basic Books, New York, 1971. B. Barry, 'Circumstan ces of Justice and future generat i ons ' in Obligations to Future Generations (ed. R.I. Sikora and B. Barry), Templ e Universit y Press, Philadelphi a, 1978. H. Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics , Macmillan, London , 1962 (r e issue ). B. Commoner, The Poverty of Power , Knopf, New York, 1975. N. Chomsky and E.S. Herman, The Political Economy of Human Right s , 2 vols., Black Rose Books, Montreal, 1979 . J. Woodmans ee , The World of a Giant Corporation , North Coun tr y Pr es s , Seattle , Washing ton, 1975. P . A. B~r a n and P . Sweezy, Monopoly Capita l, Penguin, 1967. A. Naess, ' The shallow and the deep, long range eco l ogy movement. A summary ', Inquiry 16 (1973) 95-100. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document NUCLE AR POWER - I. ETHIC AL, SOC I AL AND POLltt AAL DI MiN S I ONS COMPETING PARADIGMS AN D THE NU CLEAR DEBAT E. 1870 One ha rdly needs initia t i on i nt o the dark my s te ri e s of nucl ear ph ys i cs to contribu te use f ully t o t he debat e no w wid e l y r anging ov e r nuc lear powe r . While ma ny i mpo r tan t empi rica l que stions ar e s t i ll unr e s olved, t hese do not r e a lly l i e a t th e ce nt r e of t he con t r ove rsy. In st e ad, it is a de ba t e about val ue s . .. ma ny of the que s tions ~hi ch a ri s e are s oc i al an d et hica l one s . 1 Socio logical inves tigation s have conf i rme d that th e n ucl ea r deba t e is primaril y one ove r what is wor th having or pursuing and over what we a re ent i t l ed to do to o th e rs . They ha ve also confirme d tha t t he debate i s polaris ed a lon g t he li nes o f compe ting paradigm s. 2 Accordin g to the entre nc he d parad i gm dis ce rn e d, that conste llation of value s , attitude s and be liefs o fte n ca ll e d t he Domi nan t So ci a l Pa radigm (hereaft er the Old Paradigm ), economic criteria be come the be nchmark by whi ch a wi de ran ge of individu al and social action is judged and e va luat e d . And be li e f in the market and marke t mechan isms is quit e ce ntral . Clust e rin g around this core belief is the convicti on th a t e nt e r p r i s e flou r is hes bes t i n a system of r isks and rewards, that di ffe r e nti als a r e neces sary ..• , and in the nece ssity for some fo r m o f di vis i on of labour, and a hi e rarchy of skills and exper t is e . In pa rt i cul a r, t here i s a be li e f in th e comp e t e nce o f e xperts i n gener a l and of sci entis t s in pa r ticular . the re is an empha s i s on q uantif i ca t ion . 3 The ri v a l world view , sometime s c all e d t he Alte rnative Environm e ntal Par ad igm (the New Paradi gm) dif f ers on almos t e ve ry pcint , and, acco rdin g t o so ciologi sts , in ways summari sed i n th e fo llowing t a bl e 4 Domi nant Socia l Para digm CORE VALUES Ma te r i a l (e conomic growth , progress an d dev elopmen t ) Na tu ra l env ironment va lu e d as resourc e Dom i nat i on over na t ur e Al t e rn a tive Env ir onme nt al Pa rad igm Non-ma terial (se l f -r eali sa t io n) Na t ural e nvir onm e nt i ntrin s i cally valu ed Ha r mo ny with na tu r e ECONOMY* Ma rket forces Ri s k a nd rewa r d Rewa r ds for ach i evemen t Diff e rent i a l s Individ ua l se lf-help Public i nte r es t Sa fety Incomes r elat ed t o nee d Egali t a r ian Co ll ective/soc i al provi s i on PO LITY Authori t at iv e s t ru c t ures (e xp e r t s in flue ntia l) Hi e r a r ch1.c a l Law and order Ac t io n through o ffi c ia l i nst it ut io ns Pa rtic ip a tive s t ruc t ur e s ( ci ti zen/ wo r ke r invo lveme n t ) No n- hi era r chical Liberation Di r ec t a c ti o n SOCIETY Ce ntr a lised La r ge-s ca le As socia tional Or der ed Dece ntr a l ised Small - s ca l e Communa l Flexib l e NATURE Ampl e rese r ves Nature host il e/ ne u t r a l Envi r onmen t cont roll a ble Earth ' s r esou r c e s lim i ted Nature be nign Na t ure de l i ca t el y ba l a nc ed KNOWLEDGE Co nf idence in sc i ence and t ec hnology Ra t i onal i t y of mea ns (only) Li mit s t o sc i e nce Rati ona lit y of en ds *Stat e socia l ism , as pr a ctised i n mo s t of t he " Eastern b l oc" , di ffers as to eco nomi c o r ganisation , t he ma r ket i n pa r ticula r be i ng rep l ac ed sys tem hy ~ comma nd sy st e m) . Bu t sin c e t he r e i s v irt ual l y no debate r·o ni i nes 'l l s r a t <! ., ociali sm , 5 that mJnnr va riant on th e Old Para digm from t he Ol d Pa rad i gm r eall y on ly by cen t ral planning (a ma r ke t over o nu c lea r futu r e within t he ne ed no t be de lineat ed he r e . 2 No doubt the competing paradigm picture is a trifle simple (and subs equently it is important to disentangle a Modified Old Paradigm, which softens the old econ omic assumptions with social welfa r e requirements : really and instead of a New Paradigm there are rather count erpa radigms, a cluster of not very well worked out positions that diverge from the cluster marked out as the Old Paradigm) . Nonetheless it is empi rically investigable, and, most important, it enables the nuclear debate to be focuss ed . Large - scale nuclear development, of the sort now occurring in much of the world , runs counter to leading tenets (such as societal features) of the New Pa radigm. Indeed to introduce ethical and social dimensions into the assessment of nucl ear power, instead of or in addition to merely economic factors such as cost and efficiency, is already to move somewhat beyond the recei ved paradigm. For under the Old Paradigm, strictly construed, th e nuclear debate is confined to the tenns of the narrow utilitarianism up on which contemporary economic practice is p r emisse d, the issues to questions of economic means (to assumed economistic ends) along with technological, social engineering and other instrumental details : whatever falls outside these terms is ( dismissed as) . . 1.6 irrationa Furthermore, nuclear development rece ive s its support from adherents of the Old Paradigm. Virtually all the arguments in favour of it are set within the assumption frame.work of the Old Paradigm, and without these assumptions the case for the nuclear future the world is presently committed to fails . But in fact the argument for a nuclear future from the Old Paradigm is itself broken-backed and ultimat ely fails, unless the free enterprise economic assumptions are replaced by th e ethically unacceptable assumptions of advanced (corporate) capitalism . The two paradigm picture also enables our case against a nuclear future (a case written from outside the Old Paradigm) to be structured. . 7 main parts : - There are two It is argue d, firstl y , from without the Old Paradigm, that nuclear development is ethically unjustifiable; but that, secondly, even from within the framework of the ethically dubious Old Paradigm, such development is unacceptable, since significant features of nuclear development conflict with indispensible features of the Paradigm (e . g . co sts of project development and state subsidization with market independence and crite ria for project selection) . It has appeared acceptable from within the dominant paradigm only because ideals do not square with practice, only because the assumptions of th e Old Paradigm are but very rarely applied in contemporary political practice, 3 th e place of pure (or mixed) capitalism having been usurped by corporate capitalism. It is because the nuclear debate can be carried on within th e framework of the Old Paradigm that the debate - although it is a debate about values, because of the conflicting values of the competing paradigms - is not just a debate about values; it is also a debate within a paradigm as to means to already assumed (economistic) ends, and of rational choice as to energy options within a predetermined framework of values. (In this corner belong, as explained in section VIII, most decision theory argume nts, arguments often considered as encompassing all the nuclear debate is ethically about, best utilitarian me ans to predetermined ends . ) For another leading characteristic of the nuclear deb a te is the attempt, under the dominant paradigm to remove it from the ethical and social sphere, and to divert it into specialist issues whe th e r over minutiae and contingenci es of present techno l ogy o r ove r medical or legal or mathematical details. 8 The double approach can be applied as regards each of t he main problems nuclear development poses. There are many i nte rr ela t ed problems, and the argument is further structured in terms of these. For in the advancement and promotion of nucle ar power we encounter a remarkable combination of factors, never befo re assembled : establishment, on a massive scale , of an industry which involves at each stage of its processing serious risks and at some stages of p roduction possible catastrophe , which delivers as a by-product rad ioactive wastes which require up to a million years' storage but for which no sound and e conomic storage methods are known, which grew up as part of the war industry and which is easily subverted to deliver nuclear weapons, which r equires for i t s operation considerable secrecy, limitations on the flow of informa tion and r es trictions on civil liberties, which depends for its economics, and in orde r to generate expected profits, on substantial state subsidization, supper½ and intervention. with problems. It is, in short, a very high techological develo pmen t, beset A first important problem, which serves also to exemplify e thical issues and principles involved in other nuclear power que st i on s , is th e unreso l ved matter of disposal of nuclear wastes. II . THE NUCLEAR WASTE DISPOSAL PROBLEM, AND THE TRAIN PARABLE . A long distance country train has just pulled out. crowded carries both pass e ngers and fr e i gh t. The train which is At an early stop in the journey someon e con signs as freight, to a far distant destination, a package which contains a high ly toxic and exp losive gas. This is packaged in a very thin container which, as the consigner is aware, may not contain th e gas for the 4 full distance for which it is consigned, and certainly will not do so if th e train should strike any real trouble, for example if there is a breakdown and the interior of the train becomes very hot, if the train should be derailed or involved in a collision, or if some passenger should interefere inadvertently o r deliberately with the freight, perhaps trying to steal some of it. these sorts of contingencies have occurred on some previous journeys. All of If the container should break the resulting disaster would probably kill at least some of the people on the train in adjacent carriages, while othe r s could be maimed or incur serious diseases. Most of us would roundly condemn such an action. consigner of the parcel say to try to justify it? What might the He might say that it is not certain that the gas will escape and that it is mere speculation to suppose it will , that the world needs his pr~uct and it is his duty to supply it , and that in a ny case he is not responsible for th e train or the people on it. These sorts of excuses however wo uld norrrally be seen as ludicrous when set in this context . What is worth remarking is that similar excuses are not always so seen I when the consigner, again a "responsible" b usin essman , puts his workers ' health or other peoples ' welf are at risk. Suppose he ways that it is hi s own and otherd press ing needs which justify his action. The company he controls,which produces the material as a by-product , is in bad financia l straits, and could not afford to produce a better container even if it knew how to make one. If the company fails , he and his family will suffer, his employees will lose their jobs and have to look for others, and th e whole company town, through loss of spending and the cancellation of the Multiplier Effe ct, will be worse off. The poor and unemployed of the town, whom he would otherwise have been able to help, will suffer espe cially. Few people would accept such a story, even if correct, as justification . Even where there are serious risks and costs to ones e lf or some group for whom one is concerned one is usually considered not t o be entitled to simply transfer the heavy burden of those risks and costs onto other uninvolved parties, especially where they a ri se from one's own, or one's group 's, chosen life-style. The matter of nuclear waste disposal has many moral features which resemble the train case . How fitting the analogy is will become apparent as th e argument progresses . There is no known proven safe way to package th e highly toxic wastes generated by the nuclear plants that will be spread around th e world as large- scale nuclear development goes ahead. 9 The waste problem will be much more serious than that generated by the 50 or so reactors in use at present, with 5. each one of the 2000 or so reactors envisaged by the end of the century producing, on average , annual wastes containing 1000 times the radioactivity of the Hiroshima bomb . Much of this waste is extremely t oxic . For example, a millionth of a gramme of plutonium is enough to induce a lung cancer . Wastes will include the reactors themselves, which will have to be abandoned after the ir expected life times of perhaps 40 years , and which, some have estimated, may require l½ million years to reach saf e levels of radioactivity. Nuclear wastes must be kept suitably isolated from the environ ment fo r th e ir entire active lifetime. For fission products the required storage period a ve rages a thousand years or so, and for transuranic elements, which include plutonium, there is a half to a million yea r storage problem . Serious problems have aris en with both short-term and proposed long-t erm methods of storage, e ven with th e comparatively small quantities of waste produced ove r th e last 10 twenty years. Short-term methods of storage require continued human in t e rven tion, while proposed longer term methods are subject to both human i nterference and risk of leakage through non-human factors . No one with even a slight knowledge of the geological and climatic history of the earth over the last million years, a period whose flu ctua tion s in climate we are only just beginning to guage and which has seen four Ice Ages , could be confident that a rigorous guarantee of safe storage could be provided for the vast period of time involved. Nor does the history of human affa irs over the last 3000 years give ground for confidence in safe storage by methods requiring human intervention over perhaps a million years . Proposed long-term storage methods such as storage in granite formations or in salt mines, are largely speculative and relatively untested, and have already pro ved to involve difficulties with attempts made to put them into practice. Even as regards expensive recent proposals for first embedding concentrated wastes in glass and encapsulating the r e sult in multilayered metal containe rs before rock deposit , simulation mo dels reveal that radioactive material may not rema in suitably is ola ted from human environment . 11 In short, the best pres ent storage proposals carry very real possibilities of irradiating future people and . h . . lla d amaging t eir environment. Given the heavy costs which could be involve d fo r the future, and given the known limits of technology, it is methodological ly unsound to bet, as nuclear nations have, on the discovery of safe procedures for storage of wastes. Any new procedures (required before 2000) will probably be but variations on present proposals, and subject to the same inadequacies. For instance , none of the proposed methods for safe storage has been properly test e d, and they may 6. well prove to involve unforeseen difficultie s and risks when an attemp t is made to put them into practice on a commercial scale. Only a method that could provide a rigorous guaran t ee of safety over the storage period, that placed safety beyond reasonable doubt, would be acceptable. It is difficult to see how such rigorous guarantees could be given concerning either the geological or future µuman factors . But even if an economicall y viable, rigorously safe long t e rm storage method could be devised , there is the problem of gua rantee ing that it would be universally and invariably used. The assumption that it would be (especially if, as appears likely, such a method proved expensive economicall y and politically ) seems to p r esuppose a level of efficiency, pe rfection and concern for the f u ture which has not previously been e ncountere d in human affairs, and has certainly not been conspicuous in the nucl ea r industry. 12 Again, unless we assume continuous and faultless guarding of long t e rm storage sites through pe rhaps a million years of possible future human activity, weaponsgrade radioactive material will be accessible , over much of the million year storage peri od, to any party who is in a position to retrieve it. Th e assumption that a way will nonetheless be found , before 2000, which gets around the wastestorag e problem (no longer a nere disposal problem) is accordingly not rationally based, but is rather like many assumpti ons of way s , an article of faith . It is an assunption supplied by the Old Par adigm, a no limitations ass ump tion , that there are really no (developmen t) problems that cannot be solved technologic ally (if not in a fash i on that is always immediately economi cally feasible). The assumption has played an important part in development plans and pra ctic e. It has not only encouraged an unwarrant e d technolog ical optimism (not to say hubris 13 ), that there are no limits to what humans can accomplish , es pe cially through science ; it has led t o the embarcation on projects before crucial problems have been satisfactor ily solved or a solution is even in sight , and it has led to th e idea that technology can always be suitably controlled . It has also led, not surprisingl y, to disasters . There are severe limits on what technology can achieve (some of which a r e becoming known in the form of limitation theorems 14 ); and in addition there are human limitations which modern technologic al development s often fail to take due account of (risk a nalysis of the likelihood of reactor accidents is a relevant example, discuss e d below) . The original nuclear technology dream was that nuclear fissi on would provide unlimi t ed energy (a 'clean unlimited supply of power '). That dr e am soon shattered. The nu clear industry apparently remains a net consume r of power, and nuclear fission will be but a quite shor t-t erm supplier of power. 15 ) 7. The risks imposed on the future by proceeding with nuclea r development are , then, significant. Nuclear fission creates wastes which may remain toxic for a million years, but even with the (suspect) breeder r eactor it could be an energy source for only perhaps 150 years. It will do nothing for the energy problems of the people of the distant future whose lives could be se riously affected by the wastes. Thus perhaps 40,000 generations of futur e people could be fo rced to bear significant risks resulting from the provision of the (extravagant) energy use of only a small proportion of the people o f 10 generations. Nor is the risk of direct harm from the escape or misuse of radioactive materials th e only burden the nuclear solution imposes on the fu ture . Because the energy provided by nuclear fission is merely a stop gap, it seems probable that in due course the same problem , that of making a transition t o renewable sources of energy, will have to be faced again by a future population which will probably , again as a result of our actions, be very much worse placed to cope with it . For they may well have to face the change to renewable res ources in an over- populated world not only burdened with the legacy of our nuclear wastes, but also in a world in which, if the nuclear proponents' dreams of global industrialisation are realised , more and more of the global population will have become dependent on high energy consumption and associat ed technology and heavy resource use and will have lost or reduced its ability to survive without it . It will , moreover, probably be a world which is larg ely depleted of non-renewable resources, and in which su ch r enewable r eso urces as forests and soils as remain, resources which will have to form a very important part of the basis of life , 15a are in a run-down condition. Such points tell against th e idea th a t future people mGst be , if not direct beneficiaries of nuclear fission energy , at least indirect beneficiaries . It is for such reasons th at the train pa rabl e cannot be turned around to work in favour of nuclear power, with for exampl e , the nuclear train bringing relief as well as wastes to a remote town powered (onl y) by nuclear power. The 'solution" then is to buy time for contemporary industrial society at a price which not only creates serious problems for future people but which reduces their ability to cope with those problems . Like the consigner in the train parable, contemporary industrial society proposes, in order to ge t itself out of a mess arising from its chosen life style - the creation of e conomies dependent on an abundance of non-renewable energy, which is limited in supply - to pass on costs and risks of serious harm to others who will obtain no corresponding benefits . The " solution" may enable the avoidance of some uncomfortable changes 8. in the lifetime of those now living and their immediate descendants, just as the consigner's action avoids uncomfortable changes for him and his immediate surroundings, but at the expense of passing heavy burdens to other uninvolved parties, whose opportunity to lead decent lives may be seriously jeopardised. Industrial society has - under each paradigm, so it will be argued - cl e ar alternatives to · this action, which is taken essentially to avoid changing corporately-controlled patterns of consumption and protect the interest of those comparatively few who benefit from them . If we apply to the nuclear situation, so perceived , the standards of behaviour and moral principles generally acknowledged (in principle if perhaps of t en not in fact ) in the contemporary wo rld, it is not easy to avoid the conclusion that nuclear development involves gross injustice with respect to 15a th e future . There appear to be only two plausible moves that might enable the avoidance of such a conclusion. First, it might be argued that the moral principles and obligations which we acknowledge for the contemporary world and the immediate future do not apply because the recipients of the nuclear pa rcel are in the non-immediate future. Secondly, an attempt might be made to appeal to overriding circumstances, for to reject the consigner's action in the circumstances outlined is not of course to imply that there are no circumstances in which such an action might be justifiable, or at least whe re the matter is less clearcut. It is the same with the nuclear case . Just as in the cas e of the consigner of the package there is a need to consider what these justifying circumstances might be, and whether they apply in th e present case. We consider these possible escape routes for the proponent of nuclear development in turn, beginning with the ques tion of our obligations to the future. Resolution of this question casts light on other ethical questions concerning nuclear development. It is only when these have been considered that the matter of whether there are overriding circumstances is taken up again (in section VII). III OBLIGATIONS TO THE (DISTANT) FUTURE. The especially problematic area is that of the distant (i.e . non-immediat e) fut ure, the futur e with which people alive today will have no direct contact: by comparison, the immediate future gives fewer problems for most ethical theories. In fact the question of obliga tions to future people presents tests which a number of ethical theories fail to pass , and also has serious repercussions in political philosophy as regards the adequacy of accepted (democra ti c and other) institutions which do not take due account of the interests of future creatures. 9. Moral philosophers have, predictably, differed on the issue. A good many of the philosophers who have explicitly considered the question have come down in favour of the same considerations being given to the rights and interests of future people as to those of contemporary or immediately future people. Other philosophers have tended to fall into three categories - those who acknowledge obligations to the future but who do not take them seriously or who assign them a lesser weight, those who deny or who are committed by their general moral position to denying that there are moral obligations beyond the immediate future, and those who come down with admirable philosophical caution, on both sides of the issue, but with the weight of the argument favouring the view underlying prevailing economic and political institutions, that th ere are no moral obligations to the future beyond perhaps those to the next gene ration . According to the most extreme of these positions against moral obligations to the future, our behaviour with respect to the future is morally unconstrained, there are no moral restrictions on a ct ing or failing to act deriving from the ef fect of our actions on future people . Of those philosophers who say , or whose views imply that we do not have obligations to the (non-immediate) future, who have opted for the unconstrained position, many have based this view on accounts of moral obligation which are built on relations which presuppose some temporal or spatial contiguity . Th us moral obligation is seen as grounded on or as presupposing various relations which could not hold between people widely separated in time ( o r sometimes in space) . Fo r example, obligation is seen as grounded in relations which are proximate or of short duration and also non-transitive . Among su ch suggested bases or grounds of moral obligation, or r eq uirements on moral obligation , which would rule out obligations to the nonimmediate future are these :- Firstly there are those accounts which require that someone to whom a moral obligation is held be able to claim his r ights or en titlement . People in the distant future will not be able to claim rights and entitlements as against us, and of course they can do nothing effective to e nforce any claims they might have for their rights against us. Secondly , there a re those accounts which base moral obligations on social or legal convention, for example a convention which would require punishment of offenders or at least some kind of social enforcement . But plainly these and other conventions will not hold invariant over change in society and amendment of legal conventions and so will not be invariant over time. Also future people have no way of enforcing their interests or punishing offenders, and there couid be no guarantee that any contemporary institutions would do it for them . 10. Both the view that moral obligation requires the cont ex t of a moral community and the view that it is contractually based appear to rul e out th e distant future as a field of moral obligation as they not only require a commonality or some sort of common basis which cannot be guaranteed in the case of the distant future, but also a possibility of interchange or reciprocity of action which cannot apply to the future. Where the basis of moral obligation is seen as mutual exchange the interests of future people must be set aside because they cannot change the past and cannot be parties to any mutual contract. The exclusion of moral obligations to the distant future also follows from those views which attempt to ground moral obligations in non-transitive r ela tions of short duration such as sympathy and love. As well there are difficulties about love and sympathy for (non-existent ) people in the far distant futu r e about whose personal qualities and characteristics one must know very little and who may well be committed to a life-style for which one has l ittle or no sympa th y . On the current showing in the case of nuclear energy it would be easy to conclude that contemporary society lacks both love and sympathy for future peop l e ; and it would appear to follow from this that contemporary people had no obligations concerning future people and could damage them as it suited them. What all these views have in common is a picture of obligation as some thing acquired, either individually or institutionally , something which is conditional on doing something or failing to do something (e.g. pa rticipatin g in the moral community, contracting), or having some characteristic one can fail to have (e . g . love, sympathy, empathy). 16 Because obligation therefore becomes conditional, features usually (and correctly) thought to characterise obligation such as universality of application and necessitation (i.e. the binding features) are lost, especially where there is a choice wh e ther or not to do the thing required to acquire the obligation, and so as to whether to acquire it. The criteria for acquisition suggested are such as to exclude people in the distant future. The view that there are no moral constraints with respect to future people, that one is free to act however one likes with respect to them, is not however sustainable. Consider, for example , a scientific group which, for no particular reason other than to test a particular piece of technology, places in orbit a cobalt bomb set off by a triggering device designed to go off several hundred years from the time of its despatch . No presently living person and none of their immediate descendants would be affected, but the population of ... 11. the earth in the distant future would be wiped out as a direct and predictab le result of the action. The unconstra ined position clearly implies that this is an acceptabl e moral enterpris e, that whatever else we might legitimat ely criticize in the scientis ts' experimen t, perhaps its being ove r-e xpensive or badly designed, we cannot lodge a moral protest about the damage it will do to futu re people . The unconstra ined position also endorses as morally acceptabl e the following sort of policy: - A firm discovers it can make a handsome profit from mining , processin g and manufactu ring a new type of material which, although it causes no problem for present people or their immediate descendan ts, will over a pe ri od of hundreds of years decay into a substance which will cause an enormous ep idemi c of cancer among the inhabitan ts of the earth at that time . According to the unconstra ined view the firm is free to act in its own interests , without any considera tion for the harm it does r emote future people. Such counterex amples to the unconstra ined view, which are easily vari e d and multiplie d , might seem childii>hl y obvious. Yet the unconstra ined position concernin g the future f rom which they follow is far from being a straw man ; not only have several philosoph ers endorsed this position, but it is a cl e ar implicati on of many currently popular views of the basis of moral obligatio n, as well as of prevailin g e conomic theory. It seems that those who opt for the unconstra ined position have not considere d such examples , despite their being clearly implied by their position. We suspect that - we would certainly hope that - when it is brought out that the unconstra ined position admits such counterex amples , that being free to act implies among other thin gs being free to inflict pointless harm for example, most of those who opted for the unconstra ined position would want to assert that it was not what they intended. What many of those who have put forward the unconstra ined position seem to have had in mind in denying moral obligatio n is rather that · future people can look after themselve s, that we are not responsib le for their lives. The popular view that the future can take care of itself also seems to assume a future causal l y independe nt of the present. But it is not. It is not as if, in the counterexample cases or in the nuclear case, the future is simply being left alone to take care of itself . Present people are influenci ng it , and in doing so thereby acquire many of the same sorts of moral responsi bilities as they do in causally affecting the present and immediate future, namely the obli gation to tak e accoun t i n what they do of people affected and their interests , to be care ful in their actions, to take account of the genuine probabili ty of their actions causing harm, and to see that th ey do not act so as to rob future people of the chance of a good life. 12. Furth e rmore, to say that we are not respon s ible f o r th e lives o f future people does not amount to th e same thing as sayin g t hat we are fr ee to do as we like with r es pe ct to them , that there are no moral constraints on our act io n involving th e m. In just th e same way , th e fact that on e does no t hav e o r ha s not acquired an obliga tion to some stran ge r with whom one has ne ver been i nvolved , that on e has no responsibil ity for his life, does not imply that on e is fr ee t o do what on e like s with respect to him, for e xample to r ob him or to pursue some course of action of advantage to on e self which could s e riously ha rm him. These difficultie s for the uncons trained position arise in part from the (sometime s deliberate) failure to make an important distinction betwe e n acquired or assume d obligation toward somebody , for which some act of acquisition or a s sumption is required as a qualifying condition , and moral constraints , which require, for example, that one should not act so as t o damage or harm someone , a n d for which no act of acquisition is required. There i s a conside rable di ffer ence in the level and kind of responsibil ity involved. In the first cas e on e must do something or be something which one can fail to do or be, e . g. have loves, sy!ll)athy, be contracted. In the second case responsibil it y arises as a r e sult of being a causal agent who is aware of the cons eque nces o r probable consequence s of his action, and thus does not have to be es pecially acquired or assumed. Thus there is no problem about how the latt e r class , moral c onstra ints, can apply to the distant future in cases where it may be difficult o r i mpossible for acquisition or assumption conditions to be satisfi e d . They appl y a s a result o f th e abil i t y to produce causal effects on the distant future of a r eas onably pr e dict a ble nature . Thus also moral constraints can apply to what do e s not (ye t) e xist, just as actions can cause results that do not (yet) exist . Wh ile it may pe rhaps be the case that there would need to be an acquired or a ssume d ob liga tion in order for it to be claimed that contemporar y people mus t make special sacrifices f or future people of an heroic kind, or even to he lp them e s pe cially, only moral constraints are needed in order for us to be constrain e d from harming them . Thus, to return to the train parable, the consigne r cannot argue in justificatio n of his action that he has never assumed or acquired re s ponsibility for the passengers, that he does not know them and therefore has no l ove or sympathy for th em and that t hey are not part of his moral community , in short that he has no special obligations to help them. All that one ne eds to argue concerning the train, and the nuclear case , is that there are mo ral constrain ts against harming, not that there are specially acquired obligations to take responsibil ity for the live s of people involved . There has been an attempt to represent all obligations to the distant future in terms of heroic self- sacrifice, something which cannot of course be morally required. But in view of the distinction s between constraints and acquired obligation and between obligation and supererogat ion this is just 13 . to misrep resent the positio n of these obliga tions. For exampl e, one is no more engagin g in heroic self-sa crifice by not forcing future people into an unviab le life positio n or by refrain ing from causing then direct harm than the consign er is resorti ng to heroic self-sa crifice in re frainin g from placing his dangero us package on the train. The conflat ion of moral restrai nts with acquire d obliga tion, and the attemp t there~ ith to view all constra ints as acquire d and to write off nonacq uired constr aints, is facilit ated through the use of the term ' moral obligat ion ' both to signify any type of deontic constra ints and also to indicat e r athe r someth ing which has to be assumed or require d . The conflat ion is encoura ged by reduct ionist positio ns which, in attemp ting to accoun t for obligat ion in genera l, mistake nly endeavo ur to collaps e all obligat ions . Hence the equa ti on , and some main roots of the uncons trained positio n, of the erron eous belief that there are no moral constr aint s concern ing the distant future. The uncons trained view tends to give way , under the weight of counte rexampl es , to more qualifi ed, and sometim es ambiva lent, positio ns , for example the positio n that our obliga tions are to immedi ate poster ity, we ought to try to improve the world so that we shall be able to hand it over to our immedi ate succes sors in a better conditi on, and that is all; 17 there are in practic e no obliga tions to the distan t futur e . A main argume nt in favour of the latter theme is that such obliga tions would in practic e be otiose . Everyth ing that needs to be accoun ted for can be en compass ed through the chain picture of obliga tion as linking succes sive genera tions, under which each genera tion has obliga tions, based on loves or sympath y , only to the succeed ing genera tion . The re are at least three objecti ons to this chain accoun t. First, it is inadeq uate to treat constr aints concern ing the future as if they applied only between genera tions, as if there were no questio n of constr aints on individ uals as opposed to whole genera tions, since individ uals can create causal effects , e . e. harm, on the future in a way which may create individ ual respon sibility , and which often cannot be sheeted home to an e ntire genera tion . Nuclea r power and its wastes , for exampl e, are strictl y the respon sibility of small groups of power- hol ders, not a genera tional respon sibility . Second ly, such chains, since non-tr ansitiv e, cannot yield direct obligat ions to the distan t future . But for this very r eason the chain pict ure cannot be adeq uate, as exampl es again show. For the pic ture is unable to explain severa l of the cases that have to be dealt with, e.g. the exampl es already discuss ed which show that we can have a direct effect on the distan t future withou t affecti ng the next genera tion, who may not even be able to influen ce matters . 14. Thirdly, improvement s fo r immediate successors may be achieved at th e expense of disadvantag es to people of the more distant future . Improving the world for immediate successors is quite compatible with, and may even in some circumstanc es be most easily achieved by , ruining it for less immediate successors . Such cases can hardly be written off as "ne ver- never land" examples since many cases of environment al exploitatio n might be seen as of just this type. e . g . not just the nuclear case but also the exhaustion of non-renewab le resources and the long- term depletion of renewable resources such as soils and forests through overus e . If then such obvious injustices to future people arising from th e fa vouring or exclusive concern with immediate successors are to be avoided, obligations to the future will have to be seen as in some way fairly distributed ove r time, and not merely as accruing to particular generations in the way the chain picture suggests . IV . ATTEMPTS TO QUALIFY OBLIGATIONS TO THE FUTURE: ECONOMISTIC UNCERTAINTY AND INDETERMINACY ARGUMENTS. While there are grave difficultie s for the unconstrain ed position, qualificatio n leads to a more defensible position. According to the main qualified position we a r e not entirely unconstrain ed with respe ct to the distant future , there are obligations , but these are not so important as those to the present, and the interests of distant future people cannot weigh very much in the scale against those of the pres ent and immediate future . The interests of future people then, except in unusual cases, coun t for very much l ess than the interests of present people. Hence such thin gs as nuclear development and various exploitativ e activities which benefi t present people should proceed, even if people of the distant future are (somewha t) disadvantag ed by them . The qualified position appears to be widely held and is implicit in prevailing economic theories , where the position of a decrease in weight of future costs and benefits (and so of future interests) is obtained by application over time of a discount rate , so dis counting costs and risks to future people. a t tempt to apply economics as a moral theory, something that is becoming increasingl y common , can lead then to the qualified position. What is objectionab le in such an approach is that The economics should operate within the bounds of moral (deontic) constraints , just as in practice it operates within legal constraints , not detennine what those constraints are. There are moreover alternative economic theories and simply to adopt, without further ado, one which discounts the future is to beg many questions at issue. 15. Among the arguments that economists offer for generally discounting the future, the most threadbare is based on the assumption that future generations will be better off than present ones, and so better placed to handle th e waste problem. 18 Since there is mounting evidence that future ge ne rations may well not be better off than present ones, especially in things that matter, no argume nt for discounting the interest s of future gcncrntionfl on thi s can carry much weight. Nor is that all that is wrong with the argument. biH:1i. B For it depends at base on the assumption that poorer contemporar ies would be making sacrifices to richer successors in foregoing such (allegedly beneficial) development s as nuclear power . That is, it depends on the already scotched sacrifice argument . In any case, for the waste disposal problem to be legitimatel y bequeathed to the future gene rations, it would have to be shown, what recent economic progress hardly justifies, that future generations will be , not just better off , but so much better off and more capable that they can duly absorb the nuclear waste burden. A more plausible argument for discounting is directly in terms of opportunity costs. It is argued , from the fact that a dollar gained now is worth much more than a dollar received in the non-immedia te future (because the first dollar could meanwhile be invested at compound interest), that discounting is required to obtain equivalent monetary values, and so for efficient allocation of resources . Similarly it is argued, by virtue again of equalizatio n of monetary value, that compensatio n - which is what the waste problem is taken to come to economica lly - costs much less now th an later . Thus a few pennies set aside (e.g . in a trust fund) now or in the future, if need be, will suffice to compensate eventually for any victims of remote radioactive waste leakage. There are, presently at least , insurmounta ble practical difficultie s about applying such discounting , e . g . how to de t ermine appropriate future discount rates . A more serious objection is that applied generally, the argument presupposes , what is false, that compensatio n, like value, can always be converted into monetary e quivalents , that peo ple (including those outside market frameworks) can be monetarily compensated for a variety of damages, i n cluding cancer and loss of life . There is no compensatin g a dead man, or for a lost species. In fact the argument presupposes a do uble reduction neither part of which can succeed : it is not just that value cannot in general be represented at all adequately monetarily , 19 but (as against utilitariani sm, for example) that constraints and obligations can not be somehow reduced to mat t ers of value . It is also presupposed that all decision me thods, suitable for requisite nuclear choices, 16. are bound to apply discounti ng . This is far from so : indeed Goodin argues that, on the contrary, more appropria te decision rules do not allow discounti ng, and discounti ng only works in practice with expected utility rules (such as underlie cost-bene fit and benefit-r isk analyses) , which are, he contends strictly inapplica ble for nuclear choices (since no t all outcomes can be duly determine d and assigned probabil ities, in the way that applicatio n of the rules requires. ). 20 As the preceding arguments reveal, the discounti ng move often has the same result as the unconstra ined position . If, for instance, we consider the cancer example and reduce costs to payable compensa tion, it is evident that over a sufficien tly long period of time discounti ng at curren t prices would lead to the conclusio n that there are no recoverab le damages and so , in economic terms, no constrain ts . In short, even certain damage to future people could be written off. One way to achieve the bias against future people is by the applicatio n of discoun t rates which are set in accord with the current economic horizons of no more than about 15 years, 21 and applicati on of such rates would simply beg the question against the i.nterests and rights of future pe ople . Where there is certain future damage of a morally forbidden type, for example , the whole method of discounti ng is simply inapplica ble, and its use would violate moral constrain ts . Another argument for the qualified position, which avoids th e objection s from cases of certain damage, comes from probabili ty considera tions. The distant future, it is argued , is much more uncertain than t he present and itillue diate fut ure, so that probabili ties are consequen tly lower, perhaps even approachi ng or coincidin g with zero for any hypothesi s concernin g the distant future. But then if we take ac count of probabil iti es in the obvious way , by simply multiplyi ng th e m against costs and benefits , it is evident that the interests of future people , except in cases where there is an unusually high degree of certainty , must count for (very much) less than those of present and neighbour ing people where (much ) high~r probabil ities are attached. So in the case of confl ict between the present and the future where it i s a question of weighing certain benefits to the people of the present and the immediat e future against a much lower probabili ty of indetenni nate costs to an indetermi nate number of distant future people, the issue would normally be decided in favour of the present, assuming anything like similar costs and benefits were involved . But of course it cannot be assumed that anything like similarly weighted costs and benefits are involved in the nucle ar case, especial ly if it is a question of risking poisoning some of the earth for half a million or so years , with consequen t risk of serious harm to thousands of ge nerations of future people, in order to obtain doubtful benefits for some present people, in the shape of the opportuni ty to maintain corporati on profitabi lity or to continue unnecess arily high energy use. And even if the costs an d benefits were comparabl e or evenly weighted, " 17. such an argument would be defective, since an analogous argument would show that the consigner's action is acceptable provided the benefit, e.g. the profit he stood to gain from imposing significant risks on other people, was s ufficiently large. Such a cost-benefi t or risk-benefi t approach to moral and decision problems , with o r without the probability frills , is quite inadequate where different parties are concerned or to deal with cases of conflict of interest or moral problems where deontic constraints are involved, and commonly yields counterintu itive results. For example, it would follow on such principles that it is permissible for a firm to injure, or very likely injure, some innocent party provided the firm stands to make a sufficiently large ga in from it. But the costs and benefits involved are not transferabl e in any simple or general way from one party to another . Transfers of this kind, of costs and benefits involving different parties, commonly rais e moral issues - e.g. is x entitled to benefit himself by imposing costs on y - which are not susceptible to a simple cost-benefi t approach of the sort adopted in promotion of nuclear energy, where costs to future people are sometimes dismissed with the soothing remark that any development involves costs as well as benefits. The limitations of tran sfer point is enough to invalidate the comparison, heavily relied on in building a case for the acceptabili ty of the nuclea r risk, between nuclear risks and those from such activities as airplane travel or cigarette smoking . In the latter case those who supposedly benefit from the activity are also, to an overwhelmin g extent, those who bear the serious health costs and risks involved . In contrast the users and supposed beneficiari es of nuclear energy will be r isking not only, or even primarily, their own lives and health, but also that of others who may be non-benefic iaries and who may be spatially or temporally removed, and these risks will not be in any dire ct way related to a person ' s extent of use . The transfer objection is essentially the same as that to the utilitarian ' s (happiness) sums as a way of solving moral conflict between different parties, and the introductio n of p r obability consideratio ns - as in utilita r ian de cision methods such as expected utility rules - does not change the principles involved but merely complicates the analysis . One might further object to the probability argument that probabiliti es involving distant future situations are not always less than those concerning the immediate future in the way the argument supposes , and that the outcomes of some morai prob l ems do not depend on a high level of probability anyway . In some sorts of cases it is enough, as the train parable reveals , that a significant risk is created ; such cases do not depend critically on high probability assignments . 18 . Uncerta inty argumen ts in various forms are the most common and importan t ones used by philo s ophers, economi sts and others to argue f or the position that we cannot be expe cted to distant future . take serious ac count of the effects of our actions on th e There are two strands to the uncertai nty argumen t, capable of s eparatio n , but frequen tly tangled up. Both argumen ts are mistaken , the first on a priori grounds, the second on a posterio ri grounds. The first argumen t is a gene ralised uncerta inty argumen t which runs as fol lows :- In contras t to the exa ct informa tion we can obtain about the present, the informa tion we can obtain about the effects of our a-ctions on the di s tant future is unreliab le, fuzzy and highly specula tive. But we cannot base assessm ents of how we shoul d act on informa tion of this kind, especia lly when accurate informa tion is obtainable about the present which would indicate differen t act ion. Therefo re we must r eg retfully ignore the uncertai n effects of our actions on the distant fut ure. More formally and crudely: One only has obligati ons to the futur e if t hese obliga tions are based on reliable in forma tion at present as regards th e distant future. Therefo re one has no obligati ons to the distant future. This first argumen t is essentia lly a variant on a sceptica l argwnen t in epistemo logy concerni ng our knowledg e of the future (formall y, replace 'obligat ions ' by 'knowled ge' in the crude stateme nt of the argumen t above). The main ploy is to conside rably overesti mate and oversta te the degree of certaint y availabl e with r es pect to the present and immedia t e future, and the degree of certaint y which is required as the basis fo r moral conside ration with r espect to the present and with respect to the f uture. Associa ted with thi s is the attempt to sugges t a sharp division as regards certaint y between the present and immedia te future on the one hand and the distant future on the other . We shall not find, we suggest , that there is any such sharp or simple divi sion between the distant future and the adjacen t future and the present, at l east with re spect to those things in th e pres e nt which are normally subject to moral constra ints. We can and constan tly do act on the basis of such "unrelia ble " informa tion, as the sceptic as regards the future conveni ently labels "unce rta i nty"; for scepticproof certaint y is rarely, or never, availab le with respect to much of the present and immedia te future . In moral situatio ns in the pres e nt, action often takes acco unt of risk and probabi lity , even quite low probab iliti es . Conside r again the train example. We do not need to know for certain that the containe r will break and the lethal gas escape . In fact it does not even have to be probable , in the relevan t sense of more probable than not, in order for us to condemn the consign er's action. It is enough that there is a signific ant risk of harm in this sort of case. It does not matter if the decrease d wellb eing of the consigne r is certain and that the prospec ts of the passeng ers quite uncertai n, the resoluti on of the problem is neverth eless clearly in fa vour of the so-calle d "specul ative" and "unrelia ble". But if we do not require certaint y of action to apply moral constra ints in cont emporary affairs, why 19. should we require a much higher standard of certainty in the future? Why should we require for the future, ep istemic standards which the more familiar sphere of moral act ion concerning the present and adjacent futur e does not need to meet? The insistence on certainty as a necessary condition before moral consi deration ca n be given to the distant future, then, amounts to an eipstemic double standard. But such an epistemic double standard, proposed in explaining th e difference between the present and the future a nd to justify ignoring future peoples' interests, in fact cannot itself provide an explanation of the differences, since it already presupposes different standards of certainty appropriate to e ach class, which difference is in turn in need of justification. The second uncertainty argument is a practical unc e rtainty argument, that whatever our theoretical obligations to the future, we cannot in practice take the interests of future people into account becaus e uncertainty about the distant future is so gross th a t we canmot determine what the lik ely cons equences of actions on it will be and therefore, however good our intentions to the people of the distant future are, in practice we have no choice but to ignore their interests. Uncertainty is gross where certain incompatible hypotheses are as good as one another and there is no rati onal ground for ch oosing between them. this way : - The seco!ld uncertainty argume nt can be put alternatively If moral principles are. like other principles, implicational in form, that is of such forms as "if x has character h then x is wrong, for eve r y (action) x", then what the argument claims is that we cannot ever obtain the info rmation about future actions which would enable us to detach the an tecedent of the implication . So even if moral principles theoretically apply to future people, in practice they cannot be applied to obtain cl ear conclusions or dire ctions concerning contemporary action action of th e "It is wrong to do x" type. Many of the assumptions of the second argument can be conceded. If th e distant future really is so grossly uncertain that in every case it is impossible to determine in any way that is better than chance what th e effects of present action will be, and whether any given action will help or hinder future people, then moral principles, although they may apply theoretically to th e future, will in practice not be applicable to obtain an y clea r conclusions about how to act. on action . Hence the distant future will impose no practical moral constraints However the argument is factually incorrect in assuming that the future always is so grossly uncertain or indeterminate . Admittedly there is often a high degree of uncertainty concerning the distant future , but as a matter of (contingent) fact it is not always so gross or sweeping as the " 20 . argument has to assume . There are some areas where un certainty is not so grea t as to ex clude constraints on action, especially when account is taken of the point , which was noticed in connection with the first argument, that complete certain ty is commonly not required for moral constraints and that all that may be needed in some cases is the creation of a significant risk. Again there is considerable uncerta inty about many factors which are not highly, or at all, morally r e levant, but this does not extend to many factors which are of much greater importance t o moral is sues . For example, we may not have any idea what the fashions will be in a hundred years in names or footwear, or what flavour s of ice cream people will be eating if any, but we do have excellent reason to believe, espe cially if we consider 3000 years of history, that what peop le there are in a hundred years are likely to have material and psychic needs not entirely unli ke our own, that they will need a healthy biosphere for a good life; that like us they will not be immune to radiation; that their welfare will not be enhanced by a high incidence of cancer or ge netic defec ts, by the destruction of resources, or the elimination from the ear th of that wonderful variety of non-human life which at present makes it such a rich and interesting place . For this sort of r eason , the second uncertainty argument should be rejected. The case of nuclear waste storage, and of uncertainty of the effects of it on future people, is one area where uncertainty in morally relevant respects is not so great as to preclude moral constraints on action, where we can ascertain if not absolute certainties at least probabilities of the same sort of orde r as are considered sufficient for the application of moral principles in parallel contemporary cases, especially where spatially remote people are involved. In particular there is not gross indeterminacy or uncertainty; it is simply not true that incompatible hypotheses about what may happen are as good as each other. It is plain that nuclear waste storage does impose significant risks of harm on future people, and, as is evident from the train example, the significant risk of harm is enough in cases of this type to make moral constraints applicable. In terms of the defects of the preceding uncertainty arguments, we can see the defects in a number of widely employed uncertainty arguments used to write off probable or possible harm to future people as outside the scope of prope r consideration. Most of these popular moves employ both of the uncer taint y arguments as suits the case, switching from one to the other in a way that is again reminiscent of sceptical moves . For example, we may be told that we cannot r eally take account of future people because we cannot be sure that th ey will exis t or that their tast es and wants will not be completely different from our own, to the point where they will not suffer from our exhaustion of resources or from the 21. things that would affect us. But this is to insist upon compl e t e ce r taint y of a sort be yond what is required for the pre sent and imme diate future, whe r e there i s also commonly no guarantee that some disast e r will not overtake t hose we are mo rally cowmi tted to. Again we may be told that th e r e i s no guarant ee that future peopl e will be worthy of any e fforts on our part, because th ey may be mo rons or for ever plugged into enjoyme nt or other machin es . Even if on e is prepare d t o accept the elitist approach presupposed - according to which only those who meet certain properly civilized or int e ll e ctual standards a r e e ligible for moral consideration - what we are being han de d in such ar guments as a serious defeating consideration is a gain a mere outside possibility li ke the sceptic who says that solid-looking desk in front of us is pe rhaps only a facade, not because he has any particular r e ason for doing so, but bec ause he hasn't looked around the back , drilled holes in it, etc. etc . Ne ith e r the cont emporary nor the historical situation gives any positive reason for supposing that a lapse into universal moronity or universal-pleas ure-machine escapism is a serious possibility, as opposed to a logical possibility. We can contrast with th e se me re logical possibilities the very real historically supportab l e risks of escape of nuclear waste or decline of a civilisation through destruction of its resource base. The possibilities just considered in these uncertainty argume n t s of sceptical character are not real possibilities. Another argument which may consider a real possibility, but still does not succee d in showing th a t it is a c ce ptab l e to proceed with an action which would appear to be harmful to future , people, is often introduced in the nuclear waste cas e . This is the argument that future p eople may discover a rigorously safe and permanent storage me thod for nuclear was tes before they are damaged by escaped waste material . Let us grant for the sake of the argument that this is a real possibility (though physical arguments may show that it is not) . This still does not affect the fact that there is a significant risk of serious damage and that the creation of a significant risk is enough to rule out an action of this type as morally impermissible . In just the same way, future people may discover a cure for cancer : that this appears to be a live possibility, and not merely a logi cal possibility, does not make the action of the firm earlier discussed, of producing a substance likely to cause cancer in future people, morally admissible . The fact that there was a real possibility of future people avoiding the harm would show that actions of these s orts were admissible only j_f what was required for inadmissibility was certainty of harm or a very high probability of it . In such cases before such actions could 22. be conside r e d admissible what would be required is far more than a possibility, 22 real or not - it is at least the availability of an applicable, safe, and rigorously tested, not merely speculative, technique for achieving it, something that future people could reasonably be expected to apply to protect th emselves . The strategy of these and other uncertainty arguments is fairly clear then, and may be brought out by looking yet again at the train example wh ere the consigner says that he cannot be expected to take account of th e effec t of his actions on the passengers b ec ause they may find an effective way to deal with his parcel or some lucky or unlucky accident may occur, e.g . the train may break down and they may all change to a different transport leaving the parcel behind, or the train may crash killing all the passengers before the container gets a chance to leak. These are all possibilities of course, but there is no positi ve r eason to believe that they are any more than that, that is they are not live possibilities. The strategy is to stress such remote possibilities in order to create the false impression that there is gross uncertainty about the future, that the real possibility that the container will break should be treated in the same way as these mere logical possibilities, that uncertainty about the future is so great as to preclude the consigner's taking account of the passengers' welf are and th e real possibility of harm from his parcel and thereby to excuse his action. A related strategy is to stress a real possibility, such as finding a cure for cancer, and thereby imply that this removes the case for applying moral constraints. This move implicitly makes the assumptions of the first argument, that certainty of harm, or at least a very high probability of harm is required before an action can be judged morally inadmissible, and the point of stressing the re al possibility of avoidance of damage is to show that this allegedly r eq uired high degree of certainty or probability cannot be attained. That is, the strate gy draws attention to some real uncertainty implying that this is sufficient to defeat th e application of moral constraints . But, as we have seen, this is often not so. Closely related to uncertainty arguments are arguments premissed on the indeterminacy of the future . In particular it is argued that the indeterminacy, for example , with respect to the number and exact character of people at future times, would at least prevent the interest of future people being taken into account where there is a conflict with the present . Since th e ir numbers are ind eterminate and their interests unknown how, it is asked, can we weigh their competing claims against those of the present and immediate future where this information is available in a more or less accurate form? The question is rais ed particularly by problems of sharing fixed quantities of resources among present and future people, for example oil, when the numbers of the latte r are indeterminate. Such problems are indeed difficult, but they are not resolved by ignoring the claims of the future, any more than the problems raised by the need to take account in decision-making of factors difficult to quantify are resolved by 23, ignoring such factors. Nor are distributio nal problems as large and representat ive of a class of moral prob lems concerning the future as the tendency to focus on them would suggest. It can be conceded that there will be cases where the indetermina cy of aspects of the future will make conflicts very difficult to resolve or indeed irresoluble - a realistic ethical theory will not deliver a decision procedure - but there will equally be othe r conflict cases where the level of indetermina cy does not hinder resolution of the issue, e . g . the train example which is a conflict case of a t ype . In particular, th e re will be many cases which are not solved by weighing numb ers , n umbers of interests, or whatever , cases for which one needs to know only the most general probable characteris tics of future people . The crucial question which emerges is then : are there any features of futu re people which would disqualify them from full moral consideratio n o r r e duce thei r claims to such below those of present people? The answe r is: in principle None . Prima facie, moral principles are universalis able , and lawlike, in that they ap ply independent ly of position in space or in time, for examp le. But universalis ability of principles is an outcome of those ethical theories whi ch are capable of dealing satisfactor ily with the pres ent : in other words, a theory that did not allow properly for the future would be found to have defects as regards th e present, to deal unjustly or unfairly with some present people, e .g. those remotely located, those outside some select subgroup, such as (whit e skinned) humans , etc . The only candidates for characteris tics that would fairly rule out future people are the logical features we have been looking at, such as uncertainty and indetermina cy; but, as we have argued, it would be far too sweeping to see thes e features as affecting the moral claims of future people in a general way. These special features only affect certain sorts of cases (e.g. the determinatio n of best probable of practical course of action given only present information ) . In particular, they do not affect cases of th e so~t be ing considered, nuclear development , where highly determinate or certain infonnation about the numbers and characteris tics of the class likely to be harmed is not required, nor is certainty of damage. To establish obligations to the future a full universaliz ability principle is not required: it is enough that the temporal position of a person cannot affect his entitlement to just and fair treatment, to full moral consideratio n; 24 inversely, that it is without basis to discriminat e morally against a person in virtue of his temporal position . As a result of this . 23a. universalizabi lity, there are the same general obligations to future peo ple as to the present; and thus there i s the same obligation to take account of them and thei r interests in what we do, to be careful in our actions, to take account of the probability (and not just the certainty) of our actions causing harm or damage , and to see, other things being equal, that we do not act so as to rob them of what is necessary for the chance of a good life . Uncertainty and inde t e rminacy do not relieve us of these obligations. If in a closely comparable case concerning the present the creation of a significant risk is enough to rule out an action as immoral, and there are no independent grounds for requiring greater certainty of 24. harm in the future case under conside ration, then futurity alone will not provide adequate grounds for proceed ing with the action, thus discri mina ting against future people. Accordin gly we cannot escape, through appeal to futurity , the conclusi on already tentativ ely reached, that proposa ls for nuclear developm ent in the present and likely future state of technolo gy and practice s for future waste disposa l are immoral. Before we conside r (in section VII) the remainin g escape route from this conclusi on, through appeal to overridi ng circumst ances , it is importan t to pick up th e further case (which heavily r einforce s the tentativ e conclusi on) against nuclear developm ent, since much of it relies on ethical princip les similar to those that underlie obligati ons to the future, and since it too is commonly met by similar appeal to extenua ting ci rc umstanc es. V. PROBLEMS OF SAFE NUCLEAR OPERATION: REACTOR EMISSIONS, AND CORE MELTDOWN . The eth ical problems with nuclear power are by no means confined to futur e creature s. Just as remoten ess in time does not erode obligati ons or enti tl emen ts t o just treatmen t, neither does location in spac e , or a particu lar geograp hical position . First of all, the problem of nuclear waste disposa l rais es serious question s of distribu tive justice not only across time, across generat i ons, but also across space. Is one state or region entitled to dump its radioac tive polluti on in another state's or region's yard or water s? When that region receives no due compens ation (whateve r that would amount to, in such a case), and the people do not agree (though the leaders imposed upon them might)? The answer, and the argumen ts underpin ning the answer, are both like those already given in arguing to the tentativ e conclusi on concerni ng the injustic e of imposing radioac tive wastes upon future people. But the cases are not exactly the same: USA and Japan cannot endeavo ur to discoun t peoples of the Pacific in whose regions they propose to drop some of their radioac tive pollutio n in quite the same way the y can discoun t people of two centurie s hence . (But what this conside ration really reveals is yet another flaw in the idea that entitl ement to just treatmen t can be discoun ted over time.) Ethical issues of distribu tive justice, as to equity , concen1 not only the spatio-t emporal location of nuclear waste, but also arise elsewher e in the assessm ent of nuclear developm ent; in particu lar, a s regards the treatmen t of those in the neighbou rhood of reactors , and, dif fe rently, as regards the • distribu tion of (alleged ) benefits and costs from nuclear power across nations. 25 People living or working in the vicinity of a nuclear reactor are subject to special costs and risks : firstly, radioac tive pollutio n, due to the fact that reactors discharg e radioac tive materia ls into the air and water near the plant, 25 . and secondly catast rop hic accidents, such as (steam) explosion of a reactor . immediate question is whether such costs an d risks can be imposed, with any An eth ical legitimacy, on these people, who frequently have little or no say in their imposition, and who have mostly not been informed of any choices regarding the "risk/benefit tradeoffs" of nuclear technology. That they are so imposed, without local participation, indeed often without local input or awareness as with local opposition, reveals one part of the antidemocratic face of nuclear development, a part that nuclear development shares however with otl1er largescale polluting industry, where local participation and que stions, fundamental to a genuine democracy of regional det ermination and popular sovereignty , are commonly ignored or avoided. The "normal" emission, during plant operation, of low level radiation car ri es carcinogenic and mutagenic costs . While the re are undoubtedly costs, there remains, however, substantial disagreement over the likely numbe r of cancers and precise ex tent of genetic damage induced by exp os ure to such rad iation , over the local health costs involved. Under t he Old Paradigm, whi ch (ill egi timately) permits free transfer of costs and risks from one person to another, the e thical issue directly raised is said to be: what extent of cancer and genetic damage, if any, is permissibly traded for the advantages of nucl ear power, and under what conditions? Under the Old Paradigm the issue is th en translat e d into decision-theor etic questions, such as to 'how to employ risk/benefit analysis as a prelude to government regulation' and ' how to determine what is an acceptab le level of risk/safe ty for the public. 26 The Old Paradigm attitude, reflected in the public policy of some countries that have such policies, is that the economic benefits conferred by allowing radiation emissions outweigh the costs of an increase in cancer and genetic damage . An example will reveal that such evaluations, which rely for what appeal th ey have on a dubious utilitarianism, will not pass muster. It is a pity about Aunt Ethyl getting cancer, but it's nice to have this air con ditioner working in summer . Such frequently trivial and rather inessential benefits, which may be obtained alternatively, e.g. by modification of houses, in no way comp ensate for the agony of cancer . 27 The point is that the costs to one party a r e not justified, especially when such benefits to other parties can be alte rnatively obtained without such awful costs , and morally indef ensible , being imposed . People, minorities, whose position is particularly compromised are those who live within 50 miles of a nuclear plant . (Children , for example, are in a 26. particularl y vulnerable position, since they are severa l times more likely to contract cancer through exposure than normal adults). In USA, such people bear a risk of cancer and genetic damage of as much as 50 times that borne by the population at large. A non-negligi ble percentage (in excess of 3% of those exposed for 30 years) of people in the area will die, all egedly for the sake of the majority who are benefitted by nuclear powe r production (allegedly, for th e real reasons for nucl e ar development do not concern this silent majority) . Whatever charm the argument from overriding benefits had, e ve n unde r the Old Paradigm, vanishes once it is seen that t he re are alternative , and in several respects less expensive, ways of deliveri ng the r eal benefi ts involved. There are several other tricks used in showing that the imposition of r adia tion on minorities, most of whom have little or no genuine voice in the location of reactors in their environment and cannot move away without serio us losses, is quite (morally) acceptable. One ch eape r trick, deployed by the US Atomic Energy Commission, 28 is to suppose that it is permissible to double, through nuclear technology, the level of (natural) radiation that a pop ulation has received with apparently negligible consequence s, th e argument being that the additional amount (being equivalent to the "natural" level) is also likely to have negligible consequence s. The increased amounts of radiation - with their large man-made component - are then accounted no rmal, and, of course, so it is th en claimed, what is normal is morally acceptable. None of the steps in this argument is sound. Drinking one bottle of wine a day may have no illeffects, whereas drinking two a day certainly may affe ct a person's well-being; and while the smaller intake may have become normal for the person, the larger one will, unde r such conditions, not be. Finally, what is or has become normal, e . g. two murde rs or twenty cancers a day in a given city, may be far from acceptabl e . In fact, even the USA, which has strict standards by comparison with most other countries with planned nuclear reactors, permits ra diation emissions very sub s tantially in excess of the standards laid down; so the emission situation is worse than me re consideratio n of the standards would disclose. Furthermore , the monitoring of the standards "imposed" is entrusted to th e nuclear op erators themselves, scarcely disintereste d parties . Public policy is determin ed no t so as to guarantee public he alth, but rather to serve as a ' public pacifier' wh ile private nuclear operations proceed relatively unhampered . 29 2 7. While radioacti ve emissions are nn ordinary feature of react o r op e ration, breakdown is, hopefully , not: an accident of magnitude is accounted , by official definitio n, an 'extraord inary nuclear occurrenc e'. But such accidents can happen, and almost have on several occasions (the most notorious being Three Mile Island). 30 If the cooling and emergency core cooling systems fail in American (light water) 30a r e actors , then the core melts and 'containm ent failure' is likely, with the r e sult that an area of 40,000 square miles could be radioacti vely contamina ted . I n the event of the worst type of accident in a very small reactor, a steam explosion in the reactor vessel, about 45,000 people would be killed instantly and at least 100,000 would die as a result of the accident , prope rt y da mages would exceed $1 7 billion and an area the size of Pennsylva nia would be destroyed . Mod e rn nuclear reactors are about five times the size of the reactor for which . . 31 t h ese conservat ive Us governmen t f'igures are given t he con s equences of a s imilar accident with a modern reactor would according l y be much great e r still. Th e consigner in risking the lives, we ll-being and property of the passenger s on the train has acted inadmissi bly. Does a governme nt-sponsor ed private utility act in a way that is anything other th an much less responsib le in siting a nuclear reactor in a community , in planting such a dangerous package on the community train. The answer will be No, if the analogy holds good and the consigner s ' action is , as we would ordinaril y ·suppo se , inadmissi ble and i rrespon- sible. The proponent s of nuclear power have in effect argued to the cont rary, while at the same time endeavour ing to shift the dispute out of the ethical arena and into a technolog ical dispute as to means (in accordanc e with the Old Paradigm) . It has been contended , firstly, what con trasts with the train example, that there is no real possibili ty of a catas trophic nuclear accident . Indeed in the influenti al Rassmusse n report 32 - which was extensive ly used to support public confidenc e in US nuc lear fission technolog y - an even stronger, an incredibl y strong , improbab ility claim was stated: n amely , the likelihoo d of a catastrop hic nucle ar accident is so remote as to be '3.lmost) impossi.bl e. The main argument for this claim de rives from the assumptio ns and estimates of the report i.tself . These assumptio ns like the claim are undercut by nuclear incidents that came very close to accidents , incidents which reflect what happens in a reactor rather better than mathemat ical models. As with the storage of nuclear wastes, so with the operation of nuclear reactors, it is important to look at what happens in the actual world of technolog ical limitatiom s and human error, of waste leakage and r eactor inciden t s and quite possibly accidents , not in an ideal world far removed from the actual , a technolog ical dream world whe re there is no real possibili ty of a nuclear 28, catastrophe. In such an ideal nuclea r world, wh e re wa s t e disposal we r e fool-proof and reactors we re accident-proof, thin gs would no doubt be morally different. But we do no t live in s u ch a world . According to the Rasmuss en r e port its calc ulat ion of extremely low accident probabilities is based upon reasonable mathematical and technological a ssumptions and is methodo logically sound. This is ve ry far from being the cas e . The under- ly ing mathematical methods, variousl y called "fault tree analysis " and "reliability estimating techniques", a r e unsound, because they exclude as "not credible" po s sibilities or as "not significant" branches that are re a l possibilities, which may well be realised in the real world. It is the eliminations that are othe rworldly . In fact the me thodology and dat a of the report · · 1 y cr1.t1.c1.ze h as b een soun dl y an d d ec1.s1.ve . · · d . JJ And 1.t . h as b een s h own t1at I t he r e is a real possibili t y, a non-negligible probability, of a serious accident . It is contended, secondly, that even if there is a non-negli gib l e prob abi li ty of a reactor accident, still it is acceptable, be ing of no greater orde r than risks of accidents t hat ar e already socially accepted. Here we enco unt e r agai n that insidious e ngin e ering approach to morality built into mod e ls of an e conomic cast, e.g. benefit - cost balance s heets , risk assessment mode ls, et c. Risk assessment, a sophistica ti on of trans ac tion or tr ade -off mode ls, pur.-ports to p ro vide a compari s on between th e relative ri sks at tach ed to different options, e . g . e nergy options, which settl es th e ir ethical status . The fo llowing lines of argume nt are encountered in a risk assessme nt as applied to energy options: (i) if option a imposes costs on fewer people than option b then option a is preferable to option b; (ii ) option a involves a total net cost in terms of cost to people (e.g. deaths, injuries , etc .) which is less than th at of option b, which is already accepted; there for e op tion a is acceptable . 34 For example, the number likely to be killed by nuclear power stations is less than the likely number killed by cigarette smoking or in road accident s , which a r e accepted: so nuclear power stations are acceptable . A little reflection reveals that this sort of risk assessment argt.mlent involves the same kind of fallacy as transaction models. I t is far too simple -minded, and it ignores distrib ut ional and other r e l e vant aspect s of the context. In o rde r to ob tain an ethical assessment we s hould need a much fuller pi cture and we sho uld nee d to know at least t he s e thin gs :- do the costs and benef it s go to th e same parti es ; and is the person who undertakes the risks also t he person who receives the benefits or 29. primar ily, as in driving or cigare tte smokin g, or are the costs impos e d on other parties who do not benefi t? It is only if the parties are the same in the case of th e options compar ed, and there are no such distrib utiona l problem s, that a compar ison on such a basis would be val.id. 35 This is rarely the cas e , and it is not so in the case of risk assessm ents of energy options . Second ly, does the person incur the risk as a result of an activit y which he knowin gly underta kes in a situati on where he has a r easona ble choice, knowing it entails the risk, etc ., and is the level of risk in propor tion to the le~el of the rel evant ac tivity, e.g. as in smoking ? Thirdly , for what reason is the risk imposed : is it for a s e rious or a relativ ely trivial reason? A risk that is e thica lly accepta ble for a serious reason may not be ethica lly accepta ble for a trivial reason. Both the argume nts (i) and (ii) are often employe d in trying to justify nuclea r power. The second argume nt (ii) involve s the fallaci es of th e firs t (i) and an additio nal set , namely that of forgett ing that the health risks in the 36 nuclea r s e nse are cumula tive , and already high if not , some say , too high. The maxim "If you want the benefi ts you have to accept th e costs " is one thing and the maxim "If I want the benefi ts then you have to accept the costs (or some of them at least)" is anothe r and very differe nt thin g . It is a widely accepte d moral princip le, already argued for by way of exampl es and already invoked , that one is not, in genera l, entitle d to simply transfe r cos ts of a signifi cant kind arising fron an activit y which benefi ts onesel f onto other parties who are not involve d in the activit y and are not benefi ciaries 37 . This transfe r princip le is especi ally clear in cases where the signifi cant costs include an effect on life or health or a risk thereof , and where the benefi t to the benefi tting par ty :is of a noncru cial or dispen sible nature , becaus e, e . g. it can be substit uted for or done withou t. Thus, for instanc e , one is not usually entitle d to harm , or risk harmin g, anot her in the process of be nefitti ng onesel f . Suppose , for anothe r example , we consid er a village which produc es, as a result of an indust rial process by which it lives, a noxious waste materi al which is expens ive and difficu lt to dispose of and yet creates a risk to life and health if undispo sed of. Instead of giving up thei r i.ndus trial process and turning to some other way of making a living such as farming the surroun ding country side, they persis t with this way of life but ship their problem on a one-way deliver y service , on the train, to the next village . The inhabi tants of this village are then forced to face the problem either of under taking the expens ive and difficu lt dispos al process oor of sustain ing risks to thei r own lives and health or else leaving the village and their livelih oods. Most of us would see this kind of transfe r of co s ts as morally unacce ptable . JO. From this arises a necessary condition for ene rgy options: that to be morally acceptable they should not involve the trans fer of significant costs or risks of harm onto parties who are not involved, do not use the energy source or do not benefit correspondingly from its us e . Included in the scope of this condition are not only future people and future generations (those of the next vil lages) but neighbours of nuclear reactors , especially, as in third world co untries, neighbours who are not nuclear powe r users. The distribution of costs and damage in such a fashion, i.e. on to non-beneficiaries is a characteristic of certain wide spread and serious forms of pollution, a nd is one of its most obje ctionable moral features. It is a corollary of the condition that we sho ul d not hand the world on t o our successors in substantially worse shape than we received it - t he tramsmission principle. For if we did then that would be a signi ficant transfe r of costs . (The corollary can be independerltly argued for on the basis of certain e t hic al theories) . VI . OTHER SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL RISKS AND COSTS OF NUCLEAR DEVELOPMENT, ESPECIALLY NUCLEAR WAR. The problems already discuss ed by no means exhaus t the envi ronme ntal, health and safety risks and costs in or arising from th e nuclea r fuel cycle. The full fuel cycle include s man y sta ges both before and after r eacto r operation , apart from waste disposal, namely mining , milling, conversion, enrichment and preparation, reprocessing spent fuel, and trans po rtati on of materials. Seve ral of these stages involve hazards. Unlike the special risks in the nuclear cycle - of sabotage of plants, of theft of fissionab le material, and of the further prolife ration of nuclear armaments - thes e hazard s have parallels, if not exact equival ents, in other very polluting method s of generating power, e . g. "workers in the uranium mining industry sustain 'the same risk' of 38 fatal and nonfatal injury as workers in the coal industry". Furth ermo re, the various (often serious) hazards encountered in working in some sectors of uranium fabrication should be differently viewed from those resultin g from location, for instance from already living where a reactor is built or wastes are dumped. For an occupation is, in principle at any rate, chosen (as is occupational relocation), and many types of hazards incurred in workin g with radio a ctive material are now known in advance of choice of such a n occupation: with where one al re ady lives things are very different. The uranium mine r's choice of occup ation can be compared with the airline pilot's choice, whe r eas t he Pacific Islander ' s "fact" of location cannot be. The social issue o f arrangements that contract occupational choices and opportuni ti es and often a t l east ease peo ple into hazardous occupations such as uranium or tin or coal mining (where the risks, in contrast to airline piloting, are mostly not duly compensated), while very important, i s not an i ssue newly produced by nuclear associated occupa tions . 31. Other social and environm ental problems - though endemic where large-sca le industry operates in societies that are highly inegalita rian and include sectors that are far from affluent - are more imtimatel y linked with the nucle ar power cycle. Though pollu tion is a common and generally undesirab le component of large-sca le industria l operation , radioacti ve pollution , such as uranium mining for instance produces, is especiall y a legacy of nuclear developme nt, and a specially undesirab le one , as enormous rectifica tion estimates for de ad radioactive lands and waterways reveal . Though sabotage is a threat t o many large industrie s , so that modern factory complexes are often guarded like concentra tion camps (but from us on the outside), sabotage of a nuclear reactor can have dire consequen ces, of a different order of magnitude from most industria l sabotage (consider again the effects of core meltdown) . Though theft of material from more dubious enterpris es such as munitions works can pose threa ts to populatio ns at large and can assist terrorism , no thefts for allegedly peaceful enterp rises pose problems of the same order as theft of fissionab le material . No other industry produces materials which so readily permit of fabricatio n into such massive explosive s. No other industry is, to sum it up, so vulnerabl e on so many fronts. In part to reduce it, vulnerab ility, in part because of its long and continuin g associati on with military activitie s, the nuclear industry is subject to, and encourage s, several practices which (certainly given their scale) run counter to basic features of free and open societies , crucial features such as personal liberty, freedom of associati on and of expressio n, and free access to informati on . These practices include secrecy , restricti on of infonnati on, formation of speci al police and guard forces, espionage , curtailme nt of civil lib e rties. Already operators of nuclear installat ions are given extraordi nary powers, in vetting employees , to investiga t e the backgroun d and activitie s not only of employees but also of their families and sometimes even of their friends. The installati ons themselve s become armed camps, which especiall y offends British sensibili ties. The U.K. Atomic Energy (Special Constable s) Act of 1976 created a special armed force to guard nuclear installat ions and made it answerabl e ..• to the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority . 39 These developme nts in the United Kingdom, and worse in West Germany, presage along with nuclear developme nt increasin gly authorita rian and anti-demo cratic societies . That nuclear developme nt a ppears to force such political consequen ces tells heavily against it. 32. Nuclear developme nt is further indicted political ly by the dire ct connectio n of nuclear power with nuclear war. It is fortunate ly true that e thical questions concernin g nuclear war - for example, whether a nucle ar war is justified , or just, under any circumsta nces , and if so what circums tances are distingui shable from those concernin g nuclear power. Undoubted ly , however, t he spread of nuclear powe r is substanti ally increasin g the technical me ans for engaging in nuclear war and so, to that extent, the opportuni ty for , and chances of, nuclear engagemen t. Since nuclear wars are neve r account able positive goods , but are at best the lesser of major evils, nuclear wars are always highly ethically undesirab le . The spread of nuclear power according ly expands the opportuni ty for, and chances of, highly undesirab le consequen ces. Finally the la tt e r, so increasin g thes e chances and opportun ities, is itself undesirab le, and therefore what leads to it, nuclear developme n t, is also undesirab le . The details and considera tions that fill out this argume nt, from nuclea r war against nuclear developme n t, are many. They are fir stly technical , that it is a relativel y straightfo rward and inexpensi ve matte r to make nuclear explosive s given access to a nuclear powe r plant, secondly political , that nuclear engagemen ts once institute d likely to escalate and that those who control (or different ly are likely to force access to) nuclear power plant s do not shrink from nuclear confronta tion and are certainly prepared to toy with nuclear engagemen t (up to "strategi c nuclear strikes" at least) , and thirdly ethical, that wars invariabl y have immoral consequen ces, such as mas sive damage to involved parties, however high sounding their justifica tion is. Nucl ea r wars are certain to be considera bly worse as regards damage inflicted than any pr e vious wars (they are likely to be much worse than all previous wars p ut together) , because of th e enormous destructi ve power of nuclear weapons, and the extent of spread of their radioacti ve effec ts, and because of the expected rapidity and irreversi bility of any such confronta tions . The supportin g considera tions are, fourthly, drawn from decision theory, and a r e designed to show that the chances of such undesirab l e out comes is itself und e sirable . The core argument is in brief this (the argument will be elaborate d in section VIII):- Energy choice between alternativ e options is a case of de ci sion making under uncertain ty , because in particula r of th e gross uncertain ties involved in nuclear developme nt. In cases of this type the ap propriate rational procedure is to compare worst cons equences of each alternati ve, to reject those alternati ves with th e wor s t of these worst consequen ces (this is a pretty uncontrov ersial part of th e maximin rule which enjoins selection of the alternati ve with the best worst consequen ces) . The nuclear alternati ve has, in particula r because of the r e al possibili ty of a nuclear war, the worst worst consequen ce~ and is according ly a particula rly undesirab le alternati ve. 33. VII. CONFLICT ARGUMENTS,AND UNCOVERING THE IDEOLOGICAL BASES OF NUCLEAR DEVELOPMENT. As with nuclear war, so given the cumulative case against nuclear development , only one justificatory route r emains open, that of app e al to important overriding circumstances. That appeal, to be ethically acceptable, must go far beyond merely economic considerations. For, as already observed , the consigne r's action cannot be justifi ed by purely economistic argume nts, such as that his profits would ris e , the firm or the village would be more prosperous , or by appealing to the fact that some possibly uncomfortable changes would otherwise be needed. The transfer principle on which this assessment was based, that one was not usually entitl ed to cre ate a serious risk to othe rs for these sorts of reasons, applied more generally and, in parti cular, applied to the nuclear case. For this r eason the economistic arguments which are those most commonly advanced under th e Old Paradi gm to promote nuclear development - e .g. cheapness, efficiency, profitability for electri city utilities, and the need otherwise fo r uncomfortable changes such as restructuring of employment, investment and consumption - do not even begin to show that the nuclear alternative is an acceptable one. Even if these econornistic assumptions about benefits to present people were correct - it will be contended that most of them are not - the arguments would fail because economics (like the utilitarianism from which it characteristica lly derives) has to operate within the framework of moral constraints, and not vic e versa . What do have to be considered are however moral confli ct arguments, that is arguments to the effe ct that, unless the prima facie unacceptable (nuclear) alt e rnative is taken, some even more unacceptable alternative is the only possible outcome, and will ensue . For example, in the train parable, the consigner may a rgue that his action is justified becaus e unless it is take n his village will starve. It is by no means clear that even such a justification as this would be sufficient, especially where the risk to the passengers is high, as the case seems to become one of transfer of costs and risks onto others; but such a moral situation would no longer be so clearcu t, and one would perhaps hesitate to condemn any action taken in such circumstances. Some of the arguments advanced to show moral confl i ct are based on competin f commitments to present people, and others on competing obligatio ns to future people . both of which are taken to override the obligations not to impos e on the future significant risk of serious harm. The structure of such moral conflict arguments is based crucially on the presentation of a genuine and e xhaustive set of alternatives (or a t ].east practical alternatives ) and upon showing that the only alterna tives to admittedly mo rally undesirable actions are even more undesirable ones. If some practical alternative which is not morally worse than the action to be justified is overlooked, suppressed, or neglected in th e argument - for example, if in the village case it turns out that the villagers have another option to starvi ng or to the sendin g off of the parce l, name l y ea rning a liv ing in some other way - then the argum ent is defect ive and cannot r eadily be patche d . Just s uch a suppre ssion of practi cable altern atives has occurr ed in the argum ent design ed to show that the altern atives to the nuclea r option are even worse than the option itself , and that there are other factua l defect s in thes e argum ents as well. .In short, the argum ents depend essen tially on the presen tation of false dichot omies . A first argum ent, the povert y argum ent , is that there is an ove rridin g ob li gation to the poor , both the poor of the third world and the poor of indus trialis ed countr ies . Failur e to develo p nuclea r energy , it is often claime d, would amoun t to denyin g them the oppor tunity to reach the standa rd of afflue nce we curren tly enjoy and would create unemp loymen t and povert y in th e indus triali s e d n a tions. The unemp loymen t and povert y argume nt does not stand up to exami nati on eithe r for t he poor of th e indus trial countr ies or for thos e of th e thir d world. The re is good eviden ce that large- scale nuclea r energy will help to increa se unemp loymen t and povert y in the indus trial world, throug h the divers i on of very much availa ble capita l into an indust ry which is not only an excep tional ly poo r provi der of di rect employ ment , but also helps to reduce availa bl e jobs throug h encour aging substi tution o f energy use for labour use. 40 The argume n t that nuclea r ene rgy is needed for the third world is even less convin cing. Nuclea r energy is both politi cally and econom ically inapp ropria te for th e third world, since it requir es massiv e amoun ts of capita l , requir es numbe rs of import ed sci en tists and engine ers, but create s neglig ible local employ ment, and depend s for its feasib ility upon, what is largel y lackin g , establ ished electr icity transm ission system s and back-u p facili ties and suffic ient electr ical applia nce s to plug into the system . Politi cally it increa ses foreig n depend ence, adds to ce ntrali sed entren ched power and reduc es the chance for change in the oppres sive politi cal struct ures which are a large part of the proble m . 41 The fa c t that nuclea r energy is not in the intere sts of the people of t he third world does not of course mean that it is not in the intere sts of, and wanted by, their rulers , the wester nised and often milita ry elites in whose intere sts the econom ies of thes e countr ies are usuall y organi sed, and wanted often for milita ry purpos es . It is not patern alistic to examin e critic ally the demand s these ruling elites may make in the name of the poor. 35 . The po verty argume nt is then a fraud. Nuclear ene r gy will not be used t o help th e poor. Both for the third world and for the industr ialised co untrie s there are well-kno wn energy-c onservin g alternat ives and the practi cal option of developi ng oth e r energy sources, alternat ives some of which offer f a r bette r prospec ts for helping the poor . It can no longer be pretende d that there is no alt e rnative to nuclear de velopme nt: indeed nuclear de velopme nt is itself but a bridging , or stop-gap , procedu re on route to solar or perhap s fusion deve lopment . And there a r e various alternat ives : coal and other fossil fuels, geotherm al, and a range of solar op tions (includi ng as well as narrowly solar, wind, water, tidal and plant power), each po ss ibly in combina tion with cons e rvation measures ~ 2 Despit e the availab ility of alterna tives, it may still be pre t e nde d that nuclea r deve lopment is ne cess ary fo r affluenc e (what will emerge is that it is advantag eous for the power and aff luence of ce rtain select groups ) . Such an assumpt ion really und erlies part o f t he pover ty argumen t, which thus amounts to an elabora tion of th e trickledown argumen t (much f avoured within the Old Paradigm se tting) . For the a rgument runs : - Nuc l ea r developm ent is necessar y for (continu ing an d in c r eas in g) affluenc e. Affluenc e inevitab ly tr i ckl es down to th e poor. Th e r e for e nuclear developm ent benefits the poor . First, the argumen t does not on i ts own sh ow a nything specific about nuclear power : for it works equally well if ' ene r gy ' is substitu ted f or ' nuclear ' . It has also to be shown , what the next major argumen t will try to claim, that nuclear developm ent is unique among e ne rgy alternat ives in increasi ng affluenc e . The second assumpt ion , that affluenc e inevitab ly trickles down, has now been roundly refuted , both by r ecent historic al da ta, which show increasi ng affluenc e ( e .g. in terms of GNP averaged per capita) co upled with increasi ng poverty in several countrie s, both developi ng and de veloped , and th r ough economic models which reveal how "affluen ce" can increase withou t r e dist ribution occur ring . Another maj o r argumen t a dvanced to show moral conflic t app eals to a set of suppos e dly ove rr iding and competin g obligati ons to future people . We have, it is said , a du ty to pass on the immense ly valuable things and institut ions which our culture has develope d . Unless our high-tec hnology , high ene r gy industr ial society is continue d and fo s tered, our valuab l e institut ion s and tra ditions will fall into de cay or be swept away. The ar gument is essentia lly th a t without nuclear powe r, withou t th e conti n ued level of materia l wealth 43 it alone is assumed to make possible , the li gh ts of our civiliza ti on wil l go out. Fut ure people will be th e los e rs. 36, The lights-goin g-out argument doe s rais e quest ions as to what is valuable in o ur society, and of what characteris tics are necess ary for a good society . But for the most part th ese large questions, which deserve much full e r ex amination , can be avoided . The reason is that the argument adopts an extremely un critical position with re spe ct to present high-techno logy societi es , apparently assuming that they are uniformly and uniquely valuable . It assumes that technologi c society is unmodifiabl e , that it cannot be changed in the direction of energy conse rvation or alternative (perhaps high technology) energy sources without collapse. It has to be accepted and assessed as a whole, and virtually unlimited supplies of ene rgy - such as nuclear and only nuclear power is a ll eged t o furnish ar e essential to maintain this whole. These assumptions are hard to accept. The assumption that technologic al so c ie ty's energy patterns are unmodifiabl e is especially so - after all it has survived events such as world wars which have r equired major social and technologic a r es tructuring and consumption modificatio n. If western society ' s demands for energy a re totally unmodifiabl e without collapse, not only would it be committed to a program of increasing destruction , but one might ask what use its culture co uld be to future people who would very likely , as a consequence of this destruction , lack the resource base which th e argument assumes to be essential in the case of contemporar y society. There is also difficulty with th e assumption of uniform valuablene ss; but if this is rejected the question be comes not: what is necessary to maintain exis ting high-techno logical society and its political institution s, but rather: what is necessary to maintain what is valuable in that society and th e political institution s which are needed to maintain those valuable things . While it may be easy to argue that high energy consumption centrally controlled is necessary to maintain the political and economic status quo, it is not so easy to a rgu e that it is e ssential to maintain what is valuable, and it is what is valuable, presumably that we have a du ty to pass .on to the fut ure. The evidence, for instan ce from history, is that no very high level of material affluence or energy consumption is needed to maintain what is valuable. The re is good reason in fact to believe that a society with much lower energy and resource consumption would better foster what is valuable than our own. But e ve n if a radical change in these di rec tions is independent ly desirable, as we should arg ue, it is not necessary to presuppose such a change, in the short term at least, in order to see that the assumptions of the lights-goin g-out a rgument a re wrong. No enormous reduction of well-b e ing is required to consume less energy than at 37. present , and certainly far less than the large increase over present levels of consumption which is assumed in the usu al economic case for nucl ear energy . 44 What the nuclear strategy is really designed to do then is not to preven t the lights going out in west e rn civilisation , but to enable th e lights to go on burning all the time - to maintain and even increase the wattage output of th e Energy Extravaganza. In fact there is good reason to think that, far from the high e nergy consumption society fostering what is valuable, it will, es pecially if e nergy is obtained by nuclear fission means , be positively inimical to it. A society which has become heavily dependent upon an ext remely high centralised, controlled and garrisoned, capital- and expertise-intensive energy source, must be one which is highly susce ptible to entrenchment of power, and one in which the forces which control this energy source , whether capitalist or bureaucratic, can exert enormous power over the political system and over people's lives, even more than they do at present. Such a society would, almost inevitably t e nd to become autho ritarian and increasingly anti-democratic, as an outcome, among other things, of its response to the threat pos ed by dissident groups in the nuclea r . . situation. 45 Nuclear development may thus help in passing on to future generations some of th e worst aspects of our society - the consumerism, alienation, destruction of nature, and latent authoritarianism - while many valua ble asp e cts, such as the degree of political freedom and those opportunities for p ersonal and collective autonomy which exist , would be lost or diminish e d: political freedom , for example, is a high price to pay for consume ri sm and energy extravagance. But it is not the status quo, but what is valuable in our society, presumably, that we have some obligation to pass on to the future, and if possible enhance. Again, as in the case of the poverty arguments, clear alternatives, alternative social, economic and political choices, which do not involve such unacceptable consequences, are available. The alternative to the high technologynuclear option is not a return to the cave, the loss of all that is valuable, but either the adoption of an available alternative such as coal for power or, rath e r, the development of alternative technologies and lifestyles which offer far greater scope for the maintenance and further development of what is valuable in our society than the highly centralised nuclear option. The lights- going-out argumen t, as a moral conflict argument, accordingly fails, because it also is based on a false dichotomy. 38 . Thus the further escape route, the appeal to moral conflict, is, like the appeal to fut urity, closed. If then we apply - as we have argued we should - the same standards of morality to the future as we ought to acknowledge for the present, the conclusion that large-scal e nuclear developmen t i s a crime agains t the future is inevitable . Closed also, in the same way, are the escape routes to other ar_guments - from reactor melt-down, radiation emissions, and so on for rejecting nuclear development as morally unacceptable, for saying that it is not only a moral crime against the distant future but also a crime against the present and immediate future . In sum, nuclear development is morally unacceptable on several grounds. A corollary is that only political arrangements that are morally unacceptable will support the impending nuclear future. VIII. A NUCLEAR FUTURE IS NOT A RATIONAL CHOICE, EVEN IN OLD PARADIGM TERMS. The arg ument thus far, to anti-nuclear conclusions, has r elied upon, and defended premisses that would be rejected under the Old Paradigm; for examp l e, such theses as that the interests and utilities of future people are not discounte d (in contrast to the temporally-limited utilitarianism of marketcentred economic theory ), and that serious costs and risks to health and life cannot admissibly be simply transferred to uninvolved parties (in contrast to the transfer and limited compensation assumptions of mainstream economic theory). To close the cas e, arguments will now be outlined which are designed to show that even within the confines of the Old Paradigm, choosing the nuclear future is not a rational choice . Large-scale nucl ear developme nt is not just something that happens, it requires, on a continuing basis, an immense input of capital and energy . Such investment calls for substantial reasons; for the investment should be, on Old Paradigm assumptions, the best among feasible alt ernatives to given economic ends. Admi t tedly so much capital has already been invested in nucle ar fission research and development, in marka:l. contrast to other newer rival sources of power, that there is strong political incentive to proceed - as distinct from requisite reasons for further capital and energy inputs. The reasons can be divided roughly into two groups, front reasons, which are the reasons given (ou t) , and which are, in accordance with Old Paradigm percepts, pub l icly eco nomic (in that they are app roved for public consumption), and th e r ea l r ea s ons , which involve private economic factors and matters of power and social control. 39. The main argument put up, an economic growth argument, upon which variations are played, is the following version of the lights-going -out argument (with economic growth duly standing in for material wealth, and even for what is valuable!): - Nuclear power is necessary to sustain economic growth. Economic growth is desirable (for all the usual reasons, e . g. to increas e the size of the pie, to avoid or postpone redistributi on problems, and connected social unr e st, e tc.). Therefore nuclear power is desirable. The first premiss is part of US energy policy, 46 and the second premiss is supplied by standard economics textbooks . But both premisses are defective, the second because what is valuable in economic growth can be achieved by selective economic growth, which jettisons the heavy social and environmen tal costs carried by unqualified 47 economi c growth . More to the point, since the second premiss is an assumption of the dominant paradigm, the first premiss (or rath e r an appropriate and less vulne rabl e restatement of it) fails even on Old Paradigm standards. For of course nuclear power is not necessary given that there are other, perhaps costlier alt e rnatives . The premiss usually defended is some elaboration of th e premiss Nuc lear power is the economicall y best way to sustain economic growth, 'economicall y best' being filled out as ' most efficient', 'cheapest ' , 'having most favourable benefit-cos t ratio', etc. Unfortunate ly for the argument, and for nuclear development schemes, nuclear power is none of these things decisively, unless a goo d deal of economic cheating (easy to do) is done. Much data, beginning with th e cancellatio n of nuclear plant orders, can't be assembled to show as much. Yet the argument requires a true premiss, not an uncertain or merely possible one, if it is to succeed and detachment is to b e permitted at all, and evidently true premisses if the argument is to be decisive. The data to be summarised splits into two parts, public ( governmenta l) analyses, and private (utility) assessments . Virtually all available data concen1s the USA; in EuroZS, West and East, true cos ts of uniformly "publicly= controlled" nuclear power are generally not divulged. Firstly, the capital costs of nuclear plants, which have been rising much more rapidly than inflation, now exceed those of coal-fired plants . Komanoff has estimated that capital costs of a nuclear generator (of optimal capacity) will exceed comparable costs of a coal-fired unit by about 26 % in 1985. 49 And capital costs are only one part of the equation that now tell rather decisively against private utility purchase of new nuclear plants . Another main factor is the poor performance and low reliability of nuclear generators . Coney showed that nuclear plants can only generate about half the elect ricit y th ey were designed to produ ce , and that when Atomic Energy Commis sion estimates of relative costs of nuclear and coal power, which assumed that both opera t ed at 80% of design capacity , were adjusted accordingly , nuclear generated power proved to be far more 40. . h . d 50 expensive tan estimate. The discrepancy between actual and estimated capacity is especially important because a plant with an ac tual capacity factor of 55 % produced electricity at a cost about 25% high e r than if the plant had performed at the manufacturers' projected capacity rate of 70-75%. The low reliability of nuclear plants (p e r kilowatt output) as compared with the superior r e liability of smaller coal-fired plants adds to the case, on conventional economic grounds of ef ficienc y and product production costs , against nuclear powe r . Thes e unfavourable assessments are from a privat e (utility) perspective, before the very extensive public subsidization of nuclear power is duly taken into account . The main subsidies are through research and development , by way of insurance (under the important but doubtfully constitutional Price-Anderson 51 Act ), in en richme n 4 and in waste management . It has been estimated that charging such costs to the electricity consumer would increase electricity bills for nucl ea r power by at least 25% ( and probably much more) . Wh en official US cost/benefit analyses favouring nuclear power over coal are examined, it is f ound that they inadmissibly omit seve ral of the public costs i nvolve d in producing nuclear power . For example, the analyses igno re waste costs on the quite inadmissible ground that it is not known curren tly wha t t he costs involved are . But even using actual waste handling cos t s (while wastes await s torage) is enough to show that coal power is preferable to nuc l ear . 52 When further public costs, such as insurance against accident and for radiation damage , are dul y taken into account, the balance is swung stil l further i n favo ur of al te rnatives to nuclear and aga i nst nuclear power . In short , eve n on proper Old Par a digm accounting, the nu c l ear alte rn at iv e s hould be rejected. Nuclear development is not economical, it certainly se ems ; it has b een kept going n~ through its clear economic v iability, but by massive pub li c s ubsidization , of s e vera l types . In USA, to take a main examp le where information is available , nuclear developme nt is publicly supported through heavily subsidized or somet i mes free research and development , thro ugh the Price-Anderson Act, which sharply limits both private and public liability, i . e . wh ich in ef fe ct p rovided t he insurance subsidy making corporat e nuclear development e conomicall y f e asibl e, and through government ag r eement to handle all r adioactive wastes . While the Old Paradigm str ictly construed c annot sup port un economical developments, cont empo rary liberalisation of the Paradigm do e s allow fo r un economi c projects, seen as operated in the public interest, in such fields as soc ial welfare. Duly admitting s ocial welfare and some equity pr i nciples 41, i n th e dist ribut ion of wealt h (not necessa rily of pol l ution) l e ads the modern version of the Old Paradigm , called the Mo dified Old Paradigm . The main changes from the Old Paradigm are (as with state socialism) as emphasis of economic facto rs, e . g . individual self-he lp is down- played , wealth is to a small extent redistributed, e.g . through t:axation , market forces are re gulated or disp la ced (not in principle eliminat e d, as with stat e s ocialism). Now it has been cont ended - outrageous though it should now se e m - that nuclear powe r is i n the public interest as a means to various sought public ends, for example , apart from those already mentioned suc h as energy fo r growth and che ap e l ect ricity, and such as plantiful powe r f or heating and cooking a nd app lian ce use , avoidan ce of shortages , rat ioning , brown-outs and the like . Since alternative power sources, such as coal, could s e rve some ends given power was supplied with suitable extravagance, the argumen t has aga in to show that t he cho ice of nucle ar power over other a lterna tives is best in the requ isite respects, in s erving the public interes t. Such a n ar gumen t is a matter for decision theory, unde r which head cost -bene f i t analyse s which rank alternatives a l so fall as special cases . Decision theory purports to cover th eo r e tically the field of choice b e tween alte rnatives; it is present ed as the theory which ' dea l s with t he . pro bl em o f c h oosing one cours e o f acti. on among s e vera 1 poss1'bl. e cou r ses 1 . 53 Th us the choice of alt e rnati~ modes of energy pro duc ti on, t he ene r gy choice problem, be comes an exercise in decision theory; and the nucl ea r choice is often ''.justi f ied" in Old Paradigm terms t h rough app e al to decision t heo ry. But though decision theory is in principle comp rehens ive , as soon as it is put to work in such practi cal cases as energy choice, it is very considerably contracted in scope, several major assumptions are surreptitiously imported, and what one is confronte d with is a depauperate theory drastically pruned down to confo r m with the narrow utilitarianism of mainstream e conomic theory . The extent of reduction can be glimpsed by comp a ring , to take one imp ortant example , a general optimisation model for decision (wh ere uncertainty is not gross) with comparab le decision the ory methods, such as th e expe cted uti lity model. The general model for best choice among alte rnatives specifies maximisation of expected value subject to constrain ts, which may include et hical constraints ex clud ing cert a in alt e rnati ves under gi ven cond itions . Expected utility models dEmote value to utility, assuming thereby measurability and transference prop e rt ies t hat may not obtain, and elimina te constraints altoget her (absorbing what is fo rbidden, fo r examp le , as having a hi gh dis u tili ty, but one that can be compensate d for none th eless ). Thus , in 42. particula r, e thical constrain ts against nuclear developme nt are replaced, in Old Paradigm fashion, by allowance in principle for compensat ion for damage sustained . Still it is with decision making in Old Paradigm terms that we are now embroiled , so no longer at issue are the defective (nee-clas sical) economic assumptio ns made in the theory, for example as to the assessmen t of everythin g t o be taken into account through utility (which comes down to monetary terms : everythin g worth accountin g has a price), and as to the legitimac y of transferr ing with limited compensat ion risks and costs to involved parties. The energy choice problem is, so it has commonly been argued in the assumed Old Paradigm framework , a case of decision under uncertain ty . It is not a case of decision under risk (and so expected utility models are not applicabl e), be cause some possible outcomes are so unce rtain that, in contrast to the case of risk, no (suitably objective ) quantifia ble probabil ities can be assigned to them. It ems that are so uncertain are taken to include nuclear war and core me ltdown of a reactor, possible outcomes of nuclear de velopment : 54 widesprea d radioactive pollution is, by contrast, not uncertain . The correct rule for decision under uncertain ty is, in the case of energy ch oice , maximin, to maximize the minimum payoff, so it is sometimes contended . In fact, on ce again, it is unnecessa ry for present purposes to decide which energy option is selected, but only whether the nuclear option is rejected . Since competing selection rules tend to deliver the same rejection s for options early rejected as the nuclear options, a convergen ce in the rejection of the nuclear option can be effected . All rational roads lead, not to Rome, but to rejection of the nuclear option . A further convergen ce can be effected also , because the best possible (economic ) outcomes of such leading options as coal and a hydroelec tric mix are very roughly of the same order as the nuclear option (so Elster contends, and his argument can be elabo rated). Unde r these condition s complex decision rules (such as the Arrow-Hor wicz rule) which take account of both best possible and most possible outcomes under each option reduce to the maximin rule . Whichever energy option is selected under the maximum rule, the nuclear option is certainly rejected since there are options where worst outcomes are substanti ally better than that of the nuclear option (just consider the scenario if the nuclear nightmare , not th e nuclear dream, is realised) . Further applicati on of the rejection rule will reject the fossil fuel (predomin antly coal) option, on the basis of estimated effe cts on the earth 's climate from burning massive quantitie s of such fuels . 43. Although the rejection rule coupled with maximin position several rivals to maximin proposed, each enjoys a privileged for decision under uncertainty have been of which has associated rejection rules. Some of these rules , such as the risk- added reasonin g criticised by Goodin (pp.507-8), which 'assesses the riskiness of a policy in terms of the increment of risk it adds to those pre-existin g in the status quo, rather than in te rms of th e absolute value of the risk associated with the policy' are decidedly dubious, and rather than offering a rational decision procedure appears t o afford protection of the (nuclear) status quo. ~~at will be argued, or rather what Goodin has in effect argued for us, is that wherever one of these rival rules is applicable, and not dubious, it leads to rejection of the nuclear option . For example , the keep -options-op en or allow-for-r eversibility (not an entirely unquestiona ble rule rule 'of strictly limited applicabili ty') e xcludes the nuclear option because 'nuclear plants and their by-products have an air of irreversibi lity ... " One cannot simply abandon a nuclear reactor the way one can abandon a coal-fired plant"' (p.506). The compare-the alt e rnatives rule, in ordinary application , leads back to th e cost -b e nefit assessments , which, as already observed, tell decisively against a nuclear option when costing is done properly. The maximise-s ustainable-b enefits rule, which ' directs us to opt for th e policy producing the highest level of net b enefits which can be sustained indefinitel y', 'decisively favours r e newable sources ', ruling out the nuclear option. Other lesser rules Goodin discusses, which have not really been applied in the nuclear debate, and which lead yet further from the Old Paradigm framework, harm-avoida nce and protecting- thevulnerable als o yields th e same nuclear-exc luding results. Harm-avoida nce, in particular, points 1 decisively in favour of "alt ernative" and "renewable " energy sources ... combined with strenuous efforts at energy cons ervation' (p.442) . The upshot is evident: whatever reasonable decision rule is adopted the result is the same, a nuclear choice is rejected, even by Old Paradigm standards . Nor would reversion to an expected utility analysis alter this conclusion; for such analyses are but glorified cost-benefi t analyses,wi th probabiliti es duly multiplied in, and the conclusion is as before from cost-b enefit co nsideration s, against a nuclear choice. The Old Paradigm does not, it thus appears, sustain the nuclear juggernaut : nor does its Modificatio n. The real reasons for the continuing development program and the heavy commitment to the program have to be sought elsewhere, outside the Old Paradigm, at least as preached. It is, in any case, sufficientl y evident that contemporar y e conomic behaviour does not accord with Old Paradigm percepts, practice does not accord with nee-classic al economic .... 44. th eory nor, to consider the main modification , with social democratic th eory . There are , firstly, reasons of previous commitment, when nuclear power, cleverly promoted at least, looked a rather cheaper and safer deal, and certainly profitable one : corporations so committed are understandably ke en to realise returns on capital already invested . There are also typical self-interest reasons fo r commitment to the program, that advantages accrue to some, like those whose field happens to be nuclear engineering, that profits accrue to some, like giant corporations, that are influential in politica l affairs, and as a spin-off profits accrue to others , and so on . The r e are just as important, ideological reasons, such as a belief in the control of both political and physical power by t e chnocratic-entrepre nial elite, a belief in socl al control from above , control which nuclear powe r o f f ers f a r mo r e tlwn alternatives, some of which (vaguely) threaten to alter th e power bas e , a f a ith in th e unlimitedness of t e chnological enterprise, and nuclear in particular , so that any real probl ems that arise will be solved as development proceeds. Such b e li e f s are especially conspicuous in the British scene, among the gove rning and technocratic classes. Within contemporary corporate capitalism, thes e sorts of reasons for nuclear development are intimately linked, because thos e whos e types of enterprise benefit substantially from nuclear developme nt are commonly those who hold the requisite beliefs . It is then, contemporary corporate capitalsim, along with its state e n t erprise image, that fuels the nuclear juggernaut. To be sure , corporate capitalism , which is the political economy largely thrust upon us in we stern nations, is not necessary for a nuclear future; a totalitarian state of the t ype such capitalism often supports in the third world will suffice . But, unlike a hypothetical state that does conform to precepts of the Old Paradigm, it is sufficient for a nuclear future - evidently, since we are well embarked on such a future. The historical route by which the world reached its present advanced threshold to a nuclear future confirms this diagnosis. split into two main cases, the notional US This diagnosis can be development of nuclear power in the and the international spread of nuclear technology for which the US has been largely responsible . By comparison with the West, nuc lear power production i n th e small Eastern bloc is and is largely confined to the Soviet Union which had in 19 77 only about nuclear plants . one -sixth the wattage output of US Nuclear development in USSR has been, of course, a state controlled and subsidized venture, in which there has been virtually no public participation or discussion; but Russian technology has not been exported elsewhere to any great extent . American technology has . 45, The 60s were, because of the growth in electrici ty demand, a period of great expansion of the elec trical utilities in the US . These companies we re e ncouraged to build nuclear plants, rather than coal or oil burning plants, for several state controlle d or influence d reasons:- Firs tly, owing to governme ntal regulatio n procedure s the utilities could (it then seemed) earn a higher rate of profit on a nuclear plant than a fossil fuel one. Secondly , the US governmen t arranged to meet crucial costs and risks of nuclear operation , and in this way, and more directly through its federal agencies , actively encourage d a nuclear choice and nuclea r deve lopment. In particula r, state limitatio n of liability and shoulderi n g of part o f insurance for nu clear accidents and state arrangeme nts to handle nuclear wastes were what made profit able private utility operation appear feasibl e and r esulting in nuclea r investmen t. In the 70s, though the state subsidiza tion continued , the private pict ur e changed : 'high costs of construct ion combine d with low capacity factors and poor r eli ability have wiped out the last advantage that nuclear power ' had enjoyed in the US. Much as the domestic nuclear market in th e US is con trolled by a few co rpor ations , so the world mark et is dominated by a few countries , predomina ntly and first of all the US, which through its two leadi ng nuclear companies , We stinghous e and Gen e ral Electric, has been the major exporter of nuclear technolog y. 55 These companies were enabled to gain entry into European and subsequen tly world markets by US foreign policies, ba sically th e " Ato ms for Peace" program supplemen ted by bilateral agreement s providing for US technolog y , r e search, enri ched uranium and financial capital. ' The US offered a [ s tat e s ub si dize d ] nuclear package that Europe could not refus e and with whi ch the British could not compete'. In the 70s the picture of US dominatio n of Common Market nuclear technolog y had given way to subtler influence : American companies held (actually dealing with relevant governmen ts) substanti al interests in Europ ean and Japanese nuclear companies and held licences on the technolog y which remained largely American. Meanwhile in the 60s and 70s the US entered into bilateral ag re ements for civilian use of atomic energy with many other countries , for example, Argentina , Brasil, Columbia, India, Indonesia , Iran, Ire l and, Israel , Pakistan, Philippin es, South Korea, Portugal, South Africa, Spa in, Taiwan, Turk ey , Venezuela , South Vi etnam. The US proceeded , in this way, to ship nuclear technolog y and nuclear materials in gre at quantitie s round th e world. It also proceeded to spread nuclear t echnology t hrough th e Internati onal Atomic Ene rgy Agency , originall y de si gne d to control and saf eg uard nuclear ope rati ons, but most of whos e ~udget and activitie s • .. have gone to promote nu c l ear activitie s' . 46. A main reason for th e promotion and sales pressure on Third World countries has been the failure of US domestic market and industrial world markets for reactors. Less developed countries offer a new frontier where reactors can be built with easy public financing, where health and safe t y regulations are loose and enforcement rar e , where public opposition is not pennitted and where weak and corrupt regimes offer easy sales. [Forj ..• the US has considerabl e leverage with many of these countries. We know from painful expe rience that many of the worst dictatorshi ps in the planet would not be able to stand without overt and covert US support . Many of those same regimes are now pursuing the nuclear path, for all the worst reasons. 56 It is e v ident from this sketch of the ways and means of r eactor proliferatio n that not only have practices departed far from the framework of the Old Paradigm and the social Modificatio n, but that the practices (of corp orate capitalism and associated third world imperialism ) involve much that is eth ically unacceptabl e, whether by olde r, modif ied, or alternative 57 percepts; for principles such as those and self-d e termination are grossly vio late d. IX. SOCIAL OPTIONS : SHALLOWER AND DEEPER ALTERNATIVES . The futur e energy option that is most often contrasted with nuclear power, namely coal power, while no doubt preferable to nuclear power, is hardly acceptable . For it carries with it the likelihood of serious (air) pollution and associ ated phe nomena such as acid rain and atmospheric heating, not to ment ion the despoliatio n caused by extensive strip mining , all of which result from its us e in meeting very high projected consumption figures. Such an option would also fail, it seems, to meet the necessary transfer condition, because it would impose widespread costs on nonbenefic iaries for some concentrate d benefits to some profit takers and to some users who do not pay the full costs of production 58 and replacement . To these conventiona l main options a third is often added which emphasizes softer and more benign technologie s, such as those of solar energy and, in Northern Europe, hydroele ctricity . The deeper choice, which even softer paths tend to neglect, is not technologic al but social , and involves both conservatio n measures and the restruct urin g of production away from energy intensive uses: at a more basic level there is a choice between consumerist ic and nonconsume ristic futures. These more fundamental choices between social alternative s , conventiona l t echnologica lly-oriented discussion of energy options tends to be obscure. It is not just a matter of de ciding in which way to meet 4 7. give n and unexamine d goals (as the Old Paradigm would imply), but als o a matter of examining the goals. That is, we are not merely faced with the question of comparing different technolog ies or substitut e ways of meeting some fi xed or give n demand or level of consumpti on, and of trying to see whether we can meet this with s oft rather than hard technolog ies; we are also fac e d, and pr i ma rily, with th e matter of examining those alleged needs and the cost of a society t hat creates them . It is not just a question of devising less damaging ways to mee t these alleged needs conceived of as inevitabl e and unchangea ble . (Hence there are solar ways of producing unnecessa ry trivia no one really wants, as opposed to nuclear ways.) Na turally this is not to deny that th e se softer options are sup e rior because of the ethically unaccepta ble features of the harder options. But it is doubtful that any technolog y, howe ver benign in principle , will be likely to leave a tolerable world for the future if it is expect e d to meet unbounded and uncontrol led energy consumpti on and demands. Even the more benign technolog ies such as solar technolog y could be used in a way which creates costs for future people and are likely to result in a deteriora ted world being hand e d on to them . Consider, for example, the effect on the world's forest s , which are commonly counted as a solar resource, of use for productio n of methanol or o f e lectricit y by woodchipp ing (as already planned by forest authoriti es and contempla ted by many other energy organisat ions) . While few would object to t he use of genui ne waste material for energy productio n, the unrestric ted exploi t ation of forests - whether it goes under the name of " solar energy" or not. - to meet e ver increasin g energy demands could well be the final indignity for the world's already hard-pres sed natural forests. The effects of such additiona l demands on the maintenan ce of the forests are often dismissed , even by soft technolo gicalists, by the simpl e expedient of waving around the label 'renewabl e resources '. Many forests are in principle renewable , it is a true, given a certain (low) rate and kind of exploitat ion , but in fact there are now very few forestry operation s anywhere in the world where the forests are treated as completel y renewable in the sense of the renewal of all their values. 59 In many regions too the rate of e xploitatio n which would enable renewal has already been exceeded, so that a total decline is widely thought to be imminent if not already well advanced . It certainly has begun in many regions, and for many forest types (such as rainfores t types) which are now, and very rapidly, being lost for the future. The addition of a major further and not readily limitable demand pressure, that for energy, on top of present pressures is one which anyone with a realistic appreciat ion of the conduct of contempor ary forestry operation s, who i s also concerned with long-t erm conservat ion of the forests and remaining natural communiti e s, must regard with alarm. The result of massive deforesta tion for energy purposes, 48, r esemb li n g the deforesta tion of England at the beginning of th e Industrial Revolution, again for ene rgy purposes, would be extensive and devastating erosion in s t eeper lands and trop i cal are as , dese rtification in more a rid r egions, possib le climatic change, and massive impoverishm en t of na tural ecosystems . Some of us do not wa nt to pass on - we are not entitled to pass on - a de fores ted world to the future, any more than we want t o pass on on e poisone d by nuclear products or polluted by coal p roduct s . In sh or t, a mere swi t ch t o a more benign t e chnology - important though this i s - wi th out any more bas ic structural and social change is inadequate . Nor is such a simple technolo gi cal swi. tch likely to be achieved. It is not as if political pressure could oblige the US government to stop its nuc lear program (and that of the countrie s it influences, much of the world), in the way pressure appeared to succeed in halting the Vietnam war. While without doubt it would be good if this could be accomplishe d, it is ve ry un likely give n th e inte gration of political powe rholders with those sponsoring nuclear de velopment . 60 The deeper social options involve challenging and trying to change a social structure which promotes consumerism , consumption far beyo nd genuine needs, a nd a n e conomic s tructure which en coura ge s increasing use of highly energy-inte nsive mode s of prod uc tion. This means, for instance, trying to change a social stru c ture in which those who are lucky enough to make it into the work f o rce are cogs i n a production machine over which they have ve ry little r eal cont r ol an d in which most people do unpleasant or boring work fro m which they derive very 1i t tle real satisfactio n in orde r to obta i n the r eward of consume r goo ds and services . A society in which social rewards are obtained primarily from prod ucts rather than proc es s e s, fro m consumption , rath e r than from satisfac tion in work an d in social r e lations and oth er activities , is virtually bound to be one which generates a vast amount of unn e cessary consumption . (A production system that produces goods not to meet genuine needs but fo r created and nongenuine needs is virtually bound to overproduce . ) Consumption frequently be comes a substitute for satisfaction in other areas. The adjustments focussed upon are only parts of the large r set of adjustments involved in s ocially implementin g the New Paradigm , the move away f rom consumerism is for examp le part of th e more ge ner al shift from ma t eri al ism and ma terialist values . The social change option tends to be obscured in mos t dis cussions o f energy options and of how to meet energy needs, in part because it do e s que stion unde rlying values of current social arrangemen ts . The conventiona l discussion proceeds by taking alleged demand (often conflated with wants or 61 n ee ds ) as unchall e ngeable, and th e iss ue to be on e of which t ech nology can 49. be most profi tably employed to meet th em. This e ffectiv e ly pre s en ts a f a l se choice, and is the result of taking needs and demand a s lacking a s ocial contex t so that the social structure which produces the needs is similarly take n as unchallengeable and unchangeable . The point is readily illustrated. It is commonly argue d by representat i ves of such industries as trans!X)rtation and petroleum, as for exampl e by McGrowth of the XS Consumption Co., that people want deep freezers, air conditioners, powe r boats, ... It would be authoritarian to prevent th em from satisfying th e se wants. Such an argument conveniently ignores the social framework in which such nee ds and wants arise or are produced. To point to th e de t e rmination of many such wants at the framework level is not however to accept a Marxist approach a ccording to which they are entirely de t ermined at the framewo rk level ( e .g. by indu s trial organisation) and th e r e is no such thing as indivi dual ch oic e or de termination at all. It is to s ee the soci a l framework as a major f a c t o r i n de t e rmining certain kinds of choices, such as those for travel , a n d t o see ap pare ntly individual choices made in such matte rs as being channelle d a nd dire cte d by a social framework de t e rmined l argely i n th e inte r es t s o f corporat e an d private pro f it and advantage . The so cial change option is a hard option - at l e ast it wil l b e difficult to obtain pol itically - but it is the only way , so it has been argued , of a voidin g passing on serious costs to the future. And there are other sorts of r easons t han suc h ethical ones for taking it: it is the main, indeed the only sort of option open to those who take a deeper ecological perspective 62 , a perspective integ ral with the New Paradigm but not essential to radical departure from the dominant paradigm. The ethical transmission requirement defended accordingl y requires, hardly surprisingly, social and pol i tical adjustment. The social and political changes that the deeper alternative require s will be strongly resisted because they and power structure. mean changes in current social organisation To the extent that the option repre sents some kind of threat to parts of present political and economic arrangements it is not surp r ising that official energy option discussion proceeds by misre pres enting and often ob scuring i t . But difficult though a change will be , es pec ially one with s uch f a r - r eaching e ffects on th e prevailing power struc tur e , is to obt ai n, it is imp e rative t o try: we are al l on the n uclear train. FOOTNOTES 1. All but the last line of the quote is drawn from Goodin, p. 417; the last line is from the Fox Report, p. 6. While it is unnecessary to know much about the nuclear fuel cycle in order to consider ethical and social dimensions of nuclear power, it helps to know a little. & Abbotts , Gyorgy. The basics are presented in many texts, e . g. Nader Of course in order to assess fully reports as to such important background and stage-settin g matters as the likelihood of a core meltdown of a (lightwater ) reactor, much more information is required. For many assessment purposes however, some knowledge of economic fallacies and decision theory is at least a s important as knowledge of nuclear technology. 2. to the first, see references cited in Goodin , p . 417, footnote 1. As regards the second see Cot grove and Duff, and some of the references As given therein. 3. Cot grove and Duff, p. 339. 4. The table is adapted from Cotgrove and Duff, p. 341; Catton and Dunlap, especially p. 34 . 5. compare also See, e.g ., Gyorgy , pp . 357- 8. 6. For one illustration , see the conclusions of Mr Justice Parker at the Windscale inquiry (The Windscale Inquiry Vol. 1., Her Majesty 's Stationery Office , London, 1978), discussed in both Cotgrove and Duff , p. 347 and in Goodin, p. 501 ff. 7. Much as with the argument of one theory or position against another . One can argue both from one's own position against the other, and in the other's own terms against the other. 8. As well as screening the debate from the public such manoeuvres favour the (pro-)nucle ar establishme nt, since they (those of th e alliance of military, large industry, and government) control much of the information and (subject to minor qualificatio ns) can release what, and only what , suits them. 9. This is a conclusion of several governmenta l inquiries and is conceded by some leading proponents of nuclear deve lopment; for requisite details up to 1977 see Routley (a). The same conclus ion has been reached in some, but not all, more recent official reports, see , e . g., 2 10. For some details see Gyorgy, p. 60 ff. 11 . Se e the papers, and simulations, discussed in Goodin, p. 428. lla. Naturally the effect on humans is not the only factor that has to be taken into account in arriving at moral assessments. Nuclea r radi ation , unlike most ethical theories, does not confine its scope to human life and welfare. But since the harm nuclear development may afflict on non-human life, for exampl e , can hardly improve its case, it suffices if the case against it can be made out solely in terms of its effects on human life in the convent ional (Old Paradigm) way. 12. On the pollution and waste disposal record of the nuclear industry, see Nader and Abbotts, Lovins and Price, and Gyorgy. On the more general problem of effective pollution controls, see also, Routley (a), footnote 7. 13. Back of thus Humanity Unlimited assumption is the idea of Man replacing God. First God had unlimited power, e.g. over nature, then when during the Enlightenment Man replaced God, Man was to have unlimited power. Science and technology were the tools which were to put Man into the position of unlimitedness. More recent l y nuclear power is seen as providing man at least with unlimited physical power, power obtained through technology. [ability to manage technology repr esent s the past] 14 . On such l imitation theorems, which go back to Finsler and Godel on one side and to Arrow on the other, see, e.g. Routley 80. All these theorems mimic paradoxes, semantical "paradoxes" on one side and vot ing "p aradoxes" on the other. Other different limitation resu1 ts are presented in Routley 81 . It follows that there are many problems that have no solution and much that is n e cessarily unknowable. Limitative results put a serious dent in the progress picture. According th e Dominant Western Worldview, the history of humanity is one of progress; for every problem there is a solution, and thus progress need never cease (Catton and Dunlap, p . 34) . 15. See Lovins and Price . 15a . The points also suggest a variant argument against a nuclear future, namely A nuclear future narrows the range of opportunities open to future generations. 'What justice requires ... is that the overall range of opportunities open to successor generations should not be narrowed' (Barry, p. 24 3). Therefor e ~ a nuclear f utur e contrav enes r equirements of justice . 3 16. For examples , and for some details of the history of philosoph e rs' positions on obligatio ns to the future, see Routley (a). 17 . Passmore, p. 91. Passmore' s position is ambivalen t and , to all appearanc es, inconsist ent. It is considere d in detail in Routley (a), as also is Rawls ' position. 18. For related criticism s of the e conomists ' arguments for discounti ng, a nd for citation of the often eminent economist s who sponsor them, see Goodin , pp. 429-30. 19. The reasons (not elaborate d here) are that the propertie s are different e . g. a monetary reduction of value imposes a linear ordering on values to which value rankings , being only partial orderings , do not conform. 20. Goodin however puts his case against those rules in a less than satisfact ory fashion . What he claims is tha t we cannot list all the possible outcomes in the way that such rules as expe ct ed util ity maximiza tion presuppos es, e.g. Goodin suggests that we cannot list all the things that can go wrong with a nuclear power plant or with waste storage procedure s. But outstandi ng alternativ es can always be comprehen ded logically , at worst by saying "all the rest" (e.g. "'P covers everythin g except p). For example , outcomes Goodin says cannot be listed, can be comprehen ded along such lines as "plant breakdown through human error". Furthermo re the different more app ropriate rules Goodin subsequen tly considers also requir e listing of "possible " outcomes . Goodin's point can be alternati vely stated however. There are really two points. The first trouble is that such ragbag alternati v es cannot in general be assigned required quantitat ive probabil ities, and it is at that point that applicati ons of the models breaks dovm. The breakdown is just what separates decision making under uncertain ty from decision making under risk. Secondly, many influenti al applicatio ns of decision theory methods, the Rasmussen Report is a good example, do, illegitim ately, delete possible alternati ves from their modelling s. 21 . Discount, or bank, rates in the economis ts' sense are usually set to follow the market, cf. P.A. Samuelson , Economics , 7th Edition, McGraw-H ill, New York , 1967, p.351. 22 . Thus the rates have little moral relevance . A real possibili ty is one which there is evidence for believing could eventuate . A real possibili ty requires producibl e evidence for its considera tion . The contrast is with mere logical possibili ty. 23. 4 24. Such a princip le is explici t both in classica l utilitar iani s m (e.g. Sidgwick p. 414) , and in a range of contrac t and other theories from Kant and Rousseau to Rawl s (p.293). How the princip le is argu ed for will depe nd heavily , however, on the underlyi ng theory; and we do not want to make our use depend he avily on particu lar ethical theories . 25. The latter question is taken up in section VII; see especia lly, the Poverty argumen t. 26 . SF, p. 27. Shrader -Freche tte is herself somewha t critical of the carte blanche adoption of these methods , suggesti ng that ' whoever aff irms or den ies the desirab ility of ... [such] standard s is, to some degree, symboll ically assentin g to a number of American value patterns and cu l tural norms' (p. 28 ). 27. The examp le paralle ls the sorts of countere xamp les often advance d to utilitar ianism, e.g. the admissi ble lynching of an innocen t person because of pleasure given to the large lynching party. against utilitar ianism, see ... For the more general case 28 . US Atomic Energy Commissi on , Compara tive Risk-Co st-B en ef it Study of Alterna tive sources of Electric al Energy (WASH-1224), US Governm ent Printing Office , Washing ton, D.C., Decembe r 1974 , p.4-7 and p. 1-16. 29 . As SF points out, p.37-44 ., in some detail. As she remarks, ... since standard s need not be met, so long as the NRC [Nuclea r Regulato ry commiss ion] judges that the licence shows 'a reasonab le effort' at meetin g them, current policy allows governm ent regulato rs to trade human health and welfare for the [apparen t ] good intentio ns of the promo tors of technolo gy. [Such] good intentio ns have never been known to be sufficie nt for the morality of an act (p. 39). The failure of state regulati on, even where the standard s are as mostl y not very demandin g, and the alliance of regulato rs with those th ey a re s upposed t o be r eg ulating, are conspicu ous features of modern environm ental control, not just of (nuclear ) pollutio n control. 30 . 31 . The figures are thos e from the origin al Bro okhaven Report: ' Theo r e t ical possib ilities and consequ ences of major accide nts in large nuclea r plants ', USAEC Report WASH-740, Governm ent Printin g Office , Washin gton , D. C., 1957. This r e port was r eques ted in the first place because the Commis sion on Atomic Energy wanted pos i tive safe t y conc l usions "to r eass ure th e private insuran ce compan ies" so that they would pr ovid e coverag e for th e nuclea r indust ry. Since even th e cons e rvative statist ics of the r eport we r e alannin g it was supp r essed and its data we r e not made public until. almost 20 years later, after a suit was brough t as a r esult of the Freedom of Inform ation Act (Shrad er-Frec hette, pp. 78-9). 32 . Atomic Energy Commis sion, Re actor Safe ty Study: An Ass e ssment of Acc ident Risks in US Comme rcial Nuclea r Power Plants , Governm ent Printin g Offi ce , Washin gton, D.C., 1975 . This report, the only alleged ly comple te study , conclud ed that fission reactor s presen ted only a minima l health risk t o the public . Early in 1979, th e Nuclea r Regula tory Commis sion (th e r elevan t organ isation that superse ded the trouble d Atomic Energy Commis sion) withdre w i ts suppor t for the report, with the result that there is now no compreh ensive analys is of nuclea r power approve d by the US Governm ent. 32a . Most presen t and planned r eactors are of this type: see Gyo r gy . 33 . 34 . Even then relevan t environ ment factors may have been neglec t ed . 35. There are variati ons on (i) and (ii) which multip ly costs agains t number s such as probab ilities. In this way risks, constru ed as probab le cos ts, can be taken into accoun t in the assessm ent. (Alt e rnative ly, risks may be assesse d through such familia r method s as insuran ce.) A princip le varying (ii), and fonnula ted as follows : (ii ) a is ethica lly accepta ble if (for some b) a include s no more risks than b and b is sociall y acce pted. was the basic ethica l princip le in terms of which the Cluff Lak e Board of Inquiry recentl y decided that nuclea r power de velo pme nt 1 in Saskat chewan is ethically acceptable : s e e Cluff Lake Board of Inquiry Final Report, Departme nt of Environment , Government of Saskatchewa n, 1978, p. 305 and p . 288 . In this report, a is nuclear power and bis either a ctiviti e s clearl y accepted by society as alternative power sources. In other application s b has been taken as cigarette smoking, motoring, mining and even the Vietna m War(!) The points made in the text do not exhaust the objections to principles (i) - (ii'). The principles are certainly ethically substantive , since an ethical consequence cannot be deduced from nonethical premisses, but they have an inadmissibl e conventiona l character. For l ook at the origin of b: b may be socia lly accepted though it is no longer socially acceptable, or though its social acceptibili ty is no longer so cle arcut and it would not have been socially accepted if as much as is now known had been known when it was introduced. 'What is required in (ii'), for instance, for the argument to begin to look convincing is then 'ethically acceptable' rather than 'socially accepted'. But even with th e amendments the principles are invalid , for the reasons given in the text. It is not disconcertin g that thes e arguments do not work . It would be sad to see yet another area lost to the exper ts, namely ethics to actuaries. 36. A main part of the tr oubl e with the models is that they are narrowly utilitarian , and like utilitariani sm they neglect distributio nal features , involve na tu ralistic fallacies, et c. Really they try to treat as an uncon- straine d optimisatio n what is a deontically constraine d optimisatio n : V. Routley 'An expensive repair kit for utilitarian ism'. s ee R. and 37. Ap parent exceptions to the principle such as taxation (and redistr i bution of income generally) vanish when wealth is construed (as it has to be i f taxation is to be properly justified) as at least partly a social asset unfairly monopolised by a minority of the population . Example s such as that of motoring dangerously do not constitute counterexam ples to the principle; for one is not morally entitled to so motor. 38. SF, p. 15, where references are also cited. 39 . Goodin, p. 433. 40 . On all these points see R. Grossman and G. Daneker, Guide to Jobs and Energy , Environment a lists for Full Employment, Washington DC, 1977, pp.1-7, and also the details supplied in substantiat ing th e interesting case of Commoner [7 ] . On the absorption of available capital by the nuclear industry, see as well [18], p. 23 . On th e employment issues, see too H. E. Daly in [ 9], p. 149. 7 A more fundamental challenge to the poverty argument appears in I. Illich, Ene rgy and Equality , Calden and Boyars, London 1974, where it is argued that the sort of development nuclear energy represents is exactly th e opp osite of what the poor need. 41 . For much more deta il on the inappropria teness see E.F . Schumacher, Sma ll is Beauti ful, Blond and Briggs, London, 1973. As to the capital and o ther requirement s, see [2] , p. 48 , and also [7] and [9] . For an illuminatin g l ook at the sort of d evelopmen t high - energy t e chnolo gy will t end to promote in the so-called unde rdeveloped countri es see the pap e r of Waiko and other papers in The Melanesian Envfr•onment (edited J . H. Wins l ow), Au s tr a l ian National University Press, Canb e rr a, 1977. 42 . A useful survey is given in A. Lovins , Energy Strategy : The Road Not Taken , Fr iends of the Earth Australia, 1977 (reprinted from Fo 1°eign Affair•s , Oc tob e r 1976); s ee also [ 17], [6 ] , [ 7], [14] , p . 233 ff, and Schumacher, op . cit . 43 . An argument like this is suggested in Passmo re, Chapters 4 and 7, with respect to the question of saving resources. In Passmore this argument for the ove rriding importance of passing on contemporar y culture is underpinn e d by what appears to be a future-dire cted ethical version of the Hidden Hand argument of economics - that, by a coincidence which if correct would indeed he fortunate, the best way to take care of the future (and perhaps even the only way to do so, since do-good interventio n is almost certain to go wrong) is to take proper care of t he present and immediate future. The argument has all t he defects of the related Chain Argument discussed above and others. 44. See Nader and Abbotts, p. 66, p . 191, and also Commoner . 45 . Very persuasive arguments to this effect have been a dvanced by civ il liberties groups and others in a number of countri e s: see especially M. Flood and R. Grove-White , Nuclear Pr ospects. A comment on the individual , the State and Nuclear Power , Friends of the Earth, Council for the Protection of Rural England and National Council for Civil Liberties , London, 1976. 46. ' US energy policy, for example , since the passage of the 1954 Atomic Energy Act , has been that nuclear powe r is necessary to provide "an e conomical and reliable basis" n eed ed "to sustain economic growth" (SF, p . 111, and r efe rences there cit e d) . 47. There are now a great many criticism s of the second premiss in th e literat ure . For our criticism , and a r e formulati on of the premiss in terms of selec tive economic growth (which would exclude nu clear developm ent), see Routley (b) , and also Berkley and Seckler. To simple-mi ndedly contrast e conomic growth with no-growth , in the fa shion of some discussio ns of nuclear power, c . f . Elster, is to leave out crucial alte rnatives ; the contracti on of course much simplifie s the otherwise faulty case for unalleged growth. 48. In UK and USSR nuclear developme nt is explicitl y in the public domain, in such countries as France and West Germany the governmen t has very s ubstantia l interests in main nuclear involved companies . Even as regards nuclear plant operation in the US, it is difficult to obtain comprehen sive data. Estimates of cost very dramtical ly according to the sample of plants chosen and the assumptio ns made concernin g the measureme nt of plant performan ce (Gyorgy, p. 173). 49 . See Kalmanoff , p . 50. See Corney. 51. Ref. to what it has to say about Price Anderson Act. 52. Full ref to SF on argument from ignorance etc. 53 . These e . g. Elster, p. 377. On deci sion theory see also, 54 . A recent theme in much economic literatur e is that Bayesian dec ision theory and risk analysis can be universal ly applied . The theme is upset as soon as one steps outside of select Old Paradigm confines. In any case , even within these confines there is no consensus at all on, a nd few (and widely diverging ) figures for the probabili ty of a reactor core meltdown, an d no reliable estimates as to the likelihoo d of a nuclear confronta t i on. Thus Goodin argue s (in 78) that 'such uncertain ties plague energy theories' as to 'rend er expected utility calculati ons impossibl e '. 55 . For details see Gyorgy, p. 398 ff ., from which presentat ion of the internati onal story is adapted. 1 56. Gyo rgy, p . 307, and p. 308. points, see Chomsky For elaborati on of some of th e important and Hermann. 57. Whatever one thinks of the ethical principle s underlyin g the Old Paradigm or its Modificat ion - and they do form a coherent set th at many people can respect - these are not the principle s unde rlying contempor ary corporate capitalism and associate d third-wor ld i.mperialis m. 58. Certainly practical transitio nal programs may involve tempo rary and limited us e of unaccepta ble long t erm commoditi es such as coal, but in presentin g su ch practical details one should not lose sigh t of the more basic social and structura l changes, and the problem is really one of making those. Similarly practical transitio nal strategie s should make use of such measures as en vironment al (or replaceme nt) pricing of energy i . e . so that the price of some energy unit includes the full cost of r e placing it by an equivalen t unit taking account of environm ental cost of productio n. Other (sometime s coopU.ve) s trategies towards more satisfact ory alternativ es should a lso, of course , be adopted, in particula r the removal of institutio nal barriers to energy conservat ion and alternati ve technolog y (e . g. local governmen t regulatio ns blocking these), and the removal of state assistanc e to fuel and power industrie s. 59. Symptoma tic of the fact that it is not treated as r enewable is that forest economics do not generally allow for full renewabi lity - if th ey did the losses and deficits on forestry operation s would be much more s triking tha n t hey already are often enough. It is doubtful, furthermo re, that energy cropping of forests can be a fully r e newable operation if net energy productio n is to be worthwhil e; see, e.g . the argument in L. R.B . Mann 'Some difficult ies with energy farming for portable fuels', and add in the costs of e cosystem maintenan ce. 60. For an outline and explanati on of this phenomena see Gyorgy, and also Woodmansee . 61 . The requisite distinctio n is made in several places , e . g . Routley (b), and (to take one example from the real Marxist literatur e), Baran and Sw eezy . 62 . The distinctio n between shallow and deep ecology was first emphasise d by Naess. For its environm en tal i mpo rtance see Routl ey (c) (wher e further reference s are cited) . • REFERENCES . In o rde r to contai n refe r e n ces to a modes t length, r efrre ncc to primary sources has often been replaced by referen ce through secondary sources . Generally the reader can easily trace the primary sour ces . For those parts of the text that ove rlap Routley (a), fuller references wil l be found by consulting the latter article. S. Cotgrove and A. Duff, 'Environmen talism, middle-clas s radicalism an d politics', Sociologica l Review 28 (2) (1980), 333-51. R.E . Goodin, 'No moral nukes ', Ethics 90 (1980), 417-49. A. Gyorgy and Friends , No Nukes: everyone's guide to nuclear power, South End Press, Boston, Mass., 1979. R. Nader and J. Abbotts, The Menace of Ato mic Energy, Outb ack Press , Melbourn e , 1977. R. a nd V. Routley, 'Nuclear energy and obligations to the future', Inquiry 21 ( 1978), 133-79 (cited as Routley (a)). Fox Repo rt: Ranger Uranium Environmen tal I nquiry First Report , Australian Go vernmen t Publishing Service, Canberra , 1977. K.S. Schrader-Fr echet te, Nu clea r Power and Publi c Policy, Reidel, Do rdrecht, 1980 (refe rred to as SF). W. R. Cat ton, Jr., and R. E. Dunlap, 'A new ecol ogical paradigm for post - ex uber an t sociology', Ame rican Behavioral Scientist 24 (1980) 15-47 . Unite d States Interagency Review group on Nuclea r Waste Managemen t, Repo rt to the President, Wash i ngton. (Dept. of Energy) 1979. (Ref. No . El. 28 . TID29442) (cited as US(a)) . A.B . Lovins and J.H. Price, Non-Nuc lear Futures : The Case for an Eth ical Energy Strategy, Friends of the Earth Internation al, San Fran cisco , 1975. R. Routley , 'On the impossibili ty of an ortho dox social theory and of an orthodox solution to environmen tal problems', Logique et Analyse, 23 (1980), 145-66. R. Routl ey , 'Necessa r y limits for knowledge: unknowable tru ths', in Es says in honour of Paul Wei nga rtner, (ed. E. Norscher ), Salzberg, 1980. J. Passmore , Man's Responsibi lity for Nature, Du ckworth , London, 1974 . ,,,. .-2. R. and V. Routley, The Fight for the Forests, Third Editi on, RSSS, Austra lian National University, 1975 (cited as Routley (b)). J . Rawls , A Theory of Justice, Harvard Unive rsit y Press, Cambridge , Mass., 19 71. P . hl . Berkl ey a nd D.W . Seckler, Economic Gr owth and Environment a l Dec ay, Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch , New York, 1972 . J . Elster, 'Risk, uncertainty and nuclear power' , Soci al Science Information 18 (3) (1979) 371-400. J. Robinson , Economic Heresi e s, Basic Books, New York, 1971. B. Barry, 'Circumstan ces of Justice and future generat i ons ' in Obligations to Future Generations (ed. R.I. Sikora and B. Barry), Templ e Universit y Press, Philadelphi a, 1978. H. Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics , Macmillan, London , 1962 (r e issue ). B. Commoner, The Poverty of Power , Knopf, New York, 1975. N. Chomsky and E.S. Herman, The Political Economy of Human Right s , 2 vols., Black Rose Books, Montreal, 1979 . J. Woodmans ee , The World of a Giant Corporation , North Coun tr y Pr es s , Seattle , Washing ton, 1975. P . A. B~r a n and P . Sweezy, Monopoly Capita l, Penguin, 1967. A. Naess, ' The shallow and the deep, long range eco l ogy movement. A summary ', Inquiry 16 (1973) 95-100.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 59, Item 1873: Draft of Nuclear power - ethical, social and political dimensions Subject The topic of the resource Typescript (photocopy) of draft, undated. Paper published, Routley R and Routley V (1982) 'Nuclear power—some ethical and social dimensions', in Regan T and VanDeVeer D (eds) And justice for all: new introductory essays in ethics and public policy, Rowman and Littlefield. Description An account of the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. 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Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:0475e12">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:0475e12</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1982-01-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Australian National University - Far Bookshelf - Second Bay - Top Shelf - Pile 2 Australian National University Office Australian National University Office > Far Bookshelf > Second Bay > Top Shelf > Pile 2 Box 59: Nuclear https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/afa9cbba22cebf06f3dc69f209f159a4.pdf 1d2e17f1654f4f1dfca304ea2d3c8ce9 PDF Text Text 1875 �/IN/J , AJuncl)L NUCLEAR POWER • - ETHICA L,a& SOCIAL DIMENSIONS ---.. Compet ing paradig fus and · the nuclea r debate . ~ J C/l/'I One hardly 1ieeds ini t.. i ation into the dark myster ies of nuclea r physic s to contrib ute useful ly to the debate now widely raging over nuclea r power. While many import ant empiri cal questio ns are still unreso lved, these do not really lie at the centre of the controv ersy. Instead , it is a debate about values ... \ many of the questio ~which arise are social and ethica l ones. 1 •.:tSociol ogica) investi gation s have confirm ed fJ £ a t~ I pa,i I 11g , I a1:a1Hiliit e:f! the ,! 01\.C!.. debate l=!S:&!!!!t'!~ primar ily over what is w.9rth having or pursuin g and over what we are 'tli.a,., /i.,we 4ho cc,-.+·,r,.,../),l fl..,,/ it,, J;,'/.wh :1 ;•,l~:,~-11 .entitle d to do to others .~,] ii pelaFi oatienA along the lines of compet ing paradig ms. 2 Accord ing to the entrenc hed paradig vtldisc erned, that constel lation. a' of values , attitud es and beliefs often called the nomina nt Social Paradig m (herea fter I ena ipsoiac to u hl:ttan f!nD --) I r/ I riteria become the benchm ark by which a v.;id..e/ range of individ ual and social action is J IA"{'J4.l and evalua ted. AW'\d belief in the market and market mechan isms is quite centra l. Clv'.:ite...<il"\<J around this col'"e belief is the convic tion that enterp rise flouris hes best in a system of risks and r ew~ rds, that differe ntials are necess ary ..• , and in the necess ity for some form of divisio n of labour , and a itfl1rar chy of skills and expert ise. In particu lar, there is a belief in the compet ence of ~xpert s in genera l and of scient ists in particu lar , m More thau this, scient: ifie knowle dge aftd t:he scient ific speei:r~:'i~/,;2··::.,,./ method enjoy a -ef knowiftg , • , , A:Re 3 S = ~ : . . _ 4"-- quanti f ica.tion . .status as super, '(P' ::::j there 1s an emphas is on ~~,3 The rival world view, sometim es called the Altern ative Environ mental Paradig m ( the ~ Paradig m) differs on almost every point, and, accord ing to sociol ogists , in ways su~mar i~ din the followi ng table 4":Nature hostile/ne utral Environm ent controllable ---·. ,csourccs limited Nature benign Nature clclicatdy balanced \. \ �EDGE .,. Confidence in science and technology ~ation:ility of means~} Limits to science ~ationality of ends • S.t-~te socialism, as practiced in most of the "EasteI11 bloc", differs from the 01/ PaLl.digm really only as to economic organisation, the market in particular l\ ffl~' being replaced by central planning (a market system by a command system). / o-Y ,r,~t)tlt But since there is virtually no debate over a nuclear future within the confines of · h · 1·ism, 5 tat variant on the Old Paradigm need not be delineated here. minor s t a t e socia ,,.... 1 Nctl.cu,t .WailiaA the competing paradigm picture is a trifle s i m p l e ~ instead ~ a New Paradigm there are rather counterparadi gms, a cluster of not very well out rositions that diverge from the cluster marked out as the wo,•k~ Jfl01+,;.,./'cr-hJ, )/o,ie,/{~(J Old Paradigm~ i t is empirically investigable, and.I\ it enables the nuclear debate be focussed. Large-scale nuclear development, of the sort now occurring in much of the world , counter to leading tenets (such as societal features) of the New Paradigm. Indeed to introduce ethical and social dimensions into the assessment of nuclear power, instead of ~,.. olt-0u'-, merely economic 1in addition to jJa9.,-.d .. u(_, \-"-.. factors such as cost and efficiency, isAto move somewhat received paradigm. g.gl; .. i le the For under the Old Paradig~, strictly construed, the nuclear debate is confined to the terms of the narrow ut1litarianism upon which contemporary economic practice is premissed, the issues to questions of economic means (to assumed economistic ends) along with technological, social engineering and other instrumental details whatever falls outside these terms is (dismissed as) irratfonal. I /;,(4.(11,-,'1"4-J J~clear development receives its support from adherents of the Old Paradigm. Virtually all the arguments in favour of it are set within the assumption framework of the Old Paradigm, and without these assumptions the t:o fails. But in · and ultimately fails fact the argument for a nuclear future from the Old Paradigm is itself broken-backedj) case for the nuclear future the world is presently committed unless the free enterprise economic assumptions are replaced by the ethically unacceptable assumptions of advanced (corporate) capitalism. r->~~~tt--en--e--a:nm~m-t~ 7 �The two paradigm picture also enables our case against a nuclear future (a case written from outside the Old Paradigm ) to be structur ed. There are two main part~JJ :It is argued, firstly, from the Old Paradigm , that nuclear J&tfSe developm ent is ethicall y unjusti fiable; A but that, secondly , even from within e·th,t" I~ ,;,{,.l,fo "1 the framewo rk of the,\Old Paradigm , such developm ent is unaccep table, since signific ant features of nuclear developm ent conflic t with indispe nsible features of the Paradigm (e.g. costs of project developm ent and state :s ... lPs ,l ,J"--f:,,;, •., with market independ ence and criteria for project selectio n). It has _?~E_~ d accepta ble from within the claminan t paradigm only because )rfo,,Js do not square with practice , only because the assumpt ions of the Old Paradigm are but very ~A~~ty applied in contemp orary politica l practice the place of i ru.<<I!.(~., "'1( td) ,v capitali sm having been usurped by corpora te capitali sm. It is because the nuclear debate <:<1.vi bL. carried on within the framewo rk of the Old Paradigm that the debate - although it is a debate about values, because of the conflict ingvalu es of the <c.,..,.,fL-f;;"1 paradigm s - is not just a debate about values; it is also a debate within a paradigm as to means to already assumed (ec:.on0" 1istid ends, and -:=:- of rationa l choice as to energy option.5 within (~ ~ 0 1""Q;i1f 2'n this corner ~ 0<,f/e,,..Jj4 ft!1ho',. "JllD I most !i F I Im. decision 1 a predeter mined framewo rk of values. tlrp~ theory argumen ts,often conside red " as encompa ssing all the nuclear debate is ethicall y about, I\best util.i t~rian means to predeter mined ends..,) be l : ~ For another leading charact eristic of the nuclear debate is the attempt , under the dominan t par_adigyn, to r~c'1~ it from t/•IIW 1f the ethical and social sphere) and to turR ; t into spec,iali st issues ef' #" whether over minutia? .and conting encies A present technolo gy or overme&lw,,/ ~legal or ~) mathem atical ,,' upeciaJ J y de, rs r 011 tbentetf c: and Stat Is Lica:1:, or amdie&t details.,8 / £' ;or The double approach can be applied as regards each of the main problems nuclear . developm ent poses. There are 7any A inter~e lated problems and -fl. t.- OAJ'""'"cd · , is further ,) I\ /_,flW4r structur ed in terms of these. For in the advancem ent and promotio n of nuclear ~ we encount er a remarka ble combina tion of factors, never before assemble d establis hment, on a massive scale, of an industry which involves at each stage of its process ing serious risks and at some stages of product ion possible catastro phe, which delivers as a by-prod uct radioac tive wastes which require up to a million years' storage but for which no sound and economi c storage methods are known, which gr~w up as part of the war industry and which is easily $""h v,e..,rld to deliver nuclear weapons , which require s for its operatio nconsid erable secrecy , limitati ons on the flow of informa tion and restrict ions on civil libertie s, which depends for its economi cs, and in order to generate expected private profits, on Sl.\bs-i.4.,,/..,~/ state subsidi zation, support , and interven tion. It is, in short, a very high technol ogical developm ent, ba~«-f. with problem s. first importa nt problem .which serves also to exempli fy ethical issues and princip les involved in other nuclear power questio ns, is the unresolv ed matter of disposa l of nuclear wastes. A �.------------- ------------ ------------ -------~--- ---. f 5. t annual wastes containing 1000 times the radioactivity of the Hiroshima bomb. of this waste is extremely toxic. ) Much For example, a millionth of a gramme of plutonium part of the waste material of even a is enough to induce a lung Wastes will include the reactors themselves, ...contamination which will have to be abandoned after their expected life times of perhaps 40 years, and which, some have estimated, may require l½ million years to reach safe levels of radioactivity. P,,.tcAF A~astes must be kept suitably isolated from the environment for their entire For fission products the required storage period averages a active lifetime. thousand years or so, and for transuranic elements, which include plutonium, there is a half million to a million year storage problem. Serious problems have arisen with both short-term and proposed long-term methods of storage, even with the comparatively small quantities of waste produced over the last twenty years. ~ Shortterm methods of storage require continued human intervention, while proposed longer term methods are subject to both human interference and risk of leakage through non-human factors. No one with even a slight knowledge of the geological and climatic history ti of the earth over the last million years, a period whose fluctuations in climate we are only just beginning to guage and which has seen four Ice Ages, could be confident that a rigorous guarantee of safe storage could be provided for the vast period of time involved. Nor does the history of human affairs over the last 3000 years give ground for confidence in safe storage by methods requiring human intervention over perhaps a million years. Proposed long-term storage methods such as storage in granite formation s or in salt mines, are largely speculative and relatively untested1 and have already proved to involve difficulties with attempts made to put them into practice. Even as regards expensive recent proposals for the result in first embedding concentrated wastes in glass and enca/ulating ,i multilayered metal containers before rock radioactive material may not remain deposit 1 si~ulation models reveal that 11. . , 'II isolated from human environments. S'k,t.<\t1 f~4. In short, the best present ~iapeoel proposals carry very real possibilities of .J... /Id • // I lZ..t-u ~~~ • irradiating future people- (V',i,,l. Given the c<c,,,~'7 I Atu.lflf .QA:Q;pQfiQWB costs which could be involved for the future, and given 0 the known ~~mits of technology, it is £i?la:h:tw methodol@gi cal.ly unsound amt to bet,• as nuclear Mlin,-J ~ A t~a. have,• on the discovery of safe procedures for 1tis.pr19i,j of wastes. Any new procedures (required before 2000) will probably be but variations on present proposals, and subjecJto the same inadequacies. methods for safe l storage For instance, none of the proposed X "'t.H has been properly tested, and they mayAprove to involve ell :sorts o:fi unforseen difficulties and risks when an attempt is made to put them into practice on a commercial scale. Only a method that could provide a rigorous guarantee �, I I 09 when set in this context. t,/wo/! are not so ruf'I What is worth remarking is that similar excuses when the consigner, again~ "responsible" businessman, puts ). his workers' health or other peoples' welfare at risk. ~ THE NUCLEAR WASTE DISPOSAL PROBLEM, AND THE1~IN PARABLE . II. A long distance country train has just pulled out. crowded carries both passengers and freight. journey The train which is At an early stop in the someone consigns as freight , to a far distant destination, a package which contains a highly toxic and explosive gas. container which> as the consigner ii ava..r4- 1 Jii' l 'J I ems This is packaged in a very thin may~ not contain the gas for the ~ full distance for which it is consigned, and certainly will not do so if the train should strike any real trouble, for example if there is a breakdown and the interior of the train becomes very hot, if the train should be derailed or involved in a collision, or if some passenger should interfere try; to steal some 1e t 11 r 5ffi'1jhQ~ ot eliherately ~ the freight~ inadvertent! Ml tX,lA4'rcd,. have happened on some previous journeys. All iii,. ~ with fU: ft,1-h ~ fCJ Laps Conf• ;;bi.c, ;_,,, of these tie:! cg ,.. ,\ If the container should "' break the resulting disaster would probably kill at least some of the people on the train in adjacent carriages, while others could be maimed or incur serious diseases . ..,., Most of us would Aoundly condemn such an action. of the parcel say to try to justify it? What might the consigner He might say that it is not certain that the gas will escape and that it is mere speculation to suppose it will, that the world needs his product and it is his duty to supply it, and that in any case he is not responsible for the train or the people on it. These sorts of excuses however 1$ would normally be s een as ludicrous~ a11rlo'1er1 (~~up~~he says that it is hisgownA pressing needs which justify his action. The ~ h e 0!111!!6, ,\ which produces the material as a by-product, is in bad financial A straits, and could• n.,r ,. afford to produce a better container even if it knew how to r~..../'441' ~ ,1/r make one. If t h e ~ §?PB ersl~~, he and his family will suffer, his employees r~L'~~ will lose their jobs and have to look for others, and the who}eA 1~,~, through loss of spending and the cancellation of the Multiplier Effect, will be worse off. ()It,/ rl.A~"/t ~ " .fo-... The ppor of t'he ¥.j)Jag_P,whom he would otherwise have been able to help, will ,1 suffer especially. ::, ,1r.,i/Q G ew people would accept~ story1 even if correct, as justification. Even where there are serious risks and costs to oneseLf or some group for whom one is (o concerned one is usually m,""kM,l ii,b. w;gil1'UA not hacc.u_y to be entitled to simply transfer the,4 burden of those risks and costs onto other uninvolved parties, especially where they arise 1 ()r 1 CI U J 1 /JIZMJ' J ) from one's own.< chosefi Iife-style.ca:nd the t~nsfer af cos.ts creates a risk of ,ae-r ious harm t:e G - t ~ r ----- The matter of nuclear waste disposal has many moral features which resem\1le the train (i4.tqatiaeu There is no known proven safe way to package the highly toxic wastes generated by the nuclear plant~ that will be spread around the world as large/9 scale nuclear development goes ahead. ' The waste problem will be much more serious than thut generated by the 50 or so reactors in use at present, withx'each one of the 2000 or so r actors envisaged by ,IJ ,f/4. J.IYl/4w l#i7 l,Q. ~~'4~ ,i· dfi) flp,J4v{- ...,_, jj{'. , ,~IL cue end of the century producing, on average, A . /"'-A 'VI '/I Ji? t • s/4 /7 __ / L_:~-..':~. . :~===================== ==---___,tl~===~l_____i_~ ~---- ------,_,.........----------~---_......._ ----:,..........,__.. �6. { of safety over th e s torage period, that placed safety beyond reasonable doubt , would be acceptable. It is difficult to see how such rigorous guarantees could be given concerning either the geological or future human factors. But even if an economically viable, rigorously safe long term storage method could be devised, there is the problem of guaranteeing that it would be universally and invariably . . as The assumption that it would be{ especially if, ~ used. - likely, such a method proved expensive economically and politically) seems to presuppose a level of efficiency, perfection and concern for the f uture which has not previously been e~counter~in human affairs, and has certainly not been conspicuous in the nuclear industry. 1 . Again, unless we assume continuous and faultless guarding of long term storage sites through perhaps a million years of possible future human ac t ivity, weapons-grade radioactive material will be accessible, over much of the million year storage period, to any pa rt y who is in a position to retrieve it. nonetheless be found 1 before 2000, (no longer a mere disposal pfioblem) s accordingly not t"~t,cnA '( which gets around the waste storage problem . like ma~v assumptions ?~ifH~s, It is an assumption supplied by the based, but is ratne ~ ~an artitle or The assumption that a way will /! Old Paradigm, 1 Cit M limitations assumption , that there are really no (development) - · -. problems that cannot be solved technologically (if not in a fashion always immediately ·· economically feasible). part in development plans and practice.. technological optimism (not to say what humans can accomplish, The assumption that is has played an important It has not only encouraged an unwarranted t3 -h(A.J,,.,·::, -____ ); that there are no limits to ;~;:14. i<. through science ; it has led to the em~rcation on projects before crucial problems have been satisfactorily solved t,r a solution is tNll.~ i n sight, and it has led to the idea that technology can always be suitably controlled. It has also led , not surprisingly, to disasters. There are severe limits on what technology can achieve (some of which are becoming known in the form of '"' limitation theorems,~ and in addition there are human limitations which modern technological developments often fail to take due account of (risk analysis of the · , llliu:,,olll( lido-wliklihood of reac t or accidents is a relevant exampll). The original nuclear technology dream ..fj 1>S1.l»-'I was that nuclear 'clean unlimited supply of power'). apparently remains a net will be but a quite X That dream soon shattered . cons &-1>t1~ "!)hc..-l::-tM1<1 would provide unlimited energy (a The nuclear industry of power, and nuclear ..flt~, ;o,,.. s upplier of power/> The risks :l.mposed on the future by proceeding with nuclear development then , significant. are, Nuclear fission creates wastes which may remain toxic for a million years, but even with the (suspect) breeder reactor it could be an energy source for only perhaps 150 years. It will do nothing for the energy problems of the people of the distant future whose lj_ves could be seriously affected by the wastes. �I pt,..."'tl.Mt.. It is for such reasons that the train aua]og; cannot be turned around .p, .. ~,.,,,/(._ . s. to work in favour of nuclear power, w1.·th .:e::g:.-"1 t, h e nuc 1 ear train b r1.n1.ng I 4 relief as well as wastes to a remote town powered (only) by nuclear power. 7. ~ ~~----Thus perhaps 40,000 generations of future people could be forced to bear significant risks resulting from the provision of the (extravagant) energy use I.I f»l~)'r•jloiT,,j.,. d r{4. of onlyAlO generations. l''°/'k o.f Nor is the risk of direct harm from the escape or misuse of radioactive materials the only burden the nuclear solution imposes on the future. Because the ene~gy provided by nuclear fission is merely a stop gap, it seems probable that in due course the same problem, that of making a transition to renewable sources of energy, will have to be faced again by a future population which will probably, again as a result of our actions, be very much worse placed to cope with it ~ For they may well have to face the change to renewable resources in an over-populated world not only burdened with the legacy of our nuclear wastes, but also in a world in which, if the nuclear proponents' dream~of global industrial:lsation are realised, more and more of the global population will have become dependent on high energy consumption and associated technology and heavy resource use and will have lost or reduced its ability to survive without it. It will, moreover, probably be a world which is largely depleted of non-renewable resources, and in which such renewable resources as forests and soils as remain, resources which will have to form 4 a very important part of the basis of life, are in a run·-down condition. Such pointf~~ll against the idea that future people must be, if not direct beneficiaries of nuclear fission energy, at least indirect beneficiaries. The "solution" then is to buy time for contemporary industrial society at a price which not only creates serious problems for future people but which reduces their ability to cope with those problems. Like the consigner in the train parable, contemporary indu st rial society proposes, in order to get itself out of _a mess arising from its chfik Q,W:fl life style - the creation of economies dependent on an abundance of non-renewable energy, which is limited in supply - to pass on costs and risks of serious harm to others who will obtain no corresponding benefits. . The ''solution" may enable the avoidance of some uncomfortable changes~n the lifetime of those now living and their immediate descendants, just as the consigner's action avoids uncomfortable changes for him and his immediate surroundings, but at the expense of passing heavy burdens to other uninvolved parties, whose opportunity to /eJ J.Q.c~nt /,vu Afli1J may be seriously jeopardised. Industrial society has - under e~ch paradigm, so it will be argued clear alternatives (YJ>o~-t~ 1 cf i patterns ~ w to this action, which is taken essentially to avoid changing c~mpet,Nil,iJo.l'J ~ of consumption and protect the interest of those,\who benefit from them. I r~ pcrca.,t1cd, If we apply to the nuclear situation the standards of behaviour and moral 1 principles generally acknowledged (in principle if perhaps often not in fact) in the contemporary world, it is not easy to avoid the conclusion that nuclear development firTr-/S~ inv61ves injustice ~ /:T4- • with respect to the future 1,0 .I\ li g s111l s n 1J e> . The.re appear to be only two plausible moves that might enable the avoidance of such a conclusion. �(p) !Pa {csfuP~ c C--?\ Ce/>'\ r.,--,._ ( .__:.. '7 1 </{_:_, rh~, t ✓~ ~ I d04r7 A ~ /'{,I(~ ~ ~ UL-117 KL- #- "d c ...... /~,::;., , ~7 (~ ' a-r ,,:ZZ-: :.,.,/ ~ 7 ka.-~ ,,.,;,{,,;,,, j ~ ~ ~ cf~~c-r 77~ 7W{~ ' £--) 11-/'l,,._,r ,/~ £e..-r<- ~ ~7~ ~~ t, .r \t Y/1 ) . 8. I i I First, it might be argued that the moral principles and obligations which we acknowledge for the contemporary world and the immediate future do not apply f{,_ because the recipients of...- nuclear parcel are in the non-immediate future. Secondly, an attempt might be made to appeal to overriding circumstances; for to !eject the consigner's action in the circumstances outlined is not of course to 1 ~ that there are circumstances in which such an action might ~,.;s i];Jj' no be justifiable 1 or at least where the the nuclear case. f,t,,J/,e,, ~ is less clearcut. It is the same with Just as in the case of the consigner of the package there is a need to consider what these justifying circumstances might be, and whether (on(l,/e,r- We ~urfl now to the first oA these possible escape they apply in the present case. h,1',.,. ,¼ ,,;I,11. ,~ 1V,r,q routes for the proponent of nuclear developmen~, A~ the ~ ~ a i e::u, question of our obligations to the future.@ III The especially problematic area OBLIGATIONS TO THE (DISTANT) FUTURE. is that of the distant (i.e. ~ ,-inun({..!',l j ate) future, 11( the future with which people alive today will have no direct contact; by comparison, the immediate &,I" In fact the question of future gives fe~ problems for most ethical theories. obligations to future people presents tests which a number of ethical theories ( tl~eu,lf;"i, a;iff. ill}~-?~ • • 1-t,u,· fe,!, 0 "! 1-ope:ram,o_rLJ fail to pass, and also o'Ji(~) tlo .-u-r ~ t/JM_ the adequacy of accepted;/ institutions which leave future pe pl.c. in political philosophy cen:e!r .. in:g 01:1~ <YP of account~ the interests of ll'd"-lvx~, ;>?Moral philosophers have, predictably, differed on the issue. A good many of the philosophers who have explicitly considered the question have come down in favour of the same consideration being given to the rights and interests of future people as to those of contemporary or immediately future people. Other philosophers have tended to fall into three categories - those who acknowledge obligations to the future but who do not take them seriously or who assign them a lesser weight, those who deny or who are committed by their general moral position to denying that there are moral obligations beyond the immediate future, and those who come down, with admirable philosophical caution, on both sides of the issue, but with the weight of the argument favouring the view underlying prevailing economic and political pcr/1t,,/IJ institutions,that there are no moral obligations to the future beyond ~those f@raap,s to the next generation. According to the most extreme of these positions against moral obligations to the future, our behaviour with respect to the future is morally unconstrained, there are no moral restrictions on acting or failing to act deriving from the effect of our actions on future people. Of those philosophers who say, or whose views imply that we do not have obligations to the (non-immediate) future, who have opted for the unconstrained position, many have based this view on accouna of moral obligation which are builh. on relations which presuppose some ckiguhl uf \ �9. temporal or spatial contiguit y. Thus moral obligatio n is seen as grounded on or as presuppos ing various relations which could not hold between people widely separated in time (or sometimes in space). For example, obligatio n is seen as grounded in relations which are proximate or of short duration and also nontransitiv e. Among such suggested bases or grounds of moral obligatio n, or requireme nts on moral obligatio n, which would rule out obligatio ns to the non.immediate future are these:- Firstly there are those accounts which require that someone to whom a moral obligatio n is held be able to claim his rights or entitleme nt. People in the distant future will not be able t'b-claim rights and en«fw11. entitleme nts as aga:inst us, and of course they can do nothingAt o enforce any claims they might have for their rights against us. Secondly, there are those accounts which base moral obligatio ns on social or legal conventio n, for example a conventio n which would require punishmen t of offenders or at least some kind of social enforceme nt. But plainly these and other conventio ns will not hold invariant over change in society and amendment of legal conventio ns and so will not be invariant over time. Also future people have no way of enforcing their interests or punishing offenders , and there could be no guarantee that any contempo rary institutio n would do it for them. ~ Both the view that moral obligatio n requ{es the context of a moral community and the view that it is contractu ally based appear to rule out the distant future as a field of moral obligatio n as they not only require a commonal ity or some sort of common basis which cannot be guarantee d in the case of the distant future, but also a possibili ty of interchan ge or reciproci ty of action which cannot apply to the future. Where the basis of moral obligatio n is seen as mutual exchange the interests of future people must be set aside because they cannot change the past and cannot be parties to any mutual contract. The exclusion of moral obligatio ns to the distant future also follows from those views which attempt to ground moral obligatio ns in non-tran sitive relations of short duration such as sympathy and love. As well there are difficult ies about love and sympathy for (non-exis tent) people in the far distant future about whose personal qualities and characte ristics one must know very little and who may well Ji/fa,,,,be committed to a life-styl e for which one has no sympathy. On the current 1 showing in the case of nuclear energy it would be easy to conclude that contempo rary society lacks both love and sympathy for future people; and it would appear to follow fr om this that contempor ary people had no obligatio ns concernin g future people and could damage them as it suited them. ( �10. j What all these views have in common is a picture of obligation as something acquired, either individually or institutionally, something which is conditional on doing something or failing to do something (e.g. participating in the moral community, contracting), or having some characteristic one can \b 5 fail to have (e.g. love, sympathy, empffathy). { t:#11/ Because obligation therefore fOt1'0i7'1 ) c,4/t..,&,./.h. become\conditional, features usually"' thought to characterise ia;~such as universality of application and necessitation (i.e. the binding features) ate lost,~special.ly where there is a choice whether or not to do the thing required to acquire the obligation, and so as to whether to acquire it. The criteria for acquisition suggested are such as to exclude people in the distant future. The view that there are no moral constraints with respect to future people, that one is free to act however one likes with respect to them, Mt is Ahowever Jurn.mi).(/e. ,fl ·•=~ aH:llLalt one te ~t113ta1A J Irr Consider, elm example , a a scientific group which, for no particular reason other than to test a particular piece of technology, places in orbit a cobalt bomb set off by a triggering device designed to go off several hundred years from the time of its despatch. No presently living person and none of their immediate descendants would be affecte.d, but the population ofY the earth in the distant future would be wiped out as a The unconstrained position clearly direct and predictabl~ result of the action. implie s that this is an acceptable moral enterpris e, that whatever else we might legitimately criticize in the scientists' experiment, perhaps its being overexpensive or badly designed, we cannot lodge a moral protest about the damage it The unconstrained position also endorses as morally J,,)rc'y: acceptable the following sorts of linEOfflf':les:- A firm discovers it can make a will do to future people. handsome profit from mining, processing and manufacturing a new type of material which, although it causes no problem for present people or their immediate descendents, will over a period of hundreds of years decay into a substance which will cause an enormous epidemic of cancer among the inhabitants of the earth at that time. According to the unconstrained view the firm is free to act in its own interests, without any consideration for the harm i .t does ,ren,,~ future people. Such counterexamples to the unconstrained view, which are easily varied and multiplied, might seem childishly obvious. Yet the unconstrained position concerning the future from which they follow is far from being a straw man; not 0... only have several philosophers endorsed this position, but it i s ~ clear impli cation of many currently popular views of the basis of moral obligation, as well as of prevailing economic theory. It seems that those who opt for the unconstrained position have not considered such examples, -, /J/(l. by their position. despite their being clearly implied w ..ld cuh..117 ~o/1'1 Md;{ - We suspect thatAwhen it is brought out that the unconstrained position admits such counterexamples, that being free to act implies among other things being free to inflict pointless harm for example, most of those who opted for �11. the unconstrained position would want to assert that it was not what they intende.d. I What many of those who have put forward the unconstrained position seem to have had in mind in denying moral obligation is rather that future people can look after themselves, that we are not reponsible for their lives. The popular view that the future can take care of itself also seems to assume a future causally independent of the present. But it is not. It is not as if, r:-- in the counter/ example cases or in the nuclear case, the future is simply being .....:.,..., left alone to take care of itself. Present people are influencing it, and in doing so thereby acquire many of the same sorts of moral responsibilities as they do in causally affecting the present and immediate future, namely the obligation to take account in what they do of people affected and their interests, to be careful in their actions, to take account of the genuine probability of their actions causing harm, and to see that they do not act so as to rob future people of the chance of a good life. Furthermore, to say that we are not responsible for the lives of future people does not amount to the same thing as saying that we are free to do as we like with respect to them, that there are no moral constraints on our action involving them. In just the same way, the fact that one does not have or has not acqu.ired an obligation to some stranger with whom one has never been involved, that one has no responsibility for his life, does not imply that one .is free to do what one likes with respect to him, for example to rob him or to pursue some course of act.ion of advantage to oneself which could seriously harm him. These difficulties for the unconstrained position arise in part from the (sometimes deliberate) failure to make an important distinction between acquired or assumed obligations toward somebody, for which some act of acquisition or assumption is required as a qualifying condition, and moral constraints, which require, for example, that one should not act so as to damage or harm someone, and for which no act of acquisition is required. and kind of responsibility involved. There is a considerable difference in the level In the first case one must do something or be something which one can fail to do or be, e.g. have loves, sympathy, be contracted. In the second case responsibility arises as a result of being a causal agent who is aware of the consequences or probable consequences of his action, and thus does not have to be especially acquired or assumed. Thus there is no problem about how the latter class, moral constraints, can apply to the distant future in cases where it may be difficult or impossible for acquisition or assumption conditions to be satisfied. They apply as a result of the ability to produce causal effects on the distant future of a reasonably predictable nature. Thus also moral constraints can apply to what does not (yet) exist, just as actions can cause results that do not p{jf-lrr (yet) exist. While it may~be the case that there would need to be an acquired or assumed obligation in order for it to be claimed that contemporary people must make speci.al sacrifices for future people of an heroic kind, or even to help them �12. especially, only moral constraints are needed in order for us to be constrained Thus, to return to the train parable, the consigner cannot from harming them. argue in justification of hi.s action that he has never assumed or acquired responsfbility for the passengers, that he does not know them and therefore has no love or sympathy for them and that they are not part of his moral community, in short that he has no special obligations to help them. All that one needs to argue concerning the train, and the nuclear case, is that there are moral constraints against harming, not that there are specially acquired obligations to take responsibility for the lives of people involved. There has been an attempt to represent all obligations to the distant future in terms of heroic self- sacrifice, something which cannot of course be morally required. But in view of the distinctions between constraints and acquired obligation and between obligation and supererogation this is just to misrepresent the position of these obligations. For example, one is no more engaging in heroic self- sacrifice by not forcing future people into an unviable life position or by refraining from causing them direct harm than the consigner is resorting to heroic self- sacrifice in refraining from placing his dangerous package 6n the train. - 1~ ,-;.,,. The conf~ of moral constraints with acquired obligation, and the attempt therewith to view all constraints as acquired and to write off nonacquired constraints, is facilitated through the use of the term 'moral obligation' both to signify any type of deontic constraints and also to indicate rather something which t?t-. con.Pl~"' has to be assumed or acquired. a .~is encouraged by reductionist positions which, in attempting to account for obligation in genera~mistakenly endeavour to collapse all obligations into acquired obligations. Hence the equation, and some main roots {),nu,,WUI of the unconstrained position, of theAbelief that there are no moral constraints concerning the distant future. The unconstrained view tends to give way, under the weight of counterexamples, to more qualified, and sometimes ambivalent, positions, for example the position that our obligations are to immediate posterity, we ought to try to improve the world so that we shall be able to hand it over to our immediate successors in a better condtion, and that is all; il,/7 there are irferactice no obligations to the distant future. A main argument in favour of the latter theme is that such obligations would in practice be otiose. Everything that needs to be accounted for can be encompassed through the �chain picture of obligation as linking successive generations, under which each generation has obligations, based on loves or sympathy, only to the succeeding - generation. /hftfe.. 'U'L P..t (t A.,t ~ . A three objections to this chain account. First, it is inadequate to treat constraints concerning the future as if they applied only between generations, as if there were no question of constraints on individuals opposed to whole generations, since individuals can create causal effects, e.g. harm, on the future in a way which may create individual responsibility, and which often cannot be sheeted home to an entire generation. Secondly, such chains, since non-transitive, cannot yield direct obligations to the distant future. But for this very reason the chain picture cannot be adequate, as examples again show. For the picture is unable to explain several of the cases that have to be dealt with, e.g. the examples already discussed which show that we can have a direct effect on the distant future without affecting the next generation, who may not even be able to influence matters. VThirdly, improvements for immediate successors may be achieved at the expense oflcfi\advantages to people of the more distant future. Improving the world for immediate successors is quite compatible with , and may even in some circumstances be most easily achieved by, ruining it for less immediate successors. examples Such cases can hardly be written off as "never-never land" since many cases of environmental exploitation might be seen as of just this type, e.g. not just the nuclear case but also the exhaustion of nonrenewable resources and the long-term depletion of renewable resources such as soils t.($l. and forests through over crttl If then such obvious injustices to future W• people arising from the favouring or exclusive concern with immediate successors are to be avoided, obligations to the future will have to be seen as in some way fairly distributed over time, and not merely as accruing to particular generations in the way the chain picture suggests. IV. ATTEMPTS TO QUALIFY OBLIGATI_ONS TO THE FUTURE : ECONOMISTIC r.\ Ul\tERTAINTY AND INDETERMINACY ARGUMENTS. While there are grave difficulties for the unconstrained position, qualification leads to a more defensible . , ~ ,;. position. According to thej qualified position we are not entirely unconstrained with respect to the distant future, there are obligations, but these are not so important as those to the present, and the interests of distant future people cannot weigh very much in the scale against those of the present and immediate future . The interests of future people then, except in unusual cases, count for very much less than the interests of present people. Hence such things as nuclear development and various exploitative activities which benefit present people should proceed, even if people of the distant future are (somewhat) disadvantaged by them. The qualified position appears to be widely held and is implicit in prevailing economic theories, where the position of a decrease in weight of future �( 'tJ c./,~ 14. c,,...,.,,..7 e-.Al'I r~e/ ,,_0 /1//4,r.4'---/o/_/,._ costs and benefits (and so of future inter~s) is obtained by application over time of a ! ~ discount rateJ l The attempt to apply eco~omics as a moral theory, something that is becoming increasingly common, can lead then to the qualified position. J What is objectionable in such an approach is that rl..ooA.cl economics~ operate within the bounds of moral (deontic) constraints, just A as in practice it operates within legal constraints, not determine what those There are moreover alternative economic theories and simply constraints are. to adopt, without further ado, one which discounts the future is to beg ~.rn.<)~ t=t.m questions at issue. Among the arguments that economists offer for generally discounting the future 1 the most threadbare is based ~n the assumption that future generations J'{ than present ones > and so better placed to handle the waste off willj€:tter Since there is mounting evidence that future generations may well UQ_l= problem. be better off than present ones, especially in things that matter, no argujJnent can carry Much discounting the interests of future generations on this basis For it depends qf Nor is that all that is wrong with the argujtnent. weight. ~ 1 ~.<f_.: ~ assumption that poorer contemporaries would be making (ullRJ_td/., h-n.a-hc '"/ J richer successors in foregoing such,i de.f5elopments as nuclear power. Tl,q•f ;1 1 il-.la/Jt,,,.1U H:O::f t f ~ a ~ I cl:e..vi?1tiprirn~ M th. f:>.I~,. .Ly rcdr.lul -Be:t,\ the sacrifice {(J/0..) lias , 1r cad, li @an ~ ~ hi¥/~ -tl,e., on sacrifices to f or 8'1. Qto @h es. t"/!"4;/ "r: toJ/IJ-f,444 the future 'i1:m:1 for the waste disposal problem to be ~ argument . Iii\ ""1 legitimately generations, it would have to be shown, what recent economic progress hardly justifies, that future generations will be, not just better U 11.,t J1' 011!.. C u.;,,;/,/e_. off, but so much better offAthat they can duly absorb the nuclear waste burden. A more plausible argument for discounting is d.i rectly in terms of opportunity costs. It is argued_, from the fact that a dollar gained now is worth much more than a dollar received in the non-immediate future (because the first dollar could meanwhile be invested at compound interest), that discounting is required to obtain equivalent monetary values, and so f~r efficient allocation of resources. Similarly it is argued, by virtue again of 'r/'~/,·s-.-l,~..... of monetary value, that compensation - which is what the waste problem is taken to cawii:a. to 71....r a few pennies set now than later. ~ costs much less_ economically ,1ov.)Q/" -- ,...... aside (e.g. in a trust fund)Ain the future, if need bev, will suffice to compensate eventually for any v,c. t,w>.f of remote radioactive waste leakage. There are, presently at least, in surmountable pract1cal _ _ difficulties about applying such discounting, e.g. how to determine appropriate future discount rates. A more serious objection is that �15 . applied generally, the argument presupposes , what is false, that compensatio n, like value, can always be converted into monetary equivalents , that people ~ncluding I those outside market frameworks) can be monetarily compensated for a variety of damages, including cancer and loss of life. There is no compensatin g a dead man, or for a lost species. In fact the argument presupposes neither part of which can succeed be represented , at all adequately it is not just /</ a double reduction that value cannot in general , -fa' /J,'K~~ monetarily, but (as against utilitariani sm) ,t -LJ..,.t constraints and obligations can not be somehow reduced to matters of value. It i s also presupposed that all decision methods, suitable for requisite nuclear choic e s,'!_--- - -~ are bound ~o apply discounting . This is far from so : indeed A Goodi~ argues that, on the do not allow discounting , and discounting only works in practice with expected utility rules (such as underlie cost-benef it and benefit-ris k analyses), which ,r,// are, he contends strictly inapplicabl e for nuclear choices (since aJncrt 1 pnl'>Si],1 f3 {,/,11.{f al f<j''1. a,t /'.,~,,/,/;#b J outcomes can be duly determirte1, in the way that application of the rules 1-0 requir es). 1/ contrary, more appropriate decision £~1¢s ,, As the f~e.ceid;nJ . arguments reveal, the discounting move often has the same result as the unconstrain ed position. If, for instance, we consider the cancer i example and reduce costs to payable compensatio n, it is evident that over a sufficientl y long period of time discounting at current prices would lead to the conclus ion that there are no recoverable damages and so, in economic terms, no constraints . I n short, even certain damage to future people could be written off. One way to achieve the bi a s against future people is by the application of discount rates which are set in accord with the current e conomic horizons of no more than about 15 years~2/ and appli.cation of such rates would simply beg the question against the interests a nd rights of fu t ure people. Where there is certain future damage of a mo rally f o rbidden t ype, f or example, the whole method of discounting is simply inappl.icabl e, and its use would violate moral constraint s.~ Another argument for the qualified position, which avoids the objections from ca ses of c ert a in d a mage, comes from probability considerati ons. The distant future, it is a rgued, is much more uncertain than the present and immediate future, so that probabiliti es are consequentl y lower, perhaps even approaching or coinciding with zero for any hypothesis concerning the distant future.• But then if we take account of probabiliti es in the obvious way, by simply multiplying them against costs and benefits, it is evident that the interests of future people; except in cases where there is an unusually high degree of certainty, much) less than those of present and must count for (very neighbourin g people where (much) higher probabj_lities are attached. So in the case of conflict between the present and the future where it is a question of weighing certain benefits to the people of the present and the immediate f(Jture against a much lower probability of indetermina te �16. costs to an indeterminate number of distant future people, the issue would normally be decided in favour of the present, assuming anything like similar costs and benefits were involved. But of course it cannot be assumed that anything like similarly weighted costs and benefits are involved in the nuclear case, especially if it is a question of risking poisoning some of the earth for half a million or so years, with consequent risk of serious harm to thousands of generations of future people, in order to obtain am:±E doubtful fU" t, i :b4. benefits for some present people, in f11(,i11i.1,~ c,HJcn.A,;;,. l';-of,Y~;l,7 or le the shape of the opportunity to). continue unnecessarily high energy use. And even if the costs and benefits were comparable or evenly weighted ,)<such an argument would be defective, since an analogous argument would show that the consigner's action is acceptable provided the benefit, e.g. the profit he stood to gain from imposing significant risks on other people, was sufficiently large. or l"isl.~JwiolilSuch a cost-benefitAapproach to moral and decision problems, with or without the probability frills, is quite inadequate where different parties are concerned or to deal with cases of conflict of interest or moral problems where deontic constraints are involved, and commonly yields counterintuitive results. it would follow on such principles that it is permissible For example, for a firm to injure, or very likely injure, some innocent party provided the firm stands to make a sufficiently large gain from it. But the costs and benefits involved are not transferable in any s1mple or general way from one party to another. Transfers of this kind, of costs and benefits involving different parties, commonly raise moral issues - e.g. is x entitled to benefit himself by imposing costs on y - whi.ch are not susceptible to, a simple cost-benefit approach of the sort adopted J~ J,!01-Ult;,... •F enenza, of nuclear energy, ltho attefl@J':=::f::fl=di-smiss the costs to future ,~~ # "41'- . ~'?f1¥=;ll,, d?,,-,ipQ/i,,. people~with the soothing remark that any development involves costs as well as benefHs. The limitations of transfei:_ point is enough to invalidate the comparison, heavily relied on in building a case for the acceptability of the nuclear -- risk, between nuclear risks and those from such activities as airplane travel or cigarette smoking. In the latter case those who supposedly benefit from the activity -3. are also, to an overwhelming extent, those who bear the serious health costs and risks involved. In contrast the users and supposed beneficiaries of nuclear energy will be risking not only, or even primarily, their own lives and health, but also that of others who may be non-beneficiaries and who may be spatially or temporaJ.ly removed, and these risks will not be in any direct way related to a person's extent of use. The transfer objection is essentially the same as that to the utilitarian's {happiness) sums as a way ~f solvini moral. conflict between diff_e_r ent parties, and the . . - 1J.1 ,,. u/i'th:urty,- ~IJ-UJI--. NJ/t.J1 ~ O-? 'Hf/t• """~ aP/2~.i.-1-;- 1ntroduct1on of probabi.lity cons1derations.-l does not change the principles involved but merely complicates the analysis. One might further object to the probability argument that piobabilities involving distant future situations are not always less than those concerning the immediate future in the way the argument supposes, and ~ �17. that the outcomes of some moral problems do not depend on a high level of f probability anyway. In some sorts of cases it is enough, as the train parable I reveals, that a significant risk is created; such cases do not depend critically on high probability assignments. Uncertainty arguments in various forms are the most common and important ones used by philosophers, economists and others to argue for the position that we cannot be expected to take serious account of the effects of our actions on the distant future. There are two strands to the uncertainty argument, capable of sep- aration, but frequently tangled up. priori Both arguments are mistaken, the first on a grounds, the second on a posteriori grounds. The first argument is a generalised uncertainty argument which runs as follows:- In contrast to the exact information we can obtain about the present, the information we can obtain -ft1Z'L:J about the effects of our actions on the distant future is unreli.able,wootl; and highly A speculative. But we cannot base assessments of how we should act on information of this kind, especially when accurate information is obtainable about the present which would indicate different action. Therefore we must regretfully ignore the X uncertain effects of our actions on the distant future. crudely: More formally and One only has obligations to the future if these obligations are based on reliable information. distant future. There is no reli.able information at present as regards the Therefore one has no obligations to the distant future. This first argument is essentially a variant on a sceptical argument in epistemology concerning our knowledge of the future (formally, replace 'obligations' by 'knowledge' in the crude statement of the argument above). The main ploy is to considerably overestimate and overstate the degree of certainty available with respect to the present and immediate future, and the degree of certainty which is required as the basis for moral consideration both with respect to the present and with respect to the future. Associated with this is the attempt to suggest a sharp division as regards certainty between the present and immediate future on the one hand and the distant future on the other. We shall not find, we suggest, that there is any such sharp or simple division between the distant future and the adjacent future and the present, at least with respect to those things in the present which are normally subject to moral constraints. We can and constantly do act on the basis of such "unreliable" information, as the sceptic as regards the future conveniently labels "uncertainty"; for sceptic-proof certainty is rarely, or never, available with respect to much of the present and immediate future. In moral situations in the present, action often takes account of risk and probability, even quite low probabilities. Consider again the train example. We do not need to know for certain that the container will break and the lethal gas escape. In fact it does not even have to be probable, in the relevant sense of more probable than not, in order for us to condemn the consigner's action. It is enough that there is a significant �18 . in this sort of case. risk of harnt J It does not matter if the decreased well-being of the consigner is certain and that the prospects of the passengers quite uncertain, the resolution of the problem is nevertheless clearly in favour But if we do not require of the so-called "speculative " and "unreliable". certainty of action to apply moral constraints in contemporary affairs, why should we require a much higher standard of certainty in the future? Why should we require for the future, episte.m ic standards which the more familiar sphere of moral action concerning the present and adjacent future does not need to meet? The insistence on certainty as a necessary condition before moral consideration can be given to the distant future, then, amounts to an epistemic double standard. But such a~ epistemic double standard, proposed in explaining the difference between the present and the future and to justify ignoring future peoples' interests, in fact cannot itself provide an explanation of the differences, since it already presupposes different standards of certainty appropriate to each class, which difference is in turn in need of justification. The second uncertainty argument is a practical uncertainty argument, that whatever our obligations to the future, we cannot in practice theoretical take the interests of future people into account because uncertainty about the distant future is so gross that we cannot determine what the likely consequences of actions on it will be and therefore, however good our intentions to the people of the distant future are, in practice we have no choice but to ignore their interests. Uncertainty is gross where certain incompatible hypotheses are as good as one another and there is no rational ground for choosing between them. The second uncertainty argument can be put alternatively this way:- If moral principles are, like other principles, implicational in form, that is of such forms as "if every (action) x" , x has character h then x is wrong, for then what the argument claims is that we cannot ever obtain the information about future actions which would enable us to detach the antecedent of the implication. So even if moral principles theoretically apply to future people, in practice they cannot be applied to obt.ain clear conclusions or directions concerning contemporary action of the "It is wrong to do x" type. Many of the assumptions of the second argument be conceded. If the distant future really is so grossly uncertain that in every case it is impossible to determine in any way that is better than chance what the effects of present action will be, and whether any given action will help or hinder future people, then moral principles, although they may apply theoretically to the future, will in practice not be applicable to obtain any clear conclusions about how to act. Hence the distant future will impose no practical moral constraints on action. However the argument is factually incorrect in assuming that the future always is so grossly uncertain or indeterminate. Admittedly there is often a high degree of uncertainty concerning the distant future, but as a matter of (contingent) fact it is not always so gross or sweeping as the �~~ --t9-. argument has to assume. There are some areas where uncertainty is not so great as I to exclude constraints on action, especially when account is taken of the point, which was noticed in connection with the first argument, that complete certainty is commonly not required for moral constraints and that all that may be needed in some cases is the creation of a significant risk. Again there is considerable uncertainty about many factors which are not highly, or at all, morally relevant, but this does not extend to many factors which are of much greater importance to moral issues. For example, we may not have any idea what the fashions will be -f/,u.'fN-r I in a hundred years i n ~ names o r ~ footwear, or what praod1 of ice • • .._A'.~ cream people will be eating if any, but we do have excellent reason to believe, especially if we consider 3000 years of history, that what people there are in a hundred years are likely to have material and psychic needs not entirely unlike our own, that they will need a healthy biosphere for a good life; that like us they will not be immune to radiation; that their welfare will not be enhanced by a high incidence of cancer or genetic defects, by the destruction of resources, or the elimination from t h e ~ earth of that wonderful variety of non-human life which at present makes it such a rich and interesting place. Ill uncertainty argument should be rejected. For this sort of reason, the second The case of nuclear waste storage, and of uncertainty of the effects of it on future people, is one area where uncertainty in morally relevant respects is not so great as to preclude moral constraints on action, where we can ascertain if not absolute certainties at least probabilities of the same sort of order as are considered sufficient for the application of moral principles in parallel contemporary cases, especially where spatially remote people are involved. In particular there is not gross indeterminacy or uncertainty; it is simply not true that incompatible hypotheses about what may happen are as good as each other. It is plain that nuclear waste storage does impose significant risks of harm on future people, and, as~• eac. ~ eu,~ ~ ··from the train example, the significant risk of harm is enough in cases of this { type to make moral constraints applicable. In terms of the def ects of the preceding uncertainty arguments, we can see the defects in a number of widely employed uncertainty arguments used to 0~1,.(t_ write off probable~ harm to future people as outside the scope of proper consideration. Most of these popular moves emv ,< .loy both of the uncertainty arguments as suits the case, switching from one to the other in a way that is again reminiscent of sceptical moves. For example, we may be told that we cannot really take account of future people because we cannot be sure that they will exist or that their tastes and wants will not be completely different from our own, to the point where they will not suffer from our exhaustion of resources or from the~hings that would c,.ffect us. But this is to insist upon complete certainty of a sort beyond what is required for the present and immediate future, where there is also commonly no guarantee that some disaster will not overtake those we are mora.lly committed to. Again we may �be told that there is no guarantee that future people will be worthy of any efforts on our part, because they may be morons of forever plugged into enjoyment of other machines. Even if one is prepared to accept the elitist approach presupposed - according to which only those who meet certain properly civilized or intellectual standards are eligible for moral consideration - what we are being handed in such arguments as a serious defeating consideration is again a mere outside possibility like the sceptic who says that solid-looking desk in front of us is perhaps only a facade, not because he has any particular reason for doing so, but because he hasn't looked around the back, drilled holes in it, etc. etc. Neither the contemporary nor the historical situation gives any positive reason for supposing that a lapse into universal moronity or universal-pleasure-machine escapism is a serious possibility, as oppo s ed to a logical possibility. We can contrast with these mere logical possibilities the very real historically supportable risks of escape of nuclear waste or decline of a civilisation through destruction of its resource base. The possibilities just considered in these uncertainty arguments of sceptical character are not real possibilities. Another argument which may consider a real possibility, but still does not succeed in showing that it is acceptable to proceed with an action which would appear to be harmful to future people, is often introduced in the nuclear waste case. This is the argument that future people may discover a rigorously safe and permanent storage method for nuclear wastes before they are damaged by escaped waste material. Let us grant for the sake of the argument that this is a real possibility (though physical arguments may show that it is not). This still does not ~ffect the fact that there is a significant risk of serious damage and that the creation of a significant risk is enough to rule out an action of this type as morally impermissible. In just the same way, future people may discover a cure for cancer: that this app ears to be a ~ live possibility, and not merely a logical possibility, does not make the action of the firm tu ..c tbeaa-:&-xam~ aiscussed earlier of producing a substance likely to cause cancer in future people, morally admissible. The fact that there was a real possibility of future people avoiding the harm would show that actions of these sorts were admissible only if what was required for inadmissibility was certainty of harm or a very high probability of it. In such cases before such actions could be considered admissible what would ?e required is 22 far more than a possibility, real or not - it is at least the availability of an applicable, safe, and rigorously tested, not merely speculative, technique for achieving it, something that future people could reasonably be to protect themselves. ~tpected to apply �~/l,.. a..,,.L- a«'if The strategy of /tnost af rbes9 uncertainty arguments is fairly clear then, I and may be brought out by looking yet again at the train example where the consigner says that he cannot be expected to take account of the effect of his actions on the passengers because they may find an effective way to deal with his parcel or some lucky or unlucky accident may occur, e.g. the train may break down and they may all change to a different transport leaving the parcel behind, or the train may crash killing all the passengers before the container gets a chance to leak. These are all possibilities of course, but there is no positive reason to believe that liC/t2- they are any more than that, that is they are n o t ~ possibilities. ~k- The ;\, strategy is to stress such bH~sid& possibilities in order to create the false impression that there is gross uncertainty about the future, that the real possibility that the contai.ner will break should be treated in the same way as these mere logical possibilities, that uncertainty about the future is so great as to preclude the consigners' takin~ account of the passengers' welfare and the real possibility of harm from his parcel and thereby to excuse his action. A related strategy is to stress a real vossibility, such as finding a cure for cancer, and thereby imply that this removes the case for applying moral constraints. This move implicitly makes the assumptions of the first argument, that certainty of harm, or at least a very high probability of harm is required before an action can be judged morally inadmissible, and the point of stressing the real possibility of avoidance of damage is to show that this allegedly required high degree of certainty or probability cannot be attained. That is, the strategy draws attention to some real uncertainty implying that this is sufficient to defeat the application of moral constraints. But, as we have seen, this is often not so. Closely related to uncertainty arguments are arguments premissed on the indeterminacy of the future. In particular it is argued that the indeterminacy, for example with respect to the number and exact character of people at future times, would at least prevent the interest of future people being taken into account where there is a conflict with the present. Since their numbers are ,:J$ '<>A, indeterminate and their interests unknown how, it is SloM!-d, can we weigh their competing claims against those of the present and immediate future where this information is available in a more or less accurate form? The question is raised particularly by pr,Pblems of sharing fixed quantities of resources among present -fu,-- Q ~11.,,y,.La.. ..,, I, and future people," wherf the numbers of the latter are indeterminate. Such problems are indeed difficult, but they are not resolved by ignoring the claims f ) of the future, any more than the problems raised by the need to take account in decision-making of factors difficult to quantify are resolved byVignoring such factors. Nor are distributional problems as large and representative a cl'ass of moral problems concerning the future as the tendency to focus on them would suggest. can be conceded that there will be cases where the indeterminacy of aspects of It �the future will make co~flicts very difficult to resolve or indeed irresoluble - J a realistic ethical theory will not deliver a decision procedure - but there will equally be other conflict cases where the level of indeterminacy does not hinder resolution of the issue, e.g. the train example which is a conflict case of a type. In particular, there will bi~ many cases which are not solved by weighing numbers, numbers of interests, or whatever, cases for which one needs to know only the most general probable characteristics of future people. The crucial question which emerges is then: are there any features of future people which would disqualify them fro~ral consideration or reduce their claims to such below those of present people? Prima facie, The answer is : in principle None. ,. moral principles are universalisable, and lawlike, in that they apply independently of position in space or in time, for example. But universalisability of principles is an outcome of those ethical theories which are capable of deali.ng satisfactorily with the present; in other words, a theory that did not allow properly for the future would be found to have defects as regards the present, to deal unjustly or unfairly with some present people, e.g. those remotely located. those outside some select subgroup, such as (white-skinned) humans, etc. candidates The only for characteristics that would fairly rule out future people are the logical features we have been looking at, such as uncertainty and indeterminacy; ht1 1l, , . ~ we have argued 1 p: ai-Oia) it would be far too sweeping to see these features as affecting the moral claims of future people in a general way. These special features only affect certain sorts of cases (e.g. the determination of best probable or practical course of action given only present information). In particular/ they do not affect cases of the sort being considered, nuclear development, where highly determinate. or certain information about the numbers and characteristics of the class likely to be harmed is not required, nor is certainty of damage. To establish obligations to the future a full universalizability principle is not required: it is enough that the temporal position of a person cannot af feet his entitlement to just and fair treatment, to full moral consideration ;i Zfj inversely, that it is without basis to discriminate morally against a person in virtue of his temporal position. As a result of this universalizahility, there are the same general obligations to future people as to the present; and thus there is the same ooligation to take account of them and their interests in what we do, to be careful in our actions, to take account of the probability (and not just the certainty) of our actions causing harm or damage, and to see, other things being equal, that we do not act so as to rob them of what is necessary for the chance of a good life. Uncertainty and indeterminacy tf,1'1 Q.v. a. do not/\:krt: u s ~ of these obligations. If in a closely comparable case concerning the present the creation of a significant risk is enough to rule out an action as immoral, and there are no independent grounds for requiring greater certainty of �I harm in the future case under consideration, then futurity alone will not provide adequate grounds for proceeding with the action, thus discriminating against future people. Accordingly we cannot escape, through appeal to futurity, the conclusion already tentatively reached, that proposals for nuclear development in the present and likely future state of technology and practices for future waste disposal are immoral. Before we consider (in section VII) the remaining escape route from this conclusion, through appeal to overriding circumstances, it is important to pick up the further case (which heavily reinforces the tentative conclusion) against nuclear development, since much of it relies on ethical principles similar to those that underlie obligations to the future, and since it too is commonly met by similar appeal to extenuating circumstances. V. Problems of safe nuclear operation: reactor emissions, and core meltdown. ethical problems with nuclear power are by no means confined to future creatures. Just as remoteness in time does not erode obligations or entitlements to just treatment, neither does location in spa ce, or a particular gqsgraphical position. First of all, the problem of nuclear waste disposal raises serious questions of distributive justice not only across time, across generations, but also across space. Is one state or region entitled to dump its radioactive pollution in e,,- ,.q/Jjel'J another state's or region's yard? ,( When that region receives no due compensation (whatever that would amount to, in such a case~ and the people do not agree (though the leaders imposed upon them might)? The answer, and the arguments under- pinning the answer, are both like those already given in arguing to the tentative conc.lusion concerning the injustice of imposing radioactive wastes upon future people. But the cases are not exactly the same: USA and Japan cannot endeavour fl'I- cf to discount peoples of the Pacific in whose regions they propose to drop~ their ,a,ltdi;~ pollution in quite the way they can discount people of two centuries hence. (But what this consideration really reveals is yet another flaw in the idea that e ntitlement to just treatment can be discounted over time.) ! �' ~ '· i Eth~· c 1 i ssues of distr i bu tive j ustice, • as to equityI / ,:,J ~ J.._ /, ,tJ tc..id~,,..__ v J{ ~iv9ly=~=in ~ , also arise elsewhere in the assessment of nuclear development ; in particular, a s regards t h e treatment of those in the neighbour of reactors, and, tud rorb differently, as r~gards the distribution of (alleged) b~nefits Afrom nuclear power across ~ ~5' (The la t ter ques tion is t aken up ,\ a~ s ~~~ , especja] Jy , tb s Pev etty argument . ) ~ Weople livin g or working in the vicinity special costs and risks: f ~w{ffitrrf oslde, al ll rn ;i" a nuclear reactor are subject to firstly, radioactive pollution, due to the fact tha t reactors discharge radioactive ma terials into the air and water near the plant , and secondly catastrophic accidents, such a:; {steam) explosion of a reactor. ~ ,I/;.._ ~ question is whether such cos t s and risks can be imposed, with any ethical legi- timacy, on these people, who frequently have little or no say in their imposition, and who have mostly not been informed of any choices regarding the "risk/benefit -- tradeoffs" of nuclea r _technology. -:::)__ ( That they are so imposed, without local participation, indeed often without local input or awareness as with local opposition, reveals one part of the antidemocratic face of nuclear development, a part that nuclear development shares however with other large-scale polluting industry, where local participation and questions, fundamental to a genuine democracy/ of regional determination and popular sovereignty, are commonly ignored or avoided. .-:-,,, The "normal" ei 1ssion , during plant operation1 of low level rad~ ation carcinogenic and mutagenic costs. While there are undoubtedly costs, there r mains /,id,, substantial disagreement over theAnumber of cancers and precise extent of genetic damage induced by exposure to such radiation, over the local health costs involved. Under the Old Paradigm, which (illegltimotely ) permits free transfer of costs and risks from one person to another, the ethical issue directly raised is said to be: what extent of c~5cer and genetic damage, if any, is permissibly traded for the advantages of nuclear power, and under what conditions? m Under the Old Parad the issue is then translated into decision-theor etic questions, such as to 'ho · to e mploy risk/benefit analysis as a prelude to government regulation' and 'how t o ....1. �25. determine what is an acceptable level of risk/safety for the pub lic' .:ii } 3/ The Old Paradigm a t titude, ref~ted in the public policy o f s ome count r ie s that have such policies, i s t ha t the economic benefits conferred by allowing radiation emissions outweigh the costs of an increase in cancer and genetic damage. An example will reveal that such evaluations , which rely~ what appeal they have on a dubious utilitarianism, will not pass muster. It is a pity about Aunt Ethyl getting cancer, but it's nice to have this air conditioner working in summer. Such frequently trivial and rather inessential benefits, which may be obtained alternatively, e.g. by modification of houses, in no way compensate for the (a;~nf Y, of cance~ '---- The point is that the costs to one party 27 are not justifie~ '-.:,. especially when such benefits to other parties can be alternatively obtained a,-,{,...~ without such ~ awful costs.:. People, minorities, whose ,;.~;(a_, .Jro/ ~ within 50 miles of a nuclear plant. p().~M...11£; ,1711~, position isA compromised are thos\/ who live (Ehildren, for example, are in aAparticularly vulnerable position, since they are several times more likely to contract cancer through exposure than normal adults.) In USA, such people bear a risk of cancer and genetic damage of as much as 50 times that borne by the population at l arge. ~i A notinegl 11ble percentage (in excess of 3% of those exposed for 30 years) o f ~ qJ'~c~ R@r~ t a? s&&-eh:e people 1 in the area will di~j for the sake of the majority who are 111,(.ctaii-J" 'I aailat.'@ffl benefitted byApower producti~n . ~e~~a ft~elear. Whatever charm t he argument from overriding benefits had, even under the Old Paradigm, vanishes once it is seen that there are alternative, and in several respects less expensive ~ ways/ of delivering the real benefits involved. There are several other tricks used in showing that the imposition of radiation t:Jt/~ or on minorities, most of whom havei\ no genuine voice in the location of reactors in their environment and cannot move away without serious losses, is quite (morally) acceptable. l~ One cheaper trick, deployed by the US Atomic Energy Corrnnission, is to suppose that it is permissible to double, through nuclear technology, the level of (natural) rqdiation that a population have received with apparently negligible consequences, the argument being that the additional amount (being "natural" level) is also likely to have negligible consequences. equivalent to the The increased amounts of radiation - with their large man-made component - are then accounted normal, and, f<-,f- i, l(e,,... c-ltt<..,cd. of course,,\ what is normal is morally acceptable. in this argument is sound. None of the steps Drinking one bottle of wine a day may have no ill-effects, whereas drinking two a day certainly may affect a person's well-being; and while the smaller intake may have become normal for the person, the larger one will, under such conditions, not be. Finally, what is or has become normal, e.g . two murders or twenty cancers a day in a given city, may be far from acceptable. In fact, even the USA, which has strict standards by comparison with most other countries with planned nuclear reactors, permits radiat i on emissions very substantially in excess of the standards laid down; so the emission situation is worse than mere consideration of the standards wou'ld disclose. Furthermore , the �~------- -------- ----~-- -------- -------- -------- ---monitoring of the standards "imposed" is entrusted to the nuclear operators themselves, scarcely di.sinterested parties. Public policy is determined not so as to guarantee public health, but rather to serve as a 'public pacifier' while private nuclear operations proceed relatively unhampered~ While radioactive emissions are an ordinary feature of reactor operation, breakdown is, hopefully, not: an accident of magnitude is accounted, by official definition, an 'extraordinary nuclear occurrence'. But such accidents can happen, and almost have on several occasions (the most notorious being Three Mile Island) Y-Q If the cooling and emergency core cooling systems fail in American (light water) 1flore acto rs, then the core melts and 'containment failure' is likely, with ~he result that an area of 40,000 square miles could be radioactively contaminated. In the event of the worst type of accident in a very small reactor, a steam explosion in the reactor vessel, about 45,000 people would be killed instantly and at least 100,000 would die as a result of the accident, property damages would exceed $17 billion and an area H,e size of Pennsylvania would be destroyed. Modern nuclear reactors are abo ut five times the size of the reactor for which these conservative US government figures are giveti' : the consequences of a similar accident with a modern reactor would accordingly b~Y~~eater still. The consigner in ri sking the lifes, well-being and property of the passengers on the train has acted i_nadmissibly. Does a government or govern~t-spon sored private utility act in tay that is anything other than much less responsible in siting a nuclear reactor in a community, in planting such a dangerous package on the community train. The answer will be No, if the analogy holds good and the consigners' action is, as we would ordinarily suppose, inadmissible and irresponsible. The proponents of nuclear power have in effect argued to the contrary, while at the same time endeavouring to shift the dispute out of the ethical ar€/1 and into a technological dispute as to means (in accordance with the Old Paradigm). It has been contended , firstly, what contrasts with the train example, that there is no real possibility of a catastrophic nuclear accident. Indeed in the '11- influential Rassmussen report - which was extensively used to support public confidence in US nuclear fission technology - an even stronger, an incredibly strong, improbability claim was stated: namely, the likelihood of a catastrophic nuclear accident is so remote as to be (almost) impossible. The main argument for this claim derives from the assumptions and estimates of the report itself. These assumptions li ke the claim are undercut by nuclear incidents that came very cil:ose to accidents, incidents which reflect what happens in a reactor rather better than mathematical models. As with the storage of nuclear wastes, so with the operation of nuclear reactors, it is important to look at what happens in the actual world of technological limitations and human error, of waste leak.age and reactor incidents and quite possibly accidents, not in an ideal world far removed .from the actual, a technological �27. ( dream world where there is no real possibility of a nuclear catastrophe. In such an ideal n ucle a r wo r ld , where waste disposal were fool-proof and reac tors were accident-proof , things wo uld no doubt be morally different. But we do no t live in such a world. "" According to the Ra\ussen report its calculation of extremely low accident probabilities is based upon reasonable mathematical and technological assumptions and is methodological ly sound. This is very far from being the case. The under- lying mathematical methods, variously called "fault tree analysis" and "reliability as estimating techniques", are unsound, because they exclude .-1 "not credible" ,>Difl~;l,,9'?~ ~ possibilities or as branches t;o:1:t!il fl Ellffl "not significant" that are real .m:d" may well b'1. rt:i./f,04,( ~1cq1pen1 in the real world. \ It i.s the eliminations that are otherworldly. Infact the methodology and data of the report has been soundly and decisively criticized .Ji And it has been shown that there is a real possibili.ty, a notjpegligibJ.e probability, of a serious accident. It is contended, secondly, that even if there is a non-negligible probability of a reactor accident, still ibis acceptable, being of no greater order than risks of accidents that are already socially accepted. Here we encounter again that insidious engineering approach to morality built into models of an economic cast, e.g. benefit-cost balance sheets, risk assessment models, etc. Risk assessment, a sophistication of transaction or trade-off models, purports to provide a comparison between the relative risks attached to different options, e.g. energy options,which settles their ethical status. The following lines of argument are encountered in risk assessment a.s applied to energy options: (i) if option a imposes costs on fewe.r people thq.n option b then option a is preferable to optic+; (ii) option a involves a total net cost in terms of cost to people (e.g. deaths, injuries, etc.) which is less than that of option b, which is already accepted; therefore option a is acceptable. 3 f For example, the number likely to be killed by nuclear power stations is less than 1,r 1'-i l'Jp.,( ,-c.c.,',l.ci...fs ~ the likely number killed by cigarette smoking, which jjB accepted: so nuclear pqwer A stations are acceptable. A little refle c tion reveals that this sort of risk assessment argument involves the same kind of fallacy as ll!l!it transaction modek. It is far too simple--minded, and it ignores distributional and other relevant aspects of the context. In order to obtain an ethical assessment we should need a much fuller picture and we should need to know at least these things:- do the costs and benefits go to the same parties; and i1·he person who undertakes the risks also the person who receives the benefits or primarily, as in driving or cigarette smoking, or are the costs imposed on ot e parties who do not benefit? It is only if the parties a r e the same in the case of the options compared, and there are no such distributional problems, that a comparison on such a basis would be valid.i '})This is rarely the case, and it is not so in the case of risk assessments �Secondly, does the person incur the risk as a result of an of energy options. 28. activ.Lty which be knowingly unclcttakes in a situationw-iere he has a reasonable choice, knowing it entails the risk, etc., and is the level of risk in proportion to the level6f the relevant activity, e.g. as in smoking? Thirdly, for what / reason is the risk imposed: is it for a serious or a relatively trivial reason? risk that is ethically acceptable for a serious reason may not be ethically acceptable for a tr:Lvial reason. Both the arguments (i) and (ii) are often A employed in trying to justify nuclear power. The second argument (ii) involves the fallacies of the first (i) and an additional set, namely that of forgetting that the health risks in the nuclear sense are cumulative, and ) 'n bhw ey ;i s g f:" P'J;ct'.) pce i,1 e~ already '°fc' not A oo high.16 high if ~ 1 The maxim "If you want the benefits you have to accept the costs" is one thing and the maxim "If I want the benefits then you have to accept the costs (or some of them at least)" is another and very different thing. It is a widely accepted d/' l).,c-~ ~ flJ,;<d ,;k~4 .~ vr4..a) I fl/rotl,7 ~~ kr 1/1 / moc.tal plfinci'ple,\ that one' is not, in general, entitled to simply transfer costs I r7n of a significant kind arising from an activity which benefits oneself onto other This parties who are not involved in the activity and are not beneficiaries~ transfer principle is especially clear in cases where the significant costs iq;lude an effect on life or ~ealth or a ,risk thereof, a~d where the benefit to j<2,c-(kUt , «J,•1 ,r ·~ ,k ,-,1,-.r.:.. ,riz.._~, t.4,/,:K/~7',-,t ~ ~ q:.:rLc-1- . the benefit ting party is of a noncrucial or dispensible nature,.,\ { Thus ,tone is not usually entitled to harm, or risk harming, another in the process of benefitting CIA.en(~ Suppose, forA example, we consider a village which produces, as a result of an i.ndustrial process by which it lives, a nox~us waste material which is expensive and difficult to dispose of and yet creates a risk to life and health oneself. f if undisposed of. Instead of giving up their industrial process and turning to some other way of making a living such as farming the surrounding countryside, they persist with this way of life but ship their problem on a one-way delivery ,Oil ·/J..0- ~ ) service Ato the next village. The inhabitants of this village are then forced to face the problem either of undertaking the expensive and difficult disposal or ol,e_ i'1M,).; 1(4. e1/Tl~L. ~ ~ Cdt'-/.:/4r,h . process or of sustaining risks to their own lives and healthA Most of us would see this kind of transfer of costs as. morally unacceptable. From this arises a necessary condition for energy options: that to be morally acceptable they should not involve the transfer of significant costs or risks of harm onto parties who are not involved, do not use the energy source or do not benefit correspondingly from its use. Included in the scope of this /trl" gA'-, condition are future people /§.~~~~ B ~eeiji~ a ~~~~m~aE~:iic=;m ;;~~i;E~~ 1 The distribution of -hut rd~ future generations (those of the next villages~; costs and damage in such a fashion, i.e. o~to non-benef is one of its most of certain widespread and serious fonns of objectionable moraL£eatures- ;-- - - /4' ..;~<fi'nt ~ ,u/4.v tfi/1_ ,.,c,,r r«-,,.4/ .......,,_,, f"u<H;f I l4'(!,,r) \ iaries is a characteristic =&, 7''7, ~ ,;_ ~ __../4;,, - 7:.(,/,_.., ~ v / __ - •_ __ �·~-~---- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ---~ ,. It is a corollary of the condition that we should not hand the world on to our successors in substantial ly worse shape than we received it - the transmissio n principle. For if we did then that would be a significant transfer of costs. (The corollary can be independen tly argued for on the basis of certain ethical theories.) eJpoc,"ct lly ru,clc>u- //)CL-; • Other social and environmen tal risks and costs of nuclear development ;~ The problems already discussed by no means exhaust the environmen tal, health and safety VI. risks and costs in or arising from the nuclear fuel cycle. The full fuel cycle includes many stages both before and after reactor operation, apart from waste disposal, namely mining, milling, conversion, enrichment and preparation , reprocessing spent fuel, and transportat ion of materials. Several of these stages involve hazards. Unlike the special risks in the nuclear cycle - of sabotage of plants, of theft of fissionable material, and of the further proliferati on of nuclear armaments - these hazards have p~rallels, if not exact equivalents , in other very polluting methods of generating power, e.g. 'workers in the uranium mining industry sustain 'the same risk' of fatal and nonfatal injury as workers in the coal industry 1 1'f Furthennore , the various (often serious) hazards encountered in working in some sector of uranium fabrication should be differently viewed from those resulting from location, for instance from already living where a reactor is built or wastes are dumped. For an occupation is, in principle at any rate, chosen (as is occupationa l relocation) , and many types of hazards incurred fr/working with radioactive material are now known in advance of choice of such an with where one already lives things are very different. The uranium miner's choice of occupation can be compared with the airline pilot's choice, whereas the Pacific Islander's 11 fact" of location cannot be. The social issue occupation: of arrangement s that contract occupationa l choices and opportuniti es and often at least· ease people into hazardous occupations such as uranium or tin or coal mining (where the risks, in contrast to airline piloting, are mostly not duly compensated ), while very important, :i.s not an issue newly produced by nuclear associated occupations . Other social and environmen tal problems - though endemic where large-scale industry operates in societies that are highly inegalitari an and include sectors that are far from affluent - are more intimately linked with the nuclear power cycle. Though pollution is a common and generally undesirable component of largescale industrial operation, radioactive pollution, such as uranium mining for instance produces, is especially a legacy of nuclear developmen t, and a specially C-,t.o ,,._......., eef, :i.i.lef undesirable one, as~ rectificatio n eosb~ for dead radioactive lands and waterways reveal. Though sabotage is a threat to many large industries, so that modern factory complexes are often guarded like concentrati on camps (but from us on the �dire conse quen ces, of a diffe rent outs ide), sabot age o a nuc ear react or can have (cons ider again the effec ts of orde r of magn itude from most indu stria l sabot age more dubio us enter prise s such as core meltd own) . Though theft of mate rial from at large and can assis t terro rism , muni tions works can pose threa ts to popu latio ns probl ems of the same orde r as no theft s for alleg edly peac eful enter prise s pose produ ces mate rials which so theft of fissi onab le mate rial. No othe r indu stry explo sives . No othe r indu stry is, read ily perm it of fabri catio n into such mass ive to sum it up, so vulne rable on so many front s. , in part becau se of its long and In part to ~ ; ; , . ; ; : ; ~ ~ ~ ~ r a b i l i t y , the nucle ar indu stry is subje ct conti nu ing asso ciati on with milit ary activ ities ainly given their scale ) run to, and enco urage s, seve ral prac tices which (cert tiesy Th ese ~e secre cy, coun ter to basic featu res of free and open socie ial polic e and guard force s, restr ictio n of infor mati on, form ation of spec espio nage , curta ilme nt of civil liber ties. / 'l given extra ordin ary Alrea dy ope rator s of nucle ar insta llati ons are backg round and the te stiga powe rs, in vetti ng empl oyees , to inve fami lies and their of activ ities not only of emplo yees but also them selve s ons llati some times even of their frien ds. The insta sens ibili ties. sh become armed camp~ which espe ciall y offen ds Briti creat e d a 1976 of The U.K. Atom ic Energ y (Spe cial Cons table s) Act it made ons and spec ial armed force to guard nucle ar insta llati ority 1' answ erabl e ... to the U.K. Atom ic Energ y Auth If\ th,_ µ.• ;-fud K~~~fh ar worse in West Germ any, presa ge along with nucle These devel opme nts, and ,-\ anti- demo crati c soci eties . That devel opme nt .i ncrea singl y auth orita rian and litiui/ :conse quen ces tells heav ily again st it. nucl ear devel opme nt appe ars to force such' ,/i.~tdi't-... A conne ct1.on of the by ly tical poli :lslted inia:i: er furth is Nucl ear devel opme nL t ethic al ques ti?ns conc ernin g nucle ar powe r with nucle ar war. It is ~&te -',tha 4 Of'}'4ff'; . unde r any fiea, justi is war ar nucle a nucle ar war - for exam ple, whet her are disti ngui shab le from those circu msta nces , and if so what circu msta nces er, the sprea d of nucle ar powe r is conc ernin g nucle ar powe r. Undo ubted ly, howev [tl~Jfc -,C,ltt nucle ar war and so, to that exten t, ~inc re~i ng the techn ical means for engag ing in ,~ c.Aq,,,_ ceJ ef 1 Since nucle ar wars are ,fleJ de"') f'41' neve r the oppo rtuni ty for 1 nuc1 ear engag emen t. e-;(4vry J , / ~ a.r~«'../~ ~"'1 '~/e .. ,,t,uclo f¥ c.riu-1" CU'-11. " the"' lesse r of'm ajor evils ~Jhe eprea d bes~ at are but s, good tive posi le acco untab ty for / ~dc/a .-.,e,, -, 1 of nucle ar powe r acco rding ly expan ds the oppo rtuni o/~ ~ /Z/ 7 r ;Z_ cbhJ,1 04-r/ u.--, ,..<. .M/~ ; ➔/~) 1~ a~(/ -- -- -- -- ! - - -- -- -,77,._, ~ ~ t,-m k~/e ~~~ LIIL :I'., ~ 70-...___/- 1 /4tY'..-r ,,. ,,"/2._v ,,,_,,o,µ;..~&_ I' ~ll ~ <~~ '- / --/_ ~ I -~ ~~ / ~ 4--t'/o ~c../ C..IY'C- I'-..,._ ~ ....w./ C1-j, ~ / ~~~ W-r C-L- r•l~~ «./c; ,_ di../-<_ ~ ........,, ~/., _ / c-.b To ~ ~,, ~ ~ C.,-1,,, __- r ;, , �30.1 many. They are firstly technical, that it is a relatively straightforw ard and inexpensive matter to make nuclear explosives given access to a nuclear I power plant, secondly political, that nuclear engagements on<~ inJf,ntf~u likely to esculate and that those who control (or differently are likely to force access to) nuclear power plants do not s.hrin k from nuclear confrontati on and are certainly prepared to toy with nuclear engagement (up to " S'fr-c1.feeiic v "tla,ut nuclear strikes; ), and thirdly ethical, that wats invariably have immoral consequence s, such as massive damage to involved parties, however high sounding their justificatio n is. Nuclear wars are certain to be considerabl y worse as regards damage inflicted t har1 any previous wars (they are likely to be much worse than all previous wars put together), because of the enormous destructive power of nuclear weapons, and the extent of spread of their radioactive effects, and because of the expected rapidity and irreversib ility of any such confrontati ons. The supporting considerati ons are, fourthly, drawn from decision theory, and -----------are designed to show that the chances of such undesirable outcomes is itsclf unde si i- able. The c or e arguement is in brief this (the W"J"~.wt will be in section :m:I) :- Energy choice between alternative options is a case of decision making under uncertainty , because in particular of the JN.If Utt.UrffJt~fi'es involved in nuclear developmen t. In cases of this type the 1"rlt•c':-iov/ appropriate procedure is to compare worst consequence s of each alternative , e. /c.J,orP>lt>A A ' to r e_Je-cL . those alternative s with tht ~-, --the bs~t (the roaxiro m rule) , f.llCl'tf:" ~ of these worst consequence e-nd select J II The nuclear alternative has, in particular because of the) p,.o ssibility of a nuclear war, the WotJC and is according 1a particularl y unde$itable alternative . wo1"Jt "' . ( ~ ,i it ,'l, /4 /A- 4.//t'dJ' (l,- (fAt_~; d/6;-,rf ~ ~ d,.'£1/ ~d~ .JIM,;,,_ 1 d:L 6e-fC w_"o/- r,?t/7/UI~~). «-/~~ / n.:.__.. W✓ ~ �I tPI.Ccn/4.J~ :.::n:::.t. :. aee-=o-=-l~o.s;gi.::i:..:c::a:.:l::_.:b::..:a::.:s=-e=-"'=-c,_:::._o..::f_..::.n:::u:.::c:.:l::.!e:.::a~r~d~e=-v.!..e:::..:::.l::::.01::p!!:m~e :, t=.,;h~e=--=I= · _a_r_g_u_m_e_n__t_~,,.....a.:. :n.:. ;d:,4-i ~,-JV_I_I_.__C_o_n_f_l_i_c_t_ ~ ~~ ~) r Jct ,,MCkv ~ ~ , ~ .~~ ✓/4.- ~ ~ : ; ; ~ ~ r' ~ 7~ , v--0"~7 7 ~~~/, r ou7,fdL{_ , ,,_,,.,,~/,,_ /-c,-?"" ) As /.,,,_. /7~7 ~ 7 1 ~ ~ 7Zr p-'&.-4, 7-/ ~ ¼ A<L ~ '"-;fo- .,_,~=-.:.__ ~ already observed, the consigner's action cannot be justified by purely economisti c arguments , such as that his profits would rise, the firm or the village woul be more prosperous, or by appealing to the fact that some possibly uncomfortable changes would otherwise be needed. The transfer Iffiinciple on which this assessment was based, that one was not usually entitled to create a serious risk to others for these sorts of reasons, applied more generally and, in particular, applied to �f 31. For this r eason t he economistic argumen t s whi ch are t hos e mo s t commonly advance d under the Old Paradigm to promote nuclear develo pment - e . g . ch apness, efficiency, profitabili ty for electricity unilities, and the need the nuclear case . otherwise for un comfortable chan ges such as restructurin g of employment, i nves t ment and consumption - do not even begin to show that the nuclear alternative is an Even if these economistic assumptions about benefits to present people were correct - j_t will be contended that most of them are not - the arguments ) h as to . .- ;-,'d~er1.ves · h it,\ ~h ic f rom w . . · (like t h e ut1· 1 1tar1an1sm . wou ld f a1· 1 b ecause economics acceptable one . operate within the framework of moral constraints , and not vice versa. What do have to be considered are however moral conflict arguments, that is /'~} arguments to the effect that, unless the prim.a facie unacceptabr e~ alternative is taken, some even more unacceptabl e alternatice is the only possible outcome; and will ensue. For example, in the train parable, the consigner may argue that his h,J action is justified because unless it is taken~ village will starve. It is by no means clear that even such a justificati on as this wou~ be sufficient, especially where the risk to the passengers is high, as the case seems to become one of transfer of costs and risks onto others; but such a moral situation would no longer be so clearcut, and one would perhaps hesitate to condemn any action taken in such circumstanc es. Some of the arguments advanced to show moral conflict are based on competing ~ present people, and others on competing obligations to future people, /\. both of which are taken to override the obligations not to impose on the future significant risk of serious harm. The structure of such moral conflict arglllll.ents crucially on the presentatio n of a genuine and exhaustive set of alternative s (or at least practical alternative s) and upon showing that the only :is based alternative s to admittedly morally undesirable actions are even more undesirable ones. If some pratical alternative which is not morally worse than the action to be justified is overlooked, suppressed, or neglected in the argument - for "j 11~~ case it turns out that the -1ril1:agers have another option e xample, if in the t~:~~r: ) ~ to starving or to the sending off of the parcel, namely earning a living is some othe r way - then the argwnent is defective and cannot readily be patched. Just . such a suppression of practicable alternative s has occurred in the argument designed to show that the alternative s to the nuclear option are even worse than the option itself, and that there are other factual defects in these arguments as well. In short, the arguments depend essentially on the presentatio n of false dichotomies . A first argument, the poverty argument, is that there is an overriding obligation to the poor, both the poor of the third world and the poor of indusFailure to develop nuclear energy, it is often claimed, would amount to denying them the opportunity to reach the standard of affluence we currently enjoy and would create unemploymen t and poverty in the industriali sed trialised countries. nations . �1 32. J The unemployment and poverty argument does not stand up to examination either for the poor of the industrial countries or for those of the third world. There is good evidence that large-scale nuclear energy will help to increase unemployment and poverty in the industrial world, through the diversion of very much available capital into an industry which is not only an exceptionally poor provider of direct employment, but also helps to reduce available jobs through encouraging substitution of energy use for labour use.~ "'°The argument that nuclear energy i1needed for the third world is even less convincing. Nuclear energy~ both politically and econom- ically inappropriate for the third world, since it requires massive amounts of capital, requires numbers of imported scientists and engineers, but creates negligible local employment, and depends .for its feasibility upon, what is largely lacking, established electricity transmission systems and back-up facilities and sufficient electrical appliances to plug into the system. Politically it increases forei¾ dependence, adds to centralised entrenched power and reduces the chance for lt/,zc change in the oppressive political structures which are a large part of the problem. The fact that nuclear energy is not in the interests of the people of the third world does not of course mean that it is not in the interests of, and wanted by, · their rulers, the westernised and often military elites in whose interests the economies of these countries are usually organised, and wanted often for military purposes. It is not paternalistic to examine critically the demands these ruling elites may make in the name of the poor. The ooverty argument is then a fraud. the poor. Nuclear energy will not be used to help Both for the third world and for the industrialised countries there are well-known energy-conserving alternatives and t he practical option of developing other energy sources~ alternatives some of which offer far better prospects for helping the poor. It can no longer be pretended that there is no alternative to nuclear development: indeed nuclear development is itself but a bridging, or stop-gap, procedure on route 1~1 to solar or1 £usion developme nt. And there are various alternatives: coal and other fossil fuels, geothermal, and a range of solar options (including aAi<J.1fiM.r ) eti~L._01,i:/j,:,,-;._ as well as narrowly solar, wind, water ami tidal power)1 ' A " <t.,,(C:...uf~... Despite the availabiity ~~ . of alternatives, it may still be pretended that nuclear development is necessary for affluence ~( what will emerge is that it is advantageous for the power and affluence of certain select groups )-: ~ .)uch an assumption really underlies part of the poverty argument, which thus amounts to an Q.la.bcn'~-l,;;,,.,, trickle-down argument (much favoured within the Old Paradigm setting). argument runs:affluence. Affluence inevitably trickles down to the poor. For the _si,,,}:,~-l-,{v1.t.d. Therefore nuclear First, the argument does not on its own show anything specific about nuclear power2: is of the Nuclear development is necessary for / continuing and increasing) development benefits the poor. for 'nuclear'. . ~2 ,,,,7t ~~4 for j_t works equally well if 'energy' It has also to be shown, what the JI • rsnd M,<J(t major argument will try to claim, that nuclear development is unique among energy �33. alternati ves in increasin g affluence . The second assumptio n, that affluence ( inevitabl y trickles down, has now been roundly refuted, both by recent historica l data, which show increasin g affluence (e.g. in terms of GNP averaged per capita) coupled with increasin g poverty in several countries , both developin g and developed , and through economic models_, which reveal how "affluenc e" can increase Jt without redistrib ution occurring -_J Another major argument advanced to show moral conflict appeals to a set of supposedl y overridin g and competing obligatio ns to future people . We have, it is said, a duty to pass on the immensely valuable things and institutio ns which our culture has developed . Unless our high-tech nology, high energy industria l society is continued and fostered, our valuable institutio ns and tradition s will fall into decay or be swept away. The argument is essential ly that without nuclear power, without the continued level of material wealth it alone is assumed to make possible, the lights of our civilizat ion will go out.4J Future people will be the losers. The lights-go ing-out argument does raise questions as to what is valuable in our society, and of what characte ristics are necessary for a good society. But for the most part these large questions , which deserve much fuller The reason is that the argument adopts an extremely uncritica l position with respect to present high-tech nology societies , apparentl y assuming that they are uniformly and uniquely valuable. It assumes that technolog ical examinati on, can be avoided. society is unmodifia ble, that it cannot be changed in the direction of energy conservat ion or alternati ve (perhaps high technolog y) energy sources without It has to be accepted and assessed as a whole, and virtually unlimited supplies of energy -· such as nuclear and only nuclear power is alleged to { ..._v-.,, •sf.t - collapse. are essential to maintain this whole. These assumptio ns are hard to accept. The assumptio n that technolog ical society's energy patterns are unmodifia ble is especiall y so - after all it has . survived events such as world wars which have required major social and technolog ical restructu ring and consumpti on modifica tion. If western society's demands for energy are totally unmodifia ble without collapse, not only would it be committed to a pro gram of i.ncreasin g destructi on, but one might ask what use its culture could be to future people who would very likely, as a consequen ce of this destructi on, lack the resource base which the argument assumes to be essential in the case of contempo rary society. There is also difficult y with the assumptio n of uniform valuablen ess; but if this is rejected the question becomes not: what is necessary to maintain existing high-tech nological society and its political institutio ns , but rather: what is necessary to maintain what is valuable in that society and the political institutio ns which are needed to maintain those valuable things. While it may be easy to argue that high energy consumpti on centrally controlle d is necessary to maintain the political and economic status quo, it is not so easy to arguethat it �.... ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- --~- ----34-. ( is essential to maintain what is valuable, and it is what is valuable, presumably that we have a duty to pass on to the future. The evidence, for instance from history, is that no very high level of material affluence or energy consumption is needed to maintain what is valuable . There is good x·eason i~ fact to believe that a society with much lower energy and resource consumption would better foster what is valuable than our own. But even if a radical chan1e in these directions is independen tly desirable , as we should argue, it is not necessary to presuppose such a change, in the short term at leas;, in order to see that the assumptions of the lights-goin g-out argument are wrong. No enormous reduction of well-being is required to consume less evergy than a \ present, and certainly far less than the large increase over present levels of asstili1ption which is assumed in the usual economic case for nuclear energy.~ What the nuc~ear strategy is really designed to do then is not to prevent the lights going out in western civilisatio n, but to enable the lights to go on burning all the time - to maintain and even increase the wattage output of the Energy Extravaganz a. In fact there is good reason to think that, fa r from the high energy society fostering what is valuable, it will, especially if energy is obtained by nuclear fission means, be positively inimical to it. A society which has become heavily dependent upon an extremely high centralised , controlled and cons 1.At'1f10"' garrisoned, capital- and expertise-i ntensive ener gy source, must be one which is highly susceptible to entrenchmen t of power, and one in which the forces which control this energy source , whether capitalist or bureaucrati c, can exert enenormous powe r over the political system and over people's lives, even more Such a society would, almost inevitably tend to become authoritari an and increasingl y anti-democ ratic, as an outcome, among other things, of its response to the threat posed by dissident groups in the nuclear situation. ~ than they do at present. Nuclear development may thus help in passing on to future generations some of the worst aspects of our society - the consumerism , alienation, destruction of nature, and latent authoritaria nism - while many valuable aspects, such as the degre e of political freedom and those opportuniti es for personal and collective autonomy whic h exist, would be lost or diminished: political freedom, for example, is a high price to pay for consumerism and energy extravagenc e. the status quo, but what is valuable in our society, presumabl 1, But it is not that we have some obligation to pass on to the future, and if possible enhance. Again, as in the case of the poverty arguments, clear alternative s, : l?a,#1-0.'t\..t...G-- alternative socia;Aand political choices, which do not involve such unacceptabl e consequence s are available. The alternative to the high technology- nuclear option 1 Ii- c,/~e/4,,._ ~ /4 f ettl..i,,- fl.a,. u/4jr/iP- "f- "- ~ is not a retturn to the cave, the loss of all that is valuable, but~ the development of a'tlJ,ernative technologie s and lifestyles which offer far greater scope for the li).,j· c-o,y( /'IWQ.r rr ' ~#a-r, maintenance and further development of whAt . is valuable in our society than the The lights-goin g-out argument, as a moral highly centralised nuclear option. ~ �/;,. conflict argument, accordingly fails, because it also is based on a fa l se dichoto-y. r fJ.J,.., I( J:r._,._ Th us the Aescape route/, the appeal to moral conflict aua to t he appeal t o 1 fu ty, ~ closed. If then we a pply - as we have argued we s hould - t he s ame l. J standards of morality to the future as we ought to acknowledge for the presen t, the conclusion that large~-~sca le nuclear development is a crime agains t the f uture is inevitable. 1 from reactor Closed also, in the same way, are the escape routes to other argumentst:IAtt Ji> <>'l ;'${1~ ma(/_ ~wn J radiation emissions, Aetc:::::t for · ~ / nuc ~ development as morally unacceptabl e, for saying that it is not only a Acrime against the distant future but also a ~ ~rime against the present and immediate future. In sumJ nuclear development is morally unacceptabl e on several grounds. A corn--o llary is that only political arrangement s that are morally unacceptabl e will · suppor_t th.e i(1!pending nuclear _future . of future people not tf'.I J ;,; I discounted (in contrast to the temporally - limited utilitariani sm ~"'of_ n,,ia,-k-4!.t - ~~economic theory)J and that serious costs and risk~ to health and life.cannot admiss ~ ly be simply transferred to uninvolved parties ( h ~ I /4- /4 ~1~ a-<<h'-,::4,~c..:.,__ o.;rr,llc,;.._.)f'c,d /o / / , , / ). 7 CI//C-1~ e a{_ &, N- t-f"/<7/2#;,__, ~~ ~~ LL ,, ~ ~ /~ ~ "°''f"(JI{ will now be outlined whichAshow that even within the confines of the Old Paradigm, choosing the nuclear future is not a rational choice . ..Jl: Large-scale nuclear on &,<. cc,,//,,,_.,,,;,, h-4111, development is not just something that Mppens, it requires,.\ an immense input of capital and energy. , J,.j ,:_ .~J.-..r~ ,,.,;_,R.J .J""11 ~-.,,&./ 7'iN/ t>h- ? ~ /-7,._ rt..-JJu..7~-.',- /4- '.,..... ~ o//-,.;?.,/ ~ /;: ,J''"'e"' eccJnom,'c__ /~t:'tJJ-rl,-~« ~ - ;t,4 r r/4'-Ntr/ been i nvested in nuclear .fiH1on '4~ .-Utti,.r, ,r ~ -d'M.r J ~? Admittedly so much capital has already research and development, :i..n marked contra t )I to othe~rival sources of powes that t hert is strong political incentive top f1'7 - as distinct fromAreason s for further capital and energy inputs. ~ ~ /(,v;,~..,. 6-4'C t¾t aff_ ,,,1 ~ IU- '1 /'t~ /&J 7~ / t:1/1). ... "'--.f 11<11f4.., /4-:J~vf_/J _/ l ~ f.,..,._r), q /l~ ~~,:as;-~ /<ff"" /J~ (~~6t;..._ ) /'~a.. o.u~•~,._•~/.c~ -~ ~k / I ~-.:..,,Lc.1 ,-•.A-e/ 1/ tL/t,.,.f ~ d, ,Af'.._:,:! .,>V°L / ~~ ( _J ~~ /4.l()~J/ > ~ ~k ;_ r/~ / ~C--, /nrv-7 ~ ,..~~,,._~ .- ('c;.. rr.;-/ trv/4.,;_/ wt~ o/ ...-? ' ~ a/~ ~4-t.d ,, <~CU'~ /CJ-u_J,./ ~ ~. �The main argume£~~~an economic growth argument, upon which variat~S , re played., is the following version of the lights-going-o ut argument (with economic . e~ / growth duly standing in for ll'late•oal wealth, and Afor what is valuable!):Nuclear power is necessary to su.stai.n economic growth. Economi c growth is desirable (for all the usual reasons, e.g. to increase the size of the t:,'IU{ c·o,,,ae,cf,,l( /ocip,/ k/!Mff, , , , ~ f()'f" f'~ J to-1 postpone reJistribution problems,/\ etc.). Therefore nuclear power is desira.ble ~ The first premiss is part of US energy policj~ and the second premiss is suppli ed by standard economics textbooks. Ja U>'t~ fr C(,a<~ A/~{ 1~! M ~k. t~ -1<>c~JL But both premisses are ~~<IL (U_ - - J L u.LJ/~/~ 7!d. .,,('°7 O</?'V 0d U,#\.r/Jo./ (2..-<~~c...·c-- I/ f-7 __ -~ '2-?·e--rt.-,hL' c./~ ~ c..... /e_/ ~ ~A;-,..,,rc.-,,..~ -I' CUI/I ~o(_ ,.KtL- c,;,l~il/~C!- , I 7 · / More to the since the second premiss is an assumption of the dominant paradigm, the first {tltK. !t(J (IQ~/,,, ( or rather · an appropriate,{ restatement of it ) fails even on Old Paradigm For of course nuclear power is not necessary given that there are other, perhaps e:=-1:.I,~ alternatives. N-.e,./41" elaboration of the /)tPwt--Y ptemiss out as 'most efficient', etc . 1',s Je.feviltl The premiss usually l:.j,..1.. ~t:.e;nOMfCtf :A //y b~--f:: . is s,ome "'-'AY i.Q ,&to--t;t:<11'\ 4!<:.e>;,c:>111tc.. growth, 'economically best' being filled 'cheapest', 'having most favourable 'cost' benefiti-ratio ~--_..,, 1 > Unfortunately for the argument, and for nuclear development schemes, nuclear po er is none of these things decisively , unless a good deal of economic cheating (easi..4 to do) ~ I 1 I ~is done. - .,,/ ~ L, / / ~~t,.L( U~l-r-u- &w /1~~&-1 ~ pu.u.. Ya,1 q(v ~ G-?'d ~ / /I(!/) 1 ~ c_ ~/c.-,1\1 IP~ _ ,,1 / / .. . ~ <t~ ~/Mf?.--7 . / ';;!C.,,,-17 I ...u. ·~ <AJ7?4; e:,r<,- ,Y?/·.u.//u-{ ~ p/C4t.-,t✓// .A'./ , C-tt.../lt..?-Vc~ Yo t'/~ ~~-,,e: d-::;F ,;,er~ ,_._.l.<-//4....:.. 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But even using actual waste handling costs (while wastes await storage) is enough to show that /~'-" /./t,.,. v-< re-.elll.,t-t ~ /t4--i4- I!:. is preferable to nuclear. ~'-"'"' c~h , ,~L 7,.-~;.__1/ *;7'_..c ,4---.1,____ . _:__ ro ~ ~1-if!' coal i~ C:,,,,(A /--0v-r~ 1 ~rew- - /~ ,1,0; ,,.,w-!£~ u,/k-,~-/2~ r «--, ,;.., G.•~ C/',._1- / ~ d;<--.n,-d '"'--:•~ a ~/ ( > ~ , b ~ /:V~ e~....._._7"',~ ~ rc: ~ - ·-~ J~1/?/ ,·Ut" ,i...-r~7 a-~'r ------/_7·--- r?/4 /~~ ~ ;L/~ /4 71.J~' ~/e--1, ~ I -~/ �dA,,ri,/,f""'-•J>~t grsm is ~Nuclear rAA,{,~_f.u not economical_,it ll.l'0'ud:tl see111lr it has been ~ c..lQ.N"" "' going ~ t through its ebd.ovs economic#). viabili~y, but by massive public of several types :# 9-</ l a,/_,p.;fi.. ~1~ \ C< _:., u~n:,.~'/~{k_ ,' ~~--o-~~ ..2.. 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"''. ~~ a ,,,.A..,;_.~. d.,;, ~ �.b-, ·._:h AoJ,I,. r. t,~, 37 //1.d' The ~aradigm does not, it j/i«,f 7~r,) _sustain the nuclear jl.(ggernau~:l?The real _reasons for the continuing development program ~ commitment .,- -·- A.~ the r --.. to the program have to be sought elsewhere,, outside the Old Paradigm, at leas-t as preached.® There are, firstly reaso?s of previous 1'ru,.J_ l e,iQAFa.-;~ , ~ PJ,/{/M.rfr, ,.J/.u l;vf,f,,U_DN!; commitJ!lent, when nuclear power \ looked a cheaper and safer• deal. corpouations (;~.&? ~ . A ,{ rd_,~ _A ei/10 are ;\_ keer{ -t:o ,,e,,._(,:;<.,, returns on capital,{ invested. There are lypical _,. , ~~fl ~ uc/~/"-7 s e l ~ reasons for commitment to the program, that £erµ_ (V,?µ_ /.aY•~ / ~ ra o..c~IILL ~ ~7 '7o /,24- I ~ :> ~ i t s accrue to some, lil<e ' !}cr'o.-t,.J;' ~ in o__ liti ~ corporations, that are influent1·a1 c:--_ _r_ · _ca 1 · .tr Sf1n-~, 1 · a ff_airs, an d as a profits <;1-ccrue to others, tV't/ Jc on ·.., -·1c J ear eng1 nee.,r,:i ng, -etG-:- There . J,.cLa.-t are A ideological reasons ~ a belief in the control of both political and phys ical ~ b1Z,/,e..f1 IYJ ScC/4 I c.on-l •✓-ol -f'.-e,,,-n itho ,/2 power by technocratic-entreprenial elite, C&t/nd-- ~ /l~ ~i'tu.r J , ,Juf-41 ~ '7..~,/4.,,./:-, )i..--..r - fj fa.-r o~J /4 Awt- fA.#1. ,4(' /IC/VvU- d/-c,,,r (p/;?~J~, /41~ , /~€- ;t ~ .,r o/7)d~ a faith in the unlimitedne ss at ' . technological enterprise, and nuclear in particular, so that any real problems that arise will be solved as development proceeds. Such beliefs are especially conspicuous in the British scene, among the governing and technocratic classes. /It ' ;,:. <=c<--,,../4-;:?-»'r~ ~~ _ -r -/- I cr~'-'-_0 , ' / ~fJ;,~ ·these :;orts of reasons for nuclear development are,.\ linked, h /, C- C i4t /-(!_. • ~- t-h.,, ret13f'lfl tJ,tH those whose types of enterprise/ benefit @8rf?lislit O n ,pi tq l i e substantially nuclear development are commonly those who hold the. requisite beliefs. f;.C-A I <-0•1.:f°'7~1"U:I .Lt is ti _ corporate capitalism, , ~ its state enterprise image, ; / "''#. Hu · cm t.min i;s;;; pc e I if\~, that fuels the nuclear juggernaut. corporate capitalism, which is the political · e ?t~r~,d col'l.o,.,.._"/ v To be sure, largely thrust upon us in ilr/es•-ern .11~ .sln e, is nnt ni>ce~sary fn:r a nuclear furur@; a totalitarian state of the typ (~ such capitalism often supports in the third worl"d w.i ll suffice. But, unlike a hypothetical state tl'tA--C. does conform to precepts of the Old Paradigm, it is sufficient for a nuclear future - evidently, since we are well embarke d 4111 such a future -/ ��7 ��,,.f d.ta.~ l ~ </~ I& ,uu. •1:,=r, Q/v-~~ ~A _,1~'/r ~ ./4X ~~ t"-.7 ✓~~· - c/2~ ¢~ ~~ ~/ ~/or- ~~ 11 ~ /1'"~ f!.//' / /'~/~o~ , , CA~ ry~ 7 ~./rL" c~~ ~~4//EP.A:,,p_, _ / - 1'/J~~:::~~ ~ ~ / t > . ~/ a---4 J~ ~ /~ ~ "~ p ~ ~ <-,. r~ AOC r~ -fl.JI' o--/z; ~ 6,--..,__,;,r / ~~~ ~~ //07 j7' 1Jtif'l'€--,1;_ ~ I ~ ~L&l- ·-<- < ,-, ,,.. .__/- /4/' ~r;:t( ,.&;7"'~:-r,,_,7; I l ,u-,.....,e,.___ ~~, ~ c ~ e . ~ ~ ~ _I ... r/4- c// ~ ~ u Y ~ ·7 ✓ ~~-1~r 11 7<L/~ ~,/4- , ,~ .~/ /~~' t~ _,,r~~ --- ~a,f , . ~.AV/~~ C( ~ £--L-. d / ✓ ~/ "- c). c,._...-<. ~~7_D1 ~ f /'~ ~ /A., _,' O,A{:,G ~ ~/ 4 ~~ , ~7 7;;~ ,,,,,._,-6( <r--/ ./J~ ~,,L 6'£ • / .,. tt/(J_ /c~ <C~~ ,f' r,i ~//'71~. /~ /~ pAf 7 /. '-~------------------------------~--"' �~--v>~-e/f 1~,.~ .?~C. .f ~ 41i;L; c--( p7 p-r uf-._!e~~c)~ ;g.,__-,L~ ~~3tf ~G, -";) ' ---:? ~ 11 . ,1~ - - .~ - :-X.ft ~ �_,,,""--'.___;:._;;_..::..::::.=-=-"-=:..::..:~;:_.:_~=-=...:.:...:::.;::_-=~-=-=L.:;;-=-~a~l~t~e~r~n~a~t~i~v~e~s=-=-.- The future energy ['cJ4¢-r Y>tAlf't°' 0 ootion that is ttS11 a H-,A contrasted with nuclea~, namely coa¾, wMe , _,., ,__,. I /~u- c/4u,,/f-r_a/'~k- t'a-- ~w.r :> /J / ~ the likelihood of .;r;.edty serious (air) pollution and associated phenUIII-• s uch as acid rain and atmospheric heating 1 not to mention the despoliation caused by extensive strip mining 1 all of which will result from its use in meeting very ttigh projected consumption figures. Such an option would also fail, it seems, to meet the 'j?u.-,/e,. necessary~ condition, because it would impose widespread costs on nonbeneficiaries for r some concentrated benefits to some profit takers and to some users who do not pay the full costs of production and replacement..iS$J . f>t.l.t-,;,.. lo 'these a r 112' conventiona~ options .-- a third is often added which emphasizes r,,,u{ .:, Alt<K/l..11A. Gc-l7L-., "-yd/otJ/,: J.riufy A. _,t.,,...a, softel.-4 benign technologies, such as those of solar' energyA The deeper choice, which '!Ven soflllfpaths tend to neglect, is not technological but social, and involves r~11la/lJ4~ ~Ht-,-4,,? 6<'tl bot~ the restructuring of production away from energy intensive uses: at a more basic level there is a choice between consumeristjc and nonconsumeristic futures. These more fundamental choices between soci ,tl alternatives, conventicnal technologically ol CA-V":fr ~fu~ oriented discussion At.ends to obscure. It is not just c. rr:.atter of deciding in ,;.,-hich ~ ytil•- Mr/ way to meerxt..:.nexam~nEd goals (as the Old Paradign ~ d 1· of examining the goals. 14' , )t J\.. Ml )' but alEC: a rr.atter That is, we are not merely faced with the que.stion of comparing different technologies or substitute ways of meeting some fixed or given demand or level of consumption, and of trying to see whether we can meet this with soft rather than hard technologies; we are also faced, and primarily, with the a- . matter of examing those alleged needs and the cost o~ society that creates . them. It is not just a question of devising less damaging wais to meet these alleged needs conceived of us inevitable and unchangeable. (Hence there are solar ways of producing unn~cessary trivia no one really wants, as opposed to nuclear wayst al' ber1.11ft o.f ~<1.. ~ /J '1-tf--t' ~ A. ot(Ql.Se)'blie~s Hot uaat to deny that these softer optfons are superior • ethically unacceptable features of the 'lltl et :u ~ i b f rt,~, But it is doubtful that any technology, however benign in principl~will h likely to leave a tolerable world for~ future ,., . p:l:i2: if it is expected to meet �f 38 . u,.',awo.d. i ~mit lcss and uncontrolled e nergy consumption and demands. Even the more benign technologies such as solar technology could be used in a way which creates costs for future people and are likely to result in a deteriorated world being handed on to them. Consider, fo r exa mple, t he effect on t he world's forests, whic h are commonly counted as a solar res ource, of use for production of methl•nol or of electricity by woodchipping ( as already planned by f ~ist authorities and contemplated by many other ener gy organisations) J\ f'ew would object to the use of genuine waste material for energy production, -b:ttt the unrestricted exploitation of forests - whether it goes under the name of "solar energy" or not - to meet ever increasing energy demands could well be the final indignity for the world's already hard- pressed natural fores t s. The effects of such additional demands on the maintenance of the r?ftJfiW forests are often dicem:1Ht@d, even by soft technologicalists, by the simple A-expedient of waving around the label 'renewable resources'. May forests are in A principle renewable, it is a true, given a certain (low) rate and kind of exploitation, but in fact there are now very few forestry operations anywhere in the world where the forests are treated as completely renewable in the sense of the renewal of all their values . ~$, In many regions too the rate of exploitation which would enable renewal has already been exceeded, so that a total decline is widely thought to be immanent if not already well advanced. It certainly has begun in( ~ n.--11> regions, and for U'-Plr,•0-:1:i!PJ~,; ~ which are,\ beifig 16st for the future. that f o r ~ on top of ~ present forest types (such ~s rainforest types) amt "•i M11,f."5 /.~.t,.//4__ )!HtJ~ The addition of a major further ,\demand ee2rn:e,,, J'f't!4J~ is one which anyone with a realistic (o,t/<>,,./l_rl"~ . appreciation of the conduct 6fAforestry operations, who is also concerned with long-term conservation of the forests and remaining natural communities, must regard with alarm. The result of massive deforestation for energy purposes ~ resembling the deforestation of England at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, again for energy purposes, w ould be extensive and devastating erosion in steeper lands and tropical ar eas, desertification in more arid regions, possible climatic change, and massive impoverishment of natural ecosystems. Some of us do not want to pass on - we are not entitled to pass on - a deforested world to the future, any more than we want to pass on one poisoned by nuclear products or polluted by coal products. In short, a mere switch to a more benign technology - i.mportant though this is - without any more basic structural and -locial change is inadequate. f,,t,.,,IOJ1,",;/ Nor is such a simple.4 switch likely to be achieved. ~1&4- It is no t as if fc political pressure could i -11st bene:,\ the US government,\ stop its nuclear ~ = Ntn-G ( and that of the countries it influences, much of the world), in the way pressure appeared to succeed in 11,-1.lting the Vietnam war. could be accomplished, it is very While without doubt it would be good if this unlikely given the integration of political powerholders with those spons r ring nuclear development .'° �I The deeper social options involve challenging and trying to change a social , ,om......,,.;.,. ,A.. h~JG".t j"-.:; ~ no.odr, s tructure which promotes consumerismAand ah economic structure which encourages increasing use of highly energy-intensive modes of production. This means, for instance, trying to change a social structure in which those who are lucky enough to make it into the work force are cogs in a production machine over which they have very little real control and in which most people do unpleasant or boring work from which they derive very little real satisfaction in order to obtain the reward of consumer goods and services. A society in which social rewards are obtained primarily from products rather than processes, from consumption, rather than from rer~ satisfaction in work and in social re.lations and other activities, is.\ bound to be one which generates a vast amount of unnecessary consumption. (A production system that produces goods not to meet ge~uine needs but for created and non-genuine needs is virtually bound to overproduce.) Consumption frequently becomes a substitute for satisfaction in other areas . The adjustments focussed upon are only parts of the larger set of adjustments involved in socially j_mplementing the New Paradigm, the move away from ,:::6',t.SIArne<•S"Yl is for example part of the more general shift from material ism and materialist values. / ~ Th4 c ' A=::O:f social change option tends to be obscured in most ol discussions of energy options andAhow to meet .---. @S energy needs, in part because question• underlying values of current social arrangements. The conventional 6.,; ,. nee~) or wants with conflo..W (often demand alleged taking by proceeds discussion as unchallengeable, and the issue to be one of which technology can be most profitably employed to meet them. This effectively presents a false choice, and is the result of taking needs and demand as lacking a social context so that the social structure which produces the needs is similarly taken as unchallengeable arid unchangeable. The point is readily illustrated., It is commonly argued by representatives of such industries as transportation and petroleum, as for example by McGrowth of the XS Consumption Co., that people ~deep ~ezers, air conditioners, power boats, ... 1t would be authoritarian to ps:t:llp them satisfying these wants. ~ tl+c A argument conveniently ignores the soc:f.al framework in which such needs and wants �To point to the determinati on of many such wants at t he framework level is not however to accept a Marxist approach according to whic h they are entirely determined at the framework level (e.g. by industrial or are produced. organisatio n) and there is no such thing as individual choice or determinati on at all. It is to see the social framework as a major factor in determining certain kinds of choices , such as those for travel , Mle iafrastrtt~t u"v and to see apparently individual choices made in such matters as being channelled and diLected by a social framework determined largely in the interests of corporate and private prt,fit and advantage. The social change option is a hard option - at least it will be difficult to obtain politically - but it is the only wa» so it has been argued, of avoiding passing on serious costs to the future. And there are other sorts of reasons than it is the main, indeed the only sort of option open to those who take a deeper ecological perspectivef .2..-a perspective integral with the New Paradigm but not essential to radical departure from the dominant such ethical ones for taking it: paradigm. tJa,,u#t;LJ J',;..., The ethical , requirement defende.o<., I social and political d. -, £ CUr{f?'?~{j ~~~ J t<~ ~~ -f7 ~ ?t,(""f""e.u • ,uu1...l',1;1.ial The socialAchan ges that the deeper alternative requires will be strongiy r esisted because they mean changes in current social organisatio n and power structure • ..tt'ld<°f:o the extent that the option represents some kind of threat to parts of presen t political and economic arrangemen ts it is not surprising that official energy option discussion proceeds by misrepresen ting and often obscuring it. But i.,,·11 Jtz_ difficult though a change t,f t:icn~inant p: a @eigm, especially one with such ~rreaching effects on the prevailing power structure, is to obtain, it is imperative to try; we are all on the nuclear train. �V ( • I - FOOTNOTES ~ 1. - All but the last line of the quote is drawn from Good in ., p. 417; the last line is from the Fox Report, p. 6. While it is unnecessary to know much about the nuclear .fuel cycle in order to consider ethical and social dimensions of nuclear power, it helps to know a little. & Abbotts, Gyorgy. The basics are presented in many texts, e.g. Nader Of course in order to assess fully reports as to such important background and stage-setting matters as the likelihood of a core meltdown of a (lightwater) reactor, much more information is required. For many assessment purposes however, some knowledge of economic fal la cies and decision theory is at least as important as knowledge of nuclear technology. ~ 2. As to the first, see references cited in Gooij_in, p. 417, footnote 1. As regards the second see Cotgrove and Duff, and some of the references given therein. 3. Cotgrove and Duff, p. 339 4. The table is adapted from Cotgrove and Duff, p. 341; compare also catton and Dtinlap, especially p. 34. -- 5. See, e.g., Gyorgy ~ e.nd$, pp. 357-8. 6. For one illustration, see the conclusions of Mr. Justice the Windscale inquiry (The Windscale Inquiry Parker a~ Vol. 1. Her Majesty's Office, London, 1978), discussed in both Cotgrove and Duff, p. 347 and in Goodin, p. 501 ff. 7. Much as with the argument of one theory or position against another. One can argue both from one's own position against the other, and in the other's own terms against the other. 8. As well as screening the debate from the public such manoeuvltfls .... favour the (proLnuclear establishment, since they (those of the alliance of military, large industry, and government) control much of the �information and (subject to minor qualifications) can release what, and only . them. what, s f)f1ts 9. This is a conclusion of several governmental inquiries and is conceded by some leading proponents of nuclear development; for requisite The same conclusion has been reached in details up to 1977 see Routley (a) . L /;..:i /t,lrf ~t/ J i I! rl. I e ·7. [{CL /i 10. For some details see Gyorgy, p. 60 ff. 11. eol . See the papers, and simulations, discuss :bal in GoodiA p. f-28. /~ On the pollution and waste disposal ·r"ecoff'd of the n uclear industry, , 12. see Nader and Abbotts, Lovins and Price1 and Gyorgy. On the more general problem of e..f fective pollution controls, see also, Routley (a), footnote 7. Back of this Humanity Unlimited assumption is the idea of 13. replacing God. power. Man First God had unlimited power, e.g. over- nature, then when during the Englightenment Man replaced God, Man was to have unlimited Science and technology were the tools which were to put '1an into the position of unlimitedness. More recently nuclear power is seen as providing man at least with unlimited physical power, power obtained through technology. [ability to 14. manage technology represents the past] On such limitation fhe.o~UJ?l, which go back to Finsler and Godel on one side and to Arrow .,-----------.....- fk d.n · o ther · .I\ ~ see, e.g. Routley 80. ,j Other different are presented in Routley 81. ' l,,;,.;l-etht>,..,, te1t1/tf It follows that there are many problems that have no solution and much that is necessarily lJ/lkA•N4'/4. . Limitative results put a serious dent in the progress picture. According the Dominant Western Worldview, t he history of humanity is one of progress; for every problem there is a solution, and thUf progress need never cease (C cttto,i and p.34). 15. See Lovins and Price. ,1 OS (a,:.J Amore recent official reports, ft n r, <t:etieHlar \ f.,~ J JJ~/o/J, Jr �7~ "r 7~ /,,.__~ '(,; l't?I - ---~ co/c.,:;..e., •--:;,..,<r~ / (,__ /'° ~ ;I (>-..._ ;f ,;(~ ;- - ~ -6 - / Y ~ r. C~< <~ (&cn&'tU /?,u~.va- ih ~ ~4~~ I \ •7 /,._,k µ{ ~ I ,,.,_ , I ~ ,__,_ n-t' ,-/4 ,f,_ v -f/tfJ,--f~~-t:, , • r~ r~ bu- /4/~~~~ I/le,/_,~ /(-, /'M-r_ /-L--t.C..h.,-/' //- • #f1 a r~ To~..,.._ ,lr·- -1~.,,,~-7 ,{Mt7 a,,,,_ o/'~ / e. ,,..,_,r_,__ YC- . . .:. 4'/4_ ,i', •..,t CC'.,A-V"~~--- ~7 o-r, d-.,/ ~~. /!....,'f' ~I'~~ ' ,, fe__ , ,-r~~~ J /~"'-:;, _ A--,i,( ~,,..~.L- · ~ , { a f r ~ r1 h ( Th~ ~ r ~~•--L ~ 1/'f~ _y ,11(,,, C.,.;-<:_ J<1./?o.,,-_;~~l _7 :c£. ~ z:., . ,. , 1/ c.1--{,1 7 �3. I For examples. and for some details of the history of philosophe~ 16. positions 4 n obligations to the future. see Routley (a). Passmore, p. 91. 17. Passmore's position is ambivalent and, to all appearances, inconsistent. as also is Rciw/s , It is considered in detail in Routley (a), position. For related criticisms of the economists' arguments for 18. discounting, and for citation of the often eminent economists who sponsor them, see . ,, Good11, , pp 429-30. 19. The reasons (not elaborated here) are that the properties are different e.g. a monetary reduction of value imposes a linear ordering on values to which value rankings, being only partial orderings, do not conform. 20. Goodin/ however puts his case against those rules in a less than satisfactory fashion. What he claims is that we cannot list all the possible outcomes in the way that such rules as expected utility maximization prefi, poses, e.g. Goodin suggests that we cannot list all the things that can go wrong with a nuclear power plant or with waste storage procedures. But outstanding alternatives can always be comprehended logically, at worst by saying "all the rest" (e.g. "'P covers everything except Cll#l- p) . For example, outcomes Goodin says cannot be listedJ aMI be comprehended along such lines >. as "plant breakdown through human error". �-,u.fU 7o--n-l'"'--? ~~ ,!e__u;,.h, ,;?,,-z)~ ~,-'Lr .....,./7 -~ ~ ~ ff.7'L . ·(j-, ~ ~~- 7-~A..'-., 7 ~7 ~er,&,. , 4 ~~ ~~ 7,6- ,,,ffe d,,_ $ ,' .;;,?'? ~6:,cc,.Jro/, /""'.d IE=i")'JC,,.-,... 6 '--X ,..o:,,,...__/J<:r--t.<"it/£ , µ & ~ ~ / ,.,_ ""~ 21 l-9!" • ?Co ,;W'L,_,,,;, ., Discount, or bank, rates in the economists' sense are usually set to follow the market, cf. P.A. Samuelson, Economics , 7th Edition, McGrawHill, New York, 1967, p.351. Thus the rates have little moral relevance. A real possibility is one which there is evidence for believing could eventuate. A real possibility requires producible evidence for its consideration. The contrast is with me re logical possibility. �Such a principle is explicit both in classical utilitaria nism (e.g. 'lf. J.H'.1,A'" Sidgwick p.414), and in a range of contract and other theories How the principle is from Kant and Rousseau to Rawls (J8(A" p.293). argued for will depend heavily, however, on the underlyin g theory; and we do not want to make our use depend heavily on particula r ethical theories. ;=,..;,. //4 /4 ;,/<, o/u_ z ,G/( . F >/,2 7. 7 Jk_,t,_, - k/4/I,,. ,~ .J-/4 ~ -~.:I ,&.,~ jr "~~7 ~!½-~~ 'l~J / c-,e ~ C>7 "'/· /L !? L-... ,f !JJ ~ ;fI ~-£,-'-. __ 7 ,co/ • ro c ~/,. ~ / _ c..--e_ ••,,( ,r; L- .,.__;__ ...c .,,At /4_ ,,.,. 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I / ✓~.L 'trv'/ ,,-0 ' ~~'Pc jf. /k /;11~ ..-~ ~/V-rl_ I/fl 1~rrn_ /7w.rficd v?:-./ (-~ - C-,-Z/1-,_;,., I ,../fr"" //4 ~ /;2,~~I/~- ~~ L-:. --< -~ tr,7c ~ . . r / ~ /d~,e;;, 1/#"l'~ ,i,,,,ft//-?ft' ,J7._:, ~ ~ .-,I_;;:;;_._, cb- ~~, 7Z AC'c__ ~) . r - ~r ~ t{e/..//1 ~ ,,--~6,,- (--l-i..-< �Even then relev ant envi ronm ental facto rs may have been negl ected . , 1 Ther e are vari ation s on (i) and (ii) whic h mult iply cost s agai nst numb ers such as prob abil ities . In this wav risk s, cons trued as prob able cost s, can be taken into ' acco unt in the asses smen t. (Alt erna tivel y, risks may be asse ssed throu gh such fami liar meth ods as insu ranc e). ' A prin ciple vary ing (ii), and form ulate d as follo ws: (ii') a is ethi cally acce ptab le if (for some b) a inclu des no more risk s than band bis soci ally acce pted . was the basi c ethi cal prin ciple in term s of whic Lake Boar d of Inqu iry rece ntly decid ed that nuclh the Cluf f ear powe r deve lopm ent in Sask atche wan is ethi cally acce ptab le: see Cluf f Lake Boar d of Inqu iry Fina l Repo rt, Depa rtmen t of Envi ronm ent, Gove rnme nt of Sask atche wan, 1978 , p.305 and p.28 8. In this repo rt, a is nucl ear powe r and bis eithe r acti vitie s clea rly acce pted by soci ety as alter nativ e powe r sour ces. In othe r appl icati ons b has been taken as ciga rette smok ing, moto ring, minin g and even the Vietn am war( !) The poin ts made in the text do not exha ust the obje ction s to prin ciple s (i)- (ii') . The prin ciple s are certa inly ethi cally subs tanti ve, sinc e an ethi cal cons eque nce cann ot be dedu ced fro m none thica l prem isses , but they have an inad miss char acte r. For look at the orig in of b: b may ible conv entio nal be acce pted thoug h it is no long er soci ally acce ptab soci ally le, or thoug h its soci al acce ptib ility is no long er so clea rcut and it woul d not have been soci ally acce pted if as much as is now know n had been know n when it was intro duce d. What is requ ired in (ii') , for insta nce, for the argum ent to begi n to look conv incin g is then 'ethi call y acce ptab le' rath er than 'soc ially acce pted '. But even with the amen dmen ts the prin ciple s are inva lid,f or the reaso ns give n in the text . It is not disc once rting that these argum ents do not work . It woul d be sad to see yet anot her area lost to the expe rt~ name Jy ethic s to actu aries . - A main part of the trou ble with the mode ls_is that narro wly utili taria n, and like utili tari~ ni~m they they are distr ibut iona l featu res, invo lve natu ralis tic fa~l~ n~gl ect Real ly they try to trea t as an unco nstra ined optim cie~ , etc. isati on what is a deon tical ly cons train ed optim isati on: see R. and V. Rout ley 'An expe nsive repa ir kit for utili taria nsim '. I.-"\ Appa rent exce ption s to the prin ciple su~h as taxa redi strib utio n of incom e gene rally ) vani sh when tion (~nd weal th is cons trued (as it has to be if taxa tion is to be P:ope r,J_y justi fied ) as at leas t part ly a so~i al asse t unfa irly mono polised by a mino rity of the popu latio n. -:) · ~ Exam ples such as that of moto ring dang er~u sly coun terex ampl es to the prin ciple ; for one is not do not cons t~tu t~ mora lly entit lcu to so moto r. �f, ;o». ,> /;o cfobs and On all these points see R. Grossm an and G. Daneke r , t7w· L E'nergy, Environ men 1:a]jsts for Fu.11 Employ ment, W;:ishington DC, 1977, ting pp.1-7 , and also the details supplie d in substa ntiatin g the interes case of Commoner · [7]. nuclea r indust ry, On the absorp tion of availab le capita l by the see as well [18], p.23. On the employm ent issues , the see too H.E. Daly in [9], p.149.X A more fundam ental challen ge to poverty argume nt appear s in 1. I 11 i.rli Energy a:nd Equal·i ty, Cal den and Boyars , London 1974, where it is atgued that the sort of develop ment need. nuclea r energy represe nts is exactly the opposi te of what the poor Small For much more detail on the inappr opriate ness see E.F. Schuma cher, is Beauti ful, Blond and Briggs , London , 1973. As to the capita l and other require ments, see [2], p.48, and also [7] and [9]. For an illumin ating look at the sort of develop ment high-en ergy techno logy will tend to promot e in the so-cal led underd evelope d countr ies see the paper .of Waiko and other papers in The Melane sian Environ ment (edited J.H. Winslo w), Austra lian Nation al Univer sity Press, Canber ra, 1977. .-B9-..- -'.JT;lhHi~sHf§'..ia'!1ee,jtE---:1ii·ss-:1t.i·m;a:pE>cll-1.ic·e.eici~t±l:-;:v-r-4r:ee~c,QO'l:!g,i;ineii~s~e~0Hittrrr- [P.2f]~,:7p~.~5516J. A use Ta 1 survey is given in A. Lovins . Energy Strateg y: The Road Not n, Friend s of the Earth Austra lia, 1977 (reprin ted from Foreign / Af. airs, Octobe r 1976); see also [17], [6], [7], [14], p.233 ff, and Schum~ cher, op. cit. //3· An argume nt like this is sugges ted in Passmo re -f-fi, chapte rs 4 and 7, with respec t to the questio n of saving resour ces. In Passmo re this argume nt for the overrid ing importa nce of passing on contem porary l culture is underp inned by what appear s to be a future -direct ed ethica version of the Hidden Hand argume nt of econom ics - that, by a coincid ence care of which if correc t would indeed be fortun ate, the best way t o take the future (and perhap s even the only way to do so, since do-good of iRterv ention is almost certain to go wrong) is to take proper care the presen t and immedi ate future. The argume nt has all the defects of the related Chain Argume nt discuss ed above and others . �/1, IA;, u,./n er Very persuasive argurn en t sAh ave b een advanced by civil liberties groups and othe.rs in · a number of countries: C.$ee especia· 11y M. · , Nuclear Prospects. y· Flood and R. Grove-White, A Comment on the Individual., the State and Nuclear Power, 'F riends of the Earth, Council for the Protection of Rural. England _a~d National Council for Civil Liberties, London, 1976. y~.;.~ f- 7 ~ ~ 7,,....J., / ~ / ¾,_ r-!! 0~ 4S>- I'-- ~ !' ~ / ,,.~~ l'/4 ~ ~ e- ~N~ .,..,_.,,« LvV"' 7#'~} J u /~7 ~~ .a - / .,J.,/2., k._,,,,, ". .,,.-b ~ ./ ~/4:-._ /. £. /4 cl,< .,,.,..( ,i;;..,,.<- ,,-::: c:e£l/.? ,,_~, ,t,_,.,__,. <C'" /''j!fK .;. /)-...._;, ·- di de,.,~,?,;, . h ~ ·~' I '-,,.,_,~ /.,_, , . 7 /.1- ·,',( ... :.... 7 1-. 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Similarly practical transitional strategies should make use o f such measures as environmental (or replacement) pricing of encn1y, i.e. so that the price of some energy unit includes the full cosl ,. ------~-- �tl ~ -1 footno te le continued. of replacing it by an equivalent unit taking ac count of environmental cost of production . Other (sometimes strategies towards more s a tisfactory altercooptive) natives should also, of course, be adopted, in particul a r the removal of institutional barriers to energy conservation and alternative technology (e.g. local g ove rnment regulations blocking these), and the removal of state assistance to fuel and power industries. ff Symptomatic of the fact that is it not treated a s rene wa ble is that forest economics do not generally a llow for full renewability - if they did the losses and de ficits on forestry operations would be much more striking than they already are often enough . 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Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document 1875 /IN/J , AJuncl)L NUCLEAR POWER • - ETHICA L,a& SOCIAL DIMENSIONS ---.. Compet ing paradig fus and · the nuclea r debate . ~ J C/l/'I One hardly 1ieeds ini t.. i ation into the dark myster ies of nuclea r physic s to contrib ute useful ly to the debate now widely raging over nuclea r power. While many import ant empiri cal questio ns are still unreso lved, these do not really lie at the centre of the controv ersy. Instead , it is a debate about values ... \ many of the questio ~which arise are social and ethica l ones. 1 •.:tSociol ogica) investi gation s have confirm ed fJ £ a t~ I pa,i I 11g , I a1:a1Hiliit e:f! the ,! 01\.C!.. debate l=!S:&!!!!t'!~ primar ily over what is w.9rth having or pursuin g and over what we are 'tli.a,., /i.,we 4ho cc,-.+·,r,.,../),l fl..,,/ it,, J;,'/.wh :1 ;•,l~:,~-11 .entitle d to do to others .~,] ii pelaFi oatienA along the lines of compet ing paradig ms. 2 Accord ing to the entrenc hed paradig vtldisc erned, that constel lation. a' of values , attitud es and beliefs often called the nomina nt Social Paradig m (herea fter I ena ipsoiac to u hl:ttan f!nD --) I r/ I riteria become the benchm ark by which a v.;id..e/ range of individ ual and social action is J IA"{'J4.l and evalua ted. AW'\d belief in the market and market mechan isms is quite centra l. Clv'.:ite...<il"\<J around this col'"e belief is the convic tion that enterp rise flouris hes best in a system of risks and r ew~ rds, that differe ntials are necess ary ..• , and in the necess ity for some form of divisio n of labour , and a itfl1rar chy of skills and expert ise. In particu lar, there is a belief in the compet ence of ~xpert s in genera l and of scient ists in particu lar , m More thau this, scient: ifie knowle dge aftd t:he scient ific speei:r~:'i~/,;2··::.,,./ method enjoy a -ef knowiftg , • , , A:Re 3 S = ~ : . . _ 4"-- quanti f ica.tion . .status as super, '(P' ::::j there 1s an emphas is on ~~,3 The rival world view, sometim es called the Altern ative Environ mental Paradig m ( the ~ Paradig m) differs on almost every point, and, accord ing to sociol ogists , in ways su~mar i~ din the followi ng table 4":Nature hostile/ne utral Environm ent controllable ---·. ,csourccs limited Nature benign Nature clclicatdy balanced \. \ EDGE .,. Confidence in science and technology ~ation:ility of means~} Limits to science ~ationality of ends • S.t-~te socialism, as practiced in most of the "EasteI11 bloc", differs from the 01/ PaLl.digm really only as to economic organisation, the market in particular l\ ffl~' being replaced by central planning (a market system by a command system). / o-Y ,r,~t)tlt But since there is virtually no debate over a nuclear future within the confines of · h · 1·ism, 5 tat variant on the Old Paradigm need not be delineated here. minor s t a t e socia ,,.... 1 Nctl.cu,t .WailiaA the competing paradigm picture is a trifle s i m p l e ~ instead ~ a New Paradigm there are rather counterparadi gms, a cluster of not very well out rositions that diverge from the cluster marked out as the wo,•k~ Jfl01+,;.,./'cr-hJ, )/o,ie,/{~(J Old Paradigm~ i t is empirically investigable, and.I\ it enables the nuclear debate be focussed. Large-scale nuclear development, of the sort now occurring in much of the world , counter to leading tenets (such as societal features) of the New Paradigm. Indeed to introduce ethical and social dimensions into the assessment of nuclear power, instead of ~,.. olt-0u'-, merely economic 1in addition to jJa9.,-.d .. u(_, \-"-.. factors such as cost and efficiency, isAto move somewhat received paradigm. g.gl; .. i le the For under the Old Paradig~, strictly construed, the nuclear debate is confined to the terms of the narrow ut1litarianism upon which contemporary economic practice is premissed, the issues to questions of economic means (to assumed economistic ends) along with technological, social engineering and other instrumental details whatever falls outside these terms is (dismissed as) irratfonal. I /;,(4.(11,-,'1"4-J J~clear development receives its support from adherents of the Old Paradigm. Virtually all the arguments in favour of it are set within the assumption framework of the Old Paradigm, and without these assumptions the t:o fails. But in · and ultimately fails fact the argument for a nuclear future from the Old Paradigm is itself broken-backedj) case for the nuclear future the world is presently committed unless the free enterprise economic assumptions are replaced by the ethically unacceptable assumptions of advanced (corporate) capitalism. r->~~~tt--en--e--a:nm~m-t~ 7 The two paradigm picture also enables our case against a nuclear future (a case written from outside the Old Paradigm ) to be structur ed. There are two main part~JJ :It is argued, firstly, from the Old Paradigm , that nuclear J&tfSe developm ent is ethicall y unjusti fiable; A but that, secondly , even from within e·th,t" I~ ,;,{,.l,fo "1 the framewo rk of the,\Old Paradigm , such developm ent is unaccep table, since signific ant features of nuclear developm ent conflic t with indispe nsible features of the Paradigm (e.g. costs of project developm ent and state :s ... lPs ,l ,J"--f:,,;, •., with market independ ence and criteria for project selectio n). It has _?~E_~ d accepta ble from within the claminan t paradigm only because )rfo,,Js do not square with practice , only because the assumpt ions of the Old Paradigm are but very ~A~~ty applied in contemp orary politica l practice the place of i ru.<<I!.(~., "'1( td) ,v capitali sm having been usurped by corpora te capitali sm. It is because the nuclear debate <:<1.vi bL. carried on within the framewo rk of the Old Paradigm that the debate - although it is a debate about values, because of the conflict ingvalu es of the <c.,..,.,fL-f;;"1 paradigm s - is not just a debate about values; it is also a debate within a paradigm as to means to already assumed (ec:.on0" 1istid ends, and -:=:- of rationa l choice as to energy option.5 within (~ ~ 0 1""Q;i1f 2'n this corner ~ 0<,f/e,,..Jj4 ft!1ho',. "JllD I most !i F I Im. decision 1 a predeter mined framewo rk of values. tlrp~ theory argumen ts,often conside red " as encompa ssing all the nuclear debate is ethicall y about, I\best util.i t~rian means to predeter mined ends..,) be l : ~ For another leading charact eristic of the nuclear debate is the attempt , under the dominan t par_adigyn, to r~c'1~ it from t/•IIW 1f the ethical and social sphere) and to turR ; t into spec,iali st issues ef' #" whether over minutia? .and conting encies A present technolo gy or overme&lw,,/ ~legal or ~) mathem atical ,,' upeciaJ J y de, rs r 011 tbentetf c: and Stat Is Lica:1:, or amdie&t details.,8 / £' ;or The double approach can be applied as regards each of the main problems nuclear . developm ent poses. There are 7any A inter~e lated problems and -fl. t.- OAJ'""'"cd · , is further ,) I\ /_,flW4r structur ed in terms of these. For in the advancem ent and promotio n of nuclear ~ we encount er a remarka ble combina tion of factors, never before assemble d establis hment, on a massive scale, of an industry which involves at each stage of its process ing serious risks and at some stages of product ion possible catastro phe, which delivers as a by-prod uct radioac tive wastes which require up to a million years' storage but for which no sound and economi c storage methods are known, which gr~w up as part of the war industry and which is easily $""h v,e..,rld to deliver nuclear weapons , which require s for its operatio nconsid erable secrecy , limitati ons on the flow of informa tion and restrict ions on civil libertie s, which depends for its economi cs, and in order to generate expected private profits, on Sl.\bs-i.4.,,/..,~/ state subsidi zation, support , and interven tion. It is, in short, a very high technol ogical developm ent, ba~«-f. with problem s. first importa nt problem .which serves also to exempli fy ethical issues and princip les involved in other nuclear power questio ns, is the unresolv ed matter of disposa l of nuclear wastes. A .------------- ------------ ------------ -------~--- ---. f 5. t annual wastes containing 1000 times the radioactivity of the Hiroshima bomb. of this waste is extremely toxic. ) Much For example, a millionth of a gramme of plutonium part of the waste material of even a is enough to induce a lung Wastes will include the reactors themselves, ...contamination which will have to be abandoned after their expected life times of perhaps 40 years, and which, some have estimated, may require l½ million years to reach safe levels of radioactivity. P,,.tcAF A~astes must be kept suitably isolated from the environment for their entire For fission products the required storage period averages a active lifetime. thousand years or so, and for transuranic elements, which include plutonium, there is a half million to a million year storage problem. Serious problems have arisen with both short-term and proposed long-term methods of storage, even with the comparatively small quantities of waste produced over the last twenty years. ~ Shortterm methods of storage require continued human intervention, while proposed longer term methods are subject to both human interference and risk of leakage through non-human factors. No one with even a slight knowledge of the geological and climatic history ti of the earth over the last million years, a period whose fluctuations in climate we are only just beginning to guage and which has seen four Ice Ages, could be confident that a rigorous guarantee of safe storage could be provided for the vast period of time involved. Nor does the history of human affairs over the last 3000 years give ground for confidence in safe storage by methods requiring human intervention over perhaps a million years. Proposed long-term storage methods such as storage in granite formation s or in salt mines, are largely speculative and relatively untested1 and have already proved to involve difficulties with attempts made to put them into practice. Even as regards expensive recent proposals for the result in first embedding concentrated wastes in glass and enca/ulating ,i multilayered metal containers before rock radioactive material may not remain deposit 1 si~ulation models reveal that 11. . , 'II isolated from human environments. S'k,t.<\t1 f~4. In short, the best present ~iapeoel proposals carry very real possibilities of .J... /Id • // I lZ..t-u ~~~ • irradiating future people- (V',i,,l. Given the c<c,,,~'7 I Atu.lflf .QA:Q;pQfiQWB costs which could be involved for the future, and given 0 the known ~~mits of technology, it is £i?la:h:tw methodol@gi cal.ly unsound amt to bet,• as nuclear Mlin,-J ~ A t~a. have,• on the discovery of safe procedures for 1tis.pr19i,j of wastes. Any new procedures (required before 2000) will probably be but variations on present proposals, and subjecJto the same inadequacies. methods for safe l storage For instance, none of the proposed X "'t.H has been properly tested, and they mayAprove to involve ell :sorts o:fi unforseen difficulties and risks when an attempt is made to put them into practice on a commercial scale. Only a method that could provide a rigorous guarantee , I I 09 when set in this context. t,/wo/! are not so ruf'I What is worth remarking is that similar excuses when the consigner, again~ "responsible" businessman, puts ). his workers' health or other peoples' welfare at risk. ~ THE NUCLEAR WASTE DISPOSAL PROBLEM, AND THE1~IN PARABLE . II. A long distance country train has just pulled out. crowded carries both passengers and freight. journey The train which is At an early stop in the someone consigns as freight , to a far distant destination, a package which contains a highly toxic and explosive gas. container which> as the consigner ii ava..r4- 1 Jii' l 'J I ems This is packaged in a very thin may~ not contain the gas for the ~ full distance for which it is consigned, and certainly will not do so if the train should strike any real trouble, for example if there is a breakdown and the interior of the train becomes very hot, if the train should be derailed or involved in a collision, or if some passenger should interfere try; to steal some 1e t 11 r 5ffi'1jhQ~ ot eliherately ~ the freight~ inadvertent! Ml tX,lA4'rcd,. have happened on some previous journeys. All iii,. ~ with fU: ft,1-h ~ fCJ Laps Conf• ;;bi.c, ;_,,, of these tie:! cg ,.. ,\ If the container should "' break the resulting disaster would probably kill at least some of the people on the train in adjacent carriages, while others could be maimed or incur serious diseases . ..,., Most of us would Aoundly condemn such an action. of the parcel say to try to justify it? What might the consigner He might say that it is not certain that the gas will escape and that it is mere speculation to suppose it will, that the world needs his product and it is his duty to supply it, and that in any case he is not responsible for the train or the people on it. These sorts of excuses however 1$ would normally be s een as ludicrous~ a11rlo'1er1 (~~up~~he says that it is hisgownA pressing needs which justify his action. The ~ h e 0!111!!6, ,\ which produces the material as a by-product, is in bad financial A straits, and could• n.,r ,. afford to produce a better container even if it knew how to r~..../'441' ~ ,1/r make one. If t h e ~ §?PB ersl~~, he and his family will suffer, his employees r~L'~~ will lose their jobs and have to look for others, and the who}eA 1~,~, through loss of spending and the cancellation of the Multiplier Effect, will be worse off. ()It,/ rl.A~"/t ~ " .fo-... The ppor of t'he ¥.j)Jag_P,whom he would otherwise have been able to help, will ,1 suffer especially. ::, ,1r.,i/Q G ew people would accept~ story1 even if correct, as justification. Even where there are serious risks and costs to oneseLf or some group for whom one is (o concerned one is usually m,""kM,l ii,b. w;gil1'UA not hacc.u_y to be entitled to simply transfer the,4 burden of those risks and costs onto other uninvolved parties, especially where they arise 1 ()r 1 CI U J 1 /JIZMJ' J ) from one's own.< chosefi Iife-style.ca:nd the t~nsfer af cos.ts creates a risk of ,ae-r ious harm t:e G - t ~ r ----- The matter of nuclear waste disposal has many moral features which resem\1le the train (i4.tqatiaeu There is no known proven safe way to package the highly toxic wastes generated by the nuclear plant~ that will be spread around the world as large/9 scale nuclear development goes ahead. ' The waste problem will be much more serious than thut generated by the 50 or so reactors in use at present, withx'each one of the 2000 or so r actors envisaged by ,IJ ,f/4. J.IYl/4w l#i7 l,Q. ~~'4~ ,i· dfi) flp,J4v{- ...,_, jj{'. , ,~IL cue end of the century producing, on average, A . /"'-A 'VI '/I Ji? t • s/4 /7 __ / L_:~-..':~. . :~===================== ==---___,tl~===~l_____i_~ ~---- ------,_,.........----------~---_......._ ----:,..........,__.. 6. { of safety over th e s torage period, that placed safety beyond reasonable doubt , would be acceptable. It is difficult to see how such rigorous guarantees could be given concerning either the geological or future human factors. But even if an economically viable, rigorously safe long term storage method could be devised, there is the problem of guaranteeing that it would be universally and invariably . . as The assumption that it would be{ especially if, ~ used. - likely, such a method proved expensive economically and politically) seems to presuppose a level of efficiency, perfection and concern for the f uture which has not previously been e~counter~in human affairs, and has certainly not been conspicuous in the nuclear industry. 1 . Again, unless we assume continuous and faultless guarding of long term storage sites through perhaps a million years of possible future human ac t ivity, weapons-grade radioactive material will be accessible, over much of the million year storage period, to any pa rt y who is in a position to retrieve it. nonetheless be found 1 before 2000, (no longer a mere disposal pfioblem) s accordingly not t"~t,cnA '( which gets around the waste storage problem . like ma~v assumptions ?~ifH~s, It is an assumption supplied by the based, but is ratne ~ ~an artitle or The assumption that a way will /! Old Paradigm, 1 Cit M limitations assumption , that there are really no (development) - · -. problems that cannot be solved technologically (if not in a fashion always immediately ·· economically feasible). part in development plans and practice.. technological optimism (not to say what humans can accomplish, The assumption that is has played an important It has not only encouraged an unwarranted t3 -h(A.J,,.,·::, -____ ); that there are no limits to ;~;:14. i<. through science ; it has led to the em~rcation on projects before crucial problems have been satisfactorily solved t,r a solution is tNll.~ i n sight, and it has led to the idea that technology can always be suitably controlled. It has also led , not surprisingly, to disasters. There are severe limits on what technology can achieve (some of which are becoming known in the form of '"' limitation theorems,~ and in addition there are human limitations which modern technological developments often fail to take due account of (risk analysis of the · , llliu:,,olll( lido-wliklihood of reac t or accidents is a relevant exampll). The original nuclear technology dream ..fj 1>S1.l»-'I was that nuclear 'clean unlimited supply of power'). apparently remains a net will be but a quite X That dream soon shattered . cons &-1>t1~ "!)hc..-l::-tM1<1 would provide unlimited energy (a The nuclear industry of power, and nuclear ..flt~, ;o,,.. s upplier of power/> The risks :l.mposed on the future by proceeding with nuclear development then , significant. are, Nuclear fission creates wastes which may remain toxic for a million years, but even with the (suspect) breeder reactor it could be an energy source for only perhaps 150 years. It will do nothing for the energy problems of the people of the distant future whose lj_ves could be seriously affected by the wastes. I pt,..."'tl.Mt.. It is for such reasons that the train aua]og; cannot be turned around .p, .. ~,.,,,/(._ . s. to work in favour of nuclear power, w1.·th .:e::g:.-"1 t, h e nuc 1 ear train b r1.n1.ng I 4 relief as well as wastes to a remote town powered (only) by nuclear power. 7. ~ ~~----Thus perhaps 40,000 generations of future people could be forced to bear significant risks resulting from the provision of the (extravagant) energy use I.I f»l~)'r•jloiT,,j.,. d r{4. of onlyAlO generations. l''°/'k o.f Nor is the risk of direct harm from the escape or misuse of radioactive materials the only burden the nuclear solution imposes on the future. Because the ene~gy provided by nuclear fission is merely a stop gap, it seems probable that in due course the same problem, that of making a transition to renewable sources of energy, will have to be faced again by a future population which will probably, again as a result of our actions, be very much worse placed to cope with it ~ For they may well have to face the change to renewable resources in an over-populated world not only burdened with the legacy of our nuclear wastes, but also in a world in which, if the nuclear proponents' dream~of global industrial:lsation are realised, more and more of the global population will have become dependent on high energy consumption and associated technology and heavy resource use and will have lost or reduced its ability to survive without it. It will, moreover, probably be a world which is largely depleted of non-renewable resources, and in which such renewable resources as forests and soils as remain, resources which will have to form 4 a very important part of the basis of life, are in a run·-down condition. Such pointf~~ll against the idea that future people must be, if not direct beneficiaries of nuclear fission energy, at least indirect beneficiaries. The "solution" then is to buy time for contemporary industrial society at a price which not only creates serious problems for future people but which reduces their ability to cope with those problems. Like the consigner in the train parable, contemporary indu st rial society proposes, in order to get itself out of _a mess arising from its chfik Q,W:fl life style - the creation of economies dependent on an abundance of non-renewable energy, which is limited in supply - to pass on costs and risks of serious harm to others who will obtain no corresponding benefits. . The ''solution" may enable the avoidance of some uncomfortable changes~n the lifetime of those now living and their immediate descendants, just as the consigner's action avoids uncomfortable changes for him and his immediate surroundings, but at the expense of passing heavy burdens to other uninvolved parties, whose opportunity to /eJ J.Q.c~nt /,vu Afli1J may be seriously jeopardised. Industrial society has - under e~ch paradigm, so it will be argued clear alternatives (YJ>o~-t~ 1 cf i patterns ~ w to this action, which is taken essentially to avoid changing c~mpet,Nil,iJo.l'J ~ of consumption and protect the interest of those,\who benefit from them. I r~ pcrca.,t1cd, If we apply to the nuclear situation the standards of behaviour and moral 1 principles generally acknowledged (in principle if perhaps often not in fact) in the contemporary world, it is not easy to avoid the conclusion that nuclear development firTr-/S~ inv61ves injustice ~ /:T4- • with respect to the future 1,0 .I\ li g s111l s n 1J e> . The.re appear to be only two plausible moves that might enable the avoidance of such a conclusion. (p) !Pa {csfuP~ c C--?\ Ce/>'\ r.,--,._ ( .__:.. '7 1 </{_:_, rh~, t ✓~ ~ I d04r7 A ~ /'{,I(~ ~ ~ UL-117 KL- #- "d c ...... /~,::;., , ~7 (~ ' a-r ,,:ZZ-: :.,.,/ ~ 7 ka.-~ ,,.,;,{,,;,,, j ~ ~ ~ cf~~c-r 77~ 7W{~ ' £--) 11-/'l,,._,r ,/~ £e..-r<- ~ ~7~ ~~ t, .r \t Y/1 ) . 8. I i I First, it might be argued that the moral principles and obligations which we acknowledge for the contemporary world and the immediate future do not apply f{,_ because the recipients of...- nuclear parcel are in the non-immediate future. Secondly, an attempt might be made to appeal to overriding circumstances; for to !eject the consigner's action in the circumstances outlined is not of course to 1 ~ that there are circumstances in which such an action might ~,.;s i];Jj' no be justifiable 1 or at least where the the nuclear case. f,t,,J/,e,, ~ is less clearcut. It is the same with Just as in the case of the consigner of the package there is a need to consider what these justifying circumstances might be, and whether (on(l,/e,r- We ~urfl now to the first oA these possible escape they apply in the present case. h,1',.,. ,¼ ,,;I,11. ,~ 1V,r,q routes for the proponent of nuclear developmen~, A~ the ~ ~ a i e::u, question of our obligations to the future.@ III The especially problematic area OBLIGATIONS TO THE (DISTANT) FUTURE. is that of the distant (i.e. ~ ,-inun({..!',l j ate) future, 11( the future with which people alive today will have no direct contact; by comparison, the immediate &,I" In fact the question of future gives fe~ problems for most ethical theories. obligations to future people presents tests which a number of ethical theories ( tl~eu,lf;"i, a;iff. ill}~-?~ • • 1-t,u,· fe,!, 0 "! 1-ope:ram,o_rLJ fail to pass, and also o'Ji(~) tlo .-u-r ~ t/JM_ the adequacy of accepted;/ institutions which leave future pe pl.c. in political philosophy cen:e!r .. in:g 01:1~ <YP of account~ the interests of ll'd"-lvx~, ;>?Moral philosophers have, predictably, differed on the issue. A good many of the philosophers who have explicitly considered the question have come down in favour of the same consideration being given to the rights and interests of future people as to those of contemporary or immediately future people. Other philosophers have tended to fall into three categories - those who acknowledge obligations to the future but who do not take them seriously or who assign them a lesser weight, those who deny or who are committed by their general moral position to denying that there are moral obligations beyond the immediate future, and those who come down, with admirable philosophical caution, on both sides of the issue, but with the weight of the argument favouring the view underlying prevailing economic and political pcr/1t,,/IJ institutions,that there are no moral obligations to the future beyond ~those f@raap,s to the next generation. According to the most extreme of these positions against moral obligations to the future, our behaviour with respect to the future is morally unconstrained, there are no moral restrictions on acting or failing to act deriving from the effect of our actions on future people. Of those philosophers who say, or whose views imply that we do not have obligations to the (non-immediate) future, who have opted for the unconstrained position, many have based this view on accouna of moral obligation which are builh. on relations which presuppose some ckiguhl uf \ 9. temporal or spatial contiguit y. Thus moral obligatio n is seen as grounded on or as presuppos ing various relations which could not hold between people widely separated in time (or sometimes in space). For example, obligatio n is seen as grounded in relations which are proximate or of short duration and also nontransitiv e. Among such suggested bases or grounds of moral obligatio n, or requireme nts on moral obligatio n, which would rule out obligatio ns to the non.immediate future are these:- Firstly there are those accounts which require that someone to whom a moral obligatio n is held be able to claim his rights or entitleme nt. People in the distant future will not be able t'b-claim rights and en«fw11. entitleme nts as aga:inst us, and of course they can do nothingAt o enforce any claims they might have for their rights against us. Secondly, there are those accounts which base moral obligatio ns on social or legal conventio n, for example a conventio n which would require punishmen t of offenders or at least some kind of social enforceme nt. But plainly these and other conventio ns will not hold invariant over change in society and amendment of legal conventio ns and so will not be invariant over time. Also future people have no way of enforcing their interests or punishing offenders , and there could be no guarantee that any contempo rary institutio n would do it for them. ~ Both the view that moral obligatio n requ{es the context of a moral community and the view that it is contractu ally based appear to rule out the distant future as a field of moral obligatio n as they not only require a commonal ity or some sort of common basis which cannot be guarantee d in the case of the distant future, but also a possibili ty of interchan ge or reciproci ty of action which cannot apply to the future. Where the basis of moral obligatio n is seen as mutual exchange the interests of future people must be set aside because they cannot change the past and cannot be parties to any mutual contract. The exclusion of moral obligatio ns to the distant future also follows from those views which attempt to ground moral obligatio ns in non-tran sitive relations of short duration such as sympathy and love. As well there are difficult ies about love and sympathy for (non-exis tent) people in the far distant future about whose personal qualities and characte ristics one must know very little and who may well Ji/fa,,,,be committed to a life-styl e for which one has no sympathy. On the current 1 showing in the case of nuclear energy it would be easy to conclude that contempo rary society lacks both love and sympathy for future people; and it would appear to follow fr om this that contempor ary people had no obligatio ns concernin g future people and could damage them as it suited them. ( 10. j What all these views have in common is a picture of obligation as something acquired, either individually or institutionally, something which is conditional on doing something or failing to do something (e.g. participating in the moral community, contracting), or having some characteristic one can \b 5 fail to have (e.g. love, sympathy, empffathy). { t:#11/ Because obligation therefore fOt1'0i7'1 ) c,4/t..,&,./.h. become\conditional, features usually"' thought to characterise ia;~such as universality of application and necessitation (i.e. the binding features) ate lost,~special.ly where there is a choice whether or not to do the thing required to acquire the obligation, and so as to whether to acquire it. The criteria for acquisition suggested are such as to exclude people in the distant future. The view that there are no moral constraints with respect to future people, that one is free to act however one likes with respect to them, Mt is Ahowever Jurn.mi).(/e. ,fl ·•=~ aH:llLalt one te ~t113ta1A J Irr Consider, elm example , a a scientific group which, for no particular reason other than to test a particular piece of technology, places in orbit a cobalt bomb set off by a triggering device designed to go off several hundred years from the time of its despatch. No presently living person and none of their immediate descendants would be affecte.d, but the population ofY the earth in the distant future would be wiped out as a The unconstrained position clearly direct and predictabl~ result of the action. implie s that this is an acceptable moral enterpris e, that whatever else we might legitimately criticize in the scientists' experiment, perhaps its being overexpensive or badly designed, we cannot lodge a moral protest about the damage it The unconstrained position also endorses as morally J,,)rc'y: acceptable the following sorts of linEOfflf':les:- A firm discovers it can make a will do to future people. handsome profit from mining, processing and manufacturing a new type of material which, although it causes no problem for present people or their immediate descendents, will over a period of hundreds of years decay into a substance which will cause an enormous epidemic of cancer among the inhabitants of the earth at that time. According to the unconstrained view the firm is free to act in its own interests, without any consideration for the harm i .t does ,ren,,~ future people. Such counterexamples to the unconstrained view, which are easily varied and multiplied, might seem childishly obvious. Yet the unconstrained position concerning the future from which they follow is far from being a straw man; not 0... only have several philosophers endorsed this position, but it i s ~ clear impli cation of many currently popular views of the basis of moral obligation, as well as of prevailing economic theory. It seems that those who opt for the unconstrained position have not considered such examples, -, /J/(l. by their position. despite their being clearly implied w ..ld cuh..117 ~o/1'1 Md;{ - We suspect thatAwhen it is brought out that the unconstrained position admits such counterexamples, that being free to act implies among other things being free to inflict pointless harm for example, most of those who opted for 11. the unconstrained position would want to assert that it was not what they intende.d. I What many of those who have put forward the unconstrained position seem to have had in mind in denying moral obligation is rather that future people can look after themselves, that we are not reponsible for their lives. The popular view that the future can take care of itself also seems to assume a future causally independent of the present. But it is not. It is not as if, r:-- in the counter/ example cases or in the nuclear case, the future is simply being .....:.,..., left alone to take care of itself. Present people are influencing it, and in doing so thereby acquire many of the same sorts of moral responsibilities as they do in causally affecting the present and immediate future, namely the obligation to take account in what they do of people affected and their interests, to be careful in their actions, to take account of the genuine probability of their actions causing harm, and to see that they do not act so as to rob future people of the chance of a good life. Furthermore, to say that we are not responsible for the lives of future people does not amount to the same thing as saying that we are free to do as we like with respect to them, that there are no moral constraints on our action involving them. In just the same way, the fact that one does not have or has not acqu.ired an obligation to some stranger with whom one has never been involved, that one has no responsibility for his life, does not imply that one .is free to do what one likes with respect to him, for example to rob him or to pursue some course of act.ion of advantage to oneself which could seriously harm him. These difficulties for the unconstrained position arise in part from the (sometimes deliberate) failure to make an important distinction between acquired or assumed obligations toward somebody, for which some act of acquisition or assumption is required as a qualifying condition, and moral constraints, which require, for example, that one should not act so as to damage or harm someone, and for which no act of acquisition is required. and kind of responsibility involved. There is a considerable difference in the level In the first case one must do something or be something which one can fail to do or be, e.g. have loves, sympathy, be contracted. In the second case responsibility arises as a result of being a causal agent who is aware of the consequences or probable consequences of his action, and thus does not have to be especially acquired or assumed. Thus there is no problem about how the latter class, moral constraints, can apply to the distant future in cases where it may be difficult or impossible for acquisition or assumption conditions to be satisfied. They apply as a result of the ability to produce causal effects on the distant future of a reasonably predictable nature. Thus also moral constraints can apply to what does not (yet) exist, just as actions can cause results that do not p{jf-lrr (yet) exist. While it may~be the case that there would need to be an acquired or assumed obligation in order for it to be claimed that contemporary people must make speci.al sacrifices for future people of an heroic kind, or even to help them 12. especially, only moral constraints are needed in order for us to be constrained Thus, to return to the train parable, the consigner cannot from harming them. argue in justification of hi.s action that he has never assumed or acquired responsfbility for the passengers, that he does not know them and therefore has no love or sympathy for them and that they are not part of his moral community, in short that he has no special obligations to help them. All that one needs to argue concerning the train, and the nuclear case, is that there are moral constraints against harming, not that there are specially acquired obligations to take responsibility for the lives of people involved. There has been an attempt to represent all obligations to the distant future in terms of heroic self- sacrifice, something which cannot of course be morally required. But in view of the distinctions between constraints and acquired obligation and between obligation and supererogation this is just to misrepresent the position of these obligations. For example, one is no more engaging in heroic self- sacrifice by not forcing future people into an unviable life position or by refraining from causing them direct harm than the consigner is resorting to heroic self- sacrifice in refraining from placing his dangerous package 6n the train. - 1~ ,-;.,,. The conf~ of moral constraints with acquired obligation, and the attempt therewith to view all constraints as acquired and to write off nonacquired constraints, is facilitated through the use of the term 'moral obligation' both to signify any type of deontic constraints and also to indicate rather something which t?t-. con.Pl~"' has to be assumed or acquired. a .~is encouraged by reductionist positions which, in attempting to account for obligation in genera~mistakenly endeavour to collapse all obligations into acquired obligations. Hence the equation, and some main roots {),nu,,WUI of the unconstrained position, of theAbelief that there are no moral constraints concerning the distant future. The unconstrained view tends to give way, under the weight of counterexamples, to more qualified, and sometimes ambivalent, positions, for example the position that our obligations are to immediate posterity, we ought to try to improve the world so that we shall be able to hand it over to our immediate successors in a better condtion, and that is all; il,/7 there are irferactice no obligations to the distant future. A main argument in favour of the latter theme is that such obligations would in practice be otiose. Everything that needs to be accounted for can be encompassed through the chain picture of obligation as linking successive generations, under which each generation has obligations, based on loves or sympathy, only to the succeeding - generation. /hftfe.. 'U'L P..t (t A.,t ~ . A three objections to this chain account. First, it is inadequate to treat constraints concerning the future as if they applied only between generations, as if there were no question of constraints on individuals opposed to whole generations, since individuals can create causal effects, e.g. harm, on the future in a way which may create individual responsibility, and which often cannot be sheeted home to an entire generation. Secondly, such chains, since non-transitive, cannot yield direct obligations to the distant future. But for this very reason the chain picture cannot be adequate, as examples again show. For the picture is unable to explain several of the cases that have to be dealt with, e.g. the examples already discussed which show that we can have a direct effect on the distant future without affecting the next generation, who may not even be able to influence matters. VThirdly, improvements for immediate successors may be achieved at the expense oflcfi\advantages to people of the more distant future. Improving the world for immediate successors is quite compatible with , and may even in some circumstances be most easily achieved by, ruining it for less immediate successors. examples Such cases can hardly be written off as "never-never land" since many cases of environmental exploitation might be seen as of just this type, e.g. not just the nuclear case but also the exhaustion of nonrenewable resources and the long-term depletion of renewable resources such as soils t.($l. and forests through over crttl If then such obvious injustices to future W• people arising from the favouring or exclusive concern with immediate successors are to be avoided, obligations to the future will have to be seen as in some way fairly distributed over time, and not merely as accruing to particular generations in the way the chain picture suggests. IV. ATTEMPTS TO QUALIFY OBLIGATI_ONS TO THE FUTURE : ECONOMISTIC r.\ Ul\tERTAINTY AND INDETERMINACY ARGUMENTS. While there are grave difficulties for the unconstrained position, qualification leads to a more defensible . , ~ ,;. position. According to thej qualified position we are not entirely unconstrained with respect to the distant future, there are obligations, but these are not so important as those to the present, and the interests of distant future people cannot weigh very much in the scale against those of the present and immediate future . The interests of future people then, except in unusual cases, count for very much less than the interests of present people. Hence such things as nuclear development and various exploitative activities which benefit present people should proceed, even if people of the distant future are (somewhat) disadvantaged by them. The qualified position appears to be widely held and is implicit in prevailing economic theories, where the position of a decrease in weight of future ( 'tJ c./,~ 14. c,,...,.,,..7 e-.Al'I r~e/ ,,_0 /1//4,r.4'---/o/_/,._ costs and benefits (and so of future inter~s) is obtained by application over time of a ! ~ discount rateJ l The attempt to apply eco~omics as a moral theory, something that is becoming increasingly common, can lead then to the qualified position. J What is objectionable in such an approach is that rl..ooA.cl economics~ operate within the bounds of moral (deontic) constraints, just A as in practice it operates within legal constraints, not determine what those There are moreover alternative economic theories and simply constraints are. to adopt, without further ado, one which discounts the future is to beg ~.rn.<)~ t=t.m questions at issue. Among the arguments that economists offer for generally discounting the future 1 the most threadbare is based ~n the assumption that future generations J'{ than present ones > and so better placed to handle the waste off willj€:tter Since there is mounting evidence that future generations may well UQ_l= problem. be better off than present ones, especially in things that matter, no argujJnent can carry Much discounting the interests of future generations on this basis For it depends qf Nor is that all that is wrong with the argujtnent. weight. ~ 1 ~.<f_.: ~ assumption that poorer contemporaries would be making (ullRJ_td/., h-n.a-hc '"/ J richer successors in foregoing such,i de.f5elopments as nuclear power. Tl,q•f ;1 1 il-.la/Jt,,,.1U H:O::f t f ~ a ~ I cl:e..vi?1tiprirn~ M th. f:>.I~,. .Ly rcdr.lul -Be:t,\ the sacrifice {(J/0..) lias , 1r cad, li @an ~ ~ hi¥/~ -tl,e., on sacrifices to f or 8'1. Qto @h es. t"/!"4;/ "r: toJ/IJ-f,444 the future 'i1:m:1 for the waste disposal problem to be ~ argument . Iii\ ""1 legitimately generations, it would have to be shown, what recent economic progress hardly justifies, that future generations will be, not just better U 11.,t J1' 011!.. C u.;,,;/,/e_. off, but so much better offAthat they can duly absorb the nuclear waste burden. A more plausible argument for discounting is d.i rectly in terms of opportunity costs. It is argued_, from the fact that a dollar gained now is worth much more than a dollar received in the non-immediate future (because the first dollar could meanwhile be invested at compound interest), that discounting is required to obtain equivalent monetary values, and so f~r efficient allocation of resources. Similarly it is argued, by virtue again of 'r/'~/,·s-.-l,~..... of monetary value, that compensation - which is what the waste problem is taken to cawii:a. to 71....r a few pennies set now than later. ~ costs much less_ economically ,1ov.)Q/" -- ,...... aside (e.g. in a trust fund)Ain the future, if need bev, will suffice to compensate eventually for any v,c. t,w>.f of remote radioactive waste leakage. There are, presently at least, in surmountable pract1cal _ _ difficulties about applying such discounting, e.g. how to determine appropriate future discount rates. A more serious objection is that 15 . applied generally, the argument presupposes , what is false, that compensatio n, like value, can always be converted into monetary equivalents , that people ~ncluding I those outside market frameworks) can be monetarily compensated for a variety of damages, including cancer and loss of life. There is no compensatin g a dead man, or for a lost species. In fact the argument presupposes neither part of which can succeed be represented , at all adequately it is not just /</ a double reduction that value cannot in general , -fa' /J,'K~~ monetarily, but (as against utilitariani sm) ,t -LJ..,.t constraints and obligations can not be somehow reduced to matters of value. It i s also presupposed that all decision methods, suitable for requisite nuclear choic e s,'!_--- - -~ are bound ~o apply discounting . This is far from so : indeed A Goodi~ argues that, on the do not allow discounting , and discounting only works in practice with expected utility rules (such as underlie cost-benef it and benefit-ris k analyses), which ,r,// are, he contends strictly inapplicabl e for nuclear choices (since aJncrt 1 pnl'>Si],1 f3 {,/,11.{f al f<j''1. a,t /'.,~,,/,/;#b J outcomes can be duly determirte1, in the way that application of the rules 1-0 requir es). 1/ contrary, more appropriate decision £~1¢s ,, As the f~e.ceid;nJ . arguments reveal, the discounting move often has the same result as the unconstrain ed position. If, for instance, we consider the cancer i example and reduce costs to payable compensatio n, it is evident that over a sufficientl y long period of time discounting at current prices would lead to the conclus ion that there are no recoverable damages and so, in economic terms, no constraints . I n short, even certain damage to future people could be written off. One way to achieve the bi a s against future people is by the application of discount rates which are set in accord with the current e conomic horizons of no more than about 15 years~2/ and appli.cation of such rates would simply beg the question against the interests a nd rights of fu t ure people. Where there is certain future damage of a mo rally f o rbidden t ype, f or example, the whole method of discounting is simply inappl.icabl e, and its use would violate moral constraint s.~ Another argument for the qualified position, which avoids the objections from ca ses of c ert a in d a mage, comes from probability considerati ons. The distant future, it is a rgued, is much more uncertain than the present and immediate future, so that probabiliti es are consequentl y lower, perhaps even approaching or coinciding with zero for any hypothesis concerning the distant future.• But then if we take account of probabiliti es in the obvious way, by simply multiplying them against costs and benefits, it is evident that the interests of future people; except in cases where there is an unusually high degree of certainty, much) less than those of present and must count for (very neighbourin g people where (much) higher probabj_lities are attached. So in the case of conflict between the present and the future where it is a question of weighing certain benefits to the people of the present and the immediate f(Jture against a much lower probability of indetermina te 16. costs to an indeterminate number of distant future people, the issue would normally be decided in favour of the present, assuming anything like similar costs and benefits were involved. But of course it cannot be assumed that anything like similarly weighted costs and benefits are involved in the nuclear case, especially if it is a question of risking poisoning some of the earth for half a million or so years, with consequent risk of serious harm to thousands of generations of future people, in order to obtain am:±E doubtful fU" t, i :b4. benefits for some present people, in f11(,i11i.1,~ c,HJcn.A,;;,. l';-of,Y~;l,7 or le the shape of the opportunity to). continue unnecessarily high energy use. And even if the costs and benefits were comparable or evenly weighted ,)<such an argument would be defective, since an analogous argument would show that the consigner's action is acceptable provided the benefit, e.g. the profit he stood to gain from imposing significant risks on other people, was sufficiently large. or l"isl.~JwiolilSuch a cost-benefitAapproach to moral and decision problems, with or without the probability frills, is quite inadequate where different parties are concerned or to deal with cases of conflict of interest or moral problems where deontic constraints are involved, and commonly yields counterintuitive results. it would follow on such principles that it is permissible For example, for a firm to injure, or very likely injure, some innocent party provided the firm stands to make a sufficiently large gain from it. But the costs and benefits involved are not transferable in any s1mple or general way from one party to another. Transfers of this kind, of costs and benefits involving different parties, commonly raise moral issues - e.g. is x entitled to benefit himself by imposing costs on y - whi.ch are not susceptible to, a simple cost-benefit approach of the sort adopted J~ J,!01-Ult;,... •F enenza, of nuclear energy, ltho attefl@J':=::f::fl=di-smiss the costs to future ,~~ # "41'- . ~'?f1¥=;ll,, d?,,-,ipQ/i,,. people~with the soothing remark that any development involves costs as well as benefHs. The limitations of transfei:_ point is enough to invalidate the comparison, heavily relied on in building a case for the acceptability of the nuclear -- risk, between nuclear risks and those from such activities as airplane travel or cigarette smoking. In the latter case those who supposedly benefit from the activity -3. are also, to an overwhelming extent, those who bear the serious health costs and risks involved. In contrast the users and supposed beneficiaries of nuclear energy will be risking not only, or even primarily, their own lives and health, but also that of others who may be non-beneficiaries and who may be spatially or temporaJ.ly removed, and these risks will not be in any direct way related to a person's extent of use. The transfer objection is essentially the same as that to the utilitarian's {happiness) sums as a way ~f solvini moral. conflict between diff_e_r ent parties, and the . . - 1J.1 ,,. u/i'th:urty,- ~IJ-UJI--. NJ/t.J1 ~ O-? 'Hf/t• """~ aP/2~.i.-1-;- 1ntroduct1on of probabi.lity cons1derations.-l does not change the principles involved but merely complicates the analysis. One might further object to the probability argument that piobabilities involving distant future situations are not always less than those concerning the immediate future in the way the argument supposes, and ~ 17. that the outcomes of some moral problems do not depend on a high level of f probability anyway. In some sorts of cases it is enough, as the train parable I reveals, that a significant risk is created; such cases do not depend critically on high probability assignments. Uncertainty arguments in various forms are the most common and important ones used by philosophers, economists and others to argue for the position that we cannot be expected to take serious account of the effects of our actions on the distant future. There are two strands to the uncertainty argument, capable of sep- aration, but frequently tangled up. priori Both arguments are mistaken, the first on a grounds, the second on a posteriori grounds. The first argument is a generalised uncertainty argument which runs as follows:- In contrast to the exact information we can obtain about the present, the information we can obtain -ft1Z'L:J about the effects of our actions on the distant future is unreli.able,wootl; and highly A speculative. But we cannot base assessments of how we should act on information of this kind, especially when accurate information is obtainable about the present which would indicate different action. Therefore we must regretfully ignore the X uncertain effects of our actions on the distant future. crudely: More formally and One only has obligations to the future if these obligations are based on reliable information. distant future. There is no reli.able information at present as regards the Therefore one has no obligations to the distant future. This first argument is essentially a variant on a sceptical argument in epistemology concerning our knowledge of the future (formally, replace 'obligations' by 'knowledge' in the crude statement of the argument above). The main ploy is to considerably overestimate and overstate the degree of certainty available with respect to the present and immediate future, and the degree of certainty which is required as the basis for moral consideration both with respect to the present and with respect to the future. Associated with this is the attempt to suggest a sharp division as regards certainty between the present and immediate future on the one hand and the distant future on the other. We shall not find, we suggest, that there is any such sharp or simple division between the distant future and the adjacent future and the present, at least with respect to those things in the present which are normally subject to moral constraints. We can and constantly do act on the basis of such "unreliable" information, as the sceptic as regards the future conveniently labels "uncertainty"; for sceptic-proof certainty is rarely, or never, available with respect to much of the present and immediate future. In moral situations in the present, action often takes account of risk and probability, even quite low probabilities. Consider again the train example. We do not need to know for certain that the container will break and the lethal gas escape. In fact it does not even have to be probable, in the relevant sense of more probable than not, in order for us to condemn the consigner's action. It is enough that there is a significant 18 . in this sort of case. risk of harnt J It does not matter if the decreased well-being of the consigner is certain and that the prospects of the passengers quite uncertain, the resolution of the problem is nevertheless clearly in favour But if we do not require of the so-called "speculative " and "unreliable". certainty of action to apply moral constraints in contemporary affairs, why should we require a much higher standard of certainty in the future? Why should we require for the future, episte.m ic standards which the more familiar sphere of moral action concerning the present and adjacent future does not need to meet? The insistence on certainty as a necessary condition before moral consideration can be given to the distant future, then, amounts to an epistemic double standard. But such a~ epistemic double standard, proposed in explaining the difference between the present and the future and to justify ignoring future peoples' interests, in fact cannot itself provide an explanation of the differences, since it already presupposes different standards of certainty appropriate to each class, which difference is in turn in need of justification. The second uncertainty argument is a practical uncertainty argument, that whatever our obligations to the future, we cannot in practice theoretical take the interests of future people into account because uncertainty about the distant future is so gross that we cannot determine what the likely consequences of actions on it will be and therefore, however good our intentions to the people of the distant future are, in practice we have no choice but to ignore their interests. Uncertainty is gross where certain incompatible hypotheses are as good as one another and there is no rational ground for choosing between them. The second uncertainty argument can be put alternatively this way:- If moral principles are, like other principles, implicational in form, that is of such forms as "if every (action) x" , x has character h then x is wrong, for then what the argument claims is that we cannot ever obtain the information about future actions which would enable us to detach the antecedent of the implication. So even if moral principles theoretically apply to future people, in practice they cannot be applied to obt.ain clear conclusions or directions concerning contemporary action of the "It is wrong to do x" type. Many of the assumptions of the second argument be conceded. If the distant future really is so grossly uncertain that in every case it is impossible to determine in any way that is better than chance what the effects of present action will be, and whether any given action will help or hinder future people, then moral principles, although they may apply theoretically to the future, will in practice not be applicable to obtain any clear conclusions about how to act. Hence the distant future will impose no practical moral constraints on action. However the argument is factually incorrect in assuming that the future always is so grossly uncertain or indeterminate. Admittedly there is often a high degree of uncertainty concerning the distant future, but as a matter of (contingent) fact it is not always so gross or sweeping as the ~~ --t9-. argument has to assume. There are some areas where uncertainty is not so great as I to exclude constraints on action, especially when account is taken of the point, which was noticed in connection with the first argument, that complete certainty is commonly not required for moral constraints and that all that may be needed in some cases is the creation of a significant risk. Again there is considerable uncertainty about many factors which are not highly, or at all, morally relevant, but this does not extend to many factors which are of much greater importance to moral issues. For example, we may not have any idea what the fashions will be -f/,u.'fN-r I in a hundred years i n ~ names o r ~ footwear, or what praod1 of ice • • .._A'.~ cream people will be eating if any, but we do have excellent reason to believe, especially if we consider 3000 years of history, that what people there are in a hundred years are likely to have material and psychic needs not entirely unlike our own, that they will need a healthy biosphere for a good life; that like us they will not be immune to radiation; that their welfare will not be enhanced by a high incidence of cancer or genetic defects, by the destruction of resources, or the elimination from t h e ~ earth of that wonderful variety of non-human life which at present makes it such a rich and interesting place. Ill uncertainty argument should be rejected. For this sort of reason, the second The case of nuclear waste storage, and of uncertainty of the effects of it on future people, is one area where uncertainty in morally relevant respects is not so great as to preclude moral constraints on action, where we can ascertain if not absolute certainties at least probabilities of the same sort of order as are considered sufficient for the application of moral principles in parallel contemporary cases, especially where spatially remote people are involved. In particular there is not gross indeterminacy or uncertainty; it is simply not true that incompatible hypotheses about what may happen are as good as each other. It is plain that nuclear waste storage does impose significant risks of harm on future people, and, as~• eac. ~ eu,~ ~ ··from the train example, the significant risk of harm is enough in cases of this { type to make moral constraints applicable. In terms of the def ects of the preceding uncertainty arguments, we can see the defects in a number of widely employed uncertainty arguments used to 0~1,.(t_ write off probable~ harm to future people as outside the scope of proper consideration. Most of these popular moves emv ,< .loy both of the uncertainty arguments as suits the case, switching from one to the other in a way that is again reminiscent of sceptical moves. For example, we may be told that we cannot really take account of future people because we cannot be sure that they will exist or that their tastes and wants will not be completely different from our own, to the point where they will not suffer from our exhaustion of resources or from the~hings that would c,.ffect us. But this is to insist upon complete certainty of a sort beyond what is required for the present and immediate future, where there is also commonly no guarantee that some disaster will not overtake those we are mora.lly committed to. Again we may be told that there is no guarantee that future people will be worthy of any efforts on our part, because they may be morons of forever plugged into enjoyment of other machines. Even if one is prepared to accept the elitist approach presupposed - according to which only those who meet certain properly civilized or intellectual standards are eligible for moral consideration - what we are being handed in such arguments as a serious defeating consideration is again a mere outside possibility like the sceptic who says that solid-looking desk in front of us is perhaps only a facade, not because he has any particular reason for doing so, but because he hasn't looked around the back, drilled holes in it, etc. etc. Neither the contemporary nor the historical situation gives any positive reason for supposing that a lapse into universal moronity or universal-pleasure-machine escapism is a serious possibility, as oppo s ed to a logical possibility. We can contrast with these mere logical possibilities the very real historically supportable risks of escape of nuclear waste or decline of a civilisation through destruction of its resource base. The possibilities just considered in these uncertainty arguments of sceptical character are not real possibilities. Another argument which may consider a real possibility, but still does not succeed in showing that it is acceptable to proceed with an action which would appear to be harmful to future people, is often introduced in the nuclear waste case. This is the argument that future people may discover a rigorously safe and permanent storage method for nuclear wastes before they are damaged by escaped waste material. Let us grant for the sake of the argument that this is a real possibility (though physical arguments may show that it is not). This still does not ~ffect the fact that there is a significant risk of serious damage and that the creation of a significant risk is enough to rule out an action of this type as morally impermissible. In just the same way, future people may discover a cure for cancer: that this app ears to be a ~ live possibility, and not merely a logical possibility, does not make the action of the firm tu ..c tbeaa-:&-xam~ aiscussed earlier of producing a substance likely to cause cancer in future people, morally admissible. The fact that there was a real possibility of future people avoiding the harm would show that actions of these sorts were admissible only if what was required for inadmissibility was certainty of harm or a very high probability of it. In such cases before such actions could be considered admissible what would ?e required is 22 far more than a possibility, real or not - it is at least the availability of an applicable, safe, and rigorously tested, not merely speculative, technique for achieving it, something that future people could reasonably be to protect themselves. ~tpected to apply ~/l,.. a..,,.L- a«'if The strategy of /tnost af rbes9 uncertainty arguments is fairly clear then, I and may be brought out by looking yet again at the train example where the consigner says that he cannot be expected to take account of the effect of his actions on the passengers because they may find an effective way to deal with his parcel or some lucky or unlucky accident may occur, e.g. the train may break down and they may all change to a different transport leaving the parcel behind, or the train may crash killing all the passengers before the container gets a chance to leak. These are all possibilities of course, but there is no positive reason to believe that liC/t2- they are any more than that, that is they are n o t ~ possibilities. ~k- The ;\, strategy is to stress such bH~sid& possibilities in order to create the false impression that there is gross uncertainty about the future, that the real possibility that the contai.ner will break should be treated in the same way as these mere logical possibilities, that uncertainty about the future is so great as to preclude the consigners' takin~ account of the passengers' welfare and the real possibility of harm from his parcel and thereby to excuse his action. A related strategy is to stress a real vossibility, such as finding a cure for cancer, and thereby imply that this removes the case for applying moral constraints. This move implicitly makes the assumptions of the first argument, that certainty of harm, or at least a very high probability of harm is required before an action can be judged morally inadmissible, and the point of stressing the real possibility of avoidance of damage is to show that this allegedly required high degree of certainty or probability cannot be attained. That is, the strategy draws attention to some real uncertainty implying that this is sufficient to defeat the application of moral constraints. But, as we have seen, this is often not so. Closely related to uncertainty arguments are arguments premissed on the indeterminacy of the future. In particular it is argued that the indeterminacy, for example with respect to the number and exact character of people at future times, would at least prevent the interest of future people being taken into account where there is a conflict with the present. Since their numbers are ,:J$ '<>A, indeterminate and their interests unknown how, it is SloM!-d, can we weigh their competing claims against those of the present and immediate future where this information is available in a more or less accurate form? The question is raised particularly by pr,Pblems of sharing fixed quantities of resources among present -fu,-- Q ~11.,,y,.La.. ..,, I, and future people," wherf the numbers of the latter are indeterminate. Such problems are indeed difficult, but they are not resolved by ignoring the claims f ) of the future, any more than the problems raised by the need to take account in decision-making of factors difficult to quantify are resolved byVignoring such factors. Nor are distributional problems as large and representative a cl'ass of moral problems concerning the future as the tendency to focus on them would suggest. can be conceded that there will be cases where the indeterminacy of aspects of It the future will make co~flicts very difficult to resolve or indeed irresoluble - J a realistic ethical theory will not deliver a decision procedure - but there will equally be other conflict cases where the level of indeterminacy does not hinder resolution of the issue, e.g. the train example which is a conflict case of a type. In particular, there will bi~ many cases which are not solved by weighing numbers, numbers of interests, or whatever, cases for which one needs to know only the most general probable characteristics of future people. The crucial question which emerges is then: are there any features of future people which would disqualify them fro~ral consideration or reduce their claims to such below those of present people? Prima facie, The answer is : in principle None. ,. moral principles are universalisable, and lawlike, in that they apply independently of position in space or in time, for example. But universalisability of principles is an outcome of those ethical theories which are capable of deali.ng satisfactorily with the present; in other words, a theory that did not allow properly for the future would be found to have defects as regards the present, to deal unjustly or unfairly with some present people, e.g. those remotely located. those outside some select subgroup, such as (white-skinned) humans, etc. candidates The only for characteristics that would fairly rule out future people are the logical features we have been looking at, such as uncertainty and indeterminacy; ht1 1l, , . ~ we have argued 1 p: ai-Oia) it would be far too sweeping to see these features as affecting the moral claims of future people in a general way. These special features only affect certain sorts of cases (e.g. the determination of best probable or practical course of action given only present information). In particular/ they do not affect cases of the sort being considered, nuclear development, where highly determinate. or certain information about the numbers and characteristics of the class likely to be harmed is not required, nor is certainty of damage. To establish obligations to the future a full universalizability principle is not required: it is enough that the temporal position of a person cannot af feet his entitlement to just and fair treatment, to full moral consideration ;i Zfj inversely, that it is without basis to discriminate morally against a person in virtue of his temporal position. As a result of this universalizahility, there are the same general obligations to future people as to the present; and thus there is the same ooligation to take account of them and their interests in what we do, to be careful in our actions, to take account of the probability (and not just the certainty) of our actions causing harm or damage, and to see, other things being equal, that we do not act so as to rob them of what is necessary for the chance of a good life. Uncertainty and indeterminacy tf,1'1 Q.v. a. do not/\:krt: u s ~ of these obligations. If in a closely comparable case concerning the present the creation of a significant risk is enough to rule out an action as immoral, and there are no independent grounds for requiring greater certainty of I harm in the future case under consideration, then futurity alone will not provide adequate grounds for proceeding with the action, thus discriminating against future people. Accordingly we cannot escape, through appeal to futurity, the conclusion already tentatively reached, that proposals for nuclear development in the present and likely future state of technology and practices for future waste disposal are immoral. Before we consider (in section VII) the remaining escape route from this conclusion, through appeal to overriding circumstances, it is important to pick up the further case (which heavily reinforces the tentative conclusion) against nuclear development, since much of it relies on ethical principles similar to those that underlie obligations to the future, and since it too is commonly met by similar appeal to extenuating circumstances. V. Problems of safe nuclear operation: reactor emissions, and core meltdown. ethical problems with nuclear power are by no means confined to future creatures. Just as remoteness in time does not erode obligations or entitlements to just treatment, neither does location in spa ce, or a particular gqsgraphical position. First of all, the problem of nuclear waste disposal raises serious questions of distributive justice not only across time, across generations, but also across space. Is one state or region entitled to dump its radioactive pollution in e,,- ,.q/Jjel'J another state's or region's yard? ,( When that region receives no due compensation (whatever that would amount to, in such a case~ and the people do not agree (though the leaders imposed upon them might)? The answer, and the arguments under- pinning the answer, are both like those already given in arguing to the tentative conc.lusion concerning the injustice of imposing radioactive wastes upon future people. But the cases are not exactly the same: USA and Japan cannot endeavour fl'I- cf to discount peoples of the Pacific in whose regions they propose to drop~ their ,a,ltdi;~ pollution in quite the way they can discount people of two centuries hence. (But what this consideration really reveals is yet another flaw in the idea that e ntitlement to just treatment can be discounted over time.) ! ' ~ '· i Eth~· c 1 i ssues of distr i bu tive j ustice, • as to equityI / ,:,J ~ J.._ /, ,tJ tc..id~,,..__ v J{ ~iv9ly=~=in ~ , also arise elsewhere in the assessment of nuclear development ; in particular, a s regards t h e treatment of those in the neighbour of reactors, and, tud rorb differently, as r~gards the distribution of (alleged) b~nefits Afrom nuclear power across ~ ~5' (The la t ter ques tion is t aken up ,\ a~ s ~~~ , especja] Jy , tb s Pev etty argument . ) ~ Weople livin g or working in the vicinity special costs and risks: f ~w{ffitrrf oslde, al ll rn ;i" a nuclear reactor are subject to firstly, radioactive pollution, due to the fact tha t reactors discharge radioactive ma terials into the air and water near the plant , and secondly catastrophic accidents, such a:; {steam) explosion of a reactor. ~ ,I/;.._ ~ question is whether such cos t s and risks can be imposed, with any ethical legi- timacy, on these people, who frequently have little or no say in their imposition, and who have mostly not been informed of any choices regarding the "risk/benefit -- tradeoffs" of nuclea r _technology. -:::)__ ( That they are so imposed, without local participation, indeed often without local input or awareness as with local opposition, reveals one part of the antidemocratic face of nuclear development, a part that nuclear development shares however with other large-scale polluting industry, where local participation and questions, fundamental to a genuine democracy/ of regional determination and popular sovereignty, are commonly ignored or avoided. .-:-,,, The "normal" ei 1ssion , during plant operation1 of low level rad~ ation carcinogenic and mutagenic costs. While there are undoubtedly costs, there r mains /,id,, substantial disagreement over theAnumber of cancers and precise extent of genetic damage induced by exposure to such radiation, over the local health costs involved. Under the Old Paradigm, which (illegltimotely ) permits free transfer of costs and risks from one person to another, the ethical issue directly raised is said to be: what extent of c~5cer and genetic damage, if any, is permissibly traded for the advantages of nuclear power, and under what conditions? m Under the Old Parad the issue is then translated into decision-theor etic questions, such as to 'ho · to e mploy risk/benefit analysis as a prelude to government regulation' and 'how t o ....1. 25. determine what is an acceptable level of risk/safety for the pub lic' .:ii } 3/ The Old Paradigm a t titude, ref~ted in the public policy o f s ome count r ie s that have such policies, i s t ha t the economic benefits conferred by allowing radiation emissions outweigh the costs of an increase in cancer and genetic damage. An example will reveal that such evaluations , which rely~ what appeal they have on a dubious utilitarianism, will not pass muster. It is a pity about Aunt Ethyl getting cancer, but it's nice to have this air conditioner working in summer. Such frequently trivial and rather inessential benefits, which may be obtained alternatively, e.g. by modification of houses, in no way compensate for the (a;~nf Y, of cance~ '---- The point is that the costs to one party 27 are not justifie~ '-.:,. especially when such benefits to other parties can be alternatively obtained a,-,{,...~ without such ~ awful costs.:. People, minorities, whose ,;.~;(a_, .Jro/ ~ within 50 miles of a nuclear plant. p().~M...11£; ,1711~, position isA compromised are thos\/ who live (Ehildren, for example, are in aAparticularly vulnerable position, since they are several times more likely to contract cancer through exposure than normal adults.) In USA, such people bear a risk of cancer and genetic damage of as much as 50 times that borne by the population at l arge. ~i A notinegl 11ble percentage (in excess of 3% of those exposed for 30 years) o f ~ qJ'~c~ R@r~ t a? s&&-eh:e people 1 in the area will di~j for the sake of the majority who are 111,(.ctaii-J" 'I aailat.'@ffl benefitted byApower producti~n . ~e~~a ft~elear. Whatever charm t he argument from overriding benefits had, even under the Old Paradigm, vanishes once it is seen that there are alternative, and in several respects less expensive ~ ways/ of delivering the real benefits involved. There are several other tricks used in showing that the imposition of radiation t:Jt/~ or on minorities, most of whom havei\ no genuine voice in the location of reactors in their environment and cannot move away without serious losses, is quite (morally) acceptable. l~ One cheaper trick, deployed by the US Atomic Energy Corrnnission, is to suppose that it is permissible to double, through nuclear technology, the level of (natural) rqdiation that a population have received with apparently negligible consequences, the argument being that the additional amount (being "natural" level) is also likely to have negligible consequences. equivalent to the The increased amounts of radiation - with their large man-made component - are then accounted normal, and, f<-,f- i, l(e,,... c-ltt<..,cd. of course,,\ what is normal is morally acceptable. in this argument is sound. None of the steps Drinking one bottle of wine a day may have no ill-effects, whereas drinking two a day certainly may affect a person's well-being; and while the smaller intake may have become normal for the person, the larger one will, under such conditions, not be. Finally, what is or has become normal, e.g . two murders or twenty cancers a day in a given city, may be far from acceptable. In fact, even the USA, which has strict standards by comparison with most other countries with planned nuclear reactors, permits radiat i on emissions very substantially in excess of the standards laid down; so the emission situation is worse than mere consideration of the standards wou'ld disclose. Furthermore , the ~------- -------- ----~-- -------- -------- -------- ---monitoring of the standards "imposed" is entrusted to the nuclear operators themselves, scarcely di.sinterested parties. Public policy is determined not so as to guarantee public health, but rather to serve as a 'public pacifier' while private nuclear operations proceed relatively unhampered~ While radioactive emissions are an ordinary feature of reactor operation, breakdown is, hopefully, not: an accident of magnitude is accounted, by official definition, an 'extraordinary nuclear occurrence'. But such accidents can happen, and almost have on several occasions (the most notorious being Three Mile Island) Y-Q If the cooling and emergency core cooling systems fail in American (light water) 1flore acto rs, then the core melts and 'containment failure' is likely, with ~he result that an area of 40,000 square miles could be radioactively contaminated. In the event of the worst type of accident in a very small reactor, a steam explosion in the reactor vessel, about 45,000 people would be killed instantly and at least 100,000 would die as a result of the accident, property damages would exceed $17 billion and an area H,e size of Pennsylvania would be destroyed. Modern nuclear reactors are abo ut five times the size of the reactor for which these conservative US government figures are giveti' : the consequences of a similar accident with a modern reactor would accordingly b~Y~~eater still. The consigner in ri sking the lifes, well-being and property of the passengers on the train has acted i_nadmissibly. Does a government or govern~t-spon sored private utility act in tay that is anything other than much less responsible in siting a nuclear reactor in a community, in planting such a dangerous package on the community train. The answer will be No, if the analogy holds good and the consigners' action is, as we would ordinarily suppose, inadmissible and irresponsible. The proponents of nuclear power have in effect argued to the contrary, while at the same time endeavouring to shift the dispute out of the ethical ar€/1 and into a technological dispute as to means (in accordance with the Old Paradigm). It has been contended , firstly, what contrasts with the train example, that there is no real possibility of a catastrophic nuclear accident. Indeed in the '11- influential Rassmussen report - which was extensively used to support public confidence in US nuclear fission technology - an even stronger, an incredibly strong, improbability claim was stated: namely, the likelihood of a catastrophic nuclear accident is so remote as to be (almost) impossible. The main argument for this claim derives from the assumptions and estimates of the report itself. These assumptions li ke the claim are undercut by nuclear incidents that came very cil:ose to accidents, incidents which reflect what happens in a reactor rather better than mathematical models. As with the storage of nuclear wastes, so with the operation of nuclear reactors, it is important to look at what happens in the actual world of technological limitations and human error, of waste leak.age and reactor incidents and quite possibly accidents, not in an ideal world far removed .from the actual, a technological 27. ( dream world where there is no real possibility of a nuclear catastrophe. In such an ideal n ucle a r wo r ld , where waste disposal were fool-proof and reac tors were accident-proof , things wo uld no doubt be morally different. But we do no t live in such a world. "" According to the Ra\ussen report its calculation of extremely low accident probabilities is based upon reasonable mathematical and technological assumptions and is methodological ly sound. This is very far from being the case. The under- lying mathematical methods, variously called "fault tree analysis" and "reliability as estimating techniques", are unsound, because they exclude .-1 "not credible" ,>Difl~;l,,9'?~ ~ possibilities or as branches t;o:1:t!il fl Ellffl "not significant" that are real .m:d" may well b'1. rt:i./f,04,( ~1cq1pen1 in the real world. \ It i.s the eliminations that are otherworldly. Infact the methodology and data of the report has been soundly and decisively criticized .Ji And it has been shown that there is a real possibili.ty, a notjpegligibJ.e probability, of a serious accident. It is contended, secondly, that even if there is a non-negligible probability of a reactor accident, still ibis acceptable, being of no greater order than risks of accidents that are already socially accepted. Here we encounter again that insidious engineering approach to morality built into models of an economic cast, e.g. benefit-cost balance sheets, risk assessment models, etc. Risk assessment, a sophistication of transaction or trade-off models, purports to provide a comparison between the relative risks attached to different options, e.g. energy options,which settles their ethical status. The following lines of argument are encountered in risk assessment a.s applied to energy options: (i) if option a imposes costs on fewe.r people thq.n option b then option a is preferable to optic+; (ii) option a involves a total net cost in terms of cost to people (e.g. deaths, injuries, etc.) which is less than that of option b, which is already accepted; therefore option a is acceptable. 3 f For example, the number likely to be killed by nuclear power stations is less than 1,r 1'-i l'Jp.,( ,-c.c.,',l.ci...fs ~ the likely number killed by cigarette smoking, which jjB accepted: so nuclear pqwer A stations are acceptable. A little refle c tion reveals that this sort of risk assessment argument involves the same kind of fallacy as ll!l!it transaction modek. It is far too simple--minded, and it ignores distributional and other relevant aspects of the context. In order to obtain an ethical assessment we should need a much fuller picture and we should need to know at least these things:- do the costs and benefits go to the same parties; and i1·he person who undertakes the risks also the person who receives the benefits or primarily, as in driving or cigarette smoking, or are the costs imposed on ot e parties who do not benefit? It is only if the parties a r e the same in the case of the options compared, and there are no such distributional problems, that a comparison on such a basis would be valid.i '})This is rarely the case, and it is not so in the case of risk assessments Secondly, does the person incur the risk as a result of an of energy options. 28. activ.Lty which be knowingly unclcttakes in a situationw-iere he has a reasonable choice, knowing it entails the risk, etc., and is the level of risk in proportion to the level6f the relevant activity, e.g. as in smoking? Thirdly, for what / reason is the risk imposed: is it for a serious or a relatively trivial reason? risk that is ethically acceptable for a serious reason may not be ethically acceptable for a tr:Lvial reason. Both the arguments (i) and (ii) are often A employed in trying to justify nuclear power. The second argument (ii) involves the fallacies of the first (i) and an additional set, namely that of forgetting that the health risks in the nuclear sense are cumulative, and ) 'n bhw ey ;i s g f:" P'J;ct'.) pce i,1 e~ already '°fc' not A oo high.16 high if ~ 1 The maxim "If you want the benefits you have to accept the costs" is one thing and the maxim "If I want the benefits then you have to accept the costs (or some of them at least)" is another and very different thing. It is a widely accepted d/' l).,c-~ ~ flJ,;<d ,;k~4 .~ vr4..a) I fl/rotl,7 ~~ kr 1/1 / moc.tal plfinci'ple,\ that one' is not, in general, entitled to simply transfer costs I r7n of a significant kind arising from an activity which benefits oneself onto other This parties who are not involved in the activity and are not beneficiaries~ transfer principle is especially clear in cases where the significant costs iq;lude an effect on life or ~ealth or a ,risk thereof, a~d where the benefit to j<2,c-(kUt , «J,•1 ,r ·~ ,k ,-,1,-.r.:.. ,riz.._~, t.4,/,:K/~7',-,t ~ ~ q:.:rLc-1- . the benefit ting party is of a noncrucial or dispensible nature,.,\ { Thus ,tone is not usually entitled to harm, or risk harming, another in the process of benefitting CIA.en(~ Suppose, forA example, we consider a village which produces, as a result of an i.ndustrial process by which it lives, a nox~us waste material which is expensive and difficult to dispose of and yet creates a risk to life and health oneself. f if undisposed of. Instead of giving up their industrial process and turning to some other way of making a living such as farming the surrounding countryside, they persist with this way of life but ship their problem on a one-way delivery ,Oil ·/J..0- ~ ) service Ato the next village. The inhabitants of this village are then forced to face the problem either of undertaking the expensive and difficult disposal or ol,e_ i'1M,).; 1(4. e1/Tl~L. ~ ~ Cdt'-/.:/4r,h . process or of sustaining risks to their own lives and healthA Most of us would see this kind of transfer of costs as. morally unacceptable. From this arises a necessary condition for energy options: that to be morally acceptable they should not involve the transfer of significant costs or risks of harm onto parties who are not involved, do not use the energy source or do not benefit correspondingly from its use. Included in the scope of this /trl" gA'-, condition are future people /§.~~~~ B ~eeiji~ a ~~~~m~aE~:iic=;m ;;~~i;E~~ 1 The distribution of -hut rd~ future generations (those of the next villages~; costs and damage in such a fashion, i.e. o~to non-benef is one of its most of certain widespread and serious fonns of objectionable moraL£eatures- ;-- - - /4' ..;~<fi'nt ~ ,u/4.v tfi/1_ ,.,c,,r r«-,,.4/ .......,,_,, f"u<H;f I l4'(!,,r) \ iaries is a characteristic =&, 7''7, ~ ,;_ ~ __../4;,, - 7:.(,/,_.., ~ v / __ - •_ __ ·~-~---- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ---~ ,. It is a corollary of the condition that we should not hand the world on to our successors in substantial ly worse shape than we received it - the transmissio n principle. For if we did then that would be a significant transfer of costs. (The corollary can be independen tly argued for on the basis of certain ethical theories.) eJpoc,"ct lly ru,clc>u- //)CL-; • Other social and environmen tal risks and costs of nuclear development ;~ The problems already discussed by no means exhaust the environmen tal, health and safety VI. risks and costs in or arising from the nuclear fuel cycle. The full fuel cycle includes many stages both before and after reactor operation, apart from waste disposal, namely mining, milling, conversion, enrichment and preparation , reprocessing spent fuel, and transportat ion of materials. Several of these stages involve hazards. Unlike the special risks in the nuclear cycle - of sabotage of plants, of theft of fissionable material, and of the further proliferati on of nuclear armaments - these hazards have p~rallels, if not exact equivalents , in other very polluting methods of generating power, e.g. 'workers in the uranium mining industry sustain 'the same risk' of fatal and nonfatal injury as workers in the coal industry 1 1'f Furthennore , the various (often serious) hazards encountered in working in some sector of uranium fabrication should be differently viewed from those resulting from location, for instance from already living where a reactor is built or wastes are dumped. For an occupation is, in principle at any rate, chosen (as is occupationa l relocation) , and many types of hazards incurred fr/working with radioactive material are now known in advance of choice of such an with where one already lives things are very different. The uranium miner's choice of occupation can be compared with the airline pilot's choice, whereas the Pacific Islander's 11 fact" of location cannot be. The social issue occupation: of arrangement s that contract occupationa l choices and opportuniti es and often at least· ease people into hazardous occupations such as uranium or tin or coal mining (where the risks, in contrast to airline piloting, are mostly not duly compensated ), while very important, :i.s not an issue newly produced by nuclear associated occupations . Other social and environmen tal problems - though endemic where large-scale industry operates in societies that are highly inegalitari an and include sectors that are far from affluent - are more intimately linked with the nuclear power cycle. Though pollution is a common and generally undesirable component of largescale industrial operation, radioactive pollution, such as uranium mining for instance produces, is especially a legacy of nuclear developmen t, and a specially C-,t.o ,,._......., eef, :i.i.lef undesirable one, as~ rectificatio n eosb~ for dead radioactive lands and waterways reveal. Though sabotage is a threat to many large industries, so that modern factory complexes are often guarded like concentrati on camps (but from us on the dire conse quen ces, of a diffe rent outs ide), sabot age o a nuc ear react or can have (cons ider again the effec ts of orde r of magn itude from most indu stria l sabot age more dubio us enter prise s such as core meltd own) . Though theft of mate rial from at large and can assis t terro rism , muni tions works can pose threa ts to popu latio ns probl ems of the same orde r as no theft s for alleg edly peac eful enter prise s pose produ ces mate rials which so theft of fissi onab le mate rial. No othe r indu stry explo sives . No othe r indu stry is, read ily perm it of fabri catio n into such mass ive to sum it up, so vulne rable on so many front s. , in part becau se of its long and In part to ~ ; ; , . ; ; : ; ~ ~ ~ ~ r a b i l i t y , the nucle ar indu stry is subje ct conti nu ing asso ciati on with milit ary activ ities ainly given their scale ) run to, and enco urage s, seve ral prac tices which (cert tiesy Th ese ~e secre cy, coun ter to basic featu res of free and open socie ial polic e and guard force s, restr ictio n of infor mati on, form ation of spec espio nage , curta ilme nt of civil liber ties. / 'l given extra ordin ary Alrea dy ope rator s of nucle ar insta llati ons are backg round and the te stiga powe rs, in vetti ng empl oyees , to inve fami lies and their of activ ities not only of emplo yees but also them selve s ons llati some times even of their frien ds. The insta sens ibili ties. sh become armed camp~ which espe ciall y offen ds Briti creat e d a 1976 of The U.K. Atom ic Energ y (Spe cial Cons table s) Act it made ons and spec ial armed force to guard nucle ar insta llati ority 1' answ erabl e ... to the U.K. Atom ic Energ y Auth If\ th,_ µ.• ;-fud K~~~fh ar worse in West Germ any, presa ge along with nucle These devel opme nts, and ,-\ anti- demo crati c soci eties . That devel opme nt .i ncrea singl y auth orita rian and litiui/ :conse quen ces tells heav ily again st it. nucl ear devel opme nt appe ars to force such' ,/i.~tdi't-... A conne ct1.on of the by ly tical poli :lslted inia:i: er furth is Nucl ear devel opme nL t ethic al ques ti?ns conc ernin g nucle ar powe r with nucle ar war. It is ~&te -',tha 4 Of'}'4ff'; . unde r any fiea, justi is war ar nucle a nucle ar war - for exam ple, whet her are disti ngui shab le from those circu msta nces , and if so what circu msta nces er, the sprea d of nucle ar powe r is conc ernin g nucle ar powe r. Undo ubted ly, howev [tl~Jfc -,C,ltt nucle ar war and so, to that exten t, ~inc re~i ng the techn ical means for engag ing in ,~ c.Aq,,,_ ceJ ef 1 Since nucle ar wars are ,fleJ de"') f'41' neve r the oppo rtuni ty for 1 nuc1 ear engag emen t. e-;(4vry J , / ~ a.r~«'../~ ~"'1 '~/e .. ,,t,uclo f¥ c.riu-1" CU'-11. " the"' lesse r of'm ajor evils ~Jhe eprea d bes~ at are but s, good tive posi le acco untab ty for / ~dc/a .-.,e,, -, 1 of nucle ar powe r acco rding ly expan ds the oppo rtuni o/~ ~ /Z/ 7 r ;Z_ cbhJ,1 04-r/ u.--, ,..<. .M/~ ; ➔/~) 1~ a~(/ -- -- -- -- ! - - -- -- -,77,._, ~ ~ t,-m k~/e ~~~ LIIL :I'., ~ 70-...___/- 1 /4tY'..-r ,,. ,,"/2._v ,,,_,,o,µ;..~&_ I' ~ll ~ <~~ '- / --/_ ~ I -~ ~~ / ~ 4--t'/o ~c../ C..IY'C- I'-..,._ ~ ....w./ C1-j, ~ / ~~~ W-r C-L- r•l~~ «./c; ,_ di../-<_ ~ ........,, ~/., _ / c-.b To ~ ~,, ~ ~ C.,-1,,, __- r ;, , 30.1 many. They are firstly technical, that it is a relatively straightforw ard and inexpensive matter to make nuclear explosives given access to a nuclear I power plant, secondly political, that nuclear engagements on<~ inJf,ntf~u likely to esculate and that those who control (or differently are likely to force access to) nuclear power plants do not s.hrin k from nuclear confrontati on and are certainly prepared to toy with nuclear engagement (up to " S'fr-c1.feeiic v "tla,ut nuclear strikes; ), and thirdly ethical, that wats invariably have immoral consequence s, such as massive damage to involved parties, however high sounding their justificatio n is. Nuclear wars are certain to be considerabl y worse as regards damage inflicted t har1 any previous wars (they are likely to be much worse than all previous wars put together), because of the enormous destructive power of nuclear weapons, and the extent of spread of their radioactive effects, and because of the expected rapidity and irreversib ility of any such confrontati ons. The supporting considerati ons are, fourthly, drawn from decision theory, and -----------are designed to show that the chances of such undesirable outcomes is itsclf unde si i- able. The c or e arguement is in brief this (the W"J"~.wt will be in section :m:I) :- Energy choice between alternative options is a case of decision making under uncertainty , because in particular of the JN.If Utt.UrffJt~fi'es involved in nuclear developmen t. In cases of this type the 1"rlt•c':-iov/ appropriate procedure is to compare worst consequence s of each alternative , e. /c.J,orP>lt>A A ' to r e_Je-cL . those alternative s with tht ~-, --the bs~t (the roaxiro m rule) , f.llCl'tf:" ~ of these worst consequence e-nd select J II The nuclear alternative has, in particular because of the) p,.o ssibility of a nuclear war, the WotJC and is according 1a particularl y unde$itable alternative . wo1"Jt "' . ( ~ ,i it ,'l, /4 /A- 4.//t'dJ' (l,- (fAt_~; d/6;-,rf ~ ~ d,.'£1/ ~d~ .JIM,;,,_ 1 d:L 6e-fC w_"o/- r,?t/7/UI~~). «-/~~ / n.:.__.. W✓ ~ I tPI.Ccn/4.J~ :.::n:::.t. :. aee-=o-=-l~o.s;gi.::i:..:c::a:.:l::_.:b::..:a::.:s=-e=-"'=-c,_:::._o..::f_..::.n:::u:.::c:.:l::.!e:.::a~r~d~e=-v.!..e:::..:::.l::::.01::p!!:m~e :, t=.,;h~e=--=I= · _a_r_g_u_m_e_n__t_~,,.....a.:. :n.:. ;d:,4-i ~,-JV_I_I_.__C_o_n_f_l_i_c_t_ ~ ~~ ~) r Jct ,,MCkv ~ ~ , ~ .~~ ✓/4.- ~ ~ : ; ; ~ ~ r' ~ 7~ , v--0"~7 7 ~~~/, r ou7,fdL{_ , ,,_,,.,,~/,,_ /-c,-?"" ) As /.,,,_. /7~7 ~ 7 1 ~ ~ 7Zr p-'&.-4, 7-/ ~ ¼ A<L ~ '"-;fo- .,_,~=-.:.__ ~ already observed, the consigner's action cannot be justified by purely economisti c arguments , such as that his profits would rise, the firm or the village woul be more prosperous, or by appealing to the fact that some possibly uncomfortable changes would otherwise be needed. The transfer Iffiinciple on which this assessment was based, that one was not usually entitled to create a serious risk to others for these sorts of reasons, applied more generally and, in particular, applied to f 31. For this r eason t he economistic argumen t s whi ch are t hos e mo s t commonly advance d under the Old Paradigm to promote nuclear develo pment - e . g . ch apness, efficiency, profitabili ty for electricity unilities, and the need the nuclear case . otherwise for un comfortable chan ges such as restructurin g of employment, i nves t ment and consumption - do not even begin to show that the nuclear alternative is an Even if these economistic assumptions about benefits to present people were correct - j_t will be contended that most of them are not - the arguments ) h as to . .- ;-,'d~er1.ves · h it,\ ~h ic f rom w . . · (like t h e ut1· 1 1tar1an1sm . wou ld f a1· 1 b ecause economics acceptable one . operate within the framework of moral constraints , and not vice versa. What do have to be considered are however moral conflict arguments, that is /'~} arguments to the effect that, unless the prim.a facie unacceptabr e~ alternative is taken, some even more unacceptabl e alternatice is the only possible outcome; and will ensue. For example, in the train parable, the consigner may argue that his h,J action is justified because unless it is taken~ village will starve. It is by no means clear that even such a justificati on as this wou~ be sufficient, especially where the risk to the passengers is high, as the case seems to become one of transfer of costs and risks onto others; but such a moral situation would no longer be so clearcut, and one would perhaps hesitate to condemn any action taken in such circumstanc es. Some of the arguments advanced to show moral conflict are based on competing ~ present people, and others on competing obligations to future people, /\. both of which are taken to override the obligations not to impose on the future significant risk of serious harm. The structure of such moral conflict arglllll.ents crucially on the presentatio n of a genuine and exhaustive set of alternative s (or at least practical alternative s) and upon showing that the only :is based alternative s to admittedly morally undesirable actions are even more undesirable ones. If some pratical alternative which is not morally worse than the action to be justified is overlooked, suppressed, or neglected in the argument - for "j 11~~ case it turns out that the -1ril1:agers have another option e xample, if in the t~:~~r: ) ~ to starving or to the sending off of the parcel, namely earning a living is some othe r way - then the argwnent is defective and cannot readily be patched. Just . such a suppression of practicable alternative s has occurred in the argument designed to show that the alternative s to the nuclear option are even worse than the option itself, and that there are other factual defects in these arguments as well. In short, the arguments depend essentially on the presentatio n of false dichotomies . A first argument, the poverty argument, is that there is an overriding obligation to the poor, both the poor of the third world and the poor of indusFailure to develop nuclear energy, it is often claimed, would amount to denying them the opportunity to reach the standard of affluence we currently enjoy and would create unemploymen t and poverty in the industriali sed trialised countries. nations . 1 32. J The unemployment and poverty argument does not stand up to examination either for the poor of the industrial countries or for those of the third world. There is good evidence that large-scale nuclear energy will help to increase unemployment and poverty in the industrial world, through the diversion of very much available capital into an industry which is not only an exceptionally poor provider of direct employment, but also helps to reduce available jobs through encouraging substitution of energy use for labour use.~ "'°The argument that nuclear energy i1needed for the third world is even less convincing. Nuclear energy~ both politically and econom- ically inappropriate for the third world, since it requires massive amounts of capital, requires numbers of imported scientists and engineers, but creates negligible local employment, and depends .for its feasibility upon, what is largely lacking, established electricity transmission systems and back-up facilities and sufficient electrical appliances to plug into the system. Politically it increases forei¾ dependence, adds to centralised entrenched power and reduces the chance for lt/,zc change in the oppressive political structures which are a large part of the problem. The fact that nuclear energy is not in the interests of the people of the third world does not of course mean that it is not in the interests of, and wanted by, · their rulers, the westernised and often military elites in whose interests the economies of these countries are usually organised, and wanted often for military purposes. It is not paternalistic to examine critically the demands these ruling elites may make in the name of the poor. The ooverty argument is then a fraud. the poor. Nuclear energy will not be used to help Both for the third world and for the industrialised countries there are well-known energy-conserving alternatives and t he practical option of developing other energy sources~ alternatives some of which offer far better prospects for helping the poor. It can no longer be pretended that there is no alternative to nuclear development: indeed nuclear development is itself but a bridging, or stop-gap, procedure on route 1~1 to solar or1 £usion developme nt. And there are various alternatives: coal and other fossil fuels, geothermal, and a range of solar options (including aAi<J.1fiM.r ) eti~L._01,i:/j,:,,-;._ as well as narrowly solar, wind, water ami tidal power)1 ' A " <t.,,(C:...uf~... Despite the availabiity ~~ . of alternatives, it may still be pretended that nuclear development is necessary for affluence ~( what will emerge is that it is advantageous for the power and affluence of certain select groups )-: ~ .)uch an assumption really underlies part of the poverty argument, which thus amounts to an Q.la.bcn'~-l,;;,,.,, trickle-down argument (much favoured within the Old Paradigm setting). argument runs:affluence. Affluence inevitably trickles down to the poor. For the _si,,,}:,~-l-,{v1.t.d. Therefore nuclear First, the argument does not on its own show anything specific about nuclear power2: is of the Nuclear development is necessary for / continuing and increasing) development benefits the poor. for 'nuclear'. . ~2 ,,,,7t ~~4 for j_t works equally well if 'energy' It has also to be shown, what the JI • rsnd M,<J(t major argument will try to claim, that nuclear development is unique among energy 33. alternati ves in increasin g affluence . The second assumptio n, that affluence ( inevitabl y trickles down, has now been roundly refuted, both by recent historica l data, which show increasin g affluence (e.g. in terms of GNP averaged per capita) coupled with increasin g poverty in several countries , both developin g and developed , and through economic models_, which reveal how "affluenc e" can increase Jt without redistrib ution occurring -_J Another major argument advanced to show moral conflict appeals to a set of supposedl y overridin g and competing obligatio ns to future people . We have, it is said, a duty to pass on the immensely valuable things and institutio ns which our culture has developed . Unless our high-tech nology, high energy industria l society is continued and fostered, our valuable institutio ns and tradition s will fall into decay or be swept away. The argument is essential ly that without nuclear power, without the continued level of material wealth it alone is assumed to make possible, the lights of our civilizat ion will go out.4J Future people will be the losers. The lights-go ing-out argument does raise questions as to what is valuable in our society, and of what characte ristics are necessary for a good society. But for the most part these large questions , which deserve much fuller The reason is that the argument adopts an extremely uncritica l position with respect to present high-tech nology societies , apparentl y assuming that they are uniformly and uniquely valuable. It assumes that technolog ical examinati on, can be avoided. society is unmodifia ble, that it cannot be changed in the direction of energy conservat ion or alternati ve (perhaps high technolog y) energy sources without It has to be accepted and assessed as a whole, and virtually unlimited supplies of energy -· such as nuclear and only nuclear power is alleged to { ..._v-.,, •sf.t - collapse. are essential to maintain this whole. These assumptio ns are hard to accept. The assumptio n that technolog ical society's energy patterns are unmodifia ble is especiall y so - after all it has . survived events such as world wars which have required major social and technolog ical restructu ring and consumpti on modifica tion. If western society's demands for energy are totally unmodifia ble without collapse, not only would it be committed to a pro gram of i.ncreasin g destructi on, but one might ask what use its culture could be to future people who would very likely, as a consequen ce of this destructi on, lack the resource base which the argument assumes to be essential in the case of contempo rary society. There is also difficult y with the assumptio n of uniform valuablen ess; but if this is rejected the question becomes not: what is necessary to maintain existing high-tech nological society and its political institutio ns , but rather: what is necessary to maintain what is valuable in that society and the political institutio ns which are needed to maintain those valuable things. While it may be easy to argue that high energy consumpti on centrally controlle d is necessary to maintain the political and economic status quo, it is not so easy to arguethat it .... ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- --~- ----34-. ( is essential to maintain what is valuable, and it is what is valuable, presumably that we have a duty to pass on to the future. The evidence, for instance from history, is that no very high level of material affluence or energy consumption is needed to maintain what is valuable . There is good x·eason i~ fact to believe that a society with much lower energy and resource consumption would better foster what is valuable than our own. But even if a radical chan1e in these directions is independen tly desirable , as we should argue, it is not necessary to presuppose such a change, in the short term at leas;, in order to see that the assumptions of the lights-goin g-out argument are wrong. No enormous reduction of well-being is required to consume less evergy than a \ present, and certainly far less than the large increase over present levels of asstili1ption which is assumed in the usual economic case for nuclear energy.~ What the nuc~ear strategy is really designed to do then is not to prevent the lights going out in western civilisatio n, but to enable the lights to go on burning all the time - to maintain and even increase the wattage output of the Energy Extravaganz a. In fact there is good reason to think that, fa r from the high energy society fostering what is valuable, it will, especially if energy is obtained by nuclear fission means, be positively inimical to it. A society which has become heavily dependent upon an extremely high centralised , controlled and cons 1.At'1f10"' garrisoned, capital- and expertise-i ntensive ener gy source, must be one which is highly susceptible to entrenchmen t of power, and one in which the forces which control this energy source , whether capitalist or bureaucrati c, can exert enenormous powe r over the political system and over people's lives, even more Such a society would, almost inevitably tend to become authoritari an and increasingl y anti-democ ratic, as an outcome, among other things, of its response to the threat posed by dissident groups in the nuclear situation. ~ than they do at present. Nuclear development may thus help in passing on to future generations some of the worst aspects of our society - the consumerism , alienation, destruction of nature, and latent authoritaria nism - while many valuable aspects, such as the degre e of political freedom and those opportuniti es for personal and collective autonomy whic h exist, would be lost or diminished: political freedom, for example, is a high price to pay for consumerism and energy extravagenc e. the status quo, but what is valuable in our society, presumabl 1, But it is not that we have some obligation to pass on to the future, and if possible enhance. Again, as in the case of the poverty arguments, clear alternative s, : l?a,#1-0.'t\..t...G-- alternative socia;Aand political choices, which do not involve such unacceptabl e consequence s are available. The alternative to the high technology- nuclear option 1 Ii- c,/~e/4,,._ ~ /4 f ettl..i,,- fl.a,. u/4jr/iP- "f- "- ~ is not a retturn to the cave, the loss of all that is valuable, but~ the development of a'tlJ,ernative technologie s and lifestyles which offer far greater scope for the li).,j· c-o,y( /'IWQ.r rr ' ~#a-r, maintenance and further development of whAt . is valuable in our society than the The lights-goin g-out argument, as a moral highly centralised nuclear option. ~ /;,. conflict argument, accordingly fails, because it also is based on a fa l se dichoto-y. r fJ.J,.., I( J:r._,._ Th us the Aescape route/, the appeal to moral conflict aua to t he appeal t o 1 fu ty, ~ closed. If then we a pply - as we have argued we s hould - t he s ame l. J standards of morality to the future as we ought to acknowledge for the presen t, the conclusion that large~-~sca le nuclear development is a crime agains t the f uture is inevitable. 1 from reactor Closed also, in the same way, are the escape routes to other argumentst:IAtt Ji> <>'l ;'${1~ ma(/_ ~wn J radiation emissions, Aetc:::::t for · ~ / nuc ~ development as morally unacceptabl e, for saying that it is not only a Acrime against the distant future but also a ~ ~rime against the present and immediate future. In sumJ nuclear development is morally unacceptabl e on several grounds. A corn--o llary is that only political arrangement s that are morally unacceptabl e will · suppor_t th.e i(1!pending nuclear _future . of future people not tf'.I J ;,; I discounted (in contrast to the temporally - limited utilitariani sm ~"'of_ n,,ia,-k-4!.t - ~~economic theory)J and that serious costs and risk~ to health and life.cannot admiss ~ ly be simply transferred to uninvolved parties ( h ~ I /4- /4 ~1~ a-<<h'-,::4,~c..:.,__ o.;rr,llc,;.._.)f'c,d /o / / , , / ). 7 CI//C-1~ e a{_ &, N- t-f"/<7/2#;,__, ~~ ~~ LL ,, ~ ~ /~ ~ "°''f"(JI{ will now be outlined whichAshow that even within the confines of the Old Paradigm, choosing the nuclear future is not a rational choice . ..Jl: Large-scale nuclear on &,<. cc,,//,,,_.,,,;,, h-4111, development is not just something that Mppens, it requires,.\ an immense input of capital and energy. , J,.j ,:_ .~J.-..r~ ,,.,;_,R.J .J""11 ~-.,,&./ 7'iN/ t>h- ? ~ /-7,._ rt..-JJu..7~-.',- /4- '.,..... ~ o//-,.;?.,/ ~ /;: ,J''"'e"' eccJnom,'c__ /~t:'tJJ-rl,-~« ~ - ;t,4 r r/4'-Ntr/ been i nvested in nuclear .fiH1on '4~ .-Utti,.r, ,r ~ -d'M.r J ~? Admittedly so much capital has already research and development, :i..n marked contra t )I to othe~rival sources of powes that t hert is strong political incentive top f1'7 - as distinct fromAreason s for further capital and energy inputs. ~ ~ /(,v;,~..,. 6-4'C t¾t aff_ ,,,1 ~ IU- '1 /'t~ /&J 7~ / t:1/1). ... "'--.f 11<11f4.., /4-:J~vf_/J _/ l ~ f.,..,._r), q /l~ ~~,:as;-~ /<ff"" /J~ (~~6t;..._ ) /'~a.. o.u~•~,._•~/.c~ -~ ~k / I ~-.:..,,Lc.1 ,-•.A-e/ 1/ tL/t,.,.f ~ d, ,Af'.._:,:! .,>V°L / ~~ ( _J ~~ /4.l()~J/ > ~ ~k ;_ r/~ / ~C--, /nrv-7 ~ ,..~~,,._~ .- ('c;.. rr.;-/ trv/4.,;_/ wt~ o/ ...-? ' ~ a/~ ~4-t.d ,, <~CU'~ /CJ-u_J,./ ~ ~. The main argume£~~~an economic growth argument, upon which variat~S , re played., is the following version of the lights-going-o ut argument (with economic . e~ / growth duly standing in for ll'late•oal wealth, and Afor what is valuable!):Nuclear power is necessary to su.stai.n economic growth. Economi c growth is desirable (for all the usual reasons, e.g. to increase the size of the t:,'IU{ c·o,,,ae,cf,,l( /ocip,/ k/!Mff, , , , ~ f()'f" f'~ J to-1 postpone reJistribution problems,/\ etc.). Therefore nuclear power is desira.ble ~ The first premiss is part of US energy policj~ and the second premiss is suppli ed by standard economics textbooks. Ja U>'t~ fr C(,a<~ A/~{ 1~! M ~k. t~ -1<>c~JL But both premisses are ~~<IL (U_ - - J L u.LJ/~/~ 7!d. .,,('°7 O</?'V 0d U,#\.r/Jo./ (2..-<~~c...·c-- I/ f-7 __ -~ '2-?·e--rt.-,hL' c./~ ~ c..... /e_/ ~ ~A;-,..,,rc.-,,..~ -I' CUI/I ~o(_ ,.KtL- c,;,l~il/~C!- , I 7 · / More to the since the second premiss is an assumption of the dominant paradigm, the first {tltK. !t(J (IQ~/,,, ( or rather · an appropriate,{ restatement of it ) fails even on Old Paradigm For of course nuclear power is not necessary given that there are other, perhaps e:=-1:.I,~ alternatives. N-.e,./41" elaboration of the /)tPwt--Y ptemiss out as 'most efficient', etc . 1',s Je.feviltl The premiss usually l:.j,..1.. ~t:.e;nOMfCtf :A //y b~--f:: . is s,ome "'-'AY i.Q ,&to--t;t:<11'\ 4!<:.e>;,c:>111tc.. growth, 'economically best' being filled 'cheapest', 'having most favourable 'cost' benefiti-ratio ~--_..,, 1 > Unfortunately for the argument, and for nuclear development schemes, nuclear po er is none of these things decisively , unless a good deal of economic cheating (easi..4 to do) ~ I 1 I ~is done. - .,,/ ~ L, / / ~~t,.L( U~l-r-u- &w /1~~&-1 ~ pu.u.. Ya,1 q(v ~ G-?'d ~ / /I(!/) 1 ~ c_ ~/c.-,1\1 IP~ _ ,,1 / / .. . ~ <t~ ~/Mf?.--7 . / ';;!C.,,,-17 I ...u. ·~ <AJ7?4; e:,r<,- ,Y?/·.u.//u-{ ~ p/C4t.-,t✓// .A'./ , C-tt.../lt..?-Vc~ Yo t'/~ ~~-,,e: d-::;F ,;,er~ ,_._.l.<-//4....:.. I <er ,;;t, ,·, /2 1rd('('n-4c one! 1 , d k,,£~~~ ,,~ /2,. ~/~/-(",., J ~ ~ ,·/ ~ ~~ :/-ru<.. /1/'C./'__,__°'.J~J /1' /4 /4_ t-U?<.,J~ . ;Z / t' Le ;/~1 c~/vr ~~ 1r ~ / e(' e:4A/~ r"' 4e 1/ ~~ ~/ L..-7 ~urr~u<6 d,(_ 't1'~ c-~ e- ~ c,,-e_ Ju~ui-.fw J-e-.J ) c- ~e./ / ,./4~... ~~ c:Mh -,,,,C- f1 td:-, ~.-.. ~ ) 7 c//#'; ....:, ~ . , ,,,,,,,J e,. ,4_ ~ c"~ /21/c 7 -~ ~~ /~7 r7 A~ ~/c1-;fy,, ~L-r/77 ~ ~ - ; , , ~&?Yrn>~ c/4Jrpc,d , // 75t /:-,,', rf ; ~ 7J-I' <'Mh? ~ ~ J~'£ /&WL ~ ~7 ~ ~ 7r~,5 a:_ ) , , -- ., <. r'/~ ;I = cy~ r~~ ,;.,I~ f';;;.;:,t. ~ , /~,q. u7·c.4-I tvut' £..Lr 0 CL-r'U-~ ,J'-,..A }? ~&~/ ·cl- 7~/A_ 7✓~~- ~~;~7 ,£ b e r;rf;:;r- 7 .,.;,., 7 ; ~ /p..nLv,._a__ 1rLvf / du/2AJ-C. /;-<l~ ✓t/ ~-~e,( £-4 U-..,,(_A /.,:., ,,,,,_..,_ ..,._/ / f~ I ftJ / ~ ~, &g f-~ a&-c~7 d/2-~ ~o7,l ~ c~} ea: b.-~',uvr} ~: ~ ~ ~ J,& -17 7 ~/'~. r/~~ •'= 7 c~ /?~_, /'¼/ 7 Zz; we_~ ~ 7 2 I U.:- . Z:._ ~/.,_;~ ~ ~-c G>.-r e,_/ '• ~ Ii.~~ ,$"~ , 7i-, 7~ 27, ~ ~: a. "' 1 ?~~ '\. /~~-«-.:/~ ~ /'~-d 4, /..__ ~ ~~ n'~ ._, ,4,___:,~ _ n /'~._, J ~ 4 t ~ c/"➔ ~ A;f-7 ~ ,_,,_.;_,, ~ /'~--UW ~/ 4,..-,f c,.,;,,t ,_ 7 1/4...f. • . 7~~) ~r-'d /(c/l/Y/~/ ~ i,,~ u~ ,,{e_ /~ /'~w-<_ / . r--1,f.,..~_pAf ~u&.,/ ~ - ( --t<~</4-, £.,_,UA-'-<._ /- / /er-iv d_ o/,,~ T 1 70 1 7 7, <e/1 ~ l= e:., 7' c.. .#-,.../ ~~ ;~~~ ;;t AM~~/' {1,.../4 ~ rA~ ~ 7 '!f ✓ u,,v:,;- / ~ t✓.c✓z/,7 ~~/4-- ~ (/ <~ / 7:fJ '7, ,-". ~/er-/(;/, £4 ~ ,,_ ___,___ /~u-c.~k'L-T~~~ 1 Uvy;,C-, t~ d 7➔ o../4J a. r/-.e.« lo - ;ff~. ./-,c,;. r.:.. r 1 7 "--7 /c,_.(a,... ,7 ceryr, ~ ?-Z -r-4 c.4-'~ <7 ,,___ 7,2 ?>?P 27{,~ //-2{_ ~a...._ • d ,...__ ---7~~ ,/ 7 ...,;,~ / /! I ~~-~7 i/4f £~1 (/ ~ / ~"7 -7 /4r r ignore waste cos ts on the quite . in'.)idmissib It. } ground that it is not known currently what the costs involved are. But even using actual waste handling costs (while wastes await storage) is enough to show that /~'-" /./t,.,. v-< re-.elll.,t-t ~ /t4--i4- I!:. is preferable to nuclear. ~'-"'"' c~h , ,~L 7,.-~;.__1/ *;7'_..c ,4---.1,____ . _:__ ro ~ ~1-if!' coal i~ C:,,,,(A /--0v-r~ 1 ~rew- - /~ ,1,0; ,,.,w-!£~ u,/k-,~-/2~ r «--, ,;.., G.•~ C/',._1- / ~ d;<--.n,-d '"'--:•~ a ~/ ( > ~ , b ~ /:V~ e~....._._7"',~ ~ rc: ~ - ·-~ J~1/?/ ,·Ut" ,i...-r~7 a-~'r ------/_7·--- r?/4 /~~ ~ ;L/~ /4 71.J~' ~/e--1, ~ I -~/ dA,,ri,/,f""'-•J>~t grsm is ~Nuclear rAA,{,~_f.u not economical_,it ll.l'0'ud:tl see111lr it has been ~ c..lQ.N"" "' going ~ t through its ebd.ovs economic#). viabili~y, but by massive public of several types :# 9-</ l a,/_,p.;fi.. ~1~ \ C< _:., u~n:,.~'/~{k_ ,' ~~--o-~~ ..2.. At:Lc--&a-, /J/4i7 /ful-,u/ '7f::,c7,t' --..... o~,,_f";_ ;!,~ heavily subsidized esearch and development, through the Price-Anderson Act, which sharply limits both private and public li.ability, i.e. which i.n effect provided th~ ub s :i.dy ~ 1 king corporate nuclear development economically feasible,~ through 0 overnment agreement to handle all radioactive wastes. / ~ ~-/c,J~~ 0~ I ~;,_err /7' ~ ~ 4~7~ ~/'~ r d/?l' A ~ z:, ~ CLAI ,P~ .... < . •. (1/4(:f:>t cP-, C ~ ~7 ~ a./Ww/ ~ A-~ • r~Lc~ .c.-, t7r/~~ ~o4 /o/ I ;1., ✓/I ~tJ4 , ~ ~ ~ /v~ / f ~ /4- 7~ /4 ~ ~ 7f''4u/ ~/4r-..v o/('<;~~ J /j ,~ ~ do..-.l /;-~--zz' ~ c..o_ ~I ~~;7 I~ •~t,L- / ~76._ ~ . 1r:-:..-- ~ ~ ~) ~ ~ ~ /~~ 4.µ>:z:" a - , < ~ (tA.t{<L.. ~I e«--Y~ nkv4+fv•, -r-C: / ~ d✓ ~/ ~ ~ /J-J~ ~I~/. J 74-'r /,.a-~-- ~ ~ /~d~ / ~ er<~ ('(fi1_'717 (1.-c~ ~ ~ I c:;f eo.c-/1/~ ____7._, £.7 r ;1:£. /"",~-<~ '-- r ?71~ 1,r1c.y-'/ ~r ~7 -~ ~ry ~/ r/4-;r /~7 ' ~ -~, r;:/1~7 k /4.7:.._ r)U ~?TJ:;i; _.£§;~~I:~ ~ff?t,~✓:: CL-+-~./~ ftµ~ nsurance j c/4 r-71 c~ /jf!.. ;/ ~ ~4o...// I ~ 7,.4:-r...:.r ~ r~ 7✓~ ,I /4✓ " - - --' • ~~ /7 , ,__ £_ /~ U/t,e- c/f. tr I A -r4 e~<~. dL cZ...,~~_, r ,-K <M'-71 -:::z J ~/n~ ,,__.,.....,._,,.,,t. /4,_,,-- ~~ /~'- ,/4 r/.. ~ ~ ~ ~ /fe-"f ~ ~~7 ~A-/1 ,__~~... fl /j =-=. ~/4.,,_ /Jv /~ ~ i ~ '1.d ilc. / c~ /tr V4'l, ./'£u..,,· ✓~ ~ 7?f;-t"' I~ ~ V-k &-<.'-4 ~ ' ~~ ~ ,er .~e_..,.-(r'~ ! ~ ;:1:, ;. of eY~) /2-"I!---.. a.-. c.,,_.. ~ c6'1 ~,_r?'~.&_) 1 ~ k - I ~ , ~-C.A-/,,<U-. /.¢' I I J ;?b,,~ 7"4" ~ 7,,..,,.,, -ro 7¼'_.,___ ' <~?f~ ~:J~ 7 /e/Y 1-¥~ .. ;z .~~1~; ~ o/~~~",,:e_ 7 /-'-' ,,,,.f" ;, /\-4J},,!.4/'' f t1/<L ~'L / t(!c /1"' ,<;, /4;;/, c-e,...-/-e. ~~pl,(!_/ ~k /e,/d ,~li/'7 ,.-.,-.~ ;_, , ,,,. J CY..C / ~ : , . _ _/ ~ 1 · &n<,., 4t-,z, 1 _r--::-f <~ /' U ,1~ n-1~ ~£~) /~~ t: rl I r~~ ~ f 1 ~--"..;.. CJ( ~-e < k ~ 12 7 1/.d' .,:.. ,;,-,,,,0/~ ,v/4 ~ , ' I ,...:4::,,/'- 6/ oC ./t.A-u// ~ ,·1 / 7i.,~d / A ~ ;...d' 0 ~/2,,✓ 4--? ,. ~7 ,, .., ~"" ,,,4 ,..LI / .-..4 7l(vuL ~-v-~ ~~ r~·✓-7 ,r;. ,, ) ,,,.,_,. ,//' /,,-u;t-.. cv• p-~ J.-4.// 7/4.. ,rt_.<,A , .,~,,, r ~.. ,~ .--<A_ _.,4'__...,-.; ~ , ,:__ ~ .A.(.AAL,UJ /~7-- /6.:-. ✓~ /J a.-r-7Jh--? o/";,,, t--t,~,e~: ~ :;).r,vt.) ' <' ,,,_,,,,,,__ < ✓~ ~ d/c✓ ~?( ..,..,..-u~.:_ '" J.A'A?..r ;,I'~ ~ J ~ .?.;_ ;/✓ ,,,,7,,. ~7,~ ..,. -~~:a ~ -,, ,.__,, d' ,i<, ~ - /~--""'l..rr ~~..A✓.,,,_y~~ 1 / ,,._c,,_ < ·-,e- .-../--..L.. "''. ~~ a ,,,.A..,;_.~. d.,;, ~ .b-, ·._:h AoJ,I,. r. t,~, 37 //1.d' The ~aradigm does not, it j/i«,f 7~r,) _sustain the nuclear jl.(ggernau~:l?The real _reasons for the continuing development program ~ commitment .,- -·- A.~ the r --.. to the program have to be sought elsewhere,, outside the Old Paradigm, at leas-t as preached.® There are, firstly reaso?s of previous 1'ru,.J_ l e,iQAFa.-;~ , ~ PJ,/{/M.rfr, ,.J/.u l;vf,f,,U_DN!; commitJ!lent, when nuclear power \ looked a cheaper and safer• deal. corpouations (;~.&? ~ . A ,{ rd_,~ _A ei/10 are ;\_ keer{ -t:o ,,e,,._(,:;<.,, returns on capital,{ invested. There are lypical _,. , ~~fl ~ uc/~/"-7 s e l ~ reasons for commitment to the program, that £erµ_ (V,?µ_ /.aY•~ / ~ ra o..c~IILL ~ ~7 '7o /,24- I ~ :> ~ i t s accrue to some, lil<e ' !}cr'o.-t,.J;' ~ in o__ liti ~ corporations, that are influent1·a1 c:--_ _r_ · _ca 1 · .tr Sf1n-~, 1 · a ff_airs, an d as a profits <;1-ccrue to others, tV't/ Jc on ·.., -·1c J ear eng1 nee.,r,:i ng, -etG-:- There . J,.cLa.-t are A ideological reasons ~ a belief in the control of both political and phys ical ~ b1Z,/,e..f1 IYJ ScC/4 I c.on-l •✓-ol -f'.-e,,,-n itho ,/2 power by technocratic-entreprenial elite, C&t/nd-- ~ /l~ ~i'tu.r J , ,Juf-41 ~ '7..~,/4.,,./:-, )i..--..r - fj fa.-r o~J /4 Awt- fA.#1. ,4(' /IC/VvU- d/-c,,,r (p/;?~J~, /41~ , /~€- ;t ~ .,r o/7)d~ a faith in the unlimitedne ss at ' . technological enterprise, and nuclear in particular, so that any real problems that arise will be solved as development proceeds. Such beliefs are especially conspicuous in the British scene, among the governing and technocratic classes. /It ' ;,:. <=c<--,,../4-;:?-»'r~ ~~ _ -r -/- I cr~'-'-_0 , ' / ~fJ;,~ ·these :;orts of reasons for nuclear development are,.\ linked, h /, C- C i4t /-(!_. • ~- t-h.,, ret13f'lfl tJ,tH those whose types of enterprise/ benefit @8rf?lislit O n ,pi tq l i e substantially nuclear development are commonly those who hold the. requisite beliefs. f;.C-A I <-0•1.:f°'7~1"U:I .Lt is ti _ corporate capitalism, , ~ its state enterprise image, ; / "''#. Hu · cm t.min i;s;;; pc e I if\~, that fuels the nuclear juggernaut. corporate capitalism, which is the political · e ?t~r~,d col'l.o,.,.._"/ v To be sure, largely thrust upon us in ilr/es•-ern .11~ .sln e, is nnt ni>ce~sary fn:r a nuclear furur@; a totalitarian state of the typ (~ such capitalism often supports in the third worl"d w.i ll suffice. But, unlike a hypothetical state tl'tA--C. does conform to precepts of the Old Paradigm, it is sufficient for a nuclear future - evidently, since we are well embarke d 4111 such a future -/ 7 ,,.f d.ta.~ l ~ </~ I& ,uu. •1:,=r, Q/v-~~ ~A _,1~'/r ~ ./4X ~~ t"-.7 ✓~~· - c/2~ ¢~ ~~ ~/ ~/or- ~~ 11 ~ /1'"~ f!.//' / /'~/~o~ , , CA~ ry~ 7 ~./rL" c~~ ~~4//EP.A:,,p_, _ / - 1'/J~~:::~~ ~ ~ / t > . ~/ a---4 J~ ~ /~ ~ "~ p ~ ~ <-,. r~ AOC r~ -fl.JI' o--/z; ~ 6,--..,__,;,r / ~~~ ~~ //07 j7' 1Jtif'l'€--,1;_ ~ I ~ ~L&l- ·-<- < ,-, ,,.. .__/- /4/' ~r;:t( ,.&;7"'~:-r,,_,7; I l ,u-,.....,e,.___ ~~, ~ c ~ e . ~ ~ ~ _I ... r/4- c// ~ ~ u Y ~ ·7 ✓ ~~-1~r 11 7<L/~ ~,/4- , ,~ .~/ /~~' t~ _,,r~~ --- ~a,f , . ~.AV/~~ C( ~ £--L-. d / ✓ ~/ "- c). c,._...-<. ~~7_D1 ~ f /'~ ~ /A., _,' O,A{:,G ~ ~/ 4 ~~ , ~7 7;;~ ,,,,,._,-6( <r--/ ./J~ ~,,L 6'£ • / .,. tt/(J_ /c~ <C~~ ,f' r,i ~//'71~. /~ /~ pAf 7 /. '-~------------------------------~--"' ~--v>~-e/f 1~,.~ .?~C. .f ~ 41i;L; c--( p7 p-r uf-._!e~~c)~ ;g.,__-,L~ ~~3tf ~G, -";) ' ---:? ~ 11 . ,1~ - - .~ - :-X.ft ~ _,,,""--'.___;:._;;_..::..::::.=-=-"-=:..::..:~;:_.:_~=-=...:.:...:::.;::_-=~-=-=L.:;;-=-~a~l~t~e~r~n~a~t~i~v~e~s=-=-.- The future energy ['cJ4¢-r Y>tAlf't°' 0 ootion that is ttS11 a H-,A contrasted with nuclea~, namely coa¾, wMe , _,., ,__,. I /~u- c/4u,,/f-r_a/'~k- t'a-- ~w.r :> /J / ~ the likelihood of .;r;.edty serious (air) pollution and associated phenUIII-• s uch as acid rain and atmospheric heating 1 not to mention the despoliation caused by extensive strip mining 1 all of which will result from its use in meeting very ttigh projected consumption figures. Such an option would also fail, it seems, to meet the 'j?u.-,/e,. necessary~ condition, because it would impose widespread costs on nonbeneficiaries for r some concentrated benefits to some profit takers and to some users who do not pay the full costs of production and replacement..iS$J . f>t.l.t-,;,.. lo 'these a r 112' conventiona~ options .-- a third is often added which emphasizes r,,,u{ .:, Alt<K/l..11A. Gc-l7L-., "-yd/otJ/,: J.riufy A. _,t.,,...a, softel.-4 benign technologies, such as those of solar' energyA The deeper choice, which '!Ven soflllfpaths tend to neglect, is not technological but social, and involves r~11la/lJ4~ ~Ht-,-4,,? 6<'tl bot~ the restructuring of production away from energy intensive uses: at a more basic level there is a choice between consumeristjc and nonconsumeristic futures. These more fundamental choices between soci ,tl alternatives, conventicnal technologically ol CA-V":fr ~fu~ oriented discussion At.ends to obscure. It is not just c. rr:.atter of deciding in ,;.,-hich ~ ytil•- Mr/ way to meerxt..:.nexam~nEd goals (as the Old Paradign ~ d 1· of examining the goals. 14' , )t J\.. Ml )' but alEC: a rr.atter That is, we are not merely faced with the que.stion of comparing different technologies or substitute ways of meeting some fixed or given demand or level of consumption, and of trying to see whether we can meet this with soft rather than hard technologies; we are also faced, and primarily, with the a- . matter of examing those alleged needs and the cost o~ society that creates . them. It is not just a question of devising less damaging wais to meet these alleged needs conceived of us inevitable and unchangeable. (Hence there are solar ways of producing unn~cessary trivia no one really wants, as opposed to nuclear wayst al' ber1.11ft o.f ~<1.. ~ /J '1-tf--t' ~ A. ot(Ql.Se)'blie~s Hot uaat to deny that these softer optfons are superior • ethically unacceptable features of the 'lltl et :u ~ i b f rt,~, But it is doubtful that any technology, however benign in principl~will h likely to leave a tolerable world for~ future ,., . p:l:i2: if it is expected to meet f 38 . u,.',awo.d. i ~mit lcss and uncontrolled e nergy consumption and demands. Even the more benign technologies such as solar technology could be used in a way which creates costs for future people and are likely to result in a deteriorated world being handed on to them. Consider, fo r exa mple, t he effect on t he world's forests, whic h are commonly counted as a solar res ource, of use for production of methl•nol or of electricity by woodchipping ( as already planned by f ~ist authorities and contemplated by many other ener gy organisations) J\ f'ew would object to the use of genuine waste material for energy production, -b:ttt the unrestricted exploitation of forests - whether it goes under the name of "solar energy" or not - to meet ever increasing energy demands could well be the final indignity for the world's already hard- pressed natural fores t s. The effects of such additional demands on the maintenance of the r?ftJfiW forests are often dicem:1Ht@d, even by soft technologicalists, by the simple A-expedient of waving around the label 'renewable resources'. May forests are in A principle renewable, it is a true, given a certain (low) rate and kind of exploitation, but in fact there are now very few forestry operations anywhere in the world where the forests are treated as completely renewable in the sense of the renewal of all their values . ~$, In many regions too the rate of exploitation which would enable renewal has already been exceeded, so that a total decline is widely thought to be immanent if not already well advanced. It certainly has begun in( ~ n.--11> regions, and for U'-Plr,•0-:1:i!PJ~,; ~ which are,\ beifig 16st for the future. that f o r ~ on top of ~ present forest types (such ~s rainforest types) amt "•i M11,f."5 /.~.t,.//4__ )!HtJ~ The addition of a major further ,\demand ee2rn:e,,, J'f't!4J~ is one which anyone with a realistic (o,t/<>,,./l_rl"~ . appreciation of the conduct 6fAforestry operations, who is also concerned with long-term conservation of the forests and remaining natural communities, must regard with alarm. The result of massive deforestation for energy purposes ~ resembling the deforestation of England at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, again for energy purposes, w ould be extensive and devastating erosion in steeper lands and tropical ar eas, desertification in more arid regions, possible climatic change, and massive impoverishment of natural ecosystems. Some of us do not want to pass on - we are not entitled to pass on - a deforested world to the future, any more than we want to pass on one poisoned by nuclear products or polluted by coal products. In short, a mere switch to a more benign technology - i.mportant though this is - without any more basic structural and -locial change is inadequate. f,,t,.,,IOJ1,",;/ Nor is such a simple.4 switch likely to be achieved. ~1&4- It is no t as if fc political pressure could i -11st bene:,\ the US government,\ stop its nuclear ~ = Ntn-G ( and that of the countries it influences, much of the world), in the way pressure appeared to succeed in 11,-1.lting the Vietnam war. could be accomplished, it is very While without doubt it would be good if this unlikely given the integration of political powerholders with those spons r ring nuclear development .'° I The deeper social options involve challenging and trying to change a social , ,om......,,.;.,. ,A.. h~JG".t j"-.:; ~ no.odr, s tructure which promotes consumerismAand ah economic structure which encourages increasing use of highly energy-intensive modes of production. This means, for instance, trying to change a social structure in which those who are lucky enough to make it into the work force are cogs in a production machine over which they have very little real control and in which most people do unpleasant or boring work from which they derive very little real satisfaction in order to obtain the reward of consumer goods and services. A society in which social rewards are obtained primarily from products rather than processes, from consumption, rather than from rer~ satisfaction in work and in social re.lations and other activities, is.\ bound to be one which generates a vast amount of unnecessary consumption. (A production system that produces goods not to meet ge~uine needs but for created and non-genuine needs is virtually bound to overproduce.) Consumption frequently becomes a substitute for satisfaction in other areas . The adjustments focussed upon are only parts of the larger set of adjustments involved in socially j_mplementing the New Paradigm, the move away from ,:::6',t.SIArne<•S"Yl is for example part of the more general shift from material ism and materialist values. / ~ Th4 c ' A=::O:f social change option tends to be obscured in most ol discussions of energy options andAhow to meet .---. @S energy needs, in part because question• underlying values of current social arrangements. The conventional 6.,; ,. nee~) or wants with conflo..W (often demand alleged taking by proceeds discussion as unchallengeable, and the issue to be one of which technology can be most profitably employed to meet them. This effectively presents a false choice, and is the result of taking needs and demand as lacking a social context so that the social structure which produces the needs is similarly taken as unchallengeable arid unchangeable. The point is readily illustrated., It is commonly argued by representatives of such industries as transportation and petroleum, as for example by McGrowth of the XS Consumption Co., that people ~deep ~ezers, air conditioners, power boats, ... 1t would be authoritarian to ps:t:llp them satisfying these wants. ~ tl+c A argument conveniently ignores the soc:f.al framework in which such needs and wants To point to the determinati on of many such wants at t he framework level is not however to accept a Marxist approach according to whic h they are entirely determined at the framework level (e.g. by industrial or are produced. organisatio n) and there is no such thing as individual choice or determinati on at all. It is to see the social framework as a major factor in determining certain kinds of choices , such as those for travel , Mle iafrastrtt~t u"v and to see apparently individual choices made in such matters as being channelled and diLected by a social framework determined largely in the interests of corporate and private prt,fit and advantage. The social change option is a hard option - at least it will be difficult to obtain politically - but it is the only wa» so it has been argued, of avoiding passing on serious costs to the future. And there are other sorts of reasons than it is the main, indeed the only sort of option open to those who take a deeper ecological perspectivef .2..-a perspective integral with the New Paradigm but not essential to radical departure from the dominant such ethical ones for taking it: paradigm. tJa,,u#t;LJ J',;..., The ethical , requirement defende.o<., I social and political d. -, £ CUr{f?'?~{j ~~~ J t<~ ~~ -f7 ~ ?t,(""f""e.u • ,uu1...l',1;1.ial The socialAchan ges that the deeper alternative requires will be strongiy r esisted because they mean changes in current social organisatio n and power structure • ..tt'ld<°f:o the extent that the option represents some kind of threat to parts of presen t political and economic arrangemen ts it is not surprising that official energy option discussion proceeds by misrepresen ting and often obscuring it. But i.,,·11 Jtz_ difficult though a change t,f t:icn~inant p: a @eigm, especially one with such ~rreaching effects on the prevailing power structure, is to obtain, it is imperative to try; we are all on the nuclear train. V ( • I - FOOTNOTES ~ 1. - All but the last line of the quote is drawn from Good in ., p. 417; the last line is from the Fox Report, p. 6. While it is unnecessary to know much about the nuclear .fuel cycle in order to consider ethical and social dimensions of nuclear power, it helps to know a little. & Abbotts, Gyorgy. The basics are presented in many texts, e.g. Nader Of course in order to assess fully reports as to such important background and stage-setting matters as the likelihood of a core meltdown of a (lightwater) reactor, much more information is required. For many assessment purposes however, some knowledge of economic fal la cies and decision theory is at least as important as knowledge of nuclear technology. ~ 2. As to the first, see references cited in Gooij_in, p. 417, footnote 1. As regards the second see Cotgrove and Duff, and some of the references given therein. 3. Cotgrove and Duff, p. 339 4. The table is adapted from Cotgrove and Duff, p. 341; compare also catton and Dtinlap, especially p. 34. -- 5. See, e.g., Gyorgy ~ e.nd$, pp. 357-8. 6. For one illustration, see the conclusions of Mr. Justice the Windscale inquiry (The Windscale Inquiry Parker a~ Vol. 1. Her Majesty's Office, London, 1978), discussed in both Cotgrove and Duff, p. 347 and in Goodin, p. 501 ff. 7. Much as with the argument of one theory or position against another. One can argue both from one's own position against the other, and in the other's own terms against the other. 8. As well as screening the debate from the public such manoeuvltfls .... favour the (proLnuclear establishment, since they (those of the alliance of military, large industry, and government) control much of the information and (subject to minor qualifications) can release what, and only . them. what, s f)f1ts 9. This is a conclusion of several governmental inquiries and is conceded by some leading proponents of nuclear development; for requisite The same conclusion has been reached in details up to 1977 see Routley (a) . L /;..:i /t,lrf ~t/ J i I! rl. I e ·7. [{CL /i 10. For some details see Gyorgy, p. 60 ff. 11. eol . See the papers, and simulations, discuss :bal in GoodiA p. f-28. /~ On the pollution and waste disposal ·r"ecoff'd of the n uclear industry, , 12. see Nader and Abbotts, Lovins and Price1 and Gyorgy. On the more general problem of e..f fective pollution controls, see also, Routley (a), footnote 7. Back of this Humanity Unlimited assumption is the idea of 13. replacing God. power. Man First God had unlimited power, e.g. over- nature, then when during the Englightenment Man replaced God, Man was to have unlimited Science and technology were the tools which were to put '1an into the position of unlimitedness. More recently nuclear power is seen as providing man at least with unlimited physical power, power obtained through technology. [ability to 14. manage technology represents the past] On such limitation fhe.o~UJ?l, which go back to Finsler and Godel on one side and to Arrow .,-----------.....- fk d.n · o ther · .I\ ~ see, e.g. Routley 80. ,j Other different are presented in Routley 81. ' l,,;,.;l-etht>,..,, te1t1/tf It follows that there are many problems that have no solution and much that is necessarily lJ/lkA•N4'/4. . Limitative results put a serious dent in the progress picture. According the Dominant Western Worldview, t he history of humanity is one of progress; for every problem there is a solution, and thUf progress need never cease (C cttto,i and p.34). 15. See Lovins and Price. ,1 OS (a,:.J Amore recent official reports, ft n r, <t:etieHlar \ f.,~ J JJ~/o/J, Jr 7~ "r 7~ /,,.__~ '(,; l't?I - ---~ co/c.,:;..e., •--:;,..,<r~ / (,__ /'° ~ ;I (>-..._ ;f ,;(~ ;- - ~ -6 - / Y ~ r. C~< <~ (&cn&'tU /?,u~.va- ih ~ ~4~~ I \ •7 /,._,k µ{ ~ I ,,.,_ , I ~ ,__,_ n-t' ,-/4 ,f,_ v -f/tfJ,--f~~-t:, , • r~ r~ bu- /4/~~~~ I/le,/_,~ /(-, /'M-r_ /-L--t.C..h.,-/' //- • #f1 a r~ To~..,.._ ,lr·- -1~.,,,~-7 ,{Mt7 a,,,,_ o/'~ / e. ,,..,_,r_,__ YC- . . .:. 4'/4_ ,i', •..,t CC'.,A-V"~~--- ~7 o-r, d-.,/ ~~. /!....,'f' ~I'~~ ' ,, fe__ , ,-r~~~ J /~"'-:;, _ A--,i,( ~,,..~.L- · ~ , { a f r ~ r1 h ( Th~ ~ r ~~•--L ~ 1/'f~ _y ,11(,,, C.,.;-<:_ J<1./?o.,,-_;~~l _7 :c£. ~ z:., . ,. , 1/ c.1--{,1 7 3. I For examples. and for some details of the history of philosophe~ 16. positions 4 n obligations to the future. see Routley (a). Passmore, p. 91. 17. Passmore's position is ambivalent and, to all appearances, inconsistent. as also is Rciw/s , It is considered in detail in Routley (a), position. For related criticisms of the economists' arguments for 18. discounting, and for citation of the often eminent economists who sponsor them, see . ,, Good11, , pp 429-30. 19. The reasons (not elaborated here) are that the properties are different e.g. a monetary reduction of value imposes a linear ordering on values to which value rankings, being only partial orderings, do not conform. 20. Goodin/ however puts his case against those rules in a less than satisfactory fashion. What he claims is that we cannot list all the possible outcomes in the way that such rules as expected utility maximization prefi, poses, e.g. Goodin suggests that we cannot list all the things that can go wrong with a nuclear power plant or with waste storage procedures. But outstanding alternatives can always be comprehended logically, at worst by saying "all the rest" (e.g. "'P covers everything except Cll#l- p) . For example, outcomes Goodin says cannot be listedJ aMI be comprehended along such lines >. as "plant breakdown through human error". -,u.fU 7o--n-l'"'--? ~~ ,!e__u;,.h, ,;?,,-z)~ ~,-'Lr .....,./7 -~ ~ ~ ff.7'L . ·(j-, ~ ~~- 7-~A..'-., 7 ~7 ~er,&,. , 4 ~~ ~~ 7,6- ,,,ffe d,,_ $ ,' .;;,?'? ~6:,cc,.Jro/, /""'.d IE=i")'JC,,.-,... 6 '--X ,..o:,,,...__/J<:r--t.<"it/£ , µ & ~ ~ / ,.,_ ""~ 21 l-9!" • ?Co ,;W'L,_,,,;, ., Discount, or bank, rates in the economists' sense are usually set to follow the market, cf. P.A. Samuelson, Economics , 7th Edition, McGrawHill, New York, 1967, p.351. Thus the rates have little moral relevance. A real possibility is one which there is evidence for believing could eventuate. A real possibility requires producible evidence for its consideration. The contrast is with me re logical possibility. Such a principle is explicit both in classical utilitaria nism (e.g. 'lf. J.H'.1,A'" Sidgwick p.414), and in a range of contract and other theories How the principle is from Kant and Rousseau to Rawls (J8(A" p.293). argued for will depend heavily, however, on the underlyin g theory; and we do not want to make our use depend heavily on particula r ethical theories. ;=,..;,. //4 /4 ;,/<, o/u_ z ,G/( . F >/,2 7. 7 Jk_,t,_, - k/4/I,,. ,~ .J-/4 ~ -~.:I ,&.,~ jr "~~7 ~!½-~~ 'l~J / c-,e ~ C>7 "'/· /L !? L-... ,f !JJ ~ ;fI ~-£,-'-. __ 7 ,co/ • ro c ~/,. ~ / _ c..--e_ ••,,( ,r; L- .,.__;__ ...c .,,At /4_ ,,.,. 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I / ✓~.L 'trv'/ ,,-0 ' ~~'Pc jf. /k /;11~ ..-~ ~/V-rl_ I/fl 1~rrn_ /7w.rficd v?:-./ (-~ - C-,-Z/1-,_;,., I ,../fr"" //4 ~ /;2,~~I/~- ~~ L-:. --< -~ tr,7c ~ . . r / ~ /d~,e;;, 1/#"l'~ ,i,,,,ft//-?ft' ,J7._:, ~ ~ .-,I_;;:;;_._, cb- ~~, 7Z AC'c__ ~) . r - ~r ~ t{e/..//1 ~ ,,--~6,,- (--l-i..-< Even then relev ant envi ronm ental facto rs may have been negl ected . , 1 Ther e are vari ation s on (i) and (ii) whic h mult iply cost s agai nst numb ers such as prob abil ities . In this wav risk s, cons trued as prob able cost s, can be taken into ' acco unt in the asses smen t. (Alt erna tivel y, risks may be asse ssed throu gh such fami liar meth ods as insu ranc e). ' A prin ciple vary ing (ii), and form ulate d as follo ws: (ii') a is ethi cally acce ptab le if (for some b) a inclu des no more risk s than band bis soci ally acce pted . was the basi c ethi cal prin ciple in term s of whic Lake Boar d of Inqu iry rece ntly decid ed that nuclh the Cluf f ear powe r deve lopm ent in Sask atche wan is ethi cally acce ptab le: see Cluf f Lake Boar d of Inqu iry Fina l Repo rt, Depa rtmen t of Envi ronm ent, Gove rnme nt of Sask atche wan, 1978 , p.305 and p.28 8. In this repo rt, a is nucl ear powe r and bis eithe r acti vitie s clea rly acce pted by soci ety as alter nativ e powe r sour ces. In othe r appl icati ons b has been taken as ciga rette smok ing, moto ring, minin g and even the Vietn am war( !) The poin ts made in the text do not exha ust the obje ction s to prin ciple s (i)- (ii') . The prin ciple s are certa inly ethi cally subs tanti ve, sinc e an ethi cal cons eque nce cann ot be dedu ced fro m none thica l prem isses , but they have an inad miss char acte r. For look at the orig in of b: b may ible conv entio nal be acce pted thoug h it is no long er soci ally acce ptab soci ally le, or thoug h its soci al acce ptib ility is no long er so clea rcut and it woul d not have been soci ally acce pted if as much as is now know n had been know n when it was intro duce d. What is requ ired in (ii') , for insta nce, for the argum ent to begi n to look conv incin g is then 'ethi call y acce ptab le' rath er than 'soc ially acce pted '. But even with the amen dmen ts the prin ciple s are inva lid,f or the reaso ns give n in the text . It is not disc once rting that these argum ents do not work . It woul d be sad to see yet anot her area lost to the expe rt~ name Jy ethic s to actu aries . - A main part of the trou ble with the mode ls_is that narro wly utili taria n, and like utili tari~ ni~m they they are distr ibut iona l featu res, invo lve natu ralis tic fa~l~ n~gl ect Real ly they try to trea t as an unco nstra ined optim cie~ , etc. isati on what is a deon tical ly cons train ed optim isati on: see R. and V. Rout ley 'An expe nsive repa ir kit for utili taria nsim '. I.-"\ Appa rent exce ption s to the prin ciple su~h as taxa redi strib utio n of incom e gene rally ) vani sh when tion (~nd weal th is cons trued (as it has to be if taxa tion is to be P:ope r,J_y justi fied ) as at leas t part ly a so~i al asse t unfa irly mono polised by a mino rity of the popu latio n. -:) · ~ Exam ples such as that of moto ring dang er~u sly coun terex ampl es to the prin ciple ; for one is not do not cons t~tu t~ mora lly entit lcu to so moto r. f, ;o». ,> /;o cfobs and On all these points see R. Grossm an and G. Daneke r , t7w· L E'nergy, Environ men 1:a]jsts for Fu.11 Employ ment, W;:ishington DC, 1977, ting pp.1-7 , and also the details supplie d in substa ntiatin g the interes case of Commoner · [7]. nuclea r indust ry, On the absorp tion of availab le capita l by the see as well [18], p.23. On the employm ent issues , the see too H.E. Daly in [9], p.149.X A more fundam ental challen ge to poverty argume nt appear s in 1. I 11 i.rli Energy a:nd Equal·i ty, Cal den and Boyars , London 1974, where it is atgued that the sort of develop ment need. nuclea r energy represe nts is exactly the opposi te of what the poor Small For much more detail on the inappr opriate ness see E.F. Schuma cher, is Beauti ful, Blond and Briggs , London , 1973. As to the capita l and other require ments, see [2], p.48, and also [7] and [9]. For an illumin ating look at the sort of develop ment high-en ergy techno logy will tend to promot e in the so-cal led underd evelope d countr ies see the paper .of Waiko and other papers in The Melane sian Environ ment (edited J.H. Winslo w), Austra lian Nation al Univer sity Press, Canber ra, 1977. .-B9-..- -'.JT;lhHi~sHf§'..ia'!1ee,jtE---:1ii·ss-:1t.i·m;a:pE>cll-1.ic·e.eici~t±l:-;:v-r-4r:ee~c,QO'l:!g,i;ineii~s~e~0Hittrrr- [P.2f]~,:7p~.~5516J. A use Ta 1 survey is given in A. Lovins . Energy Strateg y: The Road Not n, Friend s of the Earth Austra lia, 1977 (reprin ted from Foreign / Af. airs, Octobe r 1976); see also [17], [6], [7], [14], p.233 ff, and Schum~ cher, op. cit. //3· An argume nt like this is sugges ted in Passmo re -f-fi, chapte rs 4 and 7, with respec t to the questio n of saving resour ces. In Passmo re this argume nt for the overrid ing importa nce of passing on contem porary l culture is underp inned by what appear s to be a future -direct ed ethica version of the Hidden Hand argume nt of econom ics - that, by a coincid ence care of which if correc t would indeed be fortun ate, the best way t o take the future (and perhap s even the only way to do so, since do-good of iRterv ention is almost certain to go wrong) is to take proper care the presen t and immedi ate future. The argume nt has all the defects of the related Chain Argume nt discuss ed above and others . /1, IA;, u,./n er Very persuasive argurn en t sAh ave b een advanced by civil liberties groups and othe.rs in · a number of countries: C.$ee especia· 11y M. · , Nuclear Prospects. y· Flood and R. Grove-White, A Comment on the Individual., the State and Nuclear Power, 'F riends of the Earth, Council for the Protection of Rural. England _a~d National Council for Civil Liberties, London, 1976. y~.;.~ f- 7 ~ ~ 7,,....J., / ~ / ¾,_ r-!! 0~ 4S>- I'-- ~ !' ~ / ,,.~~ l'/4 ~ ~ e- ~N~ .,..,_.,,« LvV"' 7#'~} J u /~7 ~~ .a - / .,J.,/2., k._,,,,, ". .,,.-b ~ ./ ~/4:-._ /. £. /4 cl,< .,,.,..( ,i;;..,,.<- ,,-::: c:e£l/.? ,,_~, ,t,_,.,__,. <C'" /''j!fK .;. /)-...._;, ·- di de,.,~,?,;, . h ~ ·~' I '-,,.,_,~ /.,_, , . 7 /.1- ·,',( ... :.... 7 1-. I 7t0- ✓~Uu-- .. 7 t,;~-'f ; . ~ (. ~ <~A~~ ~ /;Y:~&;.-e_ •. /4-r c/UJ· ·• ( ~ ~'-'/'"-~ ~ -✓~/ ~ c&..dc.. ~ ~<2//7 .. ,,-•""'' II~ C:. v~~/ c~/v. j"-'"7· J.,__.,._,___.:_ , ;__ /~-,,..,.~7 ?,/...../ u, /,,,.__~.c;:-_ / ...:._ ?"it..- <:__.,,T ✓ ._ 0-L:'~'~ ~ ~ ,'!le/~ ~ ;/' 1 ~~ o{~,__ff ? c-V)T /tfa-~ c../~ &- /NA/~~ feL ~ . t'& /,,« .... . .,.U 7 rv L.,11- /o_~----- er/~ ~ ~ c//1"£--4- ~d ✓ {A:~ . I o.----~< ~ ~- J<:7 ,!!:,<'--4--r ~ ~~µ/~-~ ~ y //' ,//_?)' ~ I /4.~, _~~ ~ ~ r4 <'~oA-c-:5 ~~ 7 i,v_/ / r7-4-7' 7 """"~ ,~ '~ '7!(,,/ ✓.f rr~• C,!+,._;,,~i</1 7, ~w,_ ~~ I /' er t'""" , y ~ CJ V J,, /4,~ .,,nd,,,:_ 7~~ ~-- ° /{ 0 t..A"t-"'/--« 1 ..,,-/~ ~ /&v>--,7--. 7,_;;..e__..f -r;. ~~ /0,,£,V ~ ~ / e-- "-7,,,____;. 7~ ~~ ~L =---<' it!. ~~ I'~ 1 /- / ~J , <;• i ,c__ c.,,..,_ kl k-- ' /r ("'~ z e-t zb%, 7 ~~77 J/~ /~~4-/~dr• /~ 7~ ~Ci ]%-& 7,~.Hc7~7r10 ,,-,e ,:;;-,;.,(;.(,~ 7- ._.~,,,,.,;: ,.,,,.~_ ~~;(Jf L.11$ Ce.-rc:-- , ; : n r / ~ / ~~-I ;z__, /rd-e-{4 7~ A /~ ~ I ,L',.y;~ /'<!..fe,.__·f;;;(,~ fl, fd &<--, f (~ ,.~1'~4' I"'- ill lt<d. 7µ,,,, ~ 1 7 4-t,/ <!ed, ~..: t ' ~ ~ j/7l , j'-k?, ~Jul. tA..,-17 T/4_ -7 1~/<'N/4 / '---2/7,n,;;'k 1'.~ .t;/4-.. ~LC-~~ //~ //7( , JI" .Jff;+. ~ t'C~ & TI c: ,4,,eJ,...if c~~ /4./4.e~ I /-- 7~ ){~, , ~ 17 ,:_, ch7/4_.,<, A,f._,J-.__ ,7 ,...,.._,_ ;/ #~ Certainly practical transitional programs may involve tempor ary and limited use of unacceptable long term commodities such a s coal, but in presenting such practical details one should not lose sight of the more basic social and structural changes, and the problem is really one of making those. Similarly practical transitional strategies should make use o f such measures as environmental (or replacement) pricing of encn1y, i.e. so that the price of some energy unit includes the full cosl ,. ------~-- tl ~ -1 footno te le continued. of replacing it by an equivalent unit taking ac count of environmental cost of production . Other (sometimes strategies towards more s a tisfactory altercooptive) natives should also, of course, be adopted, in particul a r the removal of institutional barriers to energy conservation and alternative technology (e.g. local g ove rnment regulations blocking these), and the removal of state assistance to fuel and power industries. ff Symptomatic of the fact that is it not treated a s rene wa ble is that forest economics do not generally a llow for full renewability - if they did the losses and de ficits on forestry operations would be much more striking than they already are often enough . It is doubtful, furthermore, that energy cropping of f o rests can be a ! fully renewable operation if net energy see, e.g. the argument in production is to be worthwhile; L.R.B. Mann 'Some difficulties with energy farmin g fo r portable fuels', and add in the costs of ecosy stem mainte nance. &7 ;z__ ./27, ½7 ~ ~.Yu- ..~r_;,tiA~ (I) , ~ y .;_/ c~ (1' ClJ:_,-u::tojC__ ) dL ,-,.~ e--- c...... ~/-~1) R7~r /~ ~ ~ Z{ j {. r:,p ,f:' ,h--<--fJ.U-c:..d---1 (z) 2f /?.• /;~7I /t/J'fr'>-- , a- e/ /d--~ "-) .I Jen_ /f/4 ,,., ,rnJ../ r.-.t,;,. , c~ &~ f ), /j'.J-7/ 21 I I /;,, ~<Jt...,, t : Jr. J. f,(/4.clu- - he dC #<-- , /Jc,,-,,/,,,_,,e,,.., /f'J'rJ ( it/• ,;f, (: ,'~ /4I I 1 -9-1ace/t:~ / ~ & (y- A_ f ; / ) U.. tf, .7'4 ',,f' J c.-,' ( Clv?. f /'fl,v U ' J ~d 7 u;J/""' 7:_ ;:, r-~/d ?' -?9-;; - #~//' ~ /?,,~ 1•--1- . . -ZP7y L) /11j;r , <JIITJ. 17 I' /f ,..,r /LJJ . 2 ~ ;,f(f ,,f'.,.._A/7 /4,j)' /v.,u c--:-« /4 ,.,(k i'-fltd ro hrl ) /4 ·- ~fd //4/.'-7, fi~/7 -~~ ~/ Ate-. t· I =d°~'« ~ I J /??7, t;.___~) ;(/c,,,6.<./ ~4 / . L "'. 0~ -r-7 V.. ..,/,, 4 ~), f-'17----p/' A""7 ~ ~ ~ ~~~ ~r-j7 r,;;,r 7-,,.,r, / 4 ~ ~ /dt:_:,7~,, 1 ~,? ( ~~ / ' #~~ tff f ~,f7 ; ',,f/;,,;C:,A; ·" - ~. (,,_r..,,f , __., 7'/4,,...; 7'.'7 (/17 0 , l ~ c,t,/ r~~~ ~,,__.,( !/ r /' v(' ,.._,,, ,&..., ' , ~/-/.;_j J, /l?£r/J, /~ ~a~, //77 . a~ cf.,/--rad' ~,,, k.t, ,t. /fl f ' d~ . ) /!~~r / ' ) c,,;.,: ;zt~ r r/' / ' ) ~-~ - ~ ' ,,( ·~ (1//f<J) , ff.J- 15'1 , £ £ ~f 4 ' ! ' 4t~.t,,/e'Y',. . " - /?N"e ~ ~~~-v4/~ (11:7,l-j' h / / '//~ t'~~7~. /4~,I <v? ti/(~}). _/ /J. J$. {(~ [ r A&--1a. I fa a-... /4_n;-/>s. ~J.t' 1 /;,..__ ~JI ~Gd ,,J7 , (/!.. ,,(_, JP a-.el f ~ o,,.//ac~ £:_ ,r "-"' o/£'<>Z<½ M u ; , / ~ rvW~ /ll Q_ftv,w~,;,/o/,,d~1 ,,'L.7 L~ d ./4._,,_L1 _ ',A/4 ra--, I rcJ I =/-----:-vvJ L / 0 ~t/n~/ ~ ~//i/ I Ja,, F,i; 11 , ,(.~ =-·-- ~ I /1'1. " ~ ✓ ~J / ~,,__,,_ ~, - . ,~' r~ {.·(./,7 r 1 }'(/t:, /4...r-e__ JJ~if, 1C4").1~ 1 11lr . /l?."" ,{ j/, •7 /',/~ - ' OA~""-- 1 o/ , £ /)jjj /( lt7S- (di~~ a-t ;(,Ne'/? T ,,e«J /2 /~ 1 , JZ. ,,.--1 / ;-~ /-7 y,.. ,h h{ z.,, ✓7:, /y,--~ #~~d fa;1-~ ;__ ,. a { ~ d, ..,;,'---'' /?l4?_..l&LAZ. - - / /4')) /l ~ 7 3::- C~l/\4/ , ~ ..' 1/71. 7 J. f'IJ~ ,1Jl"--r~ f--''r//1 /4. /~~ ;t/.J) ///J7) J <..A- 7 ~'/ 1 c1.. ·-;, /4.uv~c.- ,' c:::,r71 ~ /..,_~ / ~ • /~,1£4-;-) ~ / I / 71 /f'J , ', /J /VL. J1 ~~ /:.~ 1 4 -,?<~ I /y-,J-?c, /I. ,;f=7 ' / j 7~1 ,1 V ;zs (l!ro), V 2 ~ /(, /J/LLL I AJc- - 4/cu__~,.../~&aJ ~ ~ Er~<c'd G<!.#b-1/ fo'n-l7c1I /4b "i,L., e-/ rL.. c ~ (/, V / o--t 6-../ n~c{a.,a.//1 .:1/W~ Jl1 -rc7'l) , ) ,1 ..C,cU J ), ., 11  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 59, Item 1875: Draft of Nuclear power - ethical, social and political dimensions Subject The topic of the resource Typescript draft, with handwritten emendations and annotations, and handwritten notes, undated. Paper published, Routley R and Routley V (1982) 'Nuclear power—some ethical and social dimensions', in Regan T and VanDeVeer D (eds) And justice for all: new introductory essays in ethics and public policy, Rowman and Littlefield. Description An account of the resource Title in collection finding aid: RS: Big mss on nuclear. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Routley&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Routley</a> <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=val+routley&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Val Routley</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 59, Item 1875 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, <a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a>. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [71] leaves. 58.48 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:8e30ade">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:8e30ade</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1982-01-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant n/a - location not listed in manuscript finding aid Box 59: Nuclear https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/f51dc99ef93d040908b142ebb835179a.pdf d210fbed6580d80dafbf3af881e514fc PDF Text Text Elaboration of *Nuclear energy and obligations to the future*: A note on expertise and methodology. Some people may ask why philosophers, who know nothing about nuclear physics, should be dealing with this area, which surely should be left to the province of the real experts in the area, nuclear physicists and those with direct experience and authority in the area of nuclear power. One of the most irritating things in this area for a philosopher is the sight of such people constantly presented, by themselves and others, as experts and authorities whose pronounce­ ments on the issue should be accepted without question by laymen (see e.g. articles [15] and [16]), when in fact the issues involve quite crucially issues of and assumptions about values and morality^ matters concerning which the so-called ’’authorities" and "experts" commonly know less than the average first year student in philosophy. Value issues and moral issues and issues of social and political theory are probably more crucially concerned in the nuclear issues than are issues of fact concerning nuclear power, and certainly they are just as important. Few philosophers nowadays would want to claim to be "experts" or "authorities" on matters of value or morality in the way nuclear experts claim to be authorities on matters of nuclear power, who can tell people what to do in way which is authoritative or which must be uncritically accepted by the non-experts/non ­ philosophers. Rejection of the argument from authority is basic in proper philosophical method, going back to Plato and beyond, and forming a basic position without which the subject, as critical inquiry into basic assumptions, could not operate as it does and traditionally has. Indeed rejection of the argument from authority is one feature which distinguishes philosophy proper from closely related areas such as theology, casuistry, some �2. areas of legal thought and various types of apology. But a form /of the argument from authority*—the claim to entitlement to have one’s word or views accepted, not on the basis of what one says and how sound it is,!^ but of who one is - appears however to be an important element in the modern cult of the ''scientific expert" which has played such a large part in the contempory Australian discussion of the neclear issue. While most philosophers would reject the view that they were "experts" in this sense on values or moral issues, philosophers can fairly lay claim to a number of special skills which enable them to bring out explicit assumptions about values or morality, and expose defects in arguments. Most philosophers also have moral view’s, that is, they believe some things to be morally acceptable and others morally unacceptable, although some might prefer to express similar attitudes without use of explicit moral terminology. In writing this paper then we don’t hope to be accepted as ’authorities’ or ’experts’ on moral questions, but only to have skills which may throw light on some areas. We have tried to bring out value and moral assumptions, expose logical defects and inconsistencies in the structure of some of the arguments and in certain sorts of argumentsconcerning the future, and to argue that if one accepts a certain moral judgment (which we accept and which we believe would be widely agreed on*), one should, if one is going to be consistent, non-arbitrary, and follow through one’s principles, accept a certain other one. This seems to us a propei area for philosophical work. The non-philosophical or background factual assumptions which are essential for discussing the issue are not large, and are in substance only those of the Fox Report (p.110, in particular)• * We are sure that philosophers can be found who will disagree wit! virtually every statement we make. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Elaboration of *Nuclear energy and obligations to the future*: A note on expertise and methodology. Some people may ask why philosophers, who know nothing about nuclear physics, should be dealing with this area, which surely should be left to the province of the real experts in the area, nuclear physicists and those with direct experience and authority in the area of nuclear power. One of the most irritating things in this area for a philosopher is the sight of such people constantly presented, by themselves and others, as experts and authorities whose pronounce­ ments on the issue should be accepted without question by laymen (see e.g. articles [15] and [16]), when in fact the issues involve quite crucially issues of and assumptions about values and morality^ matters concerning which the so-called ’’authorities" and "experts" commonly know less than the average first year student in philosophy. Value issues and moral issues and issues of social and political theory are probably more crucially concerned in the nuclear issues than are issues of fact concerning nuclear power, and certainly they are just as important. Few philosophers nowadays would want to claim to be "experts" or "authorities" on matters of value or morality in the way nuclear experts claim to be authorities on matters of nuclear power, who can tell people what to do in way which is authoritative or which must be uncritically accepted by the non-experts/non ­ philosophers. Rejection of the argument from authority is basic in proper philosophical method, going back to Plato and beyond, and forming a basic position without which the subject, as critical inquiry into basic assumptions, could not operate as it does and traditionally has. Indeed rejection of the argument from authority is one feature which distinguishes philosophy proper from closely related areas such as theology, casuistry, some 2. areas of legal thought and various types of apology. But a form /of the argument from authority*—the claim to entitlement to have one’s word or views accepted, not on the basis of what one says and how sound it is,!^ but of who one is - appears however to be an important element in the modern cult of the ''scientific expert" which has played such a large part in the contempory Australian discussion of the neclear issue. While most philosophers would reject the view that they were "experts" in this sense on values or moral issues, philosophers can fairly lay claim to a number of special skills which enable them to bring out explicit assumptions about values or morality, and expose defects in arguments. Most philosophers also have moral view’s, that is, they believe some things to be morally acceptable and others morally unacceptable, although some might prefer to express similar attitudes without use of explicit moral terminology. In writing this paper then we don’t hope to be accepted as ’authorities’ or ’experts’ on moral questions, but only to have skills which may throw light on some areas. We have tried to bring out value and moral assumptions, expose logical defects and inconsistencies in the structure of some of the arguments and in certain sorts of argumentsconcerning the future, and to argue that if one accepts a certain moral judgment (which we accept and which we believe would be widely agreed on*), one should, if one is going to be consistent, non-arbitrary, and follow through one’s principles, accept a certain other one. This seems to us a propei area for philosophical work. The non-philosophical or background factual assumptions which are essential for discussing the issue are not large, and are in substance only those of the Fox Report (p.110, in particular)• * We are sure that philosophers can be found who will disagree wit! virtually every statement we make.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 59, Item 1: Draft of Elaboration of 'Nuclear energy and obligations to the future': a note on expertise and methodology Subject The topic of the resource Typescript of draft, with handwritten emendations, undated. Description An account of the resource Unnumbered paper from collection, item number assigned by library staff. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=val+routley&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Val Routley</a> <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Routley&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Routley</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 59, Item 1 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, <a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a>. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [2] leaves. 1.56 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:536f5c3">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:536f5c3</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant n/a - location unidentified in manuscript finding aid Box 59: Nuclear https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/b660995c442b4ed34e33174523ca0eaf.pdf e2754cf92cd4759c1c7554709975a749 PDF Text Text 94K Fraser Court, Kingston, 2604. 6th February, 1975 Dear Sir, A possible change of government later this year should not be a matter for too much concern, since the difference in policies between the Labor government and the conservative alternative is becoming increasingly difficult to discern. Thus in September Dr. Cairns told us all to work harder, and at Christmas Mr. Bryant urged us to buy more. In January the Prime Minister insisted that wage demands were the cause of inflation, and in February our 'socialist' Treasurer who had previously exhorted us to buy more cars, tells us, in effect, that the business of Australia is business. That the Labor government, although presenting itself as one of "change and reform", has a commitment to the industrial- consumer status quo and protecting business, and an aversion to politically difficult decisions approaching that of its predecessors is demonstrated by its determination that there shall be no restructuring (even on a long-term basis) of employment in the motor vehicle industry. This industry is widely recognised as a major polluter and waster of resources, and was, until recently, the favourite target of several ministers who are now strangely silent on the subject. The employment in this environmenta lly damaging industry which the government is determined to preserve without change, on a long term basis and apparently at virtually any cost, is of such poor quality that the industrial sabotage which was common a few years ago and is now reappearing was attributed by the unions to the miserable nature of the work. In normal times of full employment the immigration program played an essential part in maintaining the supply of workers to fill these undesirable jobs. The impression of the early days of the Labor government that Australians had somehow managed to elect a government of courage, independence and principle has long since faded. But nowhere is the lack of these qualities so clear as in the decision to compete with · the opposition in the development stakes and to proceed withthe sale of uranium for 'peaceful purposes'. The Prime Minister has attempted to quell doubts about environmenta l hazards by appealing to the inadequate standards of the Internationa l Atomic Energy Authority and by stating that no one overseas to whom he spoke cared a jot about the hazards of pollution from controlled nuclear plants or waste, and that (therefore) no one here should either. Mr. Connor, displaying a similar slavish concern for what the internationa l neighbours think, claims that the Australian government would become a laughing stock if it attempted to act with courage and principle on the matter of ur a 11 /um sales. The request for a public inquiry to enable adequate public discussion of the momentous moral issues involved in ur.ani- um sales has been refused, on the thin and question-begg ing grounds that this would jeopardise one prematurely concluded contract and others in the pipeline. The switch to nuclear fission energy sources which the Australian government's decision will greatly assist is likely to impose enormous burdens and risks on future people for nuclear waste disposal as long as 200,000 years in the future on conservative estimates. There are clear alternatives to its use. The moral position of Australia, as an important supplier of this material, may be likened to that of an arms or heroin peddler - obtaining a comfortable existence for itself at the expense of enormous costs to other people. Just as in the case of the a..rft'\S or heroin dealer, the moral responsibili ty of the supplier cannot be evaded by the pretence that the moral decision is entirely that of his customer. V. & R. Routley �94K Fraser Court, Kingston, 2604. 6th February, 1975 Dear Sir, A possible change of government later this year should not be a matter for too much concern, since the difference in policies between the Labor government and the conservative alternative is becoming increasingly difficult to discern. Thus in September Dr. Cairns told us all to work harder, and at Christmas Mr. Bryant urged us to buy more. In January the Prime Minister insisted that wage demands were the cause of inflation, and in February our 'socialist' Treasurer who had previously exhorted us to buy more cars, tells us, in effect, that the business of Australia is business. That the Labor government, although presenting itself as one of "change and reform", has a commitment to the industrial__: consumer status quo and protecting business, and an aversion to politically difficult decisions approaching that of its predecessors is demonstrated by its determination that there shall be no restructuring (even on a long-term basis) of employment in the motor vehicle industry. This industry is widely recognised as a major polluter and waster of resources, and was, until recently, the favourite target of several ministers who are now strangely silent on the subject. The employment in this environmentally damaging industry which the government is determined to preserve without change, on a long term basis and apparently at virtually any cost, is of such poor quality that the industrial sabotage which was common a few years ago and is now reappearing was attributed by the unions to the miserable nature of the work. In normal times of full employment the immigration program played an essential part in maintaining the supply of workers to fill these undesirable jobs. The impression of the early days of the Labor government that Australians had somehow managed to elect a government of courage, independence and principle has long since faded. But nowhere is the lack of these qualities so clear as in the decision to compete with the opposition in the development stakes and to proceed withthe sale of uranium for 'peaceful purposes'. The Prime Minister has attempted to quell doubts about environmental hazards by apF ealing to the inadequate standards of the International Atomic Energy Authority and by stating that no one overseas to whom he spoke cared a jot about the hazards of pollution from controlled nuclear plants or waste, and that (therefore) no one here should either. Mr. Connor, displaying a similar slavish concern for what the international neighbours think, claims that the Australian government would become a laughing stock if it attempted to act with courage and principle on the matter of u r ,i A ,'ufrL sales. The request for a public inquiry to enable adequ~te public discussion of the momentous moral issues involved in l.lia.ni~ .um sales has been refused, on the thin and question-begging grounds that this would jeopardise one prematurely concluded contract and others in the pipeline. The switch to nuclear fission energy sources which the Australian government's decision will greatly assist is likely to impose enormous burdens and risks on future people for nuclear waste disposal as long as 200,000 years in the future on conservative estimates. There are clear alternatives to its use. The moral position of Australia, as an important supplier of this material, may be likened to that of an atMJ or heroin peddler - obtaining a comfortable existence for itself at the expense of enormous costs to other people. Just as in the case of the a.rAt! or heroin dealer, the moral responsibility of the supplier cannot be evaded by the pretence that the moral decision is entirely that of his customer. V. & R. Routley � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Notes, Correspondences and Marginalia Description An account of the resource In one obituary, Sylvan's handwriting was said to have "looked like the oscilloscope for a patient in intensive care", and thus "not for the timid". Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document 94K Fraser Court, Kingston, 2604. 6th February, 1975 Dear Sir, A possible change of government later this year should not be a matter for too much concern, since the difference in policies between the Labor government and the conservative alternative is becoming increasingly difficult to discern. Thus in September Dr. Cairns told us all to work harder, and at Christmas Mr. Bryant urged us to buy more. In January the Prime Minister insisted that wage demands were the cause of inflation, and in February our 'socialist' Treasurer who had previously exhorted us to buy more cars, tells us, in effect, that the business of Australia is business. That the Labor government, although presenting itself as one of "change and reform", has a commitment to the industrial- consumer status quo and protecting business, and an aversion to politically difficult decisions approaching that of its predecessors is demonstrated by its determination that there shall be no restructuring (even on a long-term basis) of employment in the motor vehicle industry. This industry is widely recognised as a major polluter and waster of resources, and was, until recently, the favourite target of several ministers who are now strangely silent on the subject. The employment in this environmenta lly damaging industry which the government is determined to preserve without change, on a long term basis and apparently at virtually any cost, is of such poor quality that the industrial sabotage which was common a few years ago and is now reappearing was attributed by the unions to the miserable nature of the work. In normal times of full employment the immigration program played an essential part in maintaining the supply of workers to fill these undesirable jobs. The impression of the early days of the Labor government that Australians had somehow managed to elect a government of courage, independence and principle has long since faded. But nowhere is the lack of these qualities so clear as in the decision to compete with · the opposition in the development stakes and to proceed withthe sale of uranium for 'peaceful purposes'. The Prime Minister has attempted to quell doubts about environmenta l hazards by appealing to the inadequate standards of the Internationa l Atomic Energy Authority and by stating that no one overseas to whom he spoke cared a jot about the hazards of pollution from controlled nuclear plants or waste, and that (therefore) no one here should either. Mr. Connor, displaying a similar slavish concern for what the internationa l neighbours think, claims that the Australian government would become a laughing stock if it attempted to act with courage and principle on the matter of ur a 11 /um sales. The request for a public inquiry to enable adequate public discussion of the momentous moral issues involved in ur.ani- um sales has been refused, on the thin and question-begg ing grounds that this would jeopardise one prematurely concluded contract and others in the pipeline. The switch to nuclear fission energy sources which the Australian government's decision will greatly assist is likely to impose enormous burdens and risks on future people for nuclear waste disposal as long as 200,000 years in the future on conservative estimates. There are clear alternatives to its use. The moral position of Australia, as an important supplier of this material, may be likened to that of an arms or heroin peddler - obtaining a comfortable existence for itself at the expense of enormous costs to other people. Just as in the case of the a..rft'\S or heroin dealer, the moral responsibili ty of the supplier cannot be evaded by the pretence that the moral decision is entirely that of his customer. V. & R. Routley 94K Fraser Court, Kingston, 2604. 6th February, 1975 Dear Sir, A possible change of government later this year should not be a matter for too much concern, since the difference in policies between the Labor government and the conservative alternative is becoming increasingly difficult to discern. Thus in September Dr. Cairns told us all to work harder, and at Christmas Mr. Bryant urged us to buy more. In January the Prime Minister insisted that wage demands were the cause of inflation, and in February our 'socialist' Treasurer who had previously exhorted us to buy more cars, tells us, in effect, that the business of Australia is business. That the Labor government, although presenting itself as one of "change and reform", has a commitment to the industrial__: consumer status quo and protecting business, and an aversion to politically difficult decisions approaching that of its predecessors is demonstrated by its determination that there shall be no restructuring (even on a long-term basis) of employment in the motor vehicle industry. This industry is widely recognised as a major polluter and waster of resources, and was, until recently, the favourite target of several ministers who are now strangely silent on the subject. The employment in this environmentally damaging industry which the government is determined to preserve without change, on a long term basis and apparently at virtually any cost, is of such poor quality that the industrial sabotage which was common a few years ago and is now reappearing was attributed by the unions to the miserable nature of the work. In normal times of full employment the immigration program played an essential part in maintaining the supply of workers to fill these undesirable jobs. The impression of the early days of the Labor government that Australians had somehow managed to elect a government of courage, independence and principle has long since faded. But nowhere is the lack of these qualities so clear as in the decision to compete with the opposition in the development stakes and to proceed withthe sale of uranium for 'peaceful purposes'. The Prime Minister has attempted to quell doubts about environmental hazards by apF ealing to the inadequate standards of the International Atomic Energy Authority and by stating that no one overseas to whom he spoke cared a jot about the hazards of pollution from controlled nuclear plants or waste, and that (therefore) no one here should either. Mr. Connor, displaying a similar slavish concern for what the international neighbours think, claims that the Australian government would become a laughing stock if it attempted to act with courage and principle on the matter of u r ,i A ,'ufrL sales. The request for a public inquiry to enable adequ~te public discussion of the momentous moral issues involved in l.lia.ni~ .um sales has been refused, on the thin and question-begging grounds that this would jeopardise one prematurely concluded contract and others in the pipeline. The switch to nuclear fission energy sources which the Australian government's decision will greatly assist is likely to impose enormous burdens and risks on future people for nuclear waste disposal as long as 200,000 years in the future on conservative estimates. There are clear alternatives to its use. The moral position of Australia, as an important supplier of this material, may be likened to that of an atMJ or heroin peddler - obtaining a comfortable existence for itself at the expense of enormous costs to other people. Just as in the case of the a.rAt! or heroin dealer, the moral responsibility of the supplier cannot be evaded by the pretence that the moral decision is entirely that of his customer. V. & R. Routley  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 23, Item 1: Val Routley and Richard Routley to "Sir", 6 Feb 1975 Subject The topic of the resource Two copies of typescript letter addressed to "Sir", from Val Routley (later Val Plumwood) and Richard Routley (later Richard Sylvan). The letter to government addresses nuclear energy. Description An account of the resource Unnumbered paper from collection, item number assigned by library staff. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Val+Routley&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Val Routley</a> <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Routley&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Routley</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 23, Item 1 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1975-02-06 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, <a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a>. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Letter, [2] leaves. 3.65 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Correspondences Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:329e04d">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:329e04d</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant n/a - not numbered or identified in locator field Box 23: More Green https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/ede0486e608e80171df909e34126861a.pdf 9db543cfb87caa03ad0862f020147ec3 PDF Text Text /•'^Ltf 3. L. 4/(7 a' A~///frj y7W �1 • 7 S‘' " /^\ » \ / J iA I'V’-Vu / Ae^ 6jCx<z-' X-~——ft, or nj> i5^^r^rX37LZL< NuK^S -r------ —----- —----__ *— Wvj , q) �6 7 7 �% J �r �The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Cutting (photocopy), two pages (title page and page 125) from Weisskopf WA (1971) Alienation and economics, Dutton. (2 leaves) �7 v~7/ -- --- ------ tZ ' /)e/C^ ~7 /^?) ^~y- / / ■'rf.. // /2'<f / �THE AGE OF [THE REALISATION OF] LIMITS? 1. Growth versus Limits. A phenomenon of the contemporary ags. is increasing awareness of limits, espeO^ally material limits, due to resource and energy limitations. Hence, in part, the limits to growth (in part because there are other major elements in models which reveal limits to growth: pollution, etc.). population, The awareness is not a new one - the ancient Greeks put con­ siderable emphasis on limits - but was largely lost sight of in modern times until recently. Although some material limitations are now widely reetrgjinised, in Europe and / North America^ at any rate, social limits are far from widely acknowledged, and there is the idea that in the spiriual sphere there are no limitations. Thus, for example, Perelman: The traditional social sphere is ... transcendental and spiritual. i _• x..- -- i -----~ ‘-v- -ewards the physical and social limits of the economic world (p.394)." ---- A similar open-fredte«ee-«Mte^e<-'in-the-spiritual sphere thenyls presented by T. Haydon (Social Alternatives ~1980). 2. The failure to realist, limits is a basic fault common to Marxism (Barman p.150) and capitalism. further down, p.399, >6 relies on false dichotomy between ’religious influence and secular economic power’ which are said to be * complementary, when one grows, the other declines. Also the suggestion that the£e are social limits^the ’soft paradigm’ is not explained p.415? to W2- -M �/ Disappearing species and vanishing rainforests: philosophical roots of the problem. * wrong directions, and the Both rainforests and species are disappearing at an unprecedented and accelerating rate. becoming a vastly poorer place ecologically. of great value is being lost or destroyed. The world is fast Which is really bad: for much Thus far there is substantial agreement among a wide range of groups and organisations seriously concerned about vanishing rainforests, disappearing species, and the ecological impover­ ishment of the earth. But penetrate a little further - ask for the causes of this situation, for what should be done about it, why value is being diminished in this way, and why there is any cause for concern - and the agreement begins to evaporate. Probe a little more widely, bringing in assessment of economists, foresters, and politicians, and spokesmen for the elites of ’’developing nations , and agreement ceases, and substantial disagreement sets in. The phenomena of disappearing life, animal and plant, creature and species and ecosystem, are well-enough documented (if not well-enough knowin, in several senses) for a sketch of the background to serve. §2. Background: the rates of loss of species and disappearance of rainforest. First, plants:the extinction of each species of plant is, on the average, accompanied by a ten-|to thirty-fold loss amongst other organisms. Therefore, the diversity of plants i£ the underlying factor controlling the diversity of other organisms and thus the stability of the world ecosystem ... nearly two-thirds of the world’s plant species (at least 150,000species of flowering plants) appear to be tropical in distribution. ... Considering that there will be no undisturbed tropical lowland forest any­ where in the world within twenty-five years, except for relatively small reserves, ... it is certain that many of them will become extinct during our lifetime. To illustrate this point we need only mention that the FAO estimates that about ten million The paper was first sketched for Earthday 1980. The topic is of considerable relevance to Earthday X, for it concerns the ecological impoverishment of the earth (which - despite Earthday - continues to accelerate) and reasons for it especially the underlying philosophical and ideological grounds. (In the latter connection the US has, despite its prominence in ecological concern and in implementing things environmental, much to answer for.) �2. hectares [1979 estimates are 16 million hectares] of tropical forest are being felled annually. ... One supposes ... that at least a third of [tropical plant species] will be threatened or extinct by the end of the century, with the first major wave of extinction in South-east Asia and New Guine^ ... (Raven 1976). Second, animals:It has been estimated that if current Saends in massive forest clearing continue, about one-third of the species now found in humid tropical forests - perhaps 15 to 20Z of all species on earth - will be extinct only 20 years from now, and many more in the ensuing decades. This would be one of the greatest impoverishments ever suffered. |x----- —Third, rainforests:Every minute 30 hectares (about 75 acres) of the world s rain— ^forests are being destroyed. The issue can be sharply p^roc^ssed by considering the world’s tropical rainforests, where major Looweo are occurring. The tropical moist forests are believed to contain between 2 and 5 million species from 2/5ths to ^planet’s total . Thus i£ 1 million species are lost by the end of the twentieth century, the I result would be the extinction of more than - perhaps much more than - l/5th of the world’s . (Myers, p.4 & p.113). Other estimates differ somewhat, but all serve to make the main point; staggering ecological and biological losses and impoverishment. §2. Reasons and causes^ actdon and fataldsm (ineu^'i/Lity). be disentangled. There is much to There are reasons for and against destroying rain-forests and their dependent species, reasons which divide into shallower reasons and deeper reasons. The familiar shallow reasons against are those that answer back in one way or another to human interests, and concern the pros and cons of rain­ forests as sources of genetic diversity and gene pools, as natural biological sources for medicines, as uftkt catchment protection areas, and to prevent and stop flooding, as buffer and quarantine zones, as refuges for plants and animals. The inadequacy of these sorts of reasons is not difficult to discern; and the strategies they lead to would only sewe- bits and pieces here and there. , -i -i _ a_i_ _ Furthermore the onus is^wrong way round too, as well as the jacamng j not reaching to any social depth. What needs to say here is: Why is all �3. this happening? What justifies it? The onus is on those who try to proceed, who are doing the doing, interfering destruction and demise. The shallower reasons for tend to rely on the character of humans, their attitudes and aspirations and now rather inevitable dominance. causes fail. Ini^t^l shallow explanatory theses to be critically assessed and rejected include these: 1. The overpopulation argument: ’unless the population explosion can be damped down, wildlife will not survive’ 2. Economistic arguments: (Webb, 1979). forest destruction will alleviate poverty and provides jobs and foreign revenue. Rather, as forester Westoby recently explained, ’the unpalatable fact, for foresters, is that forest industries have done very little to raise the welfare of the urban and rural masses in developing countries; instead resources and wealth have been transferred to the rich industrialised countries’ (or at least certain parts of their populations). Westoby, who perhaps optimistically sees elements of change in the world, went on to explain, colourfully, somewhat deeper issues: of policies of self-reliance, ’The growth the struggles on every continent by the dispossessed and hungry millions to win a fair and decent life, to break out of the power of landlords, of moneylenders, of the agents of foreign capital will be decisive in the future ... foresters ... have historically supported power, landed property, and the status quo, and acted as the gendarme of the landed proprietor’ (emphasis added). [Even where the people originally held the land, it has been removed from them by military power in such places as Indonesia.] Although this begins to bring out how it is that major forest destruct­ ion, for example, is not being undertaken by local people themselves,but by large foreign companies (with the co-operation of a ruling ’’western" elite in countries involved, elites characteristically propped up in turn by "western" capital and armsj), it does not explain why "western"—style com­ panies (Japanese as well as American and British) are, with considerable government support, engaged in these activities. Again, there are shallow economic reasons, e.g. growth of GNP, consumer demand, etc. But in fact the bulk of tropical forest goes into pulp and paper most of which is used for packaging, which most people do not, in any good sense, choose to purchase, but find it "thrust upon them" and difficult to avoid. §4. Getting to the roots, historical and ideological. And so on. The deeper reasons are the underlying attitudes to the natural world that are held by western exploit­ ing powers, attitudes such as human chauvinism, which have a very long history, �and which were shaped and enforced first by the Renaissance, then the Enlight­ enment, and more recently by both positivism and Marxism. The main object of the paper is to show how these attitudes figure in such practical matters as forest destruction and its justification, to outline [again] criticism of them, and to indicate a long minority criticism of them, running from the Germanic Sturm und Drang movement through classical anarchism to the counter culture §5. the modern deeper environmental movement. Wrong strategic directions: the potiticaZ thrust. WORLD (ECOLOGICAL) IMPOVERISHMENT: IDEOLOGICAL BASES AND EXCUSES. World ecological impoverishment is world impoverishment, because much of great value is being lost without due value recompense. at rapidly accelerating rate: It is occurring there is little cause for celebration of ^arthday X. 1. The mounting ecological losses. The phenomenon is well enough documented within the limits of our rather abysmal knowledge awd of the systems^ species and individuals being lost. 78). (For a carefully referenced survey see Eckholm �REFERENCES E. Eckholm, Disappearing Species: The Social Challenge_>Worldwatch Paper 22 July 1978. • A. and A. Erhlich, Extinction; $fJLc pc<Tf /iouLi-ty A/Cm/ Ho(- P.H. Raven, ’Ethics and attitudes" in Conservation of Threatened Plants3 J.B. Simmons et aL) , Plenum, New York, 1976. (ed �/UoT^l f ( / Schematic c ;)t>^e of TWO paradigms* perspn-PJ. unetary 1. 2» 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. —-5 16 ■> 17. r 18. ' 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. Z 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 394. « Machine metaphor " ---Reductionist linear --------------- Nature as instrumental ------ “* *" Observer spirt from nature Causal ®odels-®achanisticZ------- / Consciousness as epiphenomena1 Dead matter Growth Z Quantitative Non-Dialectical z Discrete things Knowledge as power ™— No Spiritual dimensions Z-——— Technology as power —— Having —— Machine paradigms y-—------ ~ Mastery of nature fro© outside -Z External relations ---- *-----Subject-object separation -Z-— Centralization Design &» technique ---------- ~~ Specialism Z .— Training - skills alone ‘Z —-—~ Anthropocentric —-----Corporation </ — Competition y ——------ Uniformity Z --------- —**“ Machine planet x ----------Science vs. Religion Z-——~—• Limited perspective Z^—------Captive of its own mythology X— organic metaphor holistic z mult1-dimensiona1 (Hi erarchial) intrinsic value in things Participator-Agent scausal-etochastic ' consciousness irreduciable Living matter - energy Development Qualitative (changas) Z Dialectical Z . Fields and processes Z Coderst&nding and wisdom Spiritual dimensions Z Appropriate technology Z Being r.y Ecological paradigm Z ' Mastery of self v' Internal and external relations Subject-object reciprocity z"" Decentralisation 1 Design as art ^Z Cultivation of whole person . education - balanced Z Transpersonal Z Community Z cooperation Z diversity and symbiosis Z Gaia Hypothesis (Living Planet) Science & Religion Interact Z' Open poesibilities^jZ Intentional myth z>»~£ y �■^/Y U~&-Y tot zz> (A SVYK X /.. _Ja_ Z&s z/ z^< f , "u « /eZTK-i ��AfO ^^)r/77/ 7~?f7~M/$ o/c~f7/^ 6^1^ 35? ^7 (cJi^/rvL i^^JL - ��/l/3 7~ef ' ; 'fd’J C_J»------ <ej r 'z-- ' y & ^~~7J f f £<—• <• >/-< f^lr< <dj hd c/c^O- _ ytA 4>-2 <% -<r "t 7fise-SO J* / <</ fit^ r&ft o^/i^-f-^ ^-z^ <^f a. ' • ■ Z^z> /x^a fiH/t t^<^o /CaJAj/rt Zie ciJ^^/ q'l'd. O^'J'^f/^s- ti^^-r' ��� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Notes, Correspondences and Marginalia Description An account of the resource In one obituary, Sylvan's handwriting was said to have "looked like the oscilloscope for a patient in intensive care", and thus "not for the timid". Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document /•'^Ltf 3. L. 4/(7 a' A~///frj y7W 1 • 7 S‘' " /^\ » \ / J iA I'V’-Vu / Ae^ 6jCx<z-' X-~——ft, or nj> i5^^r^rX37LZL< NuK^S -r------ —----- —----__ *— Wvj , q) 6 7 7 % J r The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Cutting (photocopy), two pages (title page and page 125) from Weisskopf WA (1971) Alienation and economics, Dutton. (2 leaves) 7 v~7/ -- --- ------ tZ ' /)e/C^ ~7 /^?) ^~y- / / ■'rf.. // /2'<f / THE AGE OF [THE REALISATION OF] LIMITS? 1. Growth versus Limits. A phenomenon of the contemporary ags. is increasing awareness of limits, espeO^ally material limits, due to resource and energy limitations. Hence, in part, the limits to growth (in part because there are other major elements in models which reveal limits to growth: pollution, etc.). population, The awareness is not a new one - the ancient Greeks put con­ siderable emphasis on limits - but was largely lost sight of in modern times until recently. Although some material limitations are now widely reetrgjinised, in Europe and / North America^ at any rate, social limits are far from widely acknowledged, and there is the idea that in the spiriual sphere there are no limitations. Thus, for example, Perelman: The traditional social sphere is ... transcendental and spiritual. i _• x..- -- i -----~ ‘-v- -ewards the physical and social limits of the economic world (p.394)." ---- A similar open-fredte«ee-«Mte^e<-'in-the-spiritual sphere thenyls presented by T. Haydon (Social Alternatives ~1980). 2. The failure to realist, limits is a basic fault common to Marxism (Barman p.150) and capitalism. further down, p.399, >6 relies on false dichotomy between ’religious influence and secular economic power’ which are said to be * complementary, when one grows, the other declines. Also the suggestion that the£e are social limits^the ’soft paradigm’ is not explained p.415? to W2- -M / Disappearing species and vanishing rainforests: philosophical roots of the problem. * wrong directions, and the Both rainforests and species are disappearing at an unprecedented and accelerating rate. becoming a vastly poorer place ecologically. of great value is being lost or destroyed. The world is fast Which is really bad: for much Thus far there is substantial agreement among a wide range of groups and organisations seriously concerned about vanishing rainforests, disappearing species, and the ecological impover­ ishment of the earth. But penetrate a little further - ask for the causes of this situation, for what should be done about it, why value is being diminished in this way, and why there is any cause for concern - and the agreement begins to evaporate. Probe a little more widely, bringing in assessment of economists, foresters, and politicians, and spokesmen for the elites of ’’developing nations , and agreement ceases, and substantial disagreement sets in. The phenomena of disappearing life, animal and plant, creature and species and ecosystem, are well-enough documented (if not well-enough knowin, in several senses) for a sketch of the background to serve. §2. Background: the rates of loss of species and disappearance of rainforest. First, plants:the extinction of each species of plant is, on the average, accompanied by a ten-|to thirty-fold loss amongst other organisms. Therefore, the diversity of plants i£ the underlying factor controlling the diversity of other organisms and thus the stability of the world ecosystem ... nearly two-thirds of the world’s plant species (at least 150,000species of flowering plants) appear to be tropical in distribution. ... Considering that there will be no undisturbed tropical lowland forest any­ where in the world within twenty-five years, except for relatively small reserves, ... it is certain that many of them will become extinct during our lifetime. To illustrate this point we need only mention that the FAO estimates that about ten million The paper was first sketched for Earthday 1980. The topic is of considerable relevance to Earthday X, for it concerns the ecological impoverishment of the earth (which - despite Earthday - continues to accelerate) and reasons for it especially the underlying philosophical and ideological grounds. (In the latter connection the US has, despite its prominence in ecological concern and in implementing things environmental, much to answer for.) 2. hectares [1979 estimates are 16 million hectares] of tropical forest are being felled annually. ... One supposes ... that at least a third of [tropical plant species] will be threatened or extinct by the end of the century, with the first major wave of extinction in South-east Asia and New Guine^ ... (Raven 1976). Second, animals:It has been estimated that if current Saends in massive forest clearing continue, about one-third of the species now found in humid tropical forests - perhaps 15 to 20Z of all species on earth - will be extinct only 20 years from now, and many more in the ensuing decades. This would be one of the greatest impoverishments ever suffered. |x----- —Third, rainforests:Every minute 30 hectares (about 75 acres) of the world s rain— ^forests are being destroyed. The issue can be sharply p^roc^ssed by considering the world’s tropical rainforests, where major Looweo are occurring. The tropical moist forests are believed to contain between 2 and 5 million species from 2/5ths to ^planet’s total . Thus i£ 1 million species are lost by the end of the twentieth century, the I result would be the extinction of more than - perhaps much more than - l/5th of the world’s . (Myers, p.4 & p.113). Other estimates differ somewhat, but all serve to make the main point; staggering ecological and biological losses and impoverishment. §2. Reasons and causes^ actdon and fataldsm (ineu^'i/Lity). be disentangled. There is much to There are reasons for and against destroying rain-forests and their dependent species, reasons which divide into shallower reasons and deeper reasons. The familiar shallow reasons against are those that answer back in one way or another to human interests, and concern the pros and cons of rain­ forests as sources of genetic diversity and gene pools, as natural biological sources for medicines, as uftkt catchment protection areas, and to prevent and stop flooding, as buffer and quarantine zones, as refuges for plants and animals. The inadequacy of these sorts of reasons is not difficult to discern; and the strategies they lead to would only sewe- bits and pieces here and there. , -i -i _ a_i_ _ Furthermore the onus is^wrong way round too, as well as the jacamng j not reaching to any social depth. What needs to say here is: Why is all 3. this happening? What justifies it? The onus is on those who try to proceed, who are doing the doing, interfering destruction and demise. The shallower reasons for tend to rely on the character of humans, their attitudes and aspirations and now rather inevitable dominance. causes fail. Ini^t^l shallow explanatory theses to be critically assessed and rejected include these: 1. The overpopulation argument: ’unless the population explosion can be damped down, wildlife will not survive’ 2. Economistic arguments: (Webb, 1979). forest destruction will alleviate poverty and provides jobs and foreign revenue. Rather, as forester Westoby recently explained, ’the unpalatable fact, for foresters, is that forest industries have done very little to raise the welfare of the urban and rural masses in developing countries; instead resources and wealth have been transferred to the rich industrialised countries’ (or at least certain parts of their populations). Westoby, who perhaps optimistically sees elements of change in the world, went on to explain, colourfully, somewhat deeper issues: of policies of self-reliance, ’The growth the struggles on every continent by the dispossessed and hungry millions to win a fair and decent life, to break out of the power of landlords, of moneylenders, of the agents of foreign capital will be decisive in the future ... foresters ... have historically supported power, landed property, and the status quo, and acted as the gendarme of the landed proprietor’ (emphasis added). [Even where the people originally held the land, it has been removed from them by military power in such places as Indonesia.] Although this begins to bring out how it is that major forest destruct­ ion, for example, is not being undertaken by local people themselves,but by large foreign companies (with the co-operation of a ruling ’’western" elite in countries involved, elites characteristically propped up in turn by "western" capital and armsj), it does not explain why "western"—style com­ panies (Japanese as well as American and British) are, with considerable government support, engaged in these activities. Again, there are shallow economic reasons, e.g. growth of GNP, consumer demand, etc. But in fact the bulk of tropical forest goes into pulp and paper most of which is used for packaging, which most people do not, in any good sense, choose to purchase, but find it "thrust upon them" and difficult to avoid. §4. Getting to the roots, historical and ideological. And so on. The deeper reasons are the underlying attitudes to the natural world that are held by western exploit­ ing powers, attitudes such as human chauvinism, which have a very long history, and which were shaped and enforced first by the Renaissance, then the Enlight­ enment, and more recently by both positivism and Marxism. The main object of the paper is to show how these attitudes figure in such practical matters as forest destruction and its justification, to outline [again] criticism of them, and to indicate a long minority criticism of them, running from the Germanic Sturm und Drang movement through classical anarchism to the counter culture §5. the modern deeper environmental movement. Wrong strategic directions: the potiticaZ thrust. WORLD (ECOLOGICAL) IMPOVERISHMENT: IDEOLOGICAL BASES AND EXCUSES. World ecological impoverishment is world impoverishment, because much of great value is being lost without due value recompense. at rapidly accelerating rate: It is occurring there is little cause for celebration of ^arthday X. 1. The mounting ecological losses. The phenomenon is well enough documented within the limits of our rather abysmal knowledge awd of the systems^ species and individuals being lost. 78). (For a carefully referenced survey see Eckholm REFERENCES E. Eckholm, Disappearing Species: The Social Challenge_>Worldwatch Paper 22 July 1978. • A. and A. Erhlich, Extinction; $fJLc pc<Tf /iouLi-ty A/Cm/ Ho(- P.H. Raven, ’Ethics and attitudes" in Conservation of Threatened Plants3 J.B. Simmons et aL) , Plenum, New York, 1976. (ed /UoT^l f ( / Schematic c ;)t>^e of TWO paradigms* perspn-PJ. unetary 1. 2» 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. —-5 16 ■> 17. r 18. ' 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. Z 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 394. « Machine metaphor " ---Reductionist linear --------------- Nature as instrumental ------ “* *" Observer spirt from nature Causal ®odels-®achanisticZ------- / Consciousness as epiphenomena1 Dead matter Growth Z Quantitative Non-Dialectical z Discrete things Knowledge as power ™— No Spiritual dimensions Z-——— Technology as power —— Having —— Machine paradigms y-—------ ~ Mastery of nature fro© outside -Z External relations ---- *-----Subject-object separation -Z-— Centralization Design &» technique ---------- ~~ Specialism Z .— Training - skills alone ‘Z —-—~ Anthropocentric —-----Corporation </ — Competition y ——------ Uniformity Z --------- —**“ Machine planet x ----------Science vs. Religion Z-——~—• Limited perspective Z^—------Captive of its own mythology X— organic metaphor holistic z mult1-dimensiona1 (Hi erarchial) intrinsic value in things Participator-Agent scausal-etochastic ' consciousness irreduciable Living matter - energy Development Qualitative (changas) Z Dialectical Z . Fields and processes Z Coderst&nding and wisdom Spiritual dimensions Z Appropriate technology Z Being r.y Ecological paradigm Z ' Mastery of self v' Internal and external relations Subject-object reciprocity z"" Decentralisation 1 Design as art ^Z Cultivation of whole person . education - balanced Z Transpersonal Z Community Z cooperation Z diversity and symbiosis Z Gaia Hypothesis (Living Planet) Science & Religion Interact Z' Open poesibilities^jZ Intentional myth z>»~£ y ■^/Y U~&-Y tot zz> (A SVYK X /.. _Ja_ Z&s z/ z^< f , "u « /eZTK-i AfO ^^)r/77/ 7~?f7~M/$ o/c~f7/^ 6^1^ 35? ^7 (cJi^/rvL i^^JL - /l/3 7~ef ' ; 'fd’J C_J»------ <ej r 'z-- ' y & ^~~7J f f £<—• <• >/-< f^lr< <dj hd c/c^O- _ ytA 4>-2 <% -<r "t 7fise-SO J* / <</ fit^ r&ft o^/i^-f-^ ^-z^ <^f a. ' • ■ Z^z> /x^a fiH/t t^<^o /CaJAj/rt Zie ciJ^^/ q'l'd. O^'J'^f/^s- ti^^-r'  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 61, Item 1781: Notes and cutting on environment ; Draft of The age of (the realisation of) limits? Subject The topic of the resource Various handwritten notes on scrap paper, and cutting from Weisskopf WA (1971) Alienation and economics, Dutton. Includes typescript draft of The age of (the realisation of) limits? by Richard Sylvan, with handwritten emendations, undated. Description An account of the resource Verso of scrap paper not digitised. Cutting redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Title in collection finding aid: Writings of RS & VP on environment. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Val+Plumwood&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Val Plumwood</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 61, Item 1781 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, <a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a>. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [22] leaves. 14.14 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:bf93e5a">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:bf93e5a</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Australian National Univeristy - Second Bookcase - Bottom Shelf Australian National University Office Australian National University Office > Second Bookcase > Bottom Shelf Box 61: Ethics and Theoretical Ethics https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/75fc64a2f672780af3de8a71e4e815bb.pdf cc1ffac27c9576ab7491fb57f389143a PDF Text Text SOME ETHICAL ASPECTS OF ENERGY OPTIONS. R. and V. Routley Plumwood Mountain Box 37 Braidwood, NSW. 2622. Major ethical issues intrude conspicuously into the question For example, the Kantian question: of energy choice. what ought we to do (or try to do) in the awkward circumstances that will shortly face us on the energy-front? And Aristotle’s question: What is a a question transposed these days into questions as good life like? to quality of life and the extent to which quality genuinely depends on quantity of energy (Aristotle thought, by the way, that a good life required only a modicum of material goods.) questions such as: And traditional What are we morally entitled to do to others, and with respect to nature? a question extended to include future others and now asked seriously as regards wild nature. modern questions such as: And more which sorts of consumer demand — especially of energy-intensive goods - should be met? It is evident enough then, without going into details , that ethical questions have an important bearing on main issues on energy choice and that a pure social engineering approach to the problem is bound to write in much that calls for examination or rejection. But it is often supposed - mistakenly - that the ethical issues are adequately taken care of in the structures we already have, e.g. through internal political and legal structures and by international legal arrangements. Suppose, it is said, the question of replacement of burners in a Japanese electricity station arises, and the Japanese decide to replace the burners by nuclear ones. routine political way. wider morality? for the Japanese. The matter is approved in a Who are we to say that the matter is one of It is a matter of internal pclitical arrangements Suppose, to begin to see that this is not so, that a nation decides to install(or replace in the course of modern­ �2. isation) the burners in a concentration camp, and that the matter is approved in a routine political fashion and meets all internal legal requirements. We are almost all going to say that the matter is one of wider morality. And so also is taking choices on the life, health and well being of future people in a nuclear adventure. More generally, pollution, and especially non-local types of pollution such as nuclear pollution, raises ethical issues which transcend conventional national and political boundaries. For the effects of pollution are often not locally contained, polluted air or water may move far afield to affect even features of the world, such as climate and ocean levels. The idea that the ethics of such matters is satisfactorily regulated by international legal arrangements - agreements, pacts, contracts and the like or international regulatory agencies (where they operate) - is likewise unsound. For the arrangements commonly bear little relation to what is considered right or just: they may have been arrived at by expediency or, at best, through moral compromise, and they may reflect immediate self-interest rather than morality. Just as legal principles are in general neither necessary nor sufficient as moral principles, so international legal arrangements are no substitute for morality, and usually do not even offer, a poor reflection of ethical arrangements. More difficult to dispose of, and more insidious, are engineering approaches to morality built into models of an economic cast, e.g. benefit-cost balance sheets, risk assessment models, etc. §1. It is a commonplace nowadays that there is no method of pro­ viding for future energy needs which will not involve substantial costs to someone, and that these costs must just be accepted as part of the price we pay for our advanced technological society and our high living standard. "If you want the benefits you must be prepared to pay the costs" is part of the new conventional wisdom �3. on energy. The model is that of a simple economic transaction, for example someone going into a shop and buying paper towels — she wants the paper so she must be prepared to pay over the money representing the equivalent of the cost of the paper in unpleasant labour, forest destruction, etc. But here, on energy, as in so many other places, the conventional wisdom is not to be trusted. For the transaction model suggests that the costs and benefits are evenly distributed, that those who benefit pay the costs and vice versa. is very often But with energy options this not so, and in fact this is one of the more important ways in which the ethical aspects of the energy issue arise. The conventional transaction model is an attempt to gloss over crucial ethical aspects of the problem. Again, the energy issue raises questions about the goals (ends) and values of society, and is not just a disagreement about the best means of achieving unquestioned or accepted goals, and it has an important bearing too on the distribution of power both economic and political between various groups. Thus are involved then crucial political as well as ethical aspects, and these too the simple transaction model attempts to sweep under the carpet. The simple transaction model, despite its appeal to the technological mind, and to those who are anxious to maintain the myth of the political and value freedomness of science and technology, is quite inadequate, for it does not reflect significant distributional features of the energy problem. It is in fact an attempt to ignore, deny or gloss over the crucial political and ethical aspects of the energy issue, and to avoid facing the social and ethical choices involved. A more sophisticated relative of the transaction model is now called risk assessment, which purports to provide a comparison between the relative risks attached to different energy options which settles their ethical status. The following lines of argument are �4. encountered in risk assessment as applied to energy options: (i) if option a imposes costs on fewer people than option b then option a is preferable to option b; (ii) option a involves a total net cost in terms of cost to people (e.g. deaths, injuries, etc.) which is less than of option b, 3 which is already accepted; therefore option a is acceptable. For example, the number likely to be killed by nuclear power stations is less than the likely number killed by cigarette smoking, which is accepted: So nuclear power stations are acceptable. A little reflection reveals that this sort of risk assessment argument involves the same kind of fallacy as the transaction model. It is far too simple-minded, and it ignores distributional and other relevant aspects of the context. In order to obtain an ethical assessment we should need a much fuller picture and we should need to know at least these things:- do the costs and benefits go to the same parties; and is the person who undertakes the risks also the person who receives the benefits or primarily, as in driving or cigarette smoking, or are costs imposed on other parties who do not benefit? It is only if the parties are the same in the case of the options compared, and there are no such distributional problems, that a comparison on such a basis would be valid.4 This is rarely the case, and it is not so in the case of risk assessments of energy options. Secondly, does the person incur the risk as a result of an activity which he knowingly undertakes in a situation where he has a reasonable choice, knowing it entails the risk, etc., and is the level of risk in proportion to the level of the relevant activity, e.g. as in smoking? Thirdly, for what reason is the risk imposed: or a relatively trivial reason? is it for a serious A risk that is ethically acceptable for a serious reason may not be ethically acceptably for a trivial reason. Both the arguments (i) and (ii) are often trying to justify nuclear power. employed in The second argument (ii) involves �5. the fallacies of the first (i) and an additional set, namely that of forgetting that the health risks in the nuclear sense are cumulative, and in the eyes of many people already high if not too high. Despite a certain superficial plausibility, so-called risk assessment as a method of comparing the ethical status of energy options is little more than a bundle of fallacies deceptively packaged in pseudo-scientific wrappings. It purports to give a simple apparently precise and scientific method of evaluating the ethical status of energy options, but in fact it depends on a number of hidden assumptions about which factors are relevant and which can be ignored in an ethical assessment, which when brought out for examination can be seen to be guite unacceptable. §2. The maxim "If you want the benefits you have to accept the costs" is one thing and the maxim "If I want the benefits then you have to accept the costs (or some of them at least)" is another and very different thing. It is a widely accepted moral principle that one is not, in general, entitled to simply transfer costs of a significant kind arising from an activity which benefits oneself onto other parties who are not involved in the activity and are not beneficiaries. This transfer principle is especially clear in cases where the significant costs include an effect on life or health or a risk thereof, and where the benefit to the benefitting party is of a noncrucial or dispensible nature. (Thus one is not usually entitled to harm, or risk harming, another in the process of benefitting oneself.) Suppose, for example, we consider a village which produces, as a result of the industrial process by which it lives, a noxious waste material which is expensive and difficult to dispose/ye^t creates a risk to life and health if undisposed of. Instead of giving up their industrial process and turning to some other way of making a living such as farming the surrounding �6. countryside, they persist with this way of life but ship their problem on a one-way delivery service to the next village. The inhabitants of this village are then forced to face the problem either of undertaking the expensive and difficult disposal process or of sustaining risks to their own lives and health. Most of us would see this kind of transfer of costs as morally unacceptable. From this arises a necessary condition for energy options: that to be morally acceptable they should not involve the transfer of significant costs or risks of harm onto parties who are not involved, do not use the energy source or do not benefit corres­ pondingly from its use. Included in the scope of this condition are future people, i.e. not merely people living at the present time 7 but also future generations (those of the next villages). The distribution of costs and damage in such a fashion, i.e. onto non­ beneficiaries is a characteristic of certain widespread and serious forms of pollution, and is one of its most objectionable morel features. It is a corollary of the condition that we should not hand the world on to our successors in substantially worse shape than we received it - the transmission principle. For if we did then that would be a significant transfer of costs. (The corollary can be independently argued for on the basis of certain ethical theories, in particular contract theories such as Rawls’.) Some philosophers8 have attempted to undercut the trans­ mission principle, arguing that we are not morally obligated to make sacrifices for the future. Making sacrifices is however signifi­ cantly different from refraining from passing on costs, and it is the latter which is mainly at issue. We might be making sacrifices, for example, if we made ourselves worse off than future people might be normally expected to be in order that they might be better off than us. We are passing on our costs when we make them worse off �7. than they would normally be because of some activity which benefits us. We may not be morally obliged to make sacrifices for future people, but we do have a moral obligation not to pass on our costs, and our obligations in this respect do not just apply to the next generation, but to any set of people who could be affected. In terms of the necessary condition we can undertake some limited comparison of energy options from an ethical standpoint. It is very doubtful that the main options that are being seriously considered meet this condition for moral acceptibility ; in particular it is extremely doubtful that nuclear energy options do so. Nuclear energy appears to represent a classic case of passing on costs and risks to nonbeneficiaries, especially future people, because of the way in which nuclear waste created now produces risks and problems for future people. Unless a rigorously safe method of storage is employed, as many as 40,000 generations of people have to face costs in the shape of risks to health and life arising from the energy consumption of at most perhaps 10 generations. even worse when The situation is one reflects on the fact that many of the purposes for which this energy will be required are of a dispensible and unnecessary (and even undesirable) nature, and energy use of an extravagant and needless kind would undoubtedly be involved in order for the big increases in per capita energy consumption which justify much of the nuclear expansion program in the industrialised world to be reached. Not only would costs be passed on to people in the distant future to whom no benefits seem to accrue but his is done 9 for reasons that cannot be seen as pressing or needful. The waste disposal aspect of nuclear power production is not the only way in which the nuclear option may pass on problems and costs to nonbene­ ficiaries: unless an unrealistic perfection in the handling, mining, transport and processing and reprocessing of nuclear fuels and waste �8. is assumed, various forms of widespread radioactive pollution could occur which would affect not only those who use and benefit from the energy source but also very many who do not, especially m the third world.10 We have heard a good deal recently from some local quarters (the PR machinery of the Australian National University) about how the nuclear waste disposal problem has been solved, and the objections on the grounds of waste disposal eleminated. Of course a number of similar claims have been made in the past, and there never was a problem according to hard-line nuclear advocates of nuclear power. There are good reasons for treating these claims with some scepticism, and not merely because of disagreement among the parties, but because what we have in effect with the final "solution is yet another proposal for a possible method of treating waste with significant gaps in the arguments, a considerable lack of experimental and practical support, and so on.11 We must be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that there is a completely safe procedure before claims can be responsibily made that a problem of such seriousness has been technically solved. It is irresponsible, especially on the part of university authorities, to give the impression that such a problem is solved or eliminated when so much remains to be done and when reasonable doubts may still be raised as they may in this case. An even more important reason why the claims that the problem has been eliminated have to be rejected is that even if a method of disposal can be experimentally (or even commercially) demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt to be completely safe, it is not the technical possibility of safe disposal that is important from an ethical standpoint but the actual practical likelihood of such a method being used. Firstly, it is worth �9. bearing in mind that the new miracle method was immediately rejected by some of the pronuclear establishment as both expensive (despite optimistic cost estimates) and unnecessary, which does not give a very hopeful prognosis for its use. There are moreover reasons for thinking that governments may not want or favour permanent irretrievable disposal methods. They may want to keep open their options for employing waste either for military purposes or for use in breeder reactors or elsewhere. There is in fact little reason to believe that nuclear pollution will be treated in a different fashion from other forms of pollution, where the mere fact that there are satisfactory methods of control is by no means sufficient to guarantee their effective employment, especially if they are expensive. It would be methodologically unsound to ignore these risk elements arising from social and political factors and to regard the problem as a purely technological one which can be classed as eliminated the moment someone puts forward a promising looking technical proposal. The practical likelihood, even with a disposal method proven safe beyond reasonable doubt, remains - that nuclear power will impose costs on future people who do not benefit, that future people will either be forced to go to great expense and trouble to dispose safely of the nuclear wastes generated by our consumption, or that they will have to pay the price in their own lives and health for inadequate disposal or storage of the wastes generated by us. For these reasons, we belive that the nuclear energy option remains morally unacceptable! and unacceptable not merely from a particular ethical standpoint, but in terms of common ground from a range of ethical positions. §3. One cannot pretend that the future energy option that is frequently contrasted with nuclear, namely coal, is particularly attractive - because of the likelihood of really serious (air) �10. pollution and associated phenomena such as acid rain and atmosphere heating not to mention the despoliation caused by extensive strip mining all of which will result from its use in meeting very high Such an option would also fail, projected consumption figures. it seems, to meet the necessary condition, because it would impose widespread costs on nonbeneficiaries for some concentrated benefits to some profit takers and to some users who do not pay the full costs x. 13 of production and replacement. These are the conventional options and a third is often added which emphasizes soft or benign technologies, such as those of solar energy. The fundamental choice, such options tend to neglect, is not technological but social, and involves both the restructuring of production away from energy intensive uses: at a more basic level there is a choice between consumeristic and nonconsumeristic futures. These more fundamental choices between social alternatives, con­ ventional technologically-oriented discussion tends to obscure. It is not just a matter of deciding in which way to meet unexamined goals but also a matter of examining the goals. That is, we are not just faced with the question of comparing different technologies or substitute ways of meeting some fixed or given demand or level of consumption, and of trying to see whether we can meet this with soft rather than hard technologies; we are also faced, and primarily, with the matter of examing those alleged needs and the cost of society that creates them. It is not just a question of devising less damaging ways to meet these alleged needs conceived of us inevitable and unchangeable. (Hence there are solar ways of producing unnecessary trivia no one really wants, as opposed to nuclear ways). Of course one does not want to deny that these softer options are superior to the clearly ethically unacceptable features of the others. �lie But it is doubtful that any technology however benign in principle will be likely to leave a tolerable world for future people if it is expected to meet limitless and uncontrolled energy consumption and demands. Even the more benign technologies such as solar technology could be used in a way which creates costs for future people and are likely to result in a deteriorated world being handed on to them. Consider, for example, the effect on the world's forests, which are commonly counted as a solar resource, of use for production of methonal or of electricity by woodchipping, as already planned by forest authorities in California and contem­ plated by many other energy organisations. Few would object to the use of genuine waste material for energy production, but the un­ restricted exploitation of forests - whether it goes under the name of "solar energy" or not - to meet ever increasing energy demands could well be the last nail in the coffin of the world's already hard pressed natural forests. The effects of such additional demands on the maintenance of the forests are often discounted, even by soft technologicalists, by the simple expedient of waving around the label 'renewable resource'. Most forests are in principle renewable, it is a true, given a certain (low) rate and kind of exploitation, but in fact there are now very few forestry operations anywhere in the world where the forests are treated as completely renewable in the sense of the renewal of all their values.in many regions too the rate of exploitation which would enable renewal has already been exceeded, so that a total decline is widely thought to be immanent if not already well advanced. It certainly has begun in some regions, and for some forest types (such as rainforest types) which are being lost for the future. The addition of a major further demand source that for energy— and especially one which shows every sign of being not readily limitable, on top of the present sources is one which �12. anyone with a realistic appreciation of the conduct of forestry operations, who is also concerned with longterm conservation of the forests and remaining natural communities, must regard with alarm. The result of massive deforestation for energy purposes, resembling the deforestation of England at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, again for energy purposes, could be extensive and devastating erosion in steeper lands and tropical areas, desertification in more arid regions, possible climatic change, and massive impoverishment of natural ecosystems. Some of us do not want to pass on - we are not entitled to pass on - a deforested world to the future, any more than we want to pass on one poisoned by nuclear products or polluted by coal products. In short, a mere switch to a more benign technology - important though this is - with­ out any more basic structural and social change is not enough. The deeper social options involve challenging and trying to change a social structure which promotes consumerism and an economic structure which encourages the use of highly energy-intensive modes of production. This means, for instance, trying to change a social structure in which those who are lucky enough to make it into the work force are cogs in a production machine over which they have very little real control and in which most people do unpleasant or boring work from which they derive very little real satisfaction in order to obtain the reward of consumer goods and services. A society in which social rewards are obtained primarily from products rather than processes, from consumption, rather than from satisfaction in work and in social relations and other activities, is bound to be one which generates a vast amount of unnecessary consumption. (A production system that produces goods not to meet genuine needs but for created and non-genuine needs is virtually bound to overproduce.) Consumption frequently becomes a substitute for satisfaction in other areas. �13. §4. Conclusions. The social change option is a hard option, but it seems the only way to avoid passing on serious costs to the future - and there are other sorts of reasons than such ethical ones for taking it.15 The ethical conditions thus lead us into political issues, but this is not very surprising, as there is no sharp division between the areas (and political theories always presuppose an ethics). This kind of social change option tends to be obscured in most discussions of energy options and how to meet our energy needs, in part because it questions underlying values of current social arrangements. The conventional discussion proceeds by taking alleged demand (often restated as wants or needs) as unchallengeable,16 and the issue to be one of which technology can be most profitably employed to meet them. This effectively presents a false choice, and is the result of taking needs and demand as lacking a social context so that the social structure which produces the needs is similarly taken as unchallengable and unchange­ able. The social changes that the option requires will be strongly resisted because they mean changes in current social organisation and power structure, and to the extent that the option represents some kind of threat to parts of present political and economic arrangements it is not surprising that official energy option discussion proceeds by misrepresenting and often obscuring it. �FOOTNOTES (1) A more detailed case would look at what is involved in decision methods for choosing between options on energy and would show that general decision modellings, e.g. optimisation modellings for best choice, necessarily involve evaluative factors, some of them of a>n ethical kind. The ethical components are particularly conspicuous in elementary decision theory where the assessment of each outcome is obtained by multiplying the probability of the outcome by its desirability, the desirability being an overtly evaluative question often involving ethical components. Any idea that decision theory is somehow a value-free way of reaching decisions is thoroughly wrong. The pure theory may be a logico—mathematical one, but its significant applications are not. (2) The pernicious underlying assumption - that major ethical issues are not really a matter of individual concern and can, and perhaps should, be left to elected government_or appointed bureaucrats - can be despatched in a rather similar way. (3) Even then relevant environmental factors may have been neglected. (4) There are variations on (i) and (ii) which multiply costs In this way risks, against numbers such as probabilities. construed as probable costs, can be taken into account in the assessment. (Alternatively, risks may be assessed through such familiar methods as insurance). A principle varying (ii), and formulated as follows: (ii') a is ethically acceptable if (for some b) a includes no more risks than b and b is socially accepted, was the basic ethical principle in terms of which the Cluff Lake Board of Inquiry recently decided that nuclear power development in Saskatchewan is ethically acceptable: see Cluff Lake Board of Inquiry Final Report, Department of Environment, Government of Saskatchewan, 1978, p.305 and p.288. In this report, a is nuclear power and b is either activities clearly accepted by society as alternative power sources. In other applications b has been taken as cigarette smoking, motoring, mining and even the Vietnam war(’) The points made in the text do not exhaust the objections to principles (i)-(ii’). The principles are certainly ethically substantive, since an ethical consequence cannot be deduced.from nonethical premisses, but they have an inadmissible conventional character. For look at the origin of b: b may be socially accepted though it is no longer socially acceptable, or though its social acceptibility is no longer so clearcut and it would not have been socially accepted if as much as is.now known.had been known when it was introduced. What is required in (ii’), for instance, for the argument to begin to look convincing is then 'ethically acceptable1 rather than ’socially accepted'. But even with the amendments the principles are invalid, for the reasons given in the text. It is not disconcerting that these arguments do not work. It would be sad to see yet another area lost to the experts/ namely ethics to actuaries. �2. (5) A main part of the trouble with the models is that they are narrowly utilitarian, and like utilitarianism they neglect distributional features, involve naturalistic fallacies, etc. Really they try to treat as an unconstrained optimisation what is a deontically constrained optimisation: see R. and V. Routley 'An expensive repair kit for utilitariansim'. (6) Apparent exceptions to the principle such as taxation (and redistribution of income generally) vanish when wealth is construed (as it has to be if taxation is to be properly justified) as at least partly a social asset unfairly monopo­ lised by a minority of the population. Examples such as that of motoring dangerously do not constitute counterexamples to the principle; for one is not morally entitled to so motor. (7) As we have argued in detail in R. and V. Routley 'Nuclear energy and obligations to the future \ Inquiry 21 (1978), pp. 133-179 . (8) For example, Passmore in Man's Responsibility for Nature, Duckworth, London, 1974, chapter 4. (9) A further problem of a less obvious kind is also created for future people; the postponement of the switch away from energyintensive economies, which nuclear power is designed to effect, creates a situation of increasing and critical dependence upon energy-intensive uses at a time when there is eve.ry prospect that Nevertheless they cannot be sustained for more than a short time. the growth of energy-intensive societies and lifestyles is encouraged and fostered. The switch is accordingly made far more difficult than it is at present, and thus we may well be placing future people in very difficult positions, with a real energy crisis. Continuance on a high energy path in the present circumstances seems then to violate the commonly recognised principle that we have an obligation to hand on to the next generation a society that is not conspicuously worse than that which we received. (10) A few nuclear plant accidents, for example, would significantly increase background levels of radiation, so that millions of people who are not involved might have to carry risks or costs because of the energy consumption of a few wealthy nations or wealthy elites. The increased risk of nuclear war is another way in which global risks are imposed because of the determination of industrial nations to maintain and increase lavish energy consumption levels. (11) For an excellent discussion of the limitations of the proposed disposal method see B. Martin, 'Radioactive waste disposal: is Synroc the solution?' (12) For the reason that the consequences of failure are so serious: see R. and V. Routley, op. cit. footnote 1. (13) Certainly practical transitional programs may involve temporary and limited use of unacceptable long term commodities such as coal, but in presenting such practical details one should not lose sight of the more basic social and structural changes, and the problem is really one of making those. Similarly practical transitional strategies should make use of such measures as environmental (or replacement) pricing of energy, i.e. so that the price of some energy unit includes the full cost �3. footnote 13 continued. of replacing it by an equivalent unit taking account of environmental cost of production. Other (sometimes coootive) strategies towards more satisfactory alter­ natives should also, of course, be adopted, in particular the removal of institutional barriers to energy conser­ vation and alternative technology (e.g. local government regulations blocking these), and the removal of state assistance to fuel and power industries. (14) Symptomatic of the fact that is it not treated as renewable is that forest economics do not generally allow for full renewability - if they did the losses and deficits on forestry operations would be much more striking than they already are often enough. It is doubtful, furthermore, that energy cropping of forests can be a fully renewable operation if net energy. production is to be worthwhile; see, e.g. the argument m L.R.B. Mann ’Some difficulties with energy farming for portable fuels', and add in the costs of ecosystem maintenance. (15) Certainly it is the only sort of option open to one who takes a deeper ecological perspective. (16) Thus it is argued by representatives of such industries as transportation and petroleum, as for example by McGrowth of the XS Consumption Co., that people want deep freezers, air conditioners, power boats,- It would be authoritarian to stop them satisfying these wants. The argument conveniently ignores the social framework in which such needs and wants arise or are produced. To point to the determination of many such wants at the framework level is not hower to accept a Marxist approach according to which they are entirely determined at the framework level (e.g. by industrial organisation) an . there is no such thing as individual choice or determination at all. It is to see the social framework as a major factor in determining certain kinds of choices such as those for travel and infrastructure and to see apparently individual choices made in such matters as being channelled.and directed by a social framework determined largely in the interests o private profit and advantage. See R.,and V. Routlev, 'Towards a social theory for ecotopia'. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document SOME ETHICAL ASPECTS OF ENERGY OPTIONS. R. and V. Routley Plumwood Mountain Box 37 Braidwood, NSW. 2622. Major ethical issues intrude conspicuously into the question For example, the Kantian question: of energy choice. what ought we to do (or try to do) in the awkward circumstances that will shortly face us on the energy-front? And Aristotle’s question: What is a a question transposed these days into questions as good life like? to quality of life and the extent to which quality genuinely depends on quantity of energy (Aristotle thought, by the way, that a good life required only a modicum of material goods.) questions such as: And traditional What are we morally entitled to do to others, and with respect to nature? a question extended to include future others and now asked seriously as regards wild nature. modern questions such as: And more which sorts of consumer demand — especially of energy-intensive goods - should be met? It is evident enough then, without going into details , that ethical questions have an important bearing on main issues on energy choice and that a pure social engineering approach to the problem is bound to write in much that calls for examination or rejection. But it is often supposed - mistakenly - that the ethical issues are adequately taken care of in the structures we already have, e.g. through internal political and legal structures and by international legal arrangements. Suppose, it is said, the question of replacement of burners in a Japanese electricity station arises, and the Japanese decide to replace the burners by nuclear ones. routine political way. wider morality? for the Japanese. The matter is approved in a Who are we to say that the matter is one of It is a matter of internal pclitical arrangements Suppose, to begin to see that this is not so, that a nation decides to install(or replace in the course of modern­ 2. isation) the burners in a concentration camp, and that the matter is approved in a routine political fashion and meets all internal legal requirements. We are almost all going to say that the matter is one of wider morality. And so also is taking choices on the life, health and well being of future people in a nuclear adventure. More generally, pollution, and especially non-local types of pollution such as nuclear pollution, raises ethical issues which transcend conventional national and political boundaries. For the effects of pollution are often not locally contained, polluted air or water may move far afield to affect even features of the world, such as climate and ocean levels. The idea that the ethics of such matters is satisfactorily regulated by international legal arrangements - agreements, pacts, contracts and the like or international regulatory agencies (where they operate) - is likewise unsound. For the arrangements commonly bear little relation to what is considered right or just: they may have been arrived at by expediency or, at best, through moral compromise, and they may reflect immediate self-interest rather than morality. Just as legal principles are in general neither necessary nor sufficient as moral principles, so international legal arrangements are no substitute for morality, and usually do not even offer, a poor reflection of ethical arrangements. More difficult to dispose of, and more insidious, are engineering approaches to morality built into models of an economic cast, e.g. benefit-cost balance sheets, risk assessment models, etc. §1. It is a commonplace nowadays that there is no method of pro­ viding for future energy needs which will not involve substantial costs to someone, and that these costs must just be accepted as part of the price we pay for our advanced technological society and our high living standard. "If you want the benefits you must be prepared to pay the costs" is part of the new conventional wisdom 3. on energy. The model is that of a simple economic transaction, for example someone going into a shop and buying paper towels — she wants the paper so she must be prepared to pay over the money representing the equivalent of the cost of the paper in unpleasant labour, forest destruction, etc. But here, on energy, as in so many other places, the conventional wisdom is not to be trusted. For the transaction model suggests that the costs and benefits are evenly distributed, that those who benefit pay the costs and vice versa. is very often But with energy options this not so, and in fact this is one of the more important ways in which the ethical aspects of the energy issue arise. The conventional transaction model is an attempt to gloss over crucial ethical aspects of the problem. Again, the energy issue raises questions about the goals (ends) and values of society, and is not just a disagreement about the best means of achieving unquestioned or accepted goals, and it has an important bearing too on the distribution of power both economic and political between various groups. Thus are involved then crucial political as well as ethical aspects, and these too the simple transaction model attempts to sweep under the carpet. The simple transaction model, despite its appeal to the technological mind, and to those who are anxious to maintain the myth of the political and value freedomness of science and technology, is quite inadequate, for it does not reflect significant distributional features of the energy problem. It is in fact an attempt to ignore, deny or gloss over the crucial political and ethical aspects of the energy issue, and to avoid facing the social and ethical choices involved. A more sophisticated relative of the transaction model is now called risk assessment, which purports to provide a comparison between the relative risks attached to different energy options which settles their ethical status. The following lines of argument are 4. encountered in risk assessment as applied to energy options: (i) if option a imposes costs on fewer people than option b then option a is preferable to option b; (ii) option a involves a total net cost in terms of cost to people (e.g. deaths, injuries, etc.) which is less than of option b, 3 which is already accepted; therefore option a is acceptable. For example, the number likely to be killed by nuclear power stations is less than the likely number killed by cigarette smoking, which is accepted: So nuclear power stations are acceptable. A little reflection reveals that this sort of risk assessment argument involves the same kind of fallacy as the transaction model. It is far too simple-minded, and it ignores distributional and other relevant aspects of the context. In order to obtain an ethical assessment we should need a much fuller picture and we should need to know at least these things:- do the costs and benefits go to the same parties; and is the person who undertakes the risks also the person who receives the benefits or primarily, as in driving or cigarette smoking, or are costs imposed on other parties who do not benefit? It is only if the parties are the same in the case of the options compared, and there are no such distributional problems, that a comparison on such a basis would be valid.4 This is rarely the case, and it is not so in the case of risk assessments of energy options. Secondly, does the person incur the risk as a result of an activity which he knowingly undertakes in a situation where he has a reasonable choice, knowing it entails the risk, etc., and is the level of risk in proportion to the level of the relevant activity, e.g. as in smoking? Thirdly, for what reason is the risk imposed: or a relatively trivial reason? is it for a serious A risk that is ethically acceptable for a serious reason may not be ethically acceptably for a trivial reason. Both the arguments (i) and (ii) are often trying to justify nuclear power. employed in The second argument (ii) involves 5. the fallacies of the first (i) and an additional set, namely that of forgetting that the health risks in the nuclear sense are cumulative, and in the eyes of many people already high if not too high. Despite a certain superficial plausibility, so-called risk assessment as a method of comparing the ethical status of energy options is little more than a bundle of fallacies deceptively packaged in pseudo-scientific wrappings. It purports to give a simple apparently precise and scientific method of evaluating the ethical status of energy options, but in fact it depends on a number of hidden assumptions about which factors are relevant and which can be ignored in an ethical assessment, which when brought out for examination can be seen to be guite unacceptable. §2. The maxim "If you want the benefits you have to accept the costs" is one thing and the maxim "If I want the benefits then you have to accept the costs (or some of them at least)" is another and very different thing. It is a widely accepted moral principle that one is not, in general, entitled to simply transfer costs of a significant kind arising from an activity which benefits oneself onto other parties who are not involved in the activity and are not beneficiaries. This transfer principle is especially clear in cases where the significant costs include an effect on life or health or a risk thereof, and where the benefit to the benefitting party is of a noncrucial or dispensible nature. (Thus one is not usually entitled to harm, or risk harming, another in the process of benefitting oneself.) Suppose, for example, we consider a village which produces, as a result of the industrial process by which it lives, a noxious waste material which is expensive and difficult to dispose/ye^t creates a risk to life and health if undisposed of. Instead of giving up their industrial process and turning to some other way of making a living such as farming the surrounding 6. countryside, they persist with this way of life but ship their problem on a one-way delivery service to the next village. The inhabitants of this village are then forced to face the problem either of undertaking the expensive and difficult disposal process or of sustaining risks to their own lives and health. Most of us would see this kind of transfer of costs as morally unacceptable. From this arises a necessary condition for energy options: that to be morally acceptable they should not involve the transfer of significant costs or risks of harm onto parties who are not involved, do not use the energy source or do not benefit corres­ pondingly from its use. Included in the scope of this condition are future people, i.e. not merely people living at the present time 7 but also future generations (those of the next villages). The distribution of costs and damage in such a fashion, i.e. onto non­ beneficiaries is a characteristic of certain widespread and serious forms of pollution, and is one of its most objectionable morel features. It is a corollary of the condition that we should not hand the world on to our successors in substantially worse shape than we received it - the transmission principle. For if we did then that would be a significant transfer of costs. (The corollary can be independently argued for on the basis of certain ethical theories, in particular contract theories such as Rawls’.) Some philosophers8 have attempted to undercut the trans­ mission principle, arguing that we are not morally obligated to make sacrifices for the future. Making sacrifices is however signifi­ cantly different from refraining from passing on costs, and it is the latter which is mainly at issue. We might be making sacrifices, for example, if we made ourselves worse off than future people might be normally expected to be in order that they might be better off than us. We are passing on our costs when we make them worse off 7. than they would normally be because of some activity which benefits us. We may not be morally obliged to make sacrifices for future people, but we do have a moral obligation not to pass on our costs, and our obligations in this respect do not just apply to the next generation, but to any set of people who could be affected. In terms of the necessary condition we can undertake some limited comparison of energy options from an ethical standpoint. It is very doubtful that the main options that are being seriously considered meet this condition for moral acceptibility ; in particular it is extremely doubtful that nuclear energy options do so. Nuclear energy appears to represent a classic case of passing on costs and risks to nonbeneficiaries, especially future people, because of the way in which nuclear waste created now produces risks and problems for future people. Unless a rigorously safe method of storage is employed, as many as 40,000 generations of people have to face costs in the shape of risks to health and life arising from the energy consumption of at most perhaps 10 generations. even worse when The situation is one reflects on the fact that many of the purposes for which this energy will be required are of a dispensible and unnecessary (and even undesirable) nature, and energy use of an extravagant and needless kind would undoubtedly be involved in order for the big increases in per capita energy consumption which justify much of the nuclear expansion program in the industrialised world to be reached. Not only would costs be passed on to people in the distant future to whom no benefits seem to accrue but his is done 9 for reasons that cannot be seen as pressing or needful. The waste disposal aspect of nuclear power production is not the only way in which the nuclear option may pass on problems and costs to nonbene­ ficiaries: unless an unrealistic perfection in the handling, mining, transport and processing and reprocessing of nuclear fuels and waste 8. is assumed, various forms of widespread radioactive pollution could occur which would affect not only those who use and benefit from the energy source but also very many who do not, especially m the third world.10 We have heard a good deal recently from some local quarters (the PR machinery of the Australian National University) about how the nuclear waste disposal problem has been solved, and the objections on the grounds of waste disposal eleminated. Of course a number of similar claims have been made in the past, and there never was a problem according to hard-line nuclear advocates of nuclear power. There are good reasons for treating these claims with some scepticism, and not merely because of disagreement among the parties, but because what we have in effect with the final "solution is yet another proposal for a possible method of treating waste with significant gaps in the arguments, a considerable lack of experimental and practical support, and so on.11 We must be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that there is a completely safe procedure before claims can be responsibily made that a problem of such seriousness has been technically solved. It is irresponsible, especially on the part of university authorities, to give the impression that such a problem is solved or eliminated when so much remains to be done and when reasonable doubts may still be raised as they may in this case. An even more important reason why the claims that the problem has been eliminated have to be rejected is that even if a method of disposal can be experimentally (or even commercially) demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt to be completely safe, it is not the technical possibility of safe disposal that is important from an ethical standpoint but the actual practical likelihood of such a method being used. Firstly, it is worth 9. bearing in mind that the new miracle method was immediately rejected by some of the pronuclear establishment as both expensive (despite optimistic cost estimates) and unnecessary, which does not give a very hopeful prognosis for its use. There are moreover reasons for thinking that governments may not want or favour permanent irretrievable disposal methods. They may want to keep open their options for employing waste either for military purposes or for use in breeder reactors or elsewhere. There is in fact little reason to believe that nuclear pollution will be treated in a different fashion from other forms of pollution, where the mere fact that there are satisfactory methods of control is by no means sufficient to guarantee their effective employment, especially if they are expensive. It would be methodologically unsound to ignore these risk elements arising from social and political factors and to regard the problem as a purely technological one which can be classed as eliminated the moment someone puts forward a promising looking technical proposal. The practical likelihood, even with a disposal method proven safe beyond reasonable doubt, remains - that nuclear power will impose costs on future people who do not benefit, that future people will either be forced to go to great expense and trouble to dispose safely of the nuclear wastes generated by our consumption, or that they will have to pay the price in their own lives and health for inadequate disposal or storage of the wastes generated by us. For these reasons, we belive that the nuclear energy option remains morally unacceptable! and unacceptable not merely from a particular ethical standpoint, but in terms of common ground from a range of ethical positions. §3. One cannot pretend that the future energy option that is frequently contrasted with nuclear, namely coal, is particularly attractive - because of the likelihood of really serious (air) 10. pollution and associated phenomena such as acid rain and atmosphere heating not to mention the despoliation caused by extensive strip mining all of which will result from its use in meeting very high Such an option would also fail, projected consumption figures. it seems, to meet the necessary condition, because it would impose widespread costs on nonbeneficiaries for some concentrated benefits to some profit takers and to some users who do not pay the full costs x. 13 of production and replacement. These are the conventional options and a third is often added which emphasizes soft or benign technologies, such as those of solar energy. The fundamental choice, such options tend to neglect, is not technological but social, and involves both the restructuring of production away from energy intensive uses: at a more basic level there is a choice between consumeristic and nonconsumeristic futures. These more fundamental choices between social alternatives, con­ ventional technologically-oriented discussion tends to obscure. It is not just a matter of deciding in which way to meet unexamined goals but also a matter of examining the goals. That is, we are not just faced with the question of comparing different technologies or substitute ways of meeting some fixed or given demand or level of consumption, and of trying to see whether we can meet this with soft rather than hard technologies; we are also faced, and primarily, with the matter of examing those alleged needs and the cost of society that creates them. It is not just a question of devising less damaging ways to meet these alleged needs conceived of us inevitable and unchangeable. (Hence there are solar ways of producing unnecessary trivia no one really wants, as opposed to nuclear ways). Of course one does not want to deny that these softer options are superior to the clearly ethically unacceptable features of the others. lie But it is doubtful that any technology however benign in principle will be likely to leave a tolerable world for future people if it is expected to meet limitless and uncontrolled energy consumption and demands. Even the more benign technologies such as solar technology could be used in a way which creates costs for future people and are likely to result in a deteriorated world being handed on to them. Consider, for example, the effect on the world's forests, which are commonly counted as a solar resource, of use for production of methonal or of electricity by woodchipping, as already planned by forest authorities in California and contem­ plated by many other energy organisations. Few would object to the use of genuine waste material for energy production, but the un­ restricted exploitation of forests - whether it goes under the name of "solar energy" or not - to meet ever increasing energy demands could well be the last nail in the coffin of the world's already hard pressed natural forests. The effects of such additional demands on the maintenance of the forests are often discounted, even by soft technologicalists, by the simple expedient of waving around the label 'renewable resource'. Most forests are in principle renewable, it is a true, given a certain (low) rate and kind of exploitation, but in fact there are now very few forestry operations anywhere in the world where the forests are treated as completely renewable in the sense of the renewal of all their values.in many regions too the rate of exploitation which would enable renewal has already been exceeded, so that a total decline is widely thought to be immanent if not already well advanced. It certainly has begun in some regions, and for some forest types (such as rainforest types) which are being lost for the future. The addition of a major further demand source that for energy— and especially one which shows every sign of being not readily limitable, on top of the present sources is one which 12. anyone with a realistic appreciation of the conduct of forestry operations, who is also concerned with longterm conservation of the forests and remaining natural communities, must regard with alarm. The result of massive deforestation for energy purposes, resembling the deforestation of England at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, again for energy purposes, could be extensive and devastating erosion in steeper lands and tropical areas, desertification in more arid regions, possible climatic change, and massive impoverishment of natural ecosystems. Some of us do not want to pass on - we are not entitled to pass on - a deforested world to the future, any more than we want to pass on one poisoned by nuclear products or polluted by coal products. In short, a mere switch to a more benign technology - important though this is - with­ out any more basic structural and social change is not enough. The deeper social options involve challenging and trying to change a social structure which promotes consumerism and an economic structure which encourages the use of highly energy-intensive modes of production. This means, for instance, trying to change a social structure in which those who are lucky enough to make it into the work force are cogs in a production machine over which they have very little real control and in which most people do unpleasant or boring work from which they derive very little real satisfaction in order to obtain the reward of consumer goods and services. A society in which social rewards are obtained primarily from products rather than processes, from consumption, rather than from satisfaction in work and in social relations and other activities, is bound to be one which generates a vast amount of unnecessary consumption. (A production system that produces goods not to meet genuine needs but for created and non-genuine needs is virtually bound to overproduce.) Consumption frequently becomes a substitute for satisfaction in other areas. 13. §4. Conclusions. The social change option is a hard option, but it seems the only way to avoid passing on serious costs to the future - and there are other sorts of reasons than such ethical ones for taking it.15 The ethical conditions thus lead us into political issues, but this is not very surprising, as there is no sharp division between the areas (and political theories always presuppose an ethics). This kind of social change option tends to be obscured in most discussions of energy options and how to meet our energy needs, in part because it questions underlying values of current social arrangements. The conventional discussion proceeds by taking alleged demand (often restated as wants or needs) as unchallengeable,16 and the issue to be one of which technology can be most profitably employed to meet them. This effectively presents a false choice, and is the result of taking needs and demand as lacking a social context so that the social structure which produces the needs is similarly taken as unchallengable and unchange­ able. The social changes that the option requires will be strongly resisted because they mean changes in current social organisation and power structure, and to the extent that the option represents some kind of threat to parts of present political and economic arrangements it is not surprising that official energy option discussion proceeds by misrepresenting and often obscuring it. FOOTNOTES (1) A more detailed case would look at what is involved in decision methods for choosing between options on energy and would show that general decision modellings, e.g. optimisation modellings for best choice, necessarily involve evaluative factors, some of them of a>n ethical kind. The ethical components are particularly conspicuous in elementary decision theory where the assessment of each outcome is obtained by multiplying the probability of the outcome by its desirability, the desirability being an overtly evaluative question often involving ethical components. Any idea that decision theory is somehow a value-free way of reaching decisions is thoroughly wrong. The pure theory may be a logico—mathematical one, but its significant applications are not. (2) The pernicious underlying assumption - that major ethical issues are not really a matter of individual concern and can, and perhaps should, be left to elected government_or appointed bureaucrats - can be despatched in a rather similar way. (3) Even then relevant environmental factors may have been neglected. (4) There are variations on (i) and (ii) which multiply costs In this way risks, against numbers such as probabilities. construed as probable costs, can be taken into account in the assessment. (Alternatively, risks may be assessed through such familiar methods as insurance). A principle varying (ii), and formulated as follows: (ii') a is ethically acceptable if (for some b) a includes no more risks than b and b is socially accepted, was the basic ethical principle in terms of which the Cluff Lake Board of Inquiry recently decided that nuclear power development in Saskatchewan is ethically acceptable: see Cluff Lake Board of Inquiry Final Report, Department of Environment, Government of Saskatchewan, 1978, p.305 and p.288. In this report, a is nuclear power and b is either activities clearly accepted by society as alternative power sources. In other applications b has been taken as cigarette smoking, motoring, mining and even the Vietnam war(’) The points made in the text do not exhaust the objections to principles (i)-(ii’). The principles are certainly ethically substantive, since an ethical consequence cannot be deduced.from nonethical premisses, but they have an inadmissible conventional character. For look at the origin of b: b may be socially accepted though it is no longer socially acceptable, or though its social acceptibility is no longer so clearcut and it would not have been socially accepted if as much as is.now known.had been known when it was introduced. What is required in (ii’), for instance, for the argument to begin to look convincing is then 'ethically acceptable1 rather than ’socially accepted'. But even with the amendments the principles are invalid, for the reasons given in the text. It is not disconcerting that these arguments do not work. It would be sad to see yet another area lost to the experts/ namely ethics to actuaries. 2. (5) A main part of the trouble with the models is that they are narrowly utilitarian, and like utilitarianism they neglect distributional features, involve naturalistic fallacies, etc. Really they try to treat as an unconstrained optimisation what is a deontically constrained optimisation: see R. and V. Routley 'An expensive repair kit for utilitariansim'. (6) Apparent exceptions to the principle such as taxation (and redistribution of income generally) vanish when wealth is construed (as it has to be if taxation is to be properly justified) as at least partly a social asset unfairly monopo­ lised by a minority of the population. Examples such as that of motoring dangerously do not constitute counterexamples to the principle; for one is not morally entitled to so motor. (7) As we have argued in detail in R. and V. Routley 'Nuclear energy and obligations to the future \ Inquiry 21 (1978), pp. 133-179 . (8) For example, Passmore in Man's Responsibility for Nature, Duckworth, London, 1974, chapter 4. (9) A further problem of a less obvious kind is also created for future people; the postponement of the switch away from energyintensive economies, which nuclear power is designed to effect, creates a situation of increasing and critical dependence upon energy-intensive uses at a time when there is eve.ry prospect that Nevertheless they cannot be sustained for more than a short time. the growth of energy-intensive societies and lifestyles is encouraged and fostered. The switch is accordingly made far more difficult than it is at present, and thus we may well be placing future people in very difficult positions, with a real energy crisis. Continuance on a high energy path in the present circumstances seems then to violate the commonly recognised principle that we have an obligation to hand on to the next generation a society that is not conspicuously worse than that which we received. (10) A few nuclear plant accidents, for example, would significantly increase background levels of radiation, so that millions of people who are not involved might have to carry risks or costs because of the energy consumption of a few wealthy nations or wealthy elites. The increased risk of nuclear war is another way in which global risks are imposed because of the determination of industrial nations to maintain and increase lavish energy consumption levels. (11) For an excellent discussion of the limitations of the proposed disposal method see B. Martin, 'Radioactive waste disposal: is Synroc the solution?' (12) For the reason that the consequences of failure are so serious: see R. and V. Routley, op. cit. footnote 1. (13) Certainly practical transitional programs may involve temporary and limited use of unacceptable long term commodities such as coal, but in presenting such practical details one should not lose sight of the more basic social and structural changes, and the problem is really one of making those. Similarly practical transitional strategies should make use of such measures as environmental (or replacement) pricing of energy, i.e. so that the price of some energy unit includes the full cost 3. footnote 13 continued. of replacing it by an equivalent unit taking account of environmental cost of production. Other (sometimes coootive) strategies towards more satisfactory alter­ natives should also, of course, be adopted, in particular the removal of institutional barriers to energy conser­ vation and alternative technology (e.g. local government regulations blocking these), and the removal of state assistance to fuel and power industries. (14) Symptomatic of the fact that is it not treated as renewable is that forest economics do not generally allow for full renewability - if they did the losses and deficits on forestry operations would be much more striking than they already are often enough. It is doubtful, furthermore, that energy cropping of forests can be a fully renewable operation if net energy. production is to be worthwhile; see, e.g. the argument m L.R.B. Mann ’Some difficulties with energy farming for portable fuels', and add in the costs of ecosystem maintenance. (15) Certainly it is the only sort of option open to one who takes a deeper ecological perspective. (16) Thus it is argued by representatives of such industries as transportation and petroleum, as for example by McGrowth of the XS Consumption Co., that people want deep freezers, air conditioners, power boats,- It would be authoritarian to stop them satisfying these wants. The argument conveniently ignores the social framework in which such needs and wants arise or are produced. To point to the determination of many such wants at the framework level is not hower to accept a Marxist approach according to which they are entirely determined at the framework level (e.g. by industrial organisation) an . there is no such thing as individual choice or determination at all. It is to see the social framework as a major factor in determining certain kinds of choices such as those for travel and infrastructure and to see apparently individual choices made in such matters as being channelled.and directed by a social framework determined largely in the interests o private profit and advantage. See R.,and V. Routlev, 'Towards a social theory for ecotopia'.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 71, Item 3: Draft of Some ethical aspects of energy options Subject The topic of the resource Typescript of draft, one page corrected with whiteout, undated. Paper published, Routley R and Routley V (1979) 'Some ethical aspects of energy options' in Diesendorf M, Bartell R, Casey C, Day A, Day LH, Gifford RM and Saddler H (eds), Energy and people: social implications of different energy futures, Society for Social Responsibility in Science A.C.T. Description An account of the resource Unnumbered paper from collection, item number assigned by library staff. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Val+Plumwood&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Val Plumwood</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 71, Item 3 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, <a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a>. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [16] leaves. 14.29 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:b32aba5">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:b32aba5</a> Box 71: Unlisted and Untitled Boxes https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/35e9d8df917f7d8ae32e0943d5ebd99b.pdf c5c9e5bc6ded0b74c1752018d15876e1 PDF Text Text <%///# /(V?fac/ ’ �Nuclear energy and obligations to the future. .. .discussion of values and goods may seem fuzzy and unscientific, but it is the beginning and end of any energy policy ... . (Lovins, 75, xxii). Important ethical issues concerning obligations to the future and evaluative issues as to what sort of world we want to see are raised by proposed nuclear development, but have been largely neglected in current technologically oriented discussion of the development. The first part of the paper considers the arguments of a number of philosophers philosophical positions (e.g. obligations to the future we do have practical, (e.g. Passmore) and c social contract theories) and rejects them. concerning It concludes that and not merely theoretical, moral obligations to the non-immediate future, and that these are not made void by temporal remoteness or some degree of uncertainty about the effects of our nations. The second part of the paper considers a number of examples of crimes against the future and sets the more comp ex nuclear energy case against this background. One philosophical corollary which emerges is the falsity of the still common view that philosophical analysis of moral concepts, meta-ethics, or is neutral with respect to practical moral issues. �r * '"' xwz^f /A /. Z- fC'”-'l - z^zzwf LOW q/7 //¥/Woc> 7" f//7/^r * r'^' < X ft/TWM si J ■ 7/.//7J Bfjte L ■ *?■. 1 . ; ■- ______ .__________ ' 77^^Z^7/ / \ 1 <21 w*-*-* ^*7, / indeed so much energy is required in reactor establishment Fthat it will be a considerable time before nuclear development makes a substantial fpositive contribution to net energy output. ; x@ «J ■ �/V <1 <- * x ;/ , z-X /* C &■ / X <xXX XX ���A more fundamental challenge to the poverty argument appears in I. Illich, Energy and Equity, Calder and Boyers, London, 1974, where it is argued that the sort of development nuclear energy represents is exactly the opposite of what the poor need. The main thesis seems to be that a society heavily dependent for basic needs on capital demanding, commercially or centrally controllable energy forms (especially for transport), will inevitably create energy hierachies and en/l ance poverty and inequalities in contrast to a society employing low capital energy sources which people control themselves, fairly convincing, such as bicycles or feet. The main thesis is given that there is unequal access to capital and centralised power, even if the argument for it leaves something to be desired and the emphasis on speed as the critical factor seems mistaken (would the invention of a cheap 60 m.p.h. bicycle thereby convert the bicycle to an instrument of hierarchy?) If the thesis is correct the common economic assumption that the solution to poverty lies in more and more massive inputs of costly energy is mistaken in a quite fundamental way. �Elaboration of 'Nuclear energy and obligations to the future, : A note on expertise and methodology. Some people may ask why philosophers, who know nothing about nuclear physics, should be dealing with this area, which surely should be left to the province of the real experts in the area, nuclear physicists and those with direct experience and authority in the area of nuclear power. One of the most irritating things in this area for a philosopher is the sight of such people constantly presented, by themselves and others, as experts and authorities whose pronounce­ ments on the issue should be accepted without question by laymen (see e.g. articles [15] and [16]), when in fact the issues involve quite crucially issues of and assumptions about values and morality^ matters concerning which the so-called "authorities' and experts commonly know less than the average first year student in philosophy. Value issues and moral issues and issues of social and political theory are probably more crucially concerned in the nuclear issues than are issues of fact concerning nuclear power, and certainly they are just as important. Few philosophers nowadays would want to claim to be experts or "authorities" on matters of value or morality in the way nuclear experts claim to be authorities on matters of nuclear power, who can tell people what to do in way which is authoritative or which must be uncritically accepted by the non-experts/non­ philosophers . Rejection of the argument from authority is basic in proper philosophical method, going back to Plato and beyond, and forming a basic position without which the subject, as critical inquiry into basic assumptions, could not operate as it does and traditionally has. Indeed rejection of the argument from authority is one feature which distinguishes philosophy proper from closely related areas such as theology, casuistry, some �2. areas of legal thought and various types of apology. But a form of the argument from authority-the claim to entitlement to have one’s word or views accepted, not on the basis of what one says and how sound it is, but of who one is - appears however to be an important element in the modern cult of the "scientific expert" which has played such a large part in the contempory Australian discussion of the nuclear issue. While most philosophers would reject the view that they were "experts" or moral issues, in this sense on values philosophers can fairly lay claim to a number of special skills which enable them to bring out explicit assumptions about values or morality, and expose defects in arguments. philosophers also have moral views, Most that is, they believe some things to be morally acceptable and others morally unacceptable, although some might prefer to express similar attitudes without use of explicit moral terminology. In writing this paper then we don't hope to be accepted as 'authorities' or 'experts' on moral questions, but only to have skills which may throw light on some areas. bring out value and moral assumptions, We have tried to expose logical defects and inconsistencies in the structure of some of the arguments and in certain sorts of argument concerning the future, and to argue that if one accepts a certain moral judgment (which we accept and which we believe would be widely agreed on*), one should, going to be consistent, principles, non-arbitrary , accept a certain other one. if one is and follow through one's This seems to us a proper area for philosophical work. The non-philosophical or background factual assumptions which are essential for discussing the issue are not large, and are in substance only those of the Fox Report (p.110, in particular). * We are sure that philosophers can be found who will disagree with virtually every statement we make. �Nuclear Power Ethical and Social Dimensions The issue of nuclear power raises many basic issues in ethics. By means of an example, we argue for the illegitimacy of certain sorts of transfers of costs, transfers from one party who obtains benefits from a given course of action, onto other parties who do The inadequate methods currently available for storing nuclear not. wastes mean that nuclear power could permit such an illegitimate transfer of serious costs and risks onto future people. Many of the arguments for the acceptability of imposing such risks on the future ignore these crucial ethical transfer issues. We argue that the mot'Q 1 constraints on action such transfer principles give rise to are not removed by the fact that those affected are future and not present people. The nuclear issue and associated arguments also raise in a highly topical wSy really many basic issues in social theory. Do people ’need' all the consumer items nuclear power is supposed to allow for, and is it authoritarian or wrong to frustrate such needs, or are such needs in part imposed by a particular, alterable social framework? Are existing democratic mechanisms for control over the social framework adequate, or do they give inadequate control and permit excessive concentrations of power? If the answer to the last question is affirmative, what kinds of social changes would prevent such>concentrations of power and allow for more adequate control by people over the social framework and over their own lives? The approach to all these questions depends crucially on how the underlying elements of social interaction are conceived are these basic elements pure individuals, are they social wholes, or do we need to assume both, distinct and irreducible, as we shall argue ? R. and V,. Rout ley �t. ; / % // C . f « ^7 £C—e Z' fe c* — fl AUStrOl/LCt'S I£ nuclear energy is unacceptable on moral grounds, what of Australia s role in cooperating in its development overseas? Is its development inevitable, as some say, so that others would sell if we didn’t and Australia would simply profit from the folly and immorality of others? assumption is false. This inevitability Most countries considering nuclear energy are not yet irreversibly committed to it, and have other options. Australia has a good percentage of the world’s high-grade reserves of uranium and is regarded by western powers as a stable and reliable energy source. In so far as there is an economic case for nuclear energy development, the relative cheapness of its fuel and reliability of its source is a major part of it. It seems likely that by with' �holding its uranium Australia could shake this assumption and thus be influential in directing attention to alternatives. Nuclear energy development is not inevitable, but even if it were, inevitability does not cancel moral responsibility. Few would accept the argument of the hired assassin that if he did not do the job someone else would be found who would perhaps make a messier job of it. Australia does not evade moral responsibility by arguing in a similar way, that other, possibly even less responsible, suppliers would emerge. Other arguments are presented to excuse Australia’s collaboration in nuclear development, that by selling its uranium Australia will help prevent nuclear proliferation and the development of the breeder reactor. The argument that widely exporting the basic means of making nuclear weapons is the best means of preventing nuclear proliferation compares, in its twisted logic, with the all too familiar 6,,-vvA claims that war is the best means of promoting peace, that the best way to assist the poor is to increase the power of the wealthy^and so on. help prevent development of the breeder reactor? Will uranium export That seems, at least, unlikely, since the most important potential customers, in Europe, have already announced their determination to proceed with it, while the other most important customer, Japan, has made no secret of its interest in it. faulty too. But such an argument is logically The fact that the breeder creates even worse problems, for present people, than conventional fission reators hardly shows that conventional fission A is acceptable or ought not also to be opposed. These are not exhaustive options, and the case against even conventional fission energy is a sufficiently strong one. The strategy of the argument here is to suggest that rather than opposing or resisting something immoral, one should collaborate in it in order to use one’s influence to secure improvements; this would justify, for example, assisting in fabricating evidence against an innocent man in order to use one’s influence to ensure minimum suffering, a speedy trial and humane execution. These arguments to excuse Australia’s participation are sad and threadbare, exhibiting the morality of the market. There seems little doubt that Australia’s collaboration will assist and encourage the development of nuclear energy as opposed to alternatives. Thus Australia’s uranium export policy makes it an important accomplice in this crime against the future. �The following have been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. • • • Cutting (photocopy), 'Letters' (24 November 1978), Science, 202: 818, 820-821. (3 leaves) Cutting (photocopy), 'The World: Europe' (13 November 1976), The Economist, 261: 6364. (2 leaves) Cutting (photocopy), 'Nuclear man at bay' (19 March 1977), The Economist, 292(2): 12-13. (2 leaves) �9 /vuclem 9 7 7/A » ■«■ r«v<-Z > ^4 Jr X (7 6s *'t Ai cr * 7 C T~ <7^ ��The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Typescript (photocopy), Embargoed Advance material for release at 0200 GMT January 15 1981 of Jimmy Cater, 39th President of the United States: 1977 ‐ 1981, Farewell Address to the Nation. (5 leaves) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Notes, Correspondences and Marginalia Description An account of the resource In one obituary, Sylvan's handwriting was said to have "looked like the oscilloscope for a patient in intensive care", and thus "not for the timid". Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document <%///# /(V?fac/ ’ Nuclear energy and obligations to the future. .. .discussion of values and goods may seem fuzzy and unscientific, but it is the beginning and end of any energy policy ... . (Lovins, 75, xxii). Important ethical issues concerning obligations to the future and evaluative issues as to what sort of world we want to see are raised by proposed nuclear development, but have been largely neglected in current technologically oriented discussion of the development. The first part of the paper considers the arguments of a number of philosophers philosophical positions (e.g. obligations to the future we do have practical, (e.g. Passmore) and c social contract theories) and rejects them. concerning It concludes that and not merely theoretical, moral obligations to the non-immediate future, and that these are not made void by temporal remoteness or some degree of uncertainty about the effects of our nations. The second part of the paper considers a number of examples of crimes against the future and sets the more comp ex nuclear energy case against this background. One philosophical corollary which emerges is the falsity of the still common view that philosophical analysis of moral concepts, meta-ethics, or is neutral with respect to practical moral issues. r * '"' xwz^f /A /. Z- fC'”-'l - z^zzwf LOW q/7 //¥/Woc> 7" f//7/^r * r'^' < X ft/TWM si J ■ 7/.//7J Bfjte L ■ *?■. 1 . ; ■- ______ .__________ ' 77^^Z^7/ / \ 1 <21 w*-*-* ^*7, / indeed so much energy is required in reactor establishment Fthat it will be a considerable time before nuclear development makes a substantial fpositive contribution to net energy output. ; x@ «J ■ /V <1 <- * x ;/ , z-X /* C &■ / X <xXX XX A more fundamental challenge to the poverty argument appears in I. Illich, Energy and Equity, Calder and Boyers, London, 1974, where it is argued that the sort of development nuclear energy represents is exactly the opposite of what the poor need. The main thesis seems to be that a society heavily dependent for basic needs on capital demanding, commercially or centrally controllable energy forms (especially for transport), will inevitably create energy hierachies and en/l ance poverty and inequalities in contrast to a society employing low capital energy sources which people control themselves, fairly convincing, such as bicycles or feet. The main thesis is given that there is unequal access to capital and centralised power, even if the argument for it leaves something to be desired and the emphasis on speed as the critical factor seems mistaken (would the invention of a cheap 60 m.p.h. bicycle thereby convert the bicycle to an instrument of hierarchy?) If the thesis is correct the common economic assumption that the solution to poverty lies in more and more massive inputs of costly energy is mistaken in a quite fundamental way. Elaboration of 'Nuclear energy and obligations to the future, : A note on expertise and methodology. Some people may ask why philosophers, who know nothing about nuclear physics, should be dealing with this area, which surely should be left to the province of the real experts in the area, nuclear physicists and those with direct experience and authority in the area of nuclear power. One of the most irritating things in this area for a philosopher is the sight of such people constantly presented, by themselves and others, as experts and authorities whose pronounce­ ments on the issue should be accepted without question by laymen (see e.g. articles [15] and [16]), when in fact the issues involve quite crucially issues of and assumptions about values and morality^ matters concerning which the so-called "authorities' and experts commonly know less than the average first year student in philosophy. Value issues and moral issues and issues of social and political theory are probably more crucially concerned in the nuclear issues than are issues of fact concerning nuclear power, and certainly they are just as important. Few philosophers nowadays would want to claim to be experts or "authorities" on matters of value or morality in the way nuclear experts claim to be authorities on matters of nuclear power, who can tell people what to do in way which is authoritative or which must be uncritically accepted by the non-experts/non­ philosophers . Rejection of the argument from authority is basic in proper philosophical method, going back to Plato and beyond, and forming a basic position without which the subject, as critical inquiry into basic assumptions, could not operate as it does and traditionally has. Indeed rejection of the argument from authority is one feature which distinguishes philosophy proper from closely related areas such as theology, casuistry, some 2. areas of legal thought and various types of apology. But a form of the argument from authority-the claim to entitlement to have one’s word or views accepted, not on the basis of what one says and how sound it is, but of who one is - appears however to be an important element in the modern cult of the "scientific expert" which has played such a large part in the contempory Australian discussion of the nuclear issue. While most philosophers would reject the view that they were "experts" or moral issues, in this sense on values philosophers can fairly lay claim to a number of special skills which enable them to bring out explicit assumptions about values or morality, and expose defects in arguments. philosophers also have moral views, Most that is, they believe some things to be morally acceptable and others morally unacceptable, although some might prefer to express similar attitudes without use of explicit moral terminology. In writing this paper then we don't hope to be accepted as 'authorities' or 'experts' on moral questions, but only to have skills which may throw light on some areas. bring out value and moral assumptions, We have tried to expose logical defects and inconsistencies in the structure of some of the arguments and in certain sorts of argument concerning the future, and to argue that if one accepts a certain moral judgment (which we accept and which we believe would be widely agreed on*), one should, going to be consistent, principles, non-arbitrary , accept a certain other one. if one is and follow through one's This seems to us a proper area for philosophical work. The non-philosophical or background factual assumptions which are essential for discussing the issue are not large, and are in substance only those of the Fox Report (p.110, in particular). * We are sure that philosophers can be found who will disagree with virtually every statement we make. Nuclear Power Ethical and Social Dimensions The issue of nuclear power raises many basic issues in ethics. By means of an example, we argue for the illegitimacy of certain sorts of transfers of costs, transfers from one party who obtains benefits from a given course of action, onto other parties who do The inadequate methods currently available for storing nuclear not. wastes mean that nuclear power could permit such an illegitimate transfer of serious costs and risks onto future people. Many of the arguments for the acceptability of imposing such risks on the future ignore these crucial ethical transfer issues. We argue that the mot'Q 1 constraints on action such transfer principles give rise to are not removed by the fact that those affected are future and not present people. The nuclear issue and associated arguments also raise in a highly topical wSy really many basic issues in social theory. Do people ’need' all the consumer items nuclear power is supposed to allow for, and is it authoritarian or wrong to frustrate such needs, or are such needs in part imposed by a particular, alterable social framework? Are existing democratic mechanisms for control over the social framework adequate, or do they give inadequate control and permit excessive concentrations of power? If the answer to the last question is affirmative, what kinds of social changes would prevent such>concentrations of power and allow for more adequate control by people over the social framework and over their own lives? The approach to all these questions depends crucially on how the underlying elements of social interaction are conceived are these basic elements pure individuals, are they social wholes, or do we need to assume both, distinct and irreducible, as we shall argue ? R. and V,. Rout ley t. ; / % // C . f « ^7 £C—e Z' fe c* — fl AUStrOl/LCt'S I£ nuclear energy is unacceptable on moral grounds, what of Australia s role in cooperating in its development overseas? Is its development inevitable, as some say, so that others would sell if we didn’t and Australia would simply profit from the folly and immorality of others? assumption is false. This inevitability Most countries considering nuclear energy are not yet irreversibly committed to it, and have other options. Australia has a good percentage of the world’s high-grade reserves of uranium and is regarded by western powers as a stable and reliable energy source. In so far as there is an economic case for nuclear energy development, the relative cheapness of its fuel and reliability of its source is a major part of it. It seems likely that by with' holding its uranium Australia could shake this assumption and thus be influential in directing attention to alternatives. Nuclear energy development is not inevitable, but even if it were, inevitability does not cancel moral responsibility. Few would accept the argument of the hired assassin that if he did not do the job someone else would be found who would perhaps make a messier job of it. Australia does not evade moral responsibility by arguing in a similar way, that other, possibly even less responsible, suppliers would emerge. Other arguments are presented to excuse Australia’s collaboration in nuclear development, that by selling its uranium Australia will help prevent nuclear proliferation and the development of the breeder reactor. The argument that widely exporting the basic means of making nuclear weapons is the best means of preventing nuclear proliferation compares, in its twisted logic, with the all too familiar 6,,-vvA claims that war is the best means of promoting peace, that the best way to assist the poor is to increase the power of the wealthy^and so on. help prevent development of the breeder reactor? Will uranium export That seems, at least, unlikely, since the most important potential customers, in Europe, have already announced their determination to proceed with it, while the other most important customer, Japan, has made no secret of its interest in it. faulty too. But such an argument is logically The fact that the breeder creates even worse problems, for present people, than conventional fission reators hardly shows that conventional fission A is acceptable or ought not also to be opposed. These are not exhaustive options, and the case against even conventional fission energy is a sufficiently strong one. The strategy of the argument here is to suggest that rather than opposing or resisting something immoral, one should collaborate in it in order to use one’s influence to secure improvements; this would justify, for example, assisting in fabricating evidence against an innocent man in order to use one’s influence to ensure minimum suffering, a speedy trial and humane execution. These arguments to excuse Australia’s participation are sad and threadbare, exhibiting the morality of the market. There seems little doubt that Australia’s collaboration will assist and encourage the development of nuclear energy as opposed to alternatives. Thus Australia’s uranium export policy makes it an important accomplice in this crime against the future. The following have been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. • • • Cutting (photocopy), 'Letters' (24 November 1978), Science, 202: 818, 820-821. (3 leaves) Cutting (photocopy), 'The World: Europe' (13 November 1976), The Economist, 261: 6364. (2 leaves) Cutting (photocopy), 'Nuclear man at bay' (19 March 1977), The Economist, 292(2): 12-13. (2 leaves) 9 /vuclem 9 7 7/A » ■«■ r«v<-Z > ^4 Jr X (7 6s *'t Ai cr * 7 C T~ <7^ The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Typescript (photocopy), Embargoed Advance material for release at 0200 GMT January 15 1981 of Jimmy Cater, 39th President of the United States: 1977 ‐ 1981, Farewell Address to the Nation. (5 leaves)  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 106, Item 3: Early drafts, notes and cuttings on big nuclear Subject The topic of the resource Various typescript and handwritten early drafts and notes on big nuclear, undated. Includes cuttings on nuclear power and photocopy of Embargoed Advance material for release at 0200 GMT January 15 1981 of Jimmy Cater, 39th President of the United States: 1977 ? 1981, Farewell Address to the Nation. Description An account of the resource Verso of scrap papers not digitised. Cutting redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Papers housed in unnumbered folder marked Australia's Defence. Item number assigned by library staff. One of four papers digitised from item 2. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 106, Item 3 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, <a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a>. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [26] leaves. 10.28 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:88d3475">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:88d3475</a> Box 106: Culture, Politics, Environment, Economics [War and Peace] https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/0b17d50e19500ff0b2b32520f6a252ed.pdf 89d18b08b7b801165a65380cf512aeec PDF Text Text AGAINST THE INEVITABILITY OF HUMAN CHAUVINISM In our enlightened times, when most forms of chauvinism have been abandoned at least in theory by those who consider themselves progressive, western ethics still appears to retain, at its very heart, a fundamental form of chauvinism, namely, human chauvinism. ethical theories For both popular western thought and most western assume that both value and morality can ultimately be reduced to matters of interest or concern to the class of humans. Class chauvinism, in the relevant sense, is substantially differential, discriminatory, and inferior treatment (characteristically, but not necessarily, by members of the privileged class) of items outside the class, for which there is not sufficient justification. Human chauvinism, like other varieties of chauvinism, can take stronger and weaker forms; an example of the weaker form is the Greater Value Thesis, the invariable allocation of greater value or preference, on the basis of species, to humans, while not however entirely excluding non-humans from moral consideration and claims. We will be concerned primarily with strong forms of human chauvinism, which see value and morality as ultimately concerned entirely with humans, and non-human items as having value or creating constraints on human action only insofar as these items serve human interests or purposes. In recent years, since the rise of the 'environmental consciousness', there has been increasing, if still tentative, questioning of this exclusive concern with, or at least heavy bias towards, human interests; and indeed, at a time when human beings are rapidly accelerating their impact on the natural world, the question as to the validity of this basic assumption is not merely an abstract one, but is of immediate and practical concern in its implications for This thesis has, among other unacceptable outcomes, the consequence that, if there is only room in one's boat for one and one must choose between saving Adolf Hitler and a wombat which has lived a decent and kindly life and never harmed a living creature, one is morally obligated to choose the former. That would not be the choice of the authors. �2. human action. In reply to this questioning (which appears to originate largely from people with environmental interests), modern moral philosophers - fulfilling their now established function of providing a theoretical superstructure to explain and justify contemporary moral sensibilities, questioning fundamental assumptions - tend to argue that the bias towards human interests, which is an integral part of going ethical theories, is not just another form of class chauvinism which it is both possible and desirable to eliminate, but rather a restriction dictated by the logic of evaluative and moral concepts, and that there is no coherent, possible or viable alternative to the "human chauvinism" of standard ethical theories. series of In this paper we want to consider and reject a arguments in the theory of value designed to show that this is so, and thereby to advance the cause of an alternative, non-chauvinistic, environmental ethic. The orthodox defence of human chauvinism argues that it is inevitable that humans should be taken as the exclusive subjects of value and morality. Humans are uniquely and exclusively qualified for moral consideration and attributions of value, according to this defence either because the human species alone does, as a matter of fact, possess properties which are a pre­ condition for such ascriptions or because, as a matter of the definition or the logic or the significance of moral concepts in natural language, such considerations are restricted, as a matter of logic, to the human species. In the first case the restriction of morality and value to the human species will be taken as contingent, in the second necessary. In either case, if the argument is correct, the bias in favour of humans in current theories is inescapable, so that, depending on one's definition of chauvinism, either human chauvinism itself is inevitable, or human bias is, because justifiable, not a real chauvinism at all. We shall consider the logical or definitional approach first. According to the definitional approach, moral and evaluative terms are, as a matter of their definitions, restricted in their application to members of the human species; only in a secondary way at best do such terms find a �3. wider application, according as evaluated items are instrumental to human interests. The thesis is often backed up by the production of definitions which are so restricted, for example, 'the value of a thing is its capacity to confer a benefit on someone, to make a favourable difference to his life' (Baier, in [13], p. 40), where in the intended context 'someone' is obviously restricted to humans. The attempt to preserve human chauvinism in an unchallengeable form through definitions involves the fallacy of taking definitions to be self­ validating and unchallengeable, and appears to be based on the confusion of abbreviative definitions with those involving or presupposing substantive claims, such as creative definitions, which may be accepted or rejected. Such definitions as those above, cannot be merely abbreviative because they attempt to characterise or explicate already understood terms, such as 'moral' or 'value'. Worse still, they do so in a way which is not dictated by prevailing usage - which does not require that moral and value terms be restricted in range to human:in order that they continue to apply to humans in the ordinary way. Alternative definitions which do not so restrict the range of application may be supplied, they can in fact be found by looking up dictionaries, and these alternatives quite properly do not close off genuine issues which natural language itself leaves open. The fallacy of the definitional move is that of believing that by converting the substantive evaluative theses of human chauvinism to matters of definition they become somehow exempt from challenge or need for justification. This is comparable to justifying discriminatory membership for a club by referring to the rules, similarly conceived as self-validating and exempt from question or justification. Since a similar move could obviously be employed to limit membership of the Moral Club to say, white male humans in place of humans, it is plain that such a definitional argument does far too much, and is capable of use to produce completely unacceptable conclusions. But of course substantive theses involved in definitions, like club rules, are not exempt from challenge and may be arbitrary, undesirable, restrictive, c/ �4. and in need of justification. Once this is grasped the definitional move can be seen as entirely question-begging, since the question of the acceptability and inevitability of human chauvinism is simply transformed into the question of the acceptability and inevitability of the definition. The production of such human chauvinist definitions has done nothing to advance the case of human chauvinism, other than to throw a spurious air of unchallangeability and over the highly challengeable and arbitrary substantive theses they embody. The attempt to settle substantive issues 'by definition' is both philosophically facile and methodologically unsound, and is especially so when there are clearly alternative definitions which would not settle the issue in the same way. What, however, of the substantive claim presupposed by the definitional move, namely that as a matter of natural language usage, or the logic of moral and evaluative concepts, the meaning of moral and value terms, it is logically necessary that direct, non-instrumental, application of such terms be restricted to the human (a claim made at least in the case of rights by Ritchie [4], p. 107, and subsequently by Passmore [5] and [9]^,p. 116, 189, Ay and,others). But usually, when it is asserted that non-humans cannot have rights, obligations and such like, what sort of 'cannot' is involved is not specified - whether it is a 'cannot' of logical impossibility, or of non-significance or absurdity, or something else again (the point is nicely illustrated by Feinberg's discussion of McCloskey, McCloskey [11] itself). in p. 195 , and by In any case, however, the thesis appears to be mistaken, for it rules out as logically impossible or absurd a number of positions and theses which are very plainly neither and which it may even, in some circumstances, be important to consider. For example, it is surely neither impossible nor absurd to consider moral questions concerning conduct of humans towards other species, e.g. to a race of sensitive and intelligent extraterrestrial beings, and similarly moral questions arising from their conduct towards or concerning humans, indeed science fiction writ .ers do this commonly without producing nonsense or contradicting themselves. Not only does the proposed restriction appear quite �5. mistaken given current usage, but there seems indeed to be something logically unsound about the attempt to place a logical restriction to a particular species on such terms, just as there would be in restricting membership of the Moral Club to people with blue eyes and blond hair who are over 6 feet tall. The accident of being a zoological human, defined in terms of various physical characteristics, cannot be morally relevant. It is impossible to restrict moral terms to particular species, when species distinctions are defined in terms of physical characteristics which are not morally relevant. More generally, any attempt to derive a logically necessary connection between humanity itself and the applicability of morality is bound to fail. For creatures anatomically and zoologically distinct from humans which are identical with humans in terms of all morally relevant features are logically possible, upsetting any logical linkage. tie between humanity But attempts to establish a logical and morality through features which all and only humans possess and which are themselves linked logically to morality, would, of course, involve a modal fallacy, namely that of substituting a contingent equivalence within an opaque modal conte t of logical necessity. In order for such an argument to be val? d, it would have to be logically necessary that non­ humans do not possess such features, not merely a contingent fact that they do not; but this assumption must be incorrect for morally relevant characteristics. The only proposal which has ac/n/tce of succeeding, then, is the factual one which makes the selection of just humans for the Moral Club a contingent matter, the claim being that as a matter of contingent fact all and only humans possess a certain set of characteristics, which characteristics themselves are logically tied with qualification for moral consideration and for direct attribution of value to the possessor. What this contingent form of human chauvinism has to produce then, in order to establish its case, is a set of characteristics which satisfy the following conditions of adequacy: �6. 1. The set of characteristics must be possessed by at least all properly functioning humans, since to omit any significant category usually considered subject to moral consideration, such as infants, young children, primitive tribesmen etc., and to allow that it was permissible to treat these gro^J^L^ in the way it is considered permissible to treat non-humans, ^s mere instruments, would certainly be repuguant to modern moral sensibilities, and would offend common intuitions as to the brotherhood of man, the view that all humans are possessors of inalienable rights. Thus human chauvinism, if it is to produce a coherent theory which does not unacceptably rule out some groups of humans must find some set of features common to the most diverse members of humankind, from Rio Tinto executives to hunter-gatherer tribes of Amazonian Indians, from those who engage in highly abstract activities such as logic and mathematics to those who cannot, from the literate and cultured to the illiterate and uncouth, from the poet and professor to the infant. This alone will be no easy task. 2. In order for human chauvinism to be justified this set of characteristics must not be possessed by any non-human. 3. The set of characteristics must not merely be morally relevant,but sufficient to justify, in a non-circular way, the cut-off of moral consideration at exactly the right point. If human chauvinism is to avoid the charge of arbitrariness and unjustifiability, and demonstrate its inevitability and the impossibility of alternatives, it must emerge from the characteristicj why items not having may be used as mere instruments to serve the interests of those which do possess There must be some explanatory logical connection between the set of characteristics and membership of the Moral Club. Chauvinists aie. fc stress distinguishing points between the privileged class and those outside it - and there is no lack of characteristics which distinguish humans from non-humans, at least functioning healthy adult ones. The point is that these distinctions usually do not warrant the sort of radically inferior treatment for which they are �7. proposed as a rationale. On the basis of the characteristics then the proposed radical difference in treatment between the privileged and non­ privileged class and the purely instrumental treatment of the non-privileged class, must be warranted, that is, the distinguishing characteristics must be able to carry the moral superstructure placed upon them. A large and exceedingly disparate collection of features has been suggested as distinguishing humans from non-humans and justifying human chauvinism. But it turns out that every one of these, on examination, either fails to pick out the desired privileged class of humans in an unequivchcal fashion, that is, it applies to some non-humans or excludes some humans who should not be excluded, or, when it does select the desired class, fails on condition 3, and does not warrant the exclusive claim to moral consideration of the privileged class. Many suggested criteria in fact fail on more than one count. The traditional distinction between humans and the rest in terms of rationality illustrates the point. Once the theological doctrines of the exclusively human soul on which the distinction once rested are abandoned, it is not so easy to see what is meant by this term. Indeed it often appears to function as little more than a self-congratulatory predicate applied exclusively to humans, with no other clear function at all. clarifications are sometimes offered. However various For example rationality may be said to be the ability to reason, this being tested by such basically linguistic performances as the ability to do lo^ic, to prove theorems, to draw conclusions from arguments and to engage in inductive and deductive linguistic behaviour. But such stringent and linguistically-loaded criteria will eliminate far too many members of the human species who cannot perform these tasks. If, however, behavioural criteria for rationality are adopted, or the ability to solve problems and to fit attion to individual goals becomes the test - that is, practical reasoning is the test - it is obvious that many non-human admission to the Moral Club, rather than the ability to perform some other �tasks or meet some other set of standards, such as orienteering ability,the ability to mix concrete (the use of concrete being, afte^all, a far more conspicuous feature of modern human society than the use of reason). One senses also in the appeal to such criteria (andespecially to linguistic criteria) the overvaluation of the things in which the privileged class typically excells and the undervaluation of the skills - not obviously^ in any non—circular way inferior - of the non-privileged class, which is such a typical feature of chauvinism. We list some of the suggested characteristics supposedly justifying human chauvinism, and indicate in brackets after each some of the conditions they fail: using tools (fails 1, 2, 3), altering the environment (1, 2, 3), the ability to communicate (1, 2, 3), the ability to use and learn language (1, 2, 3), the ability to use and learn English (1, 3), possession of consciousness (2, 3), self-consciousness or self-awareness (1, 2?, 3), having a conscience (1, 2?, 3), having a sense of shame (1, 2?, 3), being aware of oneself as an agent or initiator (1, 2, 3), having awareness (2, 3), being aware of one's existence (1, 2?, 3), being aware of the inevitability of one's own death (1, 2?, 3), being capable of self-deception (1, 3), being able to ask questions about moral issues such as human chauvinism (1, 3), having a mental life (2, 3), being able to play games (1, 2, 3), being able to laugh (1, 3), to laugh at oneself (1, 3), being able to make jokes (1, 3), having interests (2, 3), having projects (1, 2, 3), being able to assess some of one's performances as successful or not (1, 2, 3), enjoying freedom of action (2, 3), being able to vary one's behaviour outside a narrow range of insttnctu al behaviour (1, 2, 3), belonging to a social community (1, 2, 3), being morally responsible for one's actions (1), being able to love (1, 2), being capable of altruism (1, 2), being capable of being a Christian, or capable of religious faith (1, 3), being able to produce the items of (human) civilisation grid, culture * (1, 3). * This feature typifies a number of rather circular distinguishing characteristics, or at least ones which raise serious theob^. tical problems for human chauvinism, because they attempt to explain the unique value of humans in terms of their ability to produce items which are taken to be independently valuable, thus contradicting human chauvinism (see the discussion in [10],/?.;77/, �It appears that none of these criteria meet the conditions of adequacy; furthermore it seems most unlikely that any other characteristic or any cowbinlation of the^characteristics does so. Thus we conclude that these contingent direct arguments for human & chauvinism^not establish its inevitability, and that indeed the position rests on a shaky base and so f^r lacks a coherent theoretical justification. Human chauvinism cannot be restored by a detour through the concept of a person, that is by linking perso/JnoocL with membership of the /* foral (lub, and identifying the class of persons contingently with the class of humans. For then the same problem as above arises with different terminology even if the of person since, can be specified in such a way as to justify the restriction of moral privileges to persons, the class of persons will then not conicin the way human chauvinism requires^ with the class of humans, but will either include a great many non-humans or exclude a good many humans^morally considered. Attempts to enlarge the privileged class, for example to persons (broadly specified), or to sentient or preference having creatures, may avoid many of the problems of arbitrariness and justification which face the strong form of human chauvinism, but, as we shall argue, face a set of problems of coherence and consistency common to all instrumentalist theories of value and morality. ******* There are a number of indirect arguments for human chauvinism based on features of value and morality. argument We turn now to consider these. One abstract which is supposed to establish that values are, or must, be determined through the interests of humans or persons - a central argument underlying chauvinism - takes the following form:- �10. A. Values are determined through the preference rankings of valuers. (The no detachable values assumption). B. Valuers' preference rankings are determined through valuers' interests. (The preference reduction thesis). C. Valuers are humans [persons]. (The species assumption). Therefore: D. Values are determined through human interests [through the interests of persons]. Hence, it is sometimes concluded, not only is it perfectly acceptable for humans to reduce matters of value and morality to matters of human interest, there is no rational or possible alternative to doing so: any alternative is simply incoherent. Although th{$ argument does not, so far as we are aware, appear anywhere with its premisses explicitly stated, it does seem to reflect the sorts of considerations those who claim that there is no rational or coherent alternative to organising everything in human interests usually have in mind. Of course once the premisses are exposed, it is easier to see that this initially persuasive argument, like others in the area, rests on fallacious assumptions. y<2^ — We shall claim that although the argument to conclusion D is formally^given only some quite conventional assumptions such as that the relation of determin­ ation or functionality is appropriately transitive and the principle of replacement of necessary identicals - not all the premisses should be accepted. The argument can be treated as the major representative of a family of similar arguments. For there are many variations that can be made on the argument with a view to amending it, tightening it, varying or strengthening its conclusion, and so on. Our criticisms of the argument will, for the most part, transfer to the variations. qualifies the determining relation; A first group of variations replaces or for example, 'determined through' or 'determined by' may be replaced by 'answer back to', of', 'can be reduced to', or 'are a function of'. 'reflect', 'are a matter (The latter functional form makes it plain that 'determined' has to mean 'exactly determined', which �11. ensures that no extraneous factors enter into the chauvinistic determination: mere partial determination would be quite compatible with the rejection of human chauvinism.) Alternatively, 'determined' may be modally upgraded to 'have to be determined', in order to reveal the sheer necessity of conclusion D. (In this case it is essential that premiss C be of modal strength, and not merely contingent as it would be if the original form were retained; other­ wise the argument would contain a modal fallacy.). Another familiar, and appealing, variation we have already bracketed into the form of the argument given; class by persons. namely the replacement of humans as base This straightaway increases the cogency of premiss C, which otherwise - while better than, say, 'Valuers are white (North American) humans' - would at best be contingently true (which is not good enough for the argument and in fact appears false, since some valuers may not be human; and certainly not all humans are valuers), while at worst it is simply a circular way of reintroducing the logical version of human chauvinism by rest^cting the class of valuers a priori to humans. That all valuers are persons may be made analytic on the sense of 'person' - given a redefinition of 'person' away from its normal English usage, which philosophical English appears to almost tolerate - thus shielding premiss C from criticism. Other base classes than persons can replace humans in premiss C, for example animals, thus leading to the conclusion, of animal chauvinism, that values are determined through the interests (considerations and concerns) of animals, sentient creatures, or whatever. In the end, of course premiss C could be absorbed (as: Valuers are valuers or valuing creatures) and accordingly omitted, leaving the conclusion: Values are determined in the interests of valuers. However even the analytic form of premiss C does not, as we shall see, save the argument. Much the same applies in the case of premiss A. The premiss is certainly not unobjectionable in the usual sense of 'determined'; but there are ways of repairing it so that the argument still works in a sufficiently damaging form, and one way goes as follows:— What is true, analytically, if sufficiently many valuers are taken into account, is that values are deter­ �12. mined through the value rankings of valuers. Value rankings cannot however be cashed in for preference rankings since, as is well-known, preference rankings and value rankings can diverge: value and can value what is not preferred. a valuer can prefer what has less Let us amend the argument then - so that we can locate the real cause of damage - by replacing premiss A by the following premiss: A^. Values are determined through the value rankings of (appropriate) valuers. Correspondingly B will be adjusted to B^ in which 'value' replaces 'preference'. The really objectionable premiss in the central argument is neither premiss A nor premiss C, but premiss B - or, more exactly, where A is repaired, premiss B^. Suspicion of premiss B may be aroused by noticing that it plays an exactly parallel role in the class chauvinism argument to that the critical premiss BE. One's preferences of choices are always determined through self-interest, plays in familiar arguments for egoism, that whatever course of action one adopts, it is always really adopted in one's own selfish interests. The argument for egoism runs along the following, parallel, lines:- AE. Individual persons [agents) always act (in freely chosen cases) in the way they prefer or choose, i.e. in accordance with their preference rankings. BE. Individual preference rankings are always determined through ^reflect) self­ interest. Therefore: There is nonetheless an esoteric, semantical, sense of 'determined' in which premiss A is demonstrably true, and so a sense in which it is analytically true that value rankings are semantically determined by the preference rankings of situations by a class of valuers. The details of these semantical foundations for values are set out in 131. But while premiss A can be corrected by replacing 'determined' by 'semantically determined' and giving this an appropriate construal, such a move would do nothing to restore the intended argument: for it would either invalidate the argument, through change in the key middle term 'determined', or, alternatively, if 'determined' is systematically replaced throughout the argument, drastically alter the intended conclusion D - so that looking at the interests that humans in fact have would no longer provide a guide to values (instead the interests of hypothetical valuers with respect to worlds that never exist or could exist would have to be gathered). �13. DE. Individual persons ^agents] always act in ways determined by self interest [that reflect their own interests^. Thereafter follows the slide from in their own interests^ to to their own advantage, or for their own uses or purposes. The final conclusion of egoism again parallelling the class chauvinism case, is not only that the egoistic position is perfectly in order and thoroughly rational but that there are no alternatives, that there is, or at least ought to be, no other way of acting, 'that men can only choose to do what is in their own interests or that it is only rational to do this' ([2], p. 140). Thus human chauvinism, as based on the central argument, stands revealed as a form of group selfishness, group egoism one might almost say. Likewise the criticisms of the Group Selfishness argument, as we shall now call the central argument, parallel those of egoism, in particular premiss B (B ) succumbs to similar objections to those that defeat premiss BE (BE^). Group selfishness is no more acceptable than egoism, since it depends on exactly the same set of confusions between values and advantages, and slides on such terms as 'interests', as the arguments on which egoism rests. Nowell-Smith's very appealing critique of egoism ([2], p. 140-144) may, by simple paraphrase, be converted into a critique of group selfishness. recast B^ and BE" *" This is obvious once we and set them side by side: BE^. Individual value rankings are determined through (individual) self­ interest; and B^. Valuers' [groups'] value rankings are determined through valuers' (group) interests [joint interests of groups]. Because, however, one sets up or selects one's own preference or value rankings, it does not follow that they are set up or selected in one's own interests; similarly in group cases, because a group determines its own rankings, it does not follow that it determines them in its own interests. Just as BE^ is, prima facie at least, refuted by a range of examples where �value, and also preference, rankings run counter to self-interest, e.g. cases of altruism, so prima facie at least, B is refuted by examples where value, and also overall preference rankings, vary from group interests, e.g. cases of In the case group altruism. of limited groups examples are easy to locate, e.g. resistance movements, environmental action groups, and so on; case, however, of the larger human group in the are bound to be more controversial (since B^ unlike BE^ is a live thesis), but are still easy to find, especially if future humans are discounted, e.g. it is in humans' selfish interests to have plentiful supplies of this and that, electricity from uranium, oil, Me were Sy/Z/ey whalemeat, fish, etc., right now rather than^which would result from restraint, but altruistic value rankings would rank the latter above the former. It is often in selfish human interests (no less selfish because pertaining to a group) to open up and develop the wilderness, strip mine the earth, exploit animals, and so on, but environmentalists who advocate not doing so, in many cases not merely because of future humans, are apparently acting not just out of their own or human group interests. But, just as BE^ is not demolished by such counterexamples of apparently altruistic action, neither is B : in each case it can be made out that further selfish interests are involved, e.g., in the case of B , that an agent did what he did, an altruistic action, because he liked doing it. As Nowell-Smith explains in the egoism case, interest is written in as an internal accusative, thereby rendering such theses as BE^ true at the cost, however, of trivialising them. More generally, valuing something gets written in as a further sort of "interest"; whatever valuers value that does not seem to be in their interests is said to provide a further interest, either the value itself or an invented value surrogate; for example^the environmentalist who works to retain a wilderness he never expects to see may be said to be so acting because he has an interest in or derives benefit or advantage from just knowing it exists, just as he would be in the egoist case. theses can be retained; By such strategies the for then a valued item really is in valuers interests, in the extended sense, even if they are in obvious ways seriously inconvenienced �15. by it, i.e. even if it is not in their interests in the customary sense. ', * Thus.BE' like 4^', is preserved by stretching the elastic term 'interests', in a way that it too readily admits, to include values, or value surrogates, among interests. Then however the conclusion of the &roup Selfishness argument loses its intended force, and becomes the platitude that values are determined through valuers' values , just as egoism, under the extension a which makes us all covert egoists,loses its sting and becomes,platitude. It can be seen that human chauvinism in this form, like egoism, derives its plausibility from vacillation in the sense of 'interests', with a resulting fluctuation between a strong false thesis - the face of^chauvinism usually presented - and a trivial analytic thesis,between paradox and platitude.-^ To sum up the dilemma for the argument then:- when 'interest' is used in its weaker sense premiss B may be accepted but the argument does not establish its intended conclusion or in any way support human chauvinism. intended effect of the argument, in the crude form is this: values it is enough to look at human advantage: For the in determining nothing else counts. If the argument were correct, then one could assess values by checking out the local (selfish) advantage of humans, or, more generally, the advantage of the base class somehow assembled. If, on the other hand, 'interest' is used in its strong sense, the conclusion would lice^'hce a form of human chauvinism, but premiss B now fails. Most philosphers think they know how to discredit the egoist arguments. It is curious indeed then, that an argument which is regarded as so unsatisfactory in the individual case - that for egoism - remains unchallenged and is still considered so convincing in a precisely parallel group case - that for human chauvinism. ******** The technique of rescuing philosphical theses by natural extensions and accompanying redefinitions of terms, including the thesis "We're all selfish really", is delightfully explained in Wisdom [7], chapter 1. �16. The Group Selfishness argument is often employed in another way, as the presentation for a choice between the conclusion D, that value is determined by or reducible to a matter of human interests, and the denial of premiss A, which denial is seen as entailing a commitment to a detached,intrinsic or naturalistic theory of value. Thus, it may be said either one accepts the conclusion, with its consequent instrumentalist account of value, or one is committed to an intrinsic or detached value theory which takes values to be completely independent of valuers, and no way determined by them. But, it is assumed, the latter theory is well known as untenable, and may even be seen as involving mysticism or as irrational ^e.g. by Passmore [9], chapter 7). Thus it may be concluded, there is no real coherent alternative to such an instrumental account of value, and hence no real alternative to human chauvinism. The form of the argument then, is essentially: *^A v D, but A,therefore D, or, if a stronger connection, of intensional disjunction, is intended: but A, therefore D. It can be seen that the main premiss, -A v D, has resulted from the exportation and suppression of premisses B and C of the Group argument. ^A, Selfishness This suppression does nothing to improve the standing of the premisses although it does have the (possibly advantageous) effect of making it more difficult to see the fallacious assumptions on which it is based. For of course the choice a false one, and for precisely the same reasons that led us to say that premiss B was false. To reject the instrumentalist conclusion D is by no means to be committed to ^A, or to the view that the valuer's and their preference rankings play no role in determining values and that values are a further set of mysterious independent items in the world somehow perceived by valuers through a special (even mystical and non—rational) moral sense. Valuers' ; * preference rankings may be admitted to play an important role in evaluation are still not committed to D unless we assume - what amounts to premiss B these preference rankings reflect, or can be reduced to, valuers' interests. * on page 16a we that �16a Value rankings can be semantically analysed in terms of preference or interest rankings, as in [3]; but this does not offer a reduction of values to preferences or interests, as [8] explains. The semantical foundations, while conceding nothing to subjectivism or instrumentalism, make it easy to concede main points of the case (attributed to Dewey) against detached values, against the view that there are values somehow out there (in Meinong's aussersein), purely naturalistic values completely detached from all valuers, or from all preference rankings of valuers. Put differently, there are no values that do not somehow answer back to preference rankings of valuers, and so no values that are entirely detached from valuers and valuational activity such as preference-ranking of situations. But the answering back is made explicit and precise by the semantical analysis, not by any syntactical reduction or translation of value statements into statements about valuers' preference or interest rankings; and the valuers of the analysis are, like the situations introduced, ideal and need in no way exist. As a result then, valuations may be independent of the aggregated preference rankings of all actual humans or, for that matter, of all persons over all time. Thus too the semantical analysis makes it easy to navigate a course between the alternatives of two influential false dichotomies, to the effect that values are either instrumental or else detached, or that values are either subjective or else detached. For though a semantical analysis can be given, upsetting the detached value thesis, no translation or syntactical reduction of the sort subjectivism assumes is thereby effected. �17. The dichotomy frequently presented between instrumentalist accounts of value, on the one hand, and detached theories (or what are mistakenly taken to be the same, intrinsic theories) is, for the same reason, a false one. Instrumental theories are those which attempt to reduce value to what is instrumental to^contribute$to a stated goal. Typically such theories take the goal to be the furtherance of the interest of a privileged class; for example the goal may be taken to be determined in terms of the interests, concerns, advantage or welfare of the class of humans, or of persons, or of sentient creatures, depending on the type of chauvinism. In particular, human chauvinist theories are, characteristically, instrumentalist theories. In contrast,an item is valued intrinsically where it is valued for its own sake, and not merely as a means to something further; and an intrinsic value theory allows that some items are intrinsically valuable. Intrinsic theories then, instrumental contrast with Z. theories, and what 'intrinsic' tells us is no more than that the item taken as intrinsically valuable is not valued merely as a means to some goal, i.e. is not merely instrumentally valued. Accordingly detached value theories, since disjoint from instrumental theories, are a subclass of intrinsic value theories; be detached: and they are a proper subclass since intrinsic values need not something may be valuable in itself without its value being detached from all valuing experience. It is evident, furthermore, that the identification of intrinsic and detached value theories presupposed in the argument is no more than a restatement of the false dichotomy -^A v D, or ^A, The assumption i.e. non-instrumental, therefore detached^that if preference or value rankings are involved at all the resulting assignments must be instrumental is either false or or is variation of the fallacious premiss B which plays a crucial role in the Group Selfishness and Egoist arguments; the variation is that if value or preference rankings are involved they must reflect valuers' interests, therefore such values are instrumental, because the items valued are valued according as they reflect valuers interest, therefore according as they are a means to the end of satisfying the valuers' interest. It follows that intrinsic value theories �18. may allow for a third way between instrumental and detached theories, because of the possibility of value rankings (and also preference rankings) which are not themselves set up in a purely instrumentalist way, that is attributing value to aiitem only according as it is a means to some goal. The argument that there is no coherent alternative to instrumentalism does not however rely just on misrepresenting alternative intrinsic accounts as logically incoherent by assimilating them to detached accounts. It also trades on a contemporary insensitivity to the serious logical and epistemological problems of instrumental accounts of value, problems which were well known to classical philosophers (see e.g., Aristotle Metaphysics, 994b9-16) It does not appear to be widely realised that the classical arguments apply not just to a few especially shaky instrumentalist theories which adopt questionable goals but to instrumentalism in general, since they assume only quite general features of the instrumentalist position. Instrumentalist positions take as valuable (or in the moral case, as creating moral constraints) just what contributes to a stated end. which comes to mind is utilitarianism. An obvious example However in the more general case we are concerned with, of instrumentalist forms of human chauvinism, there may be a set of goalnot just a single goal such as that of maximising net happiness of humans; the human chauvinist assumption is that the values (indeed constraints) are goal-reducible, and that all goals reduce in some way to human goals, or at least can be assessed in terms of human concerns and interests. Human chauvinist positions are not necessarily instrumental, but those that are not (e.g. the position that just humans and nothing else are intrinsically valuable) tend to make the arbitrary chauvinistic nature of their assumptions unwisely explicit - most successful contempory chauvinisms being covert ones. Problems for instrumentalism arise (as Aristotle observed) when questions are asked about the status of the goal itself. Instrumentalism relies entirely for its plausibility upon selecting a set of goats which are widely accepted and are, in �19. It relies at bottom on an implicit the theory, implicitly treated as valuable. valuation which cannot itself be explained in purely instrumental terms. Of course a value assumption is not eliminated on this fashion: the general consensus it is merely hidden under that such a goal is appropriate, that such an end is valuable. But the strategy of successful instrumentalism is to avoid recognition of the fact that the goal is, and indeed must be, implicitly treated as valuable, by selecting a set of goals so much part of the framework of comtemporary thought, so entrenched and habitual 3s a valued item by humans that the value attached to the goal becomes virtually invisible, at least to those the framework. Thus it is with the assumption of human chauvinist instrumentalism that goals are exclusively determinable in terms of human interest. The basic, convincing and self-evident character of this assumption rests on nothing more than the shared beliefs of the privileged class of humans concerning the paramount and exclusive importance of their own interests and concerns, on a valuational assumption or goal which is ^'self-evident'" because it is advantageous and is habitual. The consensus features, of which instrumentalists make so much, are nothing more than the consensus of the privileged class about the goal of maintaining consensus of interests. their own privilege, i.e. a This sort of agreement of course shows very little about the well-grountiness of the position. Unless the goals set are widely accepted as valuable, the account will be unconvincing to those who do not share the goal and even to those who appreciate that it is possible to reject the goal. In order for instrumentalism to work logically however, the goal must be implicitly treated within the theory as valuable, for otherwise the proposed analysis loses explanatory and justificatory power and lacks compulsion. For how can the value of an item be explained and justified in terms of its contribution to an end not itself considered valuable! Serious problems also arise about the nature of value statements under the instrumentalist analysis unless the goal is treated as valuable. For if the goals themselves are not so treated within the theory, but are taken simply as unevaluated facts, then a valuational statement 'x is valuable' becomes, under the proposed analysis, �20. simply the statement that x tends to produce a certain result, to contribute to certain human states, a statement whose logical status, openness to verification, allowance for disagreement, and so on, does not substantially differ from that statement that x tends to producejoxide, to contribute to the rusting of human products. Such an account of value statements is open to the same sort of objections as other naturalistic reductions of value, for example, Mill's account the desirable in terms of the desired. of The special logical and epistemological character of value statements then, especially with respect to verification and disagreement,must be supplied in instrumentalism, if it is to be supplied at all, by the implicit treatment of the goal itself as valuable. The fact that the goaL of an instrumental account must be taken as itself valuable, gives rise to two choices. In the first, the goal is taken as itself instrumentally valuable, which creates an infinite regress. For if the end, reason or assignment for which other items are intrumentally valuable is itself only instrumentally valuable then there must in turn be some other end, reason or assignment in terms of which it is valuable (by definition of instrumental). A regress is thus begun, and if this regress is not to be viciously infinite, it must terminate in some end or feature which is taken as valuable just in itself, that is, with intrinsic values. On the alternative option the goal is not taken to be instrumentally valuable but is admitted to be valuable in some other way. Unless an 'except' clause is , so that all values are held to be account instrumental with the exception of the goal, the will of course be contextually added to the original instrumentalist inconsistent, since it is inconsistent when contextually supplied assumptions are added. For these include the assuption that the goal itself is valuable, but not in the way that the instrumentalist thesis claims is the only way possible. the goal is taken to be both valuable and not valuable. If, on the other hand, an'except^ clause is added, this amounts to an admission that the goal is taken to be non-instrumentally valuable. Thus the account may be able to retain consistency, but does so at the expense of Thus �21 explicitly admitting a value, that of the goal, which cannot be accounted for in purely instrumental terms, in short, that the gcdl is taken as intrinsically valuable. To sum up, the dilemma for the instrumentalist can be put as follows: Consider the desirability of the goal of the instrumental theory: it must implicitly be judged to be desirable, for otherwise nothing could be justified by reduction to it. or not? Ask: Is this goal also instrumentally desirable (valuable) If it is, i.e. it is only desirable as a means to a further goal, then either a regress is initiated or the same issue arises with respect to the new goal. But if it is not, then the instrumental theory is again refuted, since the goal is desirable though not desirable according to the test of the theory because it is not instrumental to the goal. Whichever ho rn of the dilemma is taken^ then> the outcome is the same: the instrumentalist must rely on treating the goal itself as implicitly valuable in a way not purely instrumental, that is, as intrinsically valuable. Thus the instrumentalist is, at bottom, guilty of precisely the same crime of which he accuses the adherent of a intrinsic account, with the added delinquency of failing to admit and face up to his basic assumptions. The logical and epistemological position of such an instrumental account is certainly no better than that of an intrinsic account, since there is logically no difference between the recognition of one intrinsic value (or one set in the case where gcals are multiple) and the recognition of many of them, ancf^lxtgical and epistemological status of the instrumentalist's account is no better than that of the goal to which his values are taken as instrumental. Since the instrumentalist has implicitly admitted the legitimacy of an intrinsic value assignment in setting up his account, he cannot claim any superiority over a more general intrinsic theory which allows for many intrinsic values, since what is legitimate in the case of one value assignment must be equally legitimate in the multiple case. �22, This abstract dilemma for human chauvinist instrumentalism is illustrated in a concrete case by Passmore's procedure in [9]; for Passmore (1) wishes to say that there is no coherent alternative to instrumental values, that an item is valuable insofar as it serves human interest, and (2) wants to explain the unique value attributed to humans in terms of their production of valuable civilised and cultural But (2) involves the admission of values, that items. of civilised items, which cannot be valuable in the way (1) states, and indeed (2) amounts to the admission of non-instrumental values. The proposed account is inconsistent because if intrinsic values are admissible in the case of civilised items, they cannot be logically ^oherent in the way (1) claims. The sort of problem faced by Passmore is however not a readily avoidable one for the instrumentalist; for if the charge of arbitary and unjustifiable human chauvinism is to be avoided by those who opt for (1), and humans are not themselves to be awarded intrinsic values,, thus conceding the logical legitimacy of intrinsic values generally, and hence the avoidability of human chauvinist accounts of value, some explanation must be provided for the exclusive value attributed to humans. But only explanation capable of justifying this valuation in a non-arbitray and non-chauvinistic way would have to refer to properties of humans, and would have to say something like: 'Humans are uniquely valuable because they alone have valuable properties x,y,z,... or produce valuable items A, B, C...'. distinguishing The list of proposed features already considered on page 8 are usually those that will be employed here. But this is to admit intrinsic value for the properties which explain the exclusive value of humans. The dilemma for the human chauvinist is that he must either take the exclusive human value assumption (the goal) as ultimate—laying him open to the charge of arbitrary chauvinism and of attributing intrinsic values to humans-or attempt to explain it* in which case he will again end by concedingly non-instrumental values. Thus the case for the inevitability of human chauvinism, that alternatives to it must be based on an incoherent and logically and epistemically defective account of values, namely a non-instrumental account, has not been established by these arguments. & * &&&& ** **& �23. Egoism, not group selfishness, is one of the assumptions underlying the next The leading ideas of the representative series of abstract defences of chauvinism. argument we first consider are essentially those of social contract theories. This argument takes the following form (the bracketed paramaeters X and Z are filled out in the representative argument respectively by: and: J. justification of moral principles, enter into contracts): The only justification of moral principles [only X] is a contractual one, i.e. the entry into contracts of agents [Zry]. K. Agents only enter into contracts [only Z] if it serves their own interests. (The egoist assumption) L. Humans [persons] are the only agents that enter into contracts [that Z]. Therefore, by K and L, M. Humans [persons] only enter into contracts [only Z] if it serves their own interests Therefore, from J and M, N. The only justification for moral principles [only X] is the (selfish) interests of humans [persons]. * The argument can be varied by different choices of parameters, X and Z. example, X could be filled out by replaced by 'community-based' For 'determination of value judgments', and 'contractual' (i.e. Z is filled out by 'are community-based' or some such) yielding in place of J the familiar premiss that the only justification of value judgments is a community-based one, and leading to a conclusion, analytically linked to D above, that all value judgments are determined by human self-interest. Alternatively just one of X or Z may be so replaced, leaving the other as in the original example . Another variation of the argument that has figured prominently in the discussion of animal rights fills out X and Z respectively by 'determination of rights' and 'belong to human society'. Under this assignment the parametric premiss The logical transitions in the argument take on more evidently valid form upon analytic transformation of the premisses, to those now illustrated:J'. All justifications of moral principles are cases of (justified by) the entry into contracts of agents. K'. All cases of the entry into contracts are cases of self-interests of agents. And so on for L' through M'. �24. J becomes essentially that commonly adopted (e.g. [4] and [5] again), but already criticised above, that 'rights are determined solely by reference to human society'. As the arguments are in each case valid, the issue of the correctness of the conclusions devolves on that of the correctness of the premisses. In each case too the arguments could be made rather more plausible by replacing 'humans' by 'persons' (and correspondingly 'human society' by 'society of persons', etc.); for otherwise premisses such as L and its variations are suspect, since there is nothing, legally or morally, to prevent consortia, organisations and other non-humans from entering into contracts (and these items are appropriately counted as persons in the larger legal sense). Given that that amendment deals with premiss L, the correctness of the arguments turns on the correctness of premisses J and K. But both these premisses are false, and premiss J imports the very chauvinism that is at issue in the conclusion. Though the representative contract argument is only one of several important variations that can be made on the general parametric argument, it is often regarded as having special appeal, because the contract model appears to explain the origin of obligation, and offer a justification for it, in a way that no other model does, and thus to provide a bulwark against moral, and political, scepticism. That the appearance is illusory, because the obligation to honour contracts is assumed at bottom, is well enough known and not our concern here. What is of concern is the correctness of representative premisses J and K. The egoist assumption K is faulted on the same grounds as egoism itself. For agents sometimes enter into contracts that are not in their own interests but are in the interests of other persons or creatures, or are undertaken on behalf of, for instance to protect, other items that do not have interests at all, e.g. rivers, buildings, forests. The attempt to represent all these undertakings as in human interests, because done in the "selfish interests" of the agents is the same as in the egoist arguments, and the resolution of the problem is the same, namely to distinguish acting, valuing, and so on, clearly from acting in one's own selfish (or in group) interests. However even if premiss K were amended to admit that agents may enter into �25. contracts on behalf of non-human items, it would still result in a form of human chauvinism given familiar assumptions, since non—human items will still be unable to create moral obligations except through a human sponsor or patron, who will, presumably, be able to choose whether or not to protect them. Natural items will generate no moral constraints unless humans freely choose to allow them to do so; since the obligatory features of moral obligation thus disappear, no genuine moral obligations can be created by natural items under such an amended account. Thus the amended premiss assumes the question at issue. Premiss J, the view that moral obligations are generated solely by contracts undertaken by moral agents, is then the crucial assumption for this argument for human chauvinism. J however has serious difficulties, for there are many recognised moral principles which apparently cannot be explained as contractually based, at least if "contract" is to be taken seriously. There is no actual contract underlying the principle that one ought not to be cruel to animals, children and others not in a position to contract. Adherents of a social contract view of moral obligation are of course inclined to withhold recognition of those moral principles that cannot be con­ tractually based, so that the contract thesis becomes not so much explanatory as pre­ scriptive. But even allowing for this, the thesis has many unacceptable consequences just concerning humans, and if the notion of contract plays a serious role, it is difficult to reconcile with the view of all humans a possessing rights. A crucial feature of contracts is that they are freely undertaken by responsible parties. If they can be freely undertaken there must be a choice with respect to them the choice of not so contracting. But then we are left with the conclusion that it is permissible to treat those who do choose not to contract as mere instruments of those who do, in the way that the non-human world is presently treated; these contractual dropouts, like those outside society, can have no rights and there can be no moral constraints on behaviour concerning them,whatever their capacity for suffering. A similar conclusion emerges if humans who are not morally responsible are considered, for although we are normally considered to have quite substantial obligations to such �26. humans, e.g. babies, young children, those who are considered mentally ill or as having diminished responsibility, they cannot themselves be free and responsible parties to a contract, and will, on the social contract view, presumably have to depend for their rights on others freely choosing to contract on their behalf. If^this does not^for some reason^) occur we will be left with a similarly unacceptable con- elusion as in the case of the contractual dropouts. Obviously then, moral obligations do not require morally equal, freehand responsible contracting parties, in the way the social contract account presupposes. Worse, the argument would appear, with but little adaptation, to justify the practices of such groups as death squads, multi­ rr nationals, and the Mafia, it! If these unacceptable conclusions are to be avoided, all humans will have to be somehow, in virtue of simply being human, subject to some mysterious, fictional, social contract which they did not freely choose to enter into, cannot get out of, and which can never exclude any member of the human species. So the unacceptable con- sequences are avoided only if crucial features of the notion of contract such as freedom and responsibility are dropped, and the notion^and premiss J so seriously weakened as to become virtually without conditions. For the argument to work the residue has to be mere common humanity, and the "contract" little more than the convention of morally considering just other members of the human species. convention differs little however from a restatement of human chauvinism; Such a the pro­ ferred explanation is really no explanation, for such a convention can neither justify human chauvinism nor, since different conventions could be arranged, explain why it is inevitable. The social contract account of moral obligation is defective because it implies that moral obligations can really only hold between responsible moral agents, and attempts to account for all moral obligation as based on contract. But of course the account is correct as an account of the origin of some types of moral obligation; there are moral obligations of a type that can only hold between free and responsible agents, and others which only apply within a social and political context. Yet other types of obligation, such as the obligation not to cause suffering, can arise only with respect to sentient or preference-having creatures - who are not necessarily morally �27. responsible — and could not significantly arise with respect to a non—sentient item such as a tree or a rock. What emerges is a picture of types of moral obligation as associated with a nest of rings or annular boundary classes, with the innermost class, consisting of highjyintelligent, social, sentient creatures, having the full range of moral obligations applicable to them, and outer classes^ such non—sentient items as rocks having only a much more restricted range of moral obliga­ trees and tions significantly applicable to them. between the rings. In some cases there is no sharp division But there is no single uniform privileged class of items, no one base class, to which all and only moral principles directly apply, and moreover the zoological class of humans is not one of the really significant boundary classes. The recognition that some types of moral obligation can only apply within the context of a particular sort of society or through contract does nothing to support the case of human chauvinism. The failure of the contract theory nevertheless leaves the issue as to whether there is some logical or categorial restriction on what can be the object of moral obligations, which would reinstate human chauvinism or animal chauvinism. There is however no such restriction on the object place of the obligation relation to humans or sentient creatures. Even if the special locution 'Y has an obligation towards X' requires that X is at least a preference-having creature, there are other locutions which are not so restricted, and one can perfectly well speak of having duties toward land and of having obligations concerning or with respect to such items as mountains and rivers, and without necessarily implying that such moral constraints arise only in an indirect fashion. Thus neither natural language nor the logic of moral concepts rules out the possibility of non-sentient items creating direct moral constraints. There is then, given this point and the annular model, no need to opt for the position of Leopold [12] as the only alternative to human (or animal) chauvinism, that is for a position which simply transfers to natural items the full set of rights and obligations applicable to humans, leading to such non-significance as that rocks have obligations to mountains. Distinctions between the moral constraints appropriate to different types of items can be recognised without leading back to human chauvinism. The point is an important one since many objections to allowing moral obligations to �28. extend beyond the sphere of humans, or in some cases the sphere of sentient creatures, depend on ignoring such distinctions, on assuming that it is a question of transferring the full set of rights and obligations appropriate to intelligent social creatures to such items as trees and rivers - that the alternative to chauvinism is therefore an irrational and mystical animism concerning nature (cf. Passmore [9], p. 187 ff.). ***** * * The ecological restatement of the strong version of human chauvinism, according to which items outside the privileged human class have zero intrinsic value, is the Dominion thesis, the view that the earth and all its non-human contents exist or are available for man's benefit and to serve his interests, and hence that man is entitled to manipulate the world and its systems as he wants, that is^ in his interests. The thesis indeed follows, given fairly uncontroversial, analytic, assumptions, from the conclusions of the main chauvinistic arguments examined, notably D, that values are determined through human interests. The earth and all its non-human contents thus have no intrinsic value, at best instrumental value, and so can create no direct moral constraints on human action. For what has only instrumental value is already written down, in this framework, as serving human interests. And since what has no instru­ mental value cannot be abused or have its value diminished, it is permissible for humans to treat it as they will in accord with their interests. thesis. Ergo the Dominion Conversely, if non-human items are available for man's use, interests and benefits, they can have no value except insofar as they answer his interests. Other­ wise there would be restrictions on his behaviour with respect to them, since not any sort of behaviour is permissible as regards independently valuable items. value is determined through man's interests, i.e. D holds. is strictly equivalent to D. implies human chauvinism. Accordingly Thus the Dominion thesis It follows that the Dominion thesis, like D, strictly Conversely, the strong version of human chauvinism strictly implies D, and so the Dominion thesis, completing the sketch of the equivalence argument. Since the positions are equivalent what counts against one also counts against the others. In particular, then, the Dominion thesis is no more inevitable This view encompasses what Passmore [9] has isolated as the Western environmental ideologies, both the dominant view and the lesser traditions: see [10]. �29. than, and just as unsatisfactory as, strong human chauvinism. The upshot is that the dominant ethical systems of our times, those clustered as the western ethic, and other kindred human chauvinistic systems, are far less defensible, and less satisfactory, than has been commonly assumed, and lack an adequate, and non-arbitrary, basis. Furthermore alternative theories are far less incoherent than is commonly claimed, especially by philosophers. are viable alternatives to the Dominion thesis, Yet although there the natural world is rapidly being preempted in favour of human chauvinism - and of what it ideologically underwrites, the modern economic-industrial superstructure - by the elimination or over-exploitation of those things that are not considered of sufficient instrumental value for human beings. Witness the of the non-human world, the assaults being made on tropical rainforests, surviving temperate wildernesses, wild animals, the oceans, to list only a few of the victims of man's assault on the natural world. Observe also the associated measures to bring primitive or recalcitrant peoples into the Western consumer society and the spread of human chauvinist value systems. The time is fast approaching when questions raised by an environmental ethic will cease to involve live options. As things stand at present however, the ethical issues generated by the preemptions - especially given the weakness and inadequacy of the ideological and value—theoretical basis on which the damaging chauvinistic transformation of the world is premissed, and the viability of alternative environmental ethics - are not merely of theoretical interest, but are among the most important and urgent questions of our times, perhaps, that human beings, whose individual or group self-interest is the source of most environmental problems, have ever asked themselves. R. and V. Routley Plumwood Mountain Braidwood Australia 2622 �References [1] R. and V. Routley, 'Human chauvinism and environmental ethics', mimeographed, privately circulated, 1974. [2] P.H. Nowell-Smith, Ethics, Penguin, London, 1954. [3] R. and V. Routley, 'Semantical foundations for value theory', Nous (forthcoming) [4] D.G. Ritchie, Natural Rights, Allen and Unwin, London, 1894. [5] J. Passmore, 'The treatment of animals', Journal of the History of Ideas, _36 (1975), 195-218. [6] T. Regan and P. Singer (editors), Animal Rights and Human Obligations, Prentice- Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1976. [7] J. Wisdom, Other Minds, Blackwell, Oxford, 1952. [8] R. Routley, 'The semantical metamorphosis of metaphysics', Australasian Journal of Philosophy^5A (1976),157. [9] [10] J. Passmore, Man's Responsibility for Nature, Duckworth, London, 1974. V. Routley, Critical Notice of [9], Australasian Journal of Philosophy 53. (1975) 171-185. [11] H.J. McCloskey, 'Rights', Philosophical Quarterly, 15 (1965), 115-127. [12] A. Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, with other essays on conservation from Round River, Ballantine, New York, 1966. [13] K. Baier and N. Rescher (editors), Values and the Future, the impact of techno­ logical change on American values, The Free Press, New York, 1969. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document AGAINST THE INEVITABILITY OF HUMAN CHAUVINISM In our enlightened times, when most forms of chauvinism have been abandoned at least in theory by those who consider themselves progressive, western ethics still appears to retain, at its very heart, a fundamental form of chauvinism, namely, human chauvinism. ethical theories For both popular western thought and most western assume that both value and morality can ultimately be reduced to matters of interest or concern to the class of humans. Class chauvinism, in the relevant sense, is substantially differential, discriminatory, and inferior treatment (characteristically, but not necessarily, by members of the privileged class) of items outside the class, for which there is not sufficient justification. Human chauvinism, like other varieties of chauvinism, can take stronger and weaker forms; an example of the weaker form is the Greater Value Thesis, the invariable allocation of greater value or preference, on the basis of species, to humans, while not however entirely excluding non-humans from moral consideration and claims. We will be concerned primarily with strong forms of human chauvinism, which see value and morality as ultimately concerned entirely with humans, and non-human items as having value or creating constraints on human action only insofar as these items serve human interests or purposes. In recent years, since the rise of the 'environmental consciousness', there has been increasing, if still tentative, questioning of this exclusive concern with, or at least heavy bias towards, human interests; and indeed, at a time when human beings are rapidly accelerating their impact on the natural world, the question as to the validity of this basic assumption is not merely an abstract one, but is of immediate and practical concern in its implications for This thesis has, among other unacceptable outcomes, the consequence that, if there is only room in one's boat for one and one must choose between saving Adolf Hitler and a wombat which has lived a decent and kindly life and never harmed a living creature, one is morally obligated to choose the former. That would not be the choice of the authors. 2. human action. In reply to this questioning (which appears to originate largely from people with environmental interests), modern moral philosophers - fulfilling their now established function of providing a theoretical superstructure to explain and justify contemporary moral sensibilities, questioning fundamental assumptions - tend to argue that the bias towards human interests, which is an integral part of going ethical theories, is not just another form of class chauvinism which it is both possible and desirable to eliminate, but rather a restriction dictated by the logic of evaluative and moral concepts, and that there is no coherent, possible or viable alternative to the "human chauvinism" of standard ethical theories. series of In this paper we want to consider and reject a arguments in the theory of value designed to show that this is so, and thereby to advance the cause of an alternative, non-chauvinistic, environmental ethic. The orthodox defence of human chauvinism argues that it is inevitable that humans should be taken as the exclusive subjects of value and morality. Humans are uniquely and exclusively qualified for moral consideration and attributions of value, according to this defence either because the human species alone does, as a matter of fact, possess properties which are a pre­ condition for such ascriptions or because, as a matter of the definition or the logic or the significance of moral concepts in natural language, such considerations are restricted, as a matter of logic, to the human species. In the first case the restriction of morality and value to the human species will be taken as contingent, in the second necessary. In either case, if the argument is correct, the bias in favour of humans in current theories is inescapable, so that, depending on one's definition of chauvinism, either human chauvinism itself is inevitable, or human bias is, because justifiable, not a real chauvinism at all. We shall consider the logical or definitional approach first. According to the definitional approach, moral and evaluative terms are, as a matter of their definitions, restricted in their application to members of the human species; only in a secondary way at best do such terms find a 3. wider application, according as evaluated items are instrumental to human interests. The thesis is often backed up by the production of definitions which are so restricted, for example, 'the value of a thing is its capacity to confer a benefit on someone, to make a favourable difference to his life' (Baier, in [13], p. 40), where in the intended context 'someone' is obviously restricted to humans. The attempt to preserve human chauvinism in an unchallengeable form through definitions involves the fallacy of taking definitions to be self­ validating and unchallengeable, and appears to be based on the confusion of abbreviative definitions with those involving or presupposing substantive claims, such as creative definitions, which may be accepted or rejected. Such definitions as those above, cannot be merely abbreviative because they attempt to characterise or explicate already understood terms, such as 'moral' or 'value'. Worse still, they do so in a way which is not dictated by prevailing usage - which does not require that moral and value terms be restricted in range to human:in order that they continue to apply to humans in the ordinary way. Alternative definitions which do not so restrict the range of application may be supplied, they can in fact be found by looking up dictionaries, and these alternatives quite properly do not close off genuine issues which natural language itself leaves open. The fallacy of the definitional move is that of believing that by converting the substantive evaluative theses of human chauvinism to matters of definition they become somehow exempt from challenge or need for justification. This is comparable to justifying discriminatory membership for a club by referring to the rules, similarly conceived as self-validating and exempt from question or justification. Since a similar move could obviously be employed to limit membership of the Moral Club to say, white male humans in place of humans, it is plain that such a definitional argument does far too much, and is capable of use to produce completely unacceptable conclusions. But of course substantive theses involved in definitions, like club rules, are not exempt from challenge and may be arbitrary, undesirable, restrictive, c/ 4. and in need of justification. Once this is grasped the definitional move can be seen as entirely question-begging, since the question of the acceptability and inevitability of human chauvinism is simply transformed into the question of the acceptability and inevitability of the definition. The production of such human chauvinist definitions has done nothing to advance the case of human chauvinism, other than to throw a spurious air of unchallangeability and over the highly challengeable and arbitrary substantive theses they embody. The attempt to settle substantive issues 'by definition' is both philosophically facile and methodologically unsound, and is especially so when there are clearly alternative definitions which would not settle the issue in the same way. What, however, of the substantive claim presupposed by the definitional move, namely that as a matter of natural language usage, or the logic of moral and evaluative concepts, the meaning of moral and value terms, it is logically necessary that direct, non-instrumental, application of such terms be restricted to the human (a claim made at least in the case of rights by Ritchie [4], p. 107, and subsequently by Passmore [5] and [9]^,p. 116, 189, Ay and,others). But usually, when it is asserted that non-humans cannot have rights, obligations and such like, what sort of 'cannot' is involved is not specified - whether it is a 'cannot' of logical impossibility, or of non-significance or absurdity, or something else again (the point is nicely illustrated by Feinberg's discussion of McCloskey, McCloskey [11] itself). in p. 195 , and by In any case, however, the thesis appears to be mistaken, for it rules out as logically impossible or absurd a number of positions and theses which are very plainly neither and which it may even, in some circumstances, be important to consider. For example, it is surely neither impossible nor absurd to consider moral questions concerning conduct of humans towards other species, e.g. to a race of sensitive and intelligent extraterrestrial beings, and similarly moral questions arising from their conduct towards or concerning humans, indeed science fiction writ .ers do this commonly without producing nonsense or contradicting themselves. Not only does the proposed restriction appear quite 5. mistaken given current usage, but there seems indeed to be something logically unsound about the attempt to place a logical restriction to a particular species on such terms, just as there would be in restricting membership of the Moral Club to people with blue eyes and blond hair who are over 6 feet tall. The accident of being a zoological human, defined in terms of various physical characteristics, cannot be morally relevant. It is impossible to restrict moral terms to particular species, when species distinctions are defined in terms of physical characteristics which are not morally relevant. More generally, any attempt to derive a logically necessary connection between humanity itself and the applicability of morality is bound to fail. For creatures anatomically and zoologically distinct from humans which are identical with humans in terms of all morally relevant features are logically possible, upsetting any logical linkage. tie between humanity But attempts to establish a logical and morality through features which all and only humans possess and which are themselves linked logically to morality, would, of course, involve a modal fallacy, namely that of substituting a contingent equivalence within an opaque modal conte t of logical necessity. In order for such an argument to be val? d, it would have to be logically necessary that non­ humans do not possess such features, not merely a contingent fact that they do not; but this assumption must be incorrect for morally relevant characteristics. The only proposal which has ac/n/tce of succeeding, then, is the factual one which makes the selection of just humans for the Moral Club a contingent matter, the claim being that as a matter of contingent fact all and only humans possess a certain set of characteristics, which characteristics themselves are logically tied with qualification for moral consideration and for direct attribution of value to the possessor. What this contingent form of human chauvinism has to produce then, in order to establish its case, is a set of characteristics which satisfy the following conditions of adequacy: 6. 1. The set of characteristics must be possessed by at least all properly functioning humans, since to omit any significant category usually considered subject to moral consideration, such as infants, young children, primitive tribesmen etc., and to allow that it was permissible to treat these gro^J^L^ in the way it is considered permissible to treat non-humans, ^s mere instruments, would certainly be repuguant to modern moral sensibilities, and would offend common intuitions as to the brotherhood of man, the view that all humans are possessors of inalienable rights. Thus human chauvinism, if it is to produce a coherent theory which does not unacceptably rule out some groups of humans must find some set of features common to the most diverse members of humankind, from Rio Tinto executives to hunter-gatherer tribes of Amazonian Indians, from those who engage in highly abstract activities such as logic and mathematics to those who cannot, from the literate and cultured to the illiterate and uncouth, from the poet and professor to the infant. This alone will be no easy task. 2. In order for human chauvinism to be justified this set of characteristics must not be possessed by any non-human. 3. The set of characteristics must not merely be morally relevant,but sufficient to justify, in a non-circular way, the cut-off of moral consideration at exactly the right point. If human chauvinism is to avoid the charge of arbitrariness and unjustifiability, and demonstrate its inevitability and the impossibility of alternatives, it must emerge from the characteristicj why items not having may be used as mere instruments to serve the interests of those which do possess There must be some explanatory logical connection between the set of characteristics and membership of the Moral Club. Chauvinists aie. fc stress distinguishing points between the privileged class and those outside it - and there is no lack of characteristics which distinguish humans from non-humans, at least functioning healthy adult ones. The point is that these distinctions usually do not warrant the sort of radically inferior treatment for which they are 7. proposed as a rationale. On the basis of the characteristics then the proposed radical difference in treatment between the privileged and non­ privileged class and the purely instrumental treatment of the non-privileged class, must be warranted, that is, the distinguishing characteristics must be able to carry the moral superstructure placed upon them. A large and exceedingly disparate collection of features has been suggested as distinguishing humans from non-humans and justifying human chauvinism. But it turns out that every one of these, on examination, either fails to pick out the desired privileged class of humans in an unequivchcal fashion, that is, it applies to some non-humans or excludes some humans who should not be excluded, or, when it does select the desired class, fails on condition 3, and does not warrant the exclusive claim to moral consideration of the privileged class. Many suggested criteria in fact fail on more than one count. The traditional distinction between humans and the rest in terms of rationality illustrates the point. Once the theological doctrines of the exclusively human soul on which the distinction once rested are abandoned, it is not so easy to see what is meant by this term. Indeed it often appears to function as little more than a self-congratulatory predicate applied exclusively to humans, with no other clear function at all. clarifications are sometimes offered. However various For example rationality may be said to be the ability to reason, this being tested by such basically linguistic performances as the ability to do lo^ic, to prove theorems, to draw conclusions from arguments and to engage in inductive and deductive linguistic behaviour. But such stringent and linguistically-loaded criteria will eliminate far too many members of the human species who cannot perform these tasks. If, however, behavioural criteria for rationality are adopted, or the ability to solve problems and to fit attion to individual goals becomes the test - that is, practical reasoning is the test - it is obvious that many non-human admission to the Moral Club, rather than the ability to perform some other tasks or meet some other set of standards, such as orienteering ability,the ability to mix concrete (the use of concrete being, afte^all, a far more conspicuous feature of modern human society than the use of reason). One senses also in the appeal to such criteria (andespecially to linguistic criteria) the overvaluation of the things in which the privileged class typically excells and the undervaluation of the skills - not obviously^ in any non—circular way inferior - of the non-privileged class, which is such a typical feature of chauvinism. We list some of the suggested characteristics supposedly justifying human chauvinism, and indicate in brackets after each some of the conditions they fail: using tools (fails 1, 2, 3), altering the environment (1, 2, 3), the ability to communicate (1, 2, 3), the ability to use and learn language (1, 2, 3), the ability to use and learn English (1, 3), possession of consciousness (2, 3), self-consciousness or self-awareness (1, 2?, 3), having a conscience (1, 2?, 3), having a sense of shame (1, 2?, 3), being aware of oneself as an agent or initiator (1, 2, 3), having awareness (2, 3), being aware of one's existence (1, 2?, 3), being aware of the inevitability of one's own death (1, 2?, 3), being capable of self-deception (1, 3), being able to ask questions about moral issues such as human chauvinism (1, 3), having a mental life (2, 3), being able to play games (1, 2, 3), being able to laugh (1, 3), to laugh at oneself (1, 3), being able to make jokes (1, 3), having interests (2, 3), having projects (1, 2, 3), being able to assess some of one's performances as successful or not (1, 2, 3), enjoying freedom of action (2, 3), being able to vary one's behaviour outside a narrow range of insttnctu al behaviour (1, 2, 3), belonging to a social community (1, 2, 3), being morally responsible for one's actions (1), being able to love (1, 2), being capable of altruism (1, 2), being capable of being a Christian, or capable of religious faith (1, 3), being able to produce the items of (human) civilisation grid, culture * (1, 3). * This feature typifies a number of rather circular distinguishing characteristics, or at least ones which raise serious theob^. tical problems for human chauvinism, because they attempt to explain the unique value of humans in terms of their ability to produce items which are taken to be independently valuable, thus contradicting human chauvinism (see the discussion in [10],/?.;77/, It appears that none of these criteria meet the conditions of adequacy; furthermore it seems most unlikely that any other characteristic or any cowbinlation of the^characteristics does so. Thus we conclude that these contingent direct arguments for human & chauvinism^not establish its inevitability, and that indeed the position rests on a shaky base and so f^r lacks a coherent theoretical justification. Human chauvinism cannot be restored by a detour through the concept of a person, that is by linking perso/JnoocL with membership of the /* foral (lub, and identifying the class of persons contingently with the class of humans. For then the same problem as above arises with different terminology even if the of person since, can be specified in such a way as to justify the restriction of moral privileges to persons, the class of persons will then not conicin the way human chauvinism requires^ with the class of humans, but will either include a great many non-humans or exclude a good many humans^morally considered. Attempts to enlarge the privileged class, for example to persons (broadly specified), or to sentient or preference having creatures, may avoid many of the problems of arbitrariness and justification which face the strong form of human chauvinism, but, as we shall argue, face a set of problems of coherence and consistency common to all instrumentalist theories of value and morality. ******* There are a number of indirect arguments for human chauvinism based on features of value and morality. argument We turn now to consider these. One abstract which is supposed to establish that values are, or must, be determined through the interests of humans or persons - a central argument underlying chauvinism - takes the following form:- 10. A. Values are determined through the preference rankings of valuers. (The no detachable values assumption). B. Valuers' preference rankings are determined through valuers' interests. (The preference reduction thesis). C. Valuers are humans [persons]. (The species assumption). Therefore: D. Values are determined through human interests [through the interests of persons]. Hence, it is sometimes concluded, not only is it perfectly acceptable for humans to reduce matters of value and morality to matters of human interest, there is no rational or possible alternative to doing so: any alternative is simply incoherent. Although th{$ argument does not, so far as we are aware, appear anywhere with its premisses explicitly stated, it does seem to reflect the sorts of considerations those who claim that there is no rational or coherent alternative to organising everything in human interests usually have in mind. Of course once the premisses are exposed, it is easier to see that this initially persuasive argument, like others in the area, rests on fallacious assumptions. y<2^ — We shall claim that although the argument to conclusion D is formally^given only some quite conventional assumptions such as that the relation of determin­ ation or functionality is appropriately transitive and the principle of replacement of necessary identicals - not all the premisses should be accepted. The argument can be treated as the major representative of a family of similar arguments. For there are many variations that can be made on the argument with a view to amending it, tightening it, varying or strengthening its conclusion, and so on. Our criticisms of the argument will, for the most part, transfer to the variations. qualifies the determining relation; A first group of variations replaces or for example, 'determined through' or 'determined by' may be replaced by 'answer back to', of', 'can be reduced to', or 'are a function of'. 'reflect', 'are a matter (The latter functional form makes it plain that 'determined' has to mean 'exactly determined', which 11. ensures that no extraneous factors enter into the chauvinistic determination: mere partial determination would be quite compatible with the rejection of human chauvinism.) Alternatively, 'determined' may be modally upgraded to 'have to be determined', in order to reveal the sheer necessity of conclusion D. (In this case it is essential that premiss C be of modal strength, and not merely contingent as it would be if the original form were retained; other­ wise the argument would contain a modal fallacy.). Another familiar, and appealing, variation we have already bracketed into the form of the argument given; class by persons. namely the replacement of humans as base This straightaway increases the cogency of premiss C, which otherwise - while better than, say, 'Valuers are white (North American) humans' - would at best be contingently true (which is not good enough for the argument and in fact appears false, since some valuers may not be human; and certainly not all humans are valuers), while at worst it is simply a circular way of reintroducing the logical version of human chauvinism by rest^cting the class of valuers a priori to humans. That all valuers are persons may be made analytic on the sense of 'person' - given a redefinition of 'person' away from its normal English usage, which philosophical English appears to almost tolerate - thus shielding premiss C from criticism. Other base classes than persons can replace humans in premiss C, for example animals, thus leading to the conclusion, of animal chauvinism, that values are determined through the interests (considerations and concerns) of animals, sentient creatures, or whatever. In the end, of course premiss C could be absorbed (as: Valuers are valuers or valuing creatures) and accordingly omitted, leaving the conclusion: Values are determined in the interests of valuers. However even the analytic form of premiss C does not, as we shall see, save the argument. Much the same applies in the case of premiss A. The premiss is certainly not unobjectionable in the usual sense of 'determined'; but there are ways of repairing it so that the argument still works in a sufficiently damaging form, and one way goes as follows:— What is true, analytically, if sufficiently many valuers are taken into account, is that values are deter­ 12. mined through the value rankings of valuers. Value rankings cannot however be cashed in for preference rankings since, as is well-known, preference rankings and value rankings can diverge: value and can value what is not preferred. a valuer can prefer what has less Let us amend the argument then - so that we can locate the real cause of damage - by replacing premiss A by the following premiss: A^. Values are determined through the value rankings of (appropriate) valuers. Correspondingly B will be adjusted to B^ in which 'value' replaces 'preference'. The really objectionable premiss in the central argument is neither premiss A nor premiss C, but premiss B - or, more exactly, where A is repaired, premiss B^. Suspicion of premiss B may be aroused by noticing that it plays an exactly parallel role in the class chauvinism argument to that the critical premiss BE. One's preferences of choices are always determined through self-interest, plays in familiar arguments for egoism, that whatever course of action one adopts, it is always really adopted in one's own selfish interests. The argument for egoism runs along the following, parallel, lines:- AE. Individual persons [agents) always act (in freely chosen cases) in the way they prefer or choose, i.e. in accordance with their preference rankings. BE. Individual preference rankings are always determined through ^reflect) self­ interest. Therefore: There is nonetheless an esoteric, semantical, sense of 'determined' in which premiss A is demonstrably true, and so a sense in which it is analytically true that value rankings are semantically determined by the preference rankings of situations by a class of valuers. The details of these semantical foundations for values are set out in 131. But while premiss A can be corrected by replacing 'determined' by 'semantically determined' and giving this an appropriate construal, such a move would do nothing to restore the intended argument: for it would either invalidate the argument, through change in the key middle term 'determined', or, alternatively, if 'determined' is systematically replaced throughout the argument, drastically alter the intended conclusion D - so that looking at the interests that humans in fact have would no longer provide a guide to values (instead the interests of hypothetical valuers with respect to worlds that never exist or could exist would have to be gathered). 13. DE. Individual persons ^agents] always act in ways determined by self interest [that reflect their own interests^. Thereafter follows the slide from in their own interests^ to to their own advantage, or for their own uses or purposes. The final conclusion of egoism again parallelling the class chauvinism case, is not only that the egoistic position is perfectly in order and thoroughly rational but that there are no alternatives, that there is, or at least ought to be, no other way of acting, 'that men can only choose to do what is in their own interests or that it is only rational to do this' ([2], p. 140). Thus human chauvinism, as based on the central argument, stands revealed as a form of group selfishness, group egoism one might almost say. Likewise the criticisms of the Group Selfishness argument, as we shall now call the central argument, parallel those of egoism, in particular premiss B (B ) succumbs to similar objections to those that defeat premiss BE (BE^). Group selfishness is no more acceptable than egoism, since it depends on exactly the same set of confusions between values and advantages, and slides on such terms as 'interests', as the arguments on which egoism rests. Nowell-Smith's very appealing critique of egoism ([2], p. 140-144) may, by simple paraphrase, be converted into a critique of group selfishness. recast B^ and BE" *" This is obvious once we and set them side by side: BE^. Individual value rankings are determined through (individual) self­ interest; and B^. Valuers' [groups'] value rankings are determined through valuers' (group) interests [joint interests of groups]. Because, however, one sets up or selects one's own preference or value rankings, it does not follow that they are set up or selected in one's own interests; similarly in group cases, because a group determines its own rankings, it does not follow that it determines them in its own interests. Just as BE^ is, prima facie at least, refuted by a range of examples where value, and also preference, rankings run counter to self-interest, e.g. cases of altruism, so prima facie at least, B is refuted by examples where value, and also overall preference rankings, vary from group interests, e.g. cases of In the case group altruism. of limited groups examples are easy to locate, e.g. resistance movements, environmental action groups, and so on; case, however, of the larger human group in the are bound to be more controversial (since B^ unlike BE^ is a live thesis), but are still easy to find, especially if future humans are discounted, e.g. it is in humans' selfish interests to have plentiful supplies of this and that, electricity from uranium, oil, Me were Sy/Z/ey whalemeat, fish, etc., right now rather than^which would result from restraint, but altruistic value rankings would rank the latter above the former. It is often in selfish human interests (no less selfish because pertaining to a group) to open up and develop the wilderness, strip mine the earth, exploit animals, and so on, but environmentalists who advocate not doing so, in many cases not merely because of future humans, are apparently acting not just out of their own or human group interests. But, just as BE^ is not demolished by such counterexamples of apparently altruistic action, neither is B : in each case it can be made out that further selfish interests are involved, e.g., in the case of B , that an agent did what he did, an altruistic action, because he liked doing it. As Nowell-Smith explains in the egoism case, interest is written in as an internal accusative, thereby rendering such theses as BE^ true at the cost, however, of trivialising them. More generally, valuing something gets written in as a further sort of "interest"; whatever valuers value that does not seem to be in their interests is said to provide a further interest, either the value itself or an invented value surrogate; for example^the environmentalist who works to retain a wilderness he never expects to see may be said to be so acting because he has an interest in or derives benefit or advantage from just knowing it exists, just as he would be in the egoist case. theses can be retained; By such strategies the for then a valued item really is in valuers interests, in the extended sense, even if they are in obvious ways seriously inconvenienced 15. by it, i.e. even if it is not in their interests in the customary sense. ', * Thus.BE' like 4^', is preserved by stretching the elastic term 'interests', in a way that it too readily admits, to include values, or value surrogates, among interests. Then however the conclusion of the &roup Selfishness argument loses its intended force, and becomes the platitude that values are determined through valuers' values , just as egoism, under the extension a which makes us all covert egoists,loses its sting and becomes,platitude. It can be seen that human chauvinism in this form, like egoism, derives its plausibility from vacillation in the sense of 'interests', with a resulting fluctuation between a strong false thesis - the face of^chauvinism usually presented - and a trivial analytic thesis,between paradox and platitude.-^ To sum up the dilemma for the argument then:- when 'interest' is used in its weaker sense premiss B may be accepted but the argument does not establish its intended conclusion or in any way support human chauvinism. intended effect of the argument, in the crude form is this: values it is enough to look at human advantage: For the in determining nothing else counts. If the argument were correct, then one could assess values by checking out the local (selfish) advantage of humans, or, more generally, the advantage of the base class somehow assembled. If, on the other hand, 'interest' is used in its strong sense, the conclusion would lice^'hce a form of human chauvinism, but premiss B now fails. Most philosphers think they know how to discredit the egoist arguments. It is curious indeed then, that an argument which is regarded as so unsatisfactory in the individual case - that for egoism - remains unchallenged and is still considered so convincing in a precisely parallel group case - that for human chauvinism. ******** The technique of rescuing philosphical theses by natural extensions and accompanying redefinitions of terms, including the thesis "We're all selfish really", is delightfully explained in Wisdom [7], chapter 1. 16. The Group Selfishness argument is often employed in another way, as the presentation for a choice between the conclusion D, that value is determined by or reducible to a matter of human interests, and the denial of premiss A, which denial is seen as entailing a commitment to a detached,intrinsic or naturalistic theory of value. Thus, it may be said either one accepts the conclusion, with its consequent instrumentalist account of value, or one is committed to an intrinsic or detached value theory which takes values to be completely independent of valuers, and no way determined by them. But, it is assumed, the latter theory is well known as untenable, and may even be seen as involving mysticism or as irrational ^e.g. by Passmore [9], chapter 7). Thus it may be concluded, there is no real coherent alternative to such an instrumental account of value, and hence no real alternative to human chauvinism. The form of the argument then, is essentially: *^A v D, but A,therefore D, or, if a stronger connection, of intensional disjunction, is intended: but A, therefore D. It can be seen that the main premiss, -A v D, has resulted from the exportation and suppression of premisses B and C of the Group argument. ^A, Selfishness This suppression does nothing to improve the standing of the premisses although it does have the (possibly advantageous) effect of making it more difficult to see the fallacious assumptions on which it is based. For of course the choice a false one, and for precisely the same reasons that led us to say that premiss B was false. To reject the instrumentalist conclusion D is by no means to be committed to ^A, or to the view that the valuer's and their preference rankings play no role in determining values and that values are a further set of mysterious independent items in the world somehow perceived by valuers through a special (even mystical and non—rational) moral sense. Valuers' ; * preference rankings may be admitted to play an important role in evaluation are still not committed to D unless we assume - what amounts to premiss B these preference rankings reflect, or can be reduced to, valuers' interests. * on page 16a we that 16a Value rankings can be semantically analysed in terms of preference or interest rankings, as in [3]; but this does not offer a reduction of values to preferences or interests, as [8] explains. The semantical foundations, while conceding nothing to subjectivism or instrumentalism, make it easy to concede main points of the case (attributed to Dewey) against detached values, against the view that there are values somehow out there (in Meinong's aussersein), purely naturalistic values completely detached from all valuers, or from all preference rankings of valuers. Put differently, there are no values that do not somehow answer back to preference rankings of valuers, and so no values that are entirely detached from valuers and valuational activity such as preference-ranking of situations. But the answering back is made explicit and precise by the semantical analysis, not by any syntactical reduction or translation of value statements into statements about valuers' preference or interest rankings; and the valuers of the analysis are, like the situations introduced, ideal and need in no way exist. As a result then, valuations may be independent of the aggregated preference rankings of all actual humans or, for that matter, of all persons over all time. Thus too the semantical analysis makes it easy to navigate a course between the alternatives of two influential false dichotomies, to the effect that values are either instrumental or else detached, or that values are either subjective or else detached. For though a semantical analysis can be given, upsetting the detached value thesis, no translation or syntactical reduction of the sort subjectivism assumes is thereby effected. 17. The dichotomy frequently presented between instrumentalist accounts of value, on the one hand, and detached theories (or what are mistakenly taken to be the same, intrinsic theories) is, for the same reason, a false one. Instrumental theories are those which attempt to reduce value to what is instrumental to^contribute$to a stated goal. Typically such theories take the goal to be the furtherance of the interest of a privileged class; for example the goal may be taken to be determined in terms of the interests, concerns, advantage or welfare of the class of humans, or of persons, or of sentient creatures, depending on the type of chauvinism. In particular, human chauvinist theories are, characteristically, instrumentalist theories. In contrast,an item is valued intrinsically where it is valued for its own sake, and not merely as a means to something further; and an intrinsic value theory allows that some items are intrinsically valuable. Intrinsic theories then, instrumental contrast with Z. theories, and what 'intrinsic' tells us is no more than that the item taken as intrinsically valuable is not valued merely as a means to some goal, i.e. is not merely instrumentally valued. Accordingly detached value theories, since disjoint from instrumental theories, are a subclass of intrinsic value theories; be detached: and they are a proper subclass since intrinsic values need not something may be valuable in itself without its value being detached from all valuing experience. It is evident, furthermore, that the identification of intrinsic and detached value theories presupposed in the argument is no more than a restatement of the false dichotomy -^A v D, or ^A, The assumption i.e. non-instrumental, therefore detached^that if preference or value rankings are involved at all the resulting assignments must be instrumental is either false or or is variation of the fallacious premiss B which plays a crucial role in the Group Selfishness and Egoist arguments; the variation is that if value or preference rankings are involved they must reflect valuers' interests, therefore such values are instrumental, because the items valued are valued according as they reflect valuers interest, therefore according as they are a means to the end of satisfying the valuers' interest. It follows that intrinsic value theories 18. may allow for a third way between instrumental and detached theories, because of the possibility of value rankings (and also preference rankings) which are not themselves set up in a purely instrumentalist way, that is attributing value to aiitem only according as it is a means to some goal. The argument that there is no coherent alternative to instrumentalism does not however rely just on misrepresenting alternative intrinsic accounts as logically incoherent by assimilating them to detached accounts. It also trades on a contemporary insensitivity to the serious logical and epistemological problems of instrumental accounts of value, problems which were well known to classical philosophers (see e.g., Aristotle Metaphysics, 994b9-16) It does not appear to be widely realised that the classical arguments apply not just to a few especially shaky instrumentalist theories which adopt questionable goals but to instrumentalism in general, since they assume only quite general features of the instrumentalist position. Instrumentalist positions take as valuable (or in the moral case, as creating moral constraints) just what contributes to a stated end. which comes to mind is utilitarianism. An obvious example However in the more general case we are concerned with, of instrumentalist forms of human chauvinism, there may be a set of goalnot just a single goal such as that of maximising net happiness of humans; the human chauvinist assumption is that the values (indeed constraints) are goal-reducible, and that all goals reduce in some way to human goals, or at least can be assessed in terms of human concerns and interests. Human chauvinist positions are not necessarily instrumental, but those that are not (e.g. the position that just humans and nothing else are intrinsically valuable) tend to make the arbitrary chauvinistic nature of their assumptions unwisely explicit - most successful contempory chauvinisms being covert ones. Problems for instrumentalism arise (as Aristotle observed) when questions are asked about the status of the goal itself. Instrumentalism relies entirely for its plausibility upon selecting a set of goats which are widely accepted and are, in 19. It relies at bottom on an implicit the theory, implicitly treated as valuable. valuation which cannot itself be explained in purely instrumental terms. Of course a value assumption is not eliminated on this fashion: the general consensus it is merely hidden under that such a goal is appropriate, that such an end is valuable. But the strategy of successful instrumentalism is to avoid recognition of the fact that the goal is, and indeed must be, implicitly treated as valuable, by selecting a set of goals so much part of the framework of comtemporary thought, so entrenched and habitual 3s a valued item by humans that the value attached to the goal becomes virtually invisible, at least to those the framework. Thus it is with the assumption of human chauvinist instrumentalism that goals are exclusively determinable in terms of human interest. The basic, convincing and self-evident character of this assumption rests on nothing more than the shared beliefs of the privileged class of humans concerning the paramount and exclusive importance of their own interests and concerns, on a valuational assumption or goal which is ^'self-evident'" because it is advantageous and is habitual. The consensus features, of which instrumentalists make so much, are nothing more than the consensus of the privileged class about the goal of maintaining consensus of interests. their own privilege, i.e. a This sort of agreement of course shows very little about the well-grountiness of the position. Unless the goals set are widely accepted as valuable, the account will be unconvincing to those who do not share the goal and even to those who appreciate that it is possible to reject the goal. In order for instrumentalism to work logically however, the goal must be implicitly treated within the theory as valuable, for otherwise the proposed analysis loses explanatory and justificatory power and lacks compulsion. For how can the value of an item be explained and justified in terms of its contribution to an end not itself considered valuable! Serious problems also arise about the nature of value statements under the instrumentalist analysis unless the goal is treated as valuable. For if the goals themselves are not so treated within the theory, but are taken simply as unevaluated facts, then a valuational statement 'x is valuable' becomes, under the proposed analysis, 20. simply the statement that x tends to produce a certain result, to contribute to certain human states, a statement whose logical status, openness to verification, allowance for disagreement, and so on, does not substantially differ from that statement that x tends to producejoxide, to contribute to the rusting of human products. Such an account of value statements is open to the same sort of objections as other naturalistic reductions of value, for example, Mill's account the desirable in terms of the desired. of The special logical and epistemological character of value statements then, especially with respect to verification and disagreement,must be supplied in instrumentalism, if it is to be supplied at all, by the implicit treatment of the goal itself as valuable. The fact that the goaL of an instrumental account must be taken as itself valuable, gives rise to two choices. In the first, the goal is taken as itself instrumentally valuable, which creates an infinite regress. For if the end, reason or assignment for which other items are intrumentally valuable is itself only instrumentally valuable then there must in turn be some other end, reason or assignment in terms of which it is valuable (by definition of instrumental). A regress is thus begun, and if this regress is not to be viciously infinite, it must terminate in some end or feature which is taken as valuable just in itself, that is, with intrinsic values. On the alternative option the goal is not taken to be instrumentally valuable but is admitted to be valuable in some other way. Unless an 'except' clause is , so that all values are held to be account instrumental with the exception of the goal, the will of course be contextually added to the original instrumentalist inconsistent, since it is inconsistent when contextually supplied assumptions are added. For these include the assuption that the goal itself is valuable, but not in the way that the instrumentalist thesis claims is the only way possible. the goal is taken to be both valuable and not valuable. If, on the other hand, an'except^ clause is added, this amounts to an admission that the goal is taken to be non-instrumentally valuable. Thus the account may be able to retain consistency, but does so at the expense of Thus 21 explicitly admitting a value, that of the goal, which cannot be accounted for in purely instrumental terms, in short, that the gcdl is taken as intrinsically valuable. To sum up, the dilemma for the instrumentalist can be put as follows: Consider the desirability of the goal of the instrumental theory: it must implicitly be judged to be desirable, for otherwise nothing could be justified by reduction to it. or not? Ask: Is this goal also instrumentally desirable (valuable) If it is, i.e. it is only desirable as a means to a further goal, then either a regress is initiated or the same issue arises with respect to the new goal. But if it is not, then the instrumental theory is again refuted, since the goal is desirable though not desirable according to the test of the theory because it is not instrumental to the goal. Whichever ho rn of the dilemma is taken^ then> the outcome is the same: the instrumentalist must rely on treating the goal itself as implicitly valuable in a way not purely instrumental, that is, as intrinsically valuable. Thus the instrumentalist is, at bottom, guilty of precisely the same crime of which he accuses the adherent of a intrinsic account, with the added delinquency of failing to admit and face up to his basic assumptions. The logical and epistemological position of such an instrumental account is certainly no better than that of an intrinsic account, since there is logically no difference between the recognition of one intrinsic value (or one set in the case where gcals are multiple) and the recognition of many of them, ancf^lxtgical and epistemological status of the instrumentalist's account is no better than that of the goal to which his values are taken as instrumental. Since the instrumentalist has implicitly admitted the legitimacy of an intrinsic value assignment in setting up his account, he cannot claim any superiority over a more general intrinsic theory which allows for many intrinsic values, since what is legitimate in the case of one value assignment must be equally legitimate in the multiple case. 22, This abstract dilemma for human chauvinist instrumentalism is illustrated in a concrete case by Passmore's procedure in [9]; for Passmore (1) wishes to say that there is no coherent alternative to instrumental values, that an item is valuable insofar as it serves human interest, and (2) wants to explain the unique value attributed to humans in terms of their production of valuable civilised and cultural But (2) involves the admission of values, that items. of civilised items, which cannot be valuable in the way (1) states, and indeed (2) amounts to the admission of non-instrumental values. The proposed account is inconsistent because if intrinsic values are admissible in the case of civilised items, they cannot be logically ^oherent in the way (1) claims. The sort of problem faced by Passmore is however not a readily avoidable one for the instrumentalist; for if the charge of arbitary and unjustifiable human chauvinism is to be avoided by those who opt for (1), and humans are not themselves to be awarded intrinsic values,, thus conceding the logical legitimacy of intrinsic values generally, and hence the avoidability of human chauvinist accounts of value, some explanation must be provided for the exclusive value attributed to humans. But only explanation capable of justifying this valuation in a non-arbitray and non-chauvinistic way would have to refer to properties of humans, and would have to say something like: 'Humans are uniquely valuable because they alone have valuable properties x,y,z,... or produce valuable items A, B, C...'. distinguishing The list of proposed features already considered on page 8 are usually those that will be employed here. But this is to admit intrinsic value for the properties which explain the exclusive value of humans. The dilemma for the human chauvinist is that he must either take the exclusive human value assumption (the goal) as ultimate—laying him open to the charge of arbitrary chauvinism and of attributing intrinsic values to humans-or attempt to explain it* in which case he will again end by concedingly non-instrumental values. Thus the case for the inevitability of human chauvinism, that alternatives to it must be based on an incoherent and logically and epistemically defective account of values, namely a non-instrumental account, has not been established by these arguments. & * &&&& ** **& 23. Egoism, not group selfishness, is one of the assumptions underlying the next The leading ideas of the representative series of abstract defences of chauvinism. argument we first consider are essentially those of social contract theories. This argument takes the following form (the bracketed paramaeters X and Z are filled out in the representative argument respectively by: and: J. justification of moral principles, enter into contracts): The only justification of moral principles [only X] is a contractual one, i.e. the entry into contracts of agents [Zry]. K. Agents only enter into contracts [only Z] if it serves their own interests. (The egoist assumption) L. Humans [persons] are the only agents that enter into contracts [that Z]. Therefore, by K and L, M. Humans [persons] only enter into contracts [only Z] if it serves their own interests Therefore, from J and M, N. The only justification for moral principles [only X] is the (selfish) interests of humans [persons]. * The argument can be varied by different choices of parameters, X and Z. example, X could be filled out by replaced by 'community-based' For 'determination of value judgments', and 'contractual' (i.e. Z is filled out by 'are community-based' or some such) yielding in place of J the familiar premiss that the only justification of value judgments is a community-based one, and leading to a conclusion, analytically linked to D above, that all value judgments are determined by human self-interest. Alternatively just one of X or Z may be so replaced, leaving the other as in the original example . Another variation of the argument that has figured prominently in the discussion of animal rights fills out X and Z respectively by 'determination of rights' and 'belong to human society'. Under this assignment the parametric premiss The logical transitions in the argument take on more evidently valid form upon analytic transformation of the premisses, to those now illustrated:J'. All justifications of moral principles are cases of (justified by) the entry into contracts of agents. K'. All cases of the entry into contracts are cases of self-interests of agents. And so on for L' through M'. 24. J becomes essentially that commonly adopted (e.g. [4] and [5] again), but already criticised above, that 'rights are determined solely by reference to human society'. As the arguments are in each case valid, the issue of the correctness of the conclusions devolves on that of the correctness of the premisses. In each case too the arguments could be made rather more plausible by replacing 'humans' by 'persons' (and correspondingly 'human society' by 'society of persons', etc.); for otherwise premisses such as L and its variations are suspect, since there is nothing, legally or morally, to prevent consortia, organisations and other non-humans from entering into contracts (and these items are appropriately counted as persons in the larger legal sense). Given that that amendment deals with premiss L, the correctness of the arguments turns on the correctness of premisses J and K. But both these premisses are false, and premiss J imports the very chauvinism that is at issue in the conclusion. Though the representative contract argument is only one of several important variations that can be made on the general parametric argument, it is often regarded as having special appeal, because the contract model appears to explain the origin of obligation, and offer a justification for it, in a way that no other model does, and thus to provide a bulwark against moral, and political, scepticism. That the appearance is illusory, because the obligation to honour contracts is assumed at bottom, is well enough known and not our concern here. What is of concern is the correctness of representative premisses J and K. The egoist assumption K is faulted on the same grounds as egoism itself. For agents sometimes enter into contracts that are not in their own interests but are in the interests of other persons or creatures, or are undertaken on behalf of, for instance to protect, other items that do not have interests at all, e.g. rivers, buildings, forests. The attempt to represent all these undertakings as in human interests, because done in the "selfish interests" of the agents is the same as in the egoist arguments, and the resolution of the problem is the same, namely to distinguish acting, valuing, and so on, clearly from acting in one's own selfish (or in group) interests. However even if premiss K were amended to admit that agents may enter into 25. contracts on behalf of non-human items, it would still result in a form of human chauvinism given familiar assumptions, since non—human items will still be unable to create moral obligations except through a human sponsor or patron, who will, presumably, be able to choose whether or not to protect them. Natural items will generate no moral constraints unless humans freely choose to allow them to do so; since the obligatory features of moral obligation thus disappear, no genuine moral obligations can be created by natural items under such an amended account. Thus the amended premiss assumes the question at issue. Premiss J, the view that moral obligations are generated solely by contracts undertaken by moral agents, is then the crucial assumption for this argument for human chauvinism. J however has serious difficulties, for there are many recognised moral principles which apparently cannot be explained as contractually based, at least if "contract" is to be taken seriously. There is no actual contract underlying the principle that one ought not to be cruel to animals, children and others not in a position to contract. Adherents of a social contract view of moral obligation are of course inclined to withhold recognition of those moral principles that cannot be con­ tractually based, so that the contract thesis becomes not so much explanatory as pre­ scriptive. But even allowing for this, the thesis has many unacceptable consequences just concerning humans, and if the notion of contract plays a serious role, it is difficult to reconcile with the view of all humans a possessing rights. A crucial feature of contracts is that they are freely undertaken by responsible parties. If they can be freely undertaken there must be a choice with respect to them the choice of not so contracting. But then we are left with the conclusion that it is permissible to treat those who do choose not to contract as mere instruments of those who do, in the way that the non-human world is presently treated; these contractual dropouts, like those outside society, can have no rights and there can be no moral constraints on behaviour concerning them,whatever their capacity for suffering. A similar conclusion emerges if humans who are not morally responsible are considered, for although we are normally considered to have quite substantial obligations to such 26. humans, e.g. babies, young children, those who are considered mentally ill or as having diminished responsibility, they cannot themselves be free and responsible parties to a contract, and will, on the social contract view, presumably have to depend for their rights on others freely choosing to contract on their behalf. If^this does not^for some reason^) occur we will be left with a similarly unacceptable con- elusion as in the case of the contractual dropouts. Obviously then, moral obligations do not require morally equal, freehand responsible contracting parties, in the way the social contract account presupposes. Worse, the argument would appear, with but little adaptation, to justify the practices of such groups as death squads, multi­ rr nationals, and the Mafia, it! If these unacceptable conclusions are to be avoided, all humans will have to be somehow, in virtue of simply being human, subject to some mysterious, fictional, social contract which they did not freely choose to enter into, cannot get out of, and which can never exclude any member of the human species. So the unacceptable con- sequences are avoided only if crucial features of the notion of contract such as freedom and responsibility are dropped, and the notion^and premiss J so seriously weakened as to become virtually without conditions. For the argument to work the residue has to be mere common humanity, and the "contract" little more than the convention of morally considering just other members of the human species. convention differs little however from a restatement of human chauvinism; Such a the pro­ ferred explanation is really no explanation, for such a convention can neither justify human chauvinism nor, since different conventions could be arranged, explain why it is inevitable. The social contract account of moral obligation is defective because it implies that moral obligations can really only hold between responsible moral agents, and attempts to account for all moral obligation as based on contract. But of course the account is correct as an account of the origin of some types of moral obligation; there are moral obligations of a type that can only hold between free and responsible agents, and others which only apply within a social and political context. Yet other types of obligation, such as the obligation not to cause suffering, can arise only with respect to sentient or preference-having creatures - who are not necessarily morally 27. responsible — and could not significantly arise with respect to a non—sentient item such as a tree or a rock. What emerges is a picture of types of moral obligation as associated with a nest of rings or annular boundary classes, with the innermost class, consisting of highjyintelligent, social, sentient creatures, having the full range of moral obligations applicable to them, and outer classes^ such non—sentient items as rocks having only a much more restricted range of moral obliga­ trees and tions significantly applicable to them. between the rings. In some cases there is no sharp division But there is no single uniform privileged class of items, no one base class, to which all and only moral principles directly apply, and moreover the zoological class of humans is not one of the really significant boundary classes. The recognition that some types of moral obligation can only apply within the context of a particular sort of society or through contract does nothing to support the case of human chauvinism. The failure of the contract theory nevertheless leaves the issue as to whether there is some logical or categorial restriction on what can be the object of moral obligations, which would reinstate human chauvinism or animal chauvinism. There is however no such restriction on the object place of the obligation relation to humans or sentient creatures. Even if the special locution 'Y has an obligation towards X' requires that X is at least a preference-having creature, there are other locutions which are not so restricted, and one can perfectly well speak of having duties toward land and of having obligations concerning or with respect to such items as mountains and rivers, and without necessarily implying that such moral constraints arise only in an indirect fashion. Thus neither natural language nor the logic of moral concepts rules out the possibility of non-sentient items creating direct moral constraints. There is then, given this point and the annular model, no need to opt for the position of Leopold [12] as the only alternative to human (or animal) chauvinism, that is for a position which simply transfers to natural items the full set of rights and obligations applicable to humans, leading to such non-significance as that rocks have obligations to mountains. Distinctions between the moral constraints appropriate to different types of items can be recognised without leading back to human chauvinism. The point is an important one since many objections to allowing moral obligations to 28. extend beyond the sphere of humans, or in some cases the sphere of sentient creatures, depend on ignoring such distinctions, on assuming that it is a question of transferring the full set of rights and obligations appropriate to intelligent social creatures to such items as trees and rivers - that the alternative to chauvinism is therefore an irrational and mystical animism concerning nature (cf. Passmore [9], p. 187 ff.). ***** * * The ecological restatement of the strong version of human chauvinism, according to which items outside the privileged human class have zero intrinsic value, is the Dominion thesis, the view that the earth and all its non-human contents exist or are available for man's benefit and to serve his interests, and hence that man is entitled to manipulate the world and its systems as he wants, that is^ in his interests. The thesis indeed follows, given fairly uncontroversial, analytic, assumptions, from the conclusions of the main chauvinistic arguments examined, notably D, that values are determined through human interests. The earth and all its non-human contents thus have no intrinsic value, at best instrumental value, and so can create no direct moral constraints on human action. For what has only instrumental value is already written down, in this framework, as serving human interests. And since what has no instru­ mental value cannot be abused or have its value diminished, it is permissible for humans to treat it as they will in accord with their interests. thesis. Ergo the Dominion Conversely, if non-human items are available for man's use, interests and benefits, they can have no value except insofar as they answer his interests. Other­ wise there would be restrictions on his behaviour with respect to them, since not any sort of behaviour is permissible as regards independently valuable items. value is determined through man's interests, i.e. D holds. is strictly equivalent to D. implies human chauvinism. Accordingly Thus the Dominion thesis It follows that the Dominion thesis, like D, strictly Conversely, the strong version of human chauvinism strictly implies D, and so the Dominion thesis, completing the sketch of the equivalence argument. Since the positions are equivalent what counts against one also counts against the others. In particular, then, the Dominion thesis is no more inevitable This view encompasses what Passmore [9] has isolated as the Western environmental ideologies, both the dominant view and the lesser traditions: see [10]. 29. than, and just as unsatisfactory as, strong human chauvinism. The upshot is that the dominant ethical systems of our times, those clustered as the western ethic, and other kindred human chauvinistic systems, are far less defensible, and less satisfactory, than has been commonly assumed, and lack an adequate, and non-arbitrary, basis. Furthermore alternative theories are far less incoherent than is commonly claimed, especially by philosophers. are viable alternatives to the Dominion thesis, Yet although there the natural world is rapidly being preempted in favour of human chauvinism - and of what it ideologically underwrites, the modern economic-industrial superstructure - by the elimination or over-exploitation of those things that are not considered of sufficient instrumental value for human beings. Witness the of the non-human world, the assaults being made on tropical rainforests, surviving temperate wildernesses, wild animals, the oceans, to list only a few of the victims of man's assault on the natural world. Observe also the associated measures to bring primitive or recalcitrant peoples into the Western consumer society and the spread of human chauvinist value systems. The time is fast approaching when questions raised by an environmental ethic will cease to involve live options. As things stand at present however, the ethical issues generated by the preemptions - especially given the weakness and inadequacy of the ideological and value—theoretical basis on which the damaging chauvinistic transformation of the world is premissed, and the viability of alternative environmental ethics - are not merely of theoretical interest, but are among the most important and urgent questions of our times, perhaps, that human beings, whose individual or group self-interest is the source of most environmental problems, have ever asked themselves. R. and V. Routley Plumwood Mountain Braidwood Australia 2622 References [1] R. and V. Routley, 'Human chauvinism and environmental ethics', mimeographed, privately circulated, 1974. [2] P.H. Nowell-Smith, Ethics, Penguin, London, 1954. [3] R. and V. Routley, 'Semantical foundations for value theory', Nous (forthcoming) [4] D.G. Ritchie, Natural Rights, Allen and Unwin, London, 1894. [5] J. Passmore, 'The treatment of animals', Journal of the History of Ideas, _36 (1975), 195-218. [6] T. Regan and P. Singer (editors), Animal Rights and Human Obligations, Prentice- Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1976. [7] J. Wisdom, Other Minds, Blackwell, Oxford, 1952. [8] R. Routley, 'The semantical metamorphosis of metaphysics', Australasian Journal of Philosophy^5A (1976),157. [9] [10] J. Passmore, Man's Responsibility for Nature, Duckworth, London, 1974. V. Routley, Critical Notice of [9], Australasian Journal of Philosophy 53. (1975) 171-185. [11] H.J. McCloskey, 'Rights', Philosophical Quarterly, 15 (1965), 115-127. [12] A. Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, with other essays on conservation from Round River, Ballantine, New York, 1966. [13] K. Baier and N. Rescher (editors), Values and the Future, the impact of techno­ logical change on American values, The Free Press, New York, 1969.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 72, Item 1: Draft of Against the inevitability of human chauvinism Subject The topic of the resource Typescript of draft, with handwritten emendations and corrections with whiteout, undated. Paper published, Routley R and Routley V (1979) 'Against the inevitability of human chauvinism' in Goodpaster KE and Sayre KM (eds), Ethics and the problems of the 21st century, Notre Dame University Press. Description An account of the resource Unnumbered paper from collection, item number assigned by library staff. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Routley&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Routley</a> <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=val+routley&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Val Routley</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 72, Item 1 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, <a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. 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