4
20
144
-
https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/29b8b561ea429ccf267b3803785e7d59.pdf
614ef7072f3a25aa048d1c2b523b8e46
PDF Text
Text
�I '
Deep theory naturally delivers an aesthetics. Rudiments of such a deep aesthetics are readily
assembled from elsewhere. They include:
• a theory of aesthetic objects, fictions, art works, etc., drawn from item-theory (as in JB).
• a value theory, of rich non-reductionistic form, drawn from deep-green theory
• a full plurallism_. _ _
~---- ------ --
�{/'-'t~lr&
t/1-:; . . . . __
-,,L ~
l),.,v,r✓L., J
/4
_ -- ~ ~-: -
- , ·
/4.. I -~ J
1/
f
-4.:i, :f '
·
· · =_ ·
.~ e source of our
obligations to respect and protect wor
ks of art can be established in the type
of value
[ theory foun .
<;,c.Ae.-n-..e.d m deep-green philosophy. Given the
kind of world proposed by Richard
"Sylva-ft-, where a diverse range of enti
ties are seen to have. inherent value, it
seems quite
plausible to believe that artistic works
could also be valuable in themselves,
and that our
obligations towards them are grounded
in a recognition of 'this ~eta phy sica l pict
ure. We
have also seen that the kind of valuatio
n framework described by ~ylvan could
be usefully
employed to assess the objective valu
e of works of art, which is of importa
nt practical
11-i(,_.L f
J;_ a_.,-,Jfl't--'.? lA/} 16 ~ j ~ - . h,,, ~ -:,;~ i
~ ul; , C--..__<:_~/ J"~
,-r,_._,,
1.,' ,r
f-f
.1f.,,,__1J
,-rt _:_..f'"Ltc.--t~.----..,,
4.... lri/2::;J._-1 ,,____, , ~~ ,
-?(,
".~A ✓ ~~
_}
Y
d-v..AJ -_ 6--1 #?..,.....1-4 ~_ a_?_.__ __
�In making an evaluation of the wort h of a work of
art, we are assessing the intrinsic
value of an item. Whil e that value is inher ent in
the work itself, it is at the same time
mani feste d in certain non-natural quali ties which can
be intuited by those engaged with the
work. Thes e qualities, whic h are fund amen tal chara
cteris tics of a work of art, prov ide us
with a crite ria for asses sing value . This value
, howe ver, is not reduc ible to those
fundamental characteristics by themselves. The value
of a work of art is expre ssed by two
essen tial types of qualities perta ining to art work
s, being firstly the qualities assoc iated
with aesth etic value, and secondly the quali ties assoc
iated with instructional (or didactic)
value. This second type of value relate s to the
tende ncy of a work of art to chall enge ,
instru ct, give valuable insig ht, or enlig hten. Whil
e these two types of value may prim a
facie look like they constitute a distin ction between
the intrinsic and instrumental value of
an art work , I believe that they could neve rthel ess
be both construed as elements of an art
works intrinsic value. It is certainly true to say that
the instructive qualities of a work of art
have instrumental value, but we need n't conc lude
from this that the didactic value consists
solel y in the relation betw een the art work and the
subje ct experiencing it. It seem s quite
cons isten t to hold that the didac tic value of an
art work is deriv ed from its inher ent
constitution to to provoke certain ideas, and thus
is part of its intrinsic value. Wha t Sylvan
refers to as emotional prese ntatio n, woul d then
be best cons trued with regard to artistic
evalu ation as the presentation of an art work s intrin
sic value~ a value whic h is manifested
in term s of both aesthetic and didactic qualities.
Thes e qualities can be asses sed in terms
of a comp rehen sive set of criter ia for deter mini ng
value. Such criteria woul d inclu de for
aesthetic qualities such characteristics as beauty, stren
gth of expression, balance, harm ony,
comp ositio n, vividness and uniqu eness , and for instru
ctive qualities such characteristics as
the vivid encapsulation of an idea or a valua ble insig
ht into the nature of life or existence.
After ident ifyin g the various comp onen ts of an artist
ic presentation, the evaluating agen t is
requi red to enga ge intel lectu ally in a furth er asses
smen t. This stage is what Sylv an
refer red to as coherence proce ssing , and it is the
stage at whic h the surfa ce characteristics
of a work of art are asses sed for addit ional comp lexity
or meaning. The qualities of an art
work whic h are not intuited directly, such as the
symb olism of a painting or the mess age
of a powe rful drama, will be asses sed at this point
. Cohe rence proce ssing is espec ially
impo rtant in making an evalu ation of the instru ctive
or intellectual comp onen t of an art
�work. In th~ context of the type of'theory of intrinsic
value and accompanying evaluative
framework advocated by Richard Sylvan, it seems possi
ble to establish a set of criteria for
assessing the value of works of art, and in doing so
enable practical value judgements to
be made .
One objection to the proposal that it-is possible to make
value judgements about art
works which are objectively true, is that the interpretati
~n of
1s an especially subjective
experience. It is often held that judgements about
artistic merit are nothing more than a
matter of personal opinion, and that there is no
real way of solvi ng arguments about
artistic value. While Sylvan is quite willing to admi
t that there· i's plenty of room for error
in his conceptual scheme, and that it is inevitable
that people will come to different
conclusion_s about the value of the same work of art,
there is no need to admit that we are
doomed to artistic relativism. Given a comprehensive
criteria for assessing value, it seems
reasonable to assume that a significant proportion of
people will recognize at least part of
the central core of characteristics which reflect an art-w
orks value, and thereby come' to a
not- too- diffe rent judg emen t ·o f that value. This
assum ption is supp orted by the
observation that admirers of art can and frequently
do come to some level of agreement
over what constitutes go.od art. It is important to
note that a great many of the finest
paintings, symphonies, sculptures and plays have
been held in high esteem for many
centuries by countless individuals, who have all indep
endently come to respect and admire
their value. Anot her difficulty regarding the attrib
ution of value to works of art is to
determine who should get to make practical decisions
about the value of certain works of
art. This kind of decision making is crucial for instit
utions like art-galleries and museums,
for it will determine which items will be protected,
and
whic h will not. While the
.
t
judgement of any person who makes a considered evalu
ation of a work of art is important,
it seems appropriate that we should leave the final
decision maki ng to the artists and
admirers of art who have the most extensive backgroun
d knowledge and understanding of
what makes a work of art valuable. We must trust that
in their capacity as 'experts' on art,
such people have a finely tuned appreciation of artist
ic value, and that when in positions of
responsibility, such as that of being curator of an
art gallery, these people will do their
utmost to ensure that valuable art is preserved.
•
art
•
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
I '
Deep theory naturally delivers an aesthetics. Rudiments of such a deep aesthetics are readily
assembled from elsewhere. They include:
• a theory of aesthetic objects, fictions, art works, etc., drawn from item-theory (as in JB).
• a value theory, of rich non-reductionistic form, drawn from deep-green theory
• a full plurallism_. _ _
~---- ------ --
{/'-'t~lr&
t/1-:; . . . . __
-,,L ~
l),.,v,r✓L., J
/4
_ -- ~ ~-: -
- , ·
/4.. I -~ J
1/
f
-4.:i, :f '
·
· · =_ ·
.~ e source of our
obligations to respect and protect wor
ks of art can be established in the type
of value
[ theory foun .
<;,c.Ae.-n-..e.d m deep-green philosophy. Given the
kind of world proposed by Richard
"Sylva-ft-, where a diverse range of enti
ties are seen to have. inherent value, it
seems quite
plausible to believe that artistic works
could also be valuable in themselves,
and that our
obligations towards them are grounded
in a recognition of 'this ~eta phy sica l pict
ure. We
have also seen that the kind of valuatio
n framework described by ~ylvan could
be usefully
employed to assess the objective valu
e of works of art, which is of importa
nt practical
11-i(,_.L f
J;_ a_.,-,Jfl't--'.? lA/} 16 ~ j ~ - . h,,, ~ -:,;~ i
~ ul; , C--..__<:_~/ J"~
,-r,_._,,
1.,' ,r
f-f
.1f.,,,__1J
,-rt _:_..f'"Ltc.--t~.----..,,
4.... lri/2::;J._-1 ,,____, , ~~ ,
-?(,
".~A ✓ ~~
_}
Y
d-v..AJ -_ 6--1 #?..,.....1-4 ~_ a_?_.__ __
In making an evaluation of the wort h of a work of
art, we are assessing the intrinsic
value of an item. Whil e that value is inher ent in
the work itself, it is at the same time
mani feste d in certain non-natural quali ties which can
be intuited by those engaged with the
work. Thes e qualities, whic h are fund amen tal chara
cteris tics of a work of art, prov ide us
with a crite ria for asses sing value . This value
, howe ver, is not reduc ible to those
fundamental characteristics by themselves. The value
of a work of art is expre ssed by two
essen tial types of qualities perta ining to art work
s, being firstly the qualities assoc iated
with aesth etic value, and secondly the quali ties assoc
iated with instructional (or didactic)
value. This second type of value relate s to the
tende ncy of a work of art to chall enge ,
instru ct, give valuable insig ht, or enlig hten. Whil
e these two types of value may prim a
facie look like they constitute a distin ction between
the intrinsic and instrumental value of
an art work , I believe that they could neve rthel ess
be both construed as elements of an art
works intrinsic value. It is certainly true to say that
the instructive qualities of a work of art
have instrumental value, but we need n't conc lude
from this that the didactic value consists
solel y in the relation betw een the art work and the
subje ct experiencing it. It seem s quite
cons isten t to hold that the didac tic value of an
art work is deriv ed from its inher ent
constitution to to provoke certain ideas, and thus
is part of its intrinsic value. Wha t Sylvan
refers to as emotional prese ntatio n, woul d then
be best cons trued with regard to artistic
evalu ation as the presentation of an art work s intrin
sic value~ a value whic h is manifested
in term s of both aesthetic and didactic qualities.
Thes e qualities can be asses sed in terms
of a comp rehen sive set of criter ia for deter mini ng
value. Such criteria woul d inclu de for
aesthetic qualities such characteristics as beauty, stren
gth of expression, balance, harm ony,
comp ositio n, vividness and uniqu eness , and for instru
ctive qualities such characteristics as
the vivid encapsulation of an idea or a valua ble insig
ht into the nature of life or existence.
After ident ifyin g the various comp onen ts of an artist
ic presentation, the evaluating agen t is
requi red to enga ge intel lectu ally in a furth er asses
smen t. This stage is what Sylv an
refer red to as coherence proce ssing , and it is the
stage at whic h the surfa ce characteristics
of a work of art are asses sed for addit ional comp lexity
or meaning. The qualities of an art
work whic h are not intuited directly, such as the
symb olism of a painting or the mess age
of a powe rful drama, will be asses sed at this point
. Cohe rence proce ssing is espec ially
impo rtant in making an evalu ation of the instru ctive
or intellectual comp onen t of an art
work. In th~ context of the type of'theory of intrinsic
value and accompanying evaluative
framework advocated by Richard Sylvan, it seems possi
ble to establish a set of criteria for
assessing the value of works of art, and in doing so
enable practical value judgements to
be made .
One objection to the proposal that it-is possible to make
value judgements about art
works which are objectively true, is that the interpretati
~n of
1s an especially subjective
experience. It is often held that judgements about
artistic merit are nothing more than a
matter of personal opinion, and that there is no
real way of solvi ng arguments about
artistic value. While Sylvan is quite willing to admi
t that there· i's plenty of room for error
in his conceptual scheme, and that it is inevitable
that people will come to different
conclusion_s about the value of the same work of art,
there is no need to admit that we are
doomed to artistic relativism. Given a comprehensive
criteria for assessing value, it seems
reasonable to assume that a significant proportion of
people will recognize at least part of
the central core of characteristics which reflect an art-w
orks value, and thereby come' to a
not- too- diffe rent judg emen t ·o f that value. This
assum ption is supp orted by the
observation that admirers of art can and frequently
do come to some level of agreement
over what constitutes go.od art. It is important to
note that a great many of the finest
paintings, symphonies, sculptures and plays have
been held in high esteem for many
centuries by countless individuals, who have all indep
endently come to respect and admire
their value. Anot her difficulty regarding the attrib
ution of value to works of art is to
determine who should get to make practical decisions
about the value of certain works of
art. This kind of decision making is crucial for instit
utions like art-galleries and museums,
for it will determine which items will be protected,
and
whic h will not. While the
.
t
judgement of any person who makes a considered evalu
ation of a work of art is important,
it seems appropriate that we should leave the final
decision maki ng to the artists and
admirers of art who have the most extensive backgroun
d knowledge and understanding of
what makes a work of art valuable. We must trust that
in their capacity as 'experts' on art,
such people have a finely tuned appreciation of artist
ic value, and that when in positions of
responsibility, such as that of being curator of an
art gallery, these people will do their
utmost to ensure that valuable art is preserved.
•
art
•
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
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Box 76, item 39: Notes on ethical ecology "Aesthetics 2000"
Subject
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Miscellaneous handwritten notes on scrap paper.
Description
An account of the resource
Verso of leaves not digitised. Notes housed in folder on 'aesthetics - notes + article by M. Anderson'. Note, only notes from item 39 digitised.
Creator
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<a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=&type=&user=&tags=&public=&featured=&exhibit=&geolocation-mapped=&geolocation-address=&geolocation-latitude=&geolocation-longitude=&geolocation-radius=10&submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a>
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<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&pageSize=20&sortBy=score&sortDirection=Desc&searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 76, item 39
Publisher
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<a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a>
Contributor
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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>.
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For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library.
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[5] leaves. 5.62 MB.
Type
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Manuscript
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<a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:cecf313">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:cecf313</a>
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Como - Desk - Right Drawer 3
Box 76: Unlisted and Untitled Boxes
Como House
Como House > Desk > Right Drawer 3
-
https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/e5ad5dac90a81bc96f507e5d96051a0a.pdf
532d28ceec4d28da93082a77138bddbf
PDF Text
Text
�Deep theory naturally delivers an aesthetics. Rudiments of such a deep aesthetics are readily
assembled from elsewhere. They include:
• a theory of aesthetic objects, fictions, art works, etc., drawn from item-theory (as in JB).
• a value theory, of rich non-reductionistic form, drawn from deep-green theory
• a full pluralism.
�£■
Jhe source of our
obligations to respect and protect works of art can be established in the type of value
^theory found in deep-green philosophy. Given the kind of w^ld ^proposed by Richard
•Syfvan, where a diverse range of entities are seen to have inherent value, it seems quite
plausible to believe that artistic works could also be valuable in themselves, and that our
obligations towards them are grounded in a recognition of this metaphysical picture. We
have also seen that the kind of valuation framework described by Sylvan could be usefully
employed to assess the objective value of works of art, which is of important practical
ff
JZ
-7^
�In making an evaluation of the worth of a work of art, we are assessing the intrinsic
value of an item. While that value is inherent in the work itself, it is at the same time
manifested in certain non-natural qualities which can be intuited by those engaged with the
work. These qualities, which are fundamental characteristics of a work of art, provide us
with a criteria for assessing value. This value, however, is not reducible to those
fundamental characteristics by themselves. The value of a work of art is expressed by two
essential types of qualities pertaining to art works, being firstly the qualities associated
with aesthetic value, and secondly the qualities associated with instructional (or didactic)
value. This second type of value relates to the tendency of a work of art to challenge,
instruct, give valuable insight, or enlighten. While these two types of value may prima
facie look like they constitute a distinction between the intrinsic and instrumental value of
an art work, I believe that they could nevertheless be both construed as elements of an art
works intrinsic value. It is certainly true to say that the instructive qualities of a work of art
have instrumental value, but we needn't conclude from this that the didactic value consists
solely in the relation between the art work and the subject experiencing it. It seems quite
consistent to hold that the didactic value of an art work is derived from its inherent
constitution to to provoke certain ideas, and thus is part of its intrinsic value. What Sylvan
refers to as emotional presentation, would then be best construed with regard to artistic
evaluation as the presentation of an art works intrinsic value; a value which is manifested
in terms of both aesthetic and didactic qualities. These qualities can be assessed in terms
of a comprehensive set of criteria for determining value. Such criteria would include for
aesthetic qualities such characteristics as beauty, strength of expression, balance, harmony,
composition, vividness and uniqueness, and for instructive qualities such characteristics as
the vivid encapsulation of an idea or a valuable insight into the nature of life or existence.
After identifying the various components of an artistic presentation, the evaluating agent is
required to engage intellectually in a further assessment. This stage is what Sylvan
referred to as coherence processing, and it is the stage at which the surface characteristics
of a work of art arc assessed for additional complexity or meaning. The qualities of an art
work which are not intuited directly, such as the symbolism of a painting or the message
of a powerful drama, will be assessed at this point. Coherence processing is especially
important in making an evaluation of the instructive or intellectual component of an art
�work. In the context of the type of theory of intrinsic value and accompanying evaluative
framework advocated by Richard Sylvan, it seems possible to establish a set of criteria for
assessing the value of works of art, and in doing so enable practical value judgements to
be made.
One objection to the proposal that it'is possible to make value judgements about art
works which are objectively true, is that the interpretation of art is an especially subjective
experience. It is often held that judgements about artistic merit are nothing more than a
matter of personal opinion, and that there is no real way of solving arguments about
artistic value. While Sylvan is quite willing to admit that there is plenty of room for error
in his conceptual scheme, and that it is inevitable that people will come to different
conclusions about the value of the same work of art, there is no need to admit that we are
doomed to artistic relativism. Given a comprehensive criteria for assessing value, it seems
reasonable to assume that a significant proportion of people will recognize at least part of
the central core of characteristics which reflect an art-works value, and thereby come to a
not- too- different judgement of that value. This assumption is supported by the
observation that admirers of art can and frequently do come to some level of agreement
over what constitutes good art. It is important to note that a great many of the finest
paintings, symphonies, sculptures and plays have been held in high esteem for many
centuries by countless individuals, who have all independently come to respect and admire
their value. Another difficulty regarding the attribution of value to works of art is to
determine who should get to make practical decisions about the value of certain works of
art. This kind of decision making is crucial for institutions like art-galleries and museums,
for it will determine which items will be protected, and which will not. While the
judgement of any person who makes a considered evaluation of a work of art is important,
it seems appropriate that we should leave the final decision making to the artists and
admirers ol art who have the most extensive background knowledge and understanding of
what makes a work of art valuable. We must trust that in their capacity as 'experts' on art,
such people have a finely tuned appreciation of artistic value, and that when in positions of
responsibility, such as that of being curator of an art gallery, these people will do their
utmost to ensure that valuable art is preserved.
�
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
Deep theory naturally delivers an aesthetics. Rudiments of such a deep aesthetics are readily
assembled from elsewhere. They include:
• a theory of aesthetic objects, fictions, art works, etc., drawn from item-theory (as in JB).
• a value theory, of rich non-reductionistic form, drawn from deep-green theory
• a full pluralism.
£■
Jhe source of our
obligations to respect and protect works of art can be established in the type of value
^theory found in deep-green philosophy. Given the kind of w^ld ^proposed by Richard
•Syfvan, where a diverse range of entities are seen to have inherent value, it seems quite
plausible to believe that artistic works could also be valuable in themselves, and that our
obligations towards them are grounded in a recognition of this metaphysical picture. We
have also seen that the kind of valuation framework described by Sylvan could be usefully
employed to assess the objective value of works of art, which is of important practical
ff
JZ
-7^
In making an evaluation of the worth of a work of art, we are assessing the intrinsic
value of an item. While that value is inherent in the work itself, it is at the same time
manifested in certain non-natural qualities which can be intuited by those engaged with the
work. These qualities, which are fundamental characteristics of a work of art, provide us
with a criteria for assessing value. This value, however, is not reducible to those
fundamental characteristics by themselves. The value of a work of art is expressed by two
essential types of qualities pertaining to art works, being firstly the qualities associated
with aesthetic value, and secondly the qualities associated with instructional (or didactic)
value. This second type of value relates to the tendency of a work of art to challenge,
instruct, give valuable insight, or enlighten. While these two types of value may prima
facie look like they constitute a distinction between the intrinsic and instrumental value of
an art work, I believe that they could nevertheless be both construed as elements of an art
works intrinsic value. It is certainly true to say that the instructive qualities of a work of art
have instrumental value, but we needn't conclude from this that the didactic value consists
solely in the relation between the art work and the subject experiencing it. It seems quite
consistent to hold that the didactic value of an art work is derived from its inherent
constitution to to provoke certain ideas, and thus is part of its intrinsic value. What Sylvan
refers to as emotional presentation, would then be best construed with regard to artistic
evaluation as the presentation of an art works intrinsic value; a value which is manifested
in terms of both aesthetic and didactic qualities. These qualities can be assessed in terms
of a comprehensive set of criteria for determining value. Such criteria would include for
aesthetic qualities such characteristics as beauty, strength of expression, balance, harmony,
composition, vividness and uniqueness, and for instructive qualities such characteristics as
the vivid encapsulation of an idea or a valuable insight into the nature of life or existence.
After identifying the various components of an artistic presentation, the evaluating agent is
required to engage intellectually in a further assessment. This stage is what Sylvan
referred to as coherence processing, and it is the stage at which the surface characteristics
of a work of art arc assessed for additional complexity or meaning. The qualities of an art
work which are not intuited directly, such as the symbolism of a painting or the message
of a powerful drama, will be assessed at this point. Coherence processing is especially
important in making an evaluation of the instructive or intellectual component of an art
work. In the context of the type of theory of intrinsic value and accompanying evaluative
framework advocated by Richard Sylvan, it seems possible to establish a set of criteria for
assessing the value of works of art, and in doing so enable practical value judgements to
be made.
One objection to the proposal that it'is possible to make value judgements about art
works which are objectively true, is that the interpretation of art is an especially subjective
experience. It is often held that judgements about artistic merit are nothing more than a
matter of personal opinion, and that there is no real way of solving arguments about
artistic value. While Sylvan is quite willing to admit that there is plenty of room for error
in his conceptual scheme, and that it is inevitable that people will come to different
conclusions about the value of the same work of art, there is no need to admit that we are
doomed to artistic relativism. Given a comprehensive criteria for assessing value, it seems
reasonable to assume that a significant proportion of people will recognize at least part of
the central core of characteristics which reflect an art-works value, and thereby come to a
not- too- different judgement of that value. This assumption is supported by the
observation that admirers of art can and frequently do come to some level of agreement
over what constitutes good art. It is important to note that a great many of the finest
paintings, symphonies, sculptures and plays have been held in high esteem for many
centuries by countless individuals, who have all independently come to respect and admire
their value. Another difficulty regarding the attribution of value to works of art is to
determine who should get to make practical decisions about the value of certain works of
art. This kind of decision making is crucial for institutions like art-galleries and museums,
for it will determine which items will be protected, and which will not. While the
judgement of any person who makes a considered evaluation of a work of art is important,
it seems appropriate that we should leave the final decision making to the artists and
admirers ol art who have the most extensive background knowledge and understanding of
what makes a work of art valuable. We must trust that in their capacity as 'experts' on art,
such people have a finely tuned appreciation of artistic value, and that when in positions of
responsibility, such as that of being curator of an art gallery, these people will do their
utmost to ensure that valuable art is preserved.
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Box 76, Item 679: Miscellaneous notes on architecture and philosophy
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Miscellaneous handwritten and typescript notes on scrap paper.
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Verso of leaves not digitised. Note, one of two papers digitised from item 679.
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<a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=&type=&user=&tags=&public=&featured=&exhibit=&geolocation-mapped=&geolocation-address=&geolocation-latitude=&geolocation-longitude=&geolocation-radius=10&submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a>
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<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&pageSize=20&sortBy=score&sortDirection=Desc&searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 76, Item 679
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<a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a>
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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>.
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[5] leaves. 2.71 MB.
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<a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:b2a4573">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:b2a4573</a>
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The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Como - Cupboard - Pile 3
Box 76: Unlisted and Untitled Boxes
Como House
Como House > Cupboard > Pile 3
-
https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/94dbbe314c3a666c558816df0b3201bc.pdf
135af6157b7d49f9fd133871991691f6
PDF Text
Text
::r
¾
'
1 ~--~
'
......_
.....
The worldwide peace movement faces a new era in 1984. -Since 1979, there has been
a massive revival of the peace movement in response to the preparations for a
limited nuclear war in Europe. Up to now the movement has concentrated successfully
on consciousness ra1s1ng. J-bwever, the challenge now is to present practical new
ideas to end the anns race. Mr. Allan McKnight has undertaken a comparison of the
separate draft treaties tabled by the Soviet Union and the United States at the
United Nations (UN) in 1962. ~ has now c001piled them into one practical draft
plan, whkhis the most feasible to date because it is based on the actual proposals
of the two world powers. The progran111e should ensure t~at the nations have sufficient non-nuclear arms to protect their citizens yet reduce the military expenditure
dramatically and not present an invading threat to neighbouring countries. It is
interesting to note that ~eden, ~itzerland and Yugoslavia have defence forces ·
structured in this ay but this has never received the publicity it deserves. The
plan is based on 3 stages of mutual reductions. All measures of disannament would
be balanced so that at no stage during the implementation would any nation gain
military advantage. The treaty provides a timetable. It also provides for an
establishment of a peace force and disannament organisation independent of the UN.
Dr. Suter says that it is only when we perceive the alternative that we can see how
important it is to give consideration to grand schemes for disannament.
Mr. McKnight's book is available from the Law Council of Ns.J.
'U ~
J~
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�.......
�
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
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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
::r
¾
'
1 ~--~
'
......_
.....
The worldwide peace movement faces a new era in 1984. -Since 1979, there has been
a massive revival of the peace movement in response to the preparations for a
limited nuclear war in Europe. Up to now the movement has concentrated successfully
on consciousness ra1s1ng. J-bwever, the challenge now is to present practical new
ideas to end the anns race. Mr. Allan McKnight has undertaken a comparison of the
separate draft treaties tabled by the Soviet Union and the United States at the
United Nations (UN) in 1962. ~ has now c001piled them into one practical draft
plan, whkhis the most feasible to date because it is based on the actual proposals
of the two world powers. The progran111e should ensure t~at the nations have sufficient non-nuclear arms to protect their citizens yet reduce the military expenditure
dramatically and not present an invading threat to neighbouring countries. It is
interesting to note that ~eden, ~itzerland and Yugoslavia have defence forces ·
structured in this ay but this has never received the publicity it deserves. The
plan is based on 3 stages of mutual reductions. All measures of disannament would
be balanced so that at no stage during the implementation would any nation gain
military advantage. The treaty provides a timetable. It also provides for an
establishment of a peace force and disannament organisation independent of the UN.
Dr. Suter says that it is only when we perceive the alternative that we can see how
important it is to give consideration to grand schemes for disannament.
Mr. McKnight's book is available from the Law Council of Ns.J.
'U ~
J~
\--., ~
.......
Dublin Core
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Title
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Box 88, Item 1455: Reference card, summary of Suter K (1984) 'A practical plan for the world disarmament', Kurana
Subject
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Reference written on card index, with typescript summary taped to index.
Description
An account of the resource
Card index part of item 1455, "Index card box - abstracts of articles on development".
Creator
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<a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=&type=&user=&tags=&public=&featured=&exhibit=&geolocation-mapped=&geolocation-address=&geolocation-latitude=&geolocation-longitude=&geolocation-radius=10&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&pageSize=20&sortBy=score&sortDirection=Desc&searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 88, Item 1455
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>.
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For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library.
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[1] card. 1.32 MB.
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<a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:03ccc9b">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:03ccc9b</a>
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n/a - not listed on manuscript finding aid
Box 88: Old Papers: Letters - Slog 1 Proofs - Misc. XCs
-
https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/e28d878d6ede2424d09ed6f344f9e03e.pdf
da96b3abe313a02f2ceb6b3934239299
PDF Text
Text
Diokno answers a lot of questions about the _type of military installations the US ,maintains
in the Philippines, about the nuclear capability of the bases, the effects of the bases on
Philippi~e national security, the likelihood of nuclear war, the authority of by which the
US maintains the bases, and the legality of the bases agreement. There are currently five
bases in the Philippines, and nuclear armed ships regularly call at one of them. The bases
are prime targets for nuclear warfare (and unless the arms race is halted, Diokno predicts,
nuclear war will break out before the end of the century; the more countries which gain
nuclear weapons, the greater the changes of war). The ba ~es agreement was signed in 1947,
with later amendments, but was never agreed to by the Filipino people. The agreement was
accepted by Filipino leaders only because it was made a condition of Philippine independence.
Today, the US-backed Marcos regime is unlikely to call for their removal., The bases
exploit workers and Philippine resources, and in no way contribute to the 'country's development. Their presence gives America the power to intervene in the country's political life.
Diokno quotes the declaration of principle.s of the Anti-Bases Coalition, which works for
the dismantling of all US military bases in the Philippines.
-:t
~
J ~'
J1
��
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
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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.
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Diokno answers a lot of questions about the _type of military installations the US ,maintains
in the Philippines, about the nuclear capability of the bases, the effects of the bases on
Philippi~e national security, the likelihood of nuclear war, the authority of by which the
US maintains the bases, and the legality of the bases agreement. There are currently five
bases in the Philippines, and nuclear armed ships regularly call at one of them. The bases
are prime targets for nuclear warfare (and unless the arms race is halted, Diokno predicts,
nuclear war will break out before the end of the century; the more countries which gain
nuclear weapons, the greater the changes of war). The ba ~es agreement was signed in 1947,
with later amendments, but was never agreed to by the Filipino people. The agreement was
accepted by Filipino leaders only because it was made a condition of Philippine independence.
Today, the US-backed Marcos regime is unlikely to call for their removal., The bases
exploit workers and Philippine resources, and in no way contribute to the 'country's development. Their presence gives America the power to intervene in the country's political life.
Diokno quotes the declaration of principle.s of the Anti-Bases Coalition, which works for
the dismantling of all US military bases in the Philippines.
-:t
~
J ~'
J1
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
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Box 88, Item 1455: Reference card, summary of Diokno J (1983) 'U.S. bases - a primer', Asian Exchange, 2-4:24
Subject
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Reference written on card index, with typescript summary taped to index.
Description
An account of the resource
Card index part of item 1455, "Index card box - abstracts of articles on development".
Creator
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<a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=&type=&user=&tags=&public=&featured=&exhibit=&geolocation-mapped=&geolocation-address=&geolocation-latitude=&geolocation-longitude=&geolocation-radius=10&submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a>
Source
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<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&pageSize=20&sortBy=score&sortDirection=Desc&searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 88, Item 1455
Publisher
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<a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a>
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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>.
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For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library.
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[1] card. 1.35 MB.
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<a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:b40149f">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:b40149f</a>
-
https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/2d934445390e1dac0464981d63d8a44b.pdf
a9f58a819968cfdacb537761e77d478d
PDF Text
Text
UAR AND PEACE I
Abstract
Several arguNents, constdered tn detatl, converge to show the tNNoraltty of
(large-scale) nuclear war. By way of several connectLng prLncLples, the
LNNoralLty extends to nuclear deterrence. By contrast, several other arguNents,
especLally those froN baste rLghts and values, justLfy soNe kLnd of defence
strategy norNalLy taken to Lnclude nuclear deterrence. So result both the
nuclear fLx and several poLLtLcaLly sLgnLfLcant but Lll-understood subsLdLary
dLleNNas. It Ls contended that the nuclear dLLeNNa Ls a fLx of states' own
NakLng, and at bottoN a product of natLon-state arrangeNents. Uays out of the
nucLear fLx are classLfLed, and LNportant ways assessed. A NultL-track Uay Out
Ls canvassed. UnderlyLng NetaphysLcal Lssues, and questLons of LndLvLdual and
colLectLve responsLbLLLty, are exaNLned Ln two appendLces.
�UAR AHO PEACE I
Abstract
Several arguMents, cons~dered ~n deta~l, converge to show the ~MMoral~ty of
(large-scale) nuclear war. By way of several connectLng prLncLples, the
LMMoralLty extends to nuclear deterrence. By contrast, several other arguMents,
especLally t ~ e froM basLc rLghts and values, just~fy soMe k~nd of defence
strategy norMally taken to ~nclude nuclear deterrence. So result both the
nuclear fLx and several polLtLcaLLy sLgnLfLcant but LLl-understood subsLdLary
dLleMMas. It Ls contended that the nuclear dLLeMMa ~s a fLx of states' o~
MakLng, and at bottoM a product of natLon-state arrangeMents. Uays out of the
nuclear fLx are cLassLfLed, and LMP'r\?)tant ways assessed. A MuLtL-track Uay Out
Ls canvassed. UnderlyLng MetaphysLcal Lssues, and questLons of LndLvLdual and
coLlectLve responsLbLLLty, are exaMLned Ln two appendLces.
�
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Title
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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
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UAR AND PEACE I
Abstract
Several arguNents, constdered tn detatl, converge to show the tNNoraltty of
(large-scale) nuclear war. By way of several connectLng prLncLples, the
LNNoralLty extends to nuclear deterrence. By contrast, several other arguNents,
especLally those froN baste rLghts and values, justLfy soNe kLnd of defence
strategy norNalLy taken to Lnclude nuclear deterrence. So result both the
nuclear fLx and several poLLtLcaLly sLgnLfLcant but Lll-understood subsLdLary
dLleNNas. It Ls contended that the nuclear dLLeNNa Ls a fLx of states' own
NakLng, and at bottoN a product of natLon-state arrangeNents. Uays out of the
nucLear fLx are classLfLed, and LNportant ways assessed. A NultL-track Uay Out
Ls canvassed. UnderlyLng NetaphysLcal Lssues, and questLons of LndLvLdual and
colLectLve responsLbLLLty, are exaNLned Ln two appendLces.
UAR AHO PEACE I
Abstract
Several arguMents, cons~dered ~n deta~l, converge to show the ~MMoral~ty of
(large-scale) nuclear war. By way of several connectLng prLncLples, the
LMMoralLty extends to nuclear deterrence. By contrast, several other arguMents,
especLally t ~ e froM basLc rLghts and values, just~fy soMe k~nd of defence
strategy norMally taken to ~nclude nuclear deterrence. So result both the
nuclear fLx and several polLtLcaLLy sLgnLfLcant but LLl-understood subsLdLary
dLleMMas. It Ls contended that the nuclear dLLeMMa ~s a fLx of states' o~
MakLng, and at bottoM a product of natLon-state arrangeMents. Uays out of the
nuclear fLx are cLassLfLed, and LMP'r\?)tant ways assessed. A MuLtL-track Uay Out
Ls canvassed. UnderlyLng MetaphysLcal Lssues, and questLons of LndLvLdual and
coLlectLve responsLbLLLty, are exaMLned Ln two appendLces.
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Title
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Box 89, Item 1: Two drafts of War and Peace I abstract
Subject
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Two typescript drafts, one with handwritten emendations, the other with typed corrections.
Description
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Unnumbered paper from collection, item number assigned by library staff.
Creator
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<a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=&type=&user=&tags=&public=&featured=&exhibit=&geolocation-mapped=&geolocation-address=&geolocation-latitude=&geolocation-longitude=&geolocation-radius=10&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&pageSize=20&sortBy=score&sortDirection=Desc&searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 89, Item 1
Publisher
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<a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a>
Contributor
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<span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a><span>.</span>
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For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library.
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[2] leaves. 1.79 MB.
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<a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:406aa75">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:406aa75</a>
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n/a - not listed in manuscript finding aid
Box 89: Older Green - GAIA - Greenhouse
-
https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/70406ef7cfc803de88ef9fd9cea0686d.pdf
4ee8bd2d1def9dc91f7e4737d71124bf
PDF Text
Text
. .. .
,
TOWARDS A SOCIAL THEORY FOR ECOTOPIA
Participation in attempts at social change often has the
..
effect of revealing to participants the structure of the soci e ty
in which they live.
It is hard to be a practical environmentalist
th1/:: i v.: J
_e:ng;a~eEl in or s1.,1pporting a range of environmental batt le s without
observing that most environmental problems in our sort of soci a l
system are generated basically by the domination of the society by
J
corporate interests, which have a strong interest in ma i ntaining an
industrial and consumption system which appears to produce environmental problems as a matter of necessity.
If one is not directly
engaged in opposing the plans or activities of sawrnillers , miningcompanies, power and energy compan ie s, transport firms, chemic al
and pesticide comp a nies, p a ckaging companies, real-estate developers
and tourist-resor t promoters, to name a few, one is engaged in
battling thei r political or bureaucratic advocates and protecto rs
(nominally 'regulators') in the sh ape of forestry commissi on s,
mining departments or authorities, hydro-electricity authorities,
energy authori ties, transport corm iss ions, l and commissions,
politicians and the l i ke.
' Usually t h e battles by citizen environ-
/qsr1~j
mental groups h ave littleAsuc c ess, and the chances o f success appear
highly cor related with the degree of corporate domination within
the political unit concerned.
Even where environmental problems
appear to a rise from the interests of non-corpor ate groups, for
example workers or consumers, it can be conv incingly argued that
the y are still primarily a reflection of corporate domination and
st r ucturing of both the employment and consumption a n d life-s t yle
choices ope n to peopl e , that is, of indirect cor po rate or capitalist
influence in shaping the social structtlre values. :
Environmental issues throw up sharply again the question as to
whether it is possib le to devise a social structure which does not
have this feature of direct or indirect cciporate domination, without
..--·--·
----·-·•··-•·--·-·--·-·· · · - - - - - - - - - - - - _... . --···------x-
�2.
r~placing it
by some
-1
other equally or e~e? __ more _undesirab_l _e ____~_ind of domina tion-=__s_~E~ as
-/
bureaucratic or totalitarian domination-which is such that replacement would be unlikely to produce anything which could be described
as a solution or improvement.
Our belief is that we can devise a
better system which dispenses with this disastrous element, and
furthermore
that we must do so if environmental problems, as well
as a whole set of other problems which are also consequences of the
same structure of domination, are to be resolved at any but a superficia½ temporary and inadequate level.
wa ys to see the problem.
or size.
There are of course other
We might see it as just one of technology
But the technology we have seems to be a consequence
of
other features of our society, rather than the ca use ·_ al though it
is certainly true that there is an
inte~a ctive process and certain
kinds of technology strengthen certain interests in the society over
others~ :~S for smallness, we might remember that the industries
of'
I
IISu}
d... I
, ::___
currently destroying the Border Ranges rainforesi~(' in relative terms)
quite small.
Or we might feel that we are in the grip~ of a
runaway or out o f control machine - a point of view put forward
first by Jacques Ellu./
[
] •
Or as Peter van Dresser very nicely
puts it ''We have built a Frankenstein monster of industrial and
commercial relationships which is almos t totally running our lives."
True ~but the machine was was not built on random lines, and it
systematically serves the interests of some groups at the expense
of others.
So the machine is not 'out of control' in one sense -
it is doing the job it was designed for.
ff-some environmentalists,
espe ci ally of the more cons ervative kind, do believe that the system
in which they live is basically sound, but that it consistently
delivers mainly destructive results and decisions either because
-th.2.-
it is run by the wrong people ('Oh!
for a statesman'; seeABorder
Ranges sheet), or because we do not yet have go od mechanisms for
�3.
takin g accou nt of envir onme ntal inter ests, which .is
seen as a
new
consi derat ion.
Such an appro ach tends to overl ook the limit ation
.C'.'f>·''}~i=t
on resu lts throu gh. polit ical/ burea ucrat i c actio n or
mecha nisms
which resul t from the exist ing struc tu re of corpo rate
domin ation of
the socie ty, and to the exten t
that it is succe ssful it would
depen d upon reduc ing or balan cing that domi nation anywa
y. ·-
Some
impro ved mecha nisms may enabl e some impro vemen ts in
limit ed areas ,
but they will not be able to chang e a basic ally destr
uctiv e lifestyle based on conti nuous and growi ng indu stria l produ
ction and
consu mptio n, and so unles s more basic chang es in the
socia l struc ture
are sough t, will proba bly only succe ed as delay ing
tacti cs in the
inevi t a ble destr uctio n of what remai ns of the natur
al world and
l , · ·¥;1
/ >fr'J I a H lr-.rt r? t 1~
reaso nable socia l enviro nrnen t. · \'\ J rn this neces sarily
rathe r
A
paper we want to try to devel op sorre of the basis for
a socia l
theor y which might be descr ibed as a form of Liber tar
i an or SelfManag e d Socia lism.
J~~~
\
~- It migh t seem odd that anyon e shoul d advoc
ate a basic ally
+i.1/
liber taria n type of posit ion as neces sary for aAso lution
to envir onmenta l probl ems, since envir onme nta lists are mostl y
seen to be
advoc ates of great er restr i cti ons, mor~_ rules and regul
ation s,
legis latio n, burea ucrat ic contr ol and plann ing, to
restr ict and
reduc e the damag e peopl e can do by their consw ning
and produ cing
activ ities .
This restr ictiv e appro ach seems to be dicta ted to a
large exten t by the failu re to quest ion the basic soci~l
struc ture
which makes peopl e ' s produ cing and consu ming so destr
uctiv e in the
first place .
If a frame work o f essen tially damag ing life- style s
is accep ted as 'natu ral' and uncha ngeab le, then of
cours e envir onmenta l prote ction will seem to be a matte r of limit
ing these sorts
of a llege d freedo ms by furth er restr ictio n;
but if the probl em is
"-r
se e n rathe r as one of struc: ;\ing socie ty so as to remov
e the force s
which make peop le's
1
,...
~-y"\
.._
_
__
_
'"'"\
...
a
·
pro ucing and consu ming so destr uctiv e, the
�3. 1.
Pootnot e 1 from page 3.
J_
We don't of course wish to suggest that working within the
system is a just a waste of time, and we should watch it all
But in each
go while we sit back and wait for the revoluti on.
1
each hard
that
fgct
of
urgent battle it s easy to lose sight
necessit y
urgent
won victory is on l y temporar y, to lose sightJcff
will IJ_Ot
they
to; begin construc ting the sort of society in which
imposing
of
This is not and canno.t be a matter
be~ t emp o rary.
some sort of Boy Scout 'Conserv ation Ethic' or minor changes in
the directio n of energy savtng on a soci~y which produces
environm ental degrada tion a~ a matt.er of its fundame ntal :?__!:_ructu_r.:-_ e .
0
2
�4.
need for a restrictive approach is less obvious.
The problem
of how to reconcile environmental aims with the aim of a free
society and with other goals is essentially one of obtaining an
1
~ b
1
.
J.
environmenta
~ o f 1 1. f-e. -.
.
.
society/way
enign
The restrictive approach then) is a cons equence of accepting
C
the existing se c. in/
f
framework and,,\ attempts to graft environmental
considerations onto a basically hostile structure
restrictions.
as
further
The situation might be compared to what happens
when an attempt is made to enlarge an o ld theory which has encountered
data it cannot _handle - the initial reaction is to try to maintain
theoretical framework and ac count for the further
the
material by the 'enlargement' of the theor ~ usually through a
series of ad hoe further assumptions or makeshift subsidiary theories
which have the effect of restricting the application of the theory.
We arrive at a vast and complicated structure , such as the Ptolemai c
theory or certain fashionable mod ern logico-semantical theories
of natural language, which for a time may appear adequate and succeed
in delay,j the realisation that the original theory itself is in
need of fundame ntal revision.
The existing mass of environmental
an d planning legislation and proliferation of bureaucratic procedures
J---J-
s uchf Environment al Impact Statements plays much the same role in
modifying a fundamentally environmentally-hostile social struc tur e
and life-style a s the addition o f further epicycles did in Ptolemaic
the ory.
X
The env:ironmentalist who appreciates the need for basic change
finds himself however confronted by rather unattr a ctive conventional
choices.
dom inat ed
On the one hand capitalism offers a system wru'ch
,-s
by private capital interests which depend crucially h;'resou r ces\and where unequa l economic
�5.
is seen
~ri d other power
On the other side of the
as ad essential condition for freedom.
conventional choice we are presented with a system which does not
appear t o offer an essentially different life style and which
,,~. .
(_~ f f( I~ I
1: t/
1
clearly endorses many of the ~ame values - industrialisation ~~~ogress,
J 11 .i 111/, r / /4./,,-;..Jf p1J'. J i:,. ,·i,.{;,,<f,c'. ,,
high technology 1,and so forth, as the capit alist o !tu/'lt, f-,c. e:_ .
I
In addition I the conventional Marxist alternative offers an account
of t he role of the individual and society which provides many reasons
for libertarian concern.
We a re faced in fact with the option of opposing distortions,
one offeri ng a distorted and re duced account of community and
communal life forms, and the other of the individual and individual
life forms.
Although the pure, theoretical form of capitalism is
supposed to operate on the basis of purely individual activity,
decision and production, in existing forms of capitalism thi s
has
long since been abandoned in favour of a 'mi xed' economy, with
community control through elected government and public sector
activities ensuring that we collectively control the collective
part o f our destinies, and that communi ty is represented as well
l"r cJ
At least that's/the mythology has it.
as individuality.
In
practice however these communal life forms are v ery largely a sham,
and do not amount to !eal recognition of c ommunity.
Usually these
forms are forced into an individual reductionist model so that
the
instead of 9, v _i ng,\ community control
I~~J merely give a further set
of individuals who then make the decisions ~,
is the case with the institution
of
This
government by Representative
Individuals, for ,instance, which instead of providing community
control over the
framework, merely selects a further set
of individuals who then control 'or manage' the community. · In
Victorian times women who inherited property were obliged to have
�6.
a male executor to manage it for them.
Later this was liberalised
to allow them a say in selecting him.
It is better to be able to
choose an executor or managerth a n to have one imposed on you, but
no one who has to operate under such a system should deceive themselves that they are really managing or controlling things themselves.
l People in our soci~ty are of course largely blind to the fact that
real con@unity control has quite a different form, a ~cl regard such
individual reductionism in corr@unity decision - making
inevitable.
as natural and
People now accept as normal political phenomena such
a s systematical ly broken election promises, government manipulation
of sources of information, deception and s1'!.ights of hand such as
wa iting until public interest has died down or worn itself out
before proceeding with unpopular moves, and so on.
What these
phenomena seem to indicate is that the amount of real communal
control which can be exercised through the system of representativ e
individuals is not very large, even if the fact that the political
system tends largely to reflect the economic system and economic
power rather than to control it 1 is ignored.
The 'public sector' which is supposed to express the common
will, is not community controlled either in any realistic sense.
'
L ' I,{
'~
Thus bureaucra~ managing public resources or allegedly regulating
industries normally operate largely in the interests of private
corporations , as anyone who has worked on issues like forestry or
nuclear power is aware.
Crucial information is kept secre t from
the cornmuni ty, ma de inaccessible, or handed out selectively> usually
to commercial interests. ( we won't go through all the points that
could beQ;sed here in detail - they are too well known - we just
want to set the points in a certain light ~
Even where they compete
with private corporations instead of me rely serving them,
'nationa-
lised' public sector organisation s act like further corporations
or powerful individuals, and there is very little real community
�1
. -1,,.c)
1:,t---2i--t
~,t
P.--t1
I
, le-,__,~L-,
{\
~ c,.j-
- . ~~ s-:
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\..A.,,\.
•
[ ..:....}--{c ~ c
•1J,-.-,{',,/_,,t C
_A
A,i4- (_,~
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(f't-o-~---l)-v'--0
f) -
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dl>--Cf-
0
'l[..z_
cZt,__...,...--14_)_1
( , D .___ t
~ -r ,c.,.__
C~-z_ __
�7•
control.
Finall~ those individuals or corporations who control the
means of production can exe rcise enormous power, both through these
alle9ed 'community' institutions, and through their abi l ity to
control what will be produced, how much, how and where, and their
monopolisation of the abi~ity t? direct productive labour ,
-.;(K_,t:.\
their control of the pro ductio~,
(\
control the
in short
~ ,:· ._• c..::., .:'.' \'
Those who
.
means of production are thus able to obtain a very
large measure of control over the social framewor~ which comes to
be structured largely in their interests.
This domination through
4/. I
structuring now extends to almost/areas of life, and has been
documented independently in many areas, from the food we eat to the
way we travel1 from the houses we live in.i to the way we re lax.
The
control does not of course, take the form of control of individual
decisions at the individual level; they do not decide that you or
I will purchase a purple~ a green car, for example, but the social
i
framework in which the places in which peo~le live and many other
aspects of their lives are structured around cars is determined
in their interests, and so is the kind of car the market provides.
The fact that individuals are
free at the individual level, and
that such mechanisms operate at the level of controlling the largely
(.•\ i!
~ i.A""\.'• I n.S
invisi ble social framework which coT$,-a-ins and channels the choices
/1l 1My
the individual can make, explains why people retain the
iJ/ 1,<;, ~ ,.1
1
,\
freedom and of full control over the ir lives in such a system.
These distortions are not merely occasional
of
1
'abuses' or
aberrati ons - they are structural features which occur systematically
1
in all capitalist societies which have free ~ublic life forms.
rI'hey are the result of a reduction of communal life forms to various
extensions of individual life forms;of the fact that communal life
.
rv IC ,_.. .l.{1\,
1
forms occur in a reduced and impoverished indi vidualist) ,A.H3fttr.
The result ~tha t commun al control of the social framework
is
~)j~~
et ineffective. and that some individuals and group s are able to
I
�8•
obtain great power through their capture and control of the
social forces of organisation and production.
If capitalism offers a distorted,individualised account of
community which allows for no genuine co,1,,,1u11ttl
control over the
social framework of li fe . on the Marxist side we are offered a
matc hing and impoverished distorted account of individual which
allows for no genuine individual control over individual life!
Marxist~ very commonly present
line account of ~cc.;cfj
(f
what is in effe_~t a r,~oduction
A:,-
- (.,,cl.. - - ~) /(.
individuals -
l(c role of t he individual is
Iv)
\
.1 -~f):Or- r,·(;e ~-&
their concept
constantly and revealingly
illustrated by appealing to the individual as a unit in a production
.- - 1
line.
Accordi.ng to this account the individual IS
I
l.'v\:. l~ji/,1 1 ~ •. IJ,2
,,K{1~•,i{uii. /
L-_
t;:: 1
no·+h ing, the soc~fty
h, _
is entirely a social product/,,\is no
more than his role in the pro duction line, he has no separate 'self '
but only the characteri~tics he acq uir es as a re sult of his
...___.
membership of a society or class ~ Indiv iduals are in effect to be
. l ,\·~
We don't make any cla im to be Marx scholars, we shall be making
('
heavy use i n elucidating and criticizing the a ccount, of the
S . U. Gene ral Philosophy Department recent publication
Paper Tigers
Although this book will be a major target in much of what follows
we would like to record that it ·seems to us a valuable piece of
work, which does a great deal to illuminate the nature of the
conventional ideological choice and expose their philosophical base~ .
It is also an ad ])t i r ably clear piece of work (in contrast to most
Marxist scholarshi~ which casts lig~t into many dark corners,
including some which, from the point of view of the attractiveness
of the Marxist a lte rnative , might perhaps better h ave been kept
a little dimmer.
.
conten -t J.o n that
The acco unt offered makes it clear that the
·(> (_ ~)
S:l::-Fl-ee
a p osition is 'totalitarian' is by no means
a capitalist p lot but h as an important point.
I
I
3
Any per son can fill role in the production li ne as well as any
other (Ste ve ns). Quote from
�9.
treated as cells in the group body, and the only legitimate
formso f individual expression are through community life forms.
·c·
·L
,.
·
·
rtf; ,- TIL), H t.'.•t1tf-• •'.r , (·
r,
·1
, ~
• 1'1, 1, ,•,,U,/ ♦ :,4,
)
The al t ernative to such a position
- I~dividualism A - is
.
seen by Marxist s as the position underlying capitalism, which
holds that indivi duals contain no social influences which are
not ultimately re duced to individual forms o f influence.
Individualism - which is taken as the alternative to the view
pres e nted above - is seen as the source of c a pitalism and
inevi tably lea d s to a ll the excesses and distorts of that
,\
system.
Individ ualism must be stamped out r oo t and branch if
'- L
/;I ,~...-f.
it•
al·te,nutive to ca1;,alism is to be built 1fthe failures and
admittedly authoritarian cha~acter of existing Marxist systems
ii-tti.._,1·lif-·}
are, according to this line of~traced to the failure to do a
thorough e r1 o tl3 A
job of stamping it out in spheres other than
that of economic life. ! Indeed Individualism in this variety
of Marxist theory seems to play much the same role as sex did
in Christian theory - it is the source of all evil, and the
f'I\ ['
\- f '
mojification of the individual ego and its submission to the
~'
group replaces the mortification of the flesh and its subjection
to the spirit.
f\ v' J
(\
To condemn all individ_ualism because some
distorti'ons of i t produce bad results is like condemning sex
on a ccount of the objectionable nature of, sa~ prostitution.
J./( ;d /, Ii
I ), .
-~
<; ~-.. :~ ., . ,, :.:.
1'11\ .~ ~ , I~\ t :,
h
Howeve r , on€=.ffiay.:-==inc-l-ineL::::to-·:··be' j t wo u 1 d be
10
(
I,.. , '
<
/1
n a ive to s ee no connecti on between such a doctrine, and the
actual p r act i ce of Marxist societies (as /lli(n/
r.
Blackburn).
Marxists do
J
(- ,J -
Such a position must if followed out consist1
ently, be suspicious o f e v ery sort of individual independence
and activity which cannot be subsum_.ed in some sort of collective
interest, even something as simple and ap p arently non-capitalist
as producing your own food becomes suspect (see for example
the Kronstadt man i festo).
It appears to provide a justification
tc,,l
�10.
for any amount of suppression of individual views and dis s ent
And
where these are seen as being opposed to class interest.
"~Yth1 '>
(V if 1
~ social products)-t:.My_.. appeaL to provid e
if individuals are
/'
a justification for manipulation of individuals for collective
e nds, as bad
or worse th<3n the indirect manipulation for
pri vate interests of capitalism. ,,Such a do c trine seem s indee-d to make life very easy for
the capital is t, who does not have to exert himself greatly
I
its ,~1,uthortarian potential f or the individual.
to demonstrate?,
as a free individual, freedom
For if there is no such th1ny
-J
and if there is no such thing
cannot be taken f!:;,9JTI someone ;
as individual choice, individual choices cannot be qbr c7d te d or
is that individuals just
trodden upon.
don't matter, except of course insofar,_,, as the production line
There are few people who can fail to
is short of hands.
be repelled by such a position once it is stated in its stark
simplicity - which of course it usually is not.
From an
individual point of view such a situation would have many of
the drawbacks of capitalism, and in some ways might even be
worse - goals, modes of re ~hi ng them and suchlike would all
be externally imposed on individuals.
i r-£ ttr±-s==±s_ i 11 de. e-d·--ctre--nas±c-t-1a r x is L sociai- theury----:;:.md
- -
I
~--_,,,,..,
-------
I
------
--
ever the v a r i a t i o n s ~-hl-e._ under the label------.-Marxisrn' /
I
~
- -
----
/ tf .f erqn
--:::-......... ___1
------h
.
.
an - entiu::=~,tl:_to se e now- J:.bey can alL--na:ve
s hard ----::-:---...._,
~t_
V •
,::i •
--------1
~--- -------
----------
t h ore t i ~GU.Qd at i o Tl------~ ~ s ± e n _ Q J an En 1 i g h ten ea /
!1 LX.i.Sln~ ~ e ~ _ Q l l t to
k
:,
It is difficult to see how
~~ t ofAmora l
to concern
I
----------
------~
11S.
,.,,~
(
\."\.
by the _Nf'W
,·......
\_,
~\.... ....
~J
-..-.~~
with any
..:.- can be compatible
.
~~ -'-/'
concern for individuals and their fa te, as opposed
for
daiJ C ~
.
or
societies.
It is difficult in
fact to see how the.re_ can be room for any but the most
�11.
attenuated moral considerations at all i n such a view, since
even the comparison of societies in te~~s of the sort of
suffering they inflict on individuals i5 . th~ illegitimate.
It does however seem to be individuals who su.t fer ,...__whQ__.a re
,)~ :;
~,_
,--t :... , ,.. \ t
".I
f
b ..:. ' "'f
.
·-
.
-~ exploited or ~ominated, so unless an attempt
..
(
is made to give an al terna ti ve a(:count of these in t e rn1·s of
I \
the Class Mind ; it is difficult to see how such a position tould
even justify the choice of one soci·cil S~S}t?-,n.
over the other on
v '
moral grounds.
If this is indeed the basic Marxist social theory - and
whatever the variations available under the label 'Marxism•
it is hard to see how they can all have an entirely different
theoretical foundation - then the vision of an Enlightened
0 .._,..__ .
~t: L: • r
."" -, ( ·' ,!
Marxi sm which has been held out to us by the New Left is a
t--
mirage.
The consequences of this system can be seen then as the
1
•
,iJ I Ov\
el , m:nt.~ of
A
u.r;C.'tf..lf-<
j
V
f
power - or individuals (as in capitalism)
in
favour of their having no power at all as individuals, but only
through their membership of some collective,
class
or community.
For anyone who does not accept the
,d
reduction of legitimate indi1ual life forms to group life forms,
such a system of power must be seen as oppressive.
From the
I
point of view of the individual$ power to control his own life,
Q S
opposed to participating in controlling group life, to opt
such a position app ea~
to be oph~ , for the exchange of one set
J
of masters for another, of one form of domination for another,
~
and possibly ~~worse formo
C
l
J
./
following una ttrativ.e t er ,rs:
~
So then our choice appears in the
_./
if capitalism allows some individuals
,\
to dominate over others and control collective life through
the social framework,
1.1kr-,
11•, • •
the Marxist alternative allows collective-.
hc,,,
C\
�12.
control o f collective life, bu t also collective control of
indi v id u a l
life, allowing no ~ep,:-1, rate
legitimate individu al
{,c.....;_
life forms.
If Marxist s are right in point in g t o the disas t rous
I'
i
H'--'
results o f covert domin ation of ,.,social f ramework by private
capi talist interest
the capita l ist is su rely also right in pointing to the
oppressive character t o th e individual o f their 0 lternat ive.
*
Of course both sides would dt~Y that the problem can be set up
this way , the capitalists bec auIB
social framework to dominate
the/ de11_1/ that there is a
(because o f the i r reductionist
- the Marxists, because th ey would deny
1,
th at there is any legitimate f o rm of individua l control to lose
in collective domination.
a 3rd point of view.
,r - ~
',(.
f
l(
,;,,
·K ·
It is di ffic ult t o accept that we are face d with such
.J
f
J f:i,
The problem i s seen esse ntially from
-' -- - -· - --- - -
(111 f 11/" ,j'('
unpalatab le choices .
}(' / .;
ii1C..-
And indeed lo ~] ic and,, coit,tJ
strate that we are not.
to demon-
There have been, and in a fe w places
where l1es te rn cul tur--al destruction is not yet compl ete, the re rc, ,.:.,,1
1
soc iet ies which a r e not capitalistic , wh ich are anti1~.n
capitalistis but where a vigorous individual\ is va lued o r not
I
dis cour ~ged and for ms o f independent individual economic activity
n1 ;, y
,:
,·
\
/1
~j°> \
,,
\'( .{ .'~f. \j
(
"· . T-~,i,.!
·-; ,
f
·,
:~: '{!.
~-"1
'1 /
., I
J,
,:
f
::·
and lead t o
1
cap ifo1, iSr.> ·
, in the way the Mar xi st critiaue
it must, and which coexists wit h true co:u1munal
ins is t s
life-forms.
1
~;0c:~ 1~•- :~ s~:h ~~~·~~ti~; •;~~p(:\~ ; ;e'd as individuals, co ll-
~-1abora ted
\ ·; ··:
'I
In such societ ies th ere is a form
'\ of in di vidualism whi ch does not inevitably undermine the socie tie s
.
I
proc eed and even dominate .
'
._._)
in groups, or as whole communities, more or less as
the . o~-;~·~ion demand~d~:,yw hile s ome of the
, product .,' } ;>,d, :.'j
,~
~
\ might be given to those who had no thing, it was not u s u a lly
-J
�13.
regarded as a purely communal product unless commu~=ally
use
produce~b~ t was primarly for the
of he who had
t
f
J
obtained it or his kin.
(See HOWftt
in t~e~ Aboriginal case;
The t=orest Peo2-J.-~ ;
for the rules
_Wai-Wai ) ,
I,.
some g ar dening societies too, such as that of Melanesia,
individual eco n omic activity of a certain kind migh t even be
th e dominan : t mode of production, yet the society is not
capi t alist, and is even strongly opposed to the attitudes
of ~apitalism.*
The existence of such societies seems to show
* See
the failure of individually owned
Waiko,
11
trade
stfs
[encouraged by the Australian adm i nistration] was ... mainly
because such individualism ,
_t_u_,._t_i..__
_ _ _---=-p_r_o_f_i_t_a_c
___c_r_u_1_·n--"'-g_t_o__o_n_e
person, was disapproved of by the villagers" , p.418.
that it is possible to obtain both communal control of
c o 111munal life and individual control of individual life, that
the one does not necessarily drive out the other.
It seems clear fhm the anthropol o gical facts that the
Marxis t critique that individualism produc~ s capi t alism has
failed to make some important d1'stinctions between kinds of
individualism.
It may of course
claim
to allow ade quately for individuals and distinguish a kind of
'individualism' which is legitimate in the Marxist view.
On further inquiry it turns out to be the case that what is
labell e d individual activity in
:.:i 'q cl1
c .A s-2.s
is the kind of
secondary and derived life forms the individual may engage
in as part of the group collectivity or class, as in the Marxist
/
distinction between what is called 'Individualism'and'Possessive
Individ~1ism'
(see MacPherson}
But since this continues to
�14.
,.
'
M S 15
only legitimate forms of individual life are
.t that the·
those which can be reduced to collective life forms and that no
dist1 n -:.. C:-, independent economic individual life forms I for example,
are legitirnate 1 it is a dist,n.ction in net me on:i:y
perpetuates the false J~hdnm~
.J
.Jt
iin fact : merely
, now as the choice between
Possessive Individualism (as in capitalism) and 'Legitimate
The latter is however only another and misleading
Individualism' ..
name for the participa tton of the individual production units 111
the production line.
Since it continues to admit no legitimate
individual independent activity , espe cially economic activity,
distinct from or not reducible to that of the group, it
-
cannot e xplain our anthropological facts
that these
so c 1c ties do al low some i,·1d7K',k·l~ ,d in divi dual life forms,
am/
-
JS
v ----
including economic ones _merely as in attempt to dispel the
.A
uneasy feeling the
.
,...------··· -- a-
(t hrough confusing
--.
..
,\
.
-
production line theory arouses in most of us ,
te i-minological
.
'
,r
-r,,
, Marxises in fact
shuffle.
/
dd.Sthe same trick with this sort of recognition of legitimate
individualism as Social Democracy does with the reco0nition of
the social - it offers a terminological label which pretends
µ
to recognise a distinct life form but iryfact reduces it to an
.impoverished and limited subvoJ--i<=:1-J
of the dominant life form.
77The Marxist cr.i tique appears to have confused
· the recognition
of distinct individual life forms - distinct that is from those
of the collectivity - with the attempt to reduce all legitimate
life forms to in dividual life forms or constructions from them.
It has confused Individual i sm, in the sense of the recognition
of individuals, with Individual Reductionism, which is the
recognition of nothing els~ but individuals.
It is not the
former but the latter which underlies capitalism and its
variations.
On the economic level the Marxist critique has
failed to recognize that not all forms of individual economic
�15.
1(r
activity lead , capitalism, and at the soci al that not all
forms of individual power le~d to power over
rrh e triba l s oc iet ies
~...; ~
~
others.
considered were examples of
societies which had individu alism - distinct individual life
forms and economic activity - without individual reduction- i j m ~
')
,,
1((.1{ ,
1l'J
Individ u al reductionism produces distortions and gre~t
inequality of power because the social forces and means of
decision-making, of organi~ ation and of production, are turned
into concentrated power for the selected individuals who
. ff
represenithose forces in the indi vidualisa/ forms.
In the
tribal societies we considered this did not happen - decision
r
.
P
making was not usually the preogative of an individual h~d
'
A
or chief, organisation and production were not directed and
controlled by bureaucrats and powerful individual capitalis ~ or
groups such as corporations.
In societies which took a similar form, individuals would
have secure ind i vidual use right s for certain limited purposes
to the means of produc ti on , for example the land, which would
give them the right to produce for their own needs but not the
rights they have in a property system~
For example, they
would not have the right to dispose of it as they saw fit,
or the corresponding right to accumulate larger shares of the
means of production
than
others, or the right which in practice
arises from this last, to employ another person's labour.
The mean'.,;"
communJal ly,
11
of production wou/.-{
como, o m
be seen as basically held
t.c: al 1 for the use of each".
Individuals
would have, as individ uals, secure access rights to the
communal means of production to produce for their own needs.
Var ious forms of mixed individual, group and community production
could develop, based on mutual interes~as people see fit, but
the important point is that access rights to produce oould
accrue to individuals as su ch.
Provided th7
ao
not encroach on
�16.
others,
1ndi vidudfs
could set their own goals, decide (A,·hu.. t
_,.\
they, as individuals need and like to work on, and pursue these
goals in their own way at their own time.
each could·
In such a situation,
pu~sue his own way, instead of all marching in
<~ I tl' j. ,,
step - the situ,it,;,1
in whic "'h all must pursue a .. -& . i ~ and
collectively determined set of goals, at a collectively determined time, place and in a collectively determined wa~ would
I
be avoidedQ
C!S""'
Such a system would Ado tribal land tenure
3ys tems, involve two levels of decision-ma~ ~ing and of life
forms.
On the one hand decisions at the social framework level
would be determined through communal decision-mak ing processes/
wh r( h would normally, ~nvol ve communal participati.,1:y
't---(__y •-<.. i
:r
~ , ,t -1 ., ' \ (
forms
,...._
rather than i-04-i -v~:r-. methods.
The sorts of decisions which
would come up here concerning the use and creation of
1hL
t{0_
means of production would be those that
affected,\ community
( e.g. in the Melanesian case the; included the
t/«2.
issue of whether Acommunal
for es t land cou}cl be wood
chippe~ w~ -~l,
could not be decided by individuals and holders),
( u't
:I
1 ( / If ..
1u. "'-J; 1
f\ I'
• ,
I :) / .. . , '
) /
f
in our case, what sort of public transport systemsAto have, all
sorts of social framework and infrastructur e questions, question~
abou t the sort of c c mmunally-ope rated production enterpri ___ses
tc
have/ and so on~
This sort of society could admit a form of vigorous
individualism ,
capitalism.
b ut
it would not be and could not lead to
The sort of individualism admitted here would be
one which could coexist with a great deal of rich communal
life, and which did not eliminate or reduce communal life forms.
rrhe indi vid·;_,iJd s in such a society would have the rnJps to control
their own lives, both as distinct individuals
diff[-:.J-0.,,-ff.J _, as members of a cornmuni ty.
and also, but
1
have would be the means to cont;.~\ ,~.~e ..li '-'.t s_ ~~-·othe; s
!' C
(r
r": ,tu,-,. • (,~·{, ,_-,,
11;
,· i
ifr ,.:
.I- ,<
/1
,, ('
·,
(
jJ~' ,.,_
F J
! '' //, ,., ,
<
~
(.
,•
//, 7 r ..-_ ; ,
7
2-f
' .
.·
'
"/',.
1
.,
, /·;,, ""?(.
, .1.·1~ . "· ·. .
rr~~.
What they woul~ !1ot
.
4
,
,
1
.
'
lc .
{
..rf,t '.
<
�17.
The sort of po sition embodie d in these so r ts of societies
is in many ways a very natural one.
two levels -
It allows for control at
the social framework level is controlled communally,
and the level o f p rod uction for i nd i vidual nee~s is controlled
by individuals~
It i s the n a mixed picture.
(but a very different
one t o that whi ch appears in th e capitalistl' mixed econo my ').
4,1.,{
In such a picture, people ar e both individua~A· members of
communiti es.
For a f ree society in which peopl e control th c.. L1
own lives both sor t s of control are needed.
(.(
,v·
So, if y ou ask someone in China what occupation he
would l i k e . to f ollow , he replies, according to report, that h e
0
has no des ire s of his own in this respect, he would l ike t o be
whatever t h e community wa n t s or n eeds him to be .
,1 .,
( A very p ro pe r
answer according to the th eo ry set out in ' P a per Tiger s ').
If you ask someone here
what he woul d like to be, you
would very likely get th e reply that he woul d like to be what
or
ever he can find a job in,,\ if h e is inr t t)
a mbitious,
whate v er pays best or offers the best long-term monitary prospects ;
i.e. whatever capitali sm needs him to be.
(A good an swer also
syst em) .
acconli-1'1 '. 1 t o t h e
In neither c ase does the answer indicate a person who is
I
(I
in control of his own li fe, who do es what he wants to do, or
J\- ·- ·
tk~
what he finds s_ati_~_fying . _
At the ,; be st A distortion:;
L
---~ap.i tali sm a nd Marxism offer us, in each cas e on e kind of
con fr ol wi thout t h e other, or the other l evel o nly
I
-J,;,
I
i mpo verished and
\
qt"t-c•,li1. i:1/-r..rl.
f orm.
Bu t
,
\
(
\
\
\
( , , I~
,I
C(
i •Ii I
; I ii,
an
since the l e vels
.
j
'
t ,/ ,._- tf
)
I
of con trol have a large level of interdependence1
. each
11,,
1
lev el of control become s in fi,:,~it irnpover irlr- d
t :--· ,·· -._...,/ .. \S
. h
·"l, -r c . v~' .
wi 7'~ut its compl~=:.m ent....-;_,.. 'rhu s for example, mo st individual s
1
cannot live a fully free or satisfying individual life in a
society structured at the frame work or inf~s t rat~r ·e
�18.
·fo
leve\ provide
mainly dr~~~7 , repetitive work, or no work at
all, and so on.
Both sorts of control are necessary, and to
achieve this a society must first control the social framework,
including the means of production, communally, and second ;
give each individual secure acce~to the means of production
for his own use to enable the individual to control his own
life at the individual level.
Su6h a society would be 'self-
managed' at both crucial levels.
* (from page 17)
Of course./,. - t hat is what these positions offer at their best,.,
f thi:-; ·---is an idealisa~i~
In practice most capitalist countries
-• •--•--•·-•---•-•---•••---•--•--•-••-- --•--•---•••n------••--
do not offer even individual control
(that is they do not have
the individual freedoms appropriate to liberal capita l ism),
and most communist countries do not practice genuine commun ity
control or self-management on the social framework level
(that is collective life
Ain fact controlled by individuals
in the ·:; ha pe of bureaucrats or politic al codu11 ,lie~-' .c
An alternative of this basic
,.,
f c,·
.-·;;'/t .... .J, -t"
.
I; 1 J fr1_
1~ <- J_
) •
sort_,\ has been_
J
by a few thinkers, mo~s::tiA recently in a modified form by Ernest
'" ,, c , ~ ,
C~11lenbach~ in
~arly ,.- b<:t{::).k
Ecotopia
,,.r/, '<i. r
, and a c~l:so,\ by Bertrand Russer! in h-i-~
Roads to Freedom .
have been the intention
It may
behind a few others,e.g. William Morris in _News from Nowhere
(although there are serious
discrepancies here, which we will
,,
~ ( "()•;\)_
,,;
mention later), and in ~the work of Proudh. on, and there are
~
some points i n common with some forms of anachism - again with
A
S ignificant d i 'i.<ilp{,{11(,C J
we shall discuss later.
Neverthelsss
it seems to have l)e·en largely overlook· ·:ea, and we are normally
.
-
A
~
con fr onted with a ba sic false d; dwt or"'y -capitalism in some 1 orm
�19.
versus some ve r·sion of ~a~x ,s t ·
socialism.
This
ba1!c fa lse dichotomy is backed up by a systematic series of
false dicho t omies in the subsia'ary notions of each theory,
1\
which reinforc e and perpetua·. ~te the basic false dichotomy.
)
There are at least
r,1/--:;~,,, I(;
/c.--u.._r
·
/\
sets of reasons why we a re
conventionally presented with this <; .yst("t,.~ 1-i11c. false dichotomy.
a third position is sytem~
at ically discounted~suppressed} by both sides of the conventional confrontation because it is very much in their
inte r ests that it should be.
The r~ esent co~batants
i
do very well out of a game where each can point to the
opposition as the only option and can play off the drawbacks
of the opposing system to counter dissatisfac t [on with it s
o ~n - system
- an ideological or theoretical version of the
balance of power, to to speak ,,
/n which
tlJ t!-
$/:d<1r quo is maintained
by the tension between these two ideological cor,1 6 atants.
The
intrusion of a third position, especially one which seems to
have many of the advantages of both sides and the drawbacks
of neither, could spoil this strategy completely.
As someone
else, ;f we remember rightly, hasr~rnar ' ked, capitalism and
Marxism are li ke two sides of an a:c h - they prop one another
A
up by the match1•'.J weight of the - dis cu-lvantages of each side.
~
Both sides, insof ar
'-../
as they ad,1,:-l
such an option
{:!.-
exists at all 1 strive to present it as either a subv;1r\ty of
their own
one.
so<:_ 1Q(
theory
or as a subvc1.riety of the opposigng
Thus Chom. sky in his introduction to Dan1 .el GL-Lq:-,;-.n' s
_bnarchism
in effect assumes a false choice between the means
of production being cont rolled by individuals, and there being
no individual control of the means of pr?duction and no distinc ~
individual economic activity.
Thus
that any position which is genuinely
iu...
Wti\•
t.'~
-~e able to conclude
a~t~ -capitalist must
�ultimately be in agreement with the go\~ of the Marxist vari e ty
of socialism, and is differing only about details like the
position of the state.
But the non - reductionist sort of
position will not fit into such a simple and loaded classification which writes in the false dict:'Ptomy -· since it allows the mean.:~
of production to be, Q_Oth communally and individually (~-=-/"\ 1::-li\ i :~- - -1 ,....' , '
' f r ~ - -"
{J.r..i"ll~.J..:A cont ro 11 e dA It is L 11 e c t i ve l~ i_~ --d±ti~re~~~~~y_~~; ;:
co
controlled at the social framework level but is individually
controlled at the level of the individual's production for his
ow n needs.
rrhe other option open to Cht,,1\. sky and co.
is to
characteriz e suc h an alternative as mend y a form (perhaps
,,
~
~
{~~r
as a p.: .: e t it-b<Y.1tgu, 01s ,fo rm, a charge remi 11.scc 1.(-.;1 that levelled
I
•
'
•
'
1
1
o,,,[
against
1·
1.J.·( ,~ ~/ ../
.
_.,
. --
.,
.,, his followers ) ,I
Proud!-,c n by Marx
'
r;(tf...!:.::!,tf ( -,/,.,1 :·,!1,,r-J\
I
capi talism/A in terms 'of th~ ~eary._s of production not being
,n
r-t
"h-
c:,
.,
t
collectively owned and allowing some individual economi c
/ ·,
activity.
But since this will lnake the tribal societies which
do not fit into this loaded classification capitalist also, it
il).
hardly seems a convincing move. __ In the same vein B I.-~ ckburn
•, 1· · , / ' (
•; 1?
r
;,'?'
.- <, ri-r 1:., _ rt/,)(( I<<
' values in the Social Sciences/ presehtr thEf
only
11 1.
1
alternative t o capital.ism as Marxism, while 'Paper Tigers'
( __;tp,_;c,,1.r )
asser~' s that there is no th1 i-· d position - social
p l1~ nomena are to be accounted for i n terms of one or other o f
the two main social theories.
Simi lar strategies are of cours ~.
,_ .' L_._ -· '-.__
adopted on the capitalist side, wh-e- vr-i--1-l--e rnploy-- the criterion
is.,
of individual pro perty ownership
'
a 1 t-e rna t-iveS.A·
j
'
) ('
v,1 ., ~\
v,. ('., \'
\1 ·}.'. I
~'"' '--
: ·- . _ -1l"-' f:. ,➔
~
t
11 h
\
1
~efin~ 'so ci""alis~t /
, ' • \__ .t.
(._. \i1 I
\)
---
.... __..,,-
/'
_
' ,,.
~ I . I/ -
1
'>
_t ;
i'. \
There are however more substan tial philosphica l r e ason s
f or the false dictptomy, which lie in the basic reduction
p os i t ions underlying capitalism and Marxism,
1,,-•,
/ •;; ,
,/
1c'?.
• {_
.c ·( .
t.
/j Io 7;'t,J
•/ i(,,: , I '/
I/
t:t,,
d
~iR/o:,a,.J
�21.
The basic reduction underlyi ng the ideology of
capitalism is the reduction of communal life forms to certain
sorts of individual life forms, or mere rough~ J.y, of communities
to individuals, while that underly ing Marx,sr:11 is a reduction
of individual life forms to certain sorts of communal life
forms, that is , of individuals to elements of certain sorts
wholes .
*
*
Burnheim in rpaper Tigers' points out that the usual contras ~f
between individualism and
reduction of
'
i-l~_>f15'~--. \
in the sense of a
!) ' • 1)
dr 1.A,.-t.-ctt/.J' to parts of societies which are then
1,·1
-t-
.
c,t1 .__: ho·~c1•-·; .,
treated is fu \ her individuals, is a f u/:;e_ <!l~a.ti:Gn"'.
He points out t h h t Marxists want to reduce individuals to
elem t n J s of only certain sor~-~ of wholes (v iz. classes, which
are not then treated as f uf- /!1-.er indi vid~ls) .
ever goe s on to set up a further,
He then how-
ore basic false dichotomy
r'H
between this position and a capitalist reduction to individuals.
1·
----
How are such reduktions justifjea?
,,"'
appeal t
The argume t involves
/
the subsidizations tvupport the reductions.
systematic .:. lse dictatomie9---~i~h.__ justify
/
'-,
,./
as follows:
'
"
(1) capita~
//
( 2)
/4
t ineifidualism -~~sus
ind'i~idual c l,_; , (
/
alter c· ~·/, .> f r~~nershipf
/1
//
/
.j_,._,
of
,,tc.,·
'·-
/
/
'-.C-~
<_ __.../
~ ..... ;
/
/
o
ollectivism.
proquction versus
"',,, ~
~
·~-
�22.
According to the third theory, both these sets of reduction
alternatives should be rejected. ! A non-reductionist position,
accordin g to which there are legitimate in~i vidual life forms
which are not reducible to soc ~ / life forms, and legitimate
soc~ I life forms which are not reducible to individual life
forms, can give a more adequate account of t he data than
either of the reductions and s ynthesi ze much of the material
eac.lt uses to support his case t.<-•!1 ; le
,',· I•~,·\//
avoiding -~
difficulties the reductions engender.
of the
Individualism, in the
sense of recognition of legitimate non-reducible individu~/
forms, is one th ir1J - the
lif~
individual reduction position that all
life f orms ultimately can be reduced to these, is a very
different thing.
How are th e.
reductions justified·?
The argument involves
appeal to the subsidiary notions to support the reductions.
The systematic false d;~otomies which justify them in argument
are as follows:
(1) capitalist
( 2)
;ndividualism - versus coll e ctivism.
individual c' l<)1<..,2,t s--ly) of means of production versus
'· ., • ) : '
Cl
a-l--t erna ti ve ownership.
versus
( 3)
(a)
indivi (L..c als as not SO'Cil~/ly determined at all
(b)
the individual is completely soc io. l ly determined.
(4)
{a) 'obse rvational data' as theory-free versus
(.} 5,.
( b)
1
o bservational data' the or- y - depend ~_nt.
t,
(5) (a) individuals as completely free , versus
(b) indiv iduals as complo tely determined (atl choices ,ndividuals
make are in fact d etermined) .
( 6)
(a) The free soc iety as one .in which individuals
can control individual life, versus (b) the free society a s
one in which people collectively determine collective life.
All these false dkl1 0 tomies are reje.c ted by the nonreductionist postiion ..
�2 3.
(1) and (2) we have already partly dealt with.
To
j,.,i-1_1.I /
,. ;~ / sum up, the false dichotomy over fo L/3
the alternative of a mixed
form of control of the m eaus of production which does not fit
into the simple classification, which enables the form of
:c ~ m,v-~Aily
the infrastructure to be cG-Jd..ect~ controlled
-<-0.!id
H~
use of it to be
individually-controlled, as advocated by the non-reductionist
position.
The presentation of the individual as not soc✓(~ ,,/;;_'
ci I/
l
determined P'~ at 11 appears quite freql.lntly in capitalist
7
( 3) (a)
,
I'
\' \
arguments, espec rct. lly in the economi"l c sphere.
Most capitalist
'-.. /
e conomic a rguments depend upon taking ind i vidual choices as
'raw', as not in any way in £ lue n ced by o r dependent upon a social
framework.
They appear to presuppose an absolute indiv i dual
who would make the same choic es in any society.
Th~s for
example env ironmentallsts who suggest that things like a~r tT
condi tio~s are u 1-w1 ,:c_,.,:__~sct"1/
and wasteful of energy are ,n<? t with
the response from status-qua supporting economists
just choose to
r~-..i:>
11~ H:
\f 4 , 1 {,
raw, and
The choice is represented_
have air -cond itioners.
a
that peopl e
rreducible - to interfere with it would be
...~~ .A. "'
authorita~ because it is presented as a choice at the level
of individua l li f e-control, instead of as a social framewor k dependent choice,
A
good e xamp le is McCracken [
]
.
This is
part of the strate gy of reduction to individuals through trying
does not exist, or if
it does, i s
a lso chosen by the individual on the level of
personal 'raw' choice -
('a legally elected government determined
it'.).
Environmentalists are always encountering the related,
arg ument that a certain predicted level o f
consumption, say for forest products, energy demand,
�24.
space, must be met , no matter how disastrous its environmental consequences'.
'Demand'
is treated as expressing
the individual~ raw needs or choices, which are
,coN.:.e.11J.ed
as lacking a social context, and therefore, it is argued,
as being essential to meet
a ~d authoritarian not to meet.
To deny such demands would be to abrogate individual freedom.
rrhis is the basic argument for Cons1u1,:r ism, and it is widely
employed by those who wish to promote industrial growth t o
meet alleged cop (_.il.i,, 1 t: r--
~ eeds ' reg a rdless of the consequences.
Courses of action which fail to accommo date cons!-< 11-iu; i nl
t hus
ruled out, and
are
consumerism and its
consequences repre s ented as necessary and inevitable.
Of course many people,especially environmentalists,
realise there is something wrong with this argument.
do not just up a,vJ ' demand' expres~~~ays,
People
junk paper f or
packaging, or energy capacity to power hea~ed swimming pools
or electric toothbrushes.
All these 'needs' are the product
[ 1,.r7 -'·-
of a certain sort of;\ social co ntext, which the Con sume .ri sin
igno r es, or presents as inevitable, wh e n it is
/lrgument
not, or chosen by people ge1rally/when
>r
is not.
The
Consomerist Argument, then, is a pa.rt of the capitalist reduction
choices to individual choices, which is pJrt of -the~
reduction of
: so c ~I
life forms to individual life forms.
[Accompanying th=js r e duction is a picture of th e individ tt~ l s
~ s c ontaining no s 6 cial elements which are not i n some way
f}-1·
1--<. l.·-~\. C --- ~
t,; :_+ ,. : -~: _,, ; c ..{ · ,) , ,.)_ --·· l ~reducible to p- roperties
of individuals &'\, l] \
.
(b)
On the oth er side of the conventi on al battle we are
presented with an equally distorted and reductionist picture
o f the individual os completely so c. ; -= ally determined.
I :f
the capitalist picture presents social choices as just certain
kinds of individual choices, the Marxist picture tells us
that there are no individual choices which · at-e..
,H·[
reducible,
�2 5.
orl exarnina,tion, to socja/ choices.
Marxists
,uj}if- (r
l-
reject the
'J
capitalist a ccount of the individual and society and ~s ~st on the
importan ce of the social fram ewo rk, but in th e process eliminate#
the i ndividu al .
In 'Paper Tiger ~' two main arguments are
presented for this positi o n .
·
(i) The Invariance Argument:
This argument appears in
several pap ers in the 'Paper Tigers' coll ection and seems to be
central.
Essentially it argues that the individual does not him-
self d ete rmine his own choice unless the determination would b e
invariant in any social framework. , Thu s Steve ns, SuchtiJ
Chal;,1, ers, and Burnheim.
and
In Burnheim's paper the argument
appears in the f orm of the demand for
cor e
an
of self, which would be unchanged under any variation of social
U11 k'.;:;
co ntext or framework,~ t his can be provided 1 there is
tJ;1( re,\/ s. 1,>
as J 'the sear ch for the real self proves illusory' ,
1
)
,7 nd the pictu re of individuals as completely s-r, ,,,,;/l
mi ned is e stab l ish~<l.
deter-
Of course if the de P1 J nd for our
core Abefore i ndependent no n-reduc i ble individual
self-hood were admitted). was correct, i t wou ld be very ea s y to
demonst r ate the Ma rxist reducti on .
Bu t the demand is far too
stron g, and the argument is thoroughly fallacious; for it
a~sumes that the relevant proper ties of individua l s mus t be
purely individually determined befo re the re can be a non- reduqible
indiv i dual.
All that is required howe ve r is that the re should .
be an i ndividual eleme:nt in their d etermination, a nd. thL:; would
not lead to the expectation of an invct~t--~,,..it:
class of
I
sel f
i
properties which were unchanged in ~QY soc i al context.
The f allacy in th e argument is perhaps best illustrate d
/1 ,'.'
by an analogy.
;,£'
J
We know t hat the genetic inheritance of indivi duals
;\
can determine within a broad range wh a t they can become or cannot
become, e.g. if they are genetically male they cannot become mothers,
,r:1""/;,
(, ,,r:, ,,,,., (( •.
/
i· (:·
,.(''
-.·; .--:. ,,-· ...,.. .f"
.
.,,,/'.,,
�26.
if they are genetica lly members of the c o rr o t
fam i ly they
and so on.
will grow in a different way from 1egu"mes,
.....__,,
Any
g i ven property an individual has will pro bably be the result
of both genetic ~nd environmenta l factors, and will vary as
So we cannot argue that individuals
either factor is changed.
are completely environmenta lly determined unless there i s a
class of 'core' properties which are invariant under genetic
Of course there are no such properties.
change!
But that is
what the invariance argument demands - that before we can
claim an independ~t individuality ,
'a 'real self' other
than the soc i4 tly determined self, there must be a class of
purely self-determin ed properties which would be the same
regardless of different social environments .
There are, of
course, no such prope !··ties, so, th e argument con c_.l udes fallw:;u~rd,1,
there are no real individuals.
is a mi x ture of soc ;cd/11
But if an individual's cha racter
determined and individu a lly determined
. .J
f eatures, and if any one pro perty showed in fact the influen c e
of both i n t~ ~es, then we could no t
expect such invaricince.
But t he case of social versus individual determination does in
fact seem to b e in the crucial respect a good analogy to the
genetic/envir onmental case - the social context, like the
th
genetic inheritance, deterines, in a broad way what the
A
individual Lan -Or cannot become, what he ca n
CL..
do or choose , *
*
<!
1
The analogy also throws an interesTin
on the individual' s
i
light on the Lysen Ko
that genetic inheritance -:_,,·..!_,/ ·IJ,._
the theo:rJ
6,-,;1 L,d ft f ,!(_·k , J l.//,t/4,, k,dk,y;I
C/ A
~
rh . flfi?i1~11_'-!f.
11.,',/'t"fllr;e.~ {·.,/{J _
the u(gts of the social reduction, as required in Marxi~t theories.
I/~ ,.: ,/.l;"r,.i /.-....
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J ,,.;1 ,· /. ..,· 11/J " ''j,., lc.-,J c./
Pr~suP1l,4 7
affair.
.
.
1
constraint
It acts a j A
...,. - -··
1
,(..' ( ! [
0
. -•...,
•
'
, / u,..
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_, /::
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(, / ,
II/1/Jt
of development, and its influence will therefo r e be seen
(
�27.
in all the properties he displays, without1 of course, being the
l/is actual
complete determinant of those properties.
development involves as well his own indi viduallj de termine d
-f~L1/u:--r1 .,·
in the same way that the actual development of aH individual
with a certain genetic inher i tance also involves environmental
fa ctors .
This is the sort of picture of the individual in
relation
to h is social context which u..r1de-rl ;e. s the non-
re:1uctionist position , and it is in most respect s a fai-r!J
natural one.
In contrast the two reductionist positions
present, in term s of the analogy, a false d ic hotomy picture
1./
of t he individua l as comple tel yg·enet ic ally determined i-:!'11- -- ' ~-,
·t~ .--• - l ~
the one han d
.
(Marxism\ and as comp.J:_etely
,1'fl-
environmental ly
determined on the other (cap ita lism).
(ii) The second set of arguments for the complete
social de te rminat ion of the individual f is
L
papero
presented in
It is an interesti n g a nd
,,
sugges tive but l ikewi s e fallacious argument , which proceeds
fr om the assumed theory= ..c:=-_aepen d en t characte r o f al l
data, to the conclusion that ' individual'
obscrv.d r<' ;u, {
C'< '~t
obs e rvation, \ entire ly dependent on shared social
,.tr tifact s;
1
I.e.
theor ie s, is a social and not an ind ividual phenomenon.
{u e.nce and
duct s .
knowledge I tfw
11.
,
are social and no t individual pro-
It is p ointed out that the phenomenol o gy and epistem-
ology associated wi th capitalism - empiricism and th e
individua lis t red ucti on - holds that observation al data
is completely theory - indepe nden t, and this approach is
correctly rej e ct~~ d as in compatible with th e,
o f theory forma ._,___
r--- ti on
/At1(l
actual process
fa lsification .
Even if the o ther connections in the argument are
admi tte d, we contin ue to be p resented with a f alse contrast,
this time between obs ervation a~
completrly 'hard' or as
�2 8.
completely 'soft', a s compl etely theory - depe ndent, or as
comple t e l y th eo ry - independe nt.
Again the obvious p osi ti on s ee ms
to b e overlooked by the opp os ing reduc tio nist c a mps.
gi Ve L--t.
The point n eeds more elabora tion than c..an b ....:.
h· ,f l0 ½~ , but briefly, what i s o verlooke d in the a rgume nt
is the po ssibility of saying that some observations are theorydependent, and some are not ,\ that is, that there
'so ft'
da t a.
cffe~
'ha rd' and
the comple te
Su c h a position would explain wh a t
theory-depen dent theses cannot explain,the unden~b/e
fact that some theories are fals ,; fied.
It can also explain -
what t he e mpirici st position cannot - ~ hy theories are not
nearly as f alsifi a bl e as t he e mp iricist takes them to be, and
some not falsifiable at all, and why in many cases what is
n ee ded is a c once pt ual shift, that is a shift to
rei,1 h--rpreJ1,4f,;,, of the theory·-depend e.nt area of data along the
li nes presen fo,l.
b...J
a dif ferent theory.
The theory - depende nc e
aspect might be s een a s gi ving a certain cl~~
(the 'so ft data'), or it
d ependi~t data
['
01
mjh~
theory-
be seen as
giving certain t heory-depe nd e nt constraints on observati on,
while still leaving room f o r a no n - the ory depende nt area to
op.~rate within those constraints, t h at is, an area in which
, ,n
~
peop le opercit1 11t , with
J
c/,fl c, (:~1f-
theories can reac h agreement .
(Neither of the two reduct ion ist theories can adequately expla in
agreement and di~agreemen t
be tween people h ol ding different
of such a non-reductio nist account of
theor i esV_/)
observation an d theory would be that they are seen as both
u 11d_
social and individual - scienceA knowledge have
but they s
sooQI
elements
;;-l 1 1 occur at the individual level, they are both
f1lfd .
social ~nd ind iv idual products.
AA
similar account in all
o f free-will and determinism would see individuals as partly
4..
•
f r ee, a n d a s Pftly determined -
.
•
the latter determination
occ urri ng as constraints on individual action rather than as
�29.
giving an area of completely determined action and another
different area of completely free action.
i,..J., £
~;(b) '1 he notion of freed(l.m and of a free society is A one
of the most important suffering from systematic ambiguity .
1
Each position defines the notion in accordanc e with its own
concept of individua l and society;
thus the capitalis t
position ck~hes freedom as the control by the individua l of
his own life (with appropria te safeguard s), the Marxist as the
con t rol by the collective or class of its own life and so on.
The non-reduc tionist position would reject the notions of
l,
'J C'{ ,r·1
freedom which each reduction position offers, and would see
1\,
the choice as involving
a false dichotomy .
According to
the non-reduc tionist position, to be free is to be free as
an individua l and also as a member of a community , to be able
to control one's own individua l life as an individua l, and
also to be able to act freely with others in controllin g and
determinin g the social framework .
;,<
'f.
¥-
-~ ---
~
~"I:-~
The false dichotomi es presented by the two-reduc tion
cire..
reason
positionsA clearly systemati c in nattire.
for them lies in a logical assumption and approach which is
com m on to both theories - the reduction positions are the
result of extension alism
'm. 2~te:rlalisrn ') in logic and
metaphysi cs,oper~ti ng both through the accounts of the subsidiary
n otion ~ and resul6~ . i n the the basic reduction position of
individua ls reduced to eleme nfr of
cul u,,,~ sorts of social wholes
versus social wholes as reduced to constructi ons out of
certain sorts of elements.
�29 .
Those who do not appreciate that everything is connected to
everything else, and that relevant logic particularly is connected
to everything else, would probably be surprised to learn that the
basis of these false dichot.01les lies in logical theory.
The two
,{
reductionist positions apply in social theory a particular set of
reductionist doctrines a bot.ft the whole-part relation.
The individual reduction position which underlies basic capitalism
is that the whole is reduced to no more than the sum of its parts the parts are the thing and the whole i s a mere fiction or certain
sort of construction.
The opposite reduction holds that the whole is the thing and
that the parts are no more than components of the whole - the y have
no real function or role of their own except to make up the
whole.
This is of course the approach which matches the Marxist reduction
of individuals, and it results from buying~~l~same logical
assumptions about wholes and parts and applying the reduction move
in the opposite direction.
The logical assumption behind the reductionist approach is that
the social whole-part relation is extensional, as it is treated in
standard mereology.
<.? r o ./r:,.·_ .~"' '-··• ,.
/
:J.. ti ·,
r•
i
J
("~
\., C
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l
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~\__(_ ___ · '-- '-- 'c l ...
•
:
,: · -
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.__,, :;>>··\-
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It is the seeing of th e whole~ part relation as extensional
which forces the choice be.tween seeing wholes as just aggregations
of parts, as on t he capitalist side, and seeing parts as j ust bits
of wholes, as on the Marx ist side.
If the relation
is extensional,
then one or the other reduction is inevitable, so th at someone who
w, she~ to reject one reduction, say the re duction of wholes to parts,
Cf!JD -fi,'j
is ob li ged to embrace the
one, the reduction of parts to wholes
so that the Marxist reduction of individuals is an outcome of sharing
s uch an extensional outlook.
With an intensional relation this choic e can be avoided, there
can be both wholes and parts, each with properties not reducible to
those of the oth er.
Consider;for example, the
/mplicational case
where we represent the proposition that A as the class of sta temen ts
implied by A, or equivalently the class of consequences of A.
Then if the notion of consequence is treated e xtensi onally, for
oF
example as material implication, the joint consequences ~ A & BJ that
r:F -1 i 42..,
is the consequences~ proposition {A
& B}
will just be the sum
of the separate con sequences of A and the separate consequences of B.
That is {A & B}
= {A} U {B},
or, in terms of wholes and parts, the
whole {A & B} is just the extensional sum of the parts {A} and {B},
and is therefore reducible t o it in a straightforward and common sense.
If on the other hand, the notion of cons£ },enc(;,. is treated
1
intensionally as in re levant implication, the n the joint conseque nces
of A & B exceed and are not reducible to the sum of the separate
consequences of A plus the separa te consequences of B.
That is
i'
B} · not just and can 11c: t be reduc ed to the
,'
The residue or
sum of its part~ proposition A and proposition B.
the whole proposition {A
&
difference between the joint consequences of A & Band the sum of
their s _e parate consequences might then cal led an emergent fea t ure; ·\ k __:-.
The relation between suc h
emergence results from intensionality.
reductionisrn · of the whole-part relation and extensional treatment
'
'
.1 Cr./) N,!/- , !f,dvhr//l-7
'/)_ft. ('.
. . J1l7'UJ
1
11
//i,c✓ t'1. d(c: -, {
l
•
A
•
r:-.I /)c!tf.·c·.:JlA~/,-. 1/J)7
1.
�of it is so close that the {A & B}
for the
~
= {A} U {B} feature is sufficient
•
of the whole,-_- '_part relation.
extensional~
In opposition
to this 1 it is possible to develop a theory for an intensional
whole_:-:._~ part relation in an intensional mereol og y which models the
whole ·-- -~part relation in terms of an intensional implication relation
such as entailment.
It would be rather surprising if the social whole ~~ part relation
.
--
,.,,.--
an extensional one which enabled simple summation except in
were
certain special cases.
It is after all rather well-known that people
can do in combination what they cannot do separately, not just in the
to
extensional sense in which they can sum their joint forces (e . g.
I
.
lift a rock), but al.so in the more important sense which is no~_
extensional in which what they can produce i n cc-mbination may be
far more than (and different from ) the sum of the separate efforts
of each (e.g. in writing a joint paper).
Such
emergence seems
especially to be a feature of activities which involve combined
inte nsion ~ __,.lity l as many activities which are characteristically
social seem to.
The simple reduction of social wholes to sums of individual
parts is the basic reduction of basic capitalism.
The position is
"({ f:t-•c·
,·1 ( , __
very important from a theoretical standpoint as the crucial r--e-l-e.v~nee
point for the understanding of other positions / .just as are the Basic
Reference Theory and Basic Empiricism to the understanding oV pos~tions
~
in epitemology
. and logic.
. 1,
However as with the Basic Reference Theory
and Basic Empiricism, the numerous difficulties the primitive form
encounters lead to many refinements, elaborations and extensions,
and there are few who now hold the basic primitive position.
The
reduction of social wholes to individuals view points is liberalised
correspondingly -
[thus it is no good identifying the position of
�Jf.4.
capitalism with the primitive reduction and attaching t~at,
in the fashion of Bwnheirn. ref
J.
One lih.eralisrd reduction
position, which appears to correspond to the extension of
capitalism in Social !Je111ocracy, holds that social wholes can
be reduced through anal:'.{Sing them in ten:ns of a theory
concerning the assumed components and their interrelations.
Thus the reduction is liberalised hyond a simple whole-part one,
to provide a theoretical explanation and to take account of
yet furt her features of wholes in terms of th e behaviour and
interrelations of their compon e nts.
Such a th eo ry would
however be extensional, in accordance with the usual assumptions
motivating this kind of reduction, so that the essential,
non-reducible emergent features of the social will still be
missed.
The reduction - although i t will be ab le to take
account of a more complex set of interrelations, between
comp onents, will con tinue to be inadeouate and to leaitimise
/\ (::,
an impoverished version of communal life "orns ~ ".'here is
·'
j
strong logical case that such reductions cannot be made.
This
~
is provided by such results as I] rrow' s the:erem ancl.
pa ral lel results in voting theory. *
The fact oi complex
interdependence between the individual and the social whole
also provides a strong prima facie case against a reduction,
since if some characteristics o ~ individuals depend essentially
on the social whole, the latter obviously plays an irreducible
role.
But some characteristics of individuals do seem to
depend on and be modified by the social framework,
tn the same
vwy that the growth and species composition of the plants in a
f)'lic<O
rainforest is modified by a partly determined by the
. climate
,\
*
~
See P.ou t.ley [
J'
)The Impossibi lity of General
ionist Social Theory.'
1\
Reduct-
�and other matters which a r e determ ined by the biolo g ical
commun it y .
The irredu cibilit y of the social , of soci al levels
of exp lanatio n and occ urrenc e seems to parall el very closely
~
the irr e duc l bi li ty of th e i.n tension al, and th e relat ed
i rred ucibil ity of non-re ferenti al to refer e ntial occ urrenc es
el the irredu cibilit v,. of commun a l
in semant ics. seems to narall
)
life forms to individ ual life forms .
The
non-re ducti onist
t he sis in logic and metaph ysics, that objects have b oth
e xten sion al and irreduc ible int e nsiona l prooer ties,
. l;t -{
I,
I
"~'i
oarall els in a Away that the non-re ductio nist thesis in
social theory , that the proper ties of individ uals are
determ ined by both individ ual and irreduc ible social
forces, that is, are both individ u a l a nd social.
There
seems in fact to be a close and direct conn e ction betwee n
the social and the int ension al - as we noted earlie r,
on l y
intensi onal relatio ns between the i ndivi dua l and
the commun ity seem t o be ab le to c apture the e me r~en t
feature s which charac teri.se the social.
It seems impo ssibl e
to charac terise the notion of a social commun ity withou t
.~) ~ \ .'...,-' . ..J
appeal ing t o inte n sional notions - .~ ims, shared p r op os es ,
shared commu nication and sha red values .
Not a ll int ensio n al
not ions are related to th e so c ia l of course , but if some
are essent ial to it , as we have s uggeste d, then the d e ni a l
or reducti on of the i nt e nsiona l, on e of th e l eadi n g thesis
of the lo g ical and metaph ysical theorie s as s o c i a t ed with
empiric ism, is the denial or reducti on of the basis of the
social .
�The proble ms and positi ons relati ng to th e attenp ted
so
reduc tion of the intens ional to the exte nsion al parall e l
closel y and str,i,.. l<ingly
those relati ng to the attemp ted
reduc tion of the socia l to the indi vi- -dual that it is
tempti ng
to conclu de that they are in fact differ ent aspec ts of the
ons
sawe positi ons, that such interr elated pro bl ems and positi
reapp earing in differ ent areas form a world view.
:!?or a
o fte n
worke r in the mode1-n. philos ophic al produ ction line, it is
diffic ult to see where and how the little piece of the puzzle
he is workin g on fits in to the who le.
*
And as Smal le n.t.p .f :ound ,
journe ys of inqu iry to discov er conne ctions and overa ll
signif icanc e are not encou raged.
It becom es possib le to see
er s
as little more than a coinci dence the fact that the found
of emp iricis m and of its logica l count erpart ~ the Refere nce
-4:,..--
Theory ;,
*
Locke , Hume , :"'!il l, and so on-r were also the found ers
Refere n c e
Smal l creep 's Day.
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�of the reductionist social ideo logy of capitalism.
We suggest that it is not a coincidence, and that the
following rough connections and correspondences hold which
provide mappings between positions in different areas of
intensional (in logic)- non-
philosophy:
referential (in semantics)
- theoretical (in philosophy of
( 0
- extensional (in logic) -
/t,
v-J!,J Jl
t:t
I
A referential
science) - social ( in social theory) j
observational (philosophy of
individual (in social theory).
science)
( in semantics)-
Some of the
routes connecting these concepts are fairly clear, others are
less so.
Some of them, for example the epistemological-logical
connections, are elucidated in
Beyond
]
~ ~ ploring ~einong's Jungle and
.
These correspondences give rise to the table on the
previous page.
This table should not be read as indicating
that people who hold one of the positions on the line hold
the others, or even that they logically should.
For first most
/
of the connections have been overlooked, especially in
this century, and second, the positions do not even ehtail
one another because the
ronnecting links are suppressed; and
these , even if logically necessary, may be rejected by peGple
who hold one but not another position in the line.
Positions
do however form closely linked ways of looking at the world they are world views.
~~st of the positions can be seen as modifications of or
responses to~l
, the basic reference world view position,
within its own intellectual framework.
This is especially true
o f 1 's conventional ~pponent, Marxist socialism.
In 3,
the necessity and rationale for the ~arxist converse reduction
is created by the acceptance of the main intellectual apparatus of
the basic individual reductionist worldview, and ~~arxism
�challenges ea! i talisrn very
intellectual framework.
·1tHtd1
from within its own
In contrast postion 5, the non-
reductionist position, challenges 1 from a auite different
s tandpo in t.
The table should make it possible to distinguish clearly
between two positions which, although entirely different, might
on some theories (e.g. a r~arxist thecry) run some risk of
confusion, that is, between the Libertarian Socialist position
and the Social Democratic one.
The difference parallels
that between .the Fregean Double Referenre theory and the
non-reductionist position regarding intensionality.
Social
De mocracy must be seen as an liberalisation or extension
of basic capitalism, in the same way that the Double Reference
theory is an extension of the Reference Theory which enables
it to take account, albeit in a quite inadequate way, of
much further material which the basic Referenm Theory cannot
,-
.. ! ,..
handle.
~
.
:> t•(
·f\
t1•~ l
..J,.J.._
.,,.._ ..;· '
! ,·, '· /
This is done through setting. up individualised substitutes
fo;-- communal life forms,
usually through the medium o:f so-called
w-
~epresentative' or 'public' individualp institutions
which control the 'publid sector and much of the social
framework.
,';',i I ~!.:'•
.I
Given an individual reduction1),...(such as that of
Mill, the major theorist of representative government)
such
representativeness appears inevitable, the only possible and
logical way to handle communal life forms insofaras they can
exist at all.
is far
From the standpoint of a different theory, it
from inevitable; and the increasing destruction of
communal life forms in :f:avour of such 'public' ones is dama g ing,
impoverishing, and leads to great concentration of power.
Social Democracy operates normally with a capitalist basis
and grafts the 'public' sector on as an extension J just as the
Double Re f erence theory operates with the Reference Theory for
�the normal case and extends the theory to d ea l with difficult
cases.
The Double Reference Theory employs a substitute
reference, the sense, for cases whe re the
will not work, just as Social Democracy employs substitute
individuals to represent community life forms for cases where a
purely 'private' approach does not work.
sense, is treated as a
The second mode, the
further sort of reference, just
as the 'public' sector in Social Democracy is treated as a
f urther sort of individual life form.
Both these positions
extend and liberalize the reduction of the basic position,
rather than providing a genuine alternative to it.
)'I.
How do the reductions connect with the basic position
.. of each theory? -----,
I
l_
/--------✓
~- Each position uses its reduction
to vindicate
i t's own vision of a satisfactory societ~_L,{'~he capitalist
�30.
-
reduction..---_:-· to-individuals position vindi cates capilalist
' .
society through the following
CJ1'v
'
j\,
/v
I
-
Ayn Bandish type of argument:-
If individuals are entirely self-made, and none of
their properties are the result of the social framework, then
the fact that some people are superior to others in certain
respec ts must simply be due to their being inherently superior
individuals in those respects.
But if some individuals, by
being more able than others, are able to acquire more power or
more advantages for themselves, this is only right and
( C? 1,'f-isrn)
Such inequality is unjust to no one, and
prope~.
I\
the result is the admirable one that the better are better
rewarded and have more control over the shape of society.
w, #1
Th~s the individualist reduction lead~ only a
AH.:,.
l\
with few further assumptions which not implausible, to a
/\
position justi fyi ng inequality of power ..
The Marxist position, equally, uses its reduction to
vindicate
,ts
vision of the social order, as one in which
the individual can express himself or exercise power only through
participation in the whole, the collectivity.
Individuals can,
in this soDq( and especially~ economic order, exercise n~
power as individuals, and power is held only by the collective,
or class o rganisation .
In contrast to these positions of inequality of power
for the .individual on the one side, and of no power for the
individual as such, on the other side, the non- reduc tionist
theory co rresponds to a position of equality of power for
individuals, both as individuals 9 n~ through the social framework.
In its vision of the good society, individuals have
equal power to determine the social framework, and equal
power to control thsir own lives at the individual level .
The social frame(,J c•rk 1 for example insti tutions1 should allow
�31.
life and deve lop
each indiv idua l to maxi mize cont rol of his own
comm unal
his own disti nct pote ntial , as well as optim ise
pote ntial .
ccftr ol of comm unal life is commLJJl._~3 1, o.tic:l. that
of indiv id ual life is indiv idua l.
l
Capi talis m is view ed as a disto rtion of indiv idua
The oppo site
uctio nism .
life forms whic h is impo sed by indiv idua l-redA.>hrll'o
,,.1-,,:t._
c
JJ
,•
6 · c i.l(,,t ( [nr.n:n,t:;,.J (dfi'f( ,:,..- /i h - f/,('_ h.·t ·fto abs orb th e
pt\
attem
1
rrti~~J?
h
whic
es a disto rtion
r\
redu ction prod~
A
~+·
1
renc es in goQI~
indiv idua l comp letel y, to swal lo~ up, deny diffe
and need s.
This is an equal . dist o rt ion.
iced
The disto rtion s have some para llel wi t ~ othe ~not
in rece nt w
~1
Cing .
For exam ple / there is a para llel with the
and oppo site
forci ng of peop le's char acter s into disto rted
the m expr essio n,
sex role stere otyp e s whic h frus trate and deny
thei r lives .
and impo veris h and limi t thei r oppo rtuni ties and
force d by the
Ther e is a para llel also with the disto rtion s
In the
d.
sepa ratio n of sexu ality and love notic ed by Freu
that the
same way the non- redu ction ist posi tion woul d hold
t were ove rcom e
good socie ty could be acA1e..,.: e cl only if the spli
and the two sides reun ited:-\
~~~•·:~~"gl~c
i :~i:i~u :~\:~ '
~~~•h
:~ · ,, , .
- -~ f\
s, and part of a
disti nct 'self ' with disti nct need s and goal
,.,. . .
.,,._~ I . .
\vr. J. • r .}
,' / , . . , ,.: , . _ ,7 ;,t '
Both must be r ecogn ise d
comm unity with common need s and goal s.
,\
IJ
/. •·
t -' I'
j
1
in the struc ture of the s ocie ty.
up some
Such a non- redu ction ist posi tion can then take
redu ction of the data that each side uses to supp ort its
with out howe ver
redu ction .
1,1cui- t i ~
J_
___
t he pena l ties impo sed by the
Thus it can claim s~pe rior expl anato ry powe r.
as we have
For exam ple, the non- redu ction ist posi ti o n can
s of each othe r,
po i nte d out, acce pt each side~ basic criti cisma11c{
-, also thei r
it can re cogn ise the claim s of the indiv idua ls I
.
limi tatio ns.
limi tatio ns , an d the claim s of the soci al its
d criti que.
It can admi t th e va l idity of much Marx ist-in spire
�32 .
For instance , it can agree that in capitalism people are
frequently unaware of the real social determinants of their
actions and values a nd see as free choices on the individual
level what are in fact determined at the framework level.
It can agree that the utility of the invisibility of the
manipulated social framework to capitalism is to dis~uise the
existence of other options and make a situation~ which is to
the advantage of so~e gr oups, appear necessary or ine scapable ,
~
*
or to the advantage~and chosen by all.
This is however
not evidence for the Marxist theory as opposed to th e nonreductionist theory which it supports just as well or better/
1
a nd it does not show that there is no such thin g as free
individual choic e .
S imil arly most of the valuabl e part of
the Marxist critique of capitalism can be seen as evidence
for the lack of re al communal control at the social framework level, rather than as .,or··· supporting the thesis ~hat that
N,·11
/Je_: on!_y level on which anythi n r; really occurs.
is
Thus also
the t heury can take accou nt of classes without bein~ stuck
with the ~l g iditi es and difficulties of a class reduction
or a class view of history .
., ,1, ·; ..\
•~ ~
'
I\'-\
\
~~
Class explanations for ind ividual action can be
used where they a.re required, but individual
aL.+1cr1
C<.H
o.lso
be reco gnized and there is no need to explain all the a. r:t ions
of in di v i cl u a 1 s in his t or y
forces and so on .
,1
s u 1 t j_ mat e 1 y the pro c/cL d
of c 1 as s
Such a theory can also provide t h e basis
for - what is lacking in Marxist theory -
* For documentation of this thesis, see
Conscio usness .
t
Captains of
Thus also some, but not all, of the
>.I...
Marxist critµq~ of the last twenty years remains of
value to the non-reductionist position .
�32.1
a critique of socia l Democracy which distinguis hes i t
clearly from Basic ( apitalism .
Th e majo r the oretical
feature of ,ocial Democracy is th e attemnt to take
account of communal LLfe for rns and other cases wh1 eh
obviously cannot be accoun ted for adequately in basic
capitalism , in terms of an individua l subs tit w~s for
them-as in the ' publ ic' sector , Governmen t by represent ative
A Marxist-ty pe theory cannot take
individua ls , and so on.
adequate account of this individua lisation , because it is
committed to seeing all the actions of individua ls as
represent ative of class forces, so that the indivi dual ' captt!Ye '
of social life fo rms in Social Democracy ' becomes for
them just their capture by various class forces.
measures bt.d'('t<Gtcratic
'
fv4:.,/c,i;a-n..
The welfare
and so on of Social
J
'
Democracy must they be written down as cynical manoevres
by the capitalis t with th e intention of keeping the working
J.t ,u/._
classes quie t removin~ obvious sources of grievance , while
I\
' public ' sector activity is seen as merelJ
re~ulatory for caoitalism .
This may be an aspect, but it
is not adequate as an a nal ysis .
In reassessin g the Marxist critique in the light
of the non-reduc tionist positio n, it is crucial to
distinguis h , as the Marxist critique Joes not, between
individua l reductioni sm a n d individua lism, in the broader
sense of the recognitio n of individua ls and distinct nonreducible individua l life forms .
Privatisat ion , Elitism ,
Encroachin g Individ ua li sm , etc. , the way in which what
people can choose to consume, produce, and do , is g overned
at the framework level by the machinery of
�33.
private profits, th e great inequalities of power an d of
wearth
resulting from that - all these are prod ucts of
Individual reductionism, not of individualism as such .
r.Jr.{. p.: r
Jl
;'/f .
jt:..
;--
,¥-
'Jf-
-~
.,>f'....
A'--.
.;i«:
From a~philoso p hical viewpoint the reduction positions
have their bas i s i n a part icular,and ~~dequate,but widespread
logical and me taphy s ical theory.
It would be surprising
--...,_
how ever if these b a sic redrutions, wh oi~ distor.___.,.tions underlie
n_ early all tHcc/.r,,r,1_
social thought, originated entirely i n
a particular logic al theory .
The logical theories ct.U--rt:,z. t at a
particular time indirectly reflect social values and
intellectual currents a t
that time, like every other sort of
theory, and do not stand in some unique way above and
beyond them.
If a different kind of logic has been needed,
it would probably have been developed.
The prev~knL c
of this now established logical theory may explain why few
now see through the reductions, but it does not entirely explain
why they we r e developed.
A / "" J'&"'
/.~r</'~·- ,i(1/"7°
of reasons for the overlooking
of the non-reductionist position lies in a s et of SC'C;r -··
•
( di;,,,1.,':r; fu;.__ t[ !{~.,- -✓ ..1.f;, ,1 0-k d',c.__ l -,- t;, ,1.,/-(;/(_)
• .
economic assumptions,\ common to the red_u ction posit.ions.
p o.r..11½; 1 ,
'-
1
Our confidence that the non-reductionist position was a ~eal and
A'
not merely a theoretical pos s ib li ty or utopi aJt'f'aritcdJ; lay
in
the fact that the tribal societies we considered in the early
part of the pape r had a structure which enabled Individualism
a nd some individual economic actively to
munal ly-controlle d social framework.
with a u -n1.-
Such societies clearly
had structural features which meant that t hey did not have to
make the U.Yt.palatable choice between the o prc) .S. ·ing disto :.:-tions
o f totally collective o r totally individualisti c..
life.
control of
There are other advantageous characteristics also which
(>-,l.. fl'/
are common to such socie t ies, L/1.d racteristics which
('
�34.
sophisticated ~0cttd
despite the rising
d eM•cracies to-day seek, but which
~DP
and the 'high standard of living', which
is supposed to provide justice and the good life for all / always
The l ow level of environ-
seem to be further off than before .
~" 1 P-,
r,y
mental d e struction cl /\ t-r; ~u(
conscious life-style) ·
'·'-·~
and the environmenta lly-
src;~{~i;.1
-_ . frctture.~ which ha~( often been noticed,
t-... s
ha l~? the almost total lack of in ;.,~uali ty and poverty-' the
")...•'-·◄ }'-'- \,._:, \ '-,__-\
V·' ,:.
c.l-11,·, ·,•-7'
high level of equa1, ·7 of power and relative lack of ~e\fe-r-R-me-Ft-t-r ,..._
domination; the considerable level of leisure
( o fte:ri, as SaA/eAl .f . /1 as pointed out, greater than that in modern
western
societies) and the frequerlly rich cultural
and
communal l ife [Ref. Sahlens?].
These features have been attributed to various things th e..
low level of technology, the communal living feature,
the
hunting -- 3ei fttc;..ing life- s-fJ Jc: and the norn a ti ic life ,~hich was
1
The first we can definitely ru le
out.
The mountain forests of Gr e ece were destroyed, the Middleof its rich topsoil
and stri_: ppped of J1'HidZ
by erosion,
(r e f . Lowdermilk~b y a people with a 7 uite low
(9
1 e v e l o:E technology by
u,..;---
QWa
standards, who also had a culture
:). .,.._J.._
which was Mark .ea by great inequality -e-:r en s/cpJ<.:'...-.me nt.
...(_., \ ,.''1-/·,
,,_: ..
Living
,Jt ;. d , 1)\ -(_
\. \ l ,y
r ant e es/\ th e se features, as
by no means gua
..
a/
modern cities demonstrate · &Fra the success of communism appears
.I
t.t.
c (J'(t t:< ( --1~1.rl; ,Je__ i
I\
to be a consequentia l rather than;\. wh ile the
no roadie life
{;,Jic-<.u;f,:tl
with the hunting/gath ering
,:S;
style cannot be the whole story
~(J """'-
t{
7 I\
YI L ~
some societies which
gardened also had or have I' these features
feature seems to be one
Th! f~
)
(e.g. Melanesia).
of soC;Ct( structure.
if t ·;-ut:-}s very good ner~,d for us, because we can hope
to work for a di f ferent so C~Q/
structure, whereas we cannot
r e alistically hope to obtain a collective
and arrow, the woo :1en
\t-1()-(_ ' .
return to the bow
or the hunting-gath ering way of life•
;
�35
The structural feature which makes possible th e
combination of collectivity and individuality and the other
>v,v'-(
,,
attr active features of tribal life, is, we suggest, the fact
that the dominant mod e of production in su ch societies is that
the producer of an item is, in general, also the person or group
who uses or consumes it.
People produce for their own needs,
It
and not , in general, for other people or for exchaDg_~. -
is this feature which makes it possible for tribal people to
live in a collective framework which is nevertheless not
----
oppressive to · individuality, for while the structure is collect-
,..,,...--
, , - - -----··-
i vely determined and '\::ollecti vely h e l ~ ~ land, for ~~~_p_le_-,)
·h•. ri 1 fr: 11n .~, ('... ·i ht., ; r (' \:: n.
their own
it is p ossible for individuals or groups 1.\ needs,set
.
I
goo , s,
and how best to pursue them.
J(\I
This featureApr~ t-~ -cons umer identitv ; is in fact
a feature which i s closely associated with, or even necessary
to, a hunting-gathering way of life, but it is not
confined to such a
of life
(that is , it is not af s0
su ff icient
f or it) .
l1t{J I(.
C'lt
The condition of producer-consumer identity oJ the/\ ckn ..:.r~f\;-/, f, ·<.
\S
-
dominant)mode of produ -~tion~ the condition upon which the
,
.
socJ~ty which is self-managed at
all levels can be obtained.
When production and consumption become S'e/!).Jr. f .;_ ,L and production
f o r other people's :n:eds becomes the dominant mode of production,
the choice between private or individual control of the means
of production,or collective contr~= l/is forced on us
and we are back again to
ec,t
other th an the producer mvst
r u npalatable choices.
~~n
.?om~ody·
control production, decide
and organise what will be produced and used, and control
~ r,\~+-t (-1
,ml;; l;.r c ('
other people's labour.
/
Whether the 'somebody'
is
l
an individual or group of individuals ( as in CC/< ·fl{ 1t ·1 ;,,l· )
Cc,rnintu1t,t j
et
,
or
class collectively deciding what will be produced
and how, we have the situation where not all individ uals can
a_.
�36.
determine their
. ctol\.
what it produces.
distinct needs or control tried- CLC•\
Iv 110,,.r
- and
A.
The separation of production CinrL
consumptio n then forces the choices which underlie the
reductions and distortion s of capitalism and Marxism, and
the resulting split between the individua l as
Hte
separate and
individua l 21.s a mQmbt:?.-t· of a community .
Capitalism and Marxist socialism have in common a
commitmen t to this separation o f production and consumpti on,
di ,ht_,,,1 r•r
\ fragmenta tion of lcJJc,lr which reac_h ~s its
resulting;
and to the
highest pitch . in the production line sys tems of modern
indu,stry.
Such systems of production were of course devised ancl
implement ed first by capitalis ts, but were, as we know f~m
Marx's works, greatly admired by Marx, who saw them as necessary
to lift humanity f rom its previous condition of rural i db cy.
{ ~~eals itself clearly
In this respect the Marxist posi tio~·';I\
as accepting a great deal of the intellectu al and eronomic
framework o f c ~pitalism . )
I
I
The positive Marxist attj tud~
\
to the fragmentat ~on
of labour is not just an optional extra tacked onto the
theory because of Marx's own personal prejudice s.
It is a
feature of the theory, which basically views proauction in a fragmented way.
*The
theory arose
*
The Marxist picture of the tota i
h~torical l y arnong1 and was supported
primarily byJ the labour forces engaged in fragmented production
in capitalis t enterpris es, rather than among independe nt workers.
dependenc e of each individua l element on the other elements of
the whole obviously is closely connected with a model of pro-
d(cf.;.:. ,~
b.,.l c ,1
7
�37.
ducers.
The reduction positions appear in fact to be
very closely connected with the way in which production
l' IGH•; :/
is A
andfupecia lly with the attitudes to the fragmenta tion
for the Marxist reduction of individual to ~
of labour;
of a class or collectivi~
C.:i . ._ ~-
derives its motivation precisely
from the acceptance of the capitalist production t<PP«rat~s .
For the fragmentation of labour means that what the individual
worker does makes sense only in the context of the total
production of the collective.
,~}<
Thus · the capitalist and Marxist both share a vision
of work in terms of the production /i;1c, but interpret it
differently.
(The production line is an excellent repres-
entation of the dominance of the fragmentation of labour,
the assumption which both the reductionist positions accept)
The capitalist view
is
production line
o:f the
for the purpose of production)of the workers or operators
/
extensions of the machines - their goals , their
intentio ns are irrelevant, they are not part of the production.
The object
of the production line system~to be understood
in terms of t he qoals of the Q,;,,,~-e~~--t ov;;:\h~f
~
A
t~~~~~,~;
of the goods.
'rhese are of course the characteristics of capitalist society
and especially of typical work in capitalist society.
Work is
((\:. ~, meaningless, directed from above by someone else ,
goals are external, to be understood in terms of the goals
of individual capitalists or consumers)
c\ c~ (~.,... J.
I}:-
b,___,. f'--.i'. r;L ~~ c:-~,.Js•.•
The Marxist also has a production line image, but
for him the work of the production line, which is not
meaningful when each worker is viewed in isolation, c a n be
understood in terms of the goal of the totality of wor kers.
Each individual can make only a part of the ~hole, and everyone
is needed to make the whole ,tern.
/1
i :·:.,-:v--.\,·,__l ~
v
~
Work is mechanical, so
�38.
there is no place for individual differences and so on.
There is plainly no place for 'individualism' in any shape or
f
.
1 1.ne.
.
t
_..:orrn
on th. e pro d uction
Mind,
rh e
.
i
.
mind,
b1e
goa 1 , is
a C1 ass
1
to the workers on the production line.
purpose of production must be viewed
e n f, ;-(~.I
,,,,
1
The
terms
''J
/1 u.r/1(> f C
sha r ed
or goal of the whole group.
k-
But for those of us who regard the production line
as a degraded and distorted form of labou~, to empl'?y ,-~~eh .·. _ ). __
(u.-1,~( c \.\ ' ,1
<I
; ~(I_
c,u,un,.,, (,,(,,~,
d
J,. /l(' y_, (-·.{4l'
c:.. \
---
'
an image as the model of product io n and of society;\ is simply('.'' 1.T:'--~:'.L.:·
amazing!
For these are precisely the characteristics that
make the production line an detested and oppressive form of
work.
The image - like the assumption of the ffrl-1"- Jmentation
o f labour itself -:- betrays the basic capitalist origins of th e
Marxist social model extremely clearly.
In this as in other
respects much Marxist thought is the basf :..ril..
capitalist parents.
child of
For the fragmentation of labour seen in
one form in the production line was set up by cap i talists
for their own b e nefit, and is neither more rewarding for
the workers, or More productive for the consumers, than other
forms of work.
The non-reductionist position would simply reject the
{Ill
model o f work or of society,
production l i ne asAappropriate
Si nce the production line is not a form of work in which the
1,.._, .... ,c
h
1>\-\~-1.. \
individual worker has (\ control - it is ,,the form in which he
.
·1 ~ ~_:Sy,"s. ~has J...l..t..t..1..-~ ~r--=ne- control.
The image of production, the non-
reductionist position would employ would be that of a person or group of persons - making something f or hi .s
0UJ1L
o. se.
The work is purposeful and not undertaken for external
re Lc,·cu l-L
or exchange/the goals are inter l\t<
producing a whole piece of work.
!
I.
The worker~
If he is working with a
?Np/,_
group of people, some differentAp1ay be doing different parts
of the task, but all the work ers will share in the final product.
_\,;
.
(.
�39.
In the non-reductionist position the intention or
purpose of the work is ~ - that of the individual workers,
that is~work is viewed in an intentional rather than in an
mechanical way.
Here is another important source of the
reductionist positions which lies in the treatment of
intensionality.
cc,nJ1'cfL?,.r
If
WE\ work
a:. s
relation between the maker and the
c.c
made_, the three positions come out as follows:
the relation between the individual
1. Capitalist:
worker and the made object is not a ~®WHXfMi purposeful one,
the purpose is someone else 's.
In short the maker - made
relation is rna.cl1r7t, n,\::o( , and extensional.
The hired worker
is an extension of the machine and th e purpose or int en tion
'1--\l \ _.::,.·1
of the work is exter-te-€d to it.
2.
Marxist:
the relation between the individual
worker and the made object is still seen as not purposeful,
the purpose is in the w_tio l_s?. production line, the society.
The maker - made relation, as such, is still viewed as
extensional.
3.
3rd position:
the relation between the maker and
t he made is inteniional, it is purposeful, the goal is
directly in the work itself.
What differenh~t r
work (e.g. under take n by a machine)
mechanical
and meaningful work is
t he lack of intention in case of the former.
The relation
between t he creat iJe artist and what he makes - the only
Ui!t-
- sort o.fl\ in which capitalism admits this k1',1 cL of
intentionality - is the ~ypical work
A designs B _1
A
case ♦
The model is:
creates B.
If the mechaniqal, extensional picture of the maker/
made relation is to be rejected, along with the unpalatable
l
reductionist choices which it creates, : it is essential to
�4 0.
i~fuse the individual worker back again into the picture as
the creator and designer of whole objects, as the initiator anA.
goal setter of h i s own work.
This implies a theory which
recognises irreducible individual life forms, and thus again,
The fact that the
a theory which is not Marxist in character .
commitment to the fragmentation of l.a.bour cannot be dropped
J.:.f h 1,;..,.. 1.,~t /
from Marxist theory without ft eornplet~ reconstruction (so
great as to render it no longer a Marxist theory) means that
the Marxist position is, from the environmental point of view,
At bottom it buys the same production apparatus
a dead-- end.
c..:,.
an-a- capitalism, and therefore it can be expected that, even
if the management of the firm is changed,
it
w i 11 turn .
out essentially the same line of go~ds.
y,,u~(! ,t ( l)J.Y
l~-r
b411c or ( Acl-1<1.:l; n· ·,!i'c..
the ,\
as
Producer-consumer identity'>.
O:'
b~ Ii
d, ,,rf) /
mode of
production does not of course mean that every individual
produces everything he needs for himself entirely on his
It means that people produce for their own needs,
own.
in the combinations they choose.
Individuals could of
course do so, and some harct-.Y soul s
no doubt would want to;
provided that they do not interfere with other people's
equal entitlements or use more than their fair share of
(';'{ IJ .,./.i (Lk,,1:.§
production-land or other commu~~( resources, there is no
'\
reason why they should not.
Many more pe o.ple, given free
choice in the matter, would probably want to produce some
I
for their own or their households use~and
some in common work with others for common needs or interests.
/thittZ.--
S ince
some activities are more bothAefficient
and more enjoyably done with other people, and some are less
r ,1 1 (Ji
h~
so, it ee-e4-d be expected that most people would work in a mixed
system of individual
(I
M
c cllei: I , iN.
or communal work ) perhaps
varying the combintions at different stages of their lives.
/\
�41.
But there is a great deal of individual variation in the
degree of contact with other people that is
~~~¥iN~
pleasing.
Some people at the other end of the spectrum might want to do
everything in conjunction with other people.
What is essential
however/ if the combinations are to be freely chosen, is that
the individual option should be open.
Freedom and independence
is enhanced rather than destroyed by Choosing to work with
others,
b~t
such a choice is free only if there is an option.
People do not control their own lives if they cannot set
their own goals and determine their own needs, choose what to
work o n, with whom and when, how mu ch contact with other·
people is op t imal, and so forth.
Real control of one's life
would be impossible .in a system which envisaged only
most
collective or communal production, as m0sxx~MiXMXX
alternatives to capitalism do.
The option o f individual
,, /I
production, even if it should t urn out that it was not of t en ft;, ._,}
used, is essential to ensure that people remained
in control of their own lives
~~~~~i~~
in crucial respects.
�We have already suggested that a s oc iety in which DIY as the
c/1.Cttiu._ (u; 1tic. n-:
ode of production would have the conditions which are
necessary for and wo uld tend to lead to a truly free s o ciety, one
1
all levels both the oellcctive and the
which was self-managed at /
and the principle
individual ., To complete the conditions self management
.
~
of DIY must of course extend a lso through the rest of the institutional
Ivan Illich has made a substantial start on suggesting
strudure.
what some self-managed in'i hfv1.l,c'iir
might be like, and on exposing the
institutions they are to replace~ although
structure of the existing
ct.,_!\.- t-he seems to lack a f\ vision of how they fit into a larger framework.
This is
not the only area ill which DIY would appear to deliver a
superior society;
t h ere are many ot h ers,
1 d
·
. t o concen t ra t e
but we 1nten
At the production
here on those relevant to environmental issues.
level the basic features of such society have already been suggested
A c ommuna/ly control l ed infrastructure would
by a number of people.
provi de t he basis for prod uction of common basic needs and make
these available on a fair basis to any individuals or gro ups who
,,
to use them to produce for their own needs.
wished
__,,
We want to stress
that DIY is not a proposal for a return to a primitive life-style,
,·
1r
1 1
abandonment of technology, endless hours of grinding labour as a
ff /)J y fou "e.~ eu>4..ld ;-i f1t.d- 6rL. ~ '/,"1TQ_ -fad>t(JtliJILCto/ .!'of>,U.d,c~t. k)<...ie.-J:J. It wo>1.h/
of course involve and
subsi~te~c-~ _fa'.·1ne~>and so forth.).
_
,Jre.,·.:,,.J{..r- ,1c;.,__ /t!(i __,-!)._/ ,: L1,. t.J.l ~ , 7J,.,_,-J. if1..<- ifti ~------ ------------ - - ----- - - -
d.,Pi-e.f"Tl11..-t
result in a ·a ifferent life-styl~ a Akind of technolo gy1 and a different
kind of ap proach to work.
d ;l, ,,,'\
beneficial.
Moit of these changes would appe3r to be
/ , f:. ( ~j
!l e.(
For example most peof~le could provide for theh- _l~c:l.__§_~c
I
/\
1i·J1 '.7. standard in a more satisfqctory way than at present, with perhaps
1
li, f, ,·
. l l
-.
,-.,,,{_
4 hours
..jk'V'{_l, .,-..i)
1 l· 1:,· ,:.:,./J
/i..(
f t, za•I I
J
';,._.,• /-4..
per day of work, and probably 1-ers--S;,/as nt.Dre appropriate
technology develops and for people wh o work in larger communal groups.
1
The typical feature of solutions to the problem in our society or
Marxist soci ety is that~o nesolves one set of problems by creating
a nother . oft~n more formR-ble , e. ._~· as one 'sol v:es' . the p~oblern of
pciJt.:.r~ y . · in a rather inadequate way by utc,cdi 1-y cm environmental
This £eatur~ is avoided to a reasonable
probl~rns or some o t her problem.
further problems created appear much
the
where
system,
DIY
a
in
t
ext e n
that in the or y constructt_on parallels
The situation
less formibl e .
thi~almost invariab~ ~
of
kind
t
th
eory
th
wrong
where on~ has the
or equally bad one
hap!?3ns, a problem resolved in one area :r.eapr:ears as a worse
�B
(2)
A crucial question for a DIY society is:
sort of s ub s titu t ion s of labour can be made?
what
A be ginnin g
on answering this question is s u ggested by construin g
sub s t i tut ion ·~ -.-the. __ s..ub s t i _t _1Jt,j__prl' as the s u b s t it i on of an
·~
equivale nt economic oroduct.
Thus su bstitui
on in
,f-
economics parallels and reflects identity theory in logic.
[Expla in ~it uation in identity theory and intensional
lo g ic].
The DIY economic system will plainly re q uire
much greater r estriction on substitutivity of identic als ,
j ust as i t s corresponding intensional logical counterpart
does.
In contrast the economic theory of the existing
system can be seen as extensional, it allows un restricted
substitutio n, and the same way it leaves a hu~e range of
important factors out of acc ount which are taken account of
without diff i culty in a n in tensional system.
Unrestricted
exchange (or substitution) and the associated division of
labour c reates these difficulties , in part thr ou gh the
(!f,
t rans fer of costs of product i ~ and be n e Lit s from
consumption onto different par t ies, and in part through
the fact t hat equivalent products~ in the weaker sense of
the standard economic theory may !:1~?_!;_ be eq uiv alent in
social and environmental respects .
1V\ •·-
c(; ~1
'-'
Moves such as environmental
t:.___,
p ricin g are i G . ~ efforts to qualify such substituU.on.
�B.
The most important de fections from pure DIY lie in
qualLfied s ub stitutio ns, s ubs titut io n of on e pe r t:;on ' s
labou r for a nother' s in particular.
Labour exchan ge i s
admissible provided it does not int erfere with o th er
va lu es , e. g . does not dest r oy o r things the co mm unit y val ues.
C 11
rrhe restrictions~ substitution may profitably be comp ,1,red
with th ose in extens ional identity , whi ch excl ud e int e n sional
conte~t-s as ille gi tima te for sub s titution.,e-x-tensimLo.i'
i n d i..v i d-u.al--m-e-an-S
�I
Such an estimate would presuppose retaining some limited kinds
,vI 1 J · / •
•'
it\)
of
lar :)J t · -· :,:tc./L.
','\ production, perhaps communally owned., and operated perhaps
by those who would use the product~or by people working on a
\storage' system, for example, the mass production of cheap durable
Cc,--
NPl
basic clothing and housing as proposed tn ._~topia. __Jro suggest that
hi/J ,~ <.,,., <-l1u.,/r..(,{.:. -1(ft(c_,
/"<.rlcv-.__ • e/
DI Y should be the\
v
·
mode o~ production is also not to suggest
1
1 Vil\ " ~l ~-, ?- bLe__
that it should be the -~-- -- _,__ ·- - . mode of productioni
the system
;: ,;,n
J)}
/t<.J<..
j
can be liberalised, to allow for some limited kinds of exchange
1\
production and some limited kinds of free communal productio~without
destroying its overall character, in the same way that the present
system allows for certain limited kinds of DIY -
'Do-it-yourself' -
product ion without lo..s.ing its overall character as a system of exchange
f.rJJ .-· _
:;;) The'. Dr.'/ tf -~ fc,,11... /"" l ~ 1f,;
production.
~A could also/be extended
to allow people who
wished to concentrate heavily on some project and needed a lot of free
!1·11,~J
time to 'store' basic
credits o ver a time period.
For example,,
u ,:,ii(:/\_
in 'Communita s' ;
. ,"
A in the late 1940' s/'Paul Goodman estimated that ;;-
+l.1.
plant, equipment a n d technology avai lable were used efficiently
~
~
people could provide for their basic needs for an entire lifetime in
two years,
,:, and could then organise the rest of their time freel y~
_,,1 ----- -·-
c ~~ce~t;ated
- ~~0
That is a high tech_. picture,, even allowing for
the increase in productivity since he wrote•but the basic idea is
,J
adaptable to a lower tech. one, albei t with a larger time period.
MX<'S Most people though would probably prefer to provide for their
basic ne~~ by production outside the basic community ·~ - ~ontrolled
A
-
_,,-
mass-production system.,1as in Ecotopia, obtaining both more pleasing
goods and more satisfying work in doing so; and even many of those
\,v o.~......-ttQi
who w-c • -:-Gl to have a large amount of time free for the
pursuit
of some project might find the production of part of their own food
on a daily basis an enjoyable and satisfying form
of relaxation.
�Production beyond that for basic needs is an optional extra which
-,)
people can pursue as and how they desi re.
( It will certainly be objected that such a system would not
all ow sufficient leisure or free time.
The sharp distinction
between 'leisure' and 'work' is of course to a product of a system
'
r-...
where work is typically q l·1e,_;,_ nated
tfl
the sense that those who work
on it do not control it and its gon./J are extetll(d. to to process in
that the m6tivation for doing it is to obtain something other than
the fina l product or the satisfaction of the work.
working on wh at
Someone who is
he enjoys do ing and finds satisfying to do to produce
for his own need~does not draw a sharp distinction between 'work'
and
1
leisure 1
•
Furthermore it would appear that such a society could
allow for a great deal more 'leisure' in the sense of time not spe nt
on the basic needs for living, than the present one and such leisure
would be in principle avai lable to all, which is not the case in the
present system.
The price which would be _paid for free time would
however be quite different.
The price of free time for non-production
Uc~ J ities e.g . intellectual or artistic projects, or just to contemplate
the universe, would not be the price of inequalityJo f being able to
rely on other peqie lower down the scale to do the basic need:; production
in an alienated way.
The pri ce would be simplicity of life.
In the
same way the price of indepen dence from other people is not a private
income which enables one to made use of the labou r of others, but an
\ {'.:. - :, ~:, I(
,c~,\
independent, self-reliant mode of ~roduction.
The ob;,J e c tion that such
I\
a society would extinguish the intel lectual and creative lights which
are alleg edly fostered so well in this society does no t hold water,
t
but it is sure to be made much of because a major justification for
1,, equa lity and for production for exchange is that i s is supposed to
\)t
--? -
release some specially gifted individuals w-~ \ sufficient full-time
leisure to pursue such things.]
/lcf. 1
,,/J r. c
, 1cf,1
rr,,
�A DIY system will of course be pronounced by economists to
be 'inefficient' and therefore denounced as one which 'lowered
living standards'~
t1c,1
It is fairly well known to Rconomists that
efficiency is a relative and evaluative notion that is that if it is
4f
measuredAthe total output of value per unit of imput then the
term
'value' cannot be explicated in terms of the market as just
1'141
what the market deliver s without ernplOYJtt he
J_ .
t1Clfu--(Qi;111c
fallacy.
It is not sufficiently often realised that it is also a relatiV istic
notion,
that is, that it is relative to the socio-economic framework
I
adopted, and that appeal s to 'e ff iciency' ~n t err> i S of the present
system are really appeals back to a fo~m of individual reductionism.
It is not a question of abandoning the concept of efficiency, but
of realisation of the dependenc e on a
J·t
1
U1
f 1") C; r
- econonomic base.
For some things which are efficient to produce in the present
centralised structure based on a high degree of fragmentation of
labour would be extremely inefficient to produce in a DIY system,
and some things which are inefficient to produce in the present
system would be efficient to produce in a DIY system.
Centrai; \cftion
depends upon fragmentation of labour, and therefore on the social
and political choices which are forced by it.
A DIY system would
have a radical form of decentralisation as a natural consequence
for people who have regai~ed control of their productive force would
<"( ~
naturally combine in smaller decentralised groups a.n d suited their
needs and interests.
Th~s in a DIY system smaller scale or ga nic
gardening, which makes use of local organic material instead of
wasting them, would be more efficient than gardening which depended
upon imputs from a high energy, cf11fr4./,· ru/ fertilise,·-plant, for
instance,.If the people who wanted to use something
hcttl
time producing it, then anything requiring a large measure of transport
or manufacture elsewh ere away from the
in effi cient compared with a n
(, .te of use would tend to be
Q/~rnat ive way of doing something which
�could be produced or made locally from local materials and which did
t
unpleasan t work processes .
materials would then be
t>l i{(
t\
)i,f U-/ .", f l <(
In general ' 1 available loc al
-i lt (')
L
}·n ore efficient to use thar, which
/\
required a high level of manufactu re, low technical processes would
1
usua lly tend to be more efficient than high level ones, and .so on.
These chan ges are
strengths·
pre· c;seiy
the sources of its environme nt; and other
and to suggest that such a system can sim; 1J
be written
off as 'inefficie nt' to try to wri te a social framework into economics
and absolute in a quite invalid way.
A DIY society would be as naturally decentral ised as ours is
natural l y c entralised ~
The role of this kind of radical decentral isation
in reducing enviro nment al impact through encouragem ent of a decentralised small- S,cE)_/e;. low impact technology has o ften been pointed o ut.
Another consequen ce which i s not so often remarked on but is equally
important is the role of s uch decentral isation in enabling a natural
accounting of many sorts ~f environme ntal costs occ urin g as a result
of productio n.
Local production for local needs means that normally
the environme ntal costs associated with production are borne by the
local population whic h uses and produces the items concerned .
There
is thus a strong natural basis for taking such costs as the destructio n
of local ame nity into account as part of the perceived cost of
producing that destructiv e sort of item.
Accounting of costs which
takes account of environme ntal values is extremely difficult to do
in a n a tural way in a system which spreads costs around in a widesprea d
1 The dividing line between self-manag ed technology and the opposite
does not however entirely coincide with the high tech/low tech
For example, good two-way commun ications system coul~ ~
distinctio n.
have an invaluable role in cre at ing a network of flexible cornrnuni t i,_ es,
other than the spatially local community , in which individua ls could
Computers could, as Illich points ou~be used to
participa te.
further and create such a network of communiti es and cit'-<__ invaluable
aids in self-manag ed education medical and legal systems J IAJh...(l,t--(1_ they
could be used to overcome the ~onoDolis ations of skills, knowledge ,
In ::,_ short some
and informatio n by professio nalg and technocra ts.
power, instead of
of
co uld serve decentral isation
high-techn olo gJ
being used to increase the concentra tion of power as in the present
system .
�fashion as centralised integrated production - for example, the
commonly encountered situation of concentrated major benefit going
to a small numbf~r of people and s ma l ler but very widespread costs
accruing to a very large number of people.
This situation typifies
the subtle way in which environmental degradation occurs in such
systems.
If the environmental costs of production occur in the
same region as and accrue
to the same people as the benefits, we
could expect that the environment costs of producing certain destructive
items would be much less easily overlooked or shrugged off.
A DIY system would be 'pluralistic' in the sense that it could
provide for a very large range of different
diversity in gords and needs.
life-styles and a great
There are however a number of bu~lt-in
.i. -n1.t' ;,· : •.
..,/f
features which would work strongly against environmen~llyAdestructive
life-styles ..
It is important to realise that these features are the
result of DIY and are not obtained simply by the feature of comr:u.mo..l
control of the means of production.
1 , , Consume. rism and Waste~ --·-· ·--,
...
~ ~
I]
feature of DIY
_,..,.
rs a built-in defence against the complex of
problems known as consumerism{ t ha~is 1 the taking o f satisfaction in
accumulating unneeded goods).
�Consumerism arises primarily when people find little
which they do not control,
satisfaction in their work,
and which is frequently, for most peopl~repetitious and boring
a 1 iv, ~~J
and undertaken only to mak:1
.,
or for reward s mainly
12 1', t J. 111.)(
Satisfaction must be found outside
to the production process.
the production process, in consuming the products of other people's
labour . Such consumption is the reward of work, and the consumer
society rewards its members for the unpleasantness of their work
mainly in terms of opportunities for increased consumption .
In
lead to a situation where goals
contrast, since DIY wc ,dd.
were mostly internal to work, satisfaction in such a society would
be obtained though the work process itself and not in a never-ending
chase for satisfaction through consumption.
Reward s would be through
the production process I not !_rom work ·- lying just in the product.
Work would be undertaken in part because it was satisfying itself,
As any self-
and not usually tu_st to obtain the final product.
builder knows, even apparently mundane projects such as building
o n e's own hous e can become,if the worker can control his own labour
and match what he does to his needs, a source of great satisfaction
and of self-expression.
1
In this situation people express themselves
a nd their individuality through what they make, not through consumption
of mass-produced items e.g. buying a new model car . of the make the
individual thin'k fits his /n1ccge .
11
In a DIY system, these sorts of
satisfactions are available to everyone, not just a few people
selected and designated as "gifted" or "creative
11
,
and allowed to
work creatively, as in capitalism.
Secondly, there are in fact very substantial limits to the extent
to which one could be an indiscriminate consumer in a DIY society Je cD~1Jone wanted to , lonsum e rism depends upon other people 's labour to
If people have to make their g ood s themselves
a crc;cial extent.
(for example 1 if you have to go and work in a bicycle works for a while
/1
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�if you want a bicycle), then there will be a serious trade -of f
b e twe en work time and consumption, which would act as a built - in
The more goods are accumulated, the less
brake to overconsumpt ion.
time one would have to use them .
leisure would have fe~r~oods.
People who want large amounts of
Many people even in the present society ,
standard " - ·fh,., ·t
. givife) such a choice, might in fact prefer a "lower l1vii1j
/;(e
i.r > tt n m1 h.-r
The work situation in
and more free time for their own pursuits.
capitalism encourage consumerism in man_y ways, one of the most important
being that people do !:"lot usually have a choice to obtain shorter
work hours, have fewer consumer goods and more leAsure or more time
for their own projects.
They have to work certain hours, they h a ve
a surplus, so they might as well use it to obtain the customary rewards.
DIY would allow the 1wd,hi"J
of work
in a flexible way to needs,
rff-'
for more free time, which
and e ncourage such a tradeAof fewer go ods
could be spent on non-consumer pr ojec ts. \ Thirdly, a DIY society
would be a noh-waste socie ty.
No one would work to make things he
did not really need when there were othe r I thi n gs he could be doing
I )
(
instead.
'
', '--: ,. , -
.,-, : , ' A.:
,◄
\
)
As Brian Martin has pointed ou~many presently environmenta ] y
damaging systems, such as the private car system, would tend to
disappear if people has to make their own, repair them, and help
the roads.
Buses, bicycles and horses, or other
transport systems would b e more efficient in such a society.
One
cannot imagine people in a DIY society.work ing for a month a year,
for example, in a packaging factory to make a lot o f unnecessary
package s th~yhad to throw away as soon as the item was unwrapped/and
then/fur ther had dispose of by their own efforts.
The goods they
/
would manufacture for themselves would be as durable as they could
be made, and would be made to be easily repaired.
Materials would
be made to go as far as they possibly could - technology would be
developed which would do as much as possible with as little as possible "
�could not be manufactured in a l~cal area would tend to be replaced
[0,
th ose which did not have these characteristics.
Since high-
..~;.f . _ l ,_ \\/
technology materials eq\1aLly- have the characteristics, the y would
t e nd to be replaced by low tech materials, with consequent benefit
to the environment.
fNlf
The DIY society would Abe a low-consumption/low resource-use
Since waste represents unnecessary and avoidable
.1.. ·:
u- (\J ,-.. r 1": ·-:- l c, b,~ , ..,. k I
uld avoid it.
labour/wo
own
their
controlled
who
people
labour,
no-waste society .
~
t
c ,....t (A.
I,._• .. •J -
"
.
• ---
,
•
2. Poverty a nd ~nequality . l t present the main capitalist argument
for never-ending growth and the production of environmentally
b,,f i.f ,1fl(}_ ( C Jj(~
damaging ~E:J~goods is that it is necess ary to help the poor.
This is supposed to occur through "Trickle Down", a process whereby
people at the top of t he
must 3et far more than they need
hcnp
reach those at t he bottom of the he a p.
so that a few drops can
A more ;n.efficien t or envi6nmentally damaging system for providing
,{
for the poor can hardly be conceived.
Different people have many different ab ili ties and capaci ~e_i but
people who are not very young or very old and are in a norma! state
(l,
J '\
,
' ;
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'
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of health 1are basically fairly equal in their ability to provide
I
for themselves the basics they need for a g ood life.
At present
V poor p e o p ~
poverty and inequality come about primaril y
are prevented from providing themselves with what they need in a
s ati sfactory way.
(Three cheers for Winstanley!) They are prevented
b e cause the right to use the means of production is made scarce,
,I:
(usually by private property), and the skills to use efficieJly are
A
also made scarce ( usually by the bureacra tic
cJqfl-1)
1
Restriction in access to use of the means of production is also
tt.t. ( I J1J l I Ji!. l( /
{;J
L
,
Rr 1(
a main source of 1nequality throughAso on, since the restrictions are
used to disadvantage thrue people not in certain favoured categories.
2
f
\
,_.
h,_.•
2
' • \ I >/-
,
The point is driven here in all of Il l ichs work especially Dese-Fe#trg
Society /and 'Energy and Equity' and of course the older school of
(\~ ,_',A.· . .._, ,
anarchist w_i ll also stres s ed it. ~l'..ti 'fhc,N,:~----
.1
--\ l·j ...,• _
'\
�A
syst em of comm unal con trol of the
of prod ucti on
tn:,[( 11.J
with ~cces s r ig hts for all who wan t them
a~:V in DIYJ
1
toge ther with the free disp,v
~~~1· of t ~{_
skil ls to use them pres entl y
"'
wou ld remo ve
this maJ· or sour ce of pov erty with out
the need for was tefu l
,.I
inef f i.cie nt and c: 1111 ,'rt-1111:~1tl&lj dam agin g econ
omic grow th.
�The pure DIY society would
1 i t t 1 e r o o m f o r h :t e r a r c.1h yl and
from
a
t he
g uid e
wou ld
that
division of
to
be
sort
e qual
the
of
access
social
picture would
hiera r chy and
and
fact
that
without allowin g
the
of
pleasure,
Such a
position would be able
th at
but
to
not
misse s
th e
presuppos e
The
mark.
l evel
allow for
t o
needs,
or
the
( ,
for
f alse
individual a bilities
their
a
social
dif fe rences
differences,
capacities,
power
it
a nd
be
a
s ociety.
they
'level'
in ability,
that
and
people have
th at
this
level
objection
does
presupposes
not
only
,, /-,,, (
d i ffer e nces
in ability
of
be t ween
kind of capitalist
ability
d iversity
and
that
framework
a rea s;
Such
in present
i n dicat e s
pow e r
a nd
and
and
so
in a bili ty
on,
an d
as
relie s
a
the
inequality on
areas.
level
the
justification for
on
inequality a nd
false
dichotomy
an absolute
f ram ewo rk levels based on a
needs.
in oth e r
inequality on
justification for
inequalities
equal
level of
conservative
premiss
as
of
the
in
e q ua 1 r i g h t . a nd }a b·±--1-i.ty::=t:#> s take i n c on t r o 1. .,. ,
·1
whatever
at both indi vi dual
as
differences
of
this
level,
system could
s oci e t i es ,
ability in all
What
pow e r
people's
typical
i l legitimately uses
level,
equal
source of
pro f i t ,
The capitalist argument
framework
framework
goals
become a
picture
the
provide
goods is not required.
to me e t
Equality a t
p eo ple have a n
their own lives,
can
Equality on
on.
of power
·{-(,
th a t
social
produc t i on,
'egalitarian'
two
equality o f
th e
d iffere nt
on the
ar i si ng
p owe r
soci e ty would provide.
can
allow a d e qua tely
c apacit i es.
account
Exc el len ce in such a
egalitarianism is based
equal
it
differences
so urc e
do not
so
of
problem of how to allow for
in e qu a lities .
an d
of
individual
frame work
people
and
people h a v e
capitalist obj e ct i on
such a
elitism;
thes e
two-lev e l
the means
framework,
without
the
The
be equality on
to
resolve
i nequ a1 i t i e s
ot her
equality
individual production and
a
f or
labour.
r e quired would
is,
forming
the
ob vi o usly be one which had ver y
false
equalit y
assumption
�:, /. 2.
In practice equality on the social framework level would
guarantee a
reasonable level of equality on the individual level,
since great differences
lisation CJ r
of
in
this
the means of production,
accumulation of
other people's
labour,
would reduce differences
area can arise only when monopo-
are possible.
Equality of
that
ex a mple
Jane likes
and asfemale Thorea u )
It
is
that
it
it
should do
can only be achieved if differences
carpentry,
household an especially fine house;
universe ,
but
in material goods or
i t is of cour~e undesirable
this kind
equal i ty
and
Anne
on the other hand
Suppose
builds herself and her
(whom we may envisage
likes
to
contemplate the
and wants only a minimum level of basic needs
i mpos s ible to obtain absolute equality without
satisfied.
either
preventing Jane from doing work she likes and exercising her
the benefit of hersel f
for
without
in
the demand
~_
?c
i..?-1__
or needs
for
to.
equality,
f r am e w o r k ... 1 e v e 1 ,
production and
skills
and others, or, what is equally undesirable
forcing or pressing Anne
than she wants
no t
to work more and consume more
What is
then,
legitimate and necessary
is ~q -~~it._y ___Q_f __ p_ o_w_e r:,
e q ua 1i t y a t
t he
1ev e 1 of
at
the
i n d iv :i. d u a 1
consumption.
Social Democracy often claims
,
1 e v e 1 o f " p u b 1 i. c
ri
1i f e •
to
deliver equality at
the
This claim should be rejected however
because:(1)
i t does not provide equal access
.
product lo n ,
(
1
.
·.
.-
..
to
the common means
treats
th
1
s
as an
in di v id u a 1 mat t er
~------------·-- ---···'/
ra t her
/I
than as
one for
/·
of
.
\--------,)
m 1 s taken 1 y \. but
so.
in
interests and needs are denied or discouraged.
abilities,
for
and
Social framework
in people's living standards,
would not guarantee absolute equality
ac h ievem e nts,
or employment
social
framework control
�,.,
;; } 3
/I .
(2)
the individua l isation of comm LJ. n c1 / life forms
inequalities of power at
(3)
is
only,
and
in fact
opportunity is
all'
confusion.
in
though equality of opportunity
such equality occurs
in any case,
the concept of
to a
equality
this case defecti v e,
S l:\ C.<?-
to do so.*
priv ; leged and
through equal
i t is based on an
'each-
the rest of
the
except in an Alice-in-Wonderland sense,
even if the opportunities for
equal for each person
but clearly not _.§.Q
The opportunity to be selec ted as on e of a
powerful elite which controls
population does not,
equality,
very limited extent
Each person might have the theoretical opportunity
to become Prime Min ister or win the lottery,
can hope
to great
the framework level.
the claim to provide equality
specious;
leads
•
(which
provide
selection were in fact
they are not
in Social Democracy).
Real equality of opportunity and power requires ways o f
making
decisions and exercising power in which all can participate
to an
equal extent.
X
,,,.-
* Such 'equality of opp
ortunit y' arguments for the egalitarian
character of Social Democracy are a similar swindl e based on
a scope confusion.
So, for example, 'everyone has an equal
opportunity to do i t ' (win the lottery, become Prime Minister)
is ambiguous between (1) (x) Q fx and (2) ◊(x)fx.
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cuts straight through the problem which plagued Anarchist thought -
\ the problem of how production is to be organised , whether it was
... ..,
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to be communist ic as Kro p otkin wanted wi t.h each person w, rt(l;-.,_1 to
,_
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the best of his ability and taking according to his needs from the
c01Tu11on store, or collecti \.,, i..st, as Bahu11, :1
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The adoption of a system
I
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r e mun e... ·"rat.ion in the fonn of wages according to the amount of
.--------------= ~ DD1
r~~, £ ,~, ,:7 ,r-c-.jo r /'o ., 1'7 71 u [/ 7
✓·~work done;41
, allows a pluralist ic and flexible approach;- and, is
A
A
certainly ( ,'1Y1/?"1!,/41(i
I
/
ruHl others wanted, with
I
[j/l,' t
with the first,
1
and perhaps the second, as
hU ,.·.
the organisat ional
1\
of subgroups within the total society.
Each of these systems has serious disadvanta ges ~f applied
organising principles for the total society.
system, as
Kro;>d41'n
pointed out, would restore wage-slave ~y,
and lead to systems and kinds of work not
greatly different from
that in capitalis t society.
The communist system Kropot1::. 1,1
proposed was an attempt to get
away f·rom exc h ange pro d uction
· l an d appears to h a ve b e en a n attempt
to
production and consumpti on, which in the collecti ·/ ist
system remained split, thus Kropotl(,>1 writes "Common possession of
-,1,,
the necessarie s for production implies the common eJoyment of the
/\
fruits of the common productio n".
This seems to be an attempt to
reunite production and consumptio n at the level of the total
community 1 i.e. to a pply PCI at the community level.
Unfortuna tely
it cannot be effective at that leve l, because such common production
and cons umption also, implies identical production goals a nd identical
interests .
But to a ssume this at the total community level is
unr e asonable, and ult i mately 1~pressiv e.
It ties
e1d1
personfu
production to every oth e r~ n e ed and g o ~~ a nd each person' s n ee d t o
1
rrhe term "communis t" cannot of course accurately be applied to
the systems it is popularly applied to to-day.
�to everyone elsis production, in a way which would plainly not allow
the sort of individual life control, the freedom to .~>1:eh one's
i:
work to one's godl ·i, and vice--versa, which a true.ly free socity
rm s t
1\
allow.
So for example, a person who wanted to work little and 1ri:·:,i,,f
a
si{( ple life with few gOl:cCs in order to have :free time for some
1
projec~would be unable to do so under this system, he would be
pressured into working "to the contribute to the common well-being
to the fullest extent of his capacities"
He would in effect have
to remove his own non-consumer gord to provide for someone else,
desire to consume at a much higher level.
I<ropott
in' s
suggestic,t
would plainly have required a very l a rge measure of soc i al conformity
and indirect social control or pressure to succeed.
Kropotl ~
of
course envisaged that people would willingly submerge their own
,}
gooi .s in the common goo/ because of his view of the
human nature.
u',l~C
1-ti~ness of
Nevertheless his system appeared to invole to a
larg e extent compulsory self- nlJ n ~·-,;,t! ,·/\( / , which is very different from
not allowing one person to exploit another.
He did of course envisage
that collabora tion in his common work system would be freely
and c1ose~ but since he nev~r appeared to envisage
any a l ternative, it is hard to know wh~t this comes to.
This problem is of course resolved by a sy s tem allowing flexible
The collecti y .ist principle - that the worker
/\
.
entitled to the
A
fru i ts of his labour - is retained ih such a system, but without
the problems of production for exchange and witho ut the wage-slavery
tha t drove the critics of that form of organisation to a communist
alternative.
The communist difficulty that people's work is
to the needs of others in a way which makes a self-managed life
/) I Y
difficult and would impose conformity, is resolved also.
.P-G~I ·
allows flexible production groups to form based on common go·;/.s and
needs, and allows each to be the judge of his own needs to direct
�his own work.
i ~' !:' k'.
\j .
People with common go,ik., and interests and needs
mayA !i,ute to form such groups
bu t
(e.g. a hous e hold or a commune).
society is not envisaged as one big household, as appears to
be in Kropotlc i / 1' ' s s y stern.
Kropo6:.
1
11
would have rejected this of course, since he wished
to argue that there could be no individual entitlement even to the
fruits of one's own labour but only so:_cial ones.
In many ways his
arguments to the effect that no person do anything on his own, a re
reminisc~ nt of the Marxist arguments for total social determination
of individuals, a ·~.scussed later.
His argument that there can be no
such thing as an individual entitlement is not clearly stated in
•
'Anarchist Commun\ sn\:'
Quote.
The passage in effect assumes that work of previous generations
has been benificial, an assumption which seems to derive from
Kropotl~ i'il. 's fervent belief in modern progress.
It ignores the fact
that the clearing of the forest has often been, and has long since
become in most cases, the excessive clearing of the forest,
that
the results of the work of our ancestors is not only soil improvements
but also soil erosion, that perhaps our predecessors have not left
us the best of all possible worlds in respect of natural wealth.
At best then the work of the past can be seen as a mixed blessing.
This does a good deal to undermine Kropot~1~j argument which assumes
that any i n d ividual working on his own project has received help
from past human's but if it is a/50 hinderance, exactly what the
existence of past human work is supposed to show is notAclear.
Kropot~~
wanted to argue that people who created wealth entirely
by their own efforts were entit led to what they created, but that
in fact this was impossible.
No one could create wealth or indeed
do anything, entirely on their own, because their is always dependence
on other people at some point, therefore all wealth was enti1tBly
�sou ;~i and should be shared in common.
distingu ish W~S
The argumen t fails to
of relative independ ence and appears to rest on a
high redefin ition of 'on your own' .
If someone clears and digs
his own vegetab le patch, manures it himself with his own wastes and
by green manuring , it see~s hard to suggest that he does not have
il 1;/r /, ,/
some special claim on the carrots he has sown and, or that his
1
A
g rowing of them for his own use is a selfish action which deprives
others of their due.
It might be objected that the carrot varietie s
he has sown are the product of vegetab le improvem ent by untold
generati ons of his predece ssors.
But that does not seem to be a good
reason for the claim that he has no special claim on the carrots,
an:zinore
than the fact that the author of a book did not invent from
·,
scratch the language in which it is written shows that he is not
the real author of his work and does not have any special entitlem ents
to make certain kinds of decision s regardin g it, because it is a
product.
Work can be distingu ished is primaril y that of
some person or group, even where they have made some use of the
precedin g work of others.
Kropotk,~ 's argumen t would show that no
one could ever do anything on his own, and depends upon adopting a
quite excessiv e standard for producti on being someone 's own - that it
should owe nothing wh__~-atever to the efforts of any other human being
instead of, what is more reasonab le, that it should be primari ly(In the case of the authorsh ip of a book even th r~
standard is probably excessiv e) . •.
No _ one acts in a social vacuum
there is always a framewor k or backgrou nd, but that does show everything is a social product.
rrhis
to
,,di ci;;.. 5
c.1,}';.111 0,. ,J - _ might suggest that Anarchis m adopted the reductio n
C i :._
i
which underlie s Marxist so~ism .
would be mistaken however.
Such an impressi on
Kropotki n .:;and other leading anarchi sts
constan tly emphasis ed the importan ce and autonomy of the individu al
and stressed that their aim was the optimum developm ent and maximum
�liberty of the individual the maximisation of individual initiative
and so on.
It is quite clear that they did not subscribe to the
Marx ist reduction of individuals to bits of t:r:- l lecti ves or classes,
which they saw quite rightly, as ~ irnical to liberty.
The Marxist
reduction is quite expl icitly rejecte d in Malat'e Jtlc'1 (an important
and ,~K;~ ,Jc.
·,p , 'rl tLc h
i"tl'Jk '-
f.: "l. .
0 1tu .r
d~, :>'t
c..>1'1··{- ·,_ ,-- )
1
who also stressed the importance of individuals.
~ n ki nds of tribes
~-, ,
,
1
Often peo~hder (or gathered) as ina.":i-vj_duals, or t h e ri ght }yu=rt(--
'
'
---~
~
in col laborative ~
g r ~ of various sizes or were--~
~ a_.,t:r::-itie were
I
.."
><-
[ '-,--~.•, 1;1ore · ~r less a~ t he occasi~anded ( H ~-~
1
I
t ~ f groups
-or:,,tr ib al hunting procedure w o u l ~ be shared among the g - ~
of t ~ l tribe, but in ~ i v i d u a l c a se usually, a lthough some
~
~
'
might be given
regar~eing
l.
6se who had mostly the resulting produce was
-·1z__for the use of he
veo obtained it as
-~ k i.00-_(.s.e.eJT ow i t t far d ~i_J_s._in_ t b r=> A11 s t r a J ian_char.g.e..cLoneA-
It seems that the non-reductionist position we have sketched is in
fact the unde r lying philosophical base of most of the main stream
of anarchist thought from Proudho.rr through to
Ma kd-a-1.}1-✓.>_ _ ,,
that part
I
,,u
1
which was prepared to desc; ,?L itself as 'libertarian s61\ lism 1 •
There was also of course, the so called 'individualist' position of
and a number of Anarchists which is clearly an individuali s t
reduction position, and to that extent quite distinct from the main
tradition.
1
Footnote on 'News from Nowhere'
�(7.
It is perhaps surp r ising that despite such a basic outlook
traditiona l anarchist thought remained stuck with an entirely
communist propos ed · for the organisation of production in which the
personal 'intiati ve' and 'individual' autonomy and originality
so stressed by anarchist thinkers would have to be directed ,n the
Jji/1(~ ;---f.>
of production entirely to commun.-~al or sh ared aims and
needs as the Marist positions, so in practice in the area of production
in this system despite its different th .eo;-i1:-~t~_::.cr/
base ;}om Marxism _. ,n //J>,r ,,
i >1-::i;•d~;1, at any
rate individual expression woul be confined to communal life
forms.
The positi on c onlVl. be said therefore to have worked out a
consistent position en the issue of the control of individual life
and in lifl king
i t _.i theory of production with its overall view of the
individual and the cormnuni ty.
have resolved .
There seem to be several reasons why traditional
an a rchist thought
problem .
This part of problem a DIY system could
~A~~
arrived at a convincing reso lution of this
First)anarchisrn never developed its philosophical foundations
and philosophical identity property in the way t hat Marxism was able
to do, and hence was always subject to corrupt ion by the influe nc e
of that position.
As Mai:a:kxx fltk11'--r.·Jhc_
puts is (quote)
Second, tr aditional anarchism was unable to resolve the problem of
individual production in a convin cing way because it brought the capit a list production machine and the fragmentation of labour it invol~d,
1\
,jA
as well as nearly all the associated Enl;?tenment values of Modernity
!) 3-1,• c/c; ,h ;._f-)
j,
.,
Science, Progress,
Profess ·.1c-rd ,\i,,, the Conquest of Natu.~ re and so on.
.
,
'v'
This is espei $ally clear in Kropotk1n· 's work.
Although anarchism
advocated regional decentralisation and was f 3 r more critical of
the division of labour than the Marxist school( see Kropot~1 ,1 's remat~s
on the rnanu f acture of r; "' h0cu,/ S
i
) it s till held that the fragmentation
i
of labour (which Kropoth' u; describes as 'our modern integrated system
of prod~ction')was politically neutral and held the key to progress and
the good life for all.
The sort of critique of this method of
�production and of its associated values are encounters today seemed
1
to be entirely absent from anarchist thought.
Given such assumptions
the possibility of individuals and groups freely determining the
production gou ls and needs and achieving them for themselves as in DIY
disappears.
The capitalist production app /:nrh1 s
is not of course
as we now realise only to well, neutral with respect to social
structur~and the sort of social options it rules out are precisely
the ones needed to resolve the anarchist dilemma of the freedom of
the individual in the sphere of production.
The result of failing to resolve the problem in a convincing
way was always a serious source of conflict within anarchist ranks.
(.'.,
It is clear from Malatsta's writing that by the early decade of the
'\
century it had reached substantial proportions, and considerable effort
was dirtcted towards resolving it.
2
To as certain extent the
failure to resolve the problem may have contributed to the decline of
anarchism, since the position then lost much of its appeal for
peasants and the independent workers who formed a major part of its
constituency.
1
Although it is not missing from some contemporary anarchist thought,
see Brown 'Smallcreep's Day'.
2
M~latesta thought that individual production from the producer's own
needs was theoretically admissible provided the producer had only
He thought however that no
an equal share of communal resources.
one would be able to produce entirely for themselves at a reasonable
The obvious option
standard,an assumption which seems to be false.
o f partially individual and politicaly communal production was for
He also believed that it would be impossible
some reason overlooked.
to get an equal division of land because not all was equally
This problem is readily overcome using modern
watered and so on.
land system assessment techniques in which scores are allote~ for
different characteris~-t.ics.
�57.2
Nonetheless in outlining features a DIY society
there is much that can be taken from anarchist and near. t so urces. 1
a n arc h is
For instance, the details of the
cooperation of network$ of communities in main,~ tTaining
.__. _..
such infrastructure or railway systems, quarantine
arrangements, and such like 1 can be taken over largely
intact.
What cannot be extracted, however, from
traditional anarchist sources i s much that is satisfactory
concerning the attitudes to the natural world that a
DIY society would find appropriate, 2
1
What need not be taken are some of the more controv ersi al
features of anar chism , in particular the usual proposals
for the (Tion) administration of justice.
There is no reason
in a DIY framework why a community, or set of communities
j _n
co:opara t ion, sho uld not evo 1 ve their own ( deprofe s s ional---
i sed) legal forms.
What wil l vanish, as in anarchism.are
rulers, nations and
I'
states, and more gene rally, hierar chial power structures.
However, a community will have an organisational structure,
and its political organisation may include components of
what would not inappropriately be called ' government' .
2
The us u a 1 an arch i s t view , e s p e c i a 11 y s t ro n g in Kr op o t k i rt , was
one of transformation of nature for human end.s.
view was quite exceptional.
~orris '
�
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. .. .
,
TOWARDS A SOCIAL THEORY FOR ECOTOPIA
Participation in attempts at social change often has the
..
effect of revealing to participants the structure of the soci e ty
in which they live.
It is hard to be a practical environmentalist
th1/:: i v.: J
_e:ng;a~eEl in or s1.,1pporting a range of environmental batt le s without
observing that most environmental problems in our sort of soci a l
system are generated basically by the domination of the society by
J
corporate interests, which have a strong interest in ma i ntaining an
industrial and consumption system which appears to produce environmental problems as a matter of necessity.
If one is not directly
engaged in opposing the plans or activities of sawrnillers , miningcompanies, power and energy compan ie s, transport firms, chemic al
and pesticide comp a nies, p a ckaging companies, real-estate developers
and tourist-resor t promoters, to name a few, one is engaged in
battling thei r political or bureaucratic advocates and protecto rs
(nominally 'regulators') in the sh ape of forestry commissi on s,
mining departments or authorities, hydro-electricity authorities,
energy authori ties, transport corm iss ions, l and commissions,
politicians and the l i ke.
' Usually t h e battles by citizen environ-
/qsr1~j
mental groups h ave littleAsuc c ess, and the chances o f success appear
highly cor related with the degree of corporate domination within
the political unit concerned.
Even where environmental problems
appear to a rise from the interests of non-corpor ate groups, for
example workers or consumers, it can be conv incingly argued that
the y are still primarily a reflection of corporate domination and
st r ucturing of both the employment and consumption a n d life-s t yle
choices ope n to peopl e , that is, of indirect cor po rate or capitalist
influence in shaping the social structtlre values. :
Environmental issues throw up sharply again the question as to
whether it is possib le to devise a social structure which does not
have this feature of direct or indirect cciporate domination, without
..--·--·
----·-·•··-•·--·-·--·-·· · · - - - - - - - - - - - - _... . --···------x-
2.
r~placing it
by some
-1
other equally or e~e? __ more _undesirab_l _e ____~_ind of domina tion-=__s_~E~ as
-/
bureaucratic or totalitarian domination-which is such that replacement would be unlikely to produce anything which could be described
as a solution or improvement.
Our belief is that we can devise a
better system which dispenses with this disastrous element, and
furthermore
that we must do so if environmental problems, as well
as a whole set of other problems which are also consequences of the
same structure of domination, are to be resolved at any but a superficia½ temporary and inadequate level.
wa ys to see the problem.
or size.
There are of course other
We might see it as just one of technology
But the technology we have seems to be a consequence
of
other features of our society, rather than the ca use ·_ al though it
is certainly true that there is an
inte~a ctive process and certain
kinds of technology strengthen certain interests in the society over
others~ :~S for smallness, we might remember that the industries
of'
I
IISu}
d... I
, ::___
currently destroying the Border Ranges rainforesi~(' in relative terms)
quite small.
Or we might feel that we are in the grip~ of a
runaway or out o f control machine - a point of view put forward
first by Jacques Ellu./
[
] •
Or as Peter van Dresser very nicely
puts it ''We have built a Frankenstein monster of industrial and
commercial relationships which is almos t totally running our lives."
True ~but the machine was was not built on random lines, and it
systematically serves the interests of some groups at the expense
of others.
So the machine is not 'out of control' in one sense -
it is doing the job it was designed for.
ff-some environmentalists,
espe ci ally of the more cons ervative kind, do believe that the system
in which they live is basically sound, but that it consistently
delivers mainly destructive results and decisions either because
-th.2.-
it is run by the wrong people ('Oh!
for a statesman'; seeABorder
Ranges sheet), or because we do not yet have go od mechanisms for
3.
takin g accou nt of envir onme ntal inter ests, which .is
seen as a
new
consi derat ion.
Such an appro ach tends to overl ook the limit ation
.C'.'f>·''}~i=t
on resu lts throu gh. polit ical/ burea ucrat i c actio n or
mecha nisms
which resul t from the exist ing struc tu re of corpo rate
domin ation of
the socie ty, and to the exten t
that it is succe ssful it would
depen d upon reduc ing or balan cing that domi nation anywa
y. ·-
Some
impro ved mecha nisms may enabl e some impro vemen ts in
limit ed areas ,
but they will not be able to chang e a basic ally destr
uctiv e lifestyle based on conti nuous and growi ng indu stria l produ
ction and
consu mptio n, and so unles s more basic chang es in the
socia l struc ture
are sough t, will proba bly only succe ed as delay ing
tacti cs in the
inevi t a ble destr uctio n of what remai ns of the natur
al world and
l , · ·¥;1
/ >fr'J I a H lr-.rt r? t 1~
reaso nable socia l enviro nrnen t. · \'\ J rn this neces sarily
rathe r
A
paper we want to try to devel op sorre of the basis for
a socia l
theor y which might be descr ibed as a form of Liber tar
i an or SelfManag e d Socia lism.
J~~~
\
~- It migh t seem odd that anyon e shoul d advoc
ate a basic ally
+i.1/
liber taria n type of posit ion as neces sary for aAso lution
to envir onmenta l probl ems, since envir onme nta lists are mostl y
seen to be
advoc ates of great er restr i cti ons, mor~_ rules and regul
ation s,
legis latio n, burea ucrat ic contr ol and plann ing, to
restr ict and
reduc e the damag e peopl e can do by their consw ning
and produ cing
activ ities .
This restr ictiv e appro ach seems to be dicta ted to a
large exten t by the failu re to quest ion the basic soci~l
struc ture
which makes peopl e ' s produ cing and consu ming so destr
uctiv e in the
first place .
If a frame work o f essen tially damag ing life- style s
is accep ted as 'natu ral' and uncha ngeab le, then of
cours e envir onmenta l prote ction will seem to be a matte r of limit
ing these sorts
of a llege d freedo ms by furth er restr ictio n;
but if the probl em is
"-r
se e n rathe r as one of struc: ;\ing socie ty so as to remov
e the force s
which make peop le's
1
,...
~-y"\
.._
_
__
_
'"'"\
...
a
·
pro ucing and consu ming so destr uctiv e, the
3. 1.
Pootnot e 1 from page 3.
J_
We don't of course wish to suggest that working within the
system is a just a waste of time, and we should watch it all
But in each
go while we sit back and wait for the revoluti on.
1
each hard
that
fgct
of
urgent battle it s easy to lose sight
necessit y
urgent
won victory is on l y temporar y, to lose sightJcff
will IJ_Ot
they
to; begin construc ting the sort of society in which
imposing
of
This is not and canno.t be a matter
be~ t emp o rary.
some sort of Boy Scout 'Conserv ation Ethic' or minor changes in
the directio n of energy savtng on a soci~y which produces
environm ental degrada tion a~ a matt.er of its fundame ntal :?__!:_ructu_r.:-_ e .
0
2
4.
need for a restrictive approach is less obvious.
The problem
of how to reconcile environmental aims with the aim of a free
society and with other goals is essentially one of obtaining an
1
~ b
1
.
J.
environmenta
~ o f 1 1. f-e. -.
.
.
society/way
enign
The restrictive approach then) is a cons equence of accepting
C
the existing se c. in/
f
framework and,,\ attempts to graft environmental
considerations onto a basically hostile structure
restrictions.
as
further
The situation might be compared to what happens
when an attempt is made to enlarge an o ld theory which has encountered
data it cannot _handle - the initial reaction is to try to maintain
theoretical framework and ac count for the further
the
material by the 'enlargement' of the theor ~ usually through a
series of ad hoe further assumptions or makeshift subsidiary theories
which have the effect of restricting the application of the theory.
We arrive at a vast and complicated structure , such as the Ptolemai c
theory or certain fashionable mod ern logico-semantical theories
of natural language, which for a time may appear adequate and succeed
in delay,j the realisation that the original theory itself is in
need of fundame ntal revision.
The existing mass of environmental
an d planning legislation and proliferation of bureaucratic procedures
J---J-
s uchf Environment al Impact Statements plays much the same role in
modifying a fundamentally environmentally-hostile social struc tur e
and life-style a s the addition o f further epicycles did in Ptolemaic
the ory.
X
The env:ironmentalist who appreciates the need for basic change
finds himself however confronted by rather unattr a ctive conventional
choices.
dom inat ed
On the one hand capitalism offers a system wru'ch
,-s
by private capital interests which depend crucially h;'resou r ces\and where unequa l economic
5.
is seen
~ri d other power
On the other side of the
as ad essential condition for freedom.
conventional choice we are presented with a system which does not
appear t o offer an essentially different life style and which
,,~. .
(_~ f f( I~ I
1: t/
1
clearly endorses many of the ~ame values - industrialisation ~~~ogress,
J 11 .i 111/, r / /4./,,-;..Jf p1J'. J i:,. ,·i,.{;,,<f,c'. ,,
high technology 1,and so forth, as the capit alist o !tu/'lt, f-,c. e:_ .
I
In addition I the conventional Marxist alternative offers an account
of t he role of the individual and society which provides many reasons
for libertarian concern.
We a re faced in fact with the option of opposing distortions,
one offeri ng a distorted and re duced account of community and
communal life forms, and the other of the individual and individual
life forms.
Although the pure, theoretical form of capitalism is
supposed to operate on the basis of purely individual activity,
decision and production, in existing forms of capitalism thi s
has
long since been abandoned in favour of a 'mi xed' economy, with
community control through elected government and public sector
activities ensuring that we collectively control the collective
part o f our destinies, and that communi ty is represented as well
l"r cJ
At least that's/the mythology has it.
as individuality.
In
practice however these communal life forms are v ery largely a sham,
and do not amount to !eal recognition of c ommunity.
Usually these
forms are forced into an individual reductionist model so that
the
instead of 9, v _i ng,\ community control
I~~J merely give a further set
of individuals who then make the decisions ~,
is the case with the institution
of
This
government by Representative
Individuals, for ,instance, which instead of providing community
control over the
framework, merely selects a further set
of individuals who then control 'or manage' the community. · In
Victorian times women who inherited property were obliged to have
6.
a male executor to manage it for them.
Later this was liberalised
to allow them a say in selecting him.
It is better to be able to
choose an executor or managerth a n to have one imposed on you, but
no one who has to operate under such a system should deceive themselves that they are really managing or controlling things themselves.
l People in our soci~ty are of course largely blind to the fact that
real con@unity control has quite a different form, a ~cl regard such
individual reductionism in corr@unity decision - making
inevitable.
as natural and
People now accept as normal political phenomena such
a s systematical ly broken election promises, government manipulation
of sources of information, deception and s1'!.ights of hand such as
wa iting until public interest has died down or worn itself out
before proceeding with unpopular moves, and so on.
What these
phenomena seem to indicate is that the amount of real communal
control which can be exercised through the system of representativ e
individuals is not very large, even if the fact that the political
system tends largely to reflect the economic system and economic
power rather than to control it 1 is ignored.
The 'public sector' which is supposed to express the common
will, is not community controlled either in any realistic sense.
'
L ' I,{
'~
Thus bureaucra~ managing public resources or allegedly regulating
industries normally operate largely in the interests of private
corporations , as anyone who has worked on issues like forestry or
nuclear power is aware.
Crucial information is kept secre t from
the cornmuni ty, ma de inaccessible, or handed out selectively> usually
to commercial interests. ( we won't go through all the points that
could beQ;sed here in detail - they are too well known - we just
want to set the points in a certain light ~
Even where they compete
with private corporations instead of me rely serving them,
'nationa-
lised' public sector organisation s act like further corporations
or powerful individuals, and there is very little real community
1
. -1,,.c)
1:,t---2i--t
~,t
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dl>--Cf-
0
'l[..z_
cZt,__...,...--14_)_1
( , D .___ t
~ -r ,c.,.__
C~-z_ __
7•
control.
Finall~ those individuals or corporations who control the
means of production can exe rcise enormous power, both through these
alle9ed 'community' institutions, and through their abi l ity to
control what will be produced, how much, how and where, and their
monopolisation of the abi~ity t? direct productive labour ,
-.;(K_,t:.\
their control of the pro ductio~,
(\
control the
in short
~ ,:· ._• c..::., .:'.' \'
Those who
.
means of production are thus able to obtain a very
large measure of control over the social framewor~ which comes to
be structured largely in their interests.
This domination through
4/. I
structuring now extends to almost/areas of life, and has been
documented independently in many areas, from the food we eat to the
way we travel1 from the houses we live in.i to the way we re lax.
The
control does not of course, take the form of control of individual
decisions at the individual level; they do not decide that you or
I will purchase a purple~ a green car, for example, but the social
i
framework in which the places in which peo~le live and many other
aspects of their lives are structured around cars is determined
in their interests, and so is the kind of car the market provides.
The fact that individuals are
free at the individual level, and
that such mechanisms operate at the level of controlling the largely
(.•\ i!
~ i.A""\.'• I n.S
invisi ble social framework which coT$,-a-ins and channels the choices
/1l 1My
the individual can make, explains why people retain the
iJ/ 1,<;, ~ ,.1
1
,\
freedom and of full control over the ir lives in such a system.
These distortions are not merely occasional
of
1
'abuses' or
aberrati ons - they are structural features which occur systematically
1
in all capitalist societies which have free ~ublic life forms.
rI'hey are the result of a reduction of communal life forms to various
extensions of individual life forms;of the fact that communal life
.
rv IC ,_.. .l.{1\,
1
forms occur in a reduced and impoverished indi vidualist) ,A.H3fttr.
The result ~tha t commun al control of the social framework
is
~)j~~
et ineffective. and that some individuals and group s are able to
I
8•
obtain great power through their capture and control of the
social forces of organisation and production.
If capitalism offers a distorted,individualised account of
community which allows for no genuine co,1,,,1u11ttl
control over the
social framework of li fe . on the Marxist side we are offered a
matc hing and impoverished distorted account of individual which
allows for no genuine individual control over individual life!
Marxist~ very commonly present
line account of ~cc.;cfj
(f
what is in effe_~t a r,~oduction
A:,-
- (.,,cl.. - - ~) /(.
individuals -
l(c role of t he individual is
Iv)
\
.1 -~f):Or- r,·(;e ~-&
their concept
constantly and revealingly
illustrated by appealing to the individual as a unit in a production
.- - 1
line.
Accordi.ng to this account the individual IS
I
l.'v\:. l~ji/,1 1 ~ •. IJ,2
,,K{1~•,i{uii. /
L-_
t;:: 1
no·+h ing, the soc~fty
h, _
is entirely a social product/,,\is no
more than his role in the pro duction line, he has no separate 'self '
but only the characteri~tics he acq uir es as a re sult of his
...___.
membership of a society or class ~ Indiv iduals are in effect to be
. l ,\·~
We don't make any cla im to be Marx scholars, we shall be making
('
heavy use i n elucidating and criticizing the a ccount, of the
S . U. Gene ral Philosophy Department recent publication
Paper Tigers
Although this book will be a major target in much of what follows
we would like to record that it ·seems to us a valuable piece of
work, which does a great deal to illuminate the nature of the
conventional ideological choice and expose their philosophical base~ .
It is also an ad ])t i r ably clear piece of work (in contrast to most
Marxist scholarshi~ which casts lig~t into many dark corners,
including some which, from the point of view of the attractiveness
of the Marxist a lte rnative , might perhaps better h ave been kept
a little dimmer.
.
conten -t J.o n that
The acco unt offered makes it clear that the
·(> (_ ~)
S:l::-Fl-ee
a p osition is 'totalitarian' is by no means
a capitalist p lot but h as an important point.
I
I
3
Any per son can fill role in the production li ne as well as any
other (Ste ve ns). Quote from
9.
treated as cells in the group body, and the only legitimate
formso f individual expression are through community life forms.
·c·
·L
,.
·
·
rtf; ,- TIL), H t.'.•t1tf-• •'.r , (·
r,
·1
, ~
• 1'1, 1, ,•,,U,/ ♦ :,4,
)
The al t ernative to such a position
- I~dividualism A - is
.
seen by Marxist s as the position underlying capitalism, which
holds that indivi duals contain no social influences which are
not ultimately re duced to individual forms o f influence.
Individualism - which is taken as the alternative to the view
pres e nted above - is seen as the source of c a pitalism and
inevi tably lea d s to a ll the excesses and distorts of that
,\
system.
Individ ualism must be stamped out r oo t and branch if
'- L
/;I ,~...-f.
it•
al·te,nutive to ca1;,alism is to be built 1fthe failures and
admittedly authoritarian cha~acter of existing Marxist systems
ii-tti.._,1·lif-·}
are, according to this line of~traced to the failure to do a
thorough e r1 o tl3 A
job of stamping it out in spheres other than
that of economic life. ! Indeed Individualism in this variety
of Marxist theory seems to play much the same role as sex did
in Christian theory - it is the source of all evil, and the
f'I\ ['
\- f '
mojification of the individual ego and its submission to the
~'
group replaces the mortification of the flesh and its subjection
to the spirit.
f\ v' J
(\
To condemn all individ_ualism because some
distorti'ons of i t produce bad results is like condemning sex
on a ccount of the objectionable nature of, sa~ prostitution.
J./( ;d /, Ii
I ), .
-~
<; ~-.. :~ ., . ,, :.:.
1'11\ .~ ~ , I~\ t :,
h
Howeve r , on€=.ffiay.:-==inc-l-ineL::::to-·:··be' j t wo u 1 d be
10
(
I,.. , '
<
/1
n a ive to s ee no connecti on between such a doctrine, and the
actual p r act i ce of Marxist societies (as /lli(n/
r.
Blackburn).
Marxists do
J
(- ,J -
Such a position must if followed out consist1
ently, be suspicious o f e v ery sort of individual independence
and activity which cannot be subsum_.ed in some sort of collective
interest, even something as simple and ap p arently non-capitalist
as producing your own food becomes suspect (see for example
the Kronstadt man i festo).
It appears to provide a justification
tc,,l
10.
for any amount of suppression of individual views and dis s ent
And
where these are seen as being opposed to class interest.
"~Yth1 '>
(V if 1
~ social products)-t:.My_.. appeaL to provid e
if individuals are
/'
a justification for manipulation of individuals for collective
e nds, as bad
or worse th<3n the indirect manipulation for
pri vate interests of capitalism. ,,Such a do c trine seem s indee-d to make life very easy for
the capital is t, who does not have to exert himself greatly
I
its ,~1,uthortarian potential f or the individual.
to demonstrate?,
as a free individual, freedom
For if there is no such th1ny
-J
and if there is no such thing
cannot be taken f!:;,9JTI someone ;
as individual choice, individual choices cannot be qbr c7d te d or
is that individuals just
trodden upon.
don't matter, except of course insofar,_,, as the production line
There are few people who can fail to
is short of hands.
be repelled by such a position once it is stated in its stark
simplicity - which of course it usually is not.
From an
individual point of view such a situation would have many of
the drawbacks of capitalism, and in some ways might even be
worse - goals, modes of re ~hi ng them and suchlike would all
be externally imposed on individuals.
i r-£ ttr±-s==±s_ i 11 de. e-d·--ctre--nas±c-t-1a r x is L sociai- theury----:;:.md
- -
I
~--_,,,,..,
-------
I
------
--
ever the v a r i a t i o n s ~-hl-e._ under the label------.-Marxisrn' /
I
~
- -
----
/ tf .f erqn
--:::-......... ___1
------h
.
.
an - entiu::=~,tl:_to se e now- J:.bey can alL--na:ve
s hard ----::-:---...._,
~t_
V •
,::i •
--------1
~--- -------
----------
t h ore t i ~GU.Qd at i o Tl------~ ~ s ± e n _ Q J an En 1 i g h ten ea /
!1 LX.i.Sln~ ~ e ~ _ Q l l t to
k
:,
It is difficult to see how
~~ t ofAmora l
to concern
I
----------
------~
11S.
,.,,~
(
\."\.
by the _Nf'W
,·......
\_,
~\.... ....
~J
-..-.~~
with any
..:.- can be compatible
.
~~ -'-/'
concern for individuals and their fa te, as opposed
for
daiJ C ~
.
or
societies.
It is difficult in
fact to see how the.re_ can be room for any but the most
11.
attenuated moral considerations at all i n such a view, since
even the comparison of societies in te~~s of the sort of
suffering they inflict on individuals i5 . th~ illegitimate.
It does however seem to be individuals who su.t fer ,...__whQ__.a re
,)~ :;
~,_
,--t :... , ,.. \ t
".I
f
b ..:. ' "'f
.
·-
.
-~ exploited or ~ominated, so unless an attempt
..
(
is made to give an al terna ti ve a(:count of these in t e rn1·s of
I \
the Class Mind ; it is difficult to see how such a position tould
even justify the choice of one soci·cil S~S}t?-,n.
over the other on
v '
moral grounds.
If this is indeed the basic Marxist social theory - and
whatever the variations available under the label 'Marxism•
it is hard to see how they can all have an entirely different
theoretical foundation - then the vision of an Enlightened
0 .._,..__ .
~t: L: • r
."" -, ( ·' ,!
Marxi sm which has been held out to us by the New Left is a
t--
mirage.
The consequences of this system can be seen then as the
1
•
,iJ I Ov\
el , m:nt.~ of
A
u.r;C.'tf..lf-<
j
V
f
power - or individuals (as in capitalism)
in
favour of their having no power at all as individuals, but only
through their membership of some collective,
class
or community.
For anyone who does not accept the
,d
reduction of legitimate indi1ual life forms to group life forms,
such a system of power must be seen as oppressive.
From the
I
point of view of the individual$ power to control his own life,
Q S
opposed to participating in controlling group life, to opt
such a position app ea~
to be oph~ , for the exchange of one set
J
of masters for another, of one form of domination for another,
~
and possibly ~~worse formo
C
l
J
./
following una ttrativ.e t er ,rs:
~
So then our choice appears in the
_./
if capitalism allows some individuals
,\
to dominate over others and control collective life through
the social framework,
1.1kr-,
11•, • •
the Marxist alternative allows collective-.
hc,,,
C\
12.
control o f collective life, bu t also collective control of
indi v id u a l
life, allowing no ~ep,:-1, rate
legitimate individu al
{,c.....;_
life forms.
If Marxist s are right in point in g t o the disas t rous
I'
i
H'--'
results o f covert domin ation of ,.,social f ramework by private
capi talist interest
the capita l ist is su rely also right in pointing to the
oppressive character t o th e individual o f their 0 lternat ive.
*
Of course both sides would dt~Y that the problem can be set up
this way , the capitalists bec auIB
social framework to dominate
the/ de11_1/ that there is a
(because o f the i r reductionist
- the Marxists, because th ey would deny
1,
th at there is any legitimate f o rm of individua l control to lose
in collective domination.
a 3rd point of view.
,r - ~
',(.
f
l(
,;,,
·K ·
It is di ffic ult t o accept that we are face d with such
.J
f
J f:i,
The problem i s seen esse ntially from
-' -- - -· - --- - -
(111 f 11/" ,j'('
unpalatab le choices .
}(' / .;
ii1C..-
And indeed lo ~] ic and,, coit,tJ
strate that we are not.
to demon-
There have been, and in a fe w places
where l1es te rn cul tur--al destruction is not yet compl ete, the re rc, ,.:.,,1
1
soc iet ies which a r e not capitalistic , wh ich are anti1~.n
capitalistis but where a vigorous individual\ is va lued o r not
I
dis cour ~ged and for ms o f independent individual economic activity
n1 ;, y
,:
,·
\
/1
~j°> \
,,
\'( .{ .'~f. \j
(
"· . T-~,i,.!
·-; ,
f
·,
:~: '{!.
~-"1
'1 /
., I
J,
,:
f
::·
and lead t o
1
cap ifo1, iSr.> ·
, in the way the Mar xi st critiaue
it must, and which coexists wit h true co:u1munal
ins is t s
life-forms.
1
~;0c:~ 1~•- :~ s~:h ~~~·~~ti~; •;~~p(:\~ ; ;e'd as individuals, co ll-
~-1abora ted
\ ·; ··:
'I
In such societ ies th ere is a form
'\ of in di vidualism whi ch does not inevitably undermine the socie tie s
.
I
proc eed and even dominate .
'
._._)
in groups, or as whole communities, more or less as
the . o~-;~·~ion demand~d~:,yw hile s ome of the
, product .,' } ;>,d, :.'j
,~
~
\ might be given to those who had no thing, it was not u s u a lly
-J
13.
regarded as a purely communal product unless commu~=ally
use
produce~b~ t was primarly for the
of he who had
t
f
J
obtained it or his kin.
(See HOWftt
in t~e~ Aboriginal case;
The t=orest Peo2-J.-~ ;
for the rules
_Wai-Wai ) ,
I,.
some g ar dening societies too, such as that of Melanesia,
individual eco n omic activity of a certain kind migh t even be
th e dominan : t mode of production, yet the society is not
capi t alist, and is even strongly opposed to the attitudes
of ~apitalism.*
The existence of such societies seems to show
* See
the failure of individually owned
Waiko,
11
trade
stfs
[encouraged by the Australian adm i nistration] was ... mainly
because such individualism ,
_t_u_,._t_i..__
_ _ _---=-p_r_o_f_i_t_a_c
___c_r_u_1_·n--"'-g_t_o__o_n_e
person, was disapproved of by the villagers" , p.418.
that it is possible to obtain both communal control of
c o 111munal life and individual control of individual life, that
the one does not necessarily drive out the other.
It seems clear fhm the anthropol o gical facts that the
Marxis t critique that individualism produc~ s capi t alism has
failed to make some important d1'stinctions between kinds of
individualism.
It may of course
claim
to allow ade quately for individuals and distinguish a kind of
'individualism' which is legitimate in the Marxist view.
On further inquiry it turns out to be the case that what is
labell e d individual activity in
:.:i 'q cl1
c .A s-2.s
is the kind of
secondary and derived life forms the individual may engage
in as part of the group collectivity or class, as in the Marxist
/
distinction between what is called 'Individualism'and'Possessive
Individ~1ism'
(see MacPherson}
But since this continues to
14.
,.
'
M S 15
only legitimate forms of individual life are
.t that the·
those which can be reduced to collective life forms and that no
dist1 n -:.. C:-, independent economic individual life forms I for example,
are legitirnate 1 it is a dist,n.ction in net me on:i:y
perpetuates the false J~hdnm~
.J
.Jt
iin fact : merely
, now as the choice between
Possessive Individualism (as in capitalism) and 'Legitimate
The latter is however only another and misleading
Individualism' ..
name for the participa tton of the individual production units 111
the production line.
Since it continues to admit no legitimate
individual independent activity , espe cially economic activity,
distinct from or not reducible to that of the group, it
-
cannot e xplain our anthropological facts
that these
so c 1c ties do al low some i,·1d7K',k·l~ ,d in divi dual life forms,
am/
-
JS
v ----
including economic ones _merely as in attempt to dispel the
.A
uneasy feeling the
.
,...------··· -- a-
(t hrough confusing
--.
..
,\
.
-
production line theory arouses in most of us ,
te i-minological
.
'
,r
-r,,
, Marxises in fact
shuffle.
/
dd.Sthe same trick with this sort of recognition of legitimate
individualism as Social Democracy does with the reco0nition of
the social - it offers a terminological label which pretends
µ
to recognise a distinct life form but iryfact reduces it to an
.impoverished and limited subvoJ--i<=:1-J
of the dominant life form.
77The Marxist cr.i tique appears to have confused
· the recognition
of distinct individual life forms - distinct that is from those
of the collectivity - with the attempt to reduce all legitimate
life forms to in dividual life forms or constructions from them.
It has confused Individual i sm, in the sense of the recognition
of individuals, with Individual Reductionism, which is the
recognition of nothing els~ but individuals.
It is not the
former but the latter which underlies capitalism and its
variations.
On the economic level the Marxist critique has
failed to recognize that not all forms of individual economic
15.
1(r
activity lead , capitalism, and at the soci al that not all
forms of individual power le~d to power over
rrh e triba l s oc iet ies
~...; ~
~
others.
considered were examples of
societies which had individu alism - distinct individual life
forms and economic activity - without individual reduction- i j m ~
')
,,
1((.1{ ,
1l'J
Individ u al reductionism produces distortions and gre~t
inequality of power because the social forces and means of
decision-making, of organi~ ation and of production, are turned
into concentrated power for the selected individuals who
. ff
represenithose forces in the indi vidualisa/ forms.
In the
tribal societies we considered this did not happen - decision
r
.
P
making was not usually the preogative of an individual h~d
'
A
or chief, organisation and production were not directed and
controlled by bureaucrats and powerful individual capitalis ~ or
groups such as corporations.
In societies which took a similar form, individuals would
have secure ind i vidual use right s for certain limited purposes
to the means of produc ti on , for example the land, which would
give them the right to produce for their own needs but not the
rights they have in a property system~
For example, they
would not have the right to dispose of it as they saw fit,
or the corresponding right to accumulate larger shares of the
means of production
than
others, or the right which in practice
arises from this last, to employ another person's labour.
The mean'.,;"
communJal ly,
11
of production wou/.-{
como, o m
be seen as basically held
t.c: al 1 for the use of each".
Individuals
would have, as individ uals, secure access rights to the
communal means of production to produce for their own needs.
Var ious forms of mixed individual, group and community production
could develop, based on mutual interes~as people see fit, but
the important point is that access rights to produce oould
accrue to individuals as su ch.
Provided th7
ao
not encroach on
16.
others,
1ndi vidudfs
could set their own goals, decide (A,·hu.. t
_,.\
they, as individuals need and like to work on, and pursue these
goals in their own way at their own time.
each could·
In such a situation,
pu~sue his own way, instead of all marching in
<~ I tl' j. ,,
step - the situ,it,;,1
in whic "'h all must pursue a .. -& . i ~ and
collectively determined set of goals, at a collectively determined time, place and in a collectively determined wa~ would
I
be avoidedQ
C!S""'
Such a system would Ado tribal land tenure
3ys tems, involve two levels of decision-ma~ ~ing and of life
forms.
On the one hand decisions at the social framework level
would be determined through communal decision-mak ing processes/
wh r( h would normally, ~nvol ve communal participati.,1:y
't---(__y •-<.. i
:r
~ , ,t -1 ., ' \ (
forms
,...._
rather than i-04-i -v~:r-. methods.
The sorts of decisions which
would come up here concerning the use and creation of
1hL
t{0_
means of production would be those that
affected,\ community
( e.g. in the Melanesian case the; included the
t/«2.
issue of whether Acommunal
for es t land cou}cl be wood
chippe~ w~ -~l,
could not be decided by individuals and holders),
( u't
:I
1 ( / If ..
1u. "'-J; 1
f\ I'
• ,
I :) / .. . , '
) /
f
in our case, what sort of public transport systemsAto have, all
sorts of social framework and infrastructur e questions, question~
abou t the sort of c c mmunally-ope rated production enterpri ___ses
tc
have/ and so on~
This sort of society could admit a form of vigorous
individualism ,
capitalism.
b ut
it would not be and could not lead to
The sort of individualism admitted here would be
one which could coexist with a great deal of rich communal
life, and which did not eliminate or reduce communal life forms.
rrhe indi vid·;_,iJd s in such a society would have the rnJps to control
their own lives, both as distinct individuals
diff[-:.J-0.,,-ff.J _, as members of a cornmuni ty.
and also, but
1
have would be the means to cont;.~\ ,~.~e ..li '-'.t s_ ~~-·othe; s
!' C
(r
r": ,tu,-,. • (,~·{, ,_-,,
11;
,· i
ifr ,.:
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,, ('
·,
(
jJ~' ,.,_
F J
! '' //, ,., ,
<
~
(.
,•
//, 7 r ..-_ ; ,
7
2-f
' .
.·
'
"/',.
1
.,
, /·;,, ""?(.
, .1.·1~ . "· ·. .
rr~~.
What they woul~ !1ot
.
4
,
,
1
.
'
lc .
{
..rf,t '.
<
17.
The sort of po sition embodie d in these so r ts of societies
is in many ways a very natural one.
two levels -
It allows for control at
the social framework level is controlled communally,
and the level o f p rod uction for i nd i vidual nee~s is controlled
by individuals~
It i s the n a mixed picture.
(but a very different
one t o that whi ch appears in th e capitalistl' mixed econo my ').
4,1.,{
In such a picture, people ar e both individua~A· members of
communiti es.
For a f ree society in which peopl e control th c.. L1
own lives both sor t s of control are needed.
(.(
,v·
So, if y ou ask someone in China what occupation he
would l i k e . to f ollow , he replies, according to report, that h e
0
has no des ire s of his own in this respect, he would l ike t o be
whatever t h e community wa n t s or n eeds him to be .
,1 .,
( A very p ro pe r
answer according to the th eo ry set out in ' P a per Tiger s ').
If you ask someone here
what he woul d like to be, you
would very likely get th e reply that he woul d like to be what
or
ever he can find a job in,,\ if h e is inr t t)
a mbitious,
whate v er pays best or offers the best long-term monitary prospects ;
i.e. whatever capitali sm needs him to be.
(A good an swer also
syst em) .
acconli-1'1 '. 1 t o t h e
In neither c ase does the answer indicate a person who is
I
(I
in control of his own li fe, who do es what he wants to do, or
J\- ·- ·
tk~
what he finds s_ati_~_fying . _
At the ,; be st A distortion:;
L
---~ap.i tali sm a nd Marxism offer us, in each cas e on e kind of
con fr ol wi thout t h e other, or the other l evel o nly
I
-J,;,
I
i mpo verished and
\
qt"t-c•,li1. i:1/-r..rl.
f orm.
Bu t
,
\
(
\
\
\
( , , I~
,I
C(
i •Ii I
; I ii,
an
since the l e vels
.
j
'
t ,/ ,._- tf
)
I
of con trol have a large level of interdependence1
. each
11,,
1
lev el of control become s in fi,:,~it irnpover irlr- d
t :--· ,·· -._...,/ .. \S
. h
·"l, -r c . v~' .
wi 7'~ut its compl~=:.m ent....-;_,.. 'rhu s for example, mo st individual s
1
cannot live a fully free or satisfying individual life in a
society structured at the frame work or inf~s t rat~r ·e
18.
·fo
leve\ provide
mainly dr~~~7 , repetitive work, or no work at
all, and so on.
Both sorts of control are necessary, and to
achieve this a society must first control the social framework,
including the means of production, communally, and second ;
give each individual secure acce~to the means of production
for his own use to enable the individual to control his own
life at the individual level.
Su6h a society would be 'self-
managed' at both crucial levels.
* (from page 17)
Of course./,. - t hat is what these positions offer at their best,.,
f thi:-; ·---is an idealisa~i~
In practice most capitalist countries
-• •--•--•·-•---•-•---•••---•--•--•-••-- --•--•---•••n------••--
do not offer even individual control
(that is they do not have
the individual freedoms appropriate to liberal capita l ism),
and most communist countries do not practice genuine commun ity
control or self-management on the social framework level
(that is collective life
Ain fact controlled by individuals
in the ·:; ha pe of bureaucrats or politic al codu11 ,lie~-' .c
An alternative of this basic
,.,
f c,·
.-·;;'/t .... .J, -t"
.
I; 1 J fr1_
1~ <- J_
) •
sort_,\ has been_
J
by a few thinkers, mo~s::tiA recently in a modified form by Ernest
'" ,, c , ~ ,
C~11lenbach~ in
~arly ,.- b<:t{::).k
Ecotopia
,,.r/, '<i. r
, and a c~l:so,\ by Bertrand Russer! in h-i-~
Roads to Freedom .
have been the intention
It may
behind a few others,e.g. William Morris in _News from Nowhere
(although there are serious
discrepancies here, which we will
,,
~ ( "()•;\)_
,,;
mention later), and in ~the work of Proudh. on, and there are
~
some points i n common with some forms of anachism - again with
A
S ignificant d i 'i.<ilp{,{11(,C J
we shall discuss later.
Neverthelsss
it seems to have l)e·en largely overlook· ·:ea, and we are normally
.
-
A
~
con fr onted with a ba sic false d; dwt or"'y -capitalism in some 1 orm
19.
versus some ve r·sion of ~a~x ,s t ·
socialism.
This
ba1!c fa lse dichotomy is backed up by a systematic series of
false dicho t omies in the subsia'ary notions of each theory,
1\
which reinforc e and perpetua·. ~te the basic false dichotomy.
)
There are at least
r,1/--:;~,,, I(;
/c.--u.._r
·
/\
sets of reasons why we a re
conventionally presented with this <; .yst("t,.~ 1-i11c. false dichotomy.
a third position is sytem~
at ically discounted~suppressed} by both sides of the conventional confrontation because it is very much in their
inte r ests that it should be.
The r~ esent co~batants
i
do very well out of a game where each can point to the
opposition as the only option and can play off the drawbacks
of the opposing system to counter dissatisfac t [on with it s
o ~n - system
- an ideological or theoretical version of the
balance of power, to to speak ,,
/n which
tlJ t!-
$/:d<1r quo is maintained
by the tension between these two ideological cor,1 6 atants.
The
intrusion of a third position, especially one which seems to
have many of the advantages of both sides and the drawbacks
of neither, could spoil this strategy completely.
As someone
else, ;f we remember rightly, hasr~rnar ' ked, capitalism and
Marxism are li ke two sides of an a:c h - they prop one another
A
up by the match1•'.J weight of the - dis cu-lvantages of each side.
~
Both sides, insof ar
'-../
as they ad,1,:-l
such an option
{:!.-
exists at all 1 strive to present it as either a subv;1r\ty of
their own
one.
so<:_ 1Q(
theory
or as a subvc1.riety of the opposigng
Thus Chom. sky in his introduction to Dan1 .el GL-Lq:-,;-.n' s
_bnarchism
in effect assumes a false choice between the means
of production being cont rolled by individuals, and there being
no individual control of the means of pr?duction and no distinc ~
individual economic activity.
Thus
that any position which is genuinely
iu...
Wti\•
t.'~
-~e able to conclude
a~t~ -capitalist must
ultimately be in agreement with the go\~ of the Marxist vari e ty
of socialism, and is differing only about details like the
position of the state.
But the non - reductionist sort of
position will not fit into such a simple and loaded classification which writes in the false dict:'Ptomy -· since it allows the mean.:~
of production to be, Q_Oth communally and individually (~-=-/"\ 1::-li\ i :~- - -1 ,....' , '
' f r ~ - -"
{J.r..i"ll~.J..:A cont ro 11 e dA It is L 11 e c t i ve l~ i_~ --d±ti~re~~~~~y_~~; ;:
co
controlled at the social framework level but is individually
controlled at the level of the individual's production for his
ow n needs.
rrhe other option open to Cht,,1\. sky and co.
is to
characteriz e suc h an alternative as mend y a form (perhaps
,,
~
~
{~~r
as a p.: .: e t it-b<Y.1tgu, 01s ,fo rm, a charge remi 11.scc 1.(-.;1 that levelled
I
•
'
•
'
1
1
o,,,[
against
1·
1.J.·( ,~ ~/ ../
.
_.,
. --
.,
.,, his followers ) ,I
Proud!-,c n by Marx
'
r;(tf...!:.::!,tf ( -,/,.,1 :·,!1,,r-J\
I
capi talism/A in terms 'of th~ ~eary._s of production not being
,n
r-t
"h-
c:,
.,
t
collectively owned and allowing some individual economi c
/ ·,
activity.
But since this will lnake the tribal societies which
do not fit into this loaded classification capitalist also, it
il).
hardly seems a convincing move. __ In the same vein B I.-~ ckburn
•, 1· · , / ' (
•; 1?
r
;,'?'
.- <, ri-r 1:., _ rt/,)(( I<<
' values in the Social Sciences/ presehtr thEf
only
11 1.
1
alternative t o capital.ism as Marxism, while 'Paper Tigers'
( __;tp,_;c,,1.r )
asser~' s that there is no th1 i-· d position - social
p l1~ nomena are to be accounted for i n terms of one or other o f
the two main social theories.
Simi lar strategies are of cours ~.
,_ .' L_._ -· '-.__
adopted on the capitalist side, wh-e- vr-i--1-l--e rnploy-- the criterion
is.,
of individual pro perty ownership
'
a 1 t-e rna t-iveS.A·
j
'
) ('
v,1 ., ~\
v,. ('., \'
\1 ·}.'. I
~'"' '--
: ·- . _ -1l"-' f:. ,➔
~
t
11 h
\
1
~efin~ 'so ci""alis~t /
, ' • \__ .t.
(._. \i1 I
\)
---
.... __..,,-
/'
_
' ,,.
~ I . I/ -
1
'>
_t ;
i'. \
There are however more substan tial philosphica l r e ason s
f or the false dictptomy, which lie in the basic reduction
p os i t ions underlying capitalism and Marxism,
1,,-•,
/ •;; ,
,/
1c'?.
• {_
.c ·( .
t.
/j Io 7;'t,J
•/ i(,,: , I '/
I/
t:t,,
d
~iR/o:,a,.J
21.
The basic reduction underlyi ng the ideology of
capitalism is the reduction of communal life forms to certain
sorts of individual life forms, or mere rough~ J.y, of communities
to individuals, while that underly ing Marx,sr:11 is a reduction
of individual life forms to certain sorts of communal life
forms, that is , of individuals to elements of certain sorts
wholes .
*
*
Burnheim in rpaper Tigers' points out that the usual contras ~f
between individualism and
reduction of
'
i-l~_>f15'~--. \
in the sense of a
!) ' • 1)
dr 1.A,.-t.-ctt/.J' to parts of societies which are then
1,·1
-t-
.
c,t1 .__: ho·~c1•-·; .,
treated is fu \ her individuals, is a f u/:;e_ <!l~a.ti:Gn"'.
He points out t h h t Marxists want to reduce individuals to
elem t n J s of only certain sor~-~ of wholes (v iz. classes, which
are not then treated as f uf- /!1-.er indi vid~ls) .
ever goe s on to set up a further,
He then how-
ore basic false dichotomy
r'H
between this position and a capitalist reduction to individuals.
1·
----
How are such reduktions justifjea?
,,"'
appeal t
The argume t involves
/
the subsidizations tvupport the reductions.
systematic .:. lse dictatomie9---~i~h.__ justify
/
'-,
,./
as follows:
'
"
(1) capita~
//
( 2)
/4
t ineifidualism -~~sus
ind'i~idual c l,_; , (
/
alter c· ~·/, .> f r~~nershipf
/1
//
/
.j_,._,
of
,,tc.,·
'·-
/
/
'-.C-~
<_ __.../
~ ..... ;
/
/
o
ollectivism.
proquction versus
"',,, ~
~
·~-
22.
According to the third theory, both these sets of reduction
alternatives should be rejected. ! A non-reductionist position,
accordin g to which there are legitimate in~i vidual life forms
which are not reducible to soc ~ / life forms, and legitimate
soc~ I life forms which are not reducible to individual life
forms, can give a more adequate account of t he data than
either of the reductions and s ynthesi ze much of the material
eac.lt uses to support his case t.<-•!1 ; le
,',· I•~,·\//
avoiding -~
difficulties the reductions engender.
of the
Individualism, in the
sense of recognition of legitimate non-reducible individu~/
forms, is one th ir1J - the
lif~
individual reduction position that all
life f orms ultimately can be reduced to these, is a very
different thing.
How are th e.
reductions justified·?
The argument involves
appeal to the subsidiary notions to support the reductions.
The systematic false d;~otomies which justify them in argument
are as follows:
(1) capitalist
( 2)
;ndividualism - versus coll e ctivism.
individual c' l<)1<..,2,t s--ly) of means of production versus
'· ., • ) : '
Cl
a-l--t erna ti ve ownership.
versus
( 3)
(a)
indivi (L..c als as not SO'Cil~/ly determined at all
(b)
the individual is completely soc io. l ly determined.
(4)
{a) 'obse rvational data' as theory-free versus
(.} 5,.
( b)
1
o bservational data' the or- y - depend ~_nt.
t,
(5) (a) individuals as completely free , versus
(b) indiv iduals as complo tely determined (atl choices ,ndividuals
make are in fact d etermined) .
( 6)
(a) The free soc iety as one .in which individuals
can control individual life, versus (b) the free society a s
one in which people collectively determine collective life.
All these false dkl1 0 tomies are reje.c ted by the nonreductionist postiion ..
2 3.
(1) and (2) we have already partly dealt with.
To
j,.,i-1_1.I /
,. ;~ / sum up, the false dichotomy over fo L/3
the alternative of a mixed
form of control of the m eaus of production which does not fit
into the simple classification, which enables the form of
:c ~ m,v-~Aily
the infrastructure to be cG-Jd..ect~ controlled
-<-0.!id
H~
use of it to be
individually-controlled, as advocated by the non-reductionist
position.
The presentation of the individual as not soc✓(~ ,,/;;_'
ci I/
l
determined P'~ at 11 appears quite freql.lntly in capitalist
7
( 3) (a)
,
I'
\' \
arguments, espec rct. lly in the economi"l c sphere.
Most capitalist
'-.. /
e conomic a rguments depend upon taking ind i vidual choices as
'raw', as not in any way in £ lue n ced by o r dependent upon a social
framework.
They appear to presuppose an absolute indiv i dual
who would make the same choic es in any society.
Th~s for
example env ironmentallsts who suggest that things like a~r tT
condi tio~s are u 1-w1 ,:c_,.,:__~sct"1/
and wasteful of energy are ,n<? t with
the response from status-qua supporting economists
just choose to
r~-..i:>
11~ H:
\f 4 , 1 {,
raw, and
The choice is represented_
have air -cond itioners.
a
that peopl e
rreducible - to interfere with it would be
...~~ .A. "'
authorita~ because it is presented as a choice at the level
of individua l li f e-control, instead of as a social framewor k dependent choice,
A
good e xamp le is McCracken [
]
.
This is
part of the strate gy of reduction to individuals through trying
does not exist, or if
it does, i s
a lso chosen by the individual on the level of
personal 'raw' choice -
('a legally elected government determined
it'.).
Environmentalists are always encountering the related,
arg ument that a certain predicted level o f
consumption, say for forest products, energy demand,
24.
space, must be met , no matter how disastrous its environmental consequences'.
'Demand'
is treated as expressing
the individual~ raw needs or choices, which are
,coN.:.e.11J.ed
as lacking a social context, and therefore, it is argued,
as being essential to meet
a ~d authoritarian not to meet.
To deny such demands would be to abrogate individual freedom.
rrhis is the basic argument for Cons1u1,:r ism, and it is widely
employed by those who wish to promote industrial growth t o
meet alleged cop (_.il.i,, 1 t: r--
~ eeds ' reg a rdless of the consequences.
Courses of action which fail to accommo date cons!-< 11-iu; i nl
t hus
ruled out, and
are
consumerism and its
consequences repre s ented as necessary and inevitable.
Of course many people,especially environmentalists,
realise there is something wrong with this argument.
do not just up a,vJ ' demand' expres~~~ays,
People
junk paper f or
packaging, or energy capacity to power hea~ed swimming pools
or electric toothbrushes.
All these 'needs' are the product
[ 1,.r7 -'·-
of a certain sort of;\ social co ntext, which the Con sume .ri sin
igno r es, or presents as inevitable, wh e n it is
/lrgument
not, or chosen by people ge1rally/when
>r
is not.
The
Consomerist Argument, then, is a pa.rt of the capitalist reduction
choices to individual choices, which is pJrt of -the~
reduction of
: so c ~I
life forms to individual life forms.
[Accompanying th=js r e duction is a picture of th e individ tt~ l s
~ s c ontaining no s 6 cial elements which are not i n some way
f}-1·
1--<. l.·-~\. C --- ~
t,; :_+ ,. : -~: _,, ; c ..{ · ,) , ,.)_ --·· l ~reducible to p- roperties
of individuals &'\, l] \
.
(b)
On the oth er side of the conventi on al battle we are
presented with an equally distorted and reductionist picture
o f the individual os completely so c. ; -= ally determined.
I :f
the capitalist picture presents social choices as just certain
kinds of individual choices, the Marxist picture tells us
that there are no individual choices which · at-e..
,H·[
reducible,
2 5.
orl exarnina,tion, to socja/ choices.
Marxists
,uj}if- (r
l-
reject the
'J
capitalist a ccount of the individual and society and ~s ~st on the
importan ce of the social fram ewo rk, but in th e process eliminate#
the i ndividu al .
In 'Paper Tiger ~' two main arguments are
presented for this positi o n .
·
(i) The Invariance Argument:
This argument appears in
several pap ers in the 'Paper Tigers' coll ection and seems to be
central.
Essentially it argues that the individual does not him-
self d ete rmine his own choice unless the determination would b e
invariant in any social framework. , Thu s Steve ns, SuchtiJ
Chal;,1, ers, and Burnheim.
and
In Burnheim's paper the argument
appears in the f orm of the demand for
cor e
an
of self, which would be unchanged under any variation of social
U11 k'.;:;
co ntext or framework,~ t his can be provided 1 there is
tJ;1( re,\/ s. 1,>
as J 'the sear ch for the real self proves illusory' ,
1
)
,7 nd the pictu re of individuals as completely s-r, ,,,,;/l
mi ned is e stab l ish~<l.
deter-
Of course if the de P1 J nd for our
core Abefore i ndependent no n-reduc i ble individual
self-hood were admitted). was correct, i t wou ld be very ea s y to
demonst r ate the Ma rxist reducti on .
Bu t the demand is far too
stron g, and the argument is thoroughly fallacious; for it
a~sumes that the relevant proper ties of individua l s mus t be
purely individually determined befo re the re can be a non- reduqible
indiv i dual.
All that is required howe ve r is that the re should .
be an i ndividual eleme:nt in their d etermination, a nd. thL:; would
not lead to the expectation of an invct~t--~,,..it:
class of
I
sel f
i
properties which were unchanged in ~QY soc i al context.
The f allacy in th e argument is perhaps best illustrate d
/1 ,'.'
by an analogy.
;,£'
J
We know t hat the genetic inheritance of indivi duals
;\
can determine within a broad range wh a t they can become or cannot
become, e.g. if they are genetically male they cannot become mothers,
,r:1""/;,
(, ,,r:, ,,,,., (( •.
/
i· (:·
,.(''
-.·; .--:. ,,-· ...,.. .f"
.
.,,,/'.,,
26.
if they are genetica lly members of the c o rr o t
fam i ly they
and so on.
will grow in a different way from 1egu"mes,
.....__,,
Any
g i ven property an individual has will pro bably be the result
of both genetic ~nd environmenta l factors, and will vary as
So we cannot argue that individuals
either factor is changed.
are completely environmenta lly determined unless there i s a
class of 'core' properties which are invariant under genetic
Of course there are no such properties.
change!
But that is
what the invariance argument demands - that before we can
claim an independ~t individuality ,
'a 'real self' other
than the soc i4 tly determined self, there must be a class of
purely self-determin ed properties which would be the same
regardless of different social environments .
There are, of
course, no such prope !··ties, so, th e argument con c_.l udes fallw:;u~rd,1,
there are no real individuals.
is a mi x ture of soc ;cd/11
But if an individual's cha racter
determined and individu a lly determined
. .J
f eatures, and if any one pro perty showed in fact the influen c e
of both i n t~ ~es, then we could no t
expect such invaricince.
But t he case of social versus individual determination does in
fact seem to b e in the crucial respect a good analogy to the
genetic/envir onmental case - the social context, like the
th
genetic inheritance, deterines, in a broad way what the
A
individual Lan -Or cannot become, what he ca n
CL..
do or choose , *
*
<!
1
The analogy also throws an interesTin
on the individual' s
i
light on the Lysen Ko
that genetic inheritance -:_,,·..!_,/ ·IJ,._
the theo:rJ
6,-,;1 L,d ft f ,!(_·k , J l.//,t/4,, k,dk,y;I
C/ A
~
rh . flfi?i1~11_'-!f.
11.,',/'t"fllr;e.~ {·.,/{J _
the u(gts of the social reduction, as required in Marxi~t theories.
I/~ ,.: ,/.l;"r,.i /.-....
lr l r,/' l ·:-n , :,,-,,-,. 2 '"'<· ...... /,•. ( ;rt',: ~' .O>' ,.'--,fZf ,'J(~, L;"'I ,:'" (~ . ..,. fc.:
J ,,.;1 ,· /. ..,· 11/J " ''j,., lc.-,J c./
Pr~suP1l,4 7
affair.
.
.
1
constraint
It acts a j A
...,. - -··
1
,(..' ( ! [
0
. -•...,
•
'
, / u,..
vrt;.( /(C /J
I
'\\
',"'·,..__ ____ __ p:t.h
~
•
,
I I/..-,
~
r\..i.- ,
I)
_, /::
(·,/ - · ~t'""
(, / ,
II/1/Jt
of development, and its influence will therefo r e be seen
(
27.
in all the properties he displays, without1 of course, being the
l/is actual
complete determinant of those properties.
development involves as well his own indi viduallj de termine d
-f~L1/u:--r1 .,·
in the same way that the actual development of aH individual
with a certain genetic inher i tance also involves environmental
fa ctors .
This is the sort of picture of the individual in
relation
to h is social context which u..r1de-rl ;e. s the non-
re:1uctionist position , and it is in most respect s a fai-r!J
natural one.
In contrast the two reductionist positions
present, in term s of the analogy, a false d ic hotomy picture
1./
of t he individua l as comple tel yg·enet ic ally determined i-:!'11- -- ' ~-,
·t~ .--• - l ~
the one han d
.
(Marxism\ and as comp.J:_etely
,1'fl-
environmental ly
determined on the other (cap ita lism).
(ii) The second set of arguments for the complete
social de te rminat ion of the individual f is
L
papero
presented in
It is an interesti n g a nd
,,
sugges tive but l ikewi s e fallacious argument , which proceeds
fr om the assumed theory= ..c:=-_aepen d en t characte r o f al l
data, to the conclusion that ' individual'
obscrv.d r<' ;u, {
C'< '~t
obs e rvation, \ entire ly dependent on shared social
,.tr tifact s;
1
I.e.
theor ie s, is a social and not an ind ividual phenomenon.
{u e.nce and
duct s .
knowledge I tfw
11.
,
are social and no t individual pro-
It is p ointed out that the phenomenol o gy and epistem-
ology associated wi th capitalism - empiricism and th e
individua lis t red ucti on - holds that observation al data
is completely theory - indepe nden t, and this approach is
correctly rej e ct~~ d as in compatible with th e,
o f theory forma ._,___
r--- ti on
/At1(l
actual process
fa lsification .
Even if the o ther connections in the argument are
admi tte d, we contin ue to be p resented with a f alse contrast,
this time between obs ervation a~
completrly 'hard' or as
2 8.
completely 'soft', a s compl etely theory - depe ndent, or as
comple t e l y th eo ry - independe nt.
Again the obvious p osi ti on s ee ms
to b e overlooked by the opp os ing reduc tio nist c a mps.
gi Ve L--t.
The point n eeds more elabora tion than c..an b ....:.
h· ,f l0 ½~ , but briefly, what i s o verlooke d in the a rgume nt
is the po ssibility of saying that some observations are theorydependent, and some are not ,\ that is, that there
'so ft'
da t a.
cffe~
'ha rd' and
the comple te
Su c h a position would explain wh a t
theory-depen dent theses cannot explain,the unden~b/e
fact that some theories are fals ,; fied.
It can also explain -
what t he e mpirici st position cannot - ~ hy theories are not
nearly as f alsifi a bl e as t he e mp iricist takes them to be, and
some not falsifiable at all, and why in many cases what is
n ee ded is a c once pt ual shift, that is a shift to
rei,1 h--rpreJ1,4f,;,, of the theory·-depend e.nt area of data along the
li nes presen fo,l.
b...J
a dif ferent theory.
The theory - depende nc e
aspect might be s een a s gi ving a certain cl~~
(the 'so ft data'), or it
d ependi~t data
['
01
mjh~
theory-
be seen as
giving certain t heory-depe nd e nt constraints on observati on,
while still leaving room f o r a no n - the ory depende nt area to
op.~rate within those constraints, t h at is, an area in which
, ,n
~
peop le opercit1 11t , with
J
c/,fl c, (:~1f-
theories can reac h agreement .
(Neither of the two reduct ion ist theories can adequately expla in
agreement and di~agreemen t
be tween people h ol ding different
of such a non-reductio nist account of
theor i esV_/)
observation an d theory would be that they are seen as both
u 11d_
social and individual - scienceA knowledge have
but they s
sooQI
elements
;;-l 1 1 occur at the individual level, they are both
f1lfd .
social ~nd ind iv idual products.
AA
similar account in all
o f free-will and determinism would see individuals as partly
4..
•
f r ee, a n d a s Pftly determined -
.
•
the latter determination
occ urri ng as constraints on individual action rather than as
29.
giving an area of completely determined action and another
different area of completely free action.
i,..J., £
~;(b) '1 he notion of freed(l.m and of a free society is A one
of the most important suffering from systematic ambiguity .
1
Each position defines the notion in accordanc e with its own
concept of individua l and society;
thus the capitalis t
position ck~hes freedom as the control by the individua l of
his own life (with appropria te safeguard s), the Marxist as the
con t rol by the collective or class of its own life and so on.
The non-reduc tionist position would reject the notions of
l,
'J C'{ ,r·1
freedom which each reduction position offers, and would see
1\,
the choice as involving
a false dichotomy .
According to
the non-reduc tionist position, to be free is to be free as
an individua l and also as a member of a community , to be able
to control one's own individua l life as an individua l, and
also to be able to act freely with others in controllin g and
determinin g the social framework .
;,<
'f.
¥-
-~ ---
~
~"I:-~
The false dichotomi es presented by the two-reduc tion
cire..
reason
positionsA clearly systemati c in nattire.
for them lies in a logical assumption and approach which is
com m on to both theories - the reduction positions are the
result of extension alism
'm. 2~te:rlalisrn ') in logic and
metaphysi cs,oper~ti ng both through the accounts of the subsidiary
n otion ~ and resul6~ . i n the the basic reduction position of
individua ls reduced to eleme nfr of
cul u,,,~ sorts of social wholes
versus social wholes as reduced to constructi ons out of
certain sorts of elements.
29 .
Those who do not appreciate that everything is connected to
everything else, and that relevant logic particularly is connected
to everything else, would probably be surprised to learn that the
basis of these false dichot.01les lies in logical theory.
The two
,{
reductionist positions apply in social theory a particular set of
reductionist doctrines a bot.ft the whole-part relation.
The individual reduction position which underlies basic capitalism
is that the whole is reduced to no more than the sum of its parts the parts are the thing and the whole i s a mere fiction or certain
sort of construction.
The opposite reduction holds that the whole is the thing and
that the parts are no more than components of the whole - the y have
no real function or role of their own except to make up the
whole.
This is of course the approach which matches the Marxist reduction
of individuals, and it results from buying~~l~same logical
assumptions about wholes and parts and applying the reduction move
in the opposite direction.
The logical assumption behind the reductionist approach is that
the social whole-part relation is extensional, as it is treated in
standard mereology.
<.? r o ./r:,.·_ .~"' '-··• ,.
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It is the seeing of th e whole~ part relation as extensional
which forces the choice be.tween seeing wholes as just aggregations
of parts, as on t he capitalist side, and seeing parts as j ust bits
of wholes, as on the Marx ist side.
If the relation
is extensional,
then one or the other reduction is inevitable, so th at someone who
w, she~ to reject one reduction, say the re duction of wholes to parts,
Cf!JD -fi,'j
is ob li ged to embrace the
one, the reduction of parts to wholes
so that the Marxist reduction of individuals is an outcome of sharing
s uch an extensional outlook.
With an intensional relation this choic e can be avoided, there
can be both wholes and parts, each with properties not reducible to
those of the oth er.
Consider;for example, the
/mplicational case
where we represent the proposition that A as the class of sta temen ts
implied by A, or equivalently the class of consequences of A.
Then if the notion of consequence is treated e xtensi onally, for
oF
example as material implication, the joint consequences ~ A & BJ that
r:F -1 i 42..,
is the consequences~ proposition {A
& B}
will just be the sum
of the separate con sequences of A and the separate consequences of B.
That is {A & B}
= {A} U {B},
or, in terms of wholes and parts, the
whole {A & B} is just the extensional sum of the parts {A} and {B},
and is therefore reducible t o it in a straightforward and common sense.
If on the other hand, the notion of cons£ },enc(;,. is treated
1
intensionally as in re levant implication, the n the joint conseque nces
of A & B exceed and are not reducible to the sum of the separate
consequences of A plus the separa te consequences of B.
That is
i'
B} · not just and can 11c: t be reduc ed to the
,'
The residue or
sum of its part~ proposition A and proposition B.
the whole proposition {A
&
difference between the joint consequences of A & Band the sum of
their s _e parate consequences might then cal led an emergent fea t ure; ·\ k __:-.
The relation between suc h
emergence results from intensionality.
reductionisrn · of the whole-part relation and extensional treatment
'
'
.1 Cr./) N,!/- , !f,dvhr//l-7
'/)_ft. ('.
. . J1l7'UJ
1
11
//i,c✓ t'1. d(c: -, {
l
•
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•
r:-.I /)c!tf.·c·.:JlA~/,-. 1/J)7
1.
of it is so close that the {A & B}
for the
~
= {A} U {B} feature is sufficient
•
of the whole,-_- '_part relation.
extensional~
In opposition
to this 1 it is possible to develop a theory for an intensional
whole_:-:._~ part relation in an intensional mereol og y which models the
whole ·-- -~part relation in terms of an intensional implication relation
such as entailment.
It would be rather surprising if the social whole ~~ part relation
.
--
,.,,.--
an extensional one which enabled simple summation except in
were
certain special cases.
It is after all rather well-known that people
can do in combination what they cannot do separately, not just in the
to
extensional sense in which they can sum their joint forces (e . g.
I
.
lift a rock), but al.so in the more important sense which is no~_
extensional in which what they can produce i n cc-mbination may be
far more than (and different from ) the sum of the separate efforts
of each (e.g. in writing a joint paper).
Such
emergence seems
especially to be a feature of activities which involve combined
inte nsion ~ __,.lity l as many activities which are characteristically
social seem to.
The simple reduction of social wholes to sums of individual
parts is the basic reduction of basic capitalism.
The position is
"({ f:t-•c·
,·1 ( , __
very important from a theoretical standpoint as the crucial r--e-l-e.v~nee
point for the understanding of other positions / .just as are the Basic
Reference Theory and Basic Empiricism to the understanding oV pos~tions
~
in epitemology
. and logic.
. 1,
However as with the Basic Reference Theory
and Basic Empiricism, the numerous difficulties the primitive form
encounters lead to many refinements, elaborations and extensions,
and there are few who now hold the basic primitive position.
The
reduction of social wholes to individuals view points is liberalised
correspondingly -
[thus it is no good identifying the position of
Jf.4.
capitalism with the primitive reduction and attaching t~at,
in the fashion of Bwnheirn. ref
J.
One lih.eralisrd reduction
position, which appears to correspond to the extension of
capitalism in Social !Je111ocracy, holds that social wholes can
be reduced through anal:'.{Sing them in ten:ns of a theory
concerning the assumed components and their interrelations.
Thus the reduction is liberalised hyond a simple whole-part one,
to provide a theoretical explanation and to take account of
yet furt her features of wholes in terms of th e behaviour and
interrelations of their compon e nts.
Such a th eo ry would
however be extensional, in accordance with the usual assumptions
motivating this kind of reduction, so that the essential,
non-reducible emergent features of the social will still be
missed.
The reduction - although i t will be ab le to take
account of a more complex set of interrelations, between
comp onents, will con tinue to be inadeouate and to leaitimise
/\ (::,
an impoverished version of communal life "orns ~ ".'here is
·'
j
strong logical case that such reductions cannot be made.
This
~
is provided by such results as I] rrow' s the:erem ancl.
pa ral lel results in voting theory. *
The fact oi complex
interdependence between the individual and the social whole
also provides a strong prima facie case against a reduction,
since if some characteristics o ~ individuals depend essentially
on the social whole, the latter obviously plays an irreducible
role.
But some characteristics of individuals do seem to
depend on and be modified by the social framework,
tn the same
vwy that the growth and species composition of the plants in a
f)'lic<O
rainforest is modified by a partly determined by the
. climate
,\
*
~
See P.ou t.ley [
J'
)The Impossibi lity of General
ionist Social Theory.'
1\
Reduct-
and other matters which a r e determ ined by the biolo g ical
commun it y .
The irredu cibilit y of the social , of soci al levels
of exp lanatio n and occ urrenc e seems to parall el very closely
~
the irr e duc l bi li ty of th e i.n tension al, and th e relat ed
i rred ucibil ity of non-re ferenti al to refer e ntial occ urrenc es
el the irredu cibilit v,. of commun a l
in semant ics. seems to narall
)
life forms to individ ual life forms .
The
non-re ducti onist
t he sis in logic and metaph ysics, that objects have b oth
e xten sion al and irreduc ible int e nsiona l prooer ties,
. l;t -{
I,
I
"~'i
oarall els in a Away that the non-re ductio nist thesis in
social theory , that the proper ties of individ uals are
determ ined by both individ ual and irreduc ible social
forces, that is, are both individ u a l a nd social.
There
seems in fact to be a close and direct conn e ction betwee n
the social and the int ension al - as we noted earlie r,
on l y
intensi onal relatio ns between the i ndivi dua l and
the commun ity seem t o be ab le to c apture the e me r~en t
feature s which charac teri.se the social.
It seems impo ssibl e
to charac terise the notion of a social commun ity withou t
.~) ~ \ .'...,-' . ..J
appeal ing t o inte n sional notions - .~ ims, shared p r op os es ,
shared commu nication and sha red values .
Not a ll int ensio n al
not ions are related to th e so c ia l of course , but if some
are essent ial to it , as we have s uggeste d, then the d e ni a l
or reducti on of the i nt e nsiona l, on e of th e l eadi n g thesis
of the lo g ical and metaph ysical theorie s as s o c i a t ed with
empiric ism, is the denial or reducti on of the basis of the
social .
The proble ms and positi ons relati ng to th e attenp ted
so
reduc tion of the intens ional to the exte nsion al parall e l
closel y and str,i,.. l<ingly
those relati ng to the attemp ted
reduc tion of the socia l to the indi vi- -dual that it is
tempti ng
to conclu de that they are in fact differ ent aspec ts of the
ons
sawe positi ons, that such interr elated pro bl ems and positi
reapp earing in differ ent areas form a world view.
:!?or a
o fte n
worke r in the mode1-n. philos ophic al produ ction line, it is
diffic ult to see where and how the little piece of the puzzle
he is workin g on fits in to the who le.
*
And as Smal le n.t.p .f :ound ,
journe ys of inqu iry to discov er conne ctions and overa ll
signif icanc e are not encou raged.
It becom es possib le to see
er s
as little more than a coinci dence the fact that the found
of emp iricis m and of its logica l count erpart ~ the Refere nce
-4:,..--
Theory ;,
*
Locke , Hume , :"'!il l, and so on-r were also the found ers
Refere n c e
Smal l creep 's Day.
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of the reductionist social ideo logy of capitalism.
We suggest that it is not a coincidence, and that the
following rough connections and correspondences hold which
provide mappings between positions in different areas of
intensional (in logic)- non-
philosophy:
referential (in semantics)
- theoretical (in philosophy of
( 0
- extensional (in logic) -
/t,
v-J!,J Jl
t:t
I
A referential
science) - social ( in social theory) j
observational (philosophy of
individual (in social theory).
science)
( in semantics)-
Some of the
routes connecting these concepts are fairly clear, others are
less so.
Some of them, for example the epistemological-logical
connections, are elucidated in
Beyond
]
~ ~ ploring ~einong's Jungle and
.
These correspondences give rise to the table on the
previous page.
This table should not be read as indicating
that people who hold one of the positions on the line hold
the others, or even that they logically should.
For first most
/
of the connections have been overlooked, especially in
this century, and second, the positions do not even ehtail
one another because the
ronnecting links are suppressed; and
these , even if logically necessary, may be rejected by peGple
who hold one but not another position in the line.
Positions
do however form closely linked ways of looking at the world they are world views.
~~st of the positions can be seen as modifications of or
responses to~l
, the basic reference world view position,
within its own intellectual framework.
This is especially true
o f 1 's conventional ~pponent, Marxist socialism.
In 3,
the necessity and rationale for the ~arxist converse reduction
is created by the acceptance of the main intellectual apparatus of
the basic individual reductionist worldview, and ~~arxism
challenges ea! i talisrn very
intellectual framework.
·1tHtd1
from within its own
In contrast postion 5, the non-
reductionist position, challenges 1 from a auite different
s tandpo in t.
The table should make it possible to distinguish clearly
between two positions which, although entirely different, might
on some theories (e.g. a r~arxist thecry) run some risk of
confusion, that is, between the Libertarian Socialist position
and the Social Democratic one.
The difference parallels
that between .the Fregean Double Referenre theory and the
non-reductionist position regarding intensionality.
Social
De mocracy must be seen as an liberalisation or extension
of basic capitalism, in the same way that the Double Reference
theory is an extension of the Reference Theory which enables
it to take account, albeit in a quite inadequate way, of
much further material which the basic Referenm Theory cannot
,-
.. ! ,..
handle.
~
.
:> t•(
·f\
t1•~ l
..J,.J.._
.,,.._ ..;· '
! ,·, '· /
This is done through setting. up individualised substitutes
fo;-- communal life forms,
usually through the medium o:f so-called
w-
~epresentative' or 'public' individualp institutions
which control the 'publid sector and much of the social
framework.
,';',i I ~!.:'•
.I
Given an individual reduction1),...(such as that of
Mill, the major theorist of representative government)
such
representativeness appears inevitable, the only possible and
logical way to handle communal life forms insofaras they can
exist at all.
is far
From the standpoint of a different theory, it
from inevitable; and the increasing destruction of
communal life forms in :f:avour of such 'public' ones is dama g ing,
impoverishing, and leads to great concentration of power.
Social Democracy operates normally with a capitalist basis
and grafts the 'public' sector on as an extension J just as the
Double Re f erence theory operates with the Reference Theory for
the normal case and extends the theory to d ea l with difficult
cases.
The Double Reference Theory employs a substitute
reference, the sense, for cases whe re the
will not work, just as Social Democracy employs substitute
individuals to represent community life forms for cases where a
purely 'private' approach does not work.
sense, is treated as a
The second mode, the
further sort of reference, just
as the 'public' sector in Social Democracy is treated as a
f urther sort of individual life form.
Both these positions
extend and liberalize the reduction of the basic position,
rather than providing a genuine alternative to it.
)'I.
How do the reductions connect with the basic position
.. of each theory? -----,
I
l_
/--------✓
~- Each position uses its reduction
to vindicate
i t's own vision of a satisfactory societ~_L,{'~he capitalist
30.
-
reduction..---_:-· to-individuals position vindi cates capilalist
' .
society through the following
CJ1'v
'
j\,
/v
I
-
Ayn Bandish type of argument:-
If individuals are entirely self-made, and none of
their properties are the result of the social framework, then
the fact that some people are superior to others in certain
respec ts must simply be due to their being inherently superior
individuals in those respects.
But if some individuals, by
being more able than others, are able to acquire more power or
more advantages for themselves, this is only right and
( C? 1,'f-isrn)
Such inequality is unjust to no one, and
prope~.
I\
the result is the admirable one that the better are better
rewarded and have more control over the shape of society.
w, #1
Th~s the individualist reduction lead~ only a
AH.:,.
l\
with few further assumptions which not implausible, to a
/\
position justi fyi ng inequality of power ..
The Marxist position, equally, uses its reduction to
vindicate
,ts
vision of the social order, as one in which
the individual can express himself or exercise power only through
participation in the whole, the collectivity.
Individuals can,
in this soDq( and especially~ economic order, exercise n~
power as individuals, and power is held only by the collective,
or class o rganisation .
In contrast to these positions of inequality of power
for the .individual on the one side, and of no power for the
individual as such, on the other side, the non- reduc tionist
theory co rresponds to a position of equality of power for
individuals, both as individuals 9 n~ through the social framework.
In its vision of the good society, individuals have
equal power to determine the social framework, and equal
power to control thsir own lives at the individual level .
The social frame(,J c•rk 1 for example insti tutions1 should allow
31.
life and deve lop
each indiv idua l to maxi mize cont rol of his own
comm unal
his own disti nct pote ntial , as well as optim ise
pote ntial .
ccftr ol of comm unal life is commLJJl._~3 1, o.tic:l. that
of indiv id ual life is indiv idua l.
l
Capi talis m is view ed as a disto rtion of indiv idua
The oppo site
uctio nism .
life forms whic h is impo sed by indiv idua l-redA.>hrll'o
,,.1-,,:t._
c
JJ
,•
6 · c i.l(,,t ( [nr.n:n,t:;,.J (dfi'f( ,:,..- /i h - f/,('_ h.·t ·fto abs orb th e
pt\
attem
1
rrti~~J?
h
whic
es a disto rtion
r\
redu ction prod~
A
~+·
1
renc es in goQI~
indiv idua l comp letel y, to swal lo~ up, deny diffe
and need s.
This is an equal . dist o rt ion.
iced
The disto rtion s have some para llel wi t ~ othe ~not
in rece nt w
~1
Cing .
For exam ple / there is a para llel with the
and oppo site
forci ng of peop le's char acter s into disto rted
the m expr essio n,
sex role stere otyp e s whic h frus trate and deny
thei r lives .
and impo veris h and limi t thei r oppo rtuni ties and
force d by the
Ther e is a para llel also with the disto rtion s
In the
d.
sepa ratio n of sexu ality and love notic ed by Freu
that the
same way the non- redu ction ist posi tion woul d hold
t were ove rcom e
good socie ty could be acA1e..,.: e cl only if the spli
and the two sides reun ited:-\
~~~•·:~~"gl~c
i :~i:i~u :~\:~ '
~~~•h
:~ · ,, , .
- -~ f\
s, and part of a
disti nct 'self ' with disti nct need s and goal
,.,. . .
.,,._~ I . .
\vr. J. • r .}
,' / , . . , ,.: , . _ ,7 ;,t '
Both must be r ecogn ise d
comm unity with common need s and goal s.
,\
IJ
/. •·
t -' I'
j
1
in the struc ture of the s ocie ty.
up some
Such a non- redu ction ist posi tion can then take
redu ction of the data that each side uses to supp ort its
with out howe ver
redu ction .
1,1cui- t i ~
J_
___
t he pena l ties impo sed by the
Thus it can claim s~pe rior expl anato ry powe r.
as we have
For exam ple, the non- redu ction ist posi ti o n can
s of each othe r,
po i nte d out, acce pt each side~ basic criti cisma11c{
-, also thei r
it can re cogn ise the claim s of the indiv idua ls I
.
limi tatio ns.
limi tatio ns , an d the claim s of the soci al its
d criti que.
It can admi t th e va l idity of much Marx ist-in spire
32 .
For instance , it can agree that in capitalism people are
frequently unaware of the real social determinants of their
actions and values a nd see as free choices on the individual
level what are in fact determined at the framework level.
It can agree that the utility of the invisibility of the
manipulated social framework to capitalism is to dis~uise the
existence of other options and make a situation~ which is to
the advantage of so~e gr oups, appear necessary or ine scapable ,
~
*
or to the advantage~and chosen by all.
This is however
not evidence for the Marxist theory as opposed to th e nonreductionist theory which it supports just as well or better/
1
a nd it does not show that there is no such thin g as free
individual choic e .
S imil arly most of the valuabl e part of
the Marxist critique of capitalism can be seen as evidence
for the lack of re al communal control at the social framework level, rather than as .,or··· supporting the thesis ~hat that
N,·11
/Je_: on!_y level on which anythi n r; really occurs.
is
Thus also
the t heury can take accou nt of classes without bein~ stuck
with the ~l g iditi es and difficulties of a class reduction
or a class view of history .
., ,1, ·; ..\
•~ ~
'
I\'-\
\
~~
Class explanations for ind ividual action can be
used where they a.re required, but individual
aL.+1cr1
C<.H
o.lso
be reco gnized and there is no need to explain all the a. r:t ions
of in di v i cl u a 1 s in his t or y
forces and so on .
,1
s u 1 t j_ mat e 1 y the pro c/cL d
of c 1 as s
Such a theory can also provide t h e basis
for - what is lacking in Marxist theory -
* For documentation of this thesis, see
Conscio usness .
t
Captains of
Thus also some, but not all, of the
>.I...
Marxist critµq~ of the last twenty years remains of
value to the non-reductionist position .
32.1
a critique of socia l Democracy which distinguis hes i t
clearly from Basic ( apitalism .
Th e majo r the oretical
feature of ,ocial Democracy is th e attemnt to take
account of communal LLfe for rns and other cases wh1 eh
obviously cannot be accoun ted for adequately in basic
capitalism , in terms of an individua l subs tit w~s for
them-as in the ' publ ic' sector , Governmen t by represent ative
A Marxist-ty pe theory cannot take
individua ls , and so on.
adequate account of this individua lisation , because it is
committed to seeing all the actions of individua ls as
represent ative of class forces, so that the indivi dual ' captt!Ye '
of social life fo rms in Social Democracy ' becomes for
them just their capture by various class forces.
measures bt.d'('t<Gtcratic
'
fv4:.,/c,i;a-n..
The welfare
and so on of Social
J
'
Democracy must they be written down as cynical manoevres
by the capitalis t with th e intention of keeping the working
J.t ,u/._
classes quie t removin~ obvious sources of grievance , while
I\
' public ' sector activity is seen as merelJ
re~ulatory for caoitalism .
This may be an aspect, but it
is not adequate as an a nal ysis .
In reassessin g the Marxist critique in the light
of the non-reduc tionist positio n, it is crucial to
distinguis h , as the Marxist critique Joes not, between
individua l reductioni sm a n d individua lism, in the broader
sense of the recognitio n of individua ls and distinct nonreducible individua l life forms .
Privatisat ion , Elitism ,
Encroachin g Individ ua li sm , etc. , the way in which what
people can choose to consume, produce, and do , is g overned
at the framework level by the machinery of
33.
private profits, th e great inequalities of power an d of
wearth
resulting from that - all these are prod ucts of
Individual reductionism, not of individualism as such .
r.Jr.{. p.: r
Jl
;'/f .
jt:..
;--
,¥-
'Jf-
-~
.,>f'....
A'--.
.;i«:
From a~philoso p hical viewpoint the reduction positions
have their bas i s i n a part icular,and ~~dequate,but widespread
logical and me taphy s ical theory.
It would be surprising
--...,_
how ever if these b a sic redrutions, wh oi~ distor.___.,.tions underlie
n_ early all tHcc/.r,,r,1_
social thought, originated entirely i n
a particular logic al theory .
The logical theories ct.U--rt:,z. t at a
particular time indirectly reflect social values and
intellectual currents a t
that time, like every other sort of
theory, and do not stand in some unique way above and
beyond them.
If a different kind of logic has been needed,
it would probably have been developed.
The prev~knL c
of this now established logical theory may explain why few
now see through the reductions, but it does not entirely explain
why they we r e developed.
A / "" J'&"'
/.~r</'~·- ,i(1/"7°
of reasons for the overlooking
of the non-reductionist position lies in a s et of SC'C;r -··
•
( di;,,,1.,':r; fu;.__ t[ !{~.,- -✓ ..1.f;, ,1 0-k d',c.__ l -,- t;, ,1.,/-(;/(_)
• .
economic assumptions,\ common to the red_u ction posit.ions.
p o.r..11½; 1 ,
'-
1
Our confidence that the non-reductionist position was a ~eal and
A'
not merely a theoretical pos s ib li ty or utopi aJt'f'aritcdJ; lay
in
the fact that the tribal societies we considered in the early
part of the pape r had a structure which enabled Individualism
a nd some individual economic actively to
munal ly-controlle d social framework.
with a u -n1.-
Such societies clearly
had structural features which meant that t hey did not have to
make the U.Yt.palatable choice between the o prc) .S. ·ing disto :.:-tions
o f totally collective o r totally individualisti c..
life.
control of
There are other advantageous characteristics also which
(>-,l.. fl'/
are common to such socie t ies, L/1.d racteristics which
('
34.
sophisticated ~0cttd
despite the rising
d eM•cracies to-day seek, but which
~DP
and the 'high standard of living', which
is supposed to provide justice and the good life for all / always
The l ow level of environ-
seem to be further off than before .
~" 1 P-,
r,y
mental d e struction cl /\ t-r; ~u(
conscious life-style) ·
'·'-·~
and the environmenta lly-
src;~{~i;.1
-_ . frctture.~ which ha~( often been noticed,
t-... s
ha l~? the almost total lack of in ;.,~uali ty and poverty-' the
")...•'-·◄ }'-'- \,._:, \ '-,__-\
V·' ,:.
c.l-11,·, ·,•-7'
high level of equa1, ·7 of power and relative lack of ~e\fe-r-R-me-Ft-t-r ,..._
domination; the considerable level of leisure
( o fte:ri, as SaA/eAl .f . /1 as pointed out, greater than that in modern
western
societies) and the frequerlly rich cultural
and
communal l ife [Ref. Sahlens?].
These features have been attributed to various things th e..
low level of technology, the communal living feature,
the
hunting -- 3ei fttc;..ing life- s-fJ Jc: and the norn a ti ic life ,~hich was
1
The first we can definitely ru le
out.
The mountain forests of Gr e ece were destroyed, the Middleof its rich topsoil
and stri_: ppped of J1'HidZ
by erosion,
(r e f . Lowdermilk~b y a people with a 7 uite low
(9
1 e v e l o:E technology by
u,..;---
QWa
standards, who also had a culture
:). .,.._J.._
which was Mark .ea by great inequality -e-:r en s/cpJ<.:'...-.me nt.
...(_., \ ,.''1-/·,
,,_: ..
Living
,Jt ;. d , 1)\ -(_
\. \ l ,y
r ant e es/\ th e se features, as
by no means gua
..
a/
modern cities demonstrate · &Fra the success of communism appears
.I
t.t.
c (J'(t t:< ( --1~1.rl; ,Je__ i
I\
to be a consequentia l rather than;\. wh ile the
no roadie life
{;,Jic-<.u;f,:tl
with the hunting/gath ering
,:S;
style cannot be the whole story
~(J """'-
t{
7 I\
YI L ~
some societies which
gardened also had or have I' these features
feature seems to be one
Th! f~
)
(e.g. Melanesia).
of soC;Ct( structure.
if t ·;-ut:-}s very good ner~,d for us, because we can hope
to work for a di f ferent so C~Q/
structure, whereas we cannot
r e alistically hope to obtain a collective
and arrow, the woo :1en
\t-1()-(_ ' .
return to the bow
or the hunting-gath ering way of life•
;
35
The structural feature which makes possible th e
combination of collectivity and individuality and the other
>v,v'-(
,,
attr active features of tribal life, is, we suggest, the fact
that the dominant mod e of production in su ch societies is that
the producer of an item is, in general, also the person or group
who uses or consumes it.
People produce for their own needs,
It
and not , in general, for other people or for exchaDg_~. -
is this feature which makes it possible for tribal people to
live in a collective framework which is nevertheless not
----
oppressive to · individuality, for while the structure is collect-
,..,,...--
, , - - -----··-
i vely determined and '\::ollecti vely h e l ~ ~ land, for ~~~_p_le_-,)
·h•. ri 1 fr: 11n .~, ('... ·i ht., ; r (' \:: n.
their own
it is p ossible for individuals or groups 1.\ needs,set
.
I
goo , s,
and how best to pursue them.
J(\I
This featureApr~ t-~ -cons umer identitv ; is in fact
a feature which i s closely associated with, or even necessary
to, a hunting-gathering way of life, but it is not
confined to such a
of life
(that is , it is not af s0
su ff icient
f or it) .
l1t{J I(.
C'lt
The condition of producer-consumer identity oJ the/\ ckn ..:.r~f\;-/, f, ·<.
\S
-
dominant)mode of produ -~tion~ the condition upon which the
,
.
socJ~ty which is self-managed at
all levels can be obtained.
When production and consumption become S'e/!).Jr. f .;_ ,L and production
f o r other people's :n:eds becomes the dominant mode of production,
the choice between private or individual control of the means
of production,or collective contr~= l/is forced on us
and we are back again to
ec,t
other th an the producer mvst
r u npalatable choices.
~~n
.?om~ody·
control production, decide
and organise what will be produced and used, and control
~ r,\~+-t (-1
,ml;; l;.r c ('
other people's labour.
/
Whether the 'somebody'
is
l
an individual or group of individuals ( as in CC/< ·fl{ 1t ·1 ;,,l· )
Cc,rnintu1t,t j
et
,
or
class collectively deciding what will be produced
and how, we have the situation where not all individ uals can
a_.
36.
determine their
. ctol\.
what it produces.
distinct needs or control tried- CLC•\
Iv 110,,.r
- and
A.
The separation of production CinrL
consumptio n then forces the choices which underlie the
reductions and distortion s of capitalism and Marxism, and
the resulting split between the individua l as
Hte
separate and
individua l 21.s a mQmbt:?.-t· of a community .
Capitalism and Marxist socialism have in common a
commitmen t to this separation o f production and consumpti on,
di ,ht_,,,1 r•r
\ fragmenta tion of lcJJc,lr which reac_h ~s its
resulting;
and to the
highest pitch . in the production line sys tems of modern
indu,stry.
Such systems of production were of course devised ancl
implement ed first by capitalis ts, but were, as we know f~m
Marx's works, greatly admired by Marx, who saw them as necessary
to lift humanity f rom its previous condition of rural i db cy.
{ ~~eals itself clearly
In this respect the Marxist posi tio~·';I\
as accepting a great deal of the intellectu al and eronomic
framework o f c ~pitalism . )
I
I
The positive Marxist attj tud~
\
to the fragmentat ~on
of labour is not just an optional extra tacked onto the
theory because of Marx's own personal prejudice s.
It is a
feature of the theory, which basically views proauction in a fragmented way.
*The
theory arose
*
The Marxist picture of the tota i
h~torical l y arnong1 and was supported
primarily byJ the labour forces engaged in fragmented production
in capitalis t enterpris es, rather than among independe nt workers.
dependenc e of each individua l element on the other elements of
the whole obviously is closely connected with a model of pro-
d(cf.;.:. ,~
b.,.l c ,1
7
37.
ducers.
The reduction positions appear in fact to be
very closely connected with the way in which production
l' IGH•; :/
is A
andfupecia lly with the attitudes to the fragmenta tion
for the Marxist reduction of individual to ~
of labour;
of a class or collectivi~
C.:i . ._ ~-
derives its motivation precisely
from the acceptance of the capitalist production t<PP«rat~s .
For the fragmentation of labour means that what the individual
worker does makes sense only in the context of the total
production of the collective.
,~}<
Thus · the capitalist and Marxist both share a vision
of work in terms of the production /i;1c, but interpret it
differently.
(The production line is an excellent repres-
entation of the dominance of the fragmentation of labour,
the assumption which both the reductionist positions accept)
The capitalist view
is
production line
o:f the
for the purpose of production)of the workers or operators
/
extensions of the machines - their goals , their
intentio ns are irrelevant, they are not part of the production.
The object
of the production line system~to be understood
in terms of t he qoals of the Q,;,,,~-e~~--t ov;;:\h~f
~
A
t~~~~~,~;
of the goods.
'rhese are of course the characteristics of capitalist society
and especially of typical work in capitalist society.
Work is
((\:. ~, meaningless, directed from above by someone else ,
goals are external, to be understood in terms of the goals
of individual capitalists or consumers)
c\ c~ (~.,... J.
I}:-
b,___,. f'--.i'. r;L ~~ c:-~,.Js•.•
The Marxist also has a production line image, but
for him the work of the production line, which is not
meaningful when each worker is viewed in isolation, c a n be
understood in terms of the goal of the totality of wor kers.
Each individual can make only a part of the ~hole, and everyone
is needed to make the whole ,tern.
/1
i :·:.,-:v--.\,·,__l ~
v
~
Work is mechanical, so
38.
there is no place for individual differences and so on.
There is plainly no place for 'individualism' in any shape or
f
.
1 1.ne.
.
t
_..:orrn
on th. e pro d uction
Mind,
rh e
.
i
.
mind,
b1e
goa 1 , is
a C1 ass
1
to the workers on the production line.
purpose of production must be viewed
e n f, ;-(~.I
,,,,
1
The
terms
''J
/1 u.r/1(> f C
sha r ed
or goal of the whole group.
k-
But for those of us who regard the production line
as a degraded and distorted form of labou~, to empl'?y ,-~~eh .·. _ ). __
(u.-1,~( c \.\ ' ,1
<I
; ~(I_
c,u,un,.,, (,,(,,~,
d
J,. /l(' y_, (-·.{4l'
c:.. \
---
'
an image as the model of product io n and of society;\ is simply('.'' 1.T:'--~:'.L.:·
amazing!
For these are precisely the characteristics that
make the production line an detested and oppressive form of
work.
The image - like the assumption of the ffrl-1"- Jmentation
o f labour itself -:- betrays the basic capitalist origins of th e
Marxist social model extremely clearly.
In this as in other
respects much Marxist thought is the basf :..ril..
capitalist parents.
child of
For the fragmentation of labour seen in
one form in the production line was set up by cap i talists
for their own b e nefit, and is neither more rewarding for
the workers, or More productive for the consumers, than other
forms of work.
The non-reductionist position would simply reject the
{Ill
model o f work or of society,
production l i ne asAappropriate
Si nce the production line is not a form of work in which the
1,.._, .... ,c
h
1>\-\~-1.. \
individual worker has (\ control - it is ,,the form in which he
.
·1 ~ ~_:Sy,"s. ~has J...l..t..t..1..-~ ~r--=ne- control.
The image of production, the non-
reductionist position would employ would be that of a person or group of persons - making something f or hi .s
0UJ1L
o. se.
The work is purposeful and not undertaken for external
re Lc,·cu l-L
or exchange/the goals are inter l\t<
producing a whole piece of work.
!
I.
The worker~
If he is working with a
?Np/,_
group of people, some differentAp1ay be doing different parts
of the task, but all the work ers will share in the final product.
_\,;
.
(.
39.
In the non-reductionist position the intention or
purpose of the work is ~ - that of the individual workers,
that is~work is viewed in an intentional rather than in an
mechanical way.
Here is another important source of the
reductionist positions which lies in the treatment of
intensionality.
cc,nJ1'cfL?,.r
If
WE\ work
a:. s
relation between the maker and the
c.c
made_, the three positions come out as follows:
the relation between the individual
1. Capitalist:
worker and the made object is not a ~®WHXfMi purposeful one,
the purpose is someone else 's.
In short the maker - made
relation is rna.cl1r7t, n,\::o( , and extensional.
The hired worker
is an extension of the machine and th e purpose or int en tion
'1--\l \ _.::,.·1
of the work is exter-te-€d to it.
2.
Marxist:
the relation between the individual
worker and the made object is still seen as not purposeful,
the purpose is in the w_tio l_s?. production line, the society.
The maker - made relation, as such, is still viewed as
extensional.
3.
3rd position:
the relation between the maker and
t he made is inteniional, it is purposeful, the goal is
directly in the work itself.
What differenh~t r
work (e.g. under take n by a machine)
mechanical
and meaningful work is
t he lack of intention in case of the former.
The relation
between t he creat iJe artist and what he makes - the only
Ui!t-
- sort o.fl\ in which capitalism admits this k1',1 cL of
intentionality - is the ~ypical work
A designs B _1
A
case ♦
The model is:
creates B.
If the mechaniqal, extensional picture of the maker/
made relation is to be rejected, along with the unpalatable
l
reductionist choices which it creates, : it is essential to
4 0.
i~fuse the individual worker back again into the picture as
the creator and designer of whole objects, as the initiator anA.
goal setter of h i s own work.
This implies a theory which
recognises irreducible individual life forms, and thus again,
The fact that the
a theory which is not Marxist in character .
commitment to the fragmentation of l.a.bour cannot be dropped
J.:.f h 1,;..,.. 1.,~t /
from Marxist theory without ft eornplet~ reconstruction (so
great as to render it no longer a Marxist theory) means that
the Marxist position is, from the environmental point of view,
At bottom it buys the same production apparatus
a dead-- end.
c..:,.
an-a- capitalism, and therefore it can be expected that, even
if the management of the firm is changed,
it
w i 11 turn .
out essentially the same line of go~ds.
y,,u~(! ,t ( l)J.Y
l~-r
b411c or ( Acl-1<1.:l; n· ·,!i'c..
the ,\
as
Producer-consumer identity'>.
O:'
b~ Ii
d, ,,rf) /
mode of
production does not of course mean that every individual
produces everything he needs for himself entirely on his
It means that people produce for their own needs,
own.
in the combinations they choose.
Individuals could of
course do so, and some harct-.Y soul s
no doubt would want to;
provided that they do not interfere with other people's
equal entitlements or use more than their fair share of
(';'{ IJ .,./.i (Lk,,1:.§
production-land or other commu~~( resources, there is no
'\
reason why they should not.
Many more pe o.ple, given free
choice in the matter, would probably want to produce some
I
for their own or their households use~and
some in common work with others for common needs or interests.
/thittZ.--
S ince
some activities are more bothAefficient
and more enjoyably done with other people, and some are less
r ,1 1 (Ji
h~
so, it ee-e4-d be expected that most people would work in a mixed
system of individual
(I
M
c cllei: I , iN.
or communal work ) perhaps
varying the combintions at different stages of their lives.
/\
41.
But there is a great deal of individual variation in the
degree of contact with other people that is
~~~¥iN~
pleasing.
Some people at the other end of the spectrum might want to do
everything in conjunction with other people.
What is essential
however/ if the combinations are to be freely chosen, is that
the individual option should be open.
Freedom and independence
is enhanced rather than destroyed by Choosing to work with
others,
b~t
such a choice is free only if there is an option.
People do not control their own lives if they cannot set
their own goals and determine their own needs, choose what to
work o n, with whom and when, how mu ch contact with other·
people is op t imal, and so forth.
Real control of one's life
would be impossible .in a system which envisaged only
most
collective or communal production, as m0sxx~MiXMXX
alternatives to capitalism do.
The option o f individual
,, /I
production, even if it should t urn out that it was not of t en ft;, ._,}
used, is essential to ensure that people remained
in control of their own lives
~~~~~i~~
in crucial respects.
We have already suggested that a s oc iety in which DIY as the
c/1.Cttiu._ (u; 1tic. n-:
ode of production would have the conditions which are
necessary for and wo uld tend to lead to a truly free s o ciety, one
1
all levels both the oellcctive and the
which was self-managed at /
and the principle
individual ., To complete the conditions self management
.
~
of DIY must of course extend a lso through the rest of the institutional
Ivan Illich has made a substantial start on suggesting
strudure.
what some self-managed in'i hfv1.l,c'iir
might be like, and on exposing the
institutions they are to replace~ although
structure of the existing
ct.,_!\.- t-he seems to lack a f\ vision of how they fit into a larger framework.
This is
not the only area ill which DIY would appear to deliver a
superior society;
t h ere are many ot h ers,
1 d
·
. t o concen t ra t e
but we 1nten
At the production
here on those relevant to environmental issues.
level the basic features of such society have already been suggested
A c ommuna/ly control l ed infrastructure would
by a number of people.
provi de t he basis for prod uction of common basic needs and make
these available on a fair basis to any individuals or gro ups who
,,
to use them to produce for their own needs.
wished
__,,
We want to stress
that DIY is not a proposal for a return to a primitive life-style,
,·
1r
1 1
abandonment of technology, endless hours of grinding labour as a
ff /)J y fou "e.~ eu>4..ld ;-i f1t.d- 6rL. ~ '/,"1TQ_ -fad>t(JtliJILCto/ .!'of>,U.d,c~t. k)<...ie.-J:J. It wo>1.h/
of course involve and
subsi~te~c-~ _fa'.·1ne~>and so forth.).
_
,Jre.,·.:,,.J{..r- ,1c;.,__ /t!(i __,-!)._/ ,: L1,. t.J.l ~ , 7J,.,_,-J. if1..<- ifti ~------ ------------ - - ----- - - -
d.,Pi-e.f"Tl11..-t
result in a ·a ifferent life-styl~ a Akind of technolo gy1 and a different
kind of ap proach to work.
d ;l, ,,,'\
beneficial.
Moit of these changes would appe3r to be
/ , f:. ( ~j
!l e.(
For example most peof~le could provide for theh- _l~c:l.__§_~c
I
/\
1i·J1 '.7. standard in a more satisfqctory way than at present, with perhaps
1
li, f, ,·
. l l
-.
,-.,,,{_
4 hours
..jk'V'{_l, .,-..i)
1 l· 1:,· ,:.:,./J
/i..(
f t, za•I I
J
';,._.,• /-4..
per day of work, and probably 1-ers--S;,/as nt.Dre appropriate
technology develops and for people wh o work in larger communal groups.
1
The typical feature of solutions to the problem in our society or
Marxist soci ety is that~o nesolves one set of problems by creating
a nother . oft~n more formR-ble , e. ._~· as one 'sol v:es' . the p~oblern of
pciJt.:.r~ y . · in a rather inadequate way by utc,cdi 1-y cm environmental
This £eatur~ is avoided to a reasonable
probl~rns or some o t her problem.
further problems created appear much
the
where
system,
DIY
a
in
t
ext e n
that in the or y constructt_on parallels
The situation
less formibl e .
thi~almost invariab~ ~
of
kind
t
th
eory
th
wrong
where on~ has the
or equally bad one
hap!?3ns, a problem resolved in one area :r.eapr:ears as a worse
B
(2)
A crucial question for a DIY society is:
sort of s ub s titu t ion s of labour can be made?
what
A be ginnin g
on answering this question is s u ggested by construin g
sub s t i tut ion ·~ -.-the. __ s..ub s t i _t _1Jt,j__prl' as the s u b s t it i on of an
·~
equivale nt economic oroduct.
Thus su bstitui
on in
,f-
economics parallels and reflects identity theory in logic.
[Expla in ~it uation in identity theory and intensional
lo g ic].
The DIY economic system will plainly re q uire
much greater r estriction on substitutivity of identic als ,
j ust as i t s corresponding intensional logical counterpart
does.
In contrast the economic theory of the existing
system can be seen as extensional, it allows un restricted
substitutio n, and the same way it leaves a hu~e range of
important factors out of acc ount which are taken account of
without diff i culty in a n in tensional system.
Unrestricted
exchange (or substitution) and the associated division of
labour c reates these difficulties , in part thr ou gh the
(!f,
t rans fer of costs of product i ~ and be n e Lit s from
consumption onto different par t ies, and in part through
the fact t hat equivalent products~ in the weaker sense of
the standard economic theory may !:1~?_!;_ be eq uiv alent in
social and environmental respects .
1V\ •·-
c(; ~1
'-'
Moves such as environmental
t:.___,
p ricin g are i G . ~ efforts to qualify such substituU.on.
B.
The most important de fections from pure DIY lie in
qualLfied s ub stitutio ns, s ubs titut io n of on e pe r t:;on ' s
labou r for a nother' s in particular.
Labour exchan ge i s
admissible provided it does not int erfere with o th er
va lu es , e. g . does not dest r oy o r things the co mm unit y val ues.
C 11
rrhe restrictions~ substitution may profitably be comp ,1,red
with th ose in extens ional identity , whi ch excl ud e int e n sional
conte~t-s as ille gi tima te for sub s titution.,e-x-tensimLo.i'
i n d i..v i d-u.al--m-e-an-S
I
Such an estimate would presuppose retaining some limited kinds
,vI 1 J · / •
•'
it\)
of
lar :)J t · -· :,:tc./L.
','\ production, perhaps communally owned., and operated perhaps
by those who would use the product~or by people working on a
\storage' system, for example, the mass production of cheap durable
Cc,--
NPl
basic clothing and housing as proposed tn ._~topia. __Jro suggest that
hi/J ,~ <.,,., <-l1u.,/r..(,{.:. -1(ft(c_,
/"<.rlcv-.__ • e/
DI Y should be the\
v
·
mode o~ production is also not to suggest
1
1 Vil\ " ~l ~-, ?- bLe__
that it should be the -~-- -- _,__ ·- - . mode of productioni
the system
;: ,;,n
J)}
/t<.J<..
j
can be liberalised, to allow for some limited kinds of exchange
1\
production and some limited kinds of free communal productio~without
destroying its overall character, in the same way that the present
system allows for certain limited kinds of DIY -
'Do-it-yourself' -
product ion without lo..s.ing its overall character as a system of exchange
f.rJJ .-· _
:;;) The'. Dr.'/ tf -~ fc,,11... /"" l ~ 1f,;
production.
~A could also/be extended
to allow people who
wished to concentrate heavily on some project and needed a lot of free
!1·11,~J
time to 'store' basic
credits o ver a time period.
For example,,
u ,:,ii(:/\_
in 'Communita s' ;
. ,"
A in the late 1940' s/'Paul Goodman estimated that ;;-
+l.1.
plant, equipment a n d technology avai lable were used efficiently
~
~
people could provide for their basic needs for an entire lifetime in
two years,
,:, and could then organise the rest of their time freel y~
_,,1 ----- -·-
c ~~ce~t;ated
- ~~0
That is a high tech_. picture,, even allowing for
the increase in productivity since he wrote•but the basic idea is
,J
adaptable to a lower tech. one, albei t with a larger time period.
MX<'S Most people though would probably prefer to provide for their
basic ne~~ by production outside the basic community ·~ - ~ontrolled
A
-
_,,-
mass-production system.,1as in Ecotopia, obtaining both more pleasing
goods and more satisfying work in doing so; and even many of those
\,v o.~......-ttQi
who w-c • -:-Gl to have a large amount of time free for the
pursuit
of some project might find the production of part of their own food
on a daily basis an enjoyable and satisfying form
of relaxation.
Production beyond that for basic needs is an optional extra which
-,)
people can pursue as and how they desi re.
( It will certainly be objected that such a system would not
all ow sufficient leisure or free time.
The sharp distinction
between 'leisure' and 'work' is of course to a product of a system
'
r-...
where work is typically q l·1e,_;,_ nated
tfl
the sense that those who work
on it do not control it and its gon./J are extetll(d. to to process in
that the m6tivation for doing it is to obtain something other than
the fina l product or the satisfaction of the work.
working on wh at
Someone who is
he enjoys do ing and finds satisfying to do to produce
for his own need~does not draw a sharp distinction between 'work'
and
1
leisure 1
•
Furthermore it would appear that such a society could
allow for a great deal more 'leisure' in the sense of time not spe nt
on the basic needs for living, than the present one and such leisure
would be in principle avai lable to all, which is not the case in the
present system.
The price which would be _paid for free time would
however be quite different.
The price of free time for non-production
Uc~ J ities e.g . intellectual or artistic projects, or just to contemplate
the universe, would not be the price of inequalityJo f being able to
rely on other peqie lower down the scale to do the basic need:; production
in an alienated way.
The pri ce would be simplicity of life.
In the
same way the price of indepen dence from other people is not a private
income which enables one to made use of the labou r of others, but an
\ {'.:. - :, ~:, I(
,c~,\
independent, self-reliant mode of ~roduction.
The ob;,J e c tion that such
I\
a society would extinguish the intel lectual and creative lights which
are alleg edly fostered so well in this society does no t hold water,
t
but it is sure to be made much of because a major justification for
1,, equa lity and for production for exchange is that i s is supposed to
\)t
--? -
release some specially gifted individuals w-~ \ sufficient full-time
leisure to pursue such things.]
/lcf. 1
,,/J r. c
, 1cf,1
rr,,
A DIY system will of course be pronounced by economists to
be 'inefficient' and therefore denounced as one which 'lowered
living standards'~
t1c,1
It is fairly well known to Rconomists that
efficiency is a relative and evaluative notion that is that if it is
4f
measuredAthe total output of value per unit of imput then the
term
'value' cannot be explicated in terms of the market as just
1'141
what the market deliver s without ernplOYJtt he
J_ .
t1Clfu--(Qi;111c
fallacy.
It is not sufficiently often realised that it is also a relatiV istic
notion,
that is, that it is relative to the socio-economic framework
I
adopted, and that appeal s to 'e ff iciency' ~n t err> i S of the present
system are really appeals back to a fo~m of individual reductionism.
It is not a question of abandoning the concept of efficiency, but
of realisation of the dependenc e on a
J·t
1
U1
f 1") C; r
- econonomic base.
For some things which are efficient to produce in the present
centralised structure based on a high degree of fragmentation of
labour would be extremely inefficient to produce in a DIY system,
and some things which are inefficient to produce in the present
system would be efficient to produce in a DIY system.
Centrai; \cftion
depends upon fragmentation of labour, and therefore on the social
and political choices which are forced by it.
A DIY system would
have a radical form of decentralisation as a natural consequence
for people who have regai~ed control of their productive force would
<"( ~
naturally combine in smaller decentralised groups a.n d suited their
needs and interests.
Th~s in a DIY system smaller scale or ga nic
gardening, which makes use of local organic material instead of
wasting them, would be more efficient than gardening which depended
upon imputs from a high energy, cf11fr4./,· ru/ fertilise,·-plant, for
instance,.If the people who wanted to use something
hcttl
time producing it, then anything requiring a large measure of transport
or manufacture elsewh ere away from the
in effi cient compared with a n
(, .te of use would tend to be
Q/~rnat ive way of doing something which
could be produced or made locally from local materials and which did
t
unpleasan t work processes .
materials would then be
t>l i{(
t\
)i,f U-/ .", f l <(
In general ' 1 available loc al
-i lt (')
L
}·n ore efficient to use thar, which
/\
required a high level of manufactu re, low technical processes would
1
usua lly tend to be more efficient than high level ones, and .so on.
These chan ges are
strengths·
pre· c;seiy
the sources of its environme nt; and other
and to suggest that such a system can sim; 1J
be written
off as 'inefficie nt' to try to wri te a social framework into economics
and absolute in a quite invalid way.
A DIY society would be as naturally decentral ised as ours is
natural l y c entralised ~
The role of this kind of radical decentral isation
in reducing enviro nment al impact through encouragem ent of a decentralised small- S,cE)_/e;. low impact technology has o ften been pointed o ut.
Another consequen ce which i s not so often remarked on but is equally
important is the role of s uch decentral isation in enabling a natural
accounting of many sorts ~f environme ntal costs occ urin g as a result
of productio n.
Local production for local needs means that normally
the environme ntal costs associated with production are borne by the
local population whic h uses and produces the items concerned .
There
is thus a strong natural basis for taking such costs as the destructio n
of local ame nity into account as part of the perceived cost of
producing that destructiv e sort of item.
Accounting of costs which
takes account of environme ntal values is extremely difficult to do
in a n a tural way in a system which spreads costs around in a widesprea d
1 The dividing line between self-manag ed technology and the opposite
does not however entirely coincide with the high tech/low tech
For example, good two-way commun ications system coul~ ~
distinctio n.
have an invaluable role in cre at ing a network of flexible cornrnuni t i,_ es,
other than the spatially local community , in which individua ls could
Computers could, as Illich points ou~be used to
participa te.
further and create such a network of communiti es and cit'-<__ invaluable
aids in self-manag ed education medical and legal systems J IAJh...(l,t--(1_ they
could be used to overcome the ~onoDolis ations of skills, knowledge ,
In ::,_ short some
and informatio n by professio nalg and technocra ts.
power, instead of
of
co uld serve decentral isation
high-techn olo gJ
being used to increase the concentra tion of power as in the present
system .
fashion as centralised integrated production - for example, the
commonly encountered situation of concentrated major benefit going
to a small numbf~r of people and s ma l ler but very widespread costs
accruing to a very large number of people.
This situation typifies
the subtle way in which environmental degradation occurs in such
systems.
If the environmental costs of production occur in the
same region as and accrue
to the same people as the benefits, we
could expect that the environment costs of producing certain destructive
items would be much less easily overlooked or shrugged off.
A DIY system would be 'pluralistic' in the sense that it could
provide for a very large range of different
diversity in gords and needs.
life-styles and a great
There are however a number of bu~lt-in
.i. -n1.t' ;,· : •.
..,/f
features which would work strongly against environmen~llyAdestructive
life-styles ..
It is important to realise that these features are the
result of DIY and are not obtained simply by the feature of comr:u.mo..l
control of the means of production.
1 , , Consume. rism and Waste~ --·-· ·--,
...
~ ~
I]
feature of DIY
_,..,.
rs a built-in defence against the complex of
problems known as consumerism{ t ha~is 1 the taking o f satisfaction in
accumulating unneeded goods).
Consumerism arises primarily when people find little
which they do not control,
satisfaction in their work,
and which is frequently, for most peopl~repetitious and boring
a 1 iv, ~~J
and undertaken only to mak:1
.,
or for reward s mainly
12 1', t J. 111.)(
Satisfaction must be found outside
to the production process.
the production process, in consuming the products of other people's
labour . Such consumption is the reward of work, and the consumer
society rewards its members for the unpleasantness of their work
mainly in terms of opportunities for increased consumption .
In
lead to a situation where goals
contrast, since DIY wc ,dd.
were mostly internal to work, satisfaction in such a society would
be obtained though the work process itself and not in a never-ending
chase for satisfaction through consumption.
Reward s would be through
the production process I not !_rom work ·- lying just in the product.
Work would be undertaken in part because it was satisfying itself,
As any self-
and not usually tu_st to obtain the final product.
builder knows, even apparently mundane projects such as building
o n e's own hous e can become,if the worker can control his own labour
and match what he does to his needs, a source of great satisfaction
and of self-expression.
1
In this situation people express themselves
a nd their individuality through what they make, not through consumption
of mass-produced items e.g. buying a new model car . of the make the
individual thin'k fits his /n1ccge .
11
In a DIY system, these sorts of
satisfactions are available to everyone, not just a few people
selected and designated as "gifted" or "creative
11
,
and allowed to
work creatively, as in capitalism.
Secondly, there are in fact very substantial limits to the extent
to which one could be an indiscriminate consumer in a DIY society Je cD~1Jone wanted to , lonsum e rism depends upon other people 's labour to
If people have to make their g ood s themselves
a crc;cial extent.
(for example 1 if you have to go and work in a bicycle works for a while
/1
._,.,.
t.' '
,....,
J'/ ;.. ;\). . . ~ -· .. ' 0-11"'.
t: ,
rL. .... t ,.....___ \:: • _
1
• •,
•
_• - ,
/ ) ,:,..:_ ..
,,
.... -t
~
l_
-~A. ,_\.
\ 1.
. • C /- 1
·,._ ).•.•.•. 0\1
r .
.
tl ·'t-y
\\ . _/_
if you want a bicycle), then there will be a serious trade -of f
b e twe en work time and consumption, which would act as a built - in
The more goods are accumulated, the less
brake to overconsumpt ion.
time one would have to use them .
leisure would have fe~r~oods.
People who want large amounts of
Many people even in the present society ,
standard " - ·fh,., ·t
. givife) such a choice, might in fact prefer a "lower l1vii1j
/;(e
i.r > tt n m1 h.-r
The work situation in
and more free time for their own pursuits.
capitalism encourage consumerism in man_y ways, one of the most important
being that people do !:"lot usually have a choice to obtain shorter
work hours, have fewer consumer goods and more leAsure or more time
for their own projects.
They have to work certain hours, they h a ve
a surplus, so they might as well use it to obtain the customary rewards.
DIY would allow the 1wd,hi"J
of work
in a flexible way to needs,
rff-'
for more free time, which
and e ncourage such a tradeAof fewer go ods
could be spent on non-consumer pr ojec ts. \ Thirdly, a DIY society
would be a noh-waste socie ty.
No one would work to make things he
did not really need when there were othe r I thi n gs he could be doing
I )
(
instead.
'
', '--: ,. , -
.,-, : , ' A.:
,◄
\
)
As Brian Martin has pointed ou~many presently environmenta ] y
damaging systems, such as the private car system, would tend to
disappear if people has to make their own, repair them, and help
the roads.
Buses, bicycles and horses, or other
transport systems would b e more efficient in such a society.
One
cannot imagine people in a DIY society.work ing for a month a year,
for example, in a packaging factory to make a lot o f unnecessary
package s th~yhad to throw away as soon as the item was unwrapped/and
then/fur ther had dispose of by their own efforts.
The goods they
/
would manufacture for themselves would be as durable as they could
be made, and would be made to be easily repaired.
Materials would
be made to go as far as they possibly could - technology would be
developed which would do as much as possible with as little as possible "
could not be manufactured in a l~cal area would tend to be replaced
[0,
th ose which did not have these characteristics.
Since high-
..~;.f . _ l ,_ \\/
technology materials eq\1aLly- have the characteristics, the y would
t e nd to be replaced by low tech materials, with consequent benefit
to the environment.
fNlf
The DIY society would Abe a low-consumption/low resource-use
Since waste represents unnecessary and avoidable
.1.. ·:
u- (\J ,-.. r 1": ·-:- l c, b,~ , ..,. k I
uld avoid it.
labour/wo
own
their
controlled
who
people
labour,
no-waste society .
~
t
c ,....t (A.
I,._• .. •J -
"
.
• ---
,
•
2. Poverty a nd ~nequality . l t present the main capitalist argument
for never-ending growth and the production of environmentally
b,,f i.f ,1fl(}_ ( C Jj(~
damaging ~E:J~goods is that it is necess ary to help the poor.
This is supposed to occur through "Trickle Down", a process whereby
people at the top of t he
must 3et far more than they need
hcnp
reach those at t he bottom of the he a p.
so that a few drops can
A more ;n.efficien t or envi6nmentally damaging system for providing
,{
for the poor can hardly be conceived.
Different people have many different ab ili ties and capaci ~e_i but
people who are not very young or very old and are in a norma! state
(l,
J '\
,
' ;
/ ;
'
.,/
;,
-'
f
• ,'
1·,
,,·
f ,·
(
of health 1are basically fairly equal in their ability to provide
I
for themselves the basics they need for a g ood life.
At present
V poor p e o p ~
poverty and inequality come about primaril y
are prevented from providing themselves with what they need in a
s ati sfactory way.
(Three cheers for Winstanley!) They are prevented
b e cause the right to use the means of production is made scarce,
,I:
(usually by private property), and the skills to use efficieJly are
A
also made scarce ( usually by the bureacra tic
cJqfl-1)
1
Restriction in access to use of the means of production is also
tt.t. ( I J1J l I Ji!. l( /
{;J
L
,
Rr 1(
a main source of 1nequality throughAso on, since the restrictions are
used to disadvantage thrue people not in certain favoured categories.
2
f
\
,_.
h,_.•
2
' • \ I >/-
,
The point is driven here in all of Il l ichs work especially Dese-Fe#trg
Society /and 'Energy and Equity' and of course the older school of
(\~ ,_',A.· . .._, ,
anarchist w_i ll also stres s ed it. ~l'..ti 'fhc,N,:~----
.1
--\ l·j ...,• _
'\
A
syst em of comm unal con trol of the
of prod ucti on
tn:,[( 11.J
with ~cces s r ig hts for all who wan t them
a~:V in DIYJ
1
toge ther with the free disp,v
~~~1· of t ~{_
skil ls to use them pres entl y
"'
wou ld remo ve
this maJ· or sour ce of pov erty with out
the need for was tefu l
,.I
inef f i.cie nt and c: 1111 ,'rt-1111:~1tl&lj dam agin g econ
omic grow th.
The pure DIY society would
1 i t t 1 e r o o m f o r h :t e r a r c.1h yl and
from
a
t he
g uid e
wou ld
that
division of
to
be
sort
e qual
the
of
access
social
picture would
hiera r chy and
and
fact
that
without allowin g
the
of
pleasure,
Such a
position would be able
th at
but
to
not
misse s
th e
presuppos e
The
mark.
l evel
allow for
t o
needs,
or
the
( ,
for
f alse
individual a bilities
their
a
social
dif fe rences
differences,
capacities,
power
it
a nd
be
a
s ociety.
they
'level'
in ability,
that
and
people have
th at
this
level
objection
does
presupposes
not
only
,, /-,,, (
d i ffer e nces
in ability
of
be t ween
kind of capitalist
ability
d iversity
and
that
framework
a rea s;
Such
in present
i n dicat e s
pow e r
a nd
and
and
so
in a bili ty
on,
an d
as
relie s
a
the
inequality on
areas.
level
the
justification for
on
inequality a nd
false
dichotomy
an absolute
f ram ewo rk levels based on a
needs.
in oth e r
inequality on
justification for
inequalities
equal
level of
conservative
premiss
as
of
the
in
e q ua 1 r i g h t . a nd }a b·±--1-i.ty::=t:#> s take i n c on t r o 1. .,. ,
·1
whatever
at both indi vi dual
as
differences
of
this
level,
system could
s oci e t i es ,
ability in all
What
pow e r
people's
typical
i l legitimately uses
level,
equal
source of
pro f i t ,
The capitalist argument
framework
framework
goals
become a
picture
the
provide
goods is not required.
to me e t
Equality a t
p eo ple have a n
their own lives,
can
Equality on
on.
of power
·{-(,
th a t
social
produc t i on,
'egalitarian'
two
equality o f
th e
d iffere nt
on the
ar i si ng
p owe r
soci e ty would provide.
can
allow a d e qua tely
c apacit i es.
account
Exc el len ce in such a
egalitarianism is based
equal
it
differences
so urc e
do not
so
of
problem of how to allow for
in e qu a lities .
an d
of
individual
frame work
people
and
people h a v e
capitalist obj e ct i on
such a
elitism;
thes e
two-lev e l
the means
framework,
without
the
The
be equality on
to
resolve
i nequ a1 i t i e s
ot her
equality
individual production and
a
f or
labour.
r e quired would
is,
forming
the
ob vi o usly be one which had ver y
false
equalit y
assumption
:, /. 2.
In practice equality on the social framework level would
guarantee a
reasonable level of equality on the individual level,
since great differences
lisation CJ r
of
in
this
the means of production,
accumulation of
other people's
labour,
would reduce differences
area can arise only when monopo-
are possible.
Equality of
that
ex a mple
Jane likes
and asfemale Thorea u )
It
is
that
it
it
should do
can only be achieved if differences
carpentry,
household an especially fine house;
universe ,
but
in material goods or
i t is of cour~e undesirable
this kind
equal i ty
and
Anne
on the other hand
Suppose
builds herself and her
(whom we may envisage
likes
to
contemplate the
and wants only a minimum level of basic needs
i mpos s ible to obtain absolute equality without
satisfied.
either
preventing Jane from doing work she likes and exercising her
the benefit of hersel f
for
without
in
the demand
~_
?c
i..?-1__
or needs
for
to.
equality,
f r am e w o r k ... 1 e v e 1 ,
production and
skills
and others, or, what is equally undesirable
forcing or pressing Anne
than she wants
no t
to work more and consume more
What is
then,
legitimate and necessary
is ~q -~~it._y ___Q_f __ p_ o_w_e r:,
e q ua 1i t y a t
t he
1ev e 1 of
at
the
i n d iv :i. d u a 1
consumption.
Social Democracy often claims
,
1 e v e 1 o f " p u b 1 i. c
ri
1i f e •
to
deliver equality at
the
This claim should be rejected however
because:(1)
i t does not provide equal access
.
product lo n ,
(
1
.
·.
.-
..
to
the common means
treats
th
1
s
as an
in di v id u a 1 mat t er
~------------·-- ---···'/
ra t her
/I
than as
one for
/·
of
.
\--------,)
m 1 s taken 1 y \. but
so.
in
interests and needs are denied or discouraged.
abilities,
for
and
Social framework
in people's living standards,
would not guarantee absolute equality
ac h ievem e nts,
or employment
social
framework control
,.,
;; } 3
/I .
(2)
the individua l isation of comm LJ. n c1 / life forms
inequalities of power at
(3)
is
only,
and
in fact
opportunity is
all'
confusion.
in
though equality of opportunity
such equality occurs
in any case,
the concept of
to a
equality
this case defecti v e,
S l:\ C.<?-
to do so.*
priv ; leged and
through equal
i t is based on an
'each-
the rest of
the
except in an Alice-in-Wonderland sense,
even if the opportunities for
equal for each person
but clearly not _.§.Q
The opportunity to be selec ted as on e of a
powerful elite which controls
population does not,
equality,
very limited extent
Each person might have the theoretical opportunity
to become Prime Min ister or win the lottery,
can hope
to great
the framework level.
the claim to provide equality
specious;
leads
•
(which
provide
selection were in fact
they are not
in Social Democracy).
Real equality of opportunity and power requires ways o f
making
decisions and exercising power in which all can participate
to an
equal extent.
X
,,,.-
* Such 'equality of opp
ortunit y' arguments for the egalitarian
character of Social Democracy are a similar swindl e based on
a scope confusion.
So, for example, 'everyone has an equal
opportunity to do i t ' (win the lottery, become Prime Minister)
is ambiguous between (1) (x) Q fx and (2) ◊(x)fx.
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cuts straight through the problem which plagued Anarchist thought -
\ the problem of how production is to be organised , whether it was
... ..,
·,
,
\
to be communist ic as Kro p otkin wanted wi t.h each person w, rt(l;-.,_1 to
,_
""-'
;j
\)
1
"
"
........
~
...\)
the best of his ability and taking according to his needs from the
c01Tu11on store, or collecti \.,, i..st, as Bahu11, :1
~
~
. \)
J
..._,
, 'l
~
\
\I
'
The adoption of a system
I
-~
.
)(
·•·i·-.._
.\..
I
I.,
\
~
t
r e mun e... ·"rat.ion in the fonn of wages according to the amount of
.--------------= ~ DD1
r~~, £ ,~, ,:7 ,r-c-.jo r /'o ., 1'7 71 u [/ 7
✓·~work done;41
, allows a pluralist ic and flexible approach;- and, is
A
A
certainly ( ,'1Y1/?"1!,/41(i
I
/
ruHl others wanted, with
I
[j/l,' t
with the first,
1
and perhaps the second, as
hU ,.·.
the organisat ional
1\
of subgroups within the total society.
Each of these systems has serious disadvanta ges ~f applied
organising principles for the total society.
system, as
Kro;>d41'n
pointed out, would restore wage-slave ~y,
and lead to systems and kinds of work not
greatly different from
that in capitalis t society.
The communist system Kropot1::. 1,1
proposed was an attempt to get
away f·rom exc h ange pro d uction
· l an d appears to h a ve b e en a n attempt
to
production and consumpti on, which in the collecti ·/ ist
system remained split, thus Kropotl(,>1 writes "Common possession of
-,1,,
the necessarie s for production implies the common eJoyment of the
/\
fruits of the common productio n".
This seems to be an attempt to
reunite production and consumptio n at the level of the total
community 1 i.e. to a pply PCI at the community level.
Unfortuna tely
it cannot be effective at that leve l, because such common production
and cons umption also, implies identical production goals a nd identical
interests .
But to a ssume this at the total community level is
unr e asonable, and ult i mately 1~pressiv e.
It ties
e1d1
personfu
production to every oth e r~ n e ed and g o ~~ a nd each person' s n ee d t o
1
rrhe term "communis t" cannot of course accurately be applied to
the systems it is popularly applied to to-day.
to everyone elsis production, in a way which would plainly not allow
the sort of individual life control, the freedom to .~>1:eh one's
i:
work to one's godl ·i, and vice--versa, which a true.ly free socity
rm s t
1\
allow.
So for example, a person who wanted to work little and 1ri:·:,i,,f
a
si{( ple life with few gOl:cCs in order to have :free time for some
1
projec~would be unable to do so under this system, he would be
pressured into working "to the contribute to the common well-being
to the fullest extent of his capacities"
He would in effect have
to remove his own non-consumer gord to provide for someone else,
desire to consume at a much higher level.
I<ropott
in' s
suggestic,t
would plainly have required a very l a rge measure of soc i al conformity
and indirect social control or pressure to succeed.
Kropotl ~
of
course envisaged that people would willingly submerge their own
,}
gooi .s in the common goo/ because of his view of the
human nature.
u',l~C
1-ti~ness of
Nevertheless his system appeared to invole to a
larg e extent compulsory self- nlJ n ~·-,;,t! ,·/\( / , which is very different from
not allowing one person to exploit another.
He did of course envisage
that collabora tion in his common work system would be freely
and c1ose~ but since he nev~r appeared to envisage
any a l ternative, it is hard to know wh~t this comes to.
This problem is of course resolved by a sy s tem allowing flexible
The collecti y .ist principle - that the worker
/\
.
entitled to the
A
fru i ts of his labour - is retained ih such a system, but without
the problems of production for exchange and witho ut the wage-slavery
tha t drove the critics of that form of organisation to a communist
alternative.
The communist difficulty that people's work is
to the needs of others in a way which makes a self-managed life
/) I Y
difficult and would impose conformity, is resolved also.
.P-G~I ·
allows flexible production groups to form based on common go·;/.s and
needs, and allows each to be the judge of his own needs to direct
his own work.
i ~' !:' k'.
\j .
People with common go,ik., and interests and needs
mayA !i,ute to form such groups
bu t
(e.g. a hous e hold or a commune).
society is not envisaged as one big household, as appears to
be in Kropotlc i / 1' ' s s y stern.
Kropo6:.
1
11
would have rejected this of course, since he wished
to argue that there could be no individual entitlement even to the
fruits of one's own labour but only so:_cial ones.
In many ways his
arguments to the effect that no person do anything on his own, a re
reminisc~ nt of the Marxist arguments for total social determination
of individuals, a ·~.scussed later.
His argument that there can be no
such thing as an individual entitlement is not clearly stated in
•
'Anarchist Commun\ sn\:'
Quote.
The passage in effect assumes that work of previous generations
has been benificial, an assumption which seems to derive from
Kropotl~ i'il. 's fervent belief in modern progress.
It ignores the fact
that the clearing of the forest has often been, and has long since
become in most cases, the excessive clearing of the forest,
that
the results of the work of our ancestors is not only soil improvements
but also soil erosion, that perhaps our predecessors have not left
us the best of all possible worlds in respect of natural wealth.
At best then the work of the past can be seen as a mixed blessing.
This does a good deal to undermine Kropot~1~j argument which assumes
that any i n d ividual working on his own project has received help
from past human's but if it is a/50 hinderance, exactly what the
existence of past human work is supposed to show is notAclear.
Kropot~~
wanted to argue that people who created wealth entirely
by their own efforts were entit led to what they created, but that
in fact this was impossible.
No one could create wealth or indeed
do anything, entirely on their own, because their is always dependence
on other people at some point, therefore all wealth was enti1tBly
sou ;~i and should be shared in common.
distingu ish W~S
The argumen t fails to
of relative independ ence and appears to rest on a
high redefin ition of 'on your own' .
If someone clears and digs
his own vegetab le patch, manures it himself with his own wastes and
by green manuring , it see~s hard to suggest that he does not have
il 1;/r /, ,/
some special claim on the carrots he has sown and, or that his
1
A
g rowing of them for his own use is a selfish action which deprives
others of their due.
It might be objected that the carrot varietie s
he has sown are the product of vegetab le improvem ent by untold
generati ons of his predece ssors.
But that does not seem to be a good
reason for the claim that he has no special claim on the carrots,
an:zinore
than the fact that the author of a book did not invent from
·,
scratch the language in which it is written shows that he is not
the real author of his work and does not have any special entitlem ents
to make certain kinds of decision s regardin g it, because it is a
product.
Work can be distingu ished is primaril y that of
some person or group, even where they have made some use of the
precedin g work of others.
Kropotk,~ 's argumen t would show that no
one could ever do anything on his own, and depends upon adopting a
quite excessiv e standard for producti on being someone 's own - that it
should owe nothing wh__~-atever to the efforts of any other human being
instead of, what is more reasonab le, that it should be primari ly(In the case of the authorsh ip of a book even th r~
standard is probably excessiv e) . •.
No _ one acts in a social vacuum
there is always a framewor k or backgrou nd, but that does show everything is a social product.
rrhis
to
,,di ci;;.. 5
c.1,}';.111 0,. ,J - _ might suggest that Anarchis m adopted the reductio n
C i :._
i
which underlie s Marxist so~ism .
would be mistaken however.
Such an impressi on
Kropotki n .:;and other leading anarchi sts
constan tly emphasis ed the importan ce and autonomy of the individu al
and stressed that their aim was the optimum developm ent and maximum
liberty of the individual the maximisation of individual initiative
and so on.
It is quite clear that they did not subscribe to the
Marx ist reduction of individuals to bits of t:r:- l lecti ves or classes,
which they saw quite rightly, as ~ irnical to liberty.
The Marxist
reduction is quite expl icitly rejecte d in Malat'e Jtlc'1 (an important
and ,~K;~ ,Jc.
·,p , 'rl tLc h
i"tl'Jk '-
f.: "l. .
0 1tu .r
d~, :>'t
c..>1'1··{- ·,_ ,-- )
1
who also stressed the importance of individuals.
~ n ki nds of tribes
~-, ,
,
1
Often peo~hder (or gathered) as ina.":i-vj_duals, or t h e ri ght }yu=rt(--
'
'
---~
~
in col laborative ~
g r ~ of various sizes or were--~
~ a_.,t:r::-itie were
I
.."
><-
[ '-,--~.•, 1;1ore · ~r less a~ t he occasi~anded ( H ~-~
1
I
t ~ f groups
-or:,,tr ib al hunting procedure w o u l ~ be shared among the g - ~
of t ~ l tribe, but in ~ i v i d u a l c a se usually, a lthough some
~
~
'
might be given
regar~eing
l.
6se who had mostly the resulting produce was
-·1z__for the use of he
veo obtained it as
-~ k i.00-_(.s.e.eJT ow i t t far d ~i_J_s._in_ t b r=> A11 s t r a J ian_char.g.e..cLoneA-
It seems that the non-reductionist position we have sketched is in
fact the unde r lying philosophical base of most of the main stream
of anarchist thought from Proudho.rr through to
Ma kd-a-1.}1-✓.>_ _ ,,
that part
I
,,u
1
which was prepared to desc; ,?L itself as 'libertarian s61\ lism 1 •
There was also of course, the so called 'individualist' position of
and a number of Anarchists which is clearly an individuali s t
reduction position, and to that extent quite distinct from the main
tradition.
1
Footnote on 'News from Nowhere'
(7.
It is perhaps surp r ising that despite such a basic outlook
traditiona l anarchist thought remained stuck with an entirely
communist propos ed · for the organisation of production in which the
personal 'intiati ve' and 'individual' autonomy and originality
so stressed by anarchist thinkers would have to be directed ,n the
Jji/1(~ ;---f.>
of production entirely to commun.-~al or sh ared aims and
needs as the Marist positions, so in practice in the area of production
in this system despite its different th .eo;-i1:-~t~_::.cr/
base ;}om Marxism _. ,n //J>,r ,,
i >1-::i;•d~;1, at any
rate individual expression woul be confined to communal life
forms.
The positi on c onlVl. be said therefore to have worked out a
consistent position en the issue of the control of individual life
and in lifl king
i t _.i theory of production with its overall view of the
individual and the cormnuni ty.
have resolved .
There seem to be several reasons why traditional
an a rchist thought
problem .
This part of problem a DIY system could
~A~~
arrived at a convincing reso lution of this
First)anarchisrn never developed its philosophical foundations
and philosophical identity property in the way t hat Marxism was able
to do, and hence was always subject to corrupt ion by the influe nc e
of that position.
As Mai:a:kxx fltk11'--r.·Jhc_
puts is (quote)
Second, tr aditional anarchism was unable to resolve the problem of
individual production in a convin cing way because it brought the capit a list production machine and the fragmentation of labour it invol~d,
1\
,jA
as well as nearly all the associated Enl;?tenment values of Modernity
!) 3-1,• c/c; ,h ;._f-)
j,
.,
Science, Progress,
Profess ·.1c-rd ,\i,,, the Conquest of Natu.~ re and so on.
.
,
'v'
This is espei $ally clear in Kropotk1n· 's work.
Although anarchism
advocated regional decentralisation and was f 3 r more critical of
the division of labour than the Marxist school( see Kropot~1 ,1 's remat~s
on the rnanu f acture of r; "' h0cu,/ S
i
) it s till held that the fragmentation
i
of labour (which Kropoth' u; describes as 'our modern integrated system
of prod~ction')was politically neutral and held the key to progress and
the good life for all.
The sort of critique of this method of
production and of its associated values are encounters today seemed
1
to be entirely absent from anarchist thought.
Given such assumptions
the possibility of individuals and groups freely determining the
production gou ls and needs and achieving them for themselves as in DIY
disappears.
The capitalist production app /:nrh1 s
is not of course
as we now realise only to well, neutral with respect to social
structur~and the sort of social options it rules out are precisely
the ones needed to resolve the anarchist dilemma of the freedom of
the individual in the sphere of production.
The result of failing to resolve the problem in a convincing
way was always a serious source of conflict within anarchist ranks.
(.'.,
It is clear from Malatsta's writing that by the early decade of the
'\
century it had reached substantial proportions, and considerable effort
was dirtcted towards resolving it.
2
To as certain extent the
failure to resolve the problem may have contributed to the decline of
anarchism, since the position then lost much of its appeal for
peasants and the independent workers who formed a major part of its
constituency.
1
Although it is not missing from some contemporary anarchist thought,
see Brown 'Smallcreep's Day'.
2
M~latesta thought that individual production from the producer's own
needs was theoretically admissible provided the producer had only
He thought however that no
an equal share of communal resources.
one would be able to produce entirely for themselves at a reasonable
The obvious option
standard,an assumption which seems to be false.
o f partially individual and politicaly communal production was for
He also believed that it would be impossible
some reason overlooked.
to get an equal division of land because not all was equally
This problem is readily overcome using modern
watered and so on.
land system assessment techniques in which scores are allote~ for
different characteris~-t.ics.
57.2
Nonetheless in outlining features a DIY society
there is much that can be taken from anarchist and near. t so urces. 1
a n arc h is
For instance, the details of the
cooperation of network$ of communities in main,~ tTaining
.__. _..
such infrastructure or railway systems, quarantine
arrangements, and such like 1 can be taken over largely
intact.
What cannot be extracted, however, from
traditional anarchist sources i s much that is satisfactory
concerning the attitudes to the natural world that a
DIY society would find appropriate, 2
1
What need not be taken are some of the more controv ersi al
features of anar chism , in particular the usual proposals
for the (Tion) administration of justice.
There is no reason
in a DIY framework why a community, or set of communities
j _n
co:opara t ion, sho uld not evo 1 ve their own ( deprofe s s ional---
i sed) legal forms.
What wil l vanish, as in anarchism.are
rulers, nations and
I'
states, and more gene rally, hierar chial power structures.
However, a community will have an organisational structure,
and its political organisation may include components of
what would not inappropriately be called ' government' .
2
The us u a 1 an arch i s t view , e s p e c i a 11 y s t ro n g in Kr op o t k i rt , was
one of transformation of nature for human end.s.
view was quite exceptional.
~orris '
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Text
PROSPECTS FOR REGIONAL PHILOSOPHIES IN AUSTRALASIA
Philosophy, especially academic philosophy but also folk philosophy, like
other intellectual and higher cultural activity In Australasia, has long been
indeed
dominated,
Europe,
the
largely
swamped,
by
Northern
now increasingly from North America.
cultural
and
other
resulting controlling
such
populations,
But it does not have to stay that way.
a
initially
the migration
Given
the
ethnic
result
was
imported,
baggage
influences,
patterns,
of
composition
virtually
from
the
inevitable.
Suitable policies, a good philosophy
policy, could change things.
The
culture,
thought
is
of
regional
a
philosophy,
In 1923, a New Zealand
hardly a new one.
regional
a
matching
perhaps
correspondent to the
newly-launched Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy mentioned the
possibility of ’a new kind or temper of philosophy under these southern skies’
which the Journal might
such a
reaching
role
not
community).
(or,
for
merely
And
foster.The Journal
that
matter,
professional
although
some
actively
has
pursued
philosophers
things
however hardly fulfilled
but
have changed
solid foundation for a new regionalism in philosophy,
its
a
pronounced
wider
Australasian
in Australia,
that
of
alm
laying a
possibility of
a
new temper of philosophy has hardly been realised. There is little in the way
of a new kind and
which
the
southern skies were intended to include: but few distinguishing features,
’no
distinctively
New
temper of
Zealand
XAJPP, March 1923, p.74.
same volume, p.292ff; his
Appendix 1.
philosophy
under New Zealand
characteristics,
have
shown
up
skies,
in
New
Zealand
The question was taken up by the Editor in the
discussion is considered below, especially in
�philosophy’.
2
The situation of colonial dominance that used to prevail in
and philosophers.
Australia,
importer of philosophy,
New Zealand remains a substantial net
where
virtually
all
chairs,
and
many
philosophy, were filled by academics from the North,
other
academic
and
considered
and
Given the usual
in courses designed,
power and influence of professors in small departments,
covered
in
tends to persist in New
Zealand, where no established chairs are occupied by locals/
topics
posts
especially appointments
made,
the
heavy
Northern orientation of philosophy taught and researched in New Zealand is not
surprising.
oldest
of
The Northern control is perhaps most strikingly exhibited at the
New
Zealand
universities,
the
University
of
Otago,
where
the
Philosophy Department has been substantially captured by a British School and
increasingly
looks
event,
like
an offshoot
of
the University of London/
In any
the overwhelming Anglo-American dominance of New Zealand philosophy -
also a feature only in slightly lesser degree of Australian philosophy - can
be confirmed by a content survey of the courses offered
and research
papers
written at New Zealand universities.
Even when local people have been appointed to positions in Australasia,
2 ,
S.A. Grave, A_ History of Philosophy in Australia, Queensland University
Press, 1984, p.l.
Page references are to the manuscript. The paper draws
heavily on this history.
3
This claim was correct at the time of presentation of the paper (August
198':!).
With the recent loss of a chair at Wellington, the claim requires
qualification, but the pattern of domination persists.
In the 1983 Commonwealth University Handbook listing, 6 of the 8 members of
the Department held their main degree, Ph.D., from London, and one of the
remainder from Exeter.
Only one member of the Department, soon to retire,
falls outside the nexus.
�3
they have been brought up on a solid diet of Anglo-American material, and they
have often been reforged or finished in the North as well.
of
requirements
post-World
War
philosophy
by
remain
full
the
II
in
were
conveniently
seen
Oxford
B.Phil.
of
products
finished
candidates
universities
expansion
the
of
Australasian
this
Many
degree.
mill:
cultural
in Oxford were hard
to beat
In particular, the
the
in
to
departments
the
of
case
of
philosophy
the mid
70s
when they applied
for
until
indeed
out
of
period
major
positions, such was the (unwarranted) prestige of Oxford and the regrettable,
but still continuing, "cultural cringe".
despite
Nonetheless,
been occurring
scene
in
dominance,
Northern
the Antipodes,
be
will
(as
the
indicated).
especially on
is
It
worth
significant
the Australian
asking
changes
have
philosophical
whether
Australian
philosophy is moving towards the sort of change that occurred in USA more than
100 year; ago when the Harvard Philosophy Department was brought (or bought)
together, and its
go'den age'
began. ’
American philosophy was never quite
the same again, and became its own thing.
There are now new forces operating
which could help to move Australian philosophy in such a direction.
the
widespread
regionalism,
other
6
^See B.
which
applies
choices;
local
fashioning
emergence,
of
national
and
particularly
to
in
science
cultural
stark
and
in
and
culture,
alternative
ideological
contrast,
technology
there
There is
of
a
choice along
is
policies,
the
new
with
centralised
which
not
only
Kuklick, The Rise of American Philosophy; Cambridge, Massachusetts
1860-1930, Yale University Press, 1977, Parts 2 and 3.
6
On this bio-regionalism, see especially, Fourth World News, vol. 1,
and K. Sale, Human Scale, Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, New York, 1980.
1983,
�provides
model
a
for
reflection
regional
in
directly bears on parts of the philosophy of science.
soon appear,
there are
also some
also
Unfortunately, as will
to regional
serious obstacles
but
policy
philosophy
philosophies
and to the very idea of a regional philosophy.
USA, long an importer of culture from Europe, has recently become a net
culture,
of
exporter
components
of higher
philosophical
not
from
lower
of
Oxford
following
has
suit,
but
culture,
evidently
taken).
should
Are
not
balance of payments, especially in philosophy?
Yes,
reasons
there
achieve
also
of
the American turn
philosophy (witness
such as
culture
output
if
Australasia,
certainly
a
better
there are
why
cultural
reasons.
In
the first place, the change in the cultural position of the USA went with, and
relations.
If
little prospect
for
perhaps in part derived from, vast changes in economic power
economic
of
most
dominance
entails
Australasia’s
cultural dominance,
since
culture,
there
there is
is
no
serious
that
prospect
Australasia will ever emulate or attain American economic eminence (at least
nuclear destruction of
not without
flow of commodities,
not
only
increasingly
of
Americans,
of
former group,
Northern cultural
they.
As
priorities,
contain
they
long
component
also
whose
and disruption of
the entire
Secondly, as observed, Antipodean
large
a
fellow-travellers,
include
research
Northern
academics,
substantial
additional
of
a
teaching
and
is
bent
to
It is unlikely that this Influential segment, especially
Northern concerns.
the
North,
cultural and other).
universities
contingent
the
will
(become
commitments,
as
so
apart
Antipodeans
they are in a bind
locally acclimatised as
do
from the
not
situation;
isolated
drastically
to)
person.
alter
give up
Nor
their
its
should
cultural
for it can be persuasively argued
that they would be better off, as far as quality and
product goes,
stocking
�/
/
A
5
o’
(
universities
their
with
American
teaching
components
and
researching
American-oriented concerns.
One
simple
numerical
argument
that
Antipodean
universities
would
be
better off with Americans in the main, takes the following lines:- The (higher
graduates
degree)
of
Australasian
and
American
are
significantly
not
culturally distinguished, at least in subjects such as philosophy.
now the
quality academics
number of
Austroamerican graduates;
produced
per
of
number
higher
say there is 1 per every n graduates.
preponderance of graduates will be Americans,
Consider
degree
The (great)
just by virtue of their vastly
greater population and their more extensive system of university education.
So also then, just by ratio considerations, the great preponderance of quality
academics
from an
drawn
upper percentiles
they
interested
universities.
Austroamerican base
among those
in
Such
quality,
an
Clearly,
quality products.
would
argument
be
does
be American,
will
appointing
not
work
to
more
show
as will
Antipodeans,
Americans
that,
for
the
were
their
to
similar
reasons, American universities should be full of Chinese or Indian professors,
for
two
Asians
reasons;
and
first
Americans,
there
are
especially
significant
in
cultural
disciplines
such
differences
as
between
philosophy;
and
secondly, their university systems do not deliver such great quotas of higher
degree or high quality graduates, at least in philosophy.
The ratio of U.S.
philosophy graduautes with doctorates as compared with
Australian exceeded 30 to 1 in each of the years 1974 to 1980.
In 1977 it was
110 to 1.
New Zealand compares even less favourably with U.S. output.
For
details see Digest of Education Statistics (U.S. National Center for Education
Statistics, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, 1976, 1977-78, 1979,
1980, 1981 and 1982); University Statistics, (Australian Bureau of Statistics,
Canberra, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, ‘1979, 1980); Education Statistics of
New Zealand, (N.Z. Department of Education, Wellington, 1974, '1975, 1976,
1977, 1978, 1979, 1980).
�The conclusion of the numerical argument will not be a popular one.
The
anti Amei icanism felt in portions of the Australasian community extends
into
the
universities;
and
recently
there
been
has
increasing
Insistence,
especially by the now aging younger Turks that university positions should be
This at the same time as these Turks often preach of an
reserved for locals.
international community of scholars, presumably then with "free” interchange,
etc.
They cannot have it all ways.^
So
long
continues,
as
the
economically;
the
present
centre
will
free-flow
dominate
they will have more
large to them if it
interchange
the
than us,
periphery
and
is (centrally-determined)
of
ideas
and
culturally
jobs here
personnel
as
should
well
as
go by and
quality in this high cultural
business that we seek, as mostly claim.
Now
anyway,
it
that
arguments.
is
widely
there
is
enough
recognised,
something
For we are not
lower-down
drastically
wrong
hierarchical
with
these
ladders
sorts
of
flooded with high-quality Northerners who would
8
A reverse flow of the better orthodox academics from Australasia to America
should also be expected (outside times of university contraction).
According
to assumptions of this brain drain argument, which is based on labour market
considerations, appointment
and lifestyle
conditions
for academics
are
generally better in USA than Australia and much better than those in
economically-depressed New Zealand (e.g. higher salaries, better standard of
living, superior research conditions, etc.).
So, other things being equal,
able academics from the Antipodes will relocate in USA as academic positions
become available. The argument also helps explain why Antipodean universities
cannot expect, for the most part, to attract really top-drawer Northerners for
very long.
Of course, economically irrelevant factors do induce interference; e.g.
perverse commitments to odd-ball Antipodean intellectual enterprises which
reduce market acceptability, or pre-industrial ties to place or persons or
lifestyle which unduly restrict mobility (such as local roots,
family
attachments, even distaste for American urban lifestyles).
�regularly drive out local contenders for positions,
if we only preferred the
Northerners when they were quite visibly superior: rather we are inundated by
Americans with inflated references, who have the messages of the centre better
do,
locals
than
higher-echelon
remote
and
Northern
Northern
(often
biassed)
fields
appointment
locals whose shortcomings are known better.
the Northern centres
too,
tend
greener
look
to
committees
dusty
than
As is beginning to be recognised
retain their higher-quality products,
tend to
to
and
allow them to be exiled to the periphery only if they somehow fall foul of the
system (e.g. of the academic system for political or personal reasons).
the
often
Northern
centres
have
intellectually
their
disposed of
Too
inferior
products in the periphery.
All this makes the position look doubly bad. We ought,
appointing Northerners,
especially Americans,
even
seems,
to
be
if they are overrated
in
it
their references, and usually not out of the top drawer, in order to maximize
quality.
And yet
doing so does not achieve the desired quality result, and
breeds discontent elsewhere, especially among the aging Turks.
Fortunately
shaky arguments;
and
obtain
we
from
this
awkward
and that is the way of regionalism.
sufficient
subtitutable for us.
before
is a way out
there
elaborate
cultural
distance,so
that
situation
these
and
We do our own things;
they
are
not
simply
Then the shaky numerical argument does fall down.
the
emerging
proposal
there
are
other
But
influential
.
.
This is easier in the cultural than the technological sphere.
However it
is
also
possible technologically:
(stronger)
theses of
technological
determinism, and so of cultural determinism, are false.
We can choose
different options, technologically, as well as culturally.
9
�8
arguments to dispose of, and the disposal bears on the proposal.
There is,
to begin with,
far been conceded:
have so
elements of which
the argument for excellence,
that
there is an objective commodity, quality or
excellence, which we all more or less
which is
agree about,
proportionately
in the North, and which is what academic institutions crave and
more abundant
seek and what appointments aim to capture,
indeed maximize.
That at least
is
the type of myth most of us have encountered; and many of us now know it is a
in
myth,
fact
appointments
profit,
a
that
dangerous
myth.
way,
more
any
Most
that
don’t
places
organisations
aim
but rather seek to satisfice on a mix of factors,
quality is
to
try
even
just
to
make
maximize
of which assessed
only one, and not often the highest ranking one.
Ability to fit
into some sort of program, teaching or research, is another, and commonly more
Important factor;
and there
is no good reason why such a program should not
sometimes be a regionally oriented one.
So given
the
prevailing practices,
argument from excellence does not exclude regional philosophy programs.
And,
in any event, there are enough local candidates of sufficient worth to proceed
with
regional
programs
without
sacrifice
clearcut
of
excellence.
Local
enterprise need entail no loss of excellence, and could well increase it.
The deeper-cutting objection is that there is something seriously amiss
with
the
idea
of
objective
objective
importance;
criticism
as
bracketed
out
notions
the
that
of
excellence,
these
objective
and
notions
values
with
are
open
more
contextual-relativisation
the
to
connected
the
generally,
component
of
same
that
notion
of
sorts
of
they
valuing:
have
the
�’S-
9
framework or viewpoint
within
rather
a
to which these values relate.^
narrow
such
paradigm,
intellectual
While those operating
as
Oxbridge
ordinary
language philosophy or Sydney materialism say, can bracket out the viewpoint,.
since
it
Incorporated
is
operational
the
in
paradigm,
and
so
at
arrive
seemingly objective quality judgements, the judgements are not preserved (e.g.
in
truth
va1ue)
when
Marxist
viewpoints.
quality
or
worth
Consider,
of
a
other
to
transposed
for
forest,
frameworks,
the
comparison,
made
variously
by
of
a
holistically-inclined
judgements
a
deep
environmental
who
seemingly because
pretend
that
environmental
such
it is not done
by members
of
as
or
to
rhe
an
ecologist,
philosopher,
language, Marxist, and Californian environmental philosophers.
philosophers
idealistic
Compare judgements as to the
industrial forester, and a recreational officer.
quality
e.g.
work
by
ordinary
There are even
cannot
be
judged,
the main philosophical
peer
group at Harvard and like institutions.
As this
judgements
of
begins to
the.
reveal,
importance
judgements
of
work
of quality are not Independent of
done
or
problems
tackled.
importance of problems and issues is highly paradigm dependent.
But
the
For example,
problems such as those of quant if ying-in and of possible worlds and of de re
thought, which assume immense importance for fashionable referential theories
within the mainstream empiricist paradigm, vanish
outside
that
restricted viewpoint.
Now observe
to relative
that most
insignificance
judgements as
to
What follows also begins to bring out what is omitted in a main theme of
R.S. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance, Bodley Head, London,
1974.
Note that defusing the notion of objective excellence does not lead to
subjectivism.
To avoid the customary false dichotomy, compare the notion of
validity (usually ceded to themselves these days by classical logicians) with
that of quality.
�10
what are the important problems and what constitutes important work - matters
helping
quality
determine
-
is
relative
to
their
concerned are
exported
to
the Antipodes
importance
down
shipped
are
paradigmatic
from
the
and
placement,
through
the
Their
North.11
paradigms
the
main channels
already
indicated.
We are free to reject these paradigms and select alternatives, and
there are,
it can be argued, good reasons to do just that, much as there are
to
reasons
good
choose
different
energy technology
(or different
military
technology) from that generally favoured in the North which the North is eager
to export southwards.
Similar
which
points
against
alternatively
might
argument,
apply
that
be
-marketed
mass-produced
and
cosmopolitan.
The argument
called
people
sophisticated
from
cosmopolitan/international
the
the
Peter
everywhere
Holland;
international
Stuyvesant
smoke
this
argument
superior
product
cigarette-sophistication
is
is based on the assumption that philosophy is a
’cosmopolitan subject’, that is is not the sort of enterprise for which place
and
people
are
significant
as
they
are
for
poetry
assumption has only to be presented to be questioned.
for one important thing,
that philosophy is a
or
the
novel.12
The
It takes for granted,
finished product
sort (a propositional theory), not a process of production also.
of a
certain
But in the
Often enough fashionability is mistaken for importance. As to the
unsatisfactory way in which such "important" problems are commonly set, see
F. Dyson, ’Unfashionable pursuits’, The Mathematical Intelligencer 5 (1983)
47-54.
12 Grave, op.cit., p.2:
-------
the term ’cosmopolitan subject' used there comes
from Donegan. As to the significance of place and people for literature, see
further C. Partridge, The Making of New Cultures, Editions Rodopi, Amsterdam,
1982.
�11
process of production the place and people involved (e.g.
in discussion) are
ot
material.
if
And
the
product
Is
like
a
work
of
like
art,
a
d
literature,
not
and
1
just
theorems
and
arguments
assembled
piece
of
in
an
internationally-approved format, 13 then again the historical setting matters,
since
philosophy,
more
no
than
literature,
does
not
in
emerge
a
vacuum.
Plato s philosophy could not have emerged in ancient Australia, and if cribbed
in mid 20th century Oxford would surely have been marked down or rejected.
It
is important not to be sidetracked into issues ~ resembling problems
in aesthetics
extent sets
that
do not
need to
of themes and arguments
be contested,
such as whether and
what
produced in one place and setting could
have been produced in another. A nonnuclear technology of some sort could be
adopted
prospect
in
but
Europe
that
New
apparently will
Zealand,
nonnuclear energy strategy.
rasters
here.
Dialethic
in
not
contrast
be,
with
whereas
there
Australia,
is
will
reasonable
pursue
a
It is the doing, and not what could be done, that
logic,
which
invalidates
methodology of much Anglo-American philosophy, could
the
technique
perhaps be
done in
and
the
North (though there would be substantial cultural resistance): it is not being
13tLike a paper in the biological sciences.
But here again technique
methodology, which may both be regional, are crucially important.
x4Related points
can be made using
less extreme examples, e.g.
and
concerning
modern American work.
Consider, for Instance such texts as W.V. Quine’s Word
ajll—(Wiley, Now York, 1960) or R. Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia
(Basic Books, New York, 1974).
The assumptions taken for granted" the
arguments involved, etc., are especially American: it is not just the style.
The acceptability of arguments and positions is dependent on place and
received paradigm.
�12
done there, and is not likely to be done in the Anglo-American sphere.15
this
extent,
logical
can
Antipodeans
techniques,
do
choose
their
their
own
international/cosmopolitan argument,
own
distinctive
distinctive
technology
thing.
stated in a form that would be
To
and
The
telling,
fails.
Of course
it can be argued,
it is being argued,
that Antipodeans don’t
need to be, or even oughtn’t to be pursuing their own energy or logic policies
and apparatus.
But meeting these considerations takes us to a whole new set
of issues concerning the merit of various policies and programs,
diversity, etc. - far beyond the cosmopolitan argument.
the point of
The new arguments, to
which we shall return, are not a lot more convincing however than comparable
arguments
concerning
cooking:
that
we don’t
devising our own cuisine or wine styles.
need
to
be or
oughtn’t
to
be
British, or at least cosmopolitan,
cooking is adequate: we should stick to that and buy it off the shelf from the
North,
ideally
importing the
cooks also.
Do we have good reasons
to
think
that British philosophy is better, these days, than British cooking?
Antipodeans are free,
in principle then,
to pursue their own paradigms;
and to do so they will by and large want to, and mostly have to, appoint their
own people, people they have educated - not saboteurs or people who have (had)
15
Much as communist anarchism, a live possibility for communes and perhaps
communities in Australia, is culturally excluded in North America, owing to
the extreme possessive individualism of that culture.
On dialethic logic, see G. Priest and R. Routley, On Paraconsistency,
Research Papers in Logic, #13, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian
National University, 1983.
�13
to be re-educated, from elsewhere, in particular from the North.
Intellectual paradigms
features
of
the
local
pursued tie with cultural paradigms, with distinctive
culture?
In a
at
loose way,
least,
they may
tie in with the
philosophy will not usually
though works of
But will the
link,
culture in
the
integral fashion that novels (as distinct from more technical works) sometimes
do.
Indeed,
certain
to
a
cultural
limited
extent,
features,
not
they
restricted
to
hastens
to
though
add.
this
But
is
style,
compared
with
acceptability,
what
philosophical
particular
programs, that help mark philosophy in Australia as
’unimportant
Grave considers
do already link.
’an Australian product’ -
matters
truth,
philosophy’
in
do matter,
and are
he
not
Independent - or independent so far as their perception goes in the case
truth and correctness
of
- from underlying broad theory or received paradigm.
However the marks which can be extracted from Grave,
significant though
they are, do not serve to distinguish the Australian product,
the first
two
being features Australian philosophy exhibits in lesser degree than the more
adventurous and polemical philosophy of Greek antiquity.
by Passmore
as
’most
typical
of Australian
philosophy’,
The first, described
is
a
'diversity of
approach and readiness to put forward an unconventional or unfashionable point
’Nothing need be conceded to strong cultural relativity themes, though they
would support the case.
It is enough that our theories remain radically
incomplete and that there can accordingly be rival theories as to what is
true.
Similarly, however philosophy is conceived - as the search for truth,
explanation, understanding and wisdom (all of these and more, really), or as,
more vaguely, inquiry of a certain sort - there can be, and will be, competing
accounts; so a pluralistic theory is inevitable in giving a fuller view.
�view’, 17
of
something
philosophy,
some
(with
which
typical
more
of
philosophy
ancient
notable
exceptions)
than
exhibits
an
Canada,
is that
Africa,
South
adventurous
compared with other recent
diverse.
and
provincial
and
The
second,
and
...
the
line-up
between
Australian
more
manifestoed character’ of Australian philosophy,
being
"Oxbridge colonies",
England,
far
from
Australian
philosophy
isolated:
others
mark
surprising,
materialism ,
departments
the
and
Melbourne
(both
confrontation concerning the
them concern
extraordinary
discussed
the
political
by
is
is
’the
’the most notable example ...
Wittgensteinian
among
such as
philosophy
Andersonian
This example
Sydney, if it was not the Andersonian philosophy Itself’ (p.2).
is
austere
What may be
uniformity reflecting that often attributed to the land Itself.
nearer true
Australian
fervour generated
engagement
Grave),
some
growing
the
and
relevant/paraconsistent program,
by
by
with the
local
(’adversarial’) style leading to sharp criticism by Americans. Connected with
these
first
philosophy,
century
two
as
Cambridge
marks
of much
are
further
characteristics
of
much
18th century Scottish philosophy and
philosophy:
namely
directness,
Australian
turn-of-this-
unwillingness
to
muffle
points, surface clarity, and, some would unkindly add (in the hope perhaps of
locating a genuine difference), bluntness, unsubtlety and crudity.
17
Both preceding quotations, while included as such in Grave’s Introduction,
are from J. Passmore, ’Philosophy’, in The Pattern of Australian Culture (ed.
A.L. McLeod), Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y., 1963, pp.131-168.
The
same annotation also applies to the third mark.
18
Ihough again for the most part that influenced by Sydney rather than that
originating in Melbourne.
To some extent this reflects the different
historical influences shaping Sydney and Melbourne philosophy: roughly,
Scottish as opposed to Continental antecedents.
�15
third
The
and
the
fourth
but again
very different,
marks are
hardly
distinguishing features of Australian philosophy as Grave, who wouldn't
them marks at all, in effect observes.
Intellectual
is
areas,
the
The third, which applies well to other
of
contrast
Australian
the
reputation
the anti-intellectual national stereotype of Australians as a people
to
physical achievement
nark
ia
especially
isolation
of
a
academic
rather
than
feature
of
philosophy
indifference or even hostility to,
to
intellectual
Anglo-American
Australasia
in
subtlety'.
'devoted
fourth
The
philosophy;
from,
in
Inquiry', with
'center of philosophical
Indeed of Australia as a
philosophy,
call
namely
its
and
the
general
the sort of imported philosophy (e.g.
that
of Nietzsche and the existentialists) generating Interest in literary and arts
circles.
The failure of such marks to entirely separate out Australian philosophy
does
not
For
matter.
thing,
one
separated by its research projects.
confused
with
nationalism,
nor
Australian
the
produce
as
encouraged;
and
in
most
the new
other
more
regional
things,
regionalism
sufficiently
For another, regionalism should not be
positions
such as
materialism or Wellington modal!sm with national philosophies.
philosophy,
is
is
is
an
undesirable
commonly linked,
Sydneyside
Nationalism in
trait,
not
in other
to
be
cultural
things, with the breakdown of nations and contraction of state power.19
19c
See, e.g.,
London, 1957.
Sale,
op.cit.,
and L.
Kohr,
The
Breakdown of Nations,
RKP,
The Editor of the new 1923 AJPP did
however take seriously the notion of
National Philosophy, of (what must have
surprised some New Zealand readers) an
Australian Philosophy; some of the issu<
s there raised (p.292ff) are addressed
in Appendix 1.
�To get back to where we were:
emerging proposal
the
is
this,
that we
start - or better much Increase - doing our own distinctive things, and that
we
team up
so.
to do
there are
In fact
that begin
several suggestions
to
emerge, concerning research and teaching, publications and appointments, study
These are not just that we do our own selection
leave and sponsored visitors.
of
topics
and
people,
and
style
and
decide
methods,
our
priorities,
own
instead of having these foisted upon us - not just, that is, that we play our
own games (whether invented here or taken over from the North) and not theirs,
Rules and Rugby instead of Gridiron and Basketball - but that we abandon the
individual competitive model of cultural achievement, sold to us and fostered
by the North, in favour of a group cooperative approach (elements of which are
already modelled in Antipodean social clubs).
The
thoughts
here are
digging example,
ditch
more
separately.
rapidly
simple and
On
familiar.
the
side
is
the
it Is well-known that two people cooperating can dig a
and
enjoyably
than
two
people
working
on
the
ditch
Cooperative work tends to pay off - in philosophy or elsewhere -
in terms of output, quality, and enjoyment in the doing.
experience
one
shows
that we
successfully with
several reasons
periphery cannot
the centre on achievements
for this.
highly competitive
in the
One
in
On the other side,
individually compete very
their
programs.
is the communication situation.
There are
Despite the
predominantly individualistic
nature of American academic
�17
enterprise,
20
communication
much
in the
attainment of
and
access
to
work is
jointly based,
individualism myth,
unpublished
material.
nationalistic
are
and the assignment of credit for it.
considerations
same
verbally
conveyed.
tend
to
time
and
as
There
an outsider).
through
face-to-face
Here
There are a mix of reasons
(e.g.
Polish results, Russians will cite a Russian who
the
the
several clever people will be
again people at the periphery tend to lose out.
there
despite
Then again communications are important in obtaining rapid
publication of the idea or result,
Again
For,
verbal
and builds on the work of many;
when the time is ripe for some idea or result,
able to hit on it.
upon rapid
results depends
Poles
tend
to
promote.
achieves a result at about
is
the
fact
that
seminars
so
that
local
much
is
results
conveyed
will
be
There is the fact of limited reading, and that people at the centre
concentrate when
they read
on material
from the
centre by
central
people, so that published items and results from the periphery will often not
be noticed, and may well lose out to central competitors even if they achieve
central publication.
receive,
merit
There is also the fact that people at the centre tend to
for merit,
more
publication
than people towards the periphery.
and
communication
opportunities
Here economic factors do begin to enter;
consider the size and distribution of the academic market (there are, e.g., a
great many more academic philosophers in North America than in the whole rest
of the world), control of publishing outlets and journals (with few exceptions
20
Reflecting other features of the culture and enterprise of the centre
which are not so deeply embedded in Australasia: see further R. Routley,
’Culture,
philosophy,
and approaches
to the natural environment - an
Australian perspective',
in The
Environment,
Ethics
and Ecology
(ed.
D. Bennett), The Faculties, Australian National University, 1984, and also
'Culture and the roots of social and political divergence, with emphasis on
the Australian/American contrast’, typescript, Canberra, 1983; both referred
to subsequently as ’Culture’.
�18
all Northern),
ere.
However economic power does not, and need not, determine
culture - we can shut off the Northern philosophical propaganda
shut off our television sets If we really want to.
way we
by
Impressed
being
middle-men
philosophical
those
And we can stop
make
who
in much the
living
a
by
importing the Northern stuff.
So what do we do? We adapt to the cultural-philosophical level,
of those things, that have been suggested In the newer regionalism.
some
regional
awakeningand
importer..
andimitators
doctrines
and
and local
For
We alm at
not remain slavish
We do
on
commentators
the North.
example,
and
we
peddlars
don’t
spend
of,
our
trying totease out what Davidson or Dummett or Kripke meant by
in the hope that
or that
To be
through.
of,
positions from
academic lives
this
local self-reliance.
several
sure,
I
some pale Northern light
suggesting
am not
we
that
will perhaps
emulate
filter
appalling
the
ignorance of people from the North who visit the Antipodes and know little or
nothing about
eminent
through
what has been done or
visitors,
their
Australian
the
bags
heavy
National
is being done here;21
with
cultural
(now
University
so that we have
accoutrements,
main
the
trekking
centre
for
Investigation of relevant logics) and informing us that, or relying crucially
on the assumption that, a contradiction entails every proposition.
that
these
Northerners
know
often
little
positions and advances is the Antipodes is
inferiority
colonies;
21
of
cultural
another
is
the
and
Intellectual
narrow
or
nothing
about
One reason
distinctive
the prevailing assumption of
life
(predominantly
in
these
local)
and
former
limited
the
southern
reading
Regrettably, the ignorance extends to many locals.
In particular
those
_nrected with Sydney materialism appear remarkably ill-informed as to’ basic
features of other Australasian programs.
�undertaken by Northern luminaries.
But,
having
despite
been
given
cause,
sufficient
we
shouldn’t
cut
ourselves off from Northern paradigms and influences (we could hardly manage
to anyway,
propaganda is different).
so we should stay informed of, but not imitators
these continuing traditions:
of, or part of,
their enterprises.
m older Northern traditions,
So
far
from
cutting
these
nowhere,
loose
In any case,
regional cultures are rooted
just as the people are largely European stock.
from
(and
older
We can reasonably use what we need from
these
likely
traditions and
traditions,
minority)
from
starting afresh
and
the
local
variations that have already appeared are what we want to develop and perhaps
mutate, as again with wine styles.
Part
of
the
things, encourage
proposal
then
that
Northern paradigms.
increasingly
rather than working with
and so shape newer
try
to
to create
fortunately,
features of
of
cultural
the larger culture.22
do we need to make the story up - though helping to shape
is part of what
the proposal
is about.
is a different and
Much of
more difficult
already indicated in Grave’s survey of Australian philosophy.
22
local
For there are research programs already initiated, which have the
Australia - New Zealand
has
own
our
It is not as if we have to build from nothing, to do -
very great advantage of being grounded in
the future
do
pale northern reflections
very difficult - entirely original work,
components.
Nor,
we
and develop our own research programs,
Antipodean paradigms,
wnat is
is
the
story,
proposition -
for
is
All one really
to do is to bring out programs he has already indicated and provide some
See Culture, op.cit.
�20
To pull the investigation down to a more concrete
elaboration and commentary.
I shall sketch some more prominent cooperative programs - by no means
level,
the only programs - and remark on some relevant features of them.
The longest running and best known program is, without much doubt,
of
naturalism,
Australian
and
which
aims
to
see
the
that
world,
natural
and
everything else, as suitably encompassed within the framework of the world of
(physical)
science.
program
The
is
generally
back
traced
to
Anderson’s
empiricist metaphysics,^^ and is now best exhibited in Armstrong’s work.
contains
as
a major
materialism,
subprogram Sydney
Adelaide which subsequently died out there.
such famous
components as
central
state
version
of
failures
in
program initiated
and
nowadays
Faced
functionalism.
reduction
plans,
like
it
it
takes
in,
identity theme and
more derivatively,
physicalisms
all
now
in
The latter program has included
the mental-material contingent
materialism,
its
a
It
incorporates
with
a
a
conspicuous
"scientifically"
trimmed theory of universals, and an account of natural laws as relations of
universals, both components of
the developing
Sydney realism.
Parts of the
naturalism program, especially materialism and central state reductionism and
the unified science ideal, have had counterparts in the North, but the program
has,
for
the most
part,
despite export efforts,
smoothly, moreover,
and
earthy, so
retained
its
distinctively
it never caught on in New Zealand.
into Australian culture.
far as
Australian character
philosophy can
""^Anderson’s metaphysics
was however
-
The program fits
It is similarly down-to-earth,
be, without
the fancy ideas or effete
far more opposed
to reductions
than
what has succeeded it. For an account of Anderson’s philosophy, and a history
and account of Australian naturalism and materialism, see especially Grave,
op.cit.
�idealism of European philosophy or the spirituality and suppressed puritanism
with
much
which
pragmatism).
of
yet
And
and
commitments,
North
American
does
it
though it
is
thinking
not
simmers
shrink
from
metaphysical
explicit
it
is not
from
the
basically empiricist,
nowadays,
(including
positivistic
(rejecting a verification principle, in particular).
It
is
a
city
program,
based
broadcast
mainly
University
of
Sydney to other metropolitan universities; but the program does extend outside
the universities a bit (a tiny bit) to the larger metropolitan culture.
No th America,
the
broader
Russell,
so in Australasia, little professional philosophy Impinges on
+
community,
Popper
AusLralasia
As in
and
would
be
or
Kuhn
quite
even on
being
an
the wider academic
(To
exceptional.
achievement,
one
community,
turn
worth
this
working
work by
around
for.)
now reaches
in
The
naturalism program used
to
Perth, and
in Canberra, as well as a core of opposition there.
has outliers
stretch
Apart from notable exceptions,
more than a rather
through
to
Adelaide;
the program has never had
precarious hold,
it
the
in Melbourne:nor, more
same
hold,
to
or
surprisingly,
24,
Jn Canada, for example, while most academics from other disciplines would
know of, and perhaps a little about, Russell, far fewer would know of
Wittgenstein (though he is becoming known to lit. crit. groups), and virtually
none would know of Quine.
(The sampling Is subjective.)
On the fairly recent ’triumph of professionalism’ in philosophy in USA, see
Kuklick, op.cit., p.565ff.
Kuklick brings out well some of the more
disastrous features of professionalism, but does not sufficiently notice that
the
virtuous
features
resulting
from some
professionalisation can
be
synthesized with broader philosophical activity.
25
The exceptions include Ellis's distinctive program, which can be accounted
part of the broader naturalist program, and at Monash the work of F. Jackson
and, earlier, of H. Munro in value theory.
�22
has it had heavyweight criticism from there (or indeed much external criticism
from elsewhere),
Melbourne
out.
the old confrontation of major city philosophies having died
is more
philosophy
stricken than Sydney; Melbourne
by
dominated
Continental
a
philosophy;
then,
a
fashions:
Northern
recently,
more
philosophy;
remarkable
religion
philosophy, much more than Sydney, has been
of
procession
historically oriented and more
Quine,
Davidson
and
and
language
ordinary
Wittgenstein,
turnabout,
idealism
earlier
extensional
reduction; now perhaps Lewis,iKripke and Dummett?
one
The
program
reaches
that
beyond
confines
the
of
the
cities
in
Australia - which is after all a metropolitan dominated culture, the vast land
always
being
the other
-
a rather
Australian environmentalism,
is
diffuse
program, which has connections with the Colleges of Advanced Education in the
country towns and the communes on the North Coast.
So far the program is as
much distinguished
is.
environmental
Europe
by what
positions are
specifically having
it
a
not
is
as
feature of
what
it
Serious
the New World,
of
transformed most
its
and
deeper
the Old World,
and
environment
and
natural
having little wild untouched country left, and little sensitivity accordingly
to
issues
Europe
that
such as
tend
admit
European
those
to concern
of
the
wilderness.
built
shallow approaches
superficiality
environmentalism
outside
continues
North
environmental
human-transformed
and
(and
The main
encourage
to
America.
environment,
techno-fix
dominate
North
much
Issues
situations).
of
American
the
New
in
issues
And
World
environmentalism
differs significantly however from Antipodean environmentalism, most obviously
in
the
religious-spiritual
component
respects as well (see further Culture).
of
the
former,
but
in
several
other
�23
More positively, there are three strands to Australian environmentalism:Firstly, there is an extended utilitarianism, differing little in theory from
Bentham’s enlarged position, which insists upon counting in the utilities of
creatures.
all sentient
figured
though
prominently
it
This
in animal
focussed
has
position,
developed
from a British base,
has
animal
liberation movements:
and
welfare and
on domestic
animals,
animals
used
in
and
research
hunted (wild) animals, it has also become entangled in issues of bio-research
more generally such as genetic engineering.
or much
interested in,
endangered species,
the conversion of forests,
animal pain and pleasure.
except
deal.
Secondly,
utilitarian
forests and
differs
insofar as
these have a
and
which
American
Thirdly,
naturalism.26
inadequate
there is a wider and a deeper ecological position, which is
recognises
irreducible
which finds
value
elsewhere
intrinsic value
ecosystems, especially wild and natural systems.
from
lands,
bearing on
and so deeper concerns get an
psychological states,
sentience or
the disappearance of wild
Wider and deeper environmental concerns appear only
spinoff from animal welfare,
as a
not
etc.,
It is not however concerned with,
and
spiritualism
is
there
of
from
an
extension
than
in trees
and
This
position
of
American
course
as
almost
everywhere,
a
reactionary component, critical of the other strands, which Insists that all
that
needs
to be
accomplished
on
the
environmental
front
can
be
achieved
within older established (European) ethical and political frameworks.
Whereas materialism is
based in Sydney, environmentalism is centred
in
Melbourne and Canberra, but also includes Brisbane and Perth. Also centred in
described more
fully elsewhere:
see,
in particular,
<ed- D- Mannison and others), RSSS, Australian
National University, 1980.
It
has
been
�Canberra, and reaching across the country, with good connections in Melbourne,
few
but
in
Sydney,
is
the
materialism and
environmental
further
from
input
affecting
program
other
which
program,
elsewhere.
and
and
is
of
Includes
more
to
extends
essentially
philosophy,
centres
New
in metaphysics,
with
respectively,
the
theory
value
a
Zealand ,
program,
logic
especially
in
the
Whereas
but
one
metaphysics.
Australia
than
has
been
also
any
The
other
described
27
The main
logic
perhaps
which
program
areas
major
their core
programs have
epistemology
relevant/paraconsistent
program.
relevant/paraconsistent.
grounded
research program evident
program.
in New Zealand
from the work of
A program emanating
located mainly in Wellington,
philosophy
is
also a
Prior and
now
it might be. called the extended modal program.
The impact of the program on philosophy is
perhaps best
seen in Cresswell’s
work.
Australian philosophy used to be known,
for its hard-headed empiricism;
not
known
and still
is in some quarters,
regrettably New Zealand philosophy is mostly
for anything much, except
perhaps, in UK,
that Prior brought
his
27
Again, like all the Australian programs, both those mentioned and others,
in Grave, op.cit. But see further, R.
Routley,
’Research in Logic in
Australia, New Zealand and Oceania’, Research Papers in Logic #14, Australian
National University, 1983 (which also considers other programs in logic);
G. Priest and R. Routley, op. cit.; and R. Routley, R.K. Meyer and others,
Relevant Logics and Their Rivals, Ridgeview, California, 1982.
28
See especially M.J. Cresswell, Logics and Languages, Methuen, London,
1973; but see also work by Goldblatt and by Hughes referred to in Research in
Logic, op.cit.
Also described there is an original version of the modal
program (transparent intensional logic) elaborated by Tichy at Otago.
�25
unusual adaption of Russellian philosophy from that remote place.
Neither of
these impressions is particularly accurate; both are rather out-of-date.
But
the aim of work of the present type is, of course, not just to correct these
impressions,
not just
to reflect or report on culture - for what one would
like to reflect upon is not sufficiently there - but also to help manufacture
elements of a culture, to make an image.
To
resist
the
already flourishing
North,
we
should
increase
our
efforts
to
programs, and perhaps other sunrise projects;
further
29
the
to build
teaching and research around the programs selected for promotion, elaboration,
and criticism, to orient appointments, especially of involved local people, to
29
Among sunrise projects in Australian philosophy so far suggested (not all
of them feasible) are these:
Australian feminism, Antipodean social and
political alternatives,
peace
studies,
indigenous
regional
philosophies
(especially Aboriginal, Melanesian, and Polynesian). Another promising field,
with practical consequences,
for local initiative is the philosophy of
education, where material produced by R.S. Peters has dominated the market,
with stultifying effects it is now alleged.
As foreshadowed with the notion of "sunrise projects", much of the rhetoric,
and argument, concerning science and technology policy (presented in the case
of Australia in Jones, op.cit.) can be taken over to apply to X policy, where
X is some subject discipline, such as philosophy.
�/
26
on
Why bother?
these programs.
Why not simply buy our philosophy, like almost
all our technology, off the shelf, from the North? There are several arguments
for not doing this, in more than a limited fashion, which are now sketched.
There
is,
firstly,
Northern products,
the
inferiority
despite their
and
built-in
attractive packaging.
obsolence
of
most
putting
too
fine a point on it, many of the imported intellectual goods are shoddy,
and
Without
only work for a very limited range of applications (e.g.
the
vicinity
Antipodean
of
contradictions
philosophy
dilemmas).
or
undoubtedly
derives
from
Much
they’re hopeless in
that
shoddy
is
wrong
intellectual
with
goods
30
In fact something like the last has been the policy of the LSE Philosophy
Department, where the only outside appointment over a long period was that of
Lakatos (hardly a person far removed ideologically).
As observed, it now
looks like the practice of the Otago Department also; and apparently it used
to be a tendency at Melbourne. But in most places the practice is condemned as
nepotistic or parochial, and overridden by the call for "new (Northern)
blood".
However there can be significant differences between nepotistic
appointments and those strengthening local programs.
It is at this stage, among others that administrative measures do matter;
for example, to ensure that suitable locally-engaged locals gain employment
rather than Northern stooges, to direct funds into on-going local programs
rather than imported fashions, etc.
There are various ways appropriate
administrative details can be handled, locally or nationally; but nothing
draconian, such as wholesale exclusion of noncitizens, is required.
Observe, indeed, that no restriction of academic appointments to nationals
(in Canadian style) or the like is being advocated.
Anyone who arrives at a
conclusion of that sort from what has been argued has misunderstood the case
in crucial
respects.
As a matter of
simple mathematics,
restricting
appointment fields characteristically reduces both quality of candidates
available (however quality is assessed) and range of possibilities open for
future research; and no such restrictions are advocated.
The author has
witnessed the debilitating effects of field restrictions at the Australian
National University and elsewhere.
31
Some of these
centre also.
arguments
support
change
(perhaps
revolutionary)
at
the
�27
Yet buying this material is encouraged by hard-sell
imported from the North.
cultural ambassadors from the North, who are often enough paid Lo visit.
is
part of
Northern
the
philosophical imperialism from the North —
colonialism
that
-
the
Antipodes
too
willing
This
the successor
suffers,
or,
to
more
remarkable, encourages I
Secondly, there is the inappropriateness of much of the Northern product,
especially
considered
as
a
metaphysics, environmental
package,
concerns.
to
instance,
for
cover,
well
as
as
The European North has no satisfactory
land or environmental ethic fit for Antipodean circumstances, and the deeper
American
package
too
is
spiritually-loaded
mainstream
for
Australian
In political theory, American work is much too individualistic and
culture.
competition-based, and
the European product, especially the Marxist form,
unsuited being both too
precious and
for local
too high-tech
is
circumstances,
especially again for more environmentally-perceptive people.
features
of
telling
also
Thirdly,
import
world’s markets
power structures
against
substitution
and
comparative
advantage,
regionalism;
namely,
and pressures and fashions,
(including the Old Boy’s
are
appealing
avoidance
of
the
removal of overseas control
and
network in
jobs,
policies,
etc.),
and gaining of local control, employment of local people, etc.
Fourthly,
32
there
are
arguments
for
cultural
diversity,
applied
to
The point is elaborated in Culture.
At a more practical level Northern
products are again often unsuitable, though for different reasons.
For
example, the transfer of American agricultural methods and equipment to the
thin poor soils of the Antipodes has had disastrous effects, at last beginning
to be recognised.
�28
philosophy
as
complexity,
sheer
part
of
intellectual
diversity,
stability,
culture:
etc.33
arguments
In fact,
built into the whole notion of 'culture’ transfers.
dense,
Naturally we want a rich,
weeds and many
We obtain not only good products,
being introduced.
Indian maize
and European cultivars, but European pests and American weeds.
selectiveness
and
control
are
essential,
as
richness,
the garden analogy
But not only seeds and plants but
productive garden.
pests are
from
This is why
previous
against
haphazard
procedures.
The proposal is not for, nor would the case sustain, a narrow localism,
with local products, whatever their quality,
heroes, replacing Northern ones.
local fashions,
and local cq|t
That is certainly not the preferred way of
the newer regionalism, which tends to do without fashions and heroes and which
seeks durable quality in products, low environmental impact, and so on; nor is
it the way of technology policy.
Rather, as with technology policy, we select
niches which are not occupied or satisfactorily filled,
where we
difference, and use and develop local skills and methods.
has
to
outlets,
be
selective
etc.).
given
our
resource
But granting regionalism,
base
(of
can make a
Indeed the policy
philosophers,
publishing
to what extent should components,
for instance people, books and other teaching elements, theories and ideas, be
imported
and
to
what
extent
should
they
be
produced,
trained,
conceived
locally? The possibility of selectiveness in different components means that
many mixes are possible.
particular mix.
There is no need to insist,
so far at least, on a
The case for the present is mainly for a regional shift,
for
33c
See, for instance, A.A. Mazrui, A World Federation of Cultures: An African
Perspective, Free Press, New York, 1976.
------ -- ---------- ---
�a significantly greater degree of local autonomy and production.
But it
will do
local favour.
no harm
Negatively,
elements
Indicate
to
of a mix
removal
of
the
Locke-Berkelcy-Hume
undue
(a
that
finds much
the suggestion is that we try to eradicate much of
the Oxford style of teaching and doing philosophy.
as
Q/
on
emphasis
standard
British
That includes such things
empiricism
British
focus);
of
the
centred
on
quasi-historleal
approach with however no proper attention to sources; of reinforcement of the
prevailing
Anglo-American
status
quo.
The
heavy
particular, has mostly been a very conservative one.
the
main
movements
philosophy,
but
emanating
also
the
from
England,
Moore-Wittgenstein
Oxford
influence,
in
More generally, many of
especially
practice,
ordinary
have
language
been
very
protective of the Northern status quo; they tend to leave things very much as
they
are,
and
recommend
just
this.
35
Positively,
the
proposal
is
that we
achieve further disassociation from the Anglo-American empiricist past in two
34
Does it sound familiar? Outside philosophy, it should. For example, we
have now been told by the Americans that our defence role, unlike theirs, is
regional, not global: this is supposed to shed great light on our previously
confused defence policies.
35
The point is laboured in E. Gellner, Words_ and Things, Victor Gollancz,
London, 1959.
But even ordinary language philosophy, though conservative, and
though it much contracted the proper range of philosophical investigations,
had its liberating elements, e.g. removal of some of the narrowness and more
cramping assumptions induced by technical jargon.
Nor has the social impact changed much with the subsequent decline, since
1959, of ordinary language philosophy, the increasing insolvency of Oxbridge
philosophy, and its consequent limited take-over by right-wing Ivy League
American philosophy.
By contrast, the less economically influential growth of
redbrick and applied philosophy
in some of the
British redbrick and
polytechnic institutes has touched no more than the surface of Oxbridge
practice.
�30
by
ways:
local
emphasizing
framework,
by
and
diversifying
move
that
projects
of
range
the
outside
constricting
that
traditions
philosophical
selectively drawn upon, to include not only neglected Continental strands and
but also
parts of Eastern thought,
The
philosophy.
is
idea
that
Pacific ethnic material and Australasian
plurality of
such a
especially
sources,
in
teaching, will assist in removing narrower cultural biasses, such as British
parochialism,
enable more
and
discrimination
be obtained.
to
Then
too we
should be better able to see the ranges of theories that are open to us in the
Antipodes and how to advance our own programs.
There remain some things we should want to see whatever mixes are chosen
One crucial issue is the removal of Northern
in different Antipodean regions.
bias from papers and publications, research seminars and lectures, letters of
This Northern bias is a disposition to cite and discuss
reference, and so on.
the
projects
and
works
irrespective
and
discussion
the
of
to
of
Northern
quality
ignore
of
the
authors,
their
works
the
more
of
authors,
local
irrespective of the quality of their contribution.
defer to
write oi
not
been
opinions of worth,
importance,
It
etc.
better,
topic
again
under
largely
It is the disposition to
authors from prestigious Northern institutions,
accept their
the
to
contribution
the
famous
is
and to uncritically
the disposition
to
lecture as though work produced locally either does not exist or has
influential
philosopl e s,
are,
(thus
if
ensuring
anything,
more
that
it
Inclined
is
to
not).
Northern
And
Australasian
bias
than
many
overseas intellectuals, who are perhaps less concerned to be seen as belonging
to the Northern mainstream.
bias
affects
not
only
the
The reduction, and eventual removal,
practice
of
Individual
of Northern
philosophers,
but
the
policies of selection and review committees as well as of editors and referees
�31
of
local
reorientation,
innovations
It
journals.
with
better,
involves,
philosophers
Antipodean
so
they
among
can
cite
work
initiatives and developments - things that would b<
content
in courses
leave, and so on.
taught,
more
time
spent
at
intellectual
to know local
getting
local
things,
other
or
point
out
work and
regional
assisted by greater local
local
institutions on
study
�32
APPENDIX 1.
considering
the
corresponding
initial
Lebensanchauung’
argument
Philosophy
both
Anderson,
as
is
truth
and
its
theory may not
a
that
be
or
confirmation
independent of national sympathies or prejudices'.
mean
Science’.
The
’are
falsification
Granted: but that does not
fostered, etc.,
held,
and
Weltanschauung
Christian
a
as
senses
two
’a scheme of the universe’,
that of
ridiculous
(Australian)
distinguished
between
distinction
In the first,
(p.292).
that
is
German
the
Philosophy’,
National
a
Francis
AJPP,
’the
to
’an Australian
of
possibility
’the
of
Editor
In
On the earlier idea of a National Philosophy for Australia.
in one
region but
not
others, as intultionism was for long in in Holland, or Cartesianism in France.
In a second 'more intimate and personal’ way,
'a nation like an individual may
develop a certain temperamental attitude to the problems of existence, which
we may
A nation’s philosophy, like its art
... call its philosophy of life.
and its literature,
is a mode of expression for
the national
It is a specialised form of the national genius ....’
short, part of the evolving national culture.
is
by
no
entirely
means
from
separate
(pp.292-3).
It is,
in the first place,
But,
initial
the
consciousness.
sense,
a
in
this
philosophy
comprising not merely a fairly comprehensive theory but also an integrated set
of attitudes (like an operational paradigm).
are such items as
accounted
’the national consciousness’ and
units
single
philosophy,
like
particularly
Furthermore, only by concession
meriting
Australian
distinctive
(in
definite
of
literature,
has
any
sense):
does
not
Australian
descriptors.
many
such
'the Australian landscape'
strands
things
to
form
it,
some
rather
not
loose
families.
Anderson
does
not
find,
really
hope
to
find
in
’a
modern
industrialised community’ - with its modular parts interchangeable with those
of others
- a national philosophy of
life,
with a difference.
In
fact
he
�33
claims to find a (somewhat) trite moral base to build on,
humour,
fair
and
courage
particularly phllosphical.
at
least
various
apart
of
but
life,
regional
is
So far,
not;
this
problems about
nothing
does
however
not
local
as
research
Identifying and
trouble derives from the extravagant claim that
with
Goodness
these
and
-
distinctive,
all
or
there
exclude
programs).
legitimating
being
So
a
far,
national
But shortly Anderson is plunged into inconsistency: the
philosophy, so good.
do
at
there could a national philosophy,
then,
(such
philosophies
from rational
but
dealing',
'traditions ... of
the
Beauty
-
then
of
values
eternal
and
only
Philosophy' (p.295 with rearrangement).
the
then
'if Australia has nothing to
Spirit,
has
she
the
Ideals
nothing
to
of
Truth,
with
do
But, as Australia has nothing per se
to do with these - as is virtually conceded,
these values involving a
'wider
sweep' than any national boundaries ~ "she" has nothing to do with Philosophy,
contradicting
the
possibility
of
a
National
Philosophy.
Though
the
contradiction is easily avoided by rescinding the extravagant claim, the ideal
of a National Philosophy should be allowed
to rest in peace: nationalism has
had its time.
Richard Routley^
Research School of Social Sciences
Australian National University
or
With thanks to R. Elliot, W. Godfrey-Smith, S. Grave and L. Mirlin, to
several members of the audience at the presentation of the paper at the 1983
Australasian Association of Philosophy Conference, University of Adelaide, to
several referees for this Journal, and, not least, to the present Editor.
�..A
PROSPECTS FOR REGIONAL PHILOSOPHIES IN AUSTRALASIA
Philosophy, especially academic philosophy but also folk
intellectual
other
dominated, indeed
Europe,
swamped,
largely
by
Northern
now increasingly from North America.
a
such
populations,
have to stay that way.
like
higher cultural activity in Australasia, has long been
and
influences,
composition
of
result was virtually inevitable.
Suitable
policies,
from
initially
Given the migration patterns, the
cultural and other baggage imported, the ethnic
ruling
philosophy,
a
good
philosophy
the
resulting
But it does not
policy,
could
change things.
The thought of a regional philosophy, perhaps matching a regional
In 1923, a New Zealand correspondent to the newly-launched
is hardly a new one.
Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy mentioned the
’a
new
kind
or
culture,
temper
philosophy
of
possibility
of
under these southern skies’ which the
Journal might foster.1 The Journal has however hardly fulfilled such a role (or,
for
that
matter,
actively
pursued
professional philosophers but a wider
things
some
have
changed
in
its pronounced aim of reaching not merely
Australasian
Australia,
community).
laying a solid foundation for a new
regionalism in philosophy, that possibility of a new temper
hardly
been
realised.
but
few
of
philosophy
had
There is little in the way of a new kind and temper of
philosophy under New Zealand skies, which the southern skies
include:
although
And
features,
distinctive
‘no
were
distinctively
characteristics, have shown up in New Zealand philosophy’2.
intended
New
Zealand
New Zealand remains
1.
AJPP, March 1923, p.74. The question was taken up by the Editor
same volume, p.292.ff; his discussion is considered below.
2.
S.A. Grave, A History pf Philosophy in Australia, Queensland
Press, 1983, p.l. Page references are to the manuscript.
1
to
in
the
University
�v, •? 1 nSOphy
of
a substantial net importer
of
dominance
colonial
but also
philosophy,
inns been
,
philosophers.
and
used to prevail in Australia, where virtually all
that
chairs, and many other academic posts in philosophy, were
the
from
no established chairs are
where
most strikingly exhibited
at
the
of
orientation
Northern
New Zealand is not surprising.
in
academics
small
courses designed, topics covered and considered and especially
in
appointments made, the heavy
researched
Zealand,
New
by
filled
Given the usual power and influence of professors in
occupied by locals.
departments,
in
persists
North,
situation
The
oldest
of
philosophy
taught
and
(The Northern control is perhaps
Zealand
New
universities,
the
University of Otago, where the Philosophy Department has been virtually captured
by a British School and looks increasingly like an offshoot of the London School
q,
of
In
Economics.)
kC-f" Ct
event the overwhelming Anglo-American dominance of New
any
Zealand philosophy — also a feature only in slightly lesser degree of Australian
philosophy
-
confirmed by a content survey of the courses offered and
be
can
research papers written at New Zealand universities.
to
Even when local people have been appointed
they
have
been
generally forged
requirements
brought
or
up
on
finished
the
North
as
B.Phil.
hard
well.
In
particular,
the
to
beat
case
of
philosophy
by
the
Many departments of philosophy remain full of products
degree.
of this cultural mill:
were
Australasia,
of the Australasian universities in the major period of post-World
War II expansion were conveniently seen to in the
Oxford
in
solid diet of Anglo-American material, and
a
in
positions
indeed until the mid 70s candidates finished
out
when
they
applied
for
positions,
in
such
Oxford
was
the
(unwarranted) prestige of Oxford and the continuing "cultural cringe".
Nonetheless, despite the Northern dominance, significant changes have
been
occurring in the Antipodes, especially on the Australian philosophical scene (as
will be indicated).
It is worth asking whether Australian philosophy is
2
moving
�hiiosophy
towards the sort of change that occurred in USA more than 100 years ago when the
Harvard Philosophy Department was brought (or bought) together, and its
age
"golden
American philosophy was never quite the same again, and became its
began.
own thing.
There are
Australian
philosophy
now
new
operating
forces
in such a direction.
which
help
could
to
move
There is the widespread emergence,
particularly in alternative culture, of a new (bio-)regionalism^, which
to cultural and ideological choice along with other local choices;
applies
and in stark
contrast, there is the centralised fashioning of national science and technology
which not only provides a model for reflection in regional philosophy
policies,
but
policy
also
directly
bears
on
parts
of
the
of
philosophy
science.
Unfortunately there are also some serious obstacles to regional philosophies and
to the very idea of a regional philosophy.
USA, long an importer of culture from Europe, has
of
certainly
of
lower
components of higher culture such
as
philosophy
exporter
philosophical
culture,
output
from
Oxford
has
culture,
taken).
recently
but
evidently
(witness
Are
become
net
also
any
of
turn
American
the
there
a
reasons why
Australasia, if not following suit, should not achieve a better cultural balance
of
payments,
especially
Yes, there are reasons.
in philosophy?
In the first
place, the change in the cultural position of the USA went with, and perhaps
part
derived
from,
vast
in
changes
economic^power relations.
dominance entails cultural dominance, there
Australasia’s
is
little
prospect
in
If economic
for
most
of
culture, since there is no serious prospect that Australasia will
ever emulate or attain American economic eminence (at least not without
nuclear
3.
See B. Kuklick, The Rise of American Philosophy;
Cambridge, Massachusetts
1860-1930, Yale University Press, 1977, Parts 2 and 3.
4.
See especially, Fourth World News, vol.
1,
1983, and
Scale, Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, New York, 1980.
3
K.
Sale,
Human
�-uilosopM but
also
has long '’een
destruction of the North, and disruption of
cultural
entire
flow
of
commodities,
Secondly, as observed, Antipodean universities not only
other).
and
the
contain a large component of Northern academics, increasingly of Americans, they
also
include
a
substantial
additional contingent of fellow-travellers, whose
research and teaching is bent to Northern concerns.
influential
jL
segment,
4A4X
y
e
unlikely
that
this
(become so locally
will
group,
former
the
It is
Gy I
acclimatised as to) give up its Northern^cultural commitments,
isolated
person.
Nor
apart
the
from
As long as Antipodeans do not drastically
should they.
alter their cultural priorities, they are in a bind situation;
for
it
can
be
persuasively argued that they would be better off, as far as quality and product
goes,
stocking
their
universities
with
American
teaching
components
and
researching American-oriented concerns.
One simple numerical argument that Antipodean universities would be
off with Americans in the main, takes the following lines:graduates
Australasian
of
and
American, are
A
distinguished, at least in subjects such as philosophy.
academics
of quality
produced
per
number
of
say there is 1 per every n graduates.
graduates;
The (higher degree)
significantly
not
culturally
Consider now the number
higher
degree
Austroamerican
The (great) preponderance of
graduates will be Americans, just by virtue of their vastly
and
better
their more extensive system of university education.
greater
population
So also then, just by
ratio considerations, the great preponderance of quality academics drawn from an
Austroamerican
base will be American, as will the upper percentiles among those
quality products.
be
5.
appointing
Clearly, Antipodeans, were they interested in quality,
more Americans to their universities.
would
Such an argument does not
As indicated in Appendix 1, the ratio of philosophy graduates with
doctorates is in the order of 30 to 1 for USA as compared with Australia.
And, ; > is well-known, the extent of university education is much greater
in USA than in Australasia: indeed Australia is in this respect the worst
educated of the developed nations, as OECD figures have made plain (see,
e.g., B. Jones, Sleepers Awake, Penguin, 1982, p.
).
Co***)
fa
/o
�.. w. also folk
work to show that, for similar reasons, American universities should be full
or
Chinese
Indian
professors,
two reasons;
for
cultural differences between Asians and
as philosophy;
such
of
first there are significant
especially
Americans,
disciplines
in
and secondly, their university systems do not deliver such
great quotas of higher degree or high quality graduates, at least in philosophy.
The conclusion of the numerical argument will not be a
popular
one.
The
anti Americanism felt in portions of the Australasian community extends into the
and recently there has been increasing insistence, especially
universities;
the
aging
now
younger
Turks that university positions should be reserved for
This at the same time as these Turks often preach of
locals.
community
of
scholars,
by
presumably^/ then
an
international
"free" interchange, etc.
They
cannot have it ail ways.
So long as there is a free—flow interchange of
will
centre
dominate
the
ideas
personnel,
and
periphery culturally as well as economically;
will have more than us, and jobs here should go by and large to them
if
the
they
it
is
quality in this high cultural business that we seek, as we mostly claim.
Now it is widely enough recognised, lower-down hierarchical ladders anyway,
that there is something drastically wrong with these sorts of arguments.
are not flooded with high-quality Northerners
local
contenders
who
better.
retain
have
appointment
the
messages
of
out
the centre better than locals do, and
higher—echelon
(often
Northern
committees than dusty locals whose shortcomings are known
As is beginning to be recognised too,
their
drive
rather we are inundated by Americans with inflated
remote Northern fields tend to look greener to
biassed)
regularly
for positions, if we only preferred the Northerners when they
were quite visibly superior:
references,
would
who
For we
higher-quality
products,
periphery only if they somehow fall foul
5
and
of
Northern
the
allow
the
them
system
centres
to
(e.s5.
tend
to
be exiled to the
the
academic
�philosophy»
folk
w also
•
it
All this makes the position look doubly bad. /Wejought,
appointing
especially
Northerners,
Americans,
yet
And
doing
so
to
seems,
to
order
maximize
does not achieve the desired quality result, and
J?
breeds discontent elsewhere, especially among the aging Turks.
Cx-z'J2-^
Fortunately there is a way out from this awkward situation and these
arguments;
and
that
the
is
us.
the
Then
shaky
shaky
way of regionalism. (^We) do our own things;
obtain sufficient cultural distance,
for
be
if they are overrated in
even
their references, and usually not out of the top drawer, in
quality.
/■jxc*</-C-vuaxt
so that they are not
numerical
argument
simply
does fall down.
and
sul^itutable
But before we
elaborate the emerging proposal there are other influential arguments to dispose
of, and the disposal bears on the proposal.
There is, to begin with, the argument for
have
so
far
been
conceded:
all more or
institutions
maximize.
most
of
crave
and
seek
excellence,
elements
of
which
that there is an objective commodity, quality or
less__agree
and
what
about,
which
appointments
is
what
academic
to capture, indeed
aim
That at least is the type of myth most of us have
encountered;
ow know it is a myth, in fact a dangerous myth.
Host places don’t
even try to make appointments that way, any more that organisations aim just
maximize
profit,
but
rather
seek
some
Ability
to
fit
sort of program, teaching or research, is another, and commonly more
important factor;
6.
to
to satisfice on a mix of factors, of which
assessed qualityjis only one, and not the highest ranking one.
into
and
and there is no good reason why such
a
program
should
not
This is easier in the cultural than the technological sphere.
However it
is also possible technologically:
(stronger) theses of technological
determinism, and so of cultural determinism, are false.
We can choose
different options, technologically, as well as culturally.
�sometimes be a regionally oriented one.
So
like
Mii 1 OSOphy *
1
prevailing
given
the
practices,
argument from excellence does not exclude regional philosophy programs.
The deeper-cutting objection is that there
the
with
that
objective importancej
criticism
as
excellence,
objective
of
idea
notions
these
notions
objective
of
is
something
and
with
the
are
open
to
values
more
seriously
connected notion of
the
same
sorts
generally,
that
they have
viewpoint
rather
narrow
to
which
these
intellectual
of
the framework
bracketed out the contextual—relativisation component of valuing:
or
amiss
relate.? While those operating within a
values
paradigm,
as
such
ordinary
Oxbridge
language
philosophy or Sydney materialism say, can bracket out the viewpoint, since it is
objective
incorporated in the operational paradigm, and so arrive at
seemingly
quality judgements, the judgements are not preserved (e.g.
in truth value) when
transposed
Consider,
to
frameworks,
other
e.g.
idealistic
or
for comparison, the judgements as to the quality or worth of a forest
made variously by a deep ecologist, an industrial forester, and
officer.
viewpoints.
Marxist
Compare
environmental
judgements
as
by
philosopher,
Califorman—environmentalist
to
the
quality
There
recreational
of a holistically-inclined
Marxist
language,
ordinary
philosophers.
a
are
philosophers who
even
pretend that such environmental work cannot be judged, seemingly because
not
done
by
institutions.
members
of
such
is
■F
the
importance
of
work
quality
done
or
importance of problems and issues is highly paradigm
problems
it
of the main philosophical peer group at Harvard and like
As this begins to reveal, judgements of
judgements
and
as
those
are
not
problems
independent
tackled.
dependent.
For
of
But the
example,
of quantifying-in and of possible worlds and of de re
What follows also begins to bring out what is om^Qitted in a main
R.S.
Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance,
197 .
--
theme
of
�thought which assume immense importance
within
mainstream
the
for
referential
fashionable
theories
paradigm, vanish to relative insignificance
empiricist
outside that restricted viewpoint.
Now observe that most judgements as to
what
are the important problems and what constitutes important work - matters helping
determine quality - are shipped
relative
to
their
down
from
placement,
paradigmatic
the
Their
North.
and
the
importance
is
paradigms concerned are
exported to the Antipodes through the main channels already indicated.
We
are
free to reject these paradigms and select alternatives, and there are, it can be
argued, good reasons to do just that, much as there are good reasons
different
energy
technology
different
(or
military
technology)
choose
to
that
from
generally favoured in the North which the North is eager to export southwards.
Similar points apply against the cosmopolitan/international argument
might
which
alternatively be called the Peter Stuyvesant international argument, that
sophisticated people everywhere smoke this superior
-marketed from Holland;
product
mass-produced
cigarette-sophistication is cosmopolitan.
and
The argument
is based on the assumption that philosophy is a ’cosmopolitan subject’, that
is
is not the sort of enterprise for which place and people are significant as they
are for poetry or the novel.8 The assumption has only
questioned.
to
be
production also.
like
a
process
of
But in the process of production the place and people involved
And if the product is like a work
in discussion) are material.
of
art,
a piece of literature, and not just theorems and arguments assembled in an
internationally-approved format,
Q
then again
the
historical
setting
since philosophy, no more than literature, does not emerge in a vacuum.
8.
be
It takes for granted, for one important thing, that philosophy is a
finished product of a certain sort (a propositional theory), not
(e.g.
to
presented
matters,
Plato's
Grave, op.cit, p.2:
the term ’cosmopolitan subject’ is said to come from
Donegan.
As to the significance of place and people for literature, see
further C.
Partridge, The Making of New Cultures, Editions Rodopi,
Amsterdam, 1982.
8
�philosophy could not have emerged in ancient Australia, and if
cribbed
in
mid
20th century Oxford would surely have been marked down or rejected.111
It is important not to be sidetracked into issues - resembling problems
aesthetics
-
that do not need to be contested, such as whether and what extent
sets of themes and arguments produced in one place and setting could
produced
in
in
another.
have
been
A nonnuclear technology of some sort could be adopted in
Europe but apparently will not be, whereas there is reasonable prospect that New
Zealand,
in
contrast with Australia, will pursue a nonnuclear energy strategy.
It is the doing* and not what could
logic,
which
be
substantial cultural resistance):
to be done in the Anglo-American
their
done,
that
matters
Dialethic
here.
invalidates the technique and methodology of much philosophy done
in the North, could perhaps
choose
be
own
distinctive thing.
distinctive
done
in
the
North
(though
there
would
be
it is not being done there, and is not likely
sphere.11
To
this
extent,
Antipodeans
can
technology and logical techniques, do their own
The international/cosmopolitan argument, stated
in
a
form
that would be telling, fails.
9.
Like a paper Ln the biological sciences.
But here again technique
methodology, which may both be regional, are crucially important.
10.
Related points can be made concerning modern American work. Consider, for
instance such texts as W.V. Quine's Word and Object, (Wiley, New York,
1960) or R. Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia (Basic Books, New York,
1974).
The assumptions taken for granted, the arguments involved, etc.,
are especially American: it is not just the style. The acceptability of
arguments and positions is dependent on place and received paradigm.
11.
Much as communist anarchism, a live possibility for communes and perhaps
communities in Australia, is culturally excluded in North America, owing to
the extreme individualism of that culture.
9
and
�tUK KLUJLUNAL
Hi JLLUbUrdltb
IN AUblKALAbLA
Of course it can be argued, it is being argued, that Antipodeans don’t need
to
be,
or
even oughtn’t to be pursuing their own energy or logic policies and
But meeting these considerations takes us to
apparatus.
concerning
issues
merit
the
of
a
we
shall
return,
our
own
cuisine
cooking is adequate:
that we don't
or wine styles.
arguments,
The new
need
to
be
or
oughtn’t
to
to
be
British, or at least cosmopolitan,
we should stick to that and buy it off the shelf from
ideally importing the cooks also.
North,
of
are not a lot more convincing however than comparable
arguments concerning cooking:
devising
set
policies and programs, the point of
various
diversity, etc.— far beyond the cosmopolitan argument.
which
new
whole
the
Do we have good reasons to think that
British philosophy is better, these days, than British cooking? 12
Antipodeans are free in principle, then, to
and
to
pursue
their
own
paradigms;
do so they will by and large want to, and mostly have to, appoint their
own people, people they have educated - not saboteurs or people who
to be re-educated, from elsewhere, in particular from the North.
(had)
have
But will their
intellectual paradigms tie with cultural paradigms, with distinctive features of
the
local
7
culture.
In
a loose way, at least, they may link, though works of
philosophy will not usually tie in with the culture in the integral fashion that
novels
(as
distinct
from more technical works) sometimes do.
Grave considers
two cultural features, not restricted to particular philosophical programs, that
help
mark
philosophy
in
Australia
as ’an Australian product’ - ’unimportant
though this is compared with what matters in philosophy’ he hastens to add.
But
style, acceptability, truth, do matter, and are not independent - or independent
mofar as their perception goes in the case of truth and
12.
correctness13
-
from
One correspondent (name supplied) suggested I ’might note the stultifying
crap produced by R.S.
Peters Inc.
and marketed as philosophy of
education’. Certainly, as Grave’s discussion (op.cit.
p.318) reveals,
Peters’
influence in this area has been very substantial: this indicates
another field for local initiative.
saco-s. -fo (K
t* th-
�STS FOR REGIONAL PHILOSOPHIES IN AUSTRALASIA
underlying broad theory or received paradigm.
However the marks Grave cautiously advances do not serve to distinguish the
Australian
product,
being
features
philosophy exhibits in lesser
Australian
degree than the more adventurous and polemical philosophy
antiquity.
Greek
first, described by Passmore as ’most typical of Australian philosophy’, is
The
a ’diversity of approach and readiness
unfashionable
point
of
view’,
put
to
forward
much
something
more
an
unconventional
typical
or
classical
of
The second, and more surprising, mark is the manifestoed characte^
philosophy.
of
of
Australian philosophy, 'the most notable example ...
between Wittgensteinian Melbourne and Andersonian Sydney,
philosophy
Andersonian
itself'
(p.2).
This
example
being ...
if
is
it
the line-up
was
not
the
far from isolated:
others among them concern the fervour generated by "Australian materialism", the
extraordinary
discussed
by
political
Grave),
engagement
and
the
by
some
growing
philosophy
confrontation
departments
concerning
(both
the
relevant/paraconsistent program, with the local ("adversarial") style leading to
sharp criticism by Americans.
Grave
The third and especially the fourth marks are, as
notes, hardly distinguishing marks, namely the contrast of the Australian
reputation in philosophy with that in other subjects and
the
anti-intellectual
national stereotype, and the separation of the academic philosophy from the sort
of mostly-imported philosophy of interest in literary and arty-crafty circles.
13.
Nothing need be conceded to strong cultural relativity themes, though they
would support the case. It is enough that our theories remain radically
incomplete and that there can accordingly be rival theories as to what is
true. Similarly, however philosophy is conceived, as the search for truth,
explanation, understanding (all of these really), or as inquiry of a
certain sort, there can be - will be - competing accounts.
11
�— ruK REGIONAL PHILOSOPHIES IN AUSTRALAQi A
The failure of the marks to adequately separate off
Australian
from the particular local examples) does not matter.
(apart
Australian produce is sufficiently separated
another,
by
projects.
For
regionalism should not be confused with nationalism, nor more regional
positions such as Sydneyside materialism or Wellington
Nationalism
philosophies.
in
philosophy,
undesirable trait, not to be encouraged:
cultural
other
For one thing, the
research
its
philosophy
as
in
modalism
most
with
national
things, is an
other
and the new regionalism is linked,
in
with the breakdown of nations and contraction of state
things,
power. 14
To get back to where we were:
-
better much increase - doing our own distinctive things, and that we team
or
In fact there are several suggestions that begin to
up to do so.
just
the emerging proposal is this, thatQ^e/start
emerge;
not
that we do our own selection, decide our own priorities, instead of having
these foisted upon us;
invented
instead
here
of
competitive
or
taken
Gridiron
model
in favour of a
not just, that is, that we play our own
and
over
from
Basketball,
games,
whether
the North and not theirs, Rules and Rugby
but
that
we
abandon
the
individual
of cultural achievement sold to us and fostered by the North
group
cooperative
approach
(elements
of
which
are
already
modelled in Antipodean social clubs).
14.
See, e.g., Sale, op.cit., and L.
London, 1957.
Kohr,
The
Breakdown
of
Nations,
RKP,
The Editor of the new 1923 AJPP did however take seriously the notion of
National Philosophy, of an Australian Philosophy; some of the issues there
raised (p.292ff) are addressed in Appendix 2.
12
�p_FOR regional PHILOSOPHIES in AUSTRAtacta
The thoughts here are
example:
ditch-digging
more
ditch
rapidly
the
On
than
enjoyably
and
two
people
On the other side, experience
cannot
individually
achievements in their programs.
situation.
communi ation
working
complete
very
shows
depends
results
builds
on
Despite
the
For, despite, the individualism
the
work
of
in
obtaining
we
that
highly
myth
rapid
publication
of
competitive
predominantly
much in the attainment
work
is
jointly
based,
Then again communications
the
idea
or
the
are
tend
to
lose
There are nationalistic considerations (e.g.
fact
achieves
There is the fact that much is
conveyed verbally and through face-to-face seminars so that local
is
and
result, and the
Here again people at the periphery
a result at about the same time as an outsider).
There
the
when the time is ripe for some idea or result,
many:
There are a mix of reasons:-
conveyed.
in
One is the
Poles tend to promote Polish results, Russians will cite a Russian who
be
ditch
rapid verbal communication and access to unpublished
upon
assignment of credit for it.
out.
the
There are several reasons for this.
several clever people will be able to hit on it.
important
on
successfully with the centre on
individualistic nature of American academic enterprise,15
material.
the
is
it is well-known that two people cooperating can dig a
enjoyment in the doing.
of
side
one
Cooperative work tends to pay off in terms of output, quality, and
separately.
periphery
familiar.
and
simple
results
will
of limited reading, and that people at the
centre tend to concentrate when they read on material from the centre by central
people, so that published items and results from the periphery will often not be
noticed, and may well lose out to
15.
central
competitors
even
if
they
achieve
Reflecting other features of the culture and enterprise of the centre which
are not so deeply embedded in Australasia:
see further R. Routley,
’Culture, philosophy, and approaches to the natural environment - an
Australian
perspective’,
and
’Culture and the roots of political
divergence:
the Australian/American contrast’,
typescripts, Canberra,
1983; both referred to subsequently as ’Culture’.
13
�^2^Sl2IWL_PHILOSOPHTro T.
central publication.
There is also the fact that people at the centre
to
merit for merit, more publication and communication opportunities than
receive,
Here economic factors such as
people towards the periphery.
market
tend
(there
are,
a
e.g.,
many
great
size
of
academic
more academic philosophers in North
America than in the whole rest of the world), control of publishing outlets
etc.
journals,
(with few exceptions all Northern), do begin to enter.
economic power does not, and need not, determine culture -^we)can shut
philosophical
Northern
we
sets if
propaganda
want
really
to.
in
we
And
and
However
off
the
much the way we shut off our television
can
stop
being
impressed
by
those
philosophical middle-men who make a living by importing the Northern stuff.
So what do we do?
We adapt to the cultural-philosophical level, several of
things, that have been suggested in the new (bio-)regionalism.
those
some regional awakening and local self-management.
We
do
not
We aim at
slavish
remain
importers and imitators of, and local commentators on and peddlars of, doctrines
and positions from the North.
to
trying
tease
out
For example, we don’t spend
our
academic
what Wittgenstein or Dummett16 or Quine meant by this or
that in the hope that some pale Northern light will perhaps filter through.
be
lives
To
I am not suggesting that we emulate the appalling ignorance of people
sure,
from the North who visit the Antipodes and know little or nothing about what has
been
done
or is being done here;
so that we have eminent visitors, their bags
heavy with cultural accroutrements, trekking
University
(now
the
main
for
centre
through
investigation
the
Australian
of relevant logics) and
informing us that, or relying crucially on the assumption that, a
entails
16.
every proposition.
National
contradiction
One reason that these Northerners often know little
Nor do we really need C. Martin (an American, formerly professor at Sydney
University, now at Calgary) coming by to tell us there are severe
difficulties in making Dummett’s stuff work or even cohere (though it’s
nice to see him again).
14
�^~^-^S2NAL PHiLosn
1
or nothing about distinctive positions and advances
prevailing
of
assumption
the
is
Antipodes
is
the
the inferiority of cultural and intellectual life in
these former southern colonies;
another is the narrow (predominantly local) and
limited reading undertaken by Northern luminaries.
But, despite having been given sufficient cause, we shouldn’t cut ourselves
off
We can reasonably use what we need from these
anyway).
so
from Northern paradigms and influences (we could hardly manage to
entirely
we
should
enterprises.
stay
informed
In any case,
but
of,
imitators
not
cultures
regional
continuing
are
in
just as the people are largely European stock.
traditions,
or part of, their
of,
rooted
older
minority)
and
traditions,
Northern
So far from cutting
loose from these traditions and starting afresh from nowhere, these
likely
traditions:
older
(and
the local variations that have emerged, are
what we want to develop and perhaps mutate, as again with wine styles.
The proposal is
encourage
then
develop
and
paradigms, rather than
paradigms
we
that
do
increasingly
own
our
working
with
pale
nor-thorn
reflections
research
of
fortunately,
being
do
we
programs
already
grounded
in
need
to
features
make
New
Zealand
is
a
different
and
which
initiated,
of
the
to
pull
have
larger
For
the very great
culture.17
Nor,
more
Australia
difficult proposition - is already
All one really has to
do
out programs he has already indicated and provide some elaboration
and commentary.
17.
components.
Much of the story, for
indicated in Grave’s survey of Australian philosophy.
is
Northern
the story up - though helping to shape the
future is part of what the proposal is about.
-
of
It is not as if we have to build from nothing, to do - what is very
are
advantage
things,
own research programs, and so shape new Antipodean
our
difficult - entirely original work, to try to create cultural
there
local
To pull the investigation down to
See Culture, op.cit.
15
a
more
concrete
level,
I
�PHTr
mo____
shall list some more prominent programs — not the only ones — and remark on some
features of them.
The longest running and best known program is, without much doubt, that
AusfcraATan
naturalism,
which is generally traced back to Anderson’s empiricist
and which aims to see the natural world, and everything else,
metaphysics,
encompassed
suitably
program
a
and Smart in Adelaide which has since died out there.
has included such famous components as the mental-material
theme
and
central
materialism,
state
derivatively, a version of functionalism.
failures
conspicuous
scientifically
relations
of
as
the frame work of the world of /physical scienc^f.
within
It contains as a major subprogram Sydney materialism,
Place
of
its
in
nowadays
and
Faced
like
plans,
reduction
The latter program
contingent
it
all
it
by
initiated
identity
in,
more
physicalisms
with
takes
incorporates
now
a
trimmed theory of universals, and an account of natural laws as
universals.
Parts
of
the
program, especially materialism and
central state reductionism and the unified science ideal, have had
counterparts
in the North, but the program has, for the most part, retained its distinctively
Australian character (it never caught on in
smoothly, moreover, into Australian culture.
New
Zealand).
The
program
It is similarly down—to—earth, and
earthy, so far as philosophy can be, without the fancy ideas or effete
of
idealism
European philosophy or the spirituality and suppressed puritanism with which
much of North American thinking simmers (including nowadays,
yet
fits
pragmatism).
And
it does not shrink from explicit metaphysical commitments, and though it is
basically
empiricist,
it
is
positivistic
not
(rejecting
a
verification
principle, in particular).
18.
Anderson’s metaphysics was far more opposed to reductions than what has
succeeded it.
For an account of Anderson’s philosophy, and a history and
account of Australian naturalism and materialism, see especially Grave,
op.cit.
16
�It is a city, primarily «G4t-y o£ Sydney, based program, but the program does
extend
outside
universities a bit (a tiny bit) to the larger metropolitan
the
As in North America, so in Australasia, little professional philosophy
impinges
on
broader community1920
, or even on the wider academic community
the
work by Russell, Popper and Kuhn being exceptional.
Australasia
would
be
an
quite
Perth,
and
has
outliers
in
Apart from notable exceptions,
one
achievement,
naturalism program used to stretch through
to
elsewhere),
the
old
from
worth
it
the program has never had
there
now
for.)
reaches
in
The
to
(or
indeed
the
same
hold,
or
nor, surprisingly, has it had
much
external
criticism
from
confrontation of major city philosophies having died out.
more
religion
stricken
Melbourne philosophy, much more than Sydney, has been dominated by
a procession of Northern fashions:
more
working
around
Canberra, as well as a core of opposition there.
Melbourne philosophy is more historically oriented and
than Sydney;
this
turn
Adelaide;
more than a rather precarious hold, in Melbourne:
heavyweight criticism
(To
recently,
earlier idealism and Continental philosophy;
Wittgenstein, ordinary language philosophy;
turnabout, Quine, Davidson and extensional reduction;
then, a remarkable
now perhaps Lewis, Kripke
and Dummett?
19.
In Canada while most academics from other disciplines would know of, and
perhaps a little about, Russell, far fewer would know of Wittgenstein
(though he is becoming known to lit. crit. groups), and virtually none
would know of Quine. (Subjective sampling).
On the ’triumph of professionalism’ in philosophy in USA, see Kuklick,
op.cit., p.565ff.
Kuklick brings out well some of the more disastrous
features of professionalism, but does not sufficiently notice that the
virtuous
features
resulting
from
some professionalisation can be
synthesized with broader philosophical activity.
20.
Ellis’s work, and more recently the work of F. Jackson and others (e.g in
value theory, H.
Munro), which can be accounted part of the broader
naturalist program.
17
*• I
culture.
�The one program that reaches beyond the confines of the cities in Australia
-
is
which
a metropolitan dominated culture, the vast land always
all
after
environmentalism,
being the other - is Australian
which
has
the Colleges of Advanced Education in the country
with
connections
towns and the communes on the North Coast.
So
far
distinguished by what it is not as what it is.
of
most
transformed
Europe
World,
to
untouched country left, and little sensitivity accordingly
those
the
and
built
approaches.
human-transformed
environment,
specifically,
issues
as
such
that
issues
admit
shallow
European superficiality continues to dominate much of the New
And
World environmentalism outside North America.
differs
much
as
The main environmental issues in Europe tend to concern
wilderness.
of
is
and having little wild
environment
natural
its
program
the
Serious and deeper environmental
positions are a feature of the New World, the Old
having
program,
diffuse
rather
a
significantly
North
environmentalism
American
however from Antipodean environmentalism, most obviously
in the religious-spiritual
of
component
former,
the
in
but
other
several
respects as well (see further Culture).
Australian
More positively, there are three strands to
there
Firstly,
is
an extended utilitarianism, differing little from Bentham’s
enlarged position, which insists upon counting the
This
creatures.
environmentalism#*-
position,
developed
from
a
of
utilities
British
base,
prominently in animal welfare and animal liberation movements:
on
focussed
animals,
domestic
animals
used
in
as
engineering.
genetic
interested
in,
conversion
of
endangered
forests,
pain and pleasure.
spinoff
from
It
species,
is
the
not
of
figured
it
has
wild
generally
with, or much
the
lands,
etc., except insofar as these have a bearing on animal
Wider and deeper environmental concerns
animal
more
concerned
disappearance
sentient
and hunted (wild)
research
however
has
though
animals, it has also become entangled in issues of bio-research
such
all
welfare,
and
18
appear
only
as
a
so deeper concerns get an inadequate deal.
�Secondly, there is a wider and
utilitarian
and
ecological
deeper
a
especially
wild
and
in
value
trees
is
is
not
forests
and
and
This position differs from
natural systems.
American spiritualism and from an extension of American
there
which
which recognises irreducible value elsewhere than sentience or
psychological states, which finds intrinsic
ecosystems,
position,
Thirdly,
naturalism.
of course, as almost everywhere, a reactionary component, critical of
the other strands, which insists that all that needs to be accomplished
environmental
front
be
can
achieved
within
older
established
on
the
ethical and
political frameworks.
Whereas materialism is based in
Canberra
and
Sydney,
environmentalism
Melbourne, but also includes Brisbane and Perth.
none
in
Sydney,
is
the
relevant/paraconsistent
materialism and environmental programs have
further
input
from
relevant/paraconsistent
affecting
epistemology
program
and
a
in
in
logic
metaphysics,
respectively,
program,
other major areas of philosophy, especially metaphysics.
which perhaps includes more centres in Australia than
any
Melbourne,
Whereas the
program.
theory
value
essentially
is
core
their
in
Also centred in
Canberra, and reaching across the country, with good connections
but
centred
is
other
but
with
the
one
The program
program,
and
which extends to New Zealand, has also been described elsewhere.*
22
21.
It has been described more fully elsewhere:
see,
in
particular,
Environmental Philosophy (ed. D. Mannison and others), RSSS, Australian
National University, 1980.
22.
Again, like all the Australian programs, both those mentionedand others,
in Grave,
op.cit.
But see
further, R. Routley, ’Research in Logic in
Australia,
New Zealand and
Oceania’, Research Papers in
Logic #14,
Australian
National University,
1983;
G.
Priest and R. Routley, On
Paraconsistency, Research Papers in Logic #13,
1983;
R.
Routley and
others, Relevant Logics and Their PJLvals, Ridgeview, California, 1983.
19
�The main research program evident in New Zealand philosophy is also a logic
A
program.
grounded
program emanating from the work of Prior and now located
mainly in Wellington, it might be called the extended modal program.
of
the
on
program
The impact
is perhaps best seen in Cresswell’s Logics and
philosophy
Languages.
Australian philosophy used to be known, and still is in some quarters,
its
hard-headed
empiricism;
regrettably New Zealand philosophy is mostly not
known for anything much, except perhaps, in UK, that Prior brought
adaption
of
philosophy
Russellian
work
the
of
present
type
that remote place.
from
impressions is particularly accurate;
of
for
is,
his
Neither of these
both are rather out-of-date.
of
course,
not
just
unusual
to
But the aim
correct these
impressions, not just to reflect or report on culture - for what one would
to
reflect
upon
is
not
sufficiently
there
-
like
but also to help manufacture
elements of a culture, to make an image.
To resist the North, we should increase our efforts to further the
flourishing
already
programs, and perhaps other sunrise projects, to build teaching and
research around the programs selected for promotion, elaboration, and criticism,
to
orient
appointments,
programs. 23
24 Why bother?
technology,
especially
of
involved
local
people,
off the shelf, from the North?
There is, firstly, the
inferiority
built-in
and
despite their attractive packaging.
23.
limited
range
of applications (e.g.
obsolence
25
of
Northern
Without putting too fine a point
for
a
they're hopeless in the vicinity of
Methuen, London, 1973.
See also work by Goldblatt and by
to in Research in Logic, op.cit.
20
our
There are several arguments for not
on it, many of the imported intellectual goods are shoddy, and only work
very
these
Why not simply buy our philosophy, like almost all
doing this, in more than a limited fashion, which are now sketched.
products,
to
Hughes
referred
�contradictions or dilemmas).
Much that
is
wrong
with
philosophy
Antipodean
undoubtedly derives from shoddy intellectual goods imported from the North.
Yet
buying this material is encouraged by hard-sell cultural
the
North,
who
are
often enough paid to visit.
from
ambassadors
This is part of the philosophical
imperialism from the North - the successor to Northern colonialism
that
-
the
Antipodes too willingfysuffers , or, more remarkable, encourages!
Secondly, there is the inappropriateness of much of the
especially
considered
as
a
package,
metaphysics, environmental concerns.
land
or
for
instance,
The European
North
to
Northern
cover,
has
no
as
product,
well as
satisfactory
environmental ethic fit for Antipodean circumstances, and the American
24. In fact something like the last has been the policy of the LSE. Philosophy
Department, where the only outside appointment over a long period was that
of Lakatos (hardly a person far removed ideologically).
As observed, it
now loc s like the practice of the Otago Department also: and apparently
it used to be a tendency at Melbourne. But in most places the practice^ is
condemned as nepotistic or parochial, and overridden by the call for new
(Northern) blood".
It is at this stage, among others that administrative measures do matter;
for example, to ensure that suitable locally-engaged locals gain employment
rather than Northern stooges, in order to inject funds for on-going or new
programs, etc.
Among sunrise projects in Australian philosophy so far suggested are these:
Australian feminism, Antipodean social alternatives, indigenous regiona
philosophies (especially Aboriginal, Melanesian, and Polynesian).
As
foreshadowed with the notion "sunrise projects", much of the rhetoric, and
arguments, concerning science policy can be taken over to aPP-Y to >
policy, where X is some subject discipline, such as philosophy.
25. Some of these arguments
change
support
centre also.
21
(perhaps
revolutionary)
at
the
�I
too
product is
spiritually-loaded
theory,
political
Australian
mainstream
for
culture.
26
In
work is much too individualistic, and the European
American
product, especially the Marxist form, unsuited
too
and
for
high-tech,
local
circumstances, especially again for more environmentally-perceptive people.
Thirdly, also telling against comparative advantage, are appealing features
of
and
markets
and
substitution
import
(including
removal
fashions,
the
Old
Boy’s
of
overseas
of the world’s
avoidance
namely,
regionalism;
control
and
structures
power
network in jobs, policies, etc.) and local control,
employment of local people, etc.
Fourthly, there are arguments for cultural diversity, applied to philosophy
as
part
of
intellectual
arguments from richness, complexity, sheer
culture:
into
diversity, stability, etc.26
27 In fact, the garden analogy built
notion
of
garden.
’culture’
transfers.
introduced.
We
obtain
not
only
but
good
whole
we want a rich, dense, productive
Naturally
But not only seeds and plants
the
and
weeds
products,
cultivars, but European pests and American weeds.
many
pests
are
being
maize and European
Indian
This is why selectiveness and
control are essential, as against previous haphazard procedures.
The proposal is not for, nor would the case
sustain,
a
narrow
localism.
The suggestion is for carefully selective penetration of intellectual areas.
with
technology
policy,
we
select
niches
which
are
not
occupied
As
or
satisfactorily filled, where we can make a difference, and use and develop local
skills and methods.
base
Indeed the policy has to be selective
(of philosophers, publishing outlets, etc.).
what extent should components, for instance people,
our
resource
But granting regionalism, to
books
26.
The point is elaborated in Culture.
27.
See, for instance, A.A.
Mazrui, A World Federation
African Perspective, Free Press, New York, 1976.
22
given
and
of
other
teaching
Cultures:
An
�elements, theories and ideas, be imported and to
trained,
produced,
conceived
locally?
The
extent
what
possibility
different components means that many mixes are possible.
insist,
so
far
at
least,
on
they
be
of selectLveness in
There is
no
need
to
The case for the present is
a particular mix.
of
local
But it will do no harm to indicate elements of a mix that finds much
local
merely for a regional
shift,
autonomy and production.
Negatively,
favour.
for
significantly
a
undue
emphasis
is
suggestion
the
on
the
(also a Cambridge focus);
proper
conservative
that we try to get rid of the Oxford
That includes such things as removal of
quasi-historical
with
one.
generally
More
practice,
have
the
proposal
is
no
however
The heavy Oxford influence, in particular, has mostly been
many
been
that
a
very
of the main movements emanating from
but
also
the
Moore - later
very protective of the Northern status quo;
they tend to leave things very much as they
Positively,
approach
of reinforcement of the prevailing Anglo-American
England, especially ordinary language philosophy,
Wittgenstein
degree
British empiricism centred on Locke-Berkeley-Hume
of the
attention to sources;
status quo.
greater
28
style of teaching and doing philosophy.
the
should
are,
and
recommend
just
this.
29
we achieve further disassociation from the
Anglo-American empiricist past by widening the range of philosophical traditions
28.
Does it sound familiar? Outside philosophy, it should.
For example, we
have now been told by the Americans that our defence role, unlike theirs,
is regional, not global:
this is supposed to shed great light on our
previously confused defence policies.
29.
The point is laboured in E. Gellner, Words and Things, Victor Collancz,
London,
1959.
But even ordinary language philosophy, though it much
contracted the proper range of philosophical investigations, had its
liberating elements, e.g.
removal of some of the narrowness and more
cramping assumptions induced by technical jargon.
�drawn upon, to include not only
thought,
Eastern
neglected
in
parts
of
but also Pacific ethnic material and Australasian philosophy.
The idea is that such a plurality
assist
and
strands
continental
sources,
of
especially
in
will
teaching,
removing narrower cultural biasses and enable more discrimination to
Then too we should be better able to see the
be obtained.
ranges
theories
of
that are open to us in the Antipodes and how to advance our own programs.
APPENDIX
1.
Notes
investigation
of
on
the
philosophical
supply
situation.
Sociological
the philosophy labour market in Australia and New Zealand has
yet to be attempted.
of
But a picture
some
the
underlying
elements
simple
numerical argument of the text can be gained from the following table:
TABLE 1. Ph.Ds in Philosophy: a USA/Australian comparison
USA
Number (Male/Female)
1977
330 (264/66)
1978
283 (235/48)
1979
285 (204/54)
Australia
Number
9
1980
4
1981
4
Notes:
1.
New Zealand
Number
The breakdown of the USA numbers by sexes
is
(male/female)
given.
Similar figures do not appear to be available for Australia.
2.
The US figures are for the academic year ending in the
e.g.
1978
covers
the
Northern
Year
academic year 1977-78.
shown,
Southern
figures are for the calendar year shown.
In applying table 1 some simplifying assumptions are made.
candidates
for
appointment
to
regular
university
It is
positions
assumed
now
that
require a
�9
find
trite
a
moral
fair dealing'), but nothing at all distinctive.
national
philosophy,
exclude there being
programs).
So
Australia
has
at
least
various
life,
of
regional
far, then, all is well.
the
inconsistency:
of humour, courage and
base to build on ('traditions ...
trouble
derives
but
So far, then, there
be
(such
as
local
research
But shortly the Editor is plunged into
from
the
extravagant
claim
that
Philosophy'
(p.295;
with rearrangement).
sweep'
than
any
national
boundaries
—
these
"she
values
is
a
Though
the
easily avoided by rescinding the extravagant claim, the ideal
of a National Philosophy should be allowed to rest in
had its time.
involving
has nothing to do with
Philosophy, contradicting the possibility of a National Philosophy.
contradiction
do
But, as Australia has nothing
per se to do with these - as is virtually conceded,
'wider
'if
nothing to do with these - the eternal values of the Spirit, the
Ideals of Truth, Goodness and Beauty - then and only then has she nothing to
with
a
this does not however
is not:
philosophies
can
peace:
nationalism
has
�PROSPECTS FOR REGIONAL PHILOSOPHIES IN AUSTRALASIA
Philosophy, especially academic philosophy but also folk philosophy, like
intellectual and higher cultural activity in Australasia, has long been
(Uhfi
swainped,
by
Northern
increayngly from North America.
Europe, now
inltutal
i!t
largely
indeed
dominated,
the
from
patterns,
of
composition
ethnic
resulting uU-HT; populations, such a result was virtually
does not
initially
the migration
Given
imported,
baggage
and/other
Influences,
the
But it
inevitable.
Suitable policies, a good philosophy policy,
have to stay that way.
could change things.
I he
of
thought
is
cultuie,
hardly a
regional
a
new one.
philosophy,
In
1923,
a
matching
perhaps
a
regional
correspondent to the
New Zealand
newly-1aunched Aust r a1asIan Journa1 of Psychology and Philosophy mentioned the
possibility of 'a new kind or temper of philosophy under these southern skies’
which
the
11 o
*5
SIK
reaching
for
(or,
not
community).
soi id
might
Journal,
merely
foundation
that
for a
matter,
professional
although
And
The
foster.
some
Journal has
actively
pursued
philosophers
things
new regionalism
however hardly
but
have changed
in philosophy,
its
a
fulfilled
pronounced
wider
of
aim
Australasian
in Australia,
laying
a
that possibility of a
new Lemper of phiLosophy has hardly been realised. There is little in the way
of
a
new kind
and
temper of
philosophy
southern skies were intended to include:
distinctively
New
Zealand
skies, which
the
but few distinguishing features,
’no
under
characteristics,
New
have
Zealand
shown
up
in
New
Zealand
The question was taken up by the Editor in the
discussion is considered below, especially in
p/ces
1
�pin losophy' .-
New Zealand remains a substantial net
The situation of colonial dominance that used to prevail in
and philosophers.
Aus 11.11. la,
wheie
virtually
all
chairs,
were filled by academics
philosophy,
Importer of philosophy,
and
many
from the North,
posts
academic
other
in
tends to persist in New
Zealand, where no established chairs are occupied by locals.\ Given the usual
power and Influence of professors
topics
coveted
considered
and
in small
and
in courses designed,
departments,
especially
appointments
made,
the
heavy
Northern orientation of philosophy taught and researched in New Zealand is not
The Northern control is perhaps most strikingly exhibited at the
surprising.
oldest
of
New
Zealand
Philosophy Department
event ,
the
the
University
of
has been substantially captured by a
like
increasingly
looks
universities,
an offshoot
of
overwhelming Anglo-American
the
Otago,
where
the
British School and
University of London.In any
dominance
of
New Zealand
philosophy
1 so <1 feature only in slightly lesser degree of Australian philosophy — can
be confirmed
by a
content survey of the courses offered and research papers
written at Now Zealand universities.
Even when local
people have been appointed
to positions in Australasia,
they have been brought up on a solid diet of Anglo-American material, and they
have often been reforged or finished in the North as well.
In particular, the
S.A. Grave, A History of Philosophy in Australia, Queensland University
Piess,
1)84, p.l. Page references are to the manuscript.
The paper draws/
heavily on this history.
/
/
was correct at the t^me
of presentation of
J ' J/ '
v/i th the recent loss of^Xiair at Wellington, the
qualification, but the pattern of domination persists.
the pager
(August
claimrequires
*ln the 1981 Commonwealth University Handbook listing, 6 of the 8 members of
the Department held their main degree, Ph.D., from London, and one of the
remainder from Exeter.
Only one member of the Department, soon to retire,
falls outside the nexus.
�of
requirements
the major
period
post
of
li expansion were conveniently seen to in the case of philosophy by
World War
the
in
the Australasian universities
B.Phil,
Oxford
products of
Many
degree.
fill's cultural mill:
in Oxford were hard
(unwarranted)
departments of
indeed until
philosophy
full
remain
of
the mid 70s candidates finished
to beat out when they applied for positions, such was the
prestige of Oxford and
the regrettable,
but still
continuing,
"cultural cringe".
Nonetheless,
been
occurring
scene
(as
in
Northern
it
indicated).
significant
dominance,
especially on
the Antipodes,
be
will
the
despite
the Australian
worth
is
asking
changes
have
philosophical
Australian
whether
phiLosophy is moving towards the sort of change that occurred in USA more than
100 years ago when the Harvard Philosophy Department was brought (or bought)
together,
its "golden
and
age"
began.’
American
the same again, and became its own thing.
philosophy was never quite
There are now new forces operating
which could help to move Australian philosophy in such a direction.
the
widespread
regionalism/'
other
provides
a
which
applies
choices;
local
fashioning
emergence,
of
national
model
for
and
particularly
cultural
to
in
in
alternative
and
there are
of
choice
along
ideological
contrast,
there
and
technology
policies,
reflection
in
regional
also some
is
philosophy
directly bears on parts of the philosophy of science.
soon appear,
culture,
stark
science
serious obstacles
There is
the
a
new
with
centralised
which
not
only
policy
but
also
Unfortunately, as will
to regional
philosophies
and to the very idea of a regional philosophy.
See B. Kuklick, The Rise of American Philosophy; Cambridge, Massachusetts
1860-1930, Yale University Press, 1977 , Parts 2 and 3.
On this bio-regionalism, see especially, Fourth World News, vol. 1,
and K. Sale, Hitman Scale, Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, New York, 1930.
1983,
�1 other seek
b,1!
(Iu<i'!iy
fs
to satisfice on a mix of
factors, of which assessed
only one, and not often the highest ranking one.
Ability to fit
program, teaching or research, is another, and commonly more
lnto
8ort
iiipo/iant
factor;
and
so H ! linGS bc a regionally
reason why such a program should not
is no good
there
So given prevailing practices,
oriented one.
the
argument from excellence does not exclude regional philosophy programs.
in
my event,
there are enough local candidates of sufficient worth to proceed
>‘-giona]
w!I;i
And,
programs
without
sacrifice
clearcut
excellence.
of
Local
enterprise need entail no loss of excellence, and could well increase it.
btP'!
1 s"
v • 1 i!
■
1 b'J
objection is that
cutting
of
excellence,
objective
obJt( ■ *
importance;
that
criticism
is
of
notions
llL'J' ' ' 1 '".ll_ ff".l
these
there is something seriously amiss
and
notions
objective
values
with
open
are
more
contextual-re lativisation
a
rather
narrow
intellectual
the
to
generally,
of
component
paradigm,
notion
same
sorts
they
that
of
of
have
the
valuing:
While those operating
framework or viewpoint to which these values relate.10
within
connected
the
as
such
ordinary
Oxbridge
language philosophy or Sydney materialism say, can bracket out the viewpoint,
'1
's
incorporated
in
the
operat ional
paradigm,
and
so
arrive
at
set !! :s’’1 y objective quality judgements, the judgements are not preserved (e.g.
m
truth
Marxist
value)
when
viewpoints.
transposed
ConsidcZ
to
for
other
frameworks,
comparison,
the
e.g.
idealistic
judgements
as
to
or
the
quality or worth of a forestWade variously by a deep ecologist, an industrial
forester, and a recreational officer.
Compare judgements as to the quality of
What fol lows also begins to bring out what is omitted in a main theme if
R.S. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motor Cyc1e Maintenance, Bodley Head, Lond
1974.
Note that
efusing the notion of objective excellence does not lea^
subjectivism.
T
avoid the customary false dichotomy , compare the noti
validity (usuall
Ci1 led to themselves these days by classical logicians' with
that of quality^/.
�9
a
ho 1 i s i /c a I 1 y-i nc I. i ned
Marxi st,
philosophers
it
group
As
because
the
of
problems such
'!lt »
is
importance
of
are
be
cannot
even
judged,
main philosophical
work
are not
of quality
peer
done
problems
or
independent of
But
tackled.
issues is highly paradigm dependent.
the
For example,
those of qu in t i f y i ng-i n and of poss l b Le worlds and of de re
importance for
immense
mainsti -am empiricist
restricted
that
ire
judgements
reveal,
to
which assume
the
language,
There
work
by members of the
not done
problems and
import nice of
whit
is
ordinary
philosophers.
environmental
such
that
by
like institutions.
begins
this
outside
it
Harvard and
judgements
witiiiii
pretend
who
philosopher,
environmental
Californian
and
seemi ng 1y
environmental
the important
fashionable referential
theories
paradigm, vanish to relative insignificance
Now observe
viewpoint.
that most
judgements as
to
problems and what constitutes importkj/t work - matters
tbechelping, determine quality - are shipped down from the North.
is relative
to
their paradigmatic placement, and
Their importance
the paradigms concerned are
exported to the Antipodes through the main channels already indicated.
fri'e to reject
be .argued,
choose
that
these paradigms and select alternatives,
good
reasons
different
generally
energy
favoured
to do
just
technology
in
the
that,
much as
(or different
North
the
which
We are
and there are, it can
there are
military
North
is
good reasons
technology)
eager
to
to
from
export
southwards.
against
which
might
alternatively
be
the
called
cosmopolitan/internalional
the
Peter
Stuyvesant
argument
international
r
argument ,
everrywhere smoke
that
mass-produced
and
-marketed
The argument
' cosmopol i t in subject',
pJL
Jo-Zj
cvnYy'
c.
Pi
^e/S3)r?'5"?.
is based
that is
a
from
i s not
Holland;
this superior
product..
cigarette-sophist lest ion
on the assumption that pM
the sort of enterprise for wht
f '/is
c^ra-
�10
poetry
for
assumpt ion has only
important
sori
(a
to be presented
propositional
to be questioned.
that philosophy
thing,
theory),
not a
is a
1 i terature ,
and
work
not
just.
theorems
i nternati ona11y-approved format,12
’
philosophy,
since
no
more
than
It
and
The
takes for granted,
finished product of a certain
(e.g.
involved
the
if
And
novel.11
the
process of production also.
process of production the place and people
mater i a I
or
of
in discussion)
art ,
a rg urn e n t s
But in the
like
a
piece
assembled
in
are
of
an
then again the historical setting ma t ters ,
literature,
does
not
emerge
in
a
vacuum.
Plato's philosophy could not have emerged in ancient Australia, and if cribbed
in mid 20th century Oxford would surely have been marked down or rejected.
fmpoi taut not
1
in aesthet ics extent
sets
ol
adopted
in
prospect
themes
nonnucleai
Europe
that
do not
that
been produced
New
to be sidetracked
need
and arguments
in another.
but
to
be contested,
produced
.
such as
whether and what
in one place and setting could
A nonnuclear technology of some sort could be
apparently will
Zealand,
into issues — resembling problems
in
not
contrast
It is J
be,
with
whereas
there
Australia,
is
will
reasonable
pursue
a
>t what could be done, that
Eravi.’, op.cit., p.2:
the term 'cosmopolitan subject' used there comes
fioni Donegan.
As to the significance of place and people for literature, see
fin ! hi’i C. Partridge, The Making of New Cultures, Editions Rodopi, Amsterdam,
bike i paper in the biological sciences.
But here again technique
methodology, which may both be regional, are crucially important.
and
13
■pies, e.g. concerning
modem American work.
Consider, for instance such texts as W.V. Quine's Word
_ (bi ley, New York, 1.960) or R. Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia
(Basic Books, New York, 1974).
The assumptions taken Tor granted, the
arguments involved, etc., are especially American: it is not just the style.
£9_c-ePta^j 1 i ty of arguments and positions is dependent on place and
r e c e 1 v ed par a d I gm .
�11
.71 a L t < • r s
here .
Dialethic
much Anglo-American
methodology of
which
logic,
invalidates
philosophy, could
the
and
technique
perhaps be
done
in
the
North (though there1 would be substantial cultural resistance): it is not being
done
there,
this
extent,
and
is not
likely
Antipodeans
can
their
choose
the! r
own
international/cosmopo11 tan argument,
s tit ed
techniques,
Of course
do
it can
the Anglo-American sphere.To
to be done in
be argued,
o wn
distinctive
dis tine t ive
and
technology
The
thing.
in a form that would be telling,
it is being argued,
that Antipodeans don’t
need to be, or even oughtn't to be pursuing their own energy or logic policies
and apparatus.
of
But meeting
these considerations takes us
to a whole new set
issues concerning the merit of various policies and programs,
diversity, etc. - far beyond the cosmopolitan argument.
which we shall
return,
arguments concerning
are not a
cooking:
the. point of
The new arguments, to
lot more convincing however than comparable
that
we
don't,
devising our own cuisine or wine, styles.
need
to
be
or
oughtn't
to
be
British, or at least cosmopolitan,
cooking is adequate: we. should stick, to that and buy it off the shelf from the
North,
ideally importing
the cooks
also.
Do we
have good
reasons to
think
that British philosophy is better, these days, than British cooking?
Antipodeans are
free,
in principle
then,
to pursue their own paradigms;
and to do so they will by and large want to, and mostly have to, appoint their
own people, people they have educated - not saboteurs or people who have (had)
14,
Much as communist anarchism, a live possibility for communes and perhaps
communities in Australia, is culturally excluded in North America, owing to
tiie extreme possessive individualism of that culture.
On dialethic logic, see G. Priest and R. Routley, On Paraconsistency,
Research Papers In Logic, #13, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian
National University, 1983.
�12
elsuJhere, in particular from the North.
parad igms
features
of
the
I oca 1
though works of
integral
do.
cultural paradigms, with distinctive
culture?
way,
philosophy will
to
not usually
programs,
unimportant
Independent
features,
not
But
or
at
least,
with
tie in
style,
I5
do
already
restricted
with
link,
they may
culture in
the
link.
the
truth,
far
considers
Grave
particular
philosophical
'an Australian
wha t matters
acceptabilit/,
so
to
Australia as
compared
is
independent
mJ correctness
they
philosophy in
this
though
add.
-
extent,
help mark
that
to
limited
a
cultural
certain
truth
tic
4
fashion that novels (as distinct from more technical works) sometimes
Indeed,
hastens
perused
But will the
do
product'
he
in philosophy’
and
matter,
are
not
percept ion
from under lyi/g broad theory or received paradigm.
CG'n £)Q_
However the marks Grave
U-y ut Ivin ecu/,
A
do
not
features
serve
to
the
distinguish
philosophy
Australian
Australian
exhibits
in
s i g n i f 1 c a n t though they are,
product,
lesser
the
degree
adventurous and polemical philosophy of Greek antiquity.
by
Passmore
as
'most
typical
of
Australian
first
two
than
the
being
more
The first, described
philosophy' ,
is
a
'diversity of
approach and readiness to put forward an unconventional or unfashionable point
of
v iew' ,' (>
philosophy,
something
wh ich
more
(with
typical
some
of
notable
ancient
philosophy
exceptions)
than
exhibits
Australian
an
austere
15
Nothing need be conceded to strong
cultural relativity themes, though they
would support the case.
It is enough that our theories remain radically
incom|> 1 e te and th.11 there
can accordingly be rival theories as to what is
true.
Similarly, however philosophy is conceived - as the search for truth,
explan it. ion, understanding and wisdom (all of these and more, really), or as,
more vaguely, inquiry of a certain soil - there can be, and will, be, competing
accounts; so a pluralistic theory is inevitable in giving a fuller view.
Both preceding quotations, while included as such in Grave's Introduction,
are It™ J. Passmore, 'Philosophy', in The Pattern of Australian Culture fed.
' " 'lcL«'0O, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y., 1963 , pp.131-163.
The
same annotation also applies to the third mark.
�13
uni1ormit y
re fI ec t i ng
more
and
that often at/rlbuted
sorprising ,
most
'the
philosophy,
WittgensteLnian
Andersonian
notable
Melbourne
philosophy
i s ^’the
mark
...
example
and
itself
manifestoed
character’
Andersonian
Sydney,
This
example
(p.2).
the
...
being
'The second,
itself.
Land
to the
is
line-up
it
if
Australian
of
the
not
was
far
between
isolated:
from
ited by "Australian materialism",
■
discussed
by
Grave),
relevant/pa raconsis tent
to
sharp
criticism
by
and
growing
the
program,
with
Americans.
philosophy departments
confrontation
(both
concerning
the local ('adversarial’) style leading
Connected
with
these
first
marks
two
furl her character 1st les of much Australian philosophy, as of much
unkindly
unwillingness
add
(in
the
mu file poi n t s ,
hope
of
locating
A
are
8th century
turi^-of- this-century Cambridge philosophy!
di rec tness ,
the
namely
surface clarity/and,
some would
difference),
bluntness,
genuine
unsubtlety and crudity.
third and the Jour th marks yklvnnci'^/
are very different-
~~
A
Anglo-American
philosophy;
namely
Australasia from, and its general
the
isolation
of
academic
philosophy
indifference or even hostility to,
in
the sort
tZ7
1 7
Though:for the most p<
that influenced by Sydney rather than that
originating 1 n^JJpl bourne.
"this
reflects the different historical
i nJ 1 u_e 11 c e s -rhrriT
Sydney and Melbourne philosophy.f-oj-’ a-h4 y
Scottish
dZTf-rrf- Contineryfal antecedents.
A 1 Cj? V A"
I
r
V
�of
(e.g.
philosophy
imported
of
that
Nietzsche
and
the
existentialists)
8eneratlng Interest in literary and arts circlls.
rhe
philosophy
failure
does
of
not
such
marks
matter.
to
one
For
lts
Australian
!cts-
.nother,
Australian
is
produce
regionalism
>ot more regional positions such as
.
•lism «fth national philosophies.
ChlnJ, is an undesirable trait,
> as In
Na‘
the
thing,
r<
nationa11
out
separate
"Ot
in other cultural
» 'S^nked,
with the breakdown of nations and contraction of state power.18
*
*
:
............ merging proposal
loin
1,1
181,1
irch in
iiors-
°f
COP1CS
1
:
■
>d«.
ind
18t< 1 “t”>n UB
not
8
suggestions
lecide
, ,
Sale,
that
that begin
to
our
own
priorities,
that is, that we play our
th
North) and not theirs,
Gridiron and Basketball - but that we abandon the
individual competitive model of cultural achievement,
18Q<
aec > e.g.,
London, 1957.
we
that we do our own selection
just,
fr<
RU1<
that
> Pt bllcatlons and appointments, study
1
styl
this,
oir own distinctive things, and
11
1
is
op.cit.,
and
L. ?’011 r >
sold to us and fostered
Tlu>_ breakdown
of Nations ,
RKP ,
Ihe Editor of the new.1923 AJPP did
however take seriously the notion of
National Philosophy, of (what must have
surprised some New Zealand readers) an
Australian Philosophy; some of the issui
s there raised (p.292ff) are addressed
in Appendix 2.
�In favour of a group cooperative approach (elements of which are
by the .Iort.ii,
already modelled in Antipodean social clubs).
ihe thoughts here are simple and familiar.
digging example:
more
rapidly
On the one side is the ditch-
it is well-known that two people cooperating c.an
and enjoyably
than two
people working
Cooperalive work ten Is to pay off
output,
quality,
and enjoyment
the
in
doing.
on
dig a ditch
:he ditch
separately.
or el ewhere
in terms of
On the ot her side,
experience
shows that we in the periphery cannot individually cmip^el
ete very successfully
with the centre on achievements in
ior this.
the
attainment
nature of
results
of
depends
acce:;:i to unpublished material.
There are several reasons
Despite the highly competitive
Ono is the communication situation.
p r s ’ i omi nan tIy ind i vi iua 1is t ic
in
their programs.
American academic
upon
enterprise,^ much
verbal
rapid
communication
and
For, despite the individualism myth, work is
joint ly based, and builds on the work of many; when the time is ripe for some-
several clever people will
idea or result,
communications
result:,
an I
periphery
the
tend
na t i oiri 1 is t 1 c
are
to
Important
assignment
lose
out.
considerations
Russians will
obtaining
in
of
credit
Again
(e.g.
for
is
th e
facc~ I o- f ace scm 1 nars
so
that
fact
Poles
that
Local
rapid
Here
it.
much
results
tend
Then again
the
publication of
there is a mix
Russian who achieves a
The re
be able to hit on it.
to
again
result at
or
at
the
There
are
people
of reasons:-
promote
idea
Polish
results,
about the same time as
is conveyed verbally and
will be conveyed.
through
There is
the
IH'llecling other features oi Ihe culture and enterprise of the centre
which are not so deeply embedded in Australasia: see further R. Routley,
Culture,
philosophy,
and
approaches to
the natural
environment an
Austral I in
perspective',
in The
Environment,
Ethics
and
Ecology
(ed.
D. Bennett), The Faculties, Aust raIian National University, 1984, and also
Culture and
the roots of political divergence:
the Australian/American
contrast , typescript , Canberra, 1981;
both referred
to subsequently as
' Cu J ture ’ .
�fact
Limited
of
when
1.11 e y
pub 1 i shed
may
reading,
read
on
and
that
material
from
L terns and results
we J I
I ose
out
There
publication.
receive,
to
merit
also
for merit,
the
from the
central
is
people at
more
by
to
tend
central
concentrate
so
people,
that
periphery wi 11, often not be noticed, and
fact
that
publication
towards the periphery.
thin people
centre
competitors
the
the centre
even
they
if
the
at
people
achieve
Here economic
tend
centre
communication
and
central
to
opportunities
factors do begin to enter;
ket (there are, e.g., a
grept many more academic philosophers in North America than in the whole rest
of the world), control of publishing outlets and journals (with few exceptions
all Northern),
etc.
culture - we can
shut off
way we
being
However economic power does not, and need not, determine
the Northern
shut off
our television
impressed
by
sets
if
philosophical
those
philosophical propaganda in much the
we really want
middle-men
to.
who
And we can stop
make
a
living
by
importing the Northern stuff.
So what do we do? We adapt to
of
the cultural-philosophical level, several
those things, that have been suggested in the newer regionalism.
some
regional
importers
and
doctrines
and
awakening
and
self-reliance.
of,
and
local
from
the
North.
imitators
positions
local
We do
commentators
For
not remain
on
example,
We aim at
we
and
slavish
peddlars
of,
spend
our
don't
academic Lives trying to tease out what Davidson or Dumrnett or Kripke meant by
this
or
through.
that
To
in the
be
hope
sure,
I
that
am
some pale
not
Northern light
sugg esting
that
we
will perhaps
emulate
the
filter
appalling
ignorance of people from the No r t h who visit the Antipodes and know little or
nothing
about
what
has
been
done
or
Jis
being done
here;^ so
that we
Regrettably, the Ignorance extends to many locals.
In particular,
infected with Sydney materialism appear remarkably ill-informed as to
features oi other Australasian programs.
have
those
basic
�17
vi: Hors,
Australian
the
through
investigation of
heavy
bags
their
cultural
with
University
National
the
(now
main
relevant logics) and Informing us that, or relying crucially
positions
'■ n
advances is
ind
! ioiity
colo!IJ(
often
Northerners
these
for
centre
One reason
on tnu assumption that, a contradiction entails every proposition.
that
trekking
accroutrements,
cultural
of
and
intellectual
narrow
nothing
or
is the
t.he Antipodes
the
is
another
little
know
about
distinctive
prevailing assumption of
life
these
in
(predominantly local)
and
former
the
southern
limited
reading
undertaken by Northern luminaries.
despite /having
But,
ourselves off
to anyway:
been
fro/ Northern paradigms and
az I
propaganda is different).
of, or
part of,
in
'
their enterprises.
c u t ’ *1 k ’
these
nowliere*
1 oose
1.r om
(and
older
shouldn’t
cut
Influences (we could hardly manage
We can reasonably use what we need from
In any case,
regional cultures are rooted
■
1
we
cause,
so we should stay informed of, but not imitators
continuing traditions:
tiics<
sufficient
given
these
likely
traditions
minority)
a nd
rgely European stock.
start! ng afresh
traditions,
and
the
from
local
variations that have already appeared are what we want to develop and perhaps
mutate, as again with wine styles.
1,111
things,
ol
L-K‘
Proposal
is
then
that
encourage and develop our own
Antlpodean
paradigmfl,
’•
rather
H
is
increasingly
research programs,
than working
not as
we
H ™
very Sreat
a
nt
own
local
and so shape newer
- to
bui Id from nothing,
to
of
do
to try to create cultural
programs ilready Initiated, which have the
of being grounded
2I .
’ See Cuiture, op.cit.
our
with pale northern reflections
“ entirely ori Inal work,
are res< lrcl
do
in features
of the larger culture.212
�18
Nor,
do we need
fortunately,
-
Australia
part
1 j
u'■ o! c
New
Zealand
to do
*
more difficult
the story,
for
proposition -
is
All one really
To pull the investigation down to a more concrete
sketch some more
prominent cooperative
programs - by no means
on Ly programs - and remark on some rel evant features of them.
‘L?.
longest running and
PdJ 111
.... .IdJL
and
1 r sin ,
science.
(physical)
best known program is,
which
’ 1 >r
program
The
c'.ipi r i <-ist metaphysics,...
and
state
version
of
tr famed
as
materialism,
both
back
and
world,
and*
22
Faced
plans,
like
il
takes
it
initiated
in,
identity theme
more
physicalisms
all
now
Anderson's
It
in
The latter program has included
there.
nowadays
to
program
the mental-material contingent
’1reduction
theory of
uiiivcisals,
that
in Armstrong's work.
a
functionalism.
,n
natural
traced
subpro
components
central
generally
is
is now best exhibited
Adelaide which subsequently died out
famous
the
see
to
aims
without much doubt,
as suitably encompassed within the framework of the world of
e[se,
incorporates
a
derivatively,
with
and
a
conspicuous
"scientifically"
and an account of natural laws as relations of
universals,
components of
the developing
Sydney realism.
Parts of the
nd central state reduction^sm and
y matei
science ideal, have had counterparts in the North, but the program
t!!l
has,
Much of
about.
to bring out programs he has already indicated and provide some
is
I. shall
Jlie
such
is
different and
is a
elaboration and commentary.
level,
proposal
chough helping to shape
in Grave's survey of Australian philosophy.
already indicated
has
the
what
of
the story up -
to make
for
the
most
part,
retained
its
distinctively
Australian
character
22 >
An Arson's metaphysics was however far more opposed to reductions than
whal has succeeded it. For an account of Anderson's philosophy, and a history
and account
op.cit.
of
Australian naturalism
and materialism,
see especially Grave
r
y
,
�19
respite export efforts, it never caught on in New Zealand.
It is similarly down-to-earth,
-
earthy,
and
so
far as
whlch
much
of
American
North
does
not
n
city
r
‘
from
>23
or
'
positivistic
the
University
would
be
quite
ropolitan culture.
of
the
,ider
turn
achievement,
h
one
to
through
1
notable
community,
icademic
■
an
exceptions,
the
As in
tonal philosophy impinges on
11
even on
8t
from
from
mainly
' t£ny hit) to t
ia,
Apart
not
is
it
universltles; but the program does extend outside
th
lstrala81a
metaphysical
explicit
in particular).
broadcast
program,
based
it ink
piricist,
(rejecting a verification principle,
’s
effete
nowadays,
(including
simmers
thinking
ba*
18
£t
!t
ideas or
fancy
the
without
philosophy or the spirituality and suppressed puritanistn
111901 01 Eu 01
Wlth
be,
philosophy can
The program fits
program
worth
this
working
lelaide;
it
work by
around
for.)
now reaches
in
The
to
1 core of opposition there.
has never
had
the
same hold,
or
’or example, while most academics from other disciplines would
°f’ and perhaps a little about, Russell, far fewer would know of
iH;! - i'1 (though fie is becoming known to lit. crit. groups), and virtually
none would know of Quine.
(The sampling is subjective.)
kHOW
On the
hL'?-’
fairly recent
'triumph of professionalism'
in philosophy in USA, see
b--’65ff.
Kuklick brings out well some of the more
r/Hls ''^Oures ol professionalism, but does not sufficiently notice that
7 1* 1
features
resulting
from
some
pro fess tonalisation
can
be
synthesized with broader philosophical activity.
�20
more
i rather precarious hold,
than
in Melbourne: 4
nor, more surprisingly,
has it. had heavyweight criticism from there (or indeed much external criticism
from elsewhere),
the old confrontation of major city philosophies having died
Melbourne
out.
than
stricken
Continental
procession
a
then,
philosophy;
fashions:
recently,
remarkable
a
Northern
of
more
philosophy;
oriented
historically
and more
reLigion
philosophy, much more than Sydney,
Sydney; Melbourne
by
dominated
is more
philosophy
earlier
Wittgenstein,
Quine,
turnabout,
has
been
idealism
and
language
ordinary
and
Davidson
extensional
reduction; now perhaps Lewis, Kripke and Dumrnett?
one
The
program
beyond
reaches
that
confines
the
of
the
cities
in
Australia - which is after all a metropolitan dominated culture, the vast land
always
the other
being
a
Australian environmentalism,
is
-
rather
diffuse
of Advanced Education in the
towns and
country
much distinguished
environmental
by what
positions
are
it
a
is
not
as
feature of
transformed
the New
most
specifically
having
little wild untouched country left, and
such as
issues
Europe
that
tend
admit
Ihii opt*.in
to
having
those
concern
shallow
the
wilderness.
built
approaches
superficiality
environmentalism
of
outside
(and
continues
North
and
it
what
Europe
to
So far the program is as
the communes on the North Coast.
is.
World,
its
of
natural
America.
deeper
Old World,
and
environment
and
environmental
human-trans formed
to
the
and
little sensitivity accordingly
The main
encourage
Serious
environment,
techno-fix
dominate
North
much
issues
situations).
of
American
the
New
in
Issues
And
World
environmentalism
differs significantly however from Antipodean environmentalism, most obviously
' ‘ihe exceptions include Ellis's distinctive program, which can be accounted
part of the broader naturalist program, and at Monash the work of F. Jackson
and, earlier, of il. Munro in value theory.
�21
in
the
religious-spiritual
component
of
the
former
but
several
in
other
respects as well (see further Culture).
More
there
positively,
are
an
is
there
enviton.nentallsmfirstly,
strands
three
Australian
to
utilitarianism,
extended
differing
1‘' in theory from Bentham's enlarged position, which insists upon counting
In
the utilities of all
Iris figured prominently In animal welfare and animal liberation
British base,
movements:
This position, developed from a
sentient creatures.
though
and
it
has
focussed
bio-research more generally such as genetic
engineering.
endangered species,
or much interested in,
concerned with,
animals used
in
it has also become entangled in issues of
animals,
researm and hunted (wild)
domestic animals,
on
It is not however
the disappearance
of wild lands, the conversion of forests, etc., except insofar as these have a
bearing on animal pain and pleasure.
Wider and deeper environmental concerns
appear only as a
spinoff from animal welfare, and so deeper concerns get an
inadequate deal.
Secondly, there is a wider and a deeper ecological position,
which is not utilitarian and which recognises irreducible value elsewhere than
sentience or
forests and
differs
ecosystems,
American
from
nature 1 Ism.
s t a t es ,
p s y c h o 1 og i c. a 1
as
Thirdly,
which finds
especially
there
is
reactionary component, critical of
needs
that
to
be
accomplished
natural
wild and
spiritualism
on
and
of
intrinsic value
from
course,
an
as
the other strands,
the
environmental
systems.
in
trees
This
position
of
American
extens ion
everywhere,
almost
and
a
which insists that all
front
can
be
achieved
within older estab I tshed (European) ethical and political frameworks.
Whereas
materialism
is
based
in
Sydney,
environmentalism
is centred
in
has
been described more
fully
elsewhere:
see,
in
particular,
cn La 1
Philosophy (ed.
D. Mannison and others),
RSSS,
Australian
National University, 1980.
It:
�22
;llld Canberra, but also Includes
'11 ’*!) '111
Brisbane and
Perth. Also centred in
Canberra, and reaching across the country, with good connections Ln Melbourne,
!ew
b,lt
in
materialism and
epistemology
from
reLevant/paraconsistent
other
affecting
program
wh i ch
program,
a nd
programs have
environmental
input
perhaps
wh ich
is
program
areas
major
program.
relevant/paraconsistent
the
is
Sydney,
New
in
Zealand,
respectively,
the
program,
one
logic
especially
centres
more
to
extends
a
essentially
but
The
metaphysics.
Australia
than
also
been
has
with
in metaphysics,
theory
value
philosophy,
of
includes
and
their core
the
Whereas
any
other
described
,
26
elsewhere.
n 1 *n
! !H
logic
grounded
research program
program.
A
impact
of
the
in
New Zealand philosophy
program emanating
ton,
Inc
evident
program on
it might
from the
work of
is also
Prior and
a
now
be called the extended modal program.
philosophy is perhaps best seen in Cresswell’s
work.27
Australian philosophy used
for
its
hard-headed
known
fo1
empiricism;
to
be known,
is in some quarters,
regrettably New Zealand philosophy is mostly
anything much, except
unu.-,u.i] adaption o!
and still
t
rh ps,
in UK,
that
Prior brought
Russellian philosophy from that remote place.
his
Neither of
...‘,ain, like al] the Australian programs, both those mentioned and others,
{_’rave> op.cit.
But
see
further,
R. Routley,
'Research in Logic in
KTU!,ral;a ’ NeW Ze
Jceania' , R search Papers in Logic #14, Australian
National University, 1983 (which also considers other programs in logic)*
G- Priest and R. Routley, op. cit.; and R. Routley, R.K. Meyer and others’,
-J- -£?C2JLL
s a nd
e i r Rivals, Ridgev lew, California , 1982.
2 7 c.
, „-,,,Se,e especially
N.J. Cresswell, Logics
and
, '
—o---.........
.. Languages, Methuen,
ucuuu^u, London,
iy/3; but see also
-1 — ----’ 1by Goldblatt
- .
.
■ and- -by Hughes
--------------------work
referred to in Research in
Logic, op.cit.
Also described there is <an original
,1....1 version of the modal
program (transparent intensional logic) elaborated by Tlchy at Otago.
�2J
these impressions
is particularly accurate; both are rather out-of-date.
work of
l!::i
impress Lons,
the present type is, of course,
not just
to reflect
or report
not just
But
to correct these
on culture - for what one
would
like to reflect upon is not sufficiently there - but also to help manufacture
elements of a culture, to make an image.
io
resist
the
North,
we
should
Increase
our
efforts
to
further
the
sunrise projectsbuild
f e,lr ding .Jiid research
and criticism,
iround tin’ programs selected for promotion, elaboration,
to orient: appointments, especially of involved local people, to
28.
4
...nong sunrise projects in Australian philosophy so far suggested (not all
°* Ihiin feasible) are these:
Australian feminism, Antipodean social and
political.
alternatives,
peace
studies,
indigenous regional
philosophies
(especially Aboriginal, Melanesian, and Polynesian).
Another promising field,
witli practical
consequences, for local initiative is the philosophy of
education, where material produced by R.S. Peters has dominated the market,
with stultifying effects It is now alleged.
As foreshadowed with the notion of "sunrise projects", much of the rhetoric,
cl nd a i gum on t, concerning science and technology policy (presented in the case
of Australia in Jones, op.cit.) can be taken over to apply to X policy, where
X is some subject discipline, such as philosophy.
�24
i
2 9,
these programs."
Why bother?
for not doing this,
there
Northern
in more than a limited fashion, which are now sketched.
the
firstly,
is,
products,
point on
despite
vicinity
it, many of
Antipodean
of
the
imported
obsolence
of
most
Without putting
too
intellectual goods are shoddy,
and
packaging.
dilemmas).
or
undoubtedly
imported from Idle North.
built-in
range of applications (e.g.
contradictions
philosophy
and
inferiority
their attractive
only work for a very limited
tiie
simply buy our philosophy, like almost
technology, off the shelf, from the North? There are several, arguments
I oui
fine a
Why not
derives
from
they’re hopeless in
that
Much
shoddy
is
with
wrong
goods
intellectual
Yet buying this material is encouraged by hard-sell
cultural ambassadors from the North, who are often enough paid to visit.
This
In fact something like the last has been the policy of the LSE Philosophy
Department, where the only outside appointment over a long period was that of
Lakatos (hardly a person far removed ideologically).
As observed, it now
looks like the practice of the Otago Department also; and apparently it used
to be a tendency at Melbourne. But in most, places the practice is condemned as
nepotistic or parochial, and overridden by the call for "new (Northern)
blood .
however there can be significant differences between nepotistic
appointments and those strengthening local programs.
Is ;,t this stage, among others that administrative measures do matter;
for example, to ensure that suitable locally-engaged locals gain employment
rather than Northern stooges, to direct funds into on-going local programs
rather thin Imported fashions, etc.
There are various ways appropriate
administrative details can be handled, locally or nationally; but nothing
draconian, such as wholesale exclusion of noncitizens, is required.
Observe, indeed, that no restriction of academic appointments to nationals
(in Canadian style) or the like is being advocated.
Anyone who arrives at a
conclusion of that sort from what has been argued has misunderstood the case
in
crucial
respects.
As
a matter of
simple
mathematics,
restricting
appointment fields characteristically reduces both quality of candidates
available (however quality is assessed) and range of possibilities open for
future research; and no such restrictions are advocated.
The author has
witnessed the debilitating effects of field restrictions at the Australian
National University and elsewhere.
30p
Borne of
centre also.
t hesi!
arguments
support
change
(perhaps
revolutionary)
at
the
�25
is
part
Northern
of
philosophical
the
-
colonialism
Imperialism
the
that
from the
too
Antipodes
the successor
North -
suffers,
willing
to
more-
or,
remarkable, encourages!
Secondly,
especially
there is the inappropriateness of much of the Northern product,
considered
as
metaphysics, environmental
for
package,
a
cover,
to
as
well
as
The European North has no satisfactory
concerns.
land or environmental ethic
instance,
fit for Antipodean circumstances,
the deeper
and
American pack ige is too spiritually-loaded for mainstream Australian culture.
31
In
political
is
work
the European product,
and
competition-based,
unsuited being
American
theory,
both too
precious and
much
individualistic
too
especially the Marxist
too high-tech
for
local
form,
and
is
circumstances,
especially again for more environmentally-perceptive people.
also
thirdly,
features
of
import
woi Id's markets
power
substitution
and
structures
against
telling
pressures
and
the
(including
and
comparative
advantage,
regionalism;
namely,
fashions,
Old Boy’s
removal, of
network in
are
appealing
of
the
overseas control
and
avoidance
jobs,
policies,
etc.),
and gaining of local control, employment of local people, etc.
Fourthly,
there
philosophy
as
complexity,
sheer
part
are
of
arguments
intellectual
diversity,
stability,
for
cultural
arguments
culture:
32
etc. “
diversity,
In
fact,
from
applied
to
richness,
the garden analogy
i’he point is elaborated in Culture.
At a more practical level Northern
products arc; again often unsuitable, though for different reasons.
For
example, the transfer of American agricultural methods and equipment to the
thin poor soils of the Antipodes has bad disastrous effects, at last beginning
to be recognised.
See, for instance, A.A. Mazrui, A World Federat ion of Cultures: An African
Per spec live, Free Press, New York, 1976.
�Into the whole notion of 'culture’
built
dense,
garden.
productive
transfers.
Naturally we want a rich,
But not only seeds and
plants but weeds and many
being introduced.
pests are
We
obtain not only good
cultivars, but European pests
and European
and
selectiveness
are
control
products,
Indian maize
and American weeds.
This is why
as
essantLal,
against
haphazard
previous
procedures.
i'he proposal
with
local
Is not
whatever
products,
their quality,
replacing Northern ones.
heroes,
the case sustain,
nor would
for,
That
local
a narrow localisiiri^
fashions,
and
local.
cMl t
is certainly not the preferred wai of
the newer regionalism, which tends to do without fashions and heroes and leeks
impact, and so on;
low environmental
durable quality in products,
nor is the
way ol
technology policy.
Rather, as with technology policy, we select niches
which
are
or
not
occupied
filled,
satisfactorily
where
to
outlets,
be
selective
etc.).
given
our
base
resource
(of
can
make
a
Indeed the policy
difference, and use and develop local skills and methods.
has
we
philosophers,
publishing
to what extent should components,
But granting regionalism,
for instance people, books and other teaching elements, theories and ideas, be
imported
and
locally?
I’he
to
what
extent
should
they
be
particular mix.
There is no need
The case for
the present
trained,
conceived
in different components means that
possibility of selectiveness
many mixes are possible.
produced,
to insist,
so far at least, on a
is mainly for a regional shift, for
a significantly greater degree of local, autonomy and production
But
it
will
do
no
harm
to
indicate
elements of
a mix
that
finds much
Docs it sound familiar? Outside philosophy, it should. For example, we
have now been told by the Americans that our defence role, unlike theirs, is
regional, not global: this is supposed to shed great light on our previously
confused defence policies.
�27
local
the suggestion
Negatively,
favour.
is that we try to eradicate much of
the Oxford style of
Leaching and doing philosophy.
as
undue
removal
of
Berke1ey-Hume
with
the
(a
however
no
standard
emphasis
on
British
focus);
attention
proper
empiricism
British
to
of
of
sources;
movements
emanating
from
England,
they
are,
pi
the Northern status quo;
recommend
and
this.
just
1
approach
the
of
influence,
in
More generally, many of
especially
the
protective ol
ord
Locke-
on
reinforcement
heavy
particular, his mostly been a very conservative one.
main
centred
quasi-historical
the
us
the
Includes such things
That
-lice,
language
ordinary
have
been
very
to leave things very much as
they tend
Positively,
the
proposal
is
that
we
achieve further disassociation from the Anglo-American empiricist past in two
ways:
by
framework,
emphasizing
by
and
to
Eastern thought,
philosophy.
teaching, will
parochialism,
The
idea
assist
and
projects
diversifying
selectively drawn upon,
parts of
local
is
the
include not
but also
that
that
move
range
constricting
that
philosophical
of
traditions
only neglected Continental strands and
Pacific ethnic
such a
outside
material and
plural i ty of
sources,
Australasian
especially
in
in removing narrower cultural biasses, such as British
enable more
discrimination
to
be
obtained.
Then
too we
should be better able to see the ranges of theories that are open to us in the
Antipodes and how to advance our own programs.
36
I'he point is laboured in E. Gellner, Words and Things, Victor Gollancz,
London, 1959.
But even ordinary language? philosophy, though conservative, and
though it much contracted the proper range of philosophical investigations,
had its liberating elements, e.g. removal of some of the narrowness and more
cramping assumptions induced by technical jargon.
Nor lias the social impact changed much with the subsequent/ decline, since
1959, o 1 ordinary language philosophy, the Increasing insolvency of Oxbridge
philosophy, and its consequent limited take-over by right-wing Ivy League
American philosophy.
By contrast, the less economically influential growth of
redbrick and applied philosophy in some of the British r-fttl
and polytechnic
institutes his touched no more than the surface of Oxbridge Practice.
T
�There remain some things we should want to see whatever mixes are chosen
in
iiiiereni Antipodean regions.
bias from papers and
publications, research seminars and lectures, letters of
reference, and so on.
the
works
and
irrespective
discussion
write
not
Northern
to
their
of
the
ignore
authors,
works
the
contribution
of
famous
more
authors,
local
their
lecture as
or
been
under
largely
again
etc.
It
and
to uncritically
the disposition
is
to
to
though work produced locally either does not exist or has
influential
philosophers,
importance,
worth,
topic
It is the disposition
the quality of their contribution.
opinions of
better,
the
the
to
authors from prestigious Northern institutions,
to
accept
of
quality
the
and
irrespective of
defer
This Northern bias is a disposition to cite and discuss
projects
of
One crucial issue is the removal of Northern
are,
(thus
if
ensuring
more
anything,
it
that
inclined
Northern
to
Australasian
And
not).
is
than
bias
many
overseas intellectuals, who are perhaps less concerned to be seen as belonging
to tl-'l Northern mainstream.
bias effects
policies of
ot
local
not
only
practice
the
of
individual,
philosophers,
but
the
selection and review committees as well as of editors and referees
journals.
reorientation,
with
It
developments ~
things
taught, more
so
they
that
philosophers
can
would
cite
be
other
among
involves,
Antipodean
it ions \ better,
courses
The reduction, and eventual removal, of Northern
getting
to
work
or
local
assisted
time spent at local
by
intellectual
things,
know
local
point
greater
out
local
work
and
regional
content
in
institutions on study leave, and so
on.
APPENDIX 1. Background notes on the philosophy supply situation.
Sociological
investigation of the philosophy labour market in Australia and New Zealand has
1° be
numerical
attempted.
But a
picture of
some elements underlying
the
argument of the text can be gained from the following table:
simple
�29
TABLE 1. Ph.Ds In Philosophy: a USA ~ Australasian comparison
USA
Number (Male/Female)
Aust ra1i a
New Zealand
1974
413 (346/67)
6
0
19 75
375 (318/57)
5
0
1976
382 (319/63)
8
0
197 7
330 (264/66)
3
2 (1/1)
1978
2 83 (235/48)
5
5 (4/1)
1979
285 (204/54)
9
3 (2/1)
1980
2 4 6 (187/59)
4
N.A.
1981
N.A.
4
0
Notes:
1. The breakdown of the USA and New Zealand numbers by sexes (male/female) is
given.
SimiLar figures do not appear to be available for Australia.
2.
The US figures are for the academic year ending in the Year shown, e.g.
1978 covers the Northern academic year 1977-78. Southern figures are for the
calendar year shown.
Sources: Di gest__of__ Education Statistics, US National Center for
Education Statistics; University Statistics, Australian Bureau of
Census Statistics; New Zealand Education Statistics.
Comments:
1.
The contraction of US doctoral, production and the concomitant rise in
female representation, are clearly indicated.
The Australian figures are
likely too small to reflect such trends and responses to the academic market.
2.
Nome of Llr* Australasian numbers include Americans; likewise the American
figures provide no nationality breakdown.
3.
There is no information available on the number of Australians proceeding
to higher degrees in philosophy outside. Australia.
Tn applying table 1 some simplifying assumptions are made.
assumed
tbit
candidates
for appointment
to regular
For example, it is
university positions
now
would t.ave a doctorate or- the equivalent (until recently a B.Phll was taken as
a
near
well).
equivalent
It
is
of
a
assumed,
North
what
American
seems
to
Ph.D.
take
publications
the
case,
that
could
the
serve
as
number
of
�30
Austi il is Lans proceeding to higher degrees in philosophy abroad is relatively
Smail, and no more than the order of Ph.Ds.
upsetting applications of table
without
say,
Is no compiled
I, that Australasian graduates match,
information on academic vacancies in philosophy in
Aust ra1 ia < r New Zealand
Az matter
to
I di j oil,1'.
on the lumbers of vacancies, on how the positions
It would however be a routine,
nationalities, sexes, etc.
by what
re1
It can be assumed,
Lhe upper half of American graduates in standard attained.
There
if
taken locally.
some of
assemble
data,
this
which
is
considerable
of
' incc to the planning of philosophy programs.
Un
considering
'the
Editor
In
a National Philosophy', the (Australian)
possibility
r*
, /r
<(
I
initial AJPP^ d istinguished two senses corresponding to 'the
the
of
of a National Phi 1osophy for Australia.
the earlier
APPENDIX 2.
I
G e rm an distinction
b etwee n
W e11 a n sc hauung
I
I
the first, that of 'a scheme of the universe',
ridiculous
as
con f i rm.a t ion
a
or
Christian
Sc ience .
fa 1 sificationV
Granted: but
'are
Lebensanchauung7
a nd
The
In
n Ihilos>phy
I hlLos
is as
is
argument
independent
that does not mean
(p.292).
that^Jirutly
national
of
that a
and
sympathies
its
or
theory may not be held,
in one region but not. others, as intuitionism was for long in
in
Holland,
or
'a
nation
second
a
in
France.
In
like
an
individual
may
'more
develop
ternperament a 1 attitude to the problems of existence, which we may
life.
is a mode of
form of
A nation's philosophy,
expression for
the national
(.'VO I V I up,
like
its art and
the national consciousness.
But,
a
and
certain
. . call its
Its 1i terature,
It is a specialised
short,
genius
intimate
part of the
by
no means
sepa ra t e from t he initial sense, a philosophy comprising no t merely a
fairly comprehensive
theory but also an integrated
set of attitudes (like an
..
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�4
USA,
expoi ter
cul Lure,
of
certainly
of
higher
culture
philosophical
output
from
components
Australasia,
as
culture,
philosophy
has
Oxford
not
in philosophy?
but
also
evidently
(witness
the
Are
there
taken).
should
suit,
payments, especially
balance of
lower
of
such
following
not
if
has recently become a net
importer of culture from Europe,
m
Long
achieve
a
American
turn
reasons
why
cultural
better
there are reasons.
Yes,
of
In
the first place, the change in the cultural position of the USA went with, and
perhaps
economic dominance
most
of
not only
increasingly
of
former
Northern
they.
prioi sties,
that
little prospect
for
there
the
contain
also
fellow-travellers,
whose
It is unlikely that
group,
(become
will
commitments,
as
Long
so
there
is
is
serious
no
prospect
in a bind
and disruption of the
Secondly,
component
Include
that
academics,
Northern
of
and
additional
is
teaching
this influential segment,
from
not
situation;
acclimatised
the
isolated
drastically
as
bent
to
especially
to)
give
person.
Nor
alter
entire
Antipodean
as observed,
a substantial
research
locally
apart
Antipoduans’ do
they are
I hey would be
North,
large
a
they
cultural
As
since
culture,
Americans,
Northern concerns.
the
If
cultural dominance,
cultural and other).
universities
of
in economic power relations.
ever emulate or attain American economic eminence (at least
commodities,
cont ingent
changes
nuclear destruction of
without
flow of
entails
Australasia's
Australasia will
not
from, vast
part derived
in
their
up
its
should
cultural
for it can be persuasively argued
better off, as far as quality and
product goes,
stocking
their universities with American teaching components and researching Americanoriented concerns.
One
simple
arg urn e n t
nurn er1c a I
th it
Antipodean
universities
would
be
better off with Americans in the main, takes the following lines:- The (higher
degree)
graduates
of
Australasian
culturally distinguished,
at
and
American
are
not
significantly
least in subjects such as philosophy.
Consider
�now
the
number
quality
of
academics
produced
number
per
of
higher
uates.
preponderance of
The (great)
just, by virtue of their vastly
graduates will be Americans,
greater population and
degree
their more extensive system of university education.'7
So also then, just by ratio considerations, the great preponderance of quality
academics
drawn
an
from
percentiles among
uppei
interested
they
universities.
in
those quality
quality,
Such
an
base
Austroamerlean
argument
does
appointing
not
as will
Clearly, Antipodeans,
products.
be
would
be American,
will
work
to
more
show
Americans
that,
for
the
were
their
to
similar
reasons, American universities should be full of Chinese or Indian professors,
for
two
Asians
reasons;
and
first
there
are
especially
Americans,
significant
in
cultural
disciplines
such
differences
as
between
philosophy;
and
secondly, their university systems do not deliver such great quotas of higher
degree or high quality graduates, at least
in philosophy.
fhe conclusion of the numerical argument will not be a popular one.
anti-Americanism felt
the
universities;
especially by
and
recently
the Australasian community extends into
there
has
been
increasing
insistence,
the now aging younger Turks that university positions should be
reserved for locals.
international
in portions of
The
This at the same time as these Turks often preach of an
community of scholars,
presumably then with "free"
interchange,
X'
indicated in Appendix 1, where assumptions made In the argument are
defended, the ratio of US philosophy graduates with doctorates as compared
with Australian exceeds 30 to 1.
And, as Is well-known, the extent of
university education is much greater in USA than in Australasia: indeed
Australia is in this respect among the ______
worst educated of the developed
nations, as OECD figures have made plain (see, e.g., B. Jones, Sleepers Wake!,
Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1.982, Chapter 7).
■
�6
etc.
I'hey cannot have it all ways.''
So
as
long
the
cont inues,
present
centre
will
they wi! I
economically;
large to
the
it
them if
is
free-flow
Interchange
the
dominate
than us,
have more
jobs
(centrally-determined) quality
well
as
should
here
personnel
and
culturally
periphery
and
ideas
of
go by
as
and
in this high cultural
business that we seek, as mostly claim.
Now
anyway,
It
is
there
that
arguments.
widely
For
is
ire
we
regularly drive out
enough
recognised,
drastically
something
not
lower-down
flooded
wrong
with high-quality
local contenders for positions,
ladders
hierarchical
with
these
sorts
Northerners who
of
would
if we only preferred the
Northerners when they were quite visibly superior: rather we are inundated by
Americans with inflated references, who have the messages of the centre better
tbur
local;;
echelon
wnocf
do,
(often
and
remote Northern
Northern
shortcomings
biassed)
are known
the Northern centres tend
fields tend
appointment
better.
to look
committees
A.s is beginning
greener to
than
dusty
higherlocals
to be recognised
to retain their higher-quality products,
too,
and allow
A reverse flow of the better orthodox academics from Australasia to America
should also be expected (outside times of university contraction).
According
to issumptions of this brain drain argument, which is based on labour market
considerations,
appointment
and
lifestyle conditions
for academics
are
general ly better in USA than Australia and much better than those in
economicaLly-depressed New Zealand (e.g. higher salaries, better standard of
living, superior research conditions, etc.).
So, other things being equal,
able academics from the Antipodes will relocate in USA as academic positions
become available.
The argument also helps explain why Antipodean universities
cannot, expect, for the most part., t.o attract really top-drawer Northerners for
very long.
Of course, economically irrelevant factors do induce interference; e.g.
perverse commitments to odd-ball Antipodean intellectual enterprises which
reduce market acceptability, or pre-industrial ties to place or persons or
lifestyle which unduly restrict mobility (such as local roots,
family
attachments, even distaste for American urban lifestyles).
�7
them
exiled
be
to
the
to
periphery
only
if
they
fali
somehow
the
foul of
Too
system (e.g. of the academic system for political or personal reasons) .
often
the
Nori hern
have
centres
disposed
their
of
inferior
intellectually
products In the periphery.
this makes the
All
appointing
especially Americans,
Northerners,
their references, and usually not out
And yet.
quality.
it seems,
position look doubly bad. We ought,
even
if
are overrated
they
of the top drawer,
to be
in
in order to maximize
doing so does not achieve the desired quality result,
and
breeds discontent elsewhere, especially among the aging Turks.
there
fortunately
is
cultural
sufficient
obtain
lor us.
subtitutabIe
before
way
out
this
from
t is the wraj
'
and
a
We do our own
Lonal Lsm.
distance,'
so
and
situation
that
they
are
these
things;
not
simply
Then the shaky numerical argument does fall down.
elaborate
we
awkward
the
emerging
proposal
are
there
other
But
influential
arguments to dispose of, and the disposal bears on the proposal.
There
have so
is,
to begin with,
far been conceded:
exce Hence,
which
the argument for excellence,
that
we all more or
there is an objective commodity, quality or
less agree
seek and what appointments aim to capture,
the type of myth most ol
myth,
In
fact
appointments
about,
which is proportionately
in the North, and which is what academic
more abundant
a
that
institutions crave and
indeed maximize.
That at least is
us have encountered; and many of us now know it is a
dangerous
way,
elements of which
any
Most
myth.
more
that
places
don't
organisations
aim
even
just
try
to
to
make
maximize
9- M
Iliis is easier in the cultural than the technological sphere.
However it
is
also
possible technologically:
(stronger)
theses of
technological
determinism, and so of cultural determinism, are false.
We can choose
different options, technologically, as well as culturally.
�->)
)
./
A- u
I
PROSPECTS FOR REGIONAL PHILOSOPHIES IN AUSTRALASIA
Philosophy, especially academic philosophy but also folk philosophy, 1 ike
other intellectual and higher cultural activity in Australasia, has long been
dominated,
largely
swamped,
by
Northern
now increasingly from North America.
Europe,
the
indeed
and
cultural
resulting
baggage
other
controlling
such
But it does not have to stay that way.
a
initially
from
the migration patterns,
Given
the
ethnic
result
was
imported,
populations,
influences,
of
composition
virtually
the
inevitable.
Suitable policies, a good philosophy
policy, could change things.
The
culture,
thought
is
of
hardly a
a
philosophy,
regional
perhaps
In 1923, a New Zealand
new one.
a
matching
regional
correspondent to the
newly-launched Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy mentioned the
possibility of ’a new kind or temper of philosophy under these southern skies’
which the Journal might
such a
role
reaching
(or,
not
community).
for
merely
And
The Journal
foster.1
matter,
that
professional
although
some
actively
pursued
philosophers
things
however hardly
has
but
have changed
solid foundation for a new regionalism in philosophy,
its
a
fulfilled
pronounced
wider
Australasian
in Australia,
that
of
aim
laying a
possibility of
a
new temper of philosophy has hardly been realised. There is little in the way
of a
new kind
and
temper of
philosophy under New Zealand
southern skies were intended to include:
distinctively
New
Zealand
AJPP, March 1923, p.74.
same volume, p.292ff; his
Appendix 2/
7
skies,
which
the
but few distinguishing features,
’no
characteristics,
have
shown
up
in
New
Zealand
The question was taken up by the Editor in the
discussion is considered below, especially in
�2
philosophy’.
New Zealand remains a substantial net importer of philosophy,
The situation of colonial dominance that used to prevail in
and philosophers.
Australia,
where
virtually
all
chairs,
and
many
philosophy, were filled by academics from the North,
and
considered
and
Given the usual
in courses designed,
power and influence of professors in small departments,
covered
in
tends to persist in New
Zealand, where no established chairs are occupied by locals/
topics
posts
academic
other
especially appointments
made,
the
heavy
Northern orientation of philosophy taught and researched in New Zealand is not
surprising.
oldest
of
The Northern control is perhaps most strikingly exhibited at the
New
Zealand
the
universities,
University
of
Otago,
where
the
Philosophy Department has been substantially captured by a British School and
increasingly
looks
event,
like
an offshoot
of
the
University of London/
In any
the overwhelming Anglo-American dominance of New Zealand philosophy -
also a feature only in slightly lesser degree of Australian philosophy - can
be confirmed by a content survey of the
courses offered
and research
papers
written at New Zealand universities.
Even when local people have been appointed to positions in Australasia,
2
S.A. Grave, A History of Philosophy in Australia, Queensland University
Press, 1984, p.l. Page references are to the manuscript.
The paper draws
heavily on this history.
3
This claim was correct at the time of presentation of the paper (August
1983).
With the recent loss of a chair at Wellington, the claim requires
qualification, but the pattern of domination persists.
4In the 1983 Commonwealth University Handbook listing, 6 of the 8 members of
the Department held their main degree, Ph.D., from London, and one of the
remainder from Exeter.
Only one member of the Department, soon to retire,
falls outside the nexus.
�3
they have been brought up on a solid diet of Anglo-American material, and they
In particular, the
have often been reforged or finished in the North as well.
post-World
War
philosophy
by
remain
full
candidates
the
of
requirements
II
universities
in
were
conveniently
seen
expansion
Oxford
the
of
Australasian
of
products
finished
B.Phil.
this
Many
degree.
cultural
to
in
departments
out
period
the
of
of
case
of
philosophy
the mid
70s
when they applied
for
until
indeed
mill:
to beat
in Oxford were hard
major
the
positions, such was the (unwarranted) prestige of Oxford and the regrettable,
but still continuing, "cultural cringe".
Nonetheless,
(as
will
indicated).
be
dominance,
Northern
in the Antipodes,
been occurring
scene
the
despite
especially on
worth
is
It
significant
have
changes
the Australian philosophical
whether
asking
Australian
philosophy is moving towards the sort of change that occurred in USA more than
100 years ago when the Harvard Philosophy Department was brought (or bought)
together,
and its "golden age"
American philosophy was never quite
began.''
the same again, and became its own thing.
There are now new forces operating
which could help to move Australian philosophy in such a direction.
the
widespread
regionalism,6
other
5See B.
which
applies
choices;
local
fashioning
emergence,
of
national
and
particularly
to
in
science
cultural
in
and
alternative
culture,
ideological
stark
contrast,
and
technology
there
There is
of
a
choice along
is
policies,
the
which
new
with
centralised
not
only
Kuklick, The Rise of American Philosophy; Cambridge, Massachusetts
1860-1930, Yale University Press, 1977, Parts 2 and 3.
6
On this bio-regionalism, see especially, Fourth World News, vol. I,
and K. Sale, Human Scale, Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, New York, 1980.
1983,
�4
a
provides
for
model
reflection
philosophy
regional
in
directly bears on parts of the philosophy of science.
there are also some
soon appear,
policy
Unfortunately, as will
to regional
serious obstacles
also
but
philosophies
and to the very idea of a regional philosophy.
USA, long an importer of culture from Europe, has recently become a net
culture,
of
exporter
components
of higher
philosophical
Australasia,
from
output
if
not
Oxford
following
but
evidently
philosophy (witness
such as
culture
culture,
lower
of
certainly
taken).
has
should
suit,
not
balance of payments, especially in philosophy?
the American
there
Are
also
achieve
reasons
better
a
turn
why
cultural
there are reasons.
Yes,
of
In
the first place, the change in the cultural position of the USA went with, and
perhaps in part derived from, vast changes in economic power relations.
economic
dominance
most
Australasia’s
of
entails
cultural dominance,
culture,
since
there
there is
is
little prospect
serious
no
prospect
If
for
that
Australasia will ever emulate or attain American economic eminence (at least
nuclear destruction of
not without
the North,
flow of commodities, cultural and other).
universities
not
only
increasingly
of
Americans,
contingent
of
former
Northern
they.
group,
cultural
As
priorities,
long
component
also
include
whose
research
they
disruption of
the entire
as observed, Antipodean
Secondly,
large
fellow-travellers,
Northern
academics,
substantial
additional
of
a
and
teaching
is
bent
to
It is unlikely that this influential segment, especially
Northern concerns.
the
a
contain
and
will
commitments,
as
so
(become
apart
Antipodeans
they are in a bind
locally acclimatised
do
from the
not
situation;
isolated
drastically
as
to)
person.
alter
give up
its
Nor should
their
cultural
for it can be persuasively argued
that they would be better off, as far as quality and
product goes,
stocking
�5
universities
their
American
with
and
components
teaching
researching
American-oriented concerns.
that
argument
numerical
simple
One
Antipodean
universities
would
be
better off with Americans in the main, takes the following lines:- The (higher
degree)
of
graduates
Australasian
culturally distinguished,
now the
number of
produced
0
population and
then,
So also
just
not
number
per
of
say there is 1 per every n graduates.
preponderance of graduates will be Americans,
greater
are
American
significantly
at least in subjects such as philosophy.
quality academics
Austroamerican graduates;
and
their more
by ratio
Consider
higher
degree
The (great)
just by virtue of their vastly
extensive system of university education.
considerations,
the great
preponderance
of
quality academics drawn from an Austroamerican base will be American, as will
the
upper
percentiles among
those quality products.
Clearly,
Antipodeans,
were they interested in quality, would be appointing more Americans to their
universities.
Such
an
argument
does
not
work
to
show
that,
for
similar
reasons, American universities should be full of Chinese or Indian professors,
for
two
Asians
reasons;
and
first
Americans,
there
are
especially
significant
in
cultural
disciplines
such
differences
as
between
philosophy;
and
secondly, their university systems do not deliver such great quotas of higher
degree or high quality graduates, at least in philosophy.
As indicated in Appendix 1, where assumptions made in the argument are
defended, the ratio of US philosophy graduates with doctorates as compared
with Australian exceeds 30 to 1.
And, as is well-known, the extent of
university education is much greater in USA than in Australasia: indeed
Australia is in this respect among the worst educated of the developed
nations, as OECD figures have made plain (see, e.g., B. Jones, Sleepers Wake’,
Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1982, Chapter 7).
/
�6
The conclusion of the numerical argument will not be a popular one.
The
anti-Americanism felt in portions of the Australasian community extends
into
the
universities;
and
recently
has
there
been
insistence,
increasing
especially by the now aging younger Turks that university positions should be
This at the same time as these Turks often preach of an
reserved for locals.
international community of scholars, presumably then with "free" interchange,
etc.
They cannot have it all ways.^
So
long
as
the
continues,
economically;
the
present
centre
will
free-flow
dominate
they will have more
large to them if it
interchange
the
than us,
periphery
and
of
ideas
culturally
jobs here
is (centrally-determined) quality in
personnel
and
as
should
well
as
go by and
this high cultural
business that we seek, as mostly claim.
Now
anyway,
it
that
arguments.
is
widely
there
For we
is
enough
recognised
something
are not
lower-down
drastically
wrong
hierarchical
with
these
ladders
sorts
of
flooded with high-quality Northerners who would
g
A reverse flow of the better orthodox academics from Australasia to America
should also be expected (outside times of university contraction).
According
to assumptions of this brain drain argument, which is based on labour market
considerations, appointment
and lifestyle
conditions
for academics
are
generally better in USA than Australia and much better than those in
economically-depressed New Zealand (e.g. higher salaries, better standard of
living, superior research conditions, etc.).
So, other things being equal,
able academics from the Antipodes will relocate in USA as academic positions
become available. The argument also helps explain why Antipodean universities
cannot expect, for the most part, to attract really top-drawer Northerners for
very long.
Of course, economically irrelevant factors do induce interference; e.g.
perverse commitments to odd-ball Antipodean intellectual enterprises which
reduce market acceptability, or pre-industrial ties to place or persons or
lifestyle which unduly restrict mobility (such as local roots,
family
attachments, even distaste for American urban lifestyles).
�7
regularly drive out local
contenders for positions,
if we only preferred the
Northerners when they were quite visibly superior: rather we are inundated by
Americans with inflated references, who have the messages of the centre better
do,
locals
than
higher-echelon
remote
and
Northern
(often
Northern
biassed)
fields
appointment
the Northern centres
greener
look
to
committees
than
dusty
retain their higher-quality products,
tend to
to
As is beginning to be recognised
locals whose shortcomings are known better.
too,
tend
and
allow them to be exiled to the periphery only if they somehow fall foul of the
system (e.g. of the academic system for political or personal reasons).
often
Northern
the
centres
have
disposed o
their
intellectually
Too
inferior
products in the periphery.
to
be
especially Americans, even if they are overrated
in
All this makes the position look doubly bad. We ought,
appointing Northerners,
it
seems,
their references, and usually not out of the top drawer, in order to maximize
And yet
quality.
doing so does not achieve the desired quality result, and
breeds discontent elsewhere, especially among the aging Turks.
Fortunately
shaky arguments;
and
obtain
there
9
we
way out
from
this
sufficient
elaborate
cultural
distance,9
situation and
awkward
and that is the way of regionalism.
subtitutable for us.
before
is a
so
that
We do our own things;
they
are
Then the shaky numerical argument does fall
the
emerging
proposal
there
these
are
other
not
simply
down.
But
influential
This is easier in the cultural than the technological, sphere.
However it
is
also
possible technologically:
(stronger)
theses of
technological
determinism, and so of cultural determinism, are false.
We can choose
different options, technologically, as well as culturally.
�8
arguments to dispose of, and the disposal bears on the proposal.
There is,
have so
to begin with,
far been conceded:
the argument for excellence,
that
elements of which
there is an objective commodity, quality or
excellence, which we all more or less agree about,
which is
proportionately
more abundant in the North, and which is what academic institutions crave and
indeed maximize.
seek and what appointments aim to capture,
That at least is
the type of myth most of us have encountered; and many of us now know it is a
myth,
in
fact
appointments
dangerous
a
that
any
way,
myth.
more
that
don’t
places
Most
organisations
aim
just
profit, but rather seek to satisfice on a mix of factors,
quality is
make
maximize
to
of which assessed
and not often the highest ranking one.
only one,
to
try
even
Ability to fit
into some sort of program, teaching or research, is another, and commonly more
important factor;
and there
is no good reason why such a program should not
sometimes be a regionally oriented
one.
the
So given prevailing practices,
argument from excellence does not exclude regional philosophy programs.
And,
in any event, there are enough local candidates of sufficient worth to proceed
with
regional
programs
without
clearcut
sacrifice
of
excellence.
Local
enterprise need entail no loss of excellence, and could well increase it.
The deeper-cutting objection is that there is something seriously amiss
with
the
idea
of
objective
objective
importance;
criticism
as
bracketed
out
notions
the
that
of
excellence,
these
objective
and
notions
values
with
are
open
more
contextual-relativisation
the
to
connected
the
generally,
component
of
same
that
notion
of
sorts
of
they
valuing:
have
the
�9
framework or viewpoint to which these values relate.While those operating
within
rather
a
narrow
intellectual
paradigm,
as
such
ordinary
Oxbridge
language philosophy or Sydney materialism say, can bracket out the viewpoint,
since
incorporated
is
it
the
in
operational
paradigm,
and
arrive
so
at
seemingly objective quality judgements, the judgements are not preserved (e.g.
in
truth
value)
when
Marxist
viewpoints.
quality
or
worth
for
Consider,
of
to
transposed
a
other
the
comparison,
made
forest,
frameworks,
variously
industrial forester, and a recreational officer.
quality
of
a
holistically-inclined
by
who
seemingly because
pretend
that
a
deep
the
ecologist,
philosopher,
environmental
it is not done by members
to
or
an
Compare judgements as to the
environmental
such
as
judgements
language, Marxist, and Californian environmental philosophers.
philosophers
idealistic
e.g.
of
work
by
ordinary
There are even
be
cannot
judged,
the main philosophical
peer
group at Harvard and like institutions.
As this
judgements
of
begins to
the
reveal,
importance
judgements of quality are not independent of
of
work
done
or
problems
tackled.
importance of problems and issues is highly paradigm dependent.
But
the
For example,
problems such as those of quantifying-in and of possible worlds and of de re
thought, which assume immense importance for fashionable referential theories
within the mainstream empiricist paradigm, vanish
outside
that
restricted viewpoint.
Now observe
to relative insignificance
that most
judgements as
to
What follows also begins to bring out what is omitted in a main theme of
R.S. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance, Bodley Head, London,
1974.
Note that defusing the notion of objective excellence does not lead to
subjectivism.
To avoid the customary false dichotomy, compare the notion of
validity (usually ceded to themselves these days by classical logicians) with
that of quality.
�10
what are the Important problems and what constitutes important work - matters
helping
quality
determine
is
relative
to
their
are
exported
to
the Antipodes
importance
concerned
shipped
are
-
from
down
the
paradigmatic placement,
through
the
North.11
and
Their
paradigms
the
main channels
already
indicated.
We are free to reject these paradigms and select alternatives, and
there are,
it can be argued, good reasons to do just that, much as there are
good
reasons
choose
to
energy technology
different
(or different
military
technology) from that generally favoured in the North which the North is eager
to export southwards.
points
Similar
which
might
argument,
apply
against
alternatively
that
sophisticated
people
-marketed
mass-produced
and
cosmopolitan.
The argument
called
be
from
is based
cosmopolitan/international
the
the
Peter
everywhere
Holland;
international
Stuyvesant
smoke
this
argument
superior
product
cigarette-sophistication
is
on the assumption that philosophy is a
’cosmopolitan subject’, that is is not the sort of enterprise for which place
and
people
are
significant
as
they
are
for
or
poetry
assumption has only to be presented to be questioned.
for one important thing,
that philosophy is a
the
novel.12
It takes for granted,
finished product
sort (a propositional theory), not a process of production also.
110ften
enough
fashionability
is
mistaken
for
The
importance.
of a
certain
But in the
As
to
the
unsatisfactory way in which such '’important" problems are commonly set, see
F. Dyson, ’Unfashionable pursuits’, The Mathematical Intelligencer 5 (1983)
47-5?.
-----12
Grave, op.cit., p.2:
the term ’cosmopolitan subject’ used there comes
from Donegan. As to the significance of place and people for literature, see
further C. Partridge, The Making of New Cultures, Editions Rodopi, Amsterdam,
1982.
----------------------------
�11
process of production the place and people involved (e.g.
material.
And
literature,
the
if
and
not
product
just
is
theorems
more
no
philosophy,
than
work
a
and
of
art,
arguments
like
a
assembled
piece
of
in
an
then again the historical setting matters,
internationally-approved format,
since
like
in discussion) are
literature,
not
does
emerge
in
a
vacuum.
Plato’s philosophy could not have emerged in ancient Australia, and if cribbed
in mid 20th century Oxford would surely have been marked down or rejected.^
It is important not to be sidetracked into issues - resembling problems
in aesthetics - that
extent sets
do not need to be contested,
of themes and arguments
such as whether and what
produced in one place and setting could
have been produced in another. A nonnuclear technology of some sort could be
adopted
prospect
in
Europe but
that
New
apparently will
Zealand,
nonnuclear energy strategy.
matters
here.
Dial ethic
in
not
contrast
whereas
be,
with
there
Australia,
is
will
reasonable
pursue
a
It is the doing, and not what could be done, that
logic,
which
invalidates
methodology of much Anglo-American philosophy,
could
the
technique
perhaps be done in
and
the
North (though there would be substantial cultural resistance): it is not being
13
Like a paper in the biological sciences.
But here again technique and
methodology, which may both be regional, are crucially important.
Related points can be made using less extreme examples, e.g. concerning
modern American work.
Consider, for instance such texts as W.V. Quine’s Word
and Object, (Wiley, New York, 1960) or R. Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia
(Basic Books, New York, 1974).
The assumptions taken for granted, the
arguments involved, etc., are especially American: it is not just the style.
The acceptability of arguments and positions is dependent on place and
received paradigm.
�12
and is not likely to be done in the Anglo-American sphere.to
done there,
this
extent,
logical
Antipodeans
techniques,
can
do
choose
their
their
own
international/cosmopolitan argument,
own
distinctive
distinctive
technology
thing.
stated tn a form that would be
and
The
telling,
fails.
Of course
it can be argued,
it is being argued,
that Antipodeans don’t
need to be, or even oughtn’t to be pursuing their own energy or logic policies
and apparatus.
But meeting these considerations takes us to a whole new set
of issues concerning the merit of various policies and programs,
diversity, etc. - far beyond the cosmopolitan argument.
the point of
The new arguments, to
which we shall return, are not a lot more convincing however than comparable
arguments
concerning
cooking:
that
we don’t
devising our own cuisine or wine styles.
need
to
be or
oughtn’t
to
be
British, or at least cosmopolitan,
cooking is adequate: we should stick to that and buy it off the shelf from the
North,
ideally
importing the
cooks also.
Do we have good reasons
to
think
that British philosophy is better, these days, than British cooking?
Antipodeans are free,
in principle then,
to pursue their own paradigms;
and to do so they will by and large want to, and mostly have to, appoint their
own people, people they have educated - not saboteurs or people who have (had)
Much as communist anarchism, a live possibility for communes and perhaps
communities in Australia, is culturally excluded in North America, owing to
the extreme possessive individualism of that culture.
On dialethic logic, see G. Priest and R. Routley, On Paraconsistency,
Research Papers in Logic, #13, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian
National University, 1983.
�13
to be re-educated, from elsewhere, in particular from the North.
But will the
intellectual paradigms pursued tie with cultural paradigms, with distinctive
features
of
local
the
culture?
In a
loose way,
at
they may
least,
tie in with the
though works of philosophy will not usually
link,
culture in
the
integral fashion that novels (as distinct from more technical works) sometimes
do.
Indeed,
certain
to
a
cultural
limited
extent,
features,
not
they
restricted
to
particular
programs, that help mark philosophy in Australia as
’unimportant
hastens
to
though
add.
this
But
is
style,
compared
Grave considers
do already link.
with
acceptability,
what
’an Australian product’ -
matters
truth,
philosophical
he
philosophy’
in
do matter,
and
are
not
independent - or independent so far as their perception goes in the case of
truth and correctness16 - from underlying broad theory or received paradigm.
However the marks which can be extracted from Grave,
significant though
they are, do not serve to distinguish the Australian product,
the first
two
being features Australian philosophy exhibits in lesser degree than the more
adventurous and polemical philosophy of Greek antiquity.
by Passmore
as
’most
typical
of Australian philosophy’,
The first, described
is
a
’diversity of
approach and readiness to put forward an unconventional or unfashionable point
16
Nothing need be conceded to strong cultural relativity themes, though they
would support the case.
It is enough that our theories remain radically
incomplete and that there can accordingly be rival theories as to what is
true.
Similarly, however philosophy is conceived - as the search for truth,
explanation, understanding and wisdom (all of these and more, really), or as,
more vaguely, inquiry of a certain sort - there can be, and will be, competing
accounts; so a pluralistic theory is inevitable in giving a fuller view.
�14
of
view*,
17
philosophy,
something
which
more
typical
some
(with
of
exceptions)
notable
exhibits
an
Canada,
is that
Africa,
South
adventurous
compared with other recent
and
provincial
and
diverse.
second,
The
...
the
between
line-up
Australian
and
surprising,
mark
far
from isolated:
others
Melbourne
Wittgensteinian
"Australian
materialism",
philosophy
departments
the
(both
confrontation concerning the
among
them concern
extraordinary
discussed
the
political
by
is
is
’the
’the most notable example ...
Andersonian
and
Sydney, if it was not the Andersonian philosophy itself’ (p.2).
is
such as
philosophy
England,
manifestoed character* of Australian philosophy,
being
"Oxbridge colonies",
more
austere
What may be
uniformity reflecting that often attributed to the land itself.
nearer true
Australian
than
philosophy
ancient
This example
fervour generated
engagement
Grave),
the
and
relevant/paraconsistent program,
by
by
some
growing
with the
local
(’adversarial*) style leading to sharp criticism by Americans. Connected with
these
first
philosophy,
century
two
marks
J as of much
Cambridge
further
are
characteristics
of
much
18th century Scottish philosophy and
philosophy:
points, surface clarity, and,
namely
directness,
Australian
turn-of-this-
unwillingness
to
muffle
some would unkindly add (in the hope perhaps of
locating a genuine difference), bluntness, unsubtlety and crudity.
Both preceding quotations, while included as such in Grave’s Introduction,
are from J. Passmore, ’Philosophy’, in The Pattern of Australian Culture (ed.
A.L. McLeod), Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y., 1963, pp.131-168.
The
same annotation also applies to the third mark.
18
Though again for the most part that influenced by Sydney rather than that
originating in Melbourne.
To some extent this reflects the different
historical influences shaping Sydney and Melbourne philosophy:
roughly,
Scottish as opposed to Continental antecedents.
�15
The
third
and
the
fourth
marks are
but
very different,
again
hardly
distinguishing features of Australian philosophy as Grave, who wouldn’t
them marks at all, in effect observes.
areas,
intellectual
the
of
Australian
the anti-intellectual national stereotype of Australians as a people
to
physical
mark
is
achievement
especially
of
isolation
a
academic
rather
than
feature
of
philosophy
indifference or even hostility to,
in
reputation
’center of philosophical inquiry’, with
indeed of Australia as a
philosophy,
The third, which applies well to other
contrast
the
is
call
to
intellectual
Anglo-American
Australasia
in
subtlety’.
the
namely
general
its
and
fourth
The
philosophy;
from,
’devoted
the sort of imported philosophy (e.g.
that
of Nietzsche and the existentialists) generating interest in literary and arts
circles.
The failure of such marks to entirely separate out Australian philosophy
does
not
matter.
For
thing,
one
the
separated by its research projects.
confused
with
nationalism,
nor
Australian
For another,
produce
such as
materialism or Wellington modalism with national philosophies.
philosophy,
as
encouraged;
and
in
most
the new
other
is
things,
regionalism
is
an
undesirable
commonly
sufficiently
regionalism should not
regional positions
more
is
linked,
be
Sydneyside
Nationalism in
trait,
not
in other
to
be
cultural
things, with the breakdown of nations and contraction of state power.
19
See, e.g.,
London, 1957.
Sale,
op.cit.,
and L.
Kohr,
The Breakdown of Nations,
RKP,
The Editor of the new 1923 AJPP did however take seriously the notion of
National Philosophy, of (what must have surprised some New Zealand readers) an
Australian Philosophy; some of the issues there raised (p.292ff) are addressed
in Appendix 2.
1
�16
*
To get
back to where we were:
*
emerging proposal
the
is
this,
that we
s.rsrt - or better much increase - doing our own distinctive things, and that
we
team up
to do so.
Tn fact
there are
several suggestions
that begin to
emerge, concerning research and teaching, publications and appointments, study
leave and sponsored visitors. These are not just that we do our own selection
of
topics
and
style
and
people,
and
methods,
decide
priorities,
own
our
instead of having these foisted upon us - not just, that is, that we play our
own games (whether invented here or taken over from the North) and not theirs,
Rules and Rugby instead of Gridiron and Basketball - but that we abandon the
individual competitive model of cultural achievement, sold to us and fostered
by the North, in favour of a group cooperative approach (elements of which are
already modelled in Antipodean social clubs).
The
ditch-digging example:
ditch
more
separately.
rapidly
simple
and
familiar.
On
the
one
side
is
the
it is well-known that two people cooperating can dig a
and
enjoyably
than
two
people
working
on
the
ditch
Cooperative work tends to pay off - in philosophy or elsewhere -
in terms of output,
experience
are
here
thoughts
shows
that we
successfully with
several reasons
quality, and enjoyment in the doing.
in the
the centre
for this.
periphery cannot
on achievements
One
highly competitive predominantly
On the other side,
individually compete very
in their programs.
is the communication situation.
There
are
Despite the
individualistic nature of American academic
�1.
<3
�enterprise,
20
' much
communication
in the
and
individualism myth,
attainment
of
results
access
to
work is
jointly based,
unpublished
upon rapid
depends
material.
For,
verbal
despite
the
and builds on the work of many;
when the time is ripe for some idea or result,
several clever people will be
Then again communications are important in obtaining rapid
able to hit on it.
publication of the idea or result, and the assignment of credit for it.
again people at the periphery tend to lose out.
Again
there
are
nationalistic
considerations
There are a mix of reasons
(e.g.
Polish results, Russians will cite a Russian who
the
same
verbally
conveyed.
tend
time
and
as
an outsider).
through
face-to-face
There
is
seminars
Here
the
so
Poles
achieves a
fact
that
that
local
tend
to
promote
result at
much
is
results
about
conveyed
will
be
There is the fact of limited reading, and that people at the centre
to concentrate when
they read
on material
from the centre by
central
people, so that published items and results from the periphery will often not
be noticed, and may well lose out to central
central publication.
receive,
merit
competitors even if they achieve
There is also the fact that people at the centre tend to
for merit,
more publication
than people towards the periphery.
and
communication
opportunities
Here economic factors do begin to enter;
consider the size and distribution of the academic market (there are, e.g., a
great many more academic philosophers in North America than in the whole rest
of the world), control of publishing outlets and journals (with few exceptions
20
Reflecting other features of the culture and enterprise of the centre
which are not so deeply embedded in Australasia: see further R. Routley,
’Culture,
philosophy, and
approaches to
the natural
environment - an
Australian perspective’,
in The Environment,
Ethics
and Ecology
(ed.
D. Bennett), The Faculties,^ Australian National University, 1984, and also
’Culture and the roots of political divergence)^ the Australian/American
contrast’, typescript, Canberra, 1983;
both referred to subsequently as
’Culture’.
. . //
/ -
�18
However economic power does not, and need not, determine
etc.
all Northern),
culture - we can shut off the Northern philosophical propaganda
shut off
way we
being
sets if we really want to.
our television
by
impressed
middle-men
philosophical
those
the
And we can stop
a
make
who
in much
living
by
importing the Northern stuff.
So what do we do? We adapt to the cultural-philosophical level,
We aim at
of those things, that have been suggested in the newer regionalism.
some
awakening and
regional
importers
and
doctrines
and
imitators
local
of,
positions
from
and
We do not remain slavish
self-reliance.
on
commentators
local
the North.
For
several
example,
peddlars
and
don’t
we
spend
of,
our
academic lives trying to tease out what Davidson or Dummett or Kripke meant by
this
in the hope that
or that
To
through.
be
sure,
I
some pale Northern light will
am not
suggesting
we
that
perhaps
emulate
filter
appalling
the
ignorance of people from the North who visit the Antipodes and know little or
nothing about what has been done or
is
eminent
with
through
visitors,
the
their
Australian
bags
heavy
National
being done here;
cultural
University
(now
so
that we have
accroutrements,
the
main
trekking
centre
for
investigation of relevant logics) and informing us that, or relying crucially
on the assumption that, a contradiction entails every proposition.
that
these
Northerners
often
know
little
positions and advances is the Antipodes is
inferiority
colonies;
21
of
cultural
another
is
the
and
intellectual
narrow
or
nothing
about
One reason
distinctive
the prevailing assumption of
life
(predominantly
in
these
local)
and
former
limited
the
southern
reading
Regrettably, the ignorance extends to many locals.
In particular, those
infected with Sydney materialism appear remarkably ill-informed as to basic
features of other Australasian programs.
�19
undertaken by Northern luminaries.
But,
having
despite
been
given
sufficient
we
cause,
shouldn’t
cut
ourselves off from Northern paradigms and influences (we could hardly manage
to anyway:
propaganda is different).
so we should stay informed of, but not imitators
these continuing traditions:
of, or part of,
far
from
cutting
these
nowhere,
In any case,
their enterprises.
in older Northern traditions,
So
loose
regional cultures are rooted
just as the people are largely European stock.
from these
(and
older
We can reasonably use what we need from
likely
traditions and
starting afresh
and
traditions,
minority)
the
from
local
variations that have already appeared are what we want to develop and perhaps
mutate, as again with wine styles.
Part
things,
of
the
proposal
then
we
that
increasingly
Northern paradigms.
what is
very great
Nor,
our
own
local
rather than working with pale northern reflections of
It is not as if we have to build from nothing,
very difficult - entirely original work,
components.
do
and so shape newer
encourage and develop our own research programs,
Antipodean paradigms,
22
is
to
to do -
to create cultural
try
For there are research programs already initiated, which have the
advantage
fortunately,
of
being grounded
do we need
in
to make
features
of
the
the story up -
shape the future is part of what the proposal
is about.
larger
culture.
though helping
to
Much of the story,
for Australia - New Zealand is a different and more difficult proposition - is
already indicated in Grave’s survey of Australian philosophy.
All one really
has to do is to bring out programs he has already indicated and provide some
22
See Culture, op.cit.
�20
To pull the investigation down to a more concrete
elaboration and commentary.
level,
I shall sketch some more prominent cooperative programs - by no means
the only programs - and remark on some relevant features of them.
The longest running and best known program is, without much doubt,
of
Australian
naturalism,
and
which
aims
to
see
natural
the
that
world,
and
everything else, as suitably encompassed within the framework of the world of
(physical)
science.
empiricist metaphysics,
contains
as
program
The
23
is
generally
materialism,
Adelaide which subsequently died out there.
such famous
state
version
of
failures
in
materialism,
and
functionalism.
its
a
Anderson’s
program initiated
nowadays
Faced
reduction
trimmed theory of universals,
plans,
like
it
it
takes
all
now
Tt
in
The latter program has included
the mental-material contingent
components as
central
to
and is now best exhibited in Armstrong’s work.
subprogram Sydney
a major
back
traced
in,
identity theme and
more derivatively,
physicalisms
incorporates
a
with
a
conspicuous
"scientifically"
and an account of natural laws as relations of
universals, both components of
the developing
Sydney realism.
Parts of the
naturalism program, especially materialism and central state reductionism and
the unified science ideal, have had counterparts in the North, but the program
has,
for
the most
part,
despite export efforts,
smoothly, moreover,
and
23
earthy,
so
retained
its
distinctively
it never caught on in New Zealand.
into Australian culture.
far as
Australian character
-
The program fits
It is similarly down-to-earth,
philosophy can be, without
the fancy ideas or effete
Anderson’s metaphysics was however far more opposed to reductions than
what has succeeded it. For an account of Anderson’s philosophy, and a history
and account of Australian naturalism and materialism, see especially Grave,
op.cit.
�21
idealism of European philosophy or the spirituality and suppressed puritanism
with
which
much
pragmatism).
commitments,
of
And
and
North
it
yet
though it
not
does
is
(including
simmers
thinking
American
shrink
from
basically empiricist,
explicit
nowadays,
metaphysical
it
is not
from
the
positivistic
(rejecting a verification principle, in particular).
It
is
a city
program,
based
broadcast
mainly
University
of
Sydney to other metropolitan universities; but the program does extend outside
the universities a bit (a tiny bit) to the larger metropolitan culture.
North America,
the
broader
Russell,
so in Australasia,
community,or
Popper
Australasia
would
and
be
Kuhn
quite
little professional philosophy impinges on
even on
being
an
As in
the wider academic community,
(To
exceptional.
achievement,
through
one
to
turn
worth
this
working
work by
around
for.)
now reaches
in
The
naturalism program used
to
Perth, and has outliers
in Canberra, as well as a core of opposition there.
stretch
Apart from notable exceptions,
Adelaide;
the program has never had
more than a rather precarious hold,
in Melbourne:
25
it
the
same hold,
to
or
nor, more surprisingly,
24
In Canada, for example, while most academics from other disciplines would
know of, and perhaps a little about, Russell, far fewer would know of
Wittgenstein (though he is becoming known to lit. crit. groups), and virtually
none would know of Quine.
(The sampling is subjective.)
On the fairly recent ’triumph of professionalism* in philosophy in USA, see
Kuklick, op.cit., p.565ff.
Kuklick brings out well some of the more
disastrous features of professionalism, but does not sufficiently notice that
the virtuous
features
resulting
from some
professionalisation
can
be
synthesized with broader philosophical activity.
25
The exceptions include Ellis’s distinctive program, which can be accounted
part of the broader naturalist program, and at Monash the work of F. Jackson
and, earlier, of H. Munro in value theory.
�22
has it had heavyweight criticism from there (or indeed much external criticism
from elsewhere),
the old confrontation of major city philosophies having died
out.
philosophy
Melbourne
is more historically oriented
stricken than Sydney; Melbourne
by
dominated
procession
a
a
then,
philosophy;
been
idealism
and
fashions:
Northern
earlier
Wittgenstein,
recently,
remarkable
religion
philosophy, much more than Sydney, has
of
more
philosophy;
Continental
and more
turnabout,
ordinary
Davidson
Quine,
and
language
extensional
reduction; now perhaps Lewis, Kripke and Dummett?
one
The
program
that
reaches
the
beyond
of
confines
the
cities
in
Australia - which is after all a metropolitan dominated culture, the vast land
always
being
the other
Australian environmentalism,
- is
a
rather
diffuse
program, which has connections with the Colleges of Advanced Education in the
country towns and the communes on the North Coast.
much distinguished
environmental
Europe
by what
positions
it
are a
specifically having
as
not
is
feature of
what
So far the program is as
it
Serious and
is.
the New World,
of
transformed most
its
deeper
the Old World,
and
environment
and
natural
having little wild untouched country left, and little sensitivity accordingly
to
issues
Europe
that
such as
tend
admit
European
to
those of
concern
the
wilderness.
built
shallow approaches
superficiality
environmentalism
outside
and
(and
continues
North
The main
environmental
human-transformed
encourage
to
America.
environment,
situations).
techno-fix
dominate
North
much
issues
of
American
the
New
in
issues
And
World
environmentalism
differs significantly however from Antipodean environmentalism, most obviously
in
the
religious-spiritual
component
respects as well (see further Culture).
of
the
former,
but
in
several
other
�23
More positively, there are three strands to Australian environmentalism:-
Firstly, there is an extended utilitarianism, differing little in theory from
Bentham’s enlarged position, which insists upon counting in the utilities of
all sentient
figured
though
creatures.
prominently
it
has
position,
This
in animal
from a British base,
has
animal
liberation movements:
and
research
and
and
welfare
on domestic
focussed
developed
animals
animals,
used
in
hunted (wild) animals, it has also become entangled in issues of bio-research
more generally such as genetic engineering.
or much
interested in,
endangered species,
etc., except
the conversion of forests,
Secondly,
not
utilitarian
forests and
differs
naturalism.
and
which
ecosystems,
from
irreducible
recognises
which finds
especially wild and
American
26
lands,
bearing on
these have a
an
inadequate
there is a wider and a deeper ecological position, which is
psychological states,
sentience or
insofar as
and so deeper concerns get
spinoff from animal welfare,
deal.
the disappearance of wild
Wider and deeper environmental concerns appear only
animal pain and pleasure.
as a
It is not however concerned with,
Thirdly,
and
spiritualism
is
there
of
value
elsewhere
intrinsic value
natural
from
course,
an
as
systems.
in trees
and
This
position
of
American
extension
almost
than
everywhere,
a
reactionary component, critical of the other strands, which insists that all
that
needs
to be
accomplished
on
the
environmental
front
can
be
achieved
within older established (European) ethical and political frameworks.
Whereas materialism
is
based in Sydney, environmentalism is centred
in
Melbourne and Canberra, but also includes Brisbane and Perth. Also centred in
26
It
has
been described more
Environmental Philosophy (ed. D.
National University, 1980.
fully elsewhere:
see,
in
particular,
Mannison and others), RSSS, Australian
�Canberra, and reaching across the country, with good connections in Melbourne,
but
in
few
Sydney,
and
materialism
program
other
which
program,
elsewhere.
and
major
perhaps
which
philosophy,
more
includes
to
centres
New
in metaphysics,
with
respectively,
the
theory
value
essentially
is
of
extends
and
their core
logic
a
especially
in
Zealand ,
program,
one
but
metaphysics.
Australia
than
also
been
has
the
Whereas
any
The
other
described
?7
The main
logic grounded
research program evident
program.
of the
in New Zealand
philosophy
is also
A program emanating from the work of Prior and
located mainly in Wellington,
The impact
programs have
program
areas
program.
relevant/paraconsistent
epistemology
from
relevant/paraconsistent
affecting
the
environmental
input
further
is
it might be called the extended modal
a
now
program.
program on philosophy is perhaps best seen in Cresswell’s
work.
Australian philosophy used to be known,
for its hard-headed empiricism;
not known
and still
is in some quarters,
regrettably New Zealand philosophy is mostly
for anything much, except
perhaps,
in UK,
that
Prior brought
his
27
Again, like all the Australian programs, both those mentioned and others,
in Grave, op.cit. But see further, R. Routley,
’Research in Logic in
Australia, New Zealand and Oceania’, Research Papers in Logic #14, Australian
National University, 1983 (which also considers other programs in logic);
G.
riest and R. Routley, op. cit.; and R. Routley, R.K. Meyer and others,
Relevant Logics and Their Rivals, Ridgeview, California, 1982.
28
See especially M.J. Cresswell, Logics and Languages, Methuen, London,
1973; but see also work by Goldblatt and by Hughes referred to in Research in
Logic, op.cit.
Also described there is an original version of the modal
program (transparent intensional logic) elaborated by Tlchy at Otago.
�25
unusual adaption of Russellian philosophy from that remote place.
Neither of
these impressions is particularly accurate; both are rather out-of-date.
the aim of work of the present type is, of course,
impressions,
not just
to reflect
or report
But
not just to correct these
on culture - for what one would
like to reflect upon is not sufficiently there - but also to help manufacture
elements of a culture, to make an image.
To
resist
the
North,
we
should
increase
our
efforts
to
further
the
nq
already flourishing
programs, and perhaps other sunrise projects;
to build
teaching and research around the programs selected for promotion, elaboration,
and criticism, to orient appointments, especially of involved local people, to
29
Among sunrise projects in Australian philosophy so far suggested (not all
of them feasible) are these:
Australian feminism, Antipodean social and
political alternatives,
peace
studies,
indigenous
regional
philosophies
(especially Aboriginal, Melanesian, and Polynesian). Another promising field,
with practical consequences,
for local
initiative is the philosophy of
education, where material produced by R.S. Peters has dominated the market,
with stultifying effects it is now alleged.
As foreshadowed with the notion of "sunrise projects", much of the rhetoric,
and argument, concerning science and technology policy (presented in the case
of Australia in Jones, op.cit.) can be taken over to apply to X policy, where
X is some subject discipline, such as philosophy.
�26
on
Why bother?
these programs.
Why not simply buy our philosophy, like almost
all our technology, off the shelf, from the North? There are several arguments
for not doing this, in more than a limited fashion, which are now sketched.
There
is,
firstly,
Northern products,
fine a
the
inferiority
and
built-in
Without
despite their attractive packaging.
most
of
putting
too
point on it, many of the imported intellectual goods are shoddy, and
only work for a very limited range of applications (e.g.
the
obsolence
vicinity
Antipodean
of
contradictions
philosophy
or
undoubtedly
dilemmas).
derives
from
Much
they’re hopeless in
that
shoddy
is
wrong
intellectual
with
goods
30
In fact something like the last has been the policy of the LSE Philosophy
Department, where the only outside appointment over a long period was that of
Lakatos (hardly a person far removed ideologically).
As observed, it now
looks like the practice of the Otago Department also; and apparently it used
to be a tendency at Melbourne. But in most places the practice is condemned as
nepotistic or parochial, and overridden by the call for "new (Northern!
blood".
However there can be significant differences between nepotistic
appointments and those strengthening local programs.
It is at this stage, among others that administrative measures do matter;
for example, to ensure that suitable locally-engaged locals gain employment
rather than Northern stooges, to direct funds into on-going local programs
rather than imported fashions, etc.
There are various ways appropriate
administrative details can be handled, locally or nationally; but nothing
draconian, such as wholesale exclusion of noncitizens, is required.
Observe, indeed, that no restriction of academic appointments to nationals
(in Canadian style) or the like is being advocated.
Anyone who arrives at a
conclusion of that sort from what has been argued has misunderstood the case
in
crucial
respects.
As
a matter of
simple mathematics,
restricting
appointment fields characteristically reduces both quality of candidates
available (however quality is assessed) and range of possibilities open for
future research; and no such restrictions are advocated.
The author has
witnessed the debilitating effects of field restrictions at the Australian
National University and elsewhere.
31
Some of these arguments
centre also.
support
change
(perhaps
revolutionary)
at
the
�Yet buying this material is encouraged by hard-sell
imported from the North.
cultural ambassadors from the North, who are often enough paid to visit.
is
part
Northern
of
the
philosophical imperialism
colonialism
that
-
the
This
from the North - the successor
Antipodes
too
suffers,
willing
or,
to
more
remarkable, encourages!
Secondly, there is the inappropriateness of much of the Northern product,
especially
considered
metaphysics,
as
package,
a
environmental
concerns.
for
instance,
to
cover,
well
as
as
The European North has no satisfactory
land or environmental ethic fit for Antipodean circumstances, and the deeper
American package is too spiritually-loaded for mainstream Australian culture.
32
In
political
theory,
work
is
much
too
individualistic
the European product, especially the Marxist form,
and
competition-based,
American
unsuited being both too
precious and
for local
too high-tech
and
is
circumstances,
especially again for more environmentally-perceptive people.
Thirdly,
features
of
telling
also
import
comparative
advantage,
and
regionalism;
namely,
substitution
world’s markets and pressures
power structures
against
and fashions,
(including the Old Boy’s
removal
network in
are
appealing
avoidance
of
the
of overseas control
and
jobs, policies,
etc.),
and gaining of local control, employment of local people, etc.
Fourthly,
32
there
are
arguments
for
cultural
diversity,
applied
to
The point is elaborated in Culture.
At a more practical level Northern
products are again often unsuitable, though for different reasons.
For
example, the transfer of American agricultural methods and equipment to the
thin poor soils of the Antipodes has had disastrous effects, at last beginning
to be recognised.
�28
part
philosophy
as
complexity,
sheer diversity,
of
culture:
intellectual
stability,
arguments
In fact,
etc.
built into the whole notion of 'culture’ transfers.
dense,
productive garden.
the garden analogy
Naturally we want a rich,
But not only seeds and plants but weeds and many
We
pests are being introduced.
obtain not only good products,
Indian maize
This is why
and European cultivars, but European pests and American weeds.
selectiveness
and
control
richness,
from
essential,
are
as
against
haphazard
previous
procedures.
The proposal is not for, nor would the case sustain, a narrow localism,
with local
products, whatever
their quality,
heroes, replacing Northern ones.
local fashions,
and local
cult
That is certainly not the preferred way of
the newer regionalism, which tends to do without fashions and heroes and which
seeks durable quality in products,
is
it the way of
low environmental impact, and so on|^ nor
technology policy.
Rather,
as with
technology policy,
select niches which are not occupied or satisfactorily filled,
make a difference,
policy
has
to
be
publishing outlets,
components,
and ideas,
and use and develop local skills and methods.
selective
etc.).
given
resource
our
But granting
base
(of
can
Indeed the
philosophers,
regionalism, to what extent
should
for instance people, books and other teaching elements,
theories
and to what extent should they be produced,
trained,
be imported
conceived locally?
The possibility of selectiveness
means that many mixes
are possible.
least, on a particular mix.
33
where we
we
There
in different
is no need to insist,
components
so far at
The case for the present is mainly for a regional
See, for instance, A.A. Mazrui, A World Federation of Cultures: An African
Perspective, Free Press, New York, 1976.
�29
shift, for a significantly greater degree of local autonomy and production.^
But it will do no harm to
Negatively,
local favour.
indicate
elements of a mix that
the suggestion is that we try to eradicate much of
That includes such things
the Oxford style of teaching and doing philosophy.
removal
as
of
the
Locke-Berkeley-Hume
emphasis
undue
(a
finds much
standard
on
British
British
focus);
empiricism
of
centred
on
quasi-historical
the
approach with however no proper attention to sources; of reinforcement of the
prevailing
Anglo-American
status
quo.
The
heavy
particular, has mostly been a very conservative one.
the
main
movements
philosophy,
but
emanating
also
the
from
England,
Moore-Wittgenstein
Oxford
influence,
in
More generally, many of
especially
practice,
ordinary
have
language
been
very
protective of the Northern status quo; they tend to leave things very much as
they are,
and
recommend
just
this.
Positively,
the
proposal
is
that we
achieve further disassociation from the Anglo-American empiricist past in two
34
Does it sound familiar? Outside philosophy, it should. For example, we
have now been told by the Americans that our defence role, unlike theirs, is
regional, not global: this is supposed to shed great light on our previously
confused defence policies.
35
The point is laboured in E. Gellner, Words and Things, Victor Gollancz,
London, 1959.
But even ordinary language philosophy, though conservative, and
though it much contracted the proper range of philosophical investigations,
had its liberating elements, e.g. removal of some of the narrowness and more
cramping assumptions induced by technical jargon.
Nor has the social impact changed much with the subsequent decline, since
1959, of ordinary language philosophy, the increasing insolvency of Oxbridge
philosophy, and its consequent limited take-over by right-wing Ivy League
American philosophy.
By contrast, the less economically influential growth of
redbrick and applied philosophy
in some of the
British redbrick and
polytechnic institutes has touched no more than the surface of Oxbridge
practice.
�30
local
emphasizing
by
ways:
framework,
and
projects
range
the
diversifying
by
move
that
outside
of
that
constricting
philosophical
traditions
selectively drawn upon, to include not only neglected Continental strands and
but also
parts of Eastern thought,
philosophy.
idea
The
is
that
Australasian
Pacific ethnic material and
plurality of
such a
especially
sources,
in
teaching, will assist in removing narrower cultural biasses, such as British
enable more
and
parochialism,
be obtained.
to
discrimination
Then
too we
should be better able to see the ranges of theories that are open to us in the
Antipodes and how to advance our own programs.
There remain some things we should want to see whatever mixes are chosen
in different Antipodean regions.
One crucial issue is the removal of Northern
bias from papers and publications, research seminars and lectures, letters of
reference, and so on.
the
and
works
irrespective
discussion
This Northern bias is a disposition to cite and discuss
projects
of
and
Northern
quality
the
to
of
ignore
of
the
authors,
their
works
the
more
contribution
of
the
to
authors,
local
irrespective of the quality of their contribution.
defer to
famous
better,
the
under
topic
again
largely
It is the disposition to
authors from prestigious Northern institutions, and to uncritically
accept their opinions of worth,
importance,
It
etc.
is
the disposition
to
write or lecture as though work produced locally either does not exist or has
not
been
influential
philosophers,
are,
(thus
if
ensuring
anything,
more
that
it
inclined
is
to
not).
Northern
And
Australasian
bias
than
many
overseas intellectuals, who are perhaps less concerned to be seen as belonging
to the Northern mainstream.
bias
affects
not
only
the
The reduction, and eventual removal, of Northern
practice
of
individual
philosophers,
but
the
policies of selection and review committees as well as of editors and referees
�of
local
reorientation,
innovations
It
journals.
among
involves,
Antipodean philosophers
with
so
better,
they
can
cite
other
getting
local
work
things,
intellectual
to know local work and
or
point
out
regional
Initiatives and developments - things that would be assisted by greater local
content
in courses
taught,
more
time
spent
at
local
institutions on
study
leave, and so on.
APPENDIX 1. Background notes on the philosophy supply situation.
Sociological
investigation of the philosophy labour market in Australia and New Zealand has
yet
to be
attempted.
But a
picture of
some elements underlying the
numerical argument of the text can be gained from the following table:
simple
�32
TABLE 1. Ph.Ds in Philosophy: a USA - Australasian comparison
USA
Number (Male./Female)
Australia
New Zealand
1974
413 (346/67)
6
0
1975
375 (318/57)
5
0
1976
382 (319/63)
8
0
1977
330 (264/66)
3
2 (1/1)
1978
283 (235/48)
5
5 (4/1)
1979
285 (204/54)
9
3 (2/1)
1980
246 (187/59)
4
N.A.
1981
N.A.
4
0
Notes:
1. The breakdown of the USA and New Zealand numbers by sexes (male/female) is
given.
Similar figures do not appear to be available for Australia.
2.
The US figures are for the academic year ending in the Year shown, e.g.
1978 covers the Northern academic year 1977-78. Southern figures are for the
calendar year shown.
Sources:
Digest of Education Statistics, US National Center for Education
Statistics;
University Statistics,
Australian Bureau of
Census
Statistics; New Zealand Education Statistics.
Comments:
1.
The contraction of US doctoral production and the concomitant rise in
female representation, are clearly indicated.
The Australian figures are
likely too small to reflect such trends and responses to the academic market.
2.
Some of the Australasian numbers include Americans; likewise the American
figures provide no nationality breakdown.
3. There is no information available on the number of Australians proceeding
to higher degrees in philosophy outside Australia.
In applying table 1 some simplifying assumptions are made.
assumed that
For example, it is
candidates for appointment to regular university positions now
would have a doctorate or the equivalent (until recently a B.Phil was taken as
�a
near
of
equivalent
It
well).
a North
what
assumed,
is
American
Ph.D.;
seems
take
to
could
publications
case,
the
that
serve
as
the number
of
Australasians proceeding to higher degrees in philosophy abroad is relatively
small, and no more than the order of Ph.Ds. taken locally.
without upsetting applications of table 1,
It can be assumed,
that Australasian graduates match,
say, the upper half of American graduates in standard attained.
There is no compiled information on academic vacancies in philosophy in
Australia or New Zealand - on the numbers of vacancies, on how the positions
It would however be a routine,
are filled, by what nationalities, sexes, etc.
if tedious,
matter to assemble some of this
data,
is of considerable
which
relevance to the planning of philosophy programs.
4.
On the earlier idea of a National Philosophy for Australia.
APPENDIX 2.
considering
Editor
the
of
initial
to
corresponding
Lebensanchauung ’
’an Australian
argument
is
possibility
’the
AJPP,
Francis
Philosophy
is
as
truth
and
its
between
as
that
a
theory may not
be held,
(Australian)
two
senses
Weltanschauung
and
'a scheme of the universe’,
that of
a
Christian
confirmation
independent of national sympathies or prejudices’.
mean
distinguished
Anderson,
ridiculous
the
Philosophy’,
distinction
In the first,
(p.292).
both
National
a
German
’the
that
of
In
or
Science’.
falsification
The
’are
Granted: but that does not
fostered, etc.,
in one region but
not
others, as intuitionism was for long in in Holland, or Cartesianism in France.
In a second ’more intimate and personal’ way,
’a nation like an individual may
develop a certain temperamental attitude to the problems of existence, which
we may ... call its philosophy of life.
and its literature,
is a mode of
A nation’s philosophy,
expression for
the national
like its art
consciousness.
�34
(pp.292-3).
It is a specialised form of the national genius ....’
short, part of the evolving national
culture.
is
from
by
entirely
means
no
separate
in the first place,
But,
the
It is,
initial
sense,
in
this
philosophy
a
comprising not merely a fairly comprehensive theory but also an integrated set
Furthermore, only by concession
of attitudes (like an operational paradigm).
units
single
accounted
philosophy,
of
meriting
distinctive
definite
literature,
Australian
like
particularly
’the Australian landscape’
’the national consciousness’ and
are such items as
(in
many
has
any
sense):
does
not
Australian
descriptors.
such
strands
things
to
form
it,
not
some
rather
loose
families.
Anderson
not
does
find,
really
to
hope
find
’a
in
modern
industrialised community’ - with its modular parts interchangeable with those
of others - a national philosophy of
with
life,
a
difference.
claims to find a (somewhat) trite moral base to build on,
humour,
courage
and
fair
particularly philosphical.
at
least
various
apart
of
life,
regional
is
but
dealing’,
So far,
not;
philosophies
then,
this
nothing
however
not
local
research
identifying and
trouble derives from the extravagant claim that
with
Goodness
these
and
-
’traditions ... of
distinctive,
all
or
there
exclude
So
programs).
legitimating a
being
far,
national
But shortly Anderson is plunged into inconsistency: the
philosophy, so good.
do
at
he
there could a national philosophy,
does
as
(such
problems about
from rational
but
fact
Tn
the
Beauty
eternal
-
then
of
values
and
only
Philosophy’ (p.295 with rearrangement).
the
then
But,
to do with these - as is virtually conceded,
’if Australia has nothing to
Spirit,
has
she
the
Ideals
nothing
to
of
Truth,
do
with
as Australia has nothing per se
these values involving a
’wider
sweep’ than any national boundaries - "she" has nothing to do with Philosophy,
contradicting
the
possibility
of
a
National
Philosophy.
Though
the
�35
contradiction is easily avoided by rescinding the extravagant claim, the ideal
of a National Philosophy should be allowed to rest in peace: nationalism has
had its time.
-r /I
ZR. Routley^
Research School of Social Sciences
Australian National University
With thanks to R. Elliot, W. Godfrey-Smith, S. Grave and L. Mirlin, to
several members of the audience at the presentation of the paper at the 19R3
Australasian Association of Philosophy Conference, University of Adelaide, to
several referees for this Journal, and, not least, to the present Editor.
�PROSPECTS FOR REGIONAL PHILOSOPHIES IN AUSTRALASIA
Philosophy, especially academic philosophy but also folk philosophy, like
has long been
other intellectual and higher cultural activity in Australasia,
indeed
dominated,
swamped,
Northern
by
increasingly from North America.
Europe, now
the
largely
and
cultural
baggage
other
imported,
influences,
Given
the
initially
the migration
ethnic
patterns,
composition
of
resulting ruling populations, such a result was virtually inevitable.
does not have to stay that way.
from
the
But it
Suitable policies, a good philosophy policy,
could change things.
The
of
thought
culture,
is
a
philosophy,
regional
hardly a new one.
In 1923,
matching
perhaps
a
regional
correspondent to the
a New Zealand
newly-launched Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy mentioned the
possibility of ’a new kind or temper of philosophy under these southern skies’
which
Journal might
the
such a
reaching
role
for
(or,
not
community).
that
although
And
matter,
professional
merely
solid foundation
foster.The Journal has
for a
some
actively
pursued
philosophers
things
new regionalism
however hardly
but
have changed
in philosophy,
its
a
fulfilled
pronounced
wider
aim
of
Australasian
in Australia,
laying a
that possibility of a
new temper of philosophy has hardly been realised. There is little in the way
the
southern skies were intended to include: but few distinguishing features,
’no
a new kind
distinctively
^AJPP, March
same volume,
Appendix 2.
and
New
temper of
philosophy under New Zealand
skies, which
of
Zealand
1923,
p.74.
p.292.ff;
his
characteristics,
The
have
question was
discussion
is
shown
up
in
New
Zealand
taken up by the Editor in the
considered
below,
especially
in
�2
philosophy’.
9
New Zealand remains a substantial net importer of philosophy,
The situation of colonial dominance that used to prevail in
and philosophers.
Australia,
where
virtually
and
chairs,
all
many
other
philosophy, were filled by academics from the North,
posts
academic
in
tends to persist in New
Zealand, where no established chairs are occupied by locals.Given the. usual
power and influence of professors in small departments,
topics
covered
and
considered
and
in courses designed,
especially appointments
made,
the
heavy
Northern orientation of philosophy taught and researched in New Zealand is not
The Northern control is perhaps most strikingly exhibited at the
surprising.
oldest
of
New
Zealand
universities,
University
the
of
Otago,
where
the
Philosophy Department has been substantially captured by a British School and
increasingly
looks
event,
the
like an offshoot of
overwhelming
Anglo-American
the
University of London.In any
dominance of
New Zealand
philosophy
also a feature only in slightly lesser degree of Australian philosophy - can
be confirmed
by a
content survey of the courses offered and research papers
written at New Zealand universities.
Even when local people have been appointed to positions in Australasia,
they have been brought up on a solid diet of Anglo-American material, and they
have often been reforged or finished in the North as well.
In particular, the
2,
S.A. Grave, A History of Philosophy in Australia, Queensland University
Press, 1983, p.l. Page references are to the manuscript.
The paper draws
heavily on this history.
^This
claim was
correct at the
time of
presentation of
1983).
With the recent loss of chair at Wellington,
qualification, but the pattern of domination persists.
the
the paper
(August
claim may
require
4In the 1983 Commonwealth University Handbook listing, 6 of the 8 members of
the Department held their main degree, Ph.D., from London, and one of the
remainder from Exeter.
Only one member of the Department, soon to retire,
falls outside the nexus.
�3
requirements
in
the Australasian universities
of
period of
the major
post
World War II expansion were conveniently seen to in the case of philosophy by
the
Oxford
B.Phil.
Many
degree.
of
departments
philosophy
remain
full
of
products of this cultural mill: indeed until the mid 70s candidates finished
in Oxford were hard
to beat out when they applied for positions, such was the
prestige of Oxford and
(unwarranted)
the regrettable,
continuing,
but still
"cultural cringe".
Nonetheless,
been
in
occurring
scene
the
Northern
the Antipodes,
be
will
(as
despite
especially on
indicated).
significant
dominance,
is
It
the Australian
worth
asking
changes
have
philosophical
Australian
whether
philosophy is moving towards the sort of change that occurred in USA more than
100 years ago when the Harvard Philosophy Department was brought (or bought)
and
together,
its "golden age" began.American
the same again, and became its own thing.
philosophy was never quite
There are nouT new forces operating
which could help to move Australian philosophy in such a direction.
the
widespread
regionalism,0
other
local
fashioning
provides
a
emergence,
which
applies
choices;
of
national
model
for
and
particularly
to
in
cultural
stark
science
reflection
and
in
in
alternative
and
technology
regional
there
there are
also some
of
choice
along
is
policies,
philosophy
directly bears on parts of the philosophy of science.
soon appear,
culture,
ideological
contrast,
serious obstacles
There is
the
a
new
with
centralised
which
not
only
policy
but
also
Unfortunately, as will
to regional
philosophies
and to the very idea of a regional philosophy.
See B. Kuklick, The Rise of American Philosophy; Cambridge, Massachusetts
1860-1930, Yale University Press, 1977, Parts 2 and 3.
60n this bio-regionalism, see especially, Fourth World News, vol.
1,
and K. Sale, Human Scale, Cox^ard, McCann and Geoghegan, New York, 1980.
1983,
�USA, long an importer of culture from Europe,
of
exporter
culture,
certainly
components of
higher culture
philosophical
output
Australasia,
not
if
from
such as
Oxford
following
philosophy
should
not
but
achieve
also
the American
there
Are
Yes,
in philosophy?
evidently
(witness
taken).
has
suit,
payments, especially
balance of
culture,
lower
of
has recently become a net
a
reasons
better
of
turn
why
cultural
there are reasons.
In
the first place, the change in the cultural position of the USA went with, and
perhaps in
part derived
entails
economic
dominance
most
Australasia’s
of
from, vast changes in economic power relations.
cultural dominance,
since
culture,
there
there is
is
little prospect
serious
no
prospect
If
for
that
Australasia will ever emulate or attain American economic eminence (at least
nuclear destruction of
not without
the North,
flow of commodities, cultural and other).
universities
not
only
increasingly
of
Americans,
contingent
of
former
group,
Northern cultural
As
they.
priorities,
that
they
whose
entire
as observed,
Antipodean
Northern
academics,
of
include
a
research
and
additional
substantial
teaching
is
bent
to
It is unlikely that this influential segment, especially
will
(become
commitments,
long
component
also
fellow-travellers,
Northern concerns.
the
Secondly,
large
a
contain
and disruption of the
as
so
apart
Antipoduans
they are in a bind
locally acclimatised as
do
from
not
situation;
the
isolated
drastically
to)
give up
Nor
person.
alter
their
its
should
cultural
for it can be persuasively argued
they would be better off, as far as quality and product goes, stocking
their universities with American teaching components and researching Americanoriented concerns.
One
simple
numerical
argument
that
Antipodean
universities
would
be
better off with Americans in the main, takes the following lines:- The (higher
degree)
graduates
of
Australasian
culturally distinguished, at
and
American
are
not
significantly
least in subjects such as philosophy.
Consider
�5
now
number
the
quality
of
Austroamerican graduates;
academics
of higher
per number
produced
say there is 1 per every n graduates.
degree
The (great)
preponderance of graduates will be Americans, just by virtue of their vastly
greater population and their more extensive system of university education.
So also then, just by ratio considerations, the great preponderance of quality
academics
from an
drawn
percentiles among
upper
they
interested
universities.
Austroamerican base
those quality products.
quality,
in
an
Such
be American,
will
would
argument
does
CLearly, Antipodeans,
appointing
be
not
as will
work
to
more
show
Americans
that,
for
the
were
their
to
similar
reasons, American universities should be full of Chinese or Indian professors,
for
two
Asians
reasons;
and
first
Americans,
there
are
especially
significant
in
cultural differences
disciplines
such
as
between
philosophy;
and
secondly, their university systems do not deliver such great quotas of higher
degree or high quality graduates, at least in philosophy.
The conclusion of the numerical argument will not be a popular one.
anti-Americanism felt
the
universities;
The
in portions of the Australasian community extends into
and
recently
there
has
been
increasing
insistence,
especially by the now aging younger Turks that university positions should be
reserved for locals.
This at the same time as these Turks often preach of an
international community of scholars,
presumably then with "free"
interchange,
As indicated in Appendix 1, where assumptions made in the argument are
defended, the ratio of US philosophy graduates with doctorates as compared
with Australian exceeds 30 to 1.
And, as is well-known, the extent of
university education is much greater in USA than in Australasia: indeed
Australia is in this respect among the worst educated of the developed
nations, as OECD figures have made plain (see, e.g., B. Jones, Sleepers Wake',
Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1982, Chapter 7).
�6
etc.
They cannot have it all ways.3
So
long
the
continues,
the
present
centre
will
as
they will
economically;
them if
large to
it is
free-flow
the
dominate
have more
interchange
than us,
periphery
and
ideas
of
and
culturally
jobs
here
personnel
as
well
as
should go by and
(centrally-determined) quality in this high cultural
business that we seek, as mostly claim.
it
Now
anyway,
is
that
arguments.
widely
there
For we
is
are
enough
recognised,
something
not
lower-down
drastically
wrong
hierarchical
with
these
ladders
sorts
flooded with high-quality Northerners who
regularly drive out local contenders for positions,
of
would
if we only preferred the
Northerners when they were quite visibly superior: rather we are inundated by
Americans with inflated references, who have the messages of the centre better
than
locals
echelon
do,
(often
and
remote Northern
Northern
whose shortcomings
biassed)
fields tend
appointment
are known better.
to look greener to
committees
than
dusty
higherlocals
As is beginning to be recognised too,
the Northern centres tend to retain their higher-quality products, and allow
g
A reverse flow of the better orthodox academics from Australasia to America
should also be expected (outside times of university contraction).
According
to assumptions of this brain, drain argument, which is based on labour market
considerations,
appointment
and
lifestyle conditions
for academics
are
generally better in USA than Australia and much better than those in
economically-depressed New Zealand (e.g. higher salaries, better standard of
living, superior research conditions, etc.).
So, other things being equal,
able academics from the Antipodes will relocate in USA as academic positions
become available. The argument also helps explain why Antipodean universities
cannot expect, for the most part, to attract really top-drawer Northerners for
very long.
Of course, economically irrelevant factors do induce interference; e.g.
perverse commitments to odd-ball Antipodean intellectual enterprises which
reduce market acceptability, or pre-industrial ties to place or persons or
lifestyle which unduly restrict mobility (such as local roots,
family
attachments, even distaste for American urban lifestyles).
�7
them
be
to
exiled
the
to
periphery
only
if
they
fall
somehow
foul of
the
system (e.g. of the academic system for political or personal reasons).
often
Northern
the
have
centres
disposed of
their
intellectually
Too
inferior
products in the periphery.
All this makes the
appointing
Northerners,
position look doubly bad. We ought,
especially Americans,
even if they are overrated
their references, and usually not out of the top drawer,
quality.
And yet
to be
it seems,
in
in order to maximize
doing so does not achieve the desired quality result, and
breeds discontent elsewhere, especially among the aging Turks.
there
Fortunately
obtain
way out
a
from
this
awkward
and that is the way of regionalism.
shaky arguments;
and
is
cultural
sufficient
distance,9
so
that
situation and
these
We do our own things;
they
are
not
simply
subtitutable for us.
Then the shaky numerical argument does fall down.
before
the
we
elaborate
emerging
proposal
there
are
other
But
influential
arguments to dispose of, and the disposal bears on the proposal.
There is,
have so
to begin with,
far been conceded:
the argument for excellence,
that
excellence, which we all more or
elements of which
there is an objective commodity, quality or
less agree
about, which is proportionately
more abundant in the North, and which is what academic institutions crave and
seek and what appointments aim to capture, indeed maximize.
That at least is
the type of myth most of us have encountered; and many of us now know it is a
myth,
in
fact
appointments
a
that
dangerous
way,
any
Most
myth.
more
that
places
don’t
organisations
aim
even
just
try
to
to
make
maximize
9
This is easier in the cultural than the technological sphere.
However it
is
also
possible technologically:
(stronger)
theses of
technological
determinism, and so of cultural determinism, are false.
We can choose
different options, technologically, as well as culturally.
�8
profit, but
quality is
to satisfice on a mix of factors, of which assessed
rather seek
only one, and not often the highest ranking one.
Ability to fit
into some sort of program, teaching or research, is another, and commonly more
important factor;
is no good reason why such a program should not
and there
So given prevailing practices,
sometimes be a regionally oriented one.
the
argument from excellence does not exclude regional philosophy programs.
And,
in any event, there are enough local candidates of sufficient worth to proceed
regional
with
programs
without
sacrifice
clearcut
of
Local
excellence.
enterprise need entail no loss of excellence, and could well increase it.
The deeper-cutting objection is that there is something seriously amiss
with
the
idea
of
objective
objective
importance;
criticism
as
bracketed
out
notions
the
that
of
excellence,
and
notions
these
values
objective
with
are
open
more
contextual-relativisation
connected
the
to
the
generally,
component
of
notion
of
sorts
of
same
they
that
valuing:
have
the
framework or viewpoint to which these values relate.10
While those operating
within
as
a
rather
narrow
intellectual
paradigm,
such
ordinary
Oxbridge
language philosophy or Sydney materialism say, can bracket out the viewpoint,
since
it
is
incorporated
in
the
operational
paradigm,
and
so
arrive
at
seemingly objective quality judgements, the judgements are not preserved (e.g.
in
truth
Marxist
value)
when
viewpoints.
transposed
Consider,
to
for
other
frameworks,
comparison,
the
e.g.
idealistic
judgements
as
to
or
the
quality or worth of a forest,made variously by a deep ecologist, an industrial
forester, and a recreational officer.
Compare judgements as to the quality of
What follows also begins to bring out what is omitted in a main theme of
R.S. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance, Bodley Head, London,
1974.
Note that defusing the notion of objective excellence does not lead to
subjectivism.
To avoid the customary false dichotomy, compare the notion of
validity (usually ceded to themselves these days by classical logicians with
that of quality).
�9
a
holistically-inclined
Marxist,
and
environmental
Californian
philosophers
pretend
who
seemingly because
it
philosopher,
environmental
such
language,
are
There
work
judged,
be.
cannot
even
of the main philosophical
by members
is not done
ordinary
philosophers.
environmental
that
by
peer
group at Harvard and like institutions.
this
As
judgements
begins
the
of
to
reveal, judgements of quality are not independent of
work
of
importance
or
done
But
tackled.
problems
importance of problems and issues is highly paradigm dependent.
the
For example,
problems such as those of quantifying-in and of possible worlds and of de re
thought, which assume immense importance for fashionable referential
within the mainstream empiricist
restricted
that
outside
theories
paradigm, vanish to relative insignificance
viewpoint.
Now observe
that most
judgements as
to
what are the important problems and what constitutes important work - matters
helping determine quality - are shipped down from the North.
Their Importance
is relative to their paradigmatic placement, and the paradigms concerned are
exported to the Antipodes through the main channels already indicated.
We are
free to reject these paradigms and select alternatives, and there are, it can
good reasons
be argued,
choose
that
different
generally
energy
favoured
to do
just
technology
in
the
that,
much as
(or different
North
the
which
there are good reasons
military
North
is
from
technology)
eager
to
to
export
southwards.
Similar
which
might
argument,
points
apply
against
alternatively
that
be
mass-produced
and
cosmopolitan.
The argument
-marketed
'cosmopolitan subject',
called
people
sophisticated
the
from
is based
cosmopolitan/international
the
Peter
everywhere
Holland;
Stuyvesant
smoke
this
argument
international
superior
product
cigarette-sophistication
is
on the assumption that philosophy is a
that is is not the sort of enterprise for which place
�10
and
people
are
significant
as
they
assumption has only to be presented
important thing,
for one
for
are
poetry
the
or
to be questioned.
novel.
is a finished product of a certain
that philosophy
process of production the place and people involved (e.g.
And
literature,
the
if
and
not
product
philosophy,
no
more
12
than
work
a
like
theorems
just
internationally-approved format,
since
is
The
It takes for granted,
sort (a propositional theory), not a process of production also.
material.
11
of
in discussion) are
art,
arguments
and
But in the
like
a
piece
assembled
in
of
an
then again the historical setting matters,
literature,
not
does
emerge
in
a
vacuum.
Plato’s philosophy could not have emerged in ancient Australia, and if cribbed
in mid 20th century Oxford would surely have been marked down or rejected.
It is important not to be sidetracked
do not
in aesthetics - that
extent sets
of themes
need
to
and arguments
into issues - resembling problems
be contested,
such as whether and what
produced in one place and setting could
have been produced in another. A nonnuclear technology of some sort could be
adopted
prospect
in
Europe
that
New
but
apparently will
Zealand,
nonnuclear energy strategy.
in
not
contrast
be,
with
whereas
there
Australia,
is
will
reasonable
pursue
a
It is the doing, and not what could be done, that
Grave, op.cit., p.2:
the term ’cosmopolitan subject’ used there comes
from Donegan.
As to the significance of place and people for literature, see
further C. Partridge, The Making of New Cultures, Editions Rodopi, Amsterdam,
1982.
12
Like a paper in the biological sciences.
But here again technique
methodology, which may both be regional, are crucially important.
13
and
Related points can be made using less extreme examples, e.g. concerning
modern American work.
Consider, for instance such texts as W.V. Quine’s Word
and Object, (Wiley, New York, 1960) or R. Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia
(Basic Books, New York, 1974).
The assumptions taken for granted, the
arguments involved, etc., are especially American: it is not just the style.
The acceptability of arguments and positions is dependent on place and
received paradigm.
�11
here.
matters
Dialethic
which
logic,
the
invalidates
methodology of much Anglo-American philosophy, could
technique
and
perhaps be done in
the
North (though there would be substantial cultural resistance): it is not being
and is not likely to be done in the Anglo-American sphere.To
done
there,
this
extent,
Antipodeans
do
techniques,
logical
can
choose
their
international/cosmopolitan argument,
distinctive
own
their
distinctive
own
technology
thing.
and
The
stated in a form that would be telling,
fails.
Of course
it can be argued,
it is being argued, that Antipodeans don't
need to be, or even oughtn't to be pursuing their own energy or logic policies
and apparatus.
But meeting these considerations takes us to a whole new set
of issues concerning the merit of various policies and programs,
diversity, etc. - far beyond the cosmopolitan argument.
which we shaLl return,
arguments
concerning
the point of
The new arguments, to
are not a lot more convincing however than comparable
cooking:
that
we
don't
devising our own cuisine or wine styles.
need
to
be or
oughtn't
to
be
British, or at least cosmopolitan,
cooking is adequate: we should stick to that and buy it off the shelf from the
North,
ideally importing
the cooks
also.
Do we
have good
reasons to
think
that British philosophy is better, these days, than British cooking?
Antipodeans are free,
in principle then,
to pursue their own paradigms;
and to do so they will by and large want to, and mostly have to, appoint their
own people, people they have educated - not saboteurs or people who have (had)
Much as communist anarchism, a live possibility for communes and perhaps
communities in Australia, is culturally excluded in North America, owing to
the extreme possessive individualism of that culture.
On dialethic logic, see G. Priest and R. Routley, On Paraconsistency,
Research Papers in Logic, #13, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian
National University, 1983.
�12
to be re-educated, from elsewhere, in particular from the North.
intellectual paradigms
the
of
features
local
But will the
perused tie with cultural paradigms, with distinctive
In a
culture?
though works of philosophy will
loose
not usually
at
way,
they may link,
least,
culture in
tie in with the
the
integral fashion that novels (as distinct from more technical works) sometimes
do.
Indeed,
cultural
certain
programs,
-
to
limited
extent,
features,
not
they
do
restricted
already link.
add.
But
style,
independent - or independent
acceptability,
truth,
philosophical
’an Australian
compared with what matters
is
this
though
considers
Grave
particular
to
help mark philosophy in Australia as
that
'unimportant
hastens
a
to
product'
in philosophy'
do matter,
and
are
he
not
so far as their perception goes in the case of
truth and correctness^3 - from underlying broad theory or received paradigm.
However the marks Grave cautiously advances, significant though they are,
do
not
serve
features
to
the
distinguish
Australian
philosophy
Australian
exhibits
in
product,
lesser
the
degree
adventurous and polemical philosophy of Greek antiquity.
by Passmore
as
'most
typical
of
first
two
the
than
being
more
The first, described
Australian philosophy',
is
a 'diversity of
approach and readiness to put forward an unconventional or unfashionable point
of
view',
philosophy,
something
which
more
(with
typical
some
of
notable
ancient
philosophy
exceptions)
than
exhibits
Australian
a.i
austere
Nothing need be conceded to strong cultural relativity themes, though they
would support the case.
It is enough that our theories remain radically
incomplete and that there can accordingly be rival theories as to what is
true.
Similarly, however philosophy is conceived - as the search for truth,
explanation, understanding and wisdom (all of these and more, really), or as,
more vaguely, inquiry of a certain sort - there can be, and will be, competing
accounts; so a pluralistic theory is inevitable in giving a fuller view.
l^Both preceding quotations, while included as such in Grave's Introduction,
are from J. Passmore, 'Philosophy', in The Pattern of Australian Culture (ed.
A.L. McLeod), Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y., 1963, pp.131-168.
The
same annotation also applies to the third mark.
�13
uniformity reflecting that often attributed to the land itself.
and
surprising,
more
most
'the
philosophy,
Wittgensteinian
extraordinary
discussed
by
itself’
Grave) ,
criticism by
sharp
and
political
relevant/paraconsistent
to
example
...
Andersonian
(p.2).
This
of
character'
manifestoed
the
the
__
being
if
Sydney,
example
is
Australian
line-up
it
was
far
from
between
the
not
isolated:
them concern the fervour generated by "Australian materialism",
others among
the
notable
Melbourne
philosophy
Andersonian
is
mark
The second,
engagement
the
and
by
some
growing
philosophy departments
confrontation
(both
concerning
the
program, with the local ('adversarial') style leading
Connected
Americans.
these
with
first
two marks
are
further characteristics of much Australian philosophy, as of much 18th century
Scottish philosophy and
directness,
unkindly
turn of
unwillingness
(in
add
the
this century Cambridge philosophy:17
to muffle points,
hope
of
locating
a
namely
surface clarity and,
some would
difference),
bluntness,
genuine
unsubtlety and crudity.
The third and the fourth marks advanced
Grave
in
philosophy.
effect
notes,
hardly
are very different, but again as
distinguishing
features
of
Australian
The third, which applies well to other intellectual areas, is the
contrast of the Australian reputation in philosophy indeed of Australia as a
center
of
philosophical
inquiry’,
with
the
anti—intellectual
national
stereotype of Australians as a people ’devoted to physical achievement rather
than to
intellectual subtlety’.
Anglo-American
philosophy;
namely
The
the
fourth mark is especially a feature of
isolation
of
academic
philosophy
Australasia from, and its general indifference or even hostility to,
in
the sort
17 •
though for the most part that influenced by Sydney rather than that
originating in Melbourne.
This again reflects the different historical
influences bearing in Sydney and Melbourne philosophy:
roughly, Scottish
versus Continental antecedents.
�14
of
imported
philosophy
(e.g.
that
Nietzsche
of
and
the
existentialists)
generating interest in literary and arts circles.
The
failure
philosophy
sufficiently
matter.
not
does
separated
For
its
by
to
marks
such
of
adequately
one
the
thing,
out
separate
research projects.
Australian
For
another,
Australian
produce
is
regionalism
should not be confused with nationalism, nor more regional positions such as
Sydneyside
materialism
modalism
Wellington
or
with
Nationalism in philosophy, as in most other things,
not
to
be
the
and
encouraged;
new regionalism
philosophies.
national
is an undesirable trait,
is linked,
in other cultural
things, with the breakdown of nations and contraction of state power.
-A
■A
To get
back
*
to where we were:
A
the
A
emerging
proposal
is
this,
that
we
start - or better much increase - doing our own distinctive things, and that
we
team up
to
do
so.
In fact
there are
several suggestions
that begin
to
emerge, concerning research and teaching, publications and appointments, study
These are not just that we do our own selection
leave and sponsored visitors.
topics
of
and
people,
and
style
and
methods,
decide
instead of having these foisted upon us - not just,
our
own
priorities,
that is, that we play our
own games (whether invented here or taken over from the North) and not theirs,
Rules and Rugby instead of Gridiron and Basketball - but. that we abandon the
individual competitive model of cultural achievement, sold to us and fostered
18
See, e.g.,
London, 1957.
Sale,
op.cit.,
and
L. Kohr,
The
Breakdown
of Nations,
RKP,
The Editor of the new 1923 AJPP did however take seriously the notion of
National Philosophy, of (what must have surprised some New Zealand readers) an
Australian Philosophy; some of the issues there raised (p.292ff) are addressed
in Appendix 2.
�15
by the North, in favour of a group cooperative approach (elements of which are
already modelled in Antipodean social clubs).
The thoughts here are simple and familiar.
digging example:
it is well-known that two people cooperating can dig a ditch
and enjoyably
more rapidly
On the one side is the ditch
than two
people working
on the ditch separately.
Cooperative work tends to pay off - in philosophy or elsewhere - in terms of
output,
and enjoyment
quality,
in the
doing.
On the other side, experience
shows that we in the periphery cannot individually complete very successfully
with the centre on achievements in their programs.
for this.
the
nature of American academic
attainment
of
depends
results
access to unpublished material.
and
periphery
nationalistic
are
the
tend
verbal
rapid
communication
and
For, despite the individualism myth, work is
several clever people will be able to hit on it.
idea or result,
communications
upon
enterprise,^ much
and builds on the work of many; when the time is ripe for some-
jointly based,
result,
Despite the highly competitive
One is the communication situation.
predominantly individualistic
in
There are several reasons
to
important
assignment
lose out.
considerations
in obtaining
of
credit
Again
(e.g.
for
rapid
it.
publication of
Here
there is a mix
PoLes
tend
Then again
to
again
the
people
of reasons:promote
idea or
at
the
There
are
Polish
results,
Russians will cite a Russian who achieves a result at about the same time as
an outsider).
There
face-to-face seminars
19
is the fact that much is conveyed verbally and through
so that
local results will be conveyed.
There is the
Reflecting other features of the culture and enterprise of the centre
which are not so deeply embedded in Australasia: see further R. Routley,
'Culture,
philosophy,
and
approaches to
the natural
environment an
Australian
perspective’,
in The
Environment,
Ethics
and Ecology
(ed.
D. Bennett), The Faculties, Australian National University, 1984, and also
'Culture and the roots of political divergence: the Australian/American
contrast’, typescript, Canberra, 1983;
both referred to subsequently as
'Culture'.
�16
limited
fact of
they
when
reading,
on
read
and that
people at
the
from
material
the centre
central
by
centre
tend to
concentrate
peopLe,
that
so
published items and results from the periphery will often not be noticed, and
may
well
out
lose
to
There
publication.
is
the
also
for merit,
receive, merit
competitors
central
more
fact
that
publication
than people towards the periphery.
if
even
people
and
they
achieve
the
at
centre
communication
central
tend
to
opportunities
Here economic factors do begin to enter;
consider the size and distribution of the academic market (there are, e.g., a
great many more academic philosophers in North America than in the whole rest
of the world), control of publishing outlets and journals (with few exceptions
all Northern), etc.
culture — we can
way we
shut off
the Northern philosophical propaganda in much the
shut off
our television
impressed
being
However economic power does not, and need not, determine
by
philosophical
those
to.
sets if we really want
middle-men
And we can stop
make
who
a
living
by
importing the Northern stuff.
So what do we do? We adapt to the cultural-philosophical level, several
of those things, that have been suggested in the newer regionalism.
some
regional
importers
and
doctrines
and
awakening
and
self-reliance.
of,
and
local
from
the
North.
imitators
positions
local
We do not remain
commentators
For
We aim at
on
example,
we
and
slavish
peddlars
don’t
spend
of,
our
academic lives trying to tease out what Davidson or Dummett or Kripke meant by
this
or that
through.
To
in the
be
hope that
sure,
I
am
some pale Northern light will perhaps
not
suggesting
that we
emulate
the
filter
appalling
ignorance of people from the North who visit the Antipodes and know little or
nothing
about what
has
been done
or
is
being done here;^^ so
that we
have
Regrettably, the ignorance extends to many locals.
In particular, those
infected with Sydney materialism appear remarkably ill-informed as to basic
features of other Australasian programs.
�17
eminent
their
visitors,
the
through
bags
National
Australian
cultural
with
heavy
University
accroutrements,
(now
the
main
trekking
centre
for
investigation of relevant logics) and Informing us that, or relying crucially
on the assumption that, a contradiction entails every proposition.
that
advances is
positions and
inferiority
cultural
of
another
colonies;
is
know
often
Northerners
these
little
is the
the Antipodes
intellectual
and
the
nothing
or
distinctive
prevailing assumption of the
in
life
these
(predominantly local)
narrow
about
One reason
former
and
southern
limited
reading
undertaken by Northern luminaries.
But,
despite
having
been
sufficient
given
cause,
we
shouldn’t
cut
ourselves off from Northern paradigms and influences (we could hardly manage
We can reasonably use what we need from
propoganda is different).
to anyway:
so we should stay informed of, but not imitators
these continuing traditions:
of, or part of,
In any case,
their enterprises.
the people are largely European stock.
in older Northern traditions, just as
So
far
from
nowhere,
cutting
these
loose
from
(and
older
these
likely
regional cultures are rooted
traditions
minority)
and
starting afresh
traditions,
and
the
from
local
variations that have already appeared are what we want to develop and perhaps
mutate, as again with wine styles.
Part
of
the
proposal
Is
then
that
things, encourage and develop our own
Antipodean
Northern
paradigms,
paradigms.
rather
It
is
we
increasingly
research programs,
very great
71
our
own
local
and so shape newer
than working with pale northern reflections
not as
if we
have to
- what is very difficult - entirely original work,
components.
do
build from nothing,
to
of
do
to try to create cultural
For there are research programs already initiated, which have the
advantage of
See Culture, op.cit.
being grounded
in features of the larger culture."1
�18
Nor,
the
do we need
fortunately,
future
is
part
to make the story up - though helping to shape
of what the
Australia - New Zealand
proposal
Much of
about.
is
different and more difficult
is a
is
All one really
to bring out programs he has already indicated and provide some
to do is
elaboration and commentary.
level,
for
proposition -
already indicated in Grave’s survey of Australian philosophy.
has
the story,
To pull the investigation down to a more concrete
I shall sketch some more prominent cooperative programs - by no means
the only programs - and remark on some relevant features of them.
The longest running and best known program is, without much doubt,
of
Australian
naturalism,
and
which
aims
see
to
natural
the
that
world,
and
everything else, as suitably encompassed within the framework of the world of
(physical)
science.
The
program
is
generally
traced
as
a major
subprogram Sydney materialism,
Adelaide which subsequently died out there.
such
famous
components
central
state
version
of
failures
functionalism.
its
in
a
reduction
and
nowadays
Faced
plans,
like
it
It
in
The latter program has included
takes
it
all
now
Anderson’s
program initiated
as the mental-material contingent
materialism,
to
in Armstrong’s work.
empiricist metaphysics,-- and is now best exhibited
contains
back
in,
identity theme
and
more derivatively,
physicalisms
incorporates
a
with
a
conspicuous
"scientifically"
trimmed theory of universals, and an account of natural laws as relations of
universals, both components of
the developing
Sydney realism.
Parts of the
naturalism program, especially materialism and central state reductionism and
the unified science ideal, have had counterparts in the North, but the program
has,
for
the
most
part,
retained
its
distinctively
Australian
character
22
Anderson’s metaphysics was however far more opposed to reductions than
what has succeeded it. For an account of Anderson’s philosophy, and a history
and account
op.cit.
of Australian naturalism and materialism,
see especially Grave,
�19
- despite export efforts, it never caught on in New Zealand.
smoothly, moreover,
and
philosophy can
far as
so
earthy,
into Australian culture.
The program fits
It is similarly down-to-earth,
be, without
ideas or
the fancy
effete
idealism of European philosophy or the spirituality and suppressed puritanism
much
which
with
pragmatism).
North
of
And
commitments,
and
American
it
yet
it
though
not
does
is
simmers
thinking
basically
shrink
from
metaphysical
explicit
empiricist,
nowadays,
(including
is
it
not
positivistic
(rejecting a verification principle, in particular).
It
is
a
city
based
program,
broadcast
mainly
from
the University
of
Sydney to other metropolitan universities; but the program does extend outside
the universities a bit (a tiny bit) to the larger metropolitan culture.
North America,
the
broader
Russell,
so in Australasia, little professional philosophy impinges on
community,’-^
Popper
and
would
naturalism
program
Perth, and
has outliers
Apart
notable
be
or
Kuhn
Australasia
from
As in
quite
used
to
even on
being
an
the wider
exceptional.
achievement,
stretch
through
one
academic
(To
community,
turn
worth
to Adelaide;
this
working
it
work by
around
for.)
now reaches
in
The
to
in Canberra, as well as a core of opposition there.
exceptions,
the program has never had the
same hold,
or
In Canada, for example, while most academics from other disciplines would
know of, and perhaps a little about, Russell, far fewer would know of
Wittgenstein (though he is becoming known to lit. crit. groups), and virtually
none would know of Quine.
(The sampling is subjective.)
On the fairly recent ’triumph of professionalism’ in philosophy in USA, see
Kuklick, op.cit., p.565ff.
Iluklick brings out well some of the more
disastrous features of professionalism, but does not sufficiently notice that
the virtuous
features
resulting
from
some
professionalisation
can be
synthesized with broader philosophical activity.
�20
0
more than a rather precarious hold,
f
in Melbourne:^2
4
*
nor, more surprisingly,
has it had heavyweight criticism from there (or indeed much external criticism
the old confrontation of major city philosophies having died
from elsewhere),
Melbourne
out.
is more
philosophy
stricken than Sydney; Melbourne
by
dominated
a
procession
philosophy;
Continental
then,
philosophy;
religion
philosophy, much more than Sydney, has
Northern
of
earlier
fashions:
recently,
more
remarkable
a
and more
historically oriented
and
Davidson
Quine,
turnabout,
idealism
ordinary
Wittgenstein,
been
and
language
extensional
reduction; now perhaps Lewis, Kripke and Dummett?
The
one
program
that
reaches
the
beyond
confines
of
the
cities
in
Australia - which is after all a metropolitan dominated culture, the vast land
always
the other
being
-
Australian environmentalism,
is
a
rather
diffuse
program, which has connections with the Colleges of Advanced Education in the
the communes on the North Coast.
country towns and
much distinguished
environmental
Europe
by what
positions
specifically
it
are a
having
is
not
as
feature of
transformed
what
So far the program is as
it
is.
the New World,
most
its
of
Serious
the
natural
and
deeper
Old World,
and
environment
and
having little wild untouched country left, and little sensitivity accordingly
to
such as
issues
Europe
that
tend
admit
European
to
those of
concern
shallow
built
approaches
superficiality
environmentalism
the
wilderness.
outside
(and
continues
North
and
The main
environmental
human-transformed
encourage
to
America.
environment,
situations).
techno-fix
dominate
North
much
issues
of
American
the
New
in
issues
And
World
environmentalism
differs significantly however from Antipodean environmentalism, most obviously
2A
rhe exceptions include Ellis’s distinctive program, which can be accounted
part of the broader naturalist program, and at Monash the work of F. Jackson
and, earlier, of H. Munro in value theory.
�21
in
the
religious-spiritual
component
of
the
former,
in
but
several
other
respects as well (see further Culture).
positively,
More
environmentalism:-
there
Firstly,
three
are
an
is
there
strands
extended
Australian
to
utilitarianism,
differing
little in theory from Bentham’s enlarged position, which insists upon counting
in the utilities of all sentient creatures.
British base,
has figured prominently in animal welfare and animal liberation
though
and
movements:
This position, developed from a
it
has
on domestic animals,
focussed
animals used
in
research and hunted (wild) animals, it has also become entangled in issues of
bio-research more generally such as genetic
or much interested in,
concerned with,
engineering.
endangered species,
It is not however
the disappearance
of wild lands, the conversion of forests, etc., except insofar as these have a
bearing on animal pain and pleasure.
Wider and deeper environmental concerns
appear only as a
spinoff from animal welfare, and so deeper concerns get an
inadequate deal.
Secondly, there is a wider and a deeper ecological position,
which is not utilitarian and which recognises irreducible value elsewhere than
forests and
differs
ecosystems, especially wild and
American
from
naturalism.
which finds
states,
psychological
sentience or
25
Thirdly,
spiritualism
there
is
and
of
intrinsic value
natural systems.
from
course,
an
as
in trees
This
position
of
American
extension
everywhere,
almost
and
a
reactionary component, critical of the other strands, which insists that all
that
needs
to
be
accomplished
on
the
environmental
front
can
be
achieved
within older established (European) ethical and political frameworks.
Whereas
materialism
is
based in Sydney,
environmentalism
is centred
in
It
has
been described
more
fully
elsewhere:
see,
in particular,
Environmental Philosophy (ed.
D. Mannison and others), RSSS, Australian
National University, 1980.
�22
Melbourne and Canberra, but also includes Brisbane and Perth. Also centred in
Canberra, and reaching across the country, with good connections in Melbourne,
but
in
few
Sydney,
materialism and
from
program
other
which
program,
and
logic
program
perhaps
includes
extends
their core
value
more
to
centres
New
respectively,
the
especially
philosophy,
in
the
with
Logic
a
Whereas
in metaphysics,
theory
essentially
is
of
areas
major
which
and
program.
program,
but
one
metaphysics.
The
Australia
than
also
been
described
in New Zealand philosophy
is also a
Zealand,
has
any
other
26
elsewhere
The
programs have
epistemology
relevant/paraconsistent
affecting
relevant/paraconsistent
environmental
input
further
the
is
main
grounded
research program
program.
A
program emanating
located mainly in Wellington,
The impact
of the
evident
program on
from the
it might be called
work of
Prior and
now
the extended modal program.
philosophy is perhaps best seen in Cresswell’s
27
work. “
Australian philosophy used
for its
not
hard-headed empiricism;
known
for
to
be known,
and still
is in some quarters,
regrettably New Zealand philosophy is mostly
anything much, except
perhaps,
in UK,
that
Prior brought
unusual adaption of Russellian philosophy from that remote place.
his
Neither of
26
Again, like all the Australian programs, both those mentioned and others,
in Grave, op.cit.
But see further,
R. Routley,
'Research in Logic in
Australia, New Zealand and Oceania', Research Papers in Logic #14, Australian
National University, 1983 (which also considers other programs in logic);
G. Priest and R. Routley, op. cit.; and R. Routley, R.K. Meyer and others,
Relevant Logics and Their Rivals, Ridgeview, California, 1982.
27
See especially M.J. Cresswel.1, Logics and Languages, Methuen, London,
1973; but see also work by Goldblatt and by Hughes referred to in Research in
Logic, op.cit.
Also described there is an original version of the modal
program (transparent intensional logic) elaborated by Tichy at Otago.
�23
these impressions is particularly accurate; both are rather out-of-date.
But
the aim of work of the present type is, of course, not just to correct these
impressions,
not just
to reflect
or report
on culture - for what one
would
like to reflect upon is not sufficiently there - but also to help manufacture
elements of a culture, to make an image.
To
resist
the
already flourishing
North,
we
should
increase
our
efforts
to
further
the
programs, and perhaps other sunrise projects;*'^ to build
teaching and research around the programs selected for promotion, elaboration,
and criticism, to orient appointments, especially of involved local people, to
Among sunrise projects in Australian philosophy so far suggested (not all
of them feasible) are these:
Australian feminism, Antipodean social and
political
alternatives,
peace
studies,
indigenous regional
philosophies
(especially Aboriginal, Melanesian, and Polynesian). Another promising field,
with practical consequences, for local initiative is the philosophy of
education, where material produced by R.S. Peters has dominated the market,
with stultifying effects it is now alleged.
As foreshadowed with the notion of "sunrise projects", much of the rhetoric,
and argument, concerning science and technology policy (presented in the case
of Australia in Jones, op.cit.) can be taken over to apply to X policy, where
X is some subject discipline, such as philosophy.
�24
these programs.
79
Why bother?
Why not simply buy our philosophy, like almost
all our technology, off the shelf, from the North? There are several arguments
for not doing this, in more than a limited fashion, which are now sketched.
There
Northern
fine a
is,
firstly,
products,
the
despite
inferiority
their attractive
and
built-in
packaging.
of
most
Without putting
too
point on it, many of the imported intellectual goods are shoddy, and
only work for a very limited range of applications (e.g.
the
obsolence
vicinity
Antipodean
of
contradictions
philosophy
undoubtedly
imported from the North.
dilemmas).
or
derives
from
Much
shoddy
they’re hopeless in
that
is
wrong
intellectual
with
goods
Yet buying this material is encouraged by hard-sell
cultural ambassadors from the North, who are often enough paid to visit.
This
29
In fact something like the last has been the policy of the LSE Philosophy
Department, where the only outside appointment over a long period was that of
Lakatos (hardly a person far removed ideologically).
As observed, it now
looks like the practice of the Otago Department also; and apparently it used
to be a tendency at Melbourne. But in most places the practice is condemned as
nepotistic or parochial, and overridden by the call for "new (Northern)
blood .
However there can be significant differences between nepotistic
appointments and those strengthening local programs.
It is at this stage, among others that administrative measures do matter;
for example, to ensure that suitable locally-engaged locals gain employment
rather than Northern stooges, to direct funds into on-going local programs
rather than imported fashions, etc.
There are various ways appropriate
administrative details can be handled, locally or nationally; but nothing
draconian, such as wholesale exclusion of noncitizens, is required.
Observe, indeed, that no restriction of academic appointments to nationals
(in Canadian style) or the like is being advocated.
Anyone who arrives at a
conclusion of that sort from what has been argued has misunderstood the case
in crucial
respects.
As
a matter of
simple mathematics,
restricting
appointment fields characteristically reduces both quality of candidates
available (however quality is assessed) and range of possibilities open for
future research; and no such restrictions are advocated.
The author has
witnessed the debilitating effects of field restrictions at the Australian
National University and elsewhere.
30t,
c
Some of
centre also.
,
these
arguments
support
change
(perhaps
revolutionary)
at
the
�25
is
part of
Northern
philosophical
the
colonialism
the
that
-
imperialism
North -
from the
too
Antipodes
willing
the successor
suffers,
or,
to
more
remarkable, encourages!
Secondly, there is the inappropriateness of much of the Northern product,
especially
considered
as
metaphysics, environmental
for
package,
a
to
cover,
well
as
as
The European North has no satisfactory
concerns.
land or environmental ethic
instance,
fit for Antipodean circumstances, and the deeper
American package is too spiritually-loaded for mainstream Australian culture.
In
political
American
work
is
much
too
individualistic
the European product, especially the Marxist form,
and
competition-based,
unsuited being
theory,
both too
precious and
too high-tech for local
and
is
circumstances,
especially again for more environmentally-perceptive people.
features
of
telling
also
Thirdly,
import
world’s markets
power structures
against
substitution
and pressures
and
comparative
advantage,
regionalism;
namely,
and fashions,
(including the Old Boy’s
are
appealing
avoidance of
the
removal of overseas control
and
network in
jobs,
policies,
etc.),
and gaining of local control, employment of local people, etc.
Fourthly,
there
arguments
are
philosophy
as
complexity,
sheer diversity,
part
of
intellectual
stability,
for
cultural
culture:
39
etc. “
diversity,
arguments
In fact,
from
applied
to
richness,
the garden analogy
31
The point is elaborated in Culture.
At a more practical level Northern
products are again often unsuitable, though for different reasons.
For
example, the transfer of American agricultural methods and equipment to the
thin poor soils of the Antipodes has had disastrous effects, at last beginning
to be recognised.
“See, for instance, A.A. Mazrui, A World Federation of Cultures: An African
Perspective, Free Press, New York, 1976.
�26
built into the whole notion of ’culture' transfers.
dense,
But not only seeds and plants but weeds and many
productive garden.
pests are
We
being introduced.
and European
and
are
control
obtain not only good products,
European pests
cultivars, but
selectiveness
Naturally we want a rich,
Indian maize
and American weeds.
as
essential,
against
This is why
haphazard
previous
procedures.
The proposal
with local
is not for, nor would the case sustain, a narrow localism,
products, whatever
local
their quality,
heroes, replacing Northern ones.
fashions,
and local
cult
That is certainly not the preferred way of
the newer regionalism, which tends to do without fashions and heroes and seeks
durable quality in products,
way of technology policy.
which
are
difference,
has
to
outlets,
be
not
occupied
impact, and so on;
low environmental
Rather, as with technology policy, we select niches
satisfactorily
or
where
filled,
given
etc.).
our
resource
But granting regionalism,
base
(of
we
can
make
a
Indeed the policy
and use and develop local skills and methods.
selective
nor is the
philosophers,
publishing
to what extent should components,
for instance people, books and other teaching elements, theories and ideas, be
imported
and
Locally? The
to
what
extent
should
they
be
produced,
trained,
conceived
possibility of selectiveness in different components means that
many mixes are possible.
particular mix.
There is no need to insist,
so far at least, on a
The case for the present is mainly for a regional shift, for
a significantly greater degree of local autonomy and production.^
But
it will
do
no
harm
to
indicate
elements of a mix
that finds much
Does it sound familiar? Outside philosophy, it should. For example, we
have now been told by the Americans that our defence role, unlike theirs, is
regional, not global: this is supposed to shed great light on our previously
confused defence policies.
�27
the suggestion is that we try to eradicate much of
Negatively,
local favour.
the Oxford style of teaching and doing philosophy.
as
removal
Berkeley-Hume
with
(a
however
prevailing
undue
the
of
no
standard
on
British
focus);
attention
proper
status
Anglo-American
empiricism
British
emphasis
to
quo.
That includes such things
of
of
heavy
The
particular, has mostly been a very conservative one.
the
movements
main
philosophy,
but
from
emanating
also
the
England,
protective of the Northern status quo;
they are,
recommend
and
this.
just
reinforcement
Oxford
Locke-
approach
the
of
in
influence,
More generally, many of
especially
Moore-Wittgenstein
on
quasi-historical
the
sources;
centred
practice,
ordinary
have
language
been
very
they tend to leave things very much as
the
Positively,
proposal
is
that
we
achieve further disassociation from the Anglo-American empiricist past in two
ways:
by
framework,
emphasizing
and
by
local
projects
diversifying
the
that
move
range
outside
of
constricting
that
philosophical
traditions
selectively drawn upon, to include not only neglected Continental strands and
parts of
Eastern thought,
philosophy.
The
idea
is
but also
that
Pacific ethnic
such a
material and
plurality of
sources,
Australasian
especially
in
teaching, will assist in removing narrower cultural biasses, such as British
parochialism,
and
enable more
discrimination
to
be
obtained.
Then
too we
should be better able to see the ranges of theories that are open to us in the
Antipodes and how to advance our own programs.
34
The point is laboured in E. Gellner, Words and Things, Victor Gollancz,
London, 1959.
But even ordinary language philosophy, though conservative, and
though it much contracted the proper range of philosophical investigations,
had its liberating elements, e.g. removal of some of the narrowness and more
cramping assumptions induced by technical jargon.
Nor has the social impact changed much with the subsequent decline, since
1959, of ordinary language philosophy, the increasing insolvency of Oxbridge
philosophy, and its consequent limited take-over by right-wing Ivy League
American philosophy. By contrast, the less economically influential growth of
redbrick and applied philosophy in some of the British radical and polytechnic
institutes has touched no more than the surface of Oxbridge practice.
�28
There remain some things we should want to see whatever mixes are chosen
One crucial issue is the removal of Northern
in different Antipodean regions.
bias from papers and publications, research seminars and lectures, letters of
This Northern bias is a disposition to cite and discuss
reference, and so on.
the
and
works
of
irrespective
discussion
projects
and
of
quality
the
ignore
to
authors,
Northern
of
their
contribution
works
the
more
the
of
irrespective of the quality of their contribution.
accept
opinions of worth,
their
been
(thus
Influential
philosophers,
under
topic
largely
again
It is
etc.
to uncritically
and
the disposition
to
though work produced locally either does not exist or has
write or lecture as
not
importance,
better,
It is the disposition to
to authors from prestigious Northern institutions,
defer
the
to
authors,
local
the
famous
are,
ensuring
anything,
if
that
it
inclined
more
is
not).
And
Northern
to
Australasian
bias
than
many
overseas intellectuals, who are perhaps less concerned to be seen as belonging
to the Northern mainstream.
bias
effects
not
The reduction, and eventual removal, of Northern
practice
the
only
of
individual
philosophers,
but
the
policies of selection and review committees as well as of editors and referees
of
It
journals.
local
reorientation,
with
innovations
better,
development
-
involves,
among
Antipodean philosophers
things
so
they
that
can
would
cite
be
getting
local
assisted
things,
other
work
by
intellectual
to know local
work and
out
regional
or
point
greater
local
content
in
courses taught, more time spent at local institutions on study leave, and so
on.
APPENDIX 1. Background notes on the philosophy supply situation.
Sociological
investigation of the philosophy labour market in Australia and New Zealand has
yet
to be
attempted.
But a
picture of
some elements
underlying the
numerical argument of the text can be gained from the following table:
simple
�29
TABLE 1. Ph.Ds in Philosophy: a USA - Australasian comparison
USA
Number (Male/Female)
Australia
New Zealand
1974
413 (346/67)
6
0
1975
375 (318/57)
5
0
1976
382 (319/63)
8
0
1977
330 (264/66)
3
2 (1/1)
1978
283 (235/43)
5
5 (4/1)
1979
285 (204/54)
9
3 (2/1)
1980
246 (187/59)
4
N. A.
1981
N.A.
4
0
Notes:
1. The breakdown of the USA and New Zealand numbers by sexes (male/female) is
given.
Similar figures do not appear to be available for Australia.
2.
The US figures are. for the academic year ending in the Year shown, e.g.
1978 covers the Northern academic year 1977-78. Southern figures are for the
calendar year shown.
Sources: Digest of Education Statistics, US National Center for
Education Statistics; University Statistics, Australian Bureau of
Census Statistics; New Zealand Education Statistics.
Comments:
1.
The contraction of US doctoral production and the concomitant rise in
female representation, are clearly indicated.
The Australian figures are
likely too small to reflect such trends and responses to the academic market.
2.
Some of the Australasian numbers include Americans; likewise the American
figures provide no nationality breakdown.
3.
There is no information available on the number of Australians proceeding
to higher degrees in philosophy outside Australia.
In applying table 1 some simplifying assumptions are made.
assumed
that
candidates
for appointment
For example, it is
to regular university positions now
would have a doctorate or the equivalent (until recently a B.Phil was taken as
a
near
well).
equivalent
It
is
of
a
assumed,
North
what
American
seems
to
Ph.D.;
take
publications
the
case,
that
serve
as
the number
of
could
�30
Australasians proceeding to higher degrees in philosophy abroad is relatively
small, and no more than the order of Ph.Ds. taken locally.
It can be assumed,
without upsetting applications of table 1, that Australasian graduates match,
say, the upper half of American graduates in standard attained.
There is no compiled information on academic vacancies in philosophy in
Australia or New Zealand - on the numbers of vacancies, on how the positions
It would however be a routine,
are filled, by what nationalities, sexes, etc.
if
matter
tedious
some of
assemble
to
data,
this
is of considerable
which
relevlance to the planning of philosophy programs.
APPENDIX 2.
On the earlier
considering
the
Editor
of
the
idea of a National
of
possibility
initial
German distinction
a
National
AJPP distinguished
two
between Weltanschauung
and
Philosophy for Australia.
Philosophy’,
the
(Australian)
corresponding
senses
In
Lebensanchauung’
to
(p.292).
'the
In
the first, that of ’a scheme of the universe’, ’an Australian Philosophy is as
as
ridiculous
confirmation
prejud ices’.
Holland,
personal’
Science’.
falsification,
or
Granted:
fostered, etc .,
in
Christian
a
’are
The
is
argument
of
independent
truth,
that
national
and
sympathies
its
or
but that does not mean that a theory may not be held,
in one region but not others, as intuitionism was for long in
or
way,
Cartesianism
’a
nation
in
France.
like
an
In
a
second
individual
may
’more
develop
intimate
a
and
certain
temperamental attitude to the problems of existence, which we may ... call its
philosophy of life.
A nation’s philosophy,
like its art and its literature,
is a mode of expression for the national consciousness.
form of
evolving
the national genius
national
culture.
....’
But,
(pp.292-3).
in
the
first
It is,
place,
It is a specialised
in short,
this
is
part of the
by no means
entirely separate from the initial sense, a philosophy comprising not merely a
fairly comprehensive theory but also an integrated set of attitudes (like an
�31
operational paradigm).
Furthermore, only by concession are such items as ’the
national consciousness’
and 'the Australian landscape’
of
meriting
definite
Australian
descriptors.
literature, has many strands to it,
accounted single units
philosophy,
Australian
like
some not particularly distinctive (in any
sense): such things form rather loose families.
Editor
The
does
not
find,
does
not
really
hope
to
in
find
’a modern
industrialised community’ - with its modular parts interchangeable with those
of
others - a
claims
find
to
and
courage
a
fair
trite
life,
with a difference.
build
on
(’traditions
but nothing at all
distinctive.
philosophy of
national
moral
dealing’),
base
to
In fact
... of
humour,
So far,
be a national philosophy, at least of life, but is not;
there can
he
then,
this does
not however exclude there being various regional philosophies (such as local
research programs).
plunged
that
into
’if
So
far,
inconsistency:
then,
the
all is well.
trouble
derives
But shortly
from the
the Editor is
extravagant claim
Australia has nothing to do with these - the eternal values of the
Spirit, the Ideals of Truth, Goodness and Beauty - then and only then has she
nothing to do with Philosophy’
(p.295; with rearrangement).
But, as Australia
has nothing per se to do with these - as is virtually conceded, these values
involving a 'wider sweep’
do
with Philosophy,
Though
the
than any national boundaries - "she" has nothing to
contradicting the
contradiction
is
easily
possibility of
avoided
by
a National
Philosophy.
the
extravagant
rescinding
claim, the ideal of a National Philosophy should be allowed to rest in peace:
nationalism has had its time.
�32
R. Routley35
Research School of Social Sciences
Australian National University
35
With thanks to R. Elliot, W. Godfrey-Smith, S. Grave and L. Mirlin, to
several members of the audience at the presentation of the paper at the 1983
Australasian Association of Philosophy Conference, University of Adelaide, to
several referees for this Journal, and, not least, to the present Editor.
�t
•r
■
PROSPECTS FOR REGIONAL PHILOSOPHIES IN AUSTRALASIA
Philosophy, especially academic philosophy but also folk philosophy, like
other intellectual and higher cultural activity in Australasia, has long been
dominated,
indeed
Europe, now
the
largely
swamped,
by
Northern
Given
increasingly from North America.
cultural
and
other
baggage
the
imported,
influences,
initially
the migration
patterns,
composition
ethnic
resulting ruling populations, such a result was virtually inevitable.
does not have to stay that way.
from
of
the
But it
Suitable policies, a good philosophy policy,
could change things.
thought
The
of
a
is hardly a new one.
culture,
In 1923, a
matching
perhaps
philosophy,
regional
regional
a
New Zealand correspondent to the
newly-launched Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy mentioned the
possibility of ’a new kind or temper of philosophy under these southern skies’
which
the
such a
reaching
Journal might
role
(or,
not
community).
for
merely
And
that
matter,
professional
although
however hardly
The Journal has
foster.1
actively
philosophers
some things
solid foundation for a new regionalism
its
pursued
have changed
pronounced aim
wider
a
but
in Australia,
in philosophy,
and
temper of
southern skies were intended
distinctively
1AJPP, March
same volume,
Appendix 2.
New
Zealand
1923, p.74.
p.292.ff;
his
philosophy under
to
include:
but
characteristics,
The
question was
discussion
is
laying
a
that possibility of a
New Zealan
few distiri
have
of
Australasian
new temper of philosophy has hardly been realised. There is
of a new kind
fulfilled
shown
up
le in the way
ies, which
the
y features,
’ no
in
New
Zealand
taken up by the Editor in the
considered
below,
especially
in
�2
7
philosophy’.
New Zealand remains a substantial net importer of philosophy,
The situation of colonial dominance that used to prevail in
and philosophers.
Australia,
where
virtually
chairs,
all
and
many
philosophy, were filled by academics from the North,
power and influence of professors in small departments,
and
covered
considered
and
in
tends to persist in New
Zealand, where no established chairs are occupied by locals.2
3
topics
posts
academic
other
Given the usual
in courses designed,
especially appointments
made,
the
heavy
Northern orientation of philosophy taught and researched in New Zealand is not
The Northern control is perhaps most strikingly exhibited at the
surprising.
oldest
of
New
Zealand
universities,
the
University
of
Otago,
where
the
Philosophy Department has been substantially captured by a British School and
increasingly
looks
event,
the
like an offshoot of
overwhelming Anglo-American
the University of London.4
dominance
of
New Zealand
In any
philosophy
also a feature only in slightly lesser degree of Australian philosophy - can
be confirmed
by a content survey of the courses offered and research papers
written at New Zealand universities.
Even when local people have been appointed
to positions in Australasia,
they have been brought up on a solid diet of Anglo-American material, and they
have often been reforged or finished in the North as well.
*
In particular, the
2
S.A. Grave, A History of Philosophy in Australia, Queensland University
Press, 1983, p.l. Page references are to the manuscript.
The paper draws
heavily on this history.
3
This claim was correct at the
1983).
With the recent loss of
qualification, but the pattern of
4In the 1983
presentation of the paper (August
Wellington, the claim may require
mination persists.
Commonwealth University Handbook listing, 6 of the 8 members of
the Department held their main degree, Ph.D., from -the London/?and one of the
remainder from. Exeter).
Only one member of the Department, soon to retire,
falls outside me nexus.
�3
requirements of
the Australasian universities
in the major
period of
post
World War II expansion were conveniently seen to in the case of philosophy by
Many
degree.
B.Phil.
the Oxford
of
departments
philosophy
remain full
of
products of this cultural mill: indeed until the mid 70s candidates finished
in Oxford were hard to beat out when they applied for positions, such was the
prestige of Oxford and
(unwarranted)
the regrettable,
but still
continuing,
"cultural cringe".
Nonetheless,
in
been occurring
scene
will
(as
despite
the
Northern
the Antipodes,
be
especially on
indicated).
significant
dominance,
worth
is
It
changes
have
the Australian philosophical
asking
whether
Australian
philosophy is moving towards the sort of change that occurred in USA more than
100 years ago when the Harvard Philosophy Department was brought (or bought)
together,
its "golden
and
age" began.American philosophy was never quite
the same again, and became its own thing.
There are now new forces operating
which could help to move Australian philosophy in such a direction.
the
widespread
emergence,
particularly
in
alternative
There is
culture,
of
choice
along
a
new
£
which
regionalism,
other
choices;
local
fashioning
provides
applies
of
a
national
model
for
and
to
in
cultural
stark
science
reflection
and
in
and
ideological
contrast,
technology
regional
there
policies,
philosophy
directly bears on parts of the philosophy of science.
soon appear,
there are
also some
is
serious obstacles
the
with
centralised
which
not
only
policy
but
also
Unfortunately, as will
to regional
philosophies
and to the very idea of a regional philosophy.
^See B. Kuklick, The Rise of American Philosophy; Cambridge, Massachusetts
1860-1930, Yale University Press, 1977, Parts 2 and 3.
On this bio-regionalism, see especially, Fourth World News, vol. 1,
and K. Sale, Human Scale, Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, New York, 1980.
1983,
�USA, long an importer of culture from Europe, has recently become a net
components
of
philosophical
following
not
culture,
taken).
suit,
should
evidently
but
Are
reasons
there
achieve
not
also
the gAmerican
(witness
philosophy
has
Oxford
from
output
lower
of
such as
higher culture
if
Australasia,
balance of
certainly
culture,
of
exporter
a
better
turn
why
cultural
Yes, there are reasons.
payments, especially in philosophy?
of
In
the first place, the change in the cultural position of the USA went with, and
perhaps in part derived
economic
of
most
dominance
entails
Australasia’s
changes in economic power relations.
from, vast
there is
cultural dominance,
culture,
there
since
is
little prospect
serious
no
prospect
If
for
that
Australasia will ever emulate or attain American economic eminence (at least
not without nuclear destruction of
the North,
flow of commodities, cultural and other).
universities
not only
increasingly
of
of
contingent
Americans,
former
group,
Northern cultural
they.
As
priorities,
a
they
also
component
include
whose
research
of
Northern academics,
substantial
a
and
teaching
additional
is
bent
to
It is unlikely that this influential segment, especially
(become so
will
commitments,
long
entire
Secondly, as observed, Antipodean
large
fellow-travellers,
Northern concerns.
the
contain
and disruption of the
as
apart
Antipodeans
they are in a bind
locally acclimatised
do
from the
not
situation;
isolated
drastically
as
to)
give up
Nor
person.
alter
their
its
should
cultural
for it can be persuasively argued
that they would be better off, as far as quality and product goes, stocking
their universities with American teaching components and researching American-
oriented concerns.
One
simple
numerical
argument
that
Antipodean
universities
would
be
better off with Americans in the main, takes the following lines:- The (higher
degree)
graduates
of
Australasian
culturally distinguished,
and
American
are
not
significantly
at least in subjects such as philosophy.
Consider
�now
number
the
of
quality
Austroamerican graduates;
academics
produced
of
per number
degree
higher
say there is 1 per every n graduates.
The (great)
preponderance of graduates will be Americans, just by virtue of their vastly
greater population and their more extensive system of university education.7
So also then, just by ratio considerations, the great preponderance of quality
academics
from an
drawn
upper percentiles among
they
interested
universities.
Austroamerican base
an
Such
would
argument
appointing
be
does
not
as will
Clearly, Antipodeans,
those quality products.
quality,
in
will be American,
work
to
more
show
Americans
that,
for
to
the
were
their
similar
reasons, American universities should be full of Chinese or Indian professors,
for
two
Asians
reasons;
and
first
Americans,
there
are
especially
significant
in
cultural differences
disciplines
such
as
between
philosophy;
and
secondly, their university systems do not deliver such great quotas of higher
degree or high quality graduates, at least in philosophy.
The conclusion of the numerical argument will not be a popular one.
anti-Americanism felt
the
universities;
The
in portions of the Australasian community extends into
and
recently
there
has
been
increasing
insistence,
especially by the now aging younger Turks that university positions should be
reserved for locals.
This at the same time as these Turks often preach of an
international community of scholars,
presumably then with "free" interchange,
As indicated in Appendix 1, whereassumptions made in the argument are
.
defended, the ratio of US philosophy graduates with doctorates as compared
with Australian exceeds 30 to 1.
And, as is weM-known, the extent of
university education is much greater
in USA than! in Australasia: indeed
Australia is in this respect
among the worst edlated of the developed
nations, as OECD figures have made plain (see, e.g. Jb. Jones, Sleepers Wake^^
Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1982, Chapter
I
I
J
/
>
�6
etc.
They cannot have it all ways.3
So
long
continues,
the
present
centre
will
as
the
dominate
they will have more
economically;
them if
large to
free-flow
than us,
and
and
culturally
periphery
the
ideas
of
interchange
personnel
well
as
as
should go by and
jobs here
(centrally-determined) quality in this high cultural
it is
business that we seek, as mostly claim.
Now
anyway,
it
is
there
that
arguments.
For
enough
widely
is
we are
recognised,
something
not
lower-down
drastically
wrong
hierarchical
with
these
ladders
sorts
of
flooded with high-quality Northerners who would
regularly drive out local contenders for positions,
if we only preferred the
Northerners when they were quite visibly superior: rather we are inundated by
Americans with inflated references, who have the messages of the centre better
than
locals
echelon
do,
(often
and
remote Northern fields tend
Northern
biassed)
appointment
to look greener to higher-
committees
than
dusty
locals
As is beginning to be recognised too,
whose shortcomings are known better.
the Northern centres tend to retain their higher-quality products, and allow
them
to
be
exiled
to
the
periphery
only
if
they
somehow fall
foul
of
system (e.g. of the academic system for political or personal reasons).
8A reverse flow of the better or
the
Too
//K
odox academics from Australasia to A Leica
should also be expected (outside
mes of university contraction).
Acci yrding
_____d
argument, which is based on labour] larket
to assumptions of this brain
considerations, appointment and lifestyle conditions for academics arej etter
in USA than Australia and much better than those in economically—depressed New
jhejr salaries, better standard of living, superio
Zealand (e.g. high'
research
conditions, etc.)
things being £equal, able academic
from the
Antipodes will rel;||jBate in USA as academic positions become avai
ble.
The
argument also help^^xplain why Antipodean ui 'versifies cannot ex
:, for the
most part, to attract really top-drawer Nojrt
Nortl srners for very long.'T' Of course,
economically
illy irrelevant
irrele
factors do in^Tu®
interference; e.g.
perverse
t«gTua
itsl to oddJball Antipodean intellectual enterprises which reduce
commitment
-ceLtabilit*^ or pre-industrial ties to place or persons or lifestyle
market acc
which imsmulaiS-y
L_ _ restrict mobility (such as local roots, family attachments, even
distaste for American urban lifestyles).
�7
often
Northern
the
centres
have
disposed of
intellectually
their
inferior
products in the periphery.
All this makes the
especially Americans,
Northerners,
appointing
position look doubly bad. We ought, it seems, to be
even
if they are overrated
their references, and usually not out of the top drawer,
And yet
quality.
in
in order to maximize
doing so does not achieve the desired quality result, and
breeds discontent elsewhere, especially among the aging Turks.
Fortunately
there
obtain
cultural
sufficient
subtitutable for us.
we
before
from this awkward
and that is the way of regionalism.
shaky arguments;
and
way out
is a
elaborate
distance,so
that
situation and
these
We do our own things;
they
are
not
simply
Then the shaky numerical argument does fall down.
the
emerging
proposal
there
are
other
But
influential
arguments to dispose of, and the disposal bears on the proposal.
to begin with,
There is,
have so
far been conceded:
the argument for excellence,
that
excellence, which we all more or
elements of which
there is an objective commodity, quality or
less agree
about, which is proportionately
more abundant in the North, and which is what academic institutions crave and
seek and what appointments aim to capture, indeed maximize.
That at least is
the type of myth most of us have encountered; and many of us now know it is a
myth,
in
fact
appointments
profit, but
a
that
dangerous
way,
rather seek
any
myth.
more
Most
that
places
don’t
organisations
aim
even
try
just
to
to
make
maximize
to satisfice on a mix of factors, of which assessed
quality is only one, and not often the highest ranking one.
Ability to fit
^This is easier in the cultural than the technological sphere.
However it
is
also
possible technologically:
(stronger)
theses of
technological
determinism, and so of cultural determinism, are false.
We can choose
different options, technologically, as well as culturally.
�8
into some sort of program, teaching or research, is another, and commonly more
important factor;
is no good reason why such a program should not
and there
sometimes be a regionally oriented one.
So given prevailing practices,
the
And,
argument from excellence does not exclude regional philosophy programs.
in any event, there are enough local candidates of sufficient worth to proceed
with
regional
programs
clearcut
without
of/ excellence.
sacrifice
Local
Jl
enterprise need entail no loss of excellence, and could increase it.
A
The deeper-cutting
with
idea
the
objection is that there is something seriously amiss
objective
of
objective
importance;
criticism
as
bracketed
out
notions
the
that
excellence,
these
with
more
values
contextual—relativisation
a
rather
generally,
component
paradigm,
intellectual
narrow
the
to
framework or viewpoint to which these values relate.10
within
connected
the
open
are
notions
objective
of
and
of
sorts
of
same
they
that
of
notion
have
the
valuing:
While those operating
as
such
Oxbridge
ordinary
language philosophy or Sydney materialism say, can bracket out the viewpoint,
since
it
is
incorporated
in
the
operational
paradigm,
and
so
arrive
at
seemingly objective quality judgements, the judgements are not preserved (e.g.
in
truth
Marxist
value)
when
viewpoints.
transposed
Consider,
to
for
other
frameworks,
comparison,
the
e.g.
idealistic
judgements
as
to
or
the
quality or worth of a forest^made variously by a deep ecologist, an industrial
forester, and a recreational officer.
a
holistically-inclined
Marxist,
and
philosophers
Californian
who
pretend
Compare judgements as to the quality of
philosopher,
environmental
environmental
that
such
by
philosophers.
environmental
work
language,
ordinary
There
cannot
are
be
even
judged,
hat follows also> Begins to bring out what is omitted in a main theme of
R.S.JPirsig, _______
Zen and __
,
d/e
Art
Motor Cycle Maintenance, Bodley H^lad , London,
__ of
— ---— the notion of objective excellence doe
, Note that defSwring
not lead to
ivism.
To avoid the customary false dichotomy, compare
e notion of
validity (usually ceded to themselves these days by classical lo cians).
cw
�9
seemingly because
it
of the main philosophical
by members
is not done
peer
group at Harvard and like institutions.
As this
begins
the
of
judgements
to
reveal, judgements
importance
work
of
of quality are not independent of
done
or
problems
tackled.
importance of problems and issues is highly paradigm dependent.
the
But
For example,
problems suet/ as those of quantifying-in and of possible worlds and of de re
thought^ ^ich assume immense
importance for fashionable referential theories
within the mainstream empiricist paradigm, vanish to relative insignificance
outside
that
restricted viewpoint.
that most
Now observe
judgements as
to
what are the important problems and what constitutes important work - matters
helping determine quality - are shipped down from the North.
Their importance
is relative to their paradigmatic placement, and the paradigms concerned are
exported to the Antipodes through the main channels already indicated.
We are
free to reject these paradigms and select alternatives, and there are, it can
be argued,
good reasons
choose different
that
generally
energy
favoured
just that, much as
to do
technology
the
in
(or different
the
which
North
there are good reasons to
military technology)
North
is
eager
to
from
export
southwards.
Similar
which
might
argument,
points
apply
against
alternatively
that
be
sophisticated
mass-produced
and
cosmopolitan.
The argument
'cosmopolitan subject’,
called
people
-marketed
the
from
is based
cosmopolitan/international
the
Peter
everywhere
Holland;
Stuyvesant
smoke
this
argument
international
superior
product
cigarette-sophistication
is
on the assumption that philosophy is a
that is is not the sort of enterprise for which place
�10
and
people
are
as
significant
they
are
for
poetry
or
that philosophy
important thing,
is a finished product of a certain
sort (a propositional theory), not a process of production also.
process of production the place and people involved (e.g.
material.
And
and
literature,
the
if
not
since
no
philosophy,
format,
12
than
more
work
a
like
theorems
just
internationally-approved
is
product
The
novel.
It takes for granted,
assumption has only to be presented to be questioned.
for one
the
and
of
art,
But in the
in discussion) are
like
a
piece
assembled
arguments
in
of
an
then again the historical setting matters,
literature,
does
not
emerge
in
a
vacuum.
Plato’s philosophy could not have emerged in ancient Australia, and if cribbed
&
13
in mid 20th century Oxford would surely have been marked down or rejected.
It
is
important not
to be
sidetracked into issues -
resembling problems
in
aesthetics - that do not need to be contested, such as whether and what extent
sets of themes and arguments produced in one place and setting could have been
produced in another. A nonnuclear technology of some sort could be adopted in
Europe but apparently will not be, whereas there is reasonable prospect that
New
Zealand,
strategy.
^Grave,
in
It is
contrast
with
the doing,
op.cit.,
p.2:
Australia,
will
and not what could
the
term
pursue
a
be done,
’cosmopolitan subject’
nonnuclear
energy
that matters here.
used
there
comes
from Donegan.
As to the significance of place and people for literature, see
further C. Partridge, The Making of New Cultures, Editions Rodopi, Amsterdam,
1982.
xz,Like a paper in the biological sciences.
But here again technique
methodology, which may both be regional, are crucially important.
1 3 Related
and
points can be made using less extreme examples, e.g. concerning
modern American work.
Consider, for instance such texts as W.V. Quine’s Word
and Object, (Wiley, New York, 1960) or R. Nozick*s Anarchy, State and Utopia
(Basic Books, New York, 1974).
The assumptions taken for granted, the
arguments involved, etc., are especially American: it is not just the style.
The acceptability of arguments and positions is dependent on place and
received paradigm.
�11
logic,
Dialethic
which
invalidates
Anglo-American philosophy,
the
could perhaps
technique
and
methodology
of
in the North (though
be done
much
there
would be substantial cultural resistance): it is not being done there, and is
not
likely
Antipodeans
techniques,
to
be
in
choose
can
do
done
the
their
Anglo-American
own
their own distinctive
sphere.^
distinctive
thing.
The
To
technology
this
extent,
and
logical
international/cosmopolitan
argument, stated in a form that would be telling, fails.
Of course
it can be argued,
it is being argued,
that Antipodeans don’t
need to be, or even oughtn’t to be pursuing their own energy or logic policies
and apparatus.
But meeting these considerations takes us to a whole new set
of issues concerning the merit of various policies and programs, the point of
diversity, etc. - far beyond the cosmopolitan argument.
The new arguments, to
which we shall return, are not a lot more convincing however than comparable
arguments
concerning
cooking:
that
we don’t
devising our own cuisine or wine styles.
need
to
be or
oughtn’t
to
be
British, or at least cosmopolitan,
cooking is adequate: we should stick to that and buy it off the shelf from the
North,
ideally importing
the cooks also.
Do we
that British philosophy is
have good
reasons to
think
than British cooking?
Antipodeans are free^in principle^ then,
to pursue their own paradigms;
and to do so they will by and large want to, and mostly have to, appoint their
own people, people they have educated - not saboteurs or people who have (had )
to
be
re-educated,
from el
where,
in
particular from the North.
But
will
•^Much as co
communities
the extreme
nist anarchism, a live possibility for communes and perhaps
Australia, is culturally excluded in North America, owing to
ndividualism of that culture.
On dialethic logic, see G. Priest and R. Routley, On Paraconsistency,
Research Papers in Logic, #13, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian
National University, 1983.
�12
paradigms^, tie
their intellectual
of
features
the
cultur
local
though works of
with cultural
In a loose way,
philosophy wi
not usually
with
paradigms,
least,
at
distinctive
they may link,
tie in with the culture in
the
_______
____ z sometimes
distinct
from_______________
more technical works)
integral fashion that novels
A> a. /sn-X'etL
do.^ Grave considers certain cultural features, not restricted to particular
programs,
philosophical
Australian product’
help
that
in
philosophy
Australia
as
’ an
- ’unimportant though this is compared with what matters
But style, acceptability, truth, do matter,
in philosophy' he hastens to add.
and are
mark
not independent - or independent so far as their perception goes in
the case of truth and correctness15 - from underlying broad theory or received
paradigm.
However the marks Grave cautiously advances, significant though they are,
do
not
features
serve
to
distinguish
the
philosophy
Australian
Australian
exhibits
in
the
product,
lesser
degree
adventurous and polemical philosophy of Greek antiquity.
by Passmore as
'most
typical
first
two
than
the
being
more
The first, described
of Australian philosophy’,
is
a ’diversity of
approach and readiness to put forward an unconventional or unfashionable point
view',1^
of
philosophy,
something
which
more
(with
typical
some
of
notable
ancient
philosophy
exceptions)
than
exhibits
uniformity reflecting that often attributed to the land itself.
Australian
an
austere
The second,
15Nothing need be conceded to
trong cultural relativity themes,
ough they
would support the case
L Iia L tour
'/is enough that
theories remain radically
_ y bei
incomplete and that there/^/^n accordingly
b
rival theories as
what is
is
true.
Similarly, however^
phy is j concaved ~as the sea
or truth,
seian/Mrore, really), or a
explanation, uifierstanding^
these
inquiry of a
certain sort^Fthere can bez45^will be
be, ^/competing accounts; so a pluralistic
theory is inevitable in giving a fuller view.
1
Both preceding quotations, while included as such in Grave’s Introduction,
are from J. Passmore, ’Philosophy', in The Pattern of Australian Culture (ed.
A.L. McLeod), Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y., 1963, pp.131-168.
The
same annotation also applies to the third mark.
�Ke
surprising,
more
and
’the
philosophy,
Wittgensteinian
mark
most
notable
political
extraordinary
by
discussed
Andersonian
itself’
(p.2).
...
being
This
the
example
is
line-up
it
was
far
from
if
Sydney,
Australian
between
the
not
isolated:
them concern the fervour generated by "Australian materialism",
others among
the
..
example
and
Melbourne
Andersonian philosophy
of
character’
Grave),
engagement
and
by some philosophy departments
confrontation
growing
the
(both
concerning
the
relevant/paraconsistent program, with the local (’adversarial’) style leading
to
criticism by
sharp
Americans.
with
Connected
these
firs
two marks
are .
—■--------------- ------
furthe
part.
of much
characteristics
Australian
Aiilosophy y(^ho
for
hat influenced by jSydney rather than originating in Melb
the most
namely
directness, unwillingne
to muffle points, surface clarity
/occj/
unkindly add,
untne
, unsubtjety and crudity.> The third and
t
A
fourth marks
as Grave i
effect notes, hardly distinguishing features of
Australian philosophy.
areas,
is
third, which applies well
to other
intellectual
the contrast of the Australian reputation in philosophy indeed of
Australia as
national
The
a ’center of philosophical inquiry’, with the anti-intellectual
stereotype
achievement
Australians
than
rather
especially a
of
feature
of
as
intellectual
to
a
people
subtlety’.
Anglo-American philosophy;
’devoted
The
namely
physical
to
fourth
the
mark
is
isolation of
academic philosophy in Australasia from, and its general indifference or even
hostility to,
the sort of imported philosophy (e.g.
that of Nietzsche and the
existentialists) generating interest in literary and arts circles.
The
philosophy
failure
does
of
not
marks
such
matter.
sufficiently separated
by its
For
to
adequately
one
thing,
separate
the
research projects.
out
Australian
For another,
Australian
produce
is
regionalism
should not be confused with nationalism, nor more regional positions such as
Sydneyside
materialism
or
Wellington
modalism
with
national
philosophies.
�14
as in mojjt other things,
Nationalism in philoso^iy,
to
not
be encouragedand the new regionalism
is an undesirable trait,
is linked,
in other
cultural
things, with the breakdown of nations and contraction of state power.
*
To get
back
*
*
to where we were:
*
*
the emerging
proposal
is
this, that we
start - or better much increase - doing our own distinctive things, and that
we
team up
to do
In fact
so.
there are
several suggestions
that begin
to
emerge, concerning research and teaching, publications and appointments, study
leave and sponsored visitors. These are not just that we do our own selection
of
topics
and
people,
and
style
and
methods,
decide
instead of having these foisted upon us - not just,
our
own
priorities,
that is, that we play our
own games (whether invented here or taken over from the North) and not theirs,
Rules and Rugby instead of Gridiron and Basketball - but that we abandon the
individual competitive model of cultural achievement,
sold to us and fostered
by the North, in favour of a group cooperative approach (elements of which are
already modelled in Antipodean social clubs).
The thoughts here are simple and familiar.
digging example:
it is well-known that two people cooperating can dig a ditch
more rapidly and enjoyably
17
See, e.g.,
London, 1957.
On the one side is the ditch
Sale,
than two
op.cit.,
people working on the ditch separately.
and L. Kohr,
The
Breakdown
of Nations,
RKP,
The Editor of the new 1923 AJPP did however take seriously the notion of
National Philosophy, of (what must have surprised some New Zealand readers) an
Australian Philosophy; some of the issues there raised (p.292ff) are addressed
in Appendix 2.
�15
Cooperative work tends to pay off - in philosophy or elsewhere - in terms of
output, quality,
and enjoyment
in the doing.
On the other side, experience
shows that we in the periphery cannot individually complete very successfully
with the centre on achievements in their programs.
predominantly individualistic
the
in
Despite the highly competitive
One is the communication situation.
for this.
attainment
nature of
results
of
depends
There are several reasons
American academic enterprise,much
upon
verbal
rapid
and
communication
For, despite the individualism myth, work is
access to unpublished material.
jointly based, and builds on the work of manyji^hen the time is ripe for some
idea or result,
several clever people will be able to hit on it.
communications are
nationalistic
important
considerations
in obtaining rapid
(e.g.
Poles
tend
publication of
to
promote
Then again
the
Polish
idea or
results,
Russians will cite a Russian who achieves a result at about the same time as
an outsider).
There
face-to-face seminars
fact of
when
limited
read
they
is the fact that much is conveyed verbally and through
so that
and that
reading,
on
local results will be conveyed.
material
from
people at
the
the centre
centre
by
There is the
tend to concentrate
central
people,
so
that
published items and results from the periphery will often not be noticed, and
may
well
lose
publication.
receive,
18
merit
out
There
to
is
central
also
for merit,
competitors
the
more
fact
that
publication
even
if
people
they
at
the
achieve
centre
and communication
central
tend
to
opportunities
Reflecting other features of the culture and enterprise of the centre
which are not so deeply embedded in Australasia: see further R. Routley,
’Culture,
philosophy,
and
approaches to
the natural
environment - an
Australian perspective’,
in The
Environment,
Ethics and
Ecology
(Ed.
D. Bennett), The Faculties, Australian National University, 1984, and also
’Culture and the roots of political divergence: the Australian/American
contrast’, typescript, Canberra, 1983;
both referred to subsequently as
’Culture’ .
�16
than people towards the periphery.
the
size
and
Here economic factors do begin to enter;,
distribution of the academic market
e.g., a great
(there are,
many more academic phzilosophe s in North America than in the whole rest of the
world), control of
outlets and journalj^ (with few exceptions all
Northern)^etc.
economic
power
does
and
not,
not,
need
determine culture - we can shut off the Northern philosophical propaganda in
much the way we shut off our television sets if we really want to.
stop being
impressed by
And we can
those philosophical middle-men who make a living by
importing the Northern stuff.
So what do we do? We adapt to the cultural-philosophical level,
several
h
of those things, that have been suggested in the regionalism.
We aim at some
A
regional
importers
awakening
and
doctrines and
and
local
imitators
positions
of,
from
self-reliance.
and
local
the North.
We
do
commentators
For
on
example ,
we
slavish
remain
not
and
peddlars
don’t
spend
of,
our
academic lives trying to tease out what Davidson or Dummett or Kripke meant by
this
or that
through.
To
in the hope that
be
sure,
I
am
some pale Northern light will perhaps
not
suggesting
that
emulate
the
filter
appalling
�17
But,
des xLte
having
been
given
sufficient
cause,
we
shouldn’t
cut
ourselves off 'from Northern paradigms and influences (we could hardly manage
A
anyway).
to
We
A
traditions:
use
what
we
need
these
from
continuing
o we should stay informed of, but not imitators of, or part of,
In
enterprises.
their
reasonably
can
just as
Northern traditions,
from cutting
from
loose
case,
any
regional
are
rooted
in
the people are largely European stock.
these
traditions and
(and likely minority) traditions,
these older
cultures
older
So far
starting afresh from nowhere,
and the
local variations
that
have already appeared are what we want to develop and perhaps mutate, as again
with wine styles.
of
Part
the
proposal
then
is
that
encourage and develop our own
things,
Antipodean paradigms,
Northern
paradigms.
rather
It
we
research programs,
very great
Nor,
the
locaY
and so shape nefer
is not as
if we have to build from nothing,
to do
to try to create cultural
For there are research programs already initiated, which have the
advantage of
fortunately,
future
our own
than working with pale northern reflections of
- what is very difficult - entirely original work,
components.
do
increasingly
is
being grounded
in features of the larger culture.
do we need to make the story up - though helping to shape
part of what the
Australia - New Zealand
proposal is
about.
Much of
is a different and more difficult
already indicated in Grave’s survey of Australian philosophy.
the story,
for
proposition -
is
All one really
has to do is to bring out programs he has already indicated and provide some
elaboration and commentary.
level,
I shall
To pull the investigation down to a more concrete
fooyxizci/li/esketch some more prominent programs - by no means the only
A
programs - and remark on some relevant features of them.
19 See Culture, op.cit.
�18
The longest running and best known program is, without much doubt,
of
Australian
naturalism,
and
which
aims
see
to
the
that
world,
natural
and
everything else, as suitably encompassed within the framework of the world of
science.
(physical)
The
as
generally
is
subprogram Sydney materialism,
a major
Adelaide which subsequently died out there.
such
famous
components
central
state
version
of
failures
in
to
Anderson’s
functionalism
and
nowadays
like
Faced
reduction
in
The latter program has included
takes
all
now
it
plans,
it
It
program initiated
a
identity theme
as the mental-material contingent
materialism,
its
back
traced
and is now best exhibited in Armstrong’s work.
empiricist metaphysics,
contains
program
and
more derivatively,
in,
with
physicalisms
incorporates
a
conspicuous
"scientifically"
a
trimmed theory of universals, and an account/of natural laws as relations of
universals, both components of the develop®®^ Sydney reali
naturalism program,
sm.
Parts of the
especially materialism and central state reductionism and
the unified science ideal, have had counterparts in the North, but the program
l^s, for the most part, retained its distinctively Austr^/ian character
/(“despite export efforts, it never caught on in New Zealand^7 The program fits
smoothly, moreover,
and
earthy,
so
into Australian culture.
far as
It is similarly down-to-earth,
philosophy can be, without
the fancy
ideas or effete
idealism of European philosophy or the spirituality and suppressed puritanism
with
which
pragmatism).
commitments,
much
of
And
and
North
yet
though
it
it
American
does
thinking
not
shrink
(including
simmers
from
is basically empiricist,
explicit
it
is not
nowadays,
metaphysical
positivistic
(rejecting a verification principle, in particular).
20
Anderson’s metaphysics was however far more opposed to reductions than
what has succeeded it. For an account of Anderson’s philosophy, and a history
and account
op.cit.
of Australian naturalism and materialism,
see especially Grave,
�19
It
is
a
city
program,
based
broadcast
from
mainly
the University
of
Sydney to other metropolitan universities; but the program does extend outside
the universities a bit (a tiny bit) to the larger metropolitan culture.
North America,
the broader
Russell,
so in Australasia, little professional philosophy impinges on
community,
Popper
and
21
naturalism
program
Perth, and
has outliers
from notable
used
even on
being
quite
would
be
or
Kuhn
Australasia
Apart
As in
to
an
the wider academic community,
exceptional.
achievement,
stretch
through
one
(To
turn
worth
to Adelaide;
in
around
this
working
work by
for.)
The
it now reaches
to
in Canberra, as well as a core of opposition there.
exceptions,
the program has never had the
more than a rather precarious hold,
same hold,
or
nor, more surprisingly,
in Melbourne:
has it had heavyweight criticism from there (or indeed much external criticism
from elsewhere),
out.
the old confrontation of major city philosophies having died
Melbourne philosophy
is more historically oriented
stricken than Sydney; Melbourne
dominated
Continental
philosophy;
by
a
procession
philosophy;
then,
a
of
more
remarkable
and more
religion
philosophy, much more than Sydney, has
Northern
recently,
turnabout,
fashions:
earlier
Wittgenstein,
Quine,
idealism
ordinary
Davidson
and
been
and
language
extensional
reduction; now perhaps Lewis, Kripke and Dummett?
21
In Canada, for example, while most academics from other disciplines would
know of, and perhaps a little about, Russell, far fewer would know of
Wittgenstein (though he is becoming known to lit. crit. groups), and virtually
none would know of Quine.
(The sampling is subjective.)
On the fairly recent ’triumph of professionalism’ in philosophy in USA, see
Kuklick, op.cit., p.565ff.
Kuklick brings out well some of the more
disastrous features of professionalism, but does not sufficiently notice that
the virtuous
features
resulting
from
some
professionalisation can be
synthesized with broader philosophical activity.
22
The exceptions Include Ellis’s distinctive program, which can be accounted
part of the broader naturalist program, and at Monash the work of F. Jackson
and, earlier, of H. Munro in value theory.
�20
one
The
reaches
that
program
beyond
the
of
confines
the
cities
in
Australia - which is after all a metropolitan dominated culture, the vast land
always
the other
being
Australian environmentalism,
is
-
a rather
diffuse
program, which has connections with the Colleges of Advanced Education in the
country towns and the communes on the North Coast.
So far the program is as
much distinguished
is.
environmental
Europe
by what
positions
specifically
feature of
are a
having
not as
is
it
it
what
the New World,
most of
transformed
Serious
deeper
and
the Old World,
its natural
environment
and
and
having little wild untouched country left, and little sensitivity accordingly
to
such as
issues
Europe
that
tend
admit
those of
to concern
shallow
outside
environmentalism
the
built
approaches
superficiality
European
The main
wilderness.
continues
North
issues
human-transformed environment,
and
(and
environmental
encourage
techno-fix
dominate
to
America.
North
issues
situations).
of
much
the
New
in
And
World
environmentalism
American
differs significantly however from Antipodean environmentalism, most obviously
in
the
religious-spiritual
of
component
the
former,
but
in
several
other
respects as well (see further Culture).
positively,
More
environmentalism:-
Firstly,
there
there
three
are
an
is
strands
to
extended utilitarianism,
Australian/
differing
little in theory from Bentham’s enlarged position, which insists upon counting)
the utilities
British base,
movements:
of all
sentient creatures.
This
position,
developed
from a
has figured prominently in animal welfare and animal liberation
and
though it has
focussed
on domestic animals,
animals used
in
research and hunted (wild) animals, it has also become entangled in issues of
bio-research more generally such as genetic engineering.
concerned with,
or much interested in, endangered species,
It is not however
the disappearance
of wild lands, the conversion of forests, etc., except insofar as these have a
bearing on animal pain and pleasure.
Wider and deeper environmental concerns
�21
appear only as a
spinoff from animal welfare,
inadequate deal.
Secondly, there is a wider and a deeper ecological position,
and so deeper concerns get an
which is not utilitarian and which recognises irreducible value elsewhere than
sentience or
forests and
differs
natural systems.
ecosystems, especially wild and
from
spiritualism
American
Thirdly,
naturalism.
there
intrinsic value
which finds
psychological states,
and
of
is
from
an
course,
extension
almost
as
in trees
and
This
position
of
American
everywhere,
a
reactionary component, critical of the other strands, which insists that all
that
be
to
needs
on
accomplished
the
environmental
can be
front
achieved
within older established (European) ethical and political frameworks.
Whereas materialism is
based in Sydney, environmentalism is centred
in
Melbourne and Canberra, but also includes Brisbane and Perth. Also centred in
Canberra, and reaching across the country, with good connections in Melbourne,
but
few
in
Sydney,
materialism and
further
environmental
input
from
relevant/paraconsistent
affecting
program
program
other
hich
the
is
major
perhaps
relevant/paraconsistent
programs have
and
epistemology
program
areas
of
includes
and which extends
is
their core
value
philosophy,
centres
a
the
with
respectively,
the
logic
especially
in
Whereas
in metaphysics,
theory
essentially
more
program.
program,
but
metaphysics
Australia
than
any
one
The
other
to New Zealand, has also been described elsewhere.
23
It
has
been described more
fully elsewhere:
see,
in particular,
Environmental Philosophy (ed.
D. Mannison and others), RSSS, Australian
National University, 1980.
o/
Again, like all the Australian programs, both those mentioned and others,
in Grave, op.cit. But see further/ R. Routley,
’Research in Logic in
Australia, New Zealand and Oceania’, Research Papers in Logic #14, Australian
National University, 1983 (which alto considers other programs in logic);
G. Priest and R. Routley, op. cit.^and R. Routley, R.K. Meyer and others,
Relevant Logics and Their Rivals, Ridgeview, California, 1982.
�22
The main research
grounded
logic
program
program.
of the
in New Zealand philosophy is also
A program emanating
located mainly in Wellington,
The impact
evident
from the work of Prior and
a
now
it might be called the extended modal program.
program on philosophy is perhaps best seen in Cresswell's
work.2
Australian philosophy used to be known,
for its
is in some quarters,
regrettably New Zealand philosophy is mostly
hard-headed empiricism;
not known
and still
for anything much, except
perhaps, in UK,
that Prior brought
unusual adaption of Russellian philosophy from that remote place.
his
Neither of
these impressions is particularly accurate; both are rather out-of-date.
But
the alm of work of the present type is, of course, not just to correct these
impressions,
not just
to reflect
or report on culture - for what one would
like to reflect upon is not sufficiently there - but also to help manufacture
elements of a culture, to make an image.
To
resist
the
already flourishing
North,
we
should
increase
our
efforts
to
further
the
programs, and perhaps other sunrige projects;26 to build*
7
,^fjee especially M.J. Cresswell,
_&ics and ^.anguages, Methuen, London,
1973; but see also work by Goldblatt, rra by Hugtrfs--referred to in Research in
Logic, op.cit. Also described i
h ifi anvoriginal version of the modal
program (transparent intensional logic) elaborated by Tichy at Otago.
7A
°Among sunrise projects in Australian philosophy so far suggested (not all
of them feasible) are these:
Australian feminism, Antipodean social and
political
alternatives,
peace
studies,
indigenous regional
philosophies
(especially Aboriginal, Melanesian, and Polynesian). Another promising field,
with practical consequences, for local initiative is the philosophy of
education, where material produced yby R.S. Peters has dominated the market,
with stultifying effects it is now Alleged.
y
As foreshadowed with the notion, "sunrise projects", much of the rhetoric,
and argument, concerning science and technology policy (presented in the case
of Australia in Jones, op.cit.) can be taken over to apply to X policy, where
X is some subject discipline, such as philosophy.
A
�23
teaching and research around the programs selected for promotion, elaboration,
and criticism, to orient appointments, especially of involved local people, to
Why not simply buy our philosophy, like almost
Why bother?
these programs.
all our technology, off the shelf, from the North? There are several arguments
for not doing this, in more than a limited fashion, which are now sketched/. °
is,
There
firstly,
the
inferiority and
built-in obsolence of Northern
A
products,
despite
their attractive
packaging.
Without
putting
too
fine
a
point on it, many of the imported intellectual goods are shoddy, and only work
for
a
very
limited
range
of
applications
vicinity of contradictions or dilemmas).
philosophy undoubtedly derives
from
(e.g.
they’re
hopeless
in
the
Much that is wrong with Antipodean
shoddy intellectual goods
imported
from
27
In fact something like the last has been the polictf of the LSE Philosophy
Department, where the only outside appointment over a Aong period was that of
Lakatos (hardly a person far removed ideologically)/.
As observed, it now
looks like the practice of the Otago Department also; and apparently it used
to be a tendency at Melbourne. But in most places the practice is condemned as
nepotistic or parochial, and overridden by the call for "new (Northern)
blood'.
However there can be significant differences between nepotistic
appointments and those strengthening local programs.
It is at this
for example, to
rather than Northern stc/oges,
rather than imported fashions,
administrative details
draconian,
do matter;
employment
n-going local programs
ious ways appropriate
Observe^ that no
Canadian style) or the like is being advocated.
conclusion of that sort from what has been argued has misunderstood the
in crucial
respects.
As a t matter of
simple mathematics,
appointment fields characteristically reduces both quality of
available (however quality i
assessed)
range of possibilities open
future research;
d no s h restrictioi/s are advocated.
The author
witnessed the se
times disastrous eff
s of field restrictions at
Australian National University.
—
Some of
centre also.
2g
___
these arguments
support
change
(perhaps
revolutionary)
at
the
�24
the
North.
Yet
buying
this material
is
by hard-sell
encouraged
ambassadors from the North, who are often enough paid to visit.
of the
philosophical imperialism from the North that
colonialism -
the Antipodes
too willing
cultural
This is part
the successor to Northern
suffers,
or,
remarkable,
more
encourages!
Secondly, there is the inappropriateness of much of the Northern product,
especially
considered
as
metaphysics, environmental
a
for
package,
concerns.
instance,
to
cover,
as
well
as
The European North has no satisfactory
land or environmental ethic fit for Antipodean circumstances, and the deeper
American package is too spiritually-loaded for mainstream Australian culture.
29
In
political
competition-based,
unsuited being
theory,
American
work
is
too
much
individualistic
the European product, especially the Marxist form,
and
both too
precious and
too high-tech for local
and
is
circumstances,
especially again for more environmentally-perceptive people.
Thirdly,
features
of
telling
also
Import
against
substitution
and
comparative
advantage,
regionalism;
namely,
world’s markets and pressures and fashions,
are
appealing
avoidance of
the
removal of overseas control
anra
power structures (including the Old Boy’s network in jobs, policies, etc.) and
gaining of local control, employment of local people, etc.
Fourthly,
philosophy
as
there
part
are
of
arguments
intellectual
for
cultural
culture:
diversity,
arguments
from
applied
to
richness,
.
.
/
The point is elaborated in Culture.
At a more practical level Northern
products are again often unsuitable, though for different reasons.
For
example, the transfer of American agricultural methods and equipment to /the
thin poor soils of the Antipodes has had disastrous effects, at ttfast
beginning to be recognised.
v—*
29
�25
complexity, sheer diversity,
stability,
etc.
30
In fact,
built into the whole notion of ’culture’ transfers.
dense, productive garden.
We obtain not only good products,
and European cultivars, but European pests
and
Naturally we want a rich,
But not only seeds and plants but weeds and many
pests are being introduced.
selectiveness
the garden analogy
control
are
essential,
and American weeds.
as
against
Indian maize
This is why
previous
haphazard
/
/
procedures.
The proposal is not for, nor would the case sustain
as
with
technology
policy,
satisfactorily filled,
local
we
select
niches
which
a narrow localism
are
where we can make a difference, and
skills and methods.
Indeed the
policy has
to be
not
occupied
or
use and develop
selective given our
30 See,
for instance, A.A. Mazrui, A World Federation of Cultures: An African
Perspective, Free Press, New York, 1976.
31 Does
it sound familiar? Outside philosophy, it should. For example, we
have now been told by the Americans that our defence role, unlike theirs, is
regional, not global: this is supposed to shed great light on our previously
confused defence policies.
�26
That includes such things as
Oxford style of teaching and doing philosophy.
removal of the undue emphasis on British empiricism centred on Locke-BerkeleyHume (a standard British focus); of the quasi-historical approach with however
no
proper
attention
to
quo.
American status
sources;
reinforcement/of
The heavy Oxford influence^
very conservative
been a
of
emanating from England,
the prevailing
in particular, has mostly
More generally; many of
one.
Anglo-
the main movements
especially ordinary language philosophy, but also the
Moore-Wittgenstein practice, have been very protective of the Northern status
quo; they tend to leave things very much as they are, and recommend just this.
32
Positively,
the
proposal is
that we achieve further disassociation from
the Anglo-American empiricist past in two ways:
by emphasizing local projects
that move outside that constricting framework, and by diversifying the range
philosophical
of
traditions
selectively
drawn
upon,
include
to
not
only
neglected Continental strands and parts of Eastern thought, but also Pacific
ethnic
material
and
Australasian
philosophy.
The
idea
is
that
such
a
plurality of sources, especially in teaching, will assist in removing narrower
cultural biasses, such as British parochialism, and enable more discrimination
to
be
obtained.
theories
that
Then too
are open
we
to us
should
in
be better
the Antipodes
able
and
to
how
see
the
ranges of
to advance our own
programs.
32
The point is laboured in E. Gellner, Words and Things, Victor Gollancz,
London, 1959.
But even ordinary language philosophy, though conservative, and
though it much contracted the proper range of philosophical investigations,
had its liberating elements, e.g. removal of some of the narrowness and more
cramping assumptions induced by technical jargon.
Nor has the social impact changed much with the subsequent decline, since
1959, of ordinary language philosophy, the increasing insolvency of Oxbridge
philosophy, and its consequent limited take-over by righ^:-wing Ivy League
American philosophy. By contrast, the less economically ^g/ljiential growth of
radical and applied philosophy in some of the British r-aH icad, and polytechnic
institutes has touched no more than the surface of Oxbridge practice.
��27
There remain some things we should want to see whatever mixes are chosen
One crucial issue is the removal of Northern
in different Ai^ipodean regions.
bias from pap/rs and publications, research seminars and lectures, letters of
referencez\o/ so on.
the
works
and
irrespective
discussion
This Northern bias is a disposition to cite and discuss
of
projects
of
and
quality
the
of
the
ignore
to
authors,
Northern
their
works
the
more
contributyon
of
famous
to
the
local/ authors,
irrespective of the quality of their contribution.
better,
the
topic
again
under
largely
It is the disposition to
write or lecture as though work produced locally either does not exist or has
not
been
influential
philosophers,
are,
ensuring
(thus
if
anything,
that
more
it
inclined
is
to
not).
Northern
And
Australasian
bias
than
many
overseas intellectuals, who are perhaps less concerned to be seen as belonging
to the Northern
The reduction, and eventual removal, of Northern
tream.
bias effects
of fe/ec/'/
Inly -the
policies
and
practice
/
*
W
cours
*
2S
philosophers,
individual
eferees of local journals.
but
the
It involves, among other
work\nd innovations better, so they can
tg to
point
of
i/Quc.
that would be assisted by greater local
out
A
taught,
more
time
spent at
local
institutions on
study
oq/
leave, and so for-th.
xS? c* /I
x
APPENDIX 1. Background notes on the philosophy supply situation.
Sociological
investigation of the philosophy labour market in Australia and New Zealand has
o
yet
to be attempted.
But a
picture of
some elements underlying the
numerical argument of the text can be gained from the following table:
simple
�28
TABLE 1. Ph.Ds in Philosophy: a USA - Australasian comparison
USA
Number (Male/Female)
New Zealand
Australia
1974
413 (346/67)
6
0
1975
375 (318/57)
5
0
1976
382 (319/63)
8
0
1977
330 (264/66)
3
2 (1/1)
1978
283 (235^/48)
5
5 (4/1)
1979
285 (20-754)
9
3 (2/1)
4
N.A.
4
0
1980
N.A.
1981
1. The breakdown of the USA and New Zealand numbers by sexes (male/female) is
given.- ,
Similar figures do not appear to be available for Australia,
2.
The US figures are for the academic year ending in the Year shown, e.g.
1978 covers the Northern academic yeai 1977-78. Southern figures are for the
calendar year shown
Digest of Education Statistfcs, US National Center for Education
Statistics;
University STA1 STICS,
Australian Bureau of
Census
Statistics; New Zealand Education Statistics.
Sources:
-41/
Comments:
1.
The contraction of US doctoral
female
0^.
r
representation,
production and
are
cooarHn-itant
Australian
likely too small to reflect
2.
the
rise
figures
in
are
to the academic market.
Some of the Australasian raaembers include Americans; likewise the American
figures provide no nationality breakdown.
3 %
There
is
no
information
available
on
the
number’
proceeding to higher degrees in philosophy outside Australia.
of
Australians
�29
For example, it is
In applying table 1 some simplifying assumptions are made.
assumed
to regular university positions now
for appointment
that candidates
would have a doctorate or the equivalent (until recently a B.Phil was taken as
a
near
of
equivalent
well).
It
is
a
assumed,
Ph.D.;
North American
seems
what
to
take
publications
the
case,
serve
as
the number
of
could
that
Australasians proceeding to higher degrees in philosophy abroad is relatively
small, and no more than the order of Ph.Ds. taken locally.
It can be assumed,
without upsetting applications of table 1, that Australasian graduates match,
say, the upper half of American graduates in standard attained.
There is no compiled information /n academic vacancies in philosophy in
/
of
Australia or New Zealand -Mln the numbers, on how the positions are filled, by
A
what nationalities,
sexes,
etc.
It would however be a
routine,
if
tedious
matter to assemble some of this data, which is of considerable relevlance to
the planning of philosophy programs.
On the earlier idea of a National Philosophy for Australia.
APPENDIX 2.
’the
considering
Editor of
the
possibility
initial
of
National
a
AJPP distinguished
two
German distinction between Weltanschauung and
Philosophy*,
senses
the
In
(Australian)
corresponding
Lebensanchauung’
to
’the
(p.292).
In
the first, that of ’a scheme of the universe’, ’an Australian Philosophy is as
ridiculous
as
confirmation
prejudices’.
a Christian
or
Holland,
personal’
falsification,
’are
The argument
independent
is
of
that
truth,
national
and
sympathies
its
or
Granted: but that does not mean that a theory may not be held,
fostered, etc.,
in
Science’.
or
way,
in one region but not others, as intuitionism was for long in
Cartesianism
’a
nation
in
France.
like
an
In
a
individual
second
may
’more
develop
intimate
a
and
certain
temperamental attitude to the problems of existence, which we may ... call its
philosophy of life.
A nation’s philosophy, like its art and its literature,
�30
is a mode of expression for the national consciousness.
form of
(pp.292-3).
the national genius
evolving
culture.
national
in
But,
the
It is,
first
place,
It is a specialised
in short, part of the
this
is by no means
entirely separate from the initial sense, a philosophy comprising not merely a
fairly comprehensive theory but also an integrated set of attitudes (like an
operational paradigm).
Furthermore, only by concession are such items as ’the
national consciousness’
and ’the Australian landscape’
of
meriting
definite
Australian
descriptors.
literature, has many strands
to it,
accounted single units
like
philosophy,
Australian
some not particularly distinctive (in any
sense): such things form rather loose families.
The Editor
does not
find,
does
not
really
hope
to
in
find
’a modern
industrialised community’ - with its modular parts interchangeable with those
of
others - a
claims
courage
to
find
and
national
a
philosophy of
trite moral
fair dealing'),
base
life,
to build
In fact
with a difference.
on
(’traditions
but nothing at all distinctive.
he
... of humour,
So far,
there can be a national philosophy, at least of life, but is not;
then,
this does
not however exclude there being various regional philosophies (such as local
research programs).
plunged
that
into
So
then,
far,
Inconsistency:
the
all is well.
trouble derives
But shortly the Editor is
from the
extravagant
claim
’if Australia has nothing to do with these - the eternal values of the
Spirit, the Ideals of Truth, Goodness and Beauty - then and only then has she
nothing to do with Philosophy'
(p.295; with rearrangement).
But, as Australia
has nothing per se to do with these - as is virtually conceded, these values
involving a 'wider sweep'
do with Philosophy,
Though
the
than any national boundaries - "she" has nothing to
contradicting the
contradiction
is
easily
possibility of a National Philosophy.
avoided
by
rescinding
claim, the ideal of a National Philosophy should be allowed
nationalism has had its time.
the
extravagant
to rest in peace:
�31
R. Routley
33
Research School of Social Sciences
Australian National University
3^with
thanks
to R. Elliot,
W. Godfrey-Smith,
S. Grave
and
L. ? irlin, to
several members of the audience at the presentation of the paper a: the 1983
to
Australasian Association of Philosophy Conference, University of\Adelaide,
’
several referees for this Journal, and, not least, to the present ijai tor.
�
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PROSPECTS FOR REGIONAL PHILOSOPHIES IN AUSTRALASIA
Philosophy, especially academic philosophy but also folk philosophy, like
other intellectual and higher cultural activity In Australasia, has long been
indeed
dominated,
Europe,
the
largely
swamped,
by
Northern
now increasingly from North America.
cultural
and
other
resulting controlling
such
populations,
But it does not have to stay that way.
a
initially
the migration
Given
the
ethnic
result
was
imported,
baggage
influences,
patterns,
of
composition
virtually
from
the
inevitable.
Suitable policies, a good philosophy
policy, could change things.
The
culture,
thought
is
of
regional
a
philosophy,
In 1923, a New Zealand
hardly a new one.
regional
a
matching
perhaps
correspondent to the
newly-launched Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy mentioned the
possibility of ’a new kind or temper of philosophy under these southern skies’
which the Journal might
such a
reaching
role
not
community).
(or,
for
merely
And
foster.The Journal
that
matter,
professional
although
some
actively
has
pursued
philosophers
things
however hardly fulfilled
but
have changed
solid foundation for a new regionalism in philosophy,
its
a
pronounced
wider
Australasian
in Australia,
that
of
alm
laying a
possibility of
a
new temper of philosophy has hardly been realised. There is little in the way
of a new kind and
which
the
southern skies were intended to include: but few distinguishing features,
’no
distinctively
New
temper of
Zealand
XAJPP, March 1923, p.74.
same volume, p.292ff; his
Appendix 1.
philosophy
under New Zealand
characteristics,
have
shown
up
skies,
in
New
Zealand
The question was taken up by the Editor in the
discussion is considered below, especially in
philosophy’.
2
The situation of colonial dominance that used to prevail in
and philosophers.
Australia,
importer of philosophy,
New Zealand remains a substantial net
where
virtually
all
chairs,
and
many
philosophy, were filled by academics from the North,
other
academic
and
considered
and
Given the usual
in courses designed,
power and influence of professors in small departments,
covered
in
tends to persist in New
Zealand, where no established chairs are occupied by locals/
topics
posts
especially appointments
made,
the
heavy
Northern orientation of philosophy taught and researched in New Zealand is not
surprising.
oldest
of
The Northern control is perhaps most strikingly exhibited at the
New
Zealand
universities,
the
University
of
Otago,
where
the
Philosophy Department has been substantially captured by a British School and
increasingly
looks
event,
like
an offshoot
of
the University of London/
In any
the overwhelming Anglo-American dominance of New Zealand philosophy -
also a feature only in slightly lesser degree of Australian philosophy - can
be confirmed by a content survey of the courses offered
and research
papers
written at New Zealand universities.
Even when local people have been appointed to positions in Australasia,
2 ,
S.A. Grave, A_ History of Philosophy in Australia, Queensland University
Press, 1984, p.l.
Page references are to the manuscript. The paper draws
heavily on this history.
3
This claim was correct at the time of presentation of the paper (August
198':!).
With the recent loss of a chair at Wellington, the claim requires
qualification, but the pattern of domination persists.
In the 1983 Commonwealth University Handbook listing, 6 of the 8 members of
the Department held their main degree, Ph.D., from London, and one of the
remainder from Exeter.
Only one member of the Department, soon to retire,
falls outside the nexus.
3
they have been brought up on a solid diet of Anglo-American material, and they
have often been reforged or finished in the North as well.
of
requirements
post-World
War
philosophy
by
remain
full
the
II
in
were
conveniently
seen
Oxford
B.Phil.
of
products
finished
candidates
universities
expansion
the
of
Australasian
this
Many
degree.
mill:
cultural
in Oxford were hard
to beat
In particular, the
the
in
to
departments
the
of
case
of
philosophy
the mid
70s
when they applied
for
until
indeed
out
of
period
major
positions, such was the (unwarranted) prestige of Oxford and the regrettable,
but still continuing, "cultural cringe".
despite
Nonetheless,
been occurring
scene
in
dominance,
Northern
the Antipodes,
be
will
(as
the
indicated).
especially on
is
It
worth
significant
the Australian
asking
changes
have
philosophical
whether
Australian
philosophy is moving towards the sort of change that occurred in USA more than
100 year; ago when the Harvard Philosophy Department was brought (or bought)
together, and its
go'den age'
began. ’
American philosophy was never quite
the same again, and became its own thing.
There are now new forces operating
which could help to move Australian philosophy in such a direction.
the
widespread
regionalism,
other
6
^See B.
which
applies
choices;
local
fashioning
emergence,
of
national
and
particularly
to
in
science
cultural
stark
and
in
and
culture,
alternative
ideological
contrast,
technology
there
There is
of
a
choice along
is
policies,
the
new
with
centralised
which
not
only
Kuklick, The Rise of American Philosophy; Cambridge, Massachusetts
1860-1930, Yale University Press, 1977, Parts 2 and 3.
6
On this bio-regionalism, see especially, Fourth World News, vol. 1,
and K. Sale, Human Scale, Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, New York, 1980.
1983,
provides
model
a
for
reflection
regional
in
directly bears on parts of the philosophy of science.
soon appear,
there are
also some
also
Unfortunately, as will
to regional
serious obstacles
but
policy
philosophy
philosophies
and to the very idea of a regional philosophy.
USA, long an importer of culture from Europe, has recently become a net
culture,
of
exporter
components
of higher
philosophical
not
from
lower
of
Oxford
following
has
suit,
but
culture,
evidently
taken).
should
Are
not
balance of payments, especially in philosophy?
Yes,
reasons
there
achieve
also
of
the American turn
philosophy (witness
such as
culture
output
if
Australasia,
certainly
a
better
there are
why
cultural
reasons.
In
the first place, the change in the cultural position of the USA went with, and
relations.
If
little prospect
for
perhaps in part derived from, vast changes in economic power
economic
of
most
dominance
entails
Australasia’s
cultural dominance,
since
culture,
there
there is
is
no
serious
that
prospect
Australasia will ever emulate or attain American economic eminence (at least
nuclear destruction of
not without
flow of commodities,
not
only
increasingly
of
Americans,
of
former group,
Northern cultural
they.
As
priorities,
contain
they
long
component
also
whose
and disruption of
the entire
Secondly, as observed, Antipodean
large
a
fellow-travellers,
include
research
Northern
academics,
substantial
additional
of
a
teaching
and
is
bent
to
It is unlikely that this Influential segment, especially
Northern concerns.
the
North,
cultural and other).
universities
contingent
the
will
(become
commitments,
as
so
apart
Antipodeans
they are in a bind
locally acclimatised as
do
from the
not
situation;
isolated
drastically
to)
person.
alter
give up
Nor
their
its
should
cultural
for it can be persuasively argued
that they would be better off, as far as quality and
product goes,
stocking
/
/
A
5
o’
(
universities
their
with
American
teaching
components
and
researching
American-oriented concerns.
One
simple
numerical
argument
that
Antipodean
universities
would
be
better off with Americans in the main, takes the following lines:- The (higher
graduates
degree)
of
Australasian
and
American
are
significantly
not
culturally distinguished, at least in subjects such as philosophy.
now the
quality academics
number of
Austroamerican graduates;
produced
per
of
number
higher
say there is 1 per every n graduates.
preponderance of graduates will be Americans,
Consider
degree
The (great)
just by virtue of their vastly
greater population and their more extensive system of university education.
So also then, just by ratio considerations, the great preponderance of quality
academics
from an
drawn
upper percentiles
they
interested
universities.
Austroamerican base
among those
in
Such
quality,
an
Clearly,
quality products.
would
argument
be
does
be American,
will
appointing
not
work
to
more
show
as will
Antipodeans,
Americans
that,
for
the
were
their
to
similar
reasons, American universities should be full of Chinese or Indian professors,
for
two
Asians
reasons;
and
first
Americans,
there
are
especially
significant
in
cultural
disciplines
such
differences
as
between
philosophy;
and
secondly, their university systems do not deliver such great quotas of higher
degree or high quality graduates, at least in philosophy.
The ratio of U.S.
philosophy graduautes with doctorates as compared with
Australian exceeded 30 to 1 in each of the years 1974 to 1980.
In 1977 it was
110 to 1.
New Zealand compares even less favourably with U.S. output.
For
details see Digest of Education Statistics (U.S. National Center for Education
Statistics, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, 1976, 1977-78, 1979,
1980, 1981 and 1982); University Statistics, (Australian Bureau of Statistics,
Canberra, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, ‘1979, 1980); Education Statistics of
New Zealand, (N.Z. Department of Education, Wellington, 1974, '1975, 1976,
1977, 1978, 1979, 1980).
The conclusion of the numerical argument will not be a popular one.
The
anti Amei icanism felt in portions of the Australasian community extends
into
the
universities;
and
recently
there
been
has
increasing
Insistence,
especially by the now aging younger Turks that university positions should be
This at the same time as these Turks often preach of an
reserved for locals.
international community of scholars, presumably then with "free” interchange,
etc.
They cannot have it all ways.^
So
long
continues,
as
the
economically;
the
present
centre
will
free-flow
dominate
they will have more
large to them if it
interchange
the
than us,
periphery
and
is (centrally-determined)
of
ideas
and
culturally
jobs here
personnel
as
should
well
as
go by and
quality in this high cultural
business that we seek, as mostly claim.
Now
anyway,
it
that
arguments.
is
widely
there
is
enough
recognised,
something
For we are not
lower-down
drastically
wrong
hierarchical
with
these
ladders
sorts
of
flooded with high-quality Northerners who would
8
A reverse flow of the better orthodox academics from Australasia to America
should also be expected (outside times of university contraction).
According
to assumptions of this brain drain argument, which is based on labour market
considerations, appointment
and lifestyle
conditions
for academics
are
generally better in USA than Australia and much better than those in
economically-depressed New Zealand (e.g. higher salaries, better standard of
living, superior research conditions, etc.).
So, other things being equal,
able academics from the Antipodes will relocate in USA as academic positions
become available. The argument also helps explain why Antipodean universities
cannot expect, for the most part, to attract really top-drawer Northerners for
very long.
Of course, economically irrelevant factors do induce interference; e.g.
perverse commitments to odd-ball Antipodean intellectual enterprises which
reduce market acceptability, or pre-industrial ties to place or persons or
lifestyle which unduly restrict mobility (such as local roots,
family
attachments, even distaste for American urban lifestyles).
regularly drive out local contenders for positions,
if we only preferred the
Northerners when they were quite visibly superior: rather we are inundated by
Americans with inflated references, who have the messages of the centre better
do,
locals
than
higher-echelon
remote
and
Northern
Northern
(often
biassed)
fields
appointment
locals whose shortcomings are known better.
the Northern centres
too,
tend
greener
look
to
committees
dusty
than
As is beginning to be recognised
retain their higher-quality products,
tend to
to
and
allow them to be exiled to the periphery only if they somehow fall foul of the
system (e.g. of the academic system for political or personal reasons).
the
often
Northern
centres
have
intellectually
their
disposed of
Too
inferior
products in the periphery.
All this makes the position look doubly bad. We ought,
appointing Northerners,
especially Americans,
even
seems,
to
be
if they are overrated
in
it
their references, and usually not out of the top drawer, in order to maximize
quality.
And yet
doing so does not achieve the desired quality result, and
breeds discontent elsewhere, especially among the aging Turks.
Fortunately
shaky arguments;
and
obtain
we
from
this
awkward
and that is the way of regionalism.
sufficient
subtitutable for us.
before
is a way out
there
elaborate
cultural
distance,so
that
situation
these
and
We do our own things;
they
are
not
simply
Then the shaky numerical argument does fall down.
the
emerging
proposal
there
are
other
But
influential
.
.
This is easier in the cultural than the technological sphere.
However it
is
also
possible technologically:
(stronger)
theses of
technological
determinism, and so of cultural determinism, are false.
We can choose
different options, technologically, as well as culturally.
9
8
arguments to dispose of, and the disposal bears on the proposal.
There is,
to begin with,
far been conceded:
have so
elements of which
the argument for excellence,
that
there is an objective commodity, quality or
excellence, which we all more or less
which is
agree about,
proportionately
in the North, and which is what academic institutions crave and
more abundant
seek and what appointments aim to capture,
indeed maximize.
That at least
is
the type of myth most of us have encountered; and many of us now know it is a
in
myth,
fact
appointments
profit,
a
that
dangerous
myth.
way,
more
any
Most
that
don’t
places
organisations
aim
but rather seek to satisfice on a mix of factors,
quality is
to
try
even
just
to
make
maximize
of which assessed
only one, and not often the highest ranking one.
Ability to fit
into some sort of program, teaching or research, is another, and commonly more
Important factor;
and there
is no good reason why such a program should not
sometimes be a regionally oriented one.
So given
the
prevailing practices,
argument from excellence does not exclude regional philosophy programs.
And,
in any event, there are enough local candidates of sufficient worth to proceed
with
regional
programs
without
sacrifice
clearcut
of
excellence.
Local
enterprise need entail no loss of excellence, and could well increase it.
The deeper-cutting objection is that there is something seriously amiss
with
the
idea
of
objective
objective
importance;
criticism
as
bracketed
out
notions
the
that
of
excellence,
these
objective
and
notions
values
with
are
open
more
contextual-relativisation
the
to
connected
the
generally,
component
of
same
that
notion
of
sorts
of
they
valuing:
have
the
’S-
9
framework or viewpoint
within
rather
a
to which these values relate.^
narrow
such
paradigm,
intellectual
While those operating
as
Oxbridge
ordinary
language philosophy or Sydney materialism say, can bracket out the viewpoint,.
since
it
Incorporated
is
operational
the
in
paradigm,
and
so
at
arrive
seemingly objective quality judgements, the judgements are not preserved (e.g.
in
truth
va1ue)
when
Marxist
viewpoints.
quality
or
worth
Consider,
of
a
other
to
transposed
for
forest,
frameworks,
the
comparison,
made
variously
by
of
a
holistically-inclined
judgements
a
deep
environmental
who
seemingly because
pretend
that
environmental
such
it is not done
by members
of
as
or
to
rhe
an
ecologist,
philosopher,
language, Marxist, and Californian environmental philosophers.
philosophers
idealistic
Compare judgements as to the
industrial forester, and a recreational officer.
quality
e.g.
work
by
ordinary
There are even
cannot
be
judged,
the main philosophical
peer
group at Harvard and like institutions.
As this
judgements
of
begins to
the.
reveal,
importance
judgements
of
work
of quality are not Independent of
done
or
problems
tackled.
importance of problems and issues is highly paradigm dependent.
But
the
For example,
problems such as those of quant if ying-in and of possible worlds and of de re
thought, which assume immense importance for fashionable referential theories
within the mainstream empiricist paradigm, vanish
outside
that
restricted viewpoint.
Now observe
to relative
that most
insignificance
judgements as
to
What follows also begins to bring out what is omitted in a main theme of
R.S. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance, Bodley Head, London,
1974.
Note that defusing the notion of objective excellence does not lead to
subjectivism.
To avoid the customary false dichotomy, compare the notion of
validity (usually ceded to themselves these days by classical logicians) with
that of quality.
10
what are the important problems and what constitutes important work - matters
helping
quality
determine
-
is
relative
to
their
concerned are
exported
to
the Antipodes
importance
down
shipped
are
paradigmatic
from
the
and
placement,
through
the
Their
North.11
paradigms
the
main channels
already
indicated.
We are free to reject these paradigms and select alternatives, and
there are,
it can be argued, good reasons to do just that, much as there are
to
reasons
good
choose
different
energy technology
(or different
military
technology) from that generally favoured in the North which the North is eager
to export southwards.
Similar
which
points
against
alternatively
might
argument,
apply
that
be
-marketed
mass-produced
and
cosmopolitan.
The argument
called
people
sophisticated
from
cosmopolitan/international
the
the
Peter
everywhere
Holland;
international
Stuyvesant
smoke
this
argument
superior
product
cigarette-sophistication
is
is based on the assumption that philosophy is a
’cosmopolitan subject’, that is is not the sort of enterprise for which place
and
people
are
significant
as
they
are
for
poetry
assumption has only to be presented to be questioned.
for one important thing,
that philosophy is a
or
the
novel.12
The
It takes for granted,
finished product
sort (a propositional theory), not a process of production also.
of a
certain
But in the
Often enough fashionability is mistaken for importance. As to the
unsatisfactory way in which such "important" problems are commonly set, see
F. Dyson, ’Unfashionable pursuits’, The Mathematical Intelligencer 5 (1983)
47-54.
12 Grave, op.cit., p.2:
-------
the term ’cosmopolitan subject' used there comes
from Donegan. As to the significance of place and people for literature, see
further C. Partridge, The Making of New Cultures, Editions Rodopi, Amsterdam,
1982.
11
process of production the place and people involved (e.g.
in discussion) are
ot
material.
if
And
the
product
Is
like
a
work
of
like
art,
a
d
literature,
not
and
1
just
theorems
and
arguments
assembled
piece
of
in
an
internationally-approved format, 13 then again the historical setting matters,
since
philosophy,
more
no
than
literature,
does
not
in
emerge
a
vacuum.
Plato s philosophy could not have emerged in ancient Australia, and if cribbed
in mid 20th century Oxford would surely have been marked down or rejected.
It
is important not to be sidetracked into issues ~ resembling problems
in aesthetics
extent sets
that
do not
need to
of themes and arguments
be contested,
such as whether and
what
produced in one place and setting could
have been produced in another. A nonnuclear technology of some sort could be
adopted
prospect
in
but
Europe
that
New
apparently will
Zealand,
nonnuclear energy strategy.
rasters
here.
Dialethic
in
not
contrast
be,
with
whereas
there
Australia,
is
will
reasonable
pursue
a
It is the doing, and not what could be done, that
logic,
which
invalidates
methodology of much Anglo-American philosophy, could
the
technique
perhaps be
done in
and
the
North (though there would be substantial cultural resistance): it is not being
13tLike a paper in the biological sciences.
But here again technique
methodology, which may both be regional, are crucially important.
x4Related points
can be made using
less extreme examples, e.g.
and
concerning
modern American work.
Consider, for Instance such texts as W.V. Quine’s Word
ajll—(Wiley, Now York, 1960) or R. Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia
(Basic Books, New York, 1974).
The assumptions taken for granted" the
arguments involved, etc., are especially American: it is not just the style.
The acceptability of arguments and positions is dependent on place and
received paradigm.
12
done there, and is not likely to be done in the Anglo-American sphere.15
this
extent,
logical
can
Antipodeans
techniques,
do
choose
their
their
own
international/cosmopolitan argument,
own
distinctive
distinctive
technology
thing.
stated in a form that would be
To
and
The
telling,
fails.
Of course
it can be argued,
it is being argued,
that Antipodeans don’t
need to be, or even oughtn’t to be pursuing their own energy or logic policies
and apparatus.
But meeting these considerations takes us to a whole new set
of issues concerning the merit of various policies and programs,
diversity, etc. - far beyond the cosmopolitan argument.
the point of
The new arguments, to
which we shall return, are not a lot more convincing however than comparable
arguments
concerning
cooking:
that
we don’t
devising our own cuisine or wine styles.
need
to
be or
oughtn’t
to
be
British, or at least cosmopolitan,
cooking is adequate: we should stick to that and buy it off the shelf from the
North,
ideally
importing the
cooks also.
Do we have good reasons
to
think
that British philosophy is better, these days, than British cooking?
Antipodeans are free,
in principle then,
to pursue their own paradigms;
and to do so they will by and large want to, and mostly have to, appoint their
own people, people they have educated - not saboteurs or people who have (had)
15
Much as communist anarchism, a live possibility for communes and perhaps
communities in Australia, is culturally excluded in North America, owing to
the extreme possessive individualism of that culture.
On dialethic logic, see G. Priest and R. Routley, On Paraconsistency,
Research Papers in Logic, #13, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian
National University, 1983.
13
to be re-educated, from elsewhere, in particular from the North.
Intellectual paradigms
features
of
the
local
pursued tie with cultural paradigms, with distinctive
culture?
In a
at
loose way,
least,
they may
tie in with the
philosophy will not usually
though works of
But will the
link,
culture in
the
integral fashion that novels (as distinct from more technical works) sometimes
do.
Indeed,
certain
to
a
cultural
limited
extent,
features,
not
they
restricted
to
hastens
to
though
add.
this
But
is
style,
compared
with
acceptability,
what
philosophical
particular
programs, that help mark philosophy in Australia as
’unimportant
Grave considers
do already link.
’an Australian product’ -
matters
truth,
philosophy’
in
do matter,
and are
he
not
Independent - or independent so far as their perception goes in the case
truth and correctness
of
- from underlying broad theory or received paradigm.
However the marks which can be extracted from Grave,
significant though
they are, do not serve to distinguish the Australian product,
the first
two
being features Australian philosophy exhibits in lesser degree than the more
adventurous and polemical philosophy of Greek antiquity.
by Passmore
as
’most
typical
of Australian
philosophy’,
The first, described
is
a
'diversity of
approach and readiness to put forward an unconventional or unfashionable point
’Nothing need be conceded to strong cultural relativity themes, though they
would support the case.
It is enough that our theories remain radically
incomplete and that there can accordingly be rival theories as to what is
true.
Similarly, however philosophy is conceived - as the search for truth,
explanation, understanding and wisdom (all of these and more, really), or as,
more vaguely, inquiry of a certain sort - there can be, and will be, competing
accounts; so a pluralistic theory is inevitable in giving a fuller view.
view’, 17
of
something
philosophy,
some
(with
which
typical
more
of
philosophy
ancient
notable
exceptions)
than
exhibits
an
Canada,
is that
Africa,
South
adventurous
compared with other recent
diverse.
and
provincial
and
The
second,
and
...
the
line-up
between
Australian
more
manifestoed character’ of Australian philosophy,
being
"Oxbridge colonies",
England,
far
from
Australian
philosophy
isolated:
others
mark
surprising,
materialism ,
departments
the
and
Melbourne
(both
confrontation concerning the
them concern
extraordinary
discussed
the
political
by
is
is
’the
’the most notable example ...
Wittgensteinian
among
such as
philosophy
Andersonian
This example
Sydney, if it was not the Andersonian philosophy Itself’ (p.2).
is
austere
What may be
uniformity reflecting that often attributed to the land Itself.
nearer true
Australian
fervour generated
engagement
Grave),
some
growing
the
and
relevant/paraconsistent program,
by
by
with the
local
(’adversarial’) style leading to sharp criticism by Americans. Connected with
these
first
philosophy,
century
two
as
Cambridge
marks
of much
are
further
characteristics
of
much
18th century Scottish philosophy and
philosophy:
namely
directness,
Australian
turn-of-this-
unwillingness
to
muffle
points, surface clarity, and, some would unkindly add (in the hope perhaps of
locating a genuine difference), bluntness, unsubtlety and crudity.
17
Both preceding quotations, while included as such in Grave’s Introduction,
are from J. Passmore, ’Philosophy’, in The Pattern of Australian Culture (ed.
A.L. McLeod), Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y., 1963, pp.131-168.
The
same annotation also applies to the third mark.
18
Ihough again for the most part that influenced by Sydney rather than that
originating in Melbourne.
To some extent this reflects the different
historical influences shaping Sydney and Melbourne philosophy: roughly,
Scottish as opposed to Continental antecedents.
15
third
The
and
the
fourth
but again
very different,
marks are
hardly
distinguishing features of Australian philosophy as Grave, who wouldn't
them marks at all, in effect observes.
Intellectual
is
areas,
the
The third, which applies well to other
of
contrast
Australian
the
reputation
the anti-intellectual national stereotype of Australians as a people
to
physical achievement
nark
ia
especially
isolation
of
a
academic
rather
than
feature
of
philosophy
indifference or even hostility to,
to
intellectual
Anglo-American
Australasia
in
subtlety'.
'devoted
fourth
The
philosophy;
from,
in
Inquiry', with
'center of philosophical
Indeed of Australia as a
philosophy,
call
namely
its
and
the
general
the sort of imported philosophy (e.g.
that
of Nietzsche and the existentialists) generating Interest in literary and arts
circles.
The failure of such marks to entirely separate out Australian philosophy
does
not
For
matter.
thing,
one
separated by its research projects.
confused
with
nationalism,
nor
Australian
the
produce
as
encouraged;
and
in
most
the new
other
more
regional
things,
regionalism
sufficiently
For another, regionalism should not be
positions
such as
materialism or Wellington modal!sm with national philosophies.
philosophy,
is
is
is
an
undesirable
commonly linked,
Sydneyside
Nationalism in
trait,
not
in other
to
be
cultural
things, with the breakdown of nations and contraction of state power.19
19c
See, e.g.,
London, 1957.
Sale,
op.cit.,
and L.
Kohr,
The
Breakdown of Nations,
RKP,
The Editor of the new 1923 AJPP did
however take seriously the notion of
National Philosophy, of (what must have
surprised some New Zealand readers) an
Australian Philosophy; some of the issu<
s there raised (p.292ff) are addressed
in Appendix 1.
To get back to where we were:
emerging proposal
the
is
this,
that we
start - or better much Increase - doing our own distinctive things, and that
we
team up
so.
to do
there are
In fact
that begin
several suggestions
to
emerge, concerning research and teaching, publications and appointments, study
These are not just that we do our own selection
leave and sponsored visitors.
of
topics
and
people,
and
style
and
decide
methods,
our
priorities,
own
instead of having these foisted upon us - not just, that is, that we play our
own games (whether invented here or taken over from the North) and not theirs,
Rules and Rugby instead of Gridiron and Basketball - but that we abandon the
individual competitive model of cultural achievement, sold to us and fostered
by the North, in favour of a group cooperative approach (elements of which are
already modelled in Antipodean social clubs).
The
thoughts
here are
digging example,
ditch
more
separately.
rapidly
simple and
On
familiar.
the
side
is
the
it Is well-known that two people cooperating can dig a
and
enjoyably
than
two
people
working
on
the
ditch
Cooperative work tends to pay off - in philosophy or elsewhere -
in terms of output, quality, and enjoyment in the doing.
experience
one
shows
that we
successfully with
several reasons
periphery cannot
the centre on achievements
for this.
highly competitive
in the
One
in
On the other side,
individually compete very
their
programs.
is the communication situation.
There are
Despite the
predominantly individualistic
nature of American academic
17
enterprise,
20
communication
much
in the
attainment of
and
access
to
work is
jointly based,
individualism myth,
unpublished
material.
nationalistic
are
and the assignment of credit for it.
considerations
same
verbally
conveyed.
tend
to
time
and
as
There
an outsider).
through
face-to-face
Here
There are a mix of reasons
(e.g.
Polish results, Russians will cite a Russian who
the
the
several clever people will be
again people at the periphery tend to lose out.
there
despite
Then again communications are important in obtaining rapid
publication of the idea or result,
Again
For,
verbal
and builds on the work of many;
when the time is ripe for some idea or result,
able to hit on it.
upon rapid
results depends
Poles
tend
to
promote.
achieves a result at about
is
the
fact
that
seminars
so
that
local
much
is
results
conveyed
will
be
There is the fact of limited reading, and that people at the centre
concentrate when
they read
on material
from the
centre by
central
people, so that published items and results from the periphery will often not
be noticed, and may well lose out to central competitors even if they achieve
central publication.
receive,
merit
There is also the fact that people at the centre tend to
for merit,
more
publication
than people towards the periphery.
and
communication
opportunities
Here economic factors do begin to enter;
consider the size and distribution of the academic market (there are, e.g., a
great many more academic philosophers in North America than in the whole rest
of the world), control of publishing outlets and journals (with few exceptions
20
Reflecting other features of the culture and enterprise of the centre
which are not so deeply embedded in Australasia: see further R. Routley,
’Culture,
philosophy,
and approaches
to the natural environment - an
Australian perspective',
in The
Environment,
Ethics
and Ecology
(ed.
D. Bennett), The Faculties, Australian National University, 1984, and also
'Culture and the roots of social and political divergence, with emphasis on
the Australian/American contrast’, typescript, Canberra, 1983; both referred
to subsequently as ’Culture’.
18
all Northern),
ere.
However economic power does not, and need not, determine
culture - we can shut off the Northern philosophical propaganda
shut off our television sets If we really want to.
way we
by
Impressed
being
middle-men
philosophical
those
And we can stop
make
who
in much the
living
a
by
importing the Northern stuff.
So what do we do? We adapt to the cultural-philosophical level,
of those things, that have been suggested In the newer regionalism.
some
regional
awakeningand
importer..
andimitators
doctrines
and
and local
For
We alm at
not remain slavish
We do
on
commentators
the North.
example,
and
we
peddlars
don’t
spend
of,
our
trying totease out what Davidson or Dummett or Kripke meant by
in the hope that
or that
To be
through.
of,
positions from
academic lives
this
local self-reliance.
several
sure,
I
some pale Northern light
suggesting
am not
we
that
will perhaps
emulate
filter
appalling
the
ignorance of people from the North who visit the Antipodes and know little or
nothing about
eminent
through
what has been done or
visitors,
their
Australian
the
bags
heavy
National
is being done here;21
with
cultural
(now
University
so that we have
accoutrements,
main
the
trekking
centre
for
Investigation of relevant logics) and informing us that, or relying crucially
on the assumption that, a contradiction entails every proposition.
that
these
Northerners
know
often
little
positions and advances is the Antipodes is
inferiority
colonies;
21
of
cultural
another
is
the
and
Intellectual
narrow
or
nothing
about
One reason
distinctive
the prevailing assumption of
life
(predominantly
in
these
local)
and
former
limited
the
southern
reading
Regrettably, the ignorance extends to many locals.
In particular
those
_nrected with Sydney materialism appear remarkably ill-informed as to’ basic
features of other Australasian programs.
undertaken by Northern luminaries.
But,
having
despite
been
given
cause,
sufficient
we
shouldn’t
cut
ourselves off from Northern paradigms and influences (we could hardly manage
to anyway,
propaganda is different).
so we should stay informed of, but not imitators
these continuing traditions:
of, or part of,
their enterprises.
m older Northern traditions,
So
far
from
cutting
these
nowhere,
loose
In any case,
regional cultures are rooted
just as the people are largely European stock.
from
(and
older
We can reasonably use what we need from
these
likely
traditions and
traditions,
minority)
from
starting afresh
and
the
local
variations that have already appeared are what we want to develop and perhaps
mutate, as again with wine styles.
Part
of
the
things, encourage
proposal
then
that
Northern paradigms.
increasingly
rather than working with
and so shape newer
try
to
to create
fortunately,
features of
of
cultural
the larger culture.22
do we need to make the story up - though helping to shape
is part of what
the proposal
is about.
is a different and
Much of
more difficult
already indicated in Grave’s survey of Australian philosophy.
22
local
For there are research programs already initiated, which have the
Australia - New Zealand
has
own
our
It is not as if we have to build from nothing, to do -
very great advantage of being grounded in
the future
do
pale northern reflections
very difficult - entirely original work,
components.
Nor,
we
and develop our own research programs,
Antipodean paradigms,
wnat is
is
the
story,
proposition -
for
is
All one really
to do is to bring out programs he has already indicated and provide some
See Culture, op.cit.
20
To pull the investigation down to a more concrete
elaboration and commentary.
I shall sketch some more prominent cooperative programs - by no means
level,
the only programs - and remark on some relevant features of them.
The longest running and best known program is, without much doubt,
of
naturalism,
Australian
and
which
aims
to
see
the
that
world,
natural
and
everything else, as suitably encompassed within the framework of the world of
(physical)
science.
program
The
is
generally
back
traced
to
Anderson’s
empiricist metaphysics,^^ and is now best exhibited in Armstrong’s work.
contains
as
a major
materialism,
subprogram Sydney
Adelaide which subsequently died out there.
such famous
components as
central
state
version
of
failures
in
program initiated
and
nowadays
Faced
functionalism.
reduction
plans,
like
it
it
takes
in,
identity theme and
more derivatively,
physicalisms
all
now
in
The latter program has included
the mental-material contingent
materialism,
its
a
It
incorporates
with
a
a
conspicuous
"scientifically"
trimmed theory of universals, and an account of natural laws as relations of
universals, both components of
the developing
Sydney realism.
Parts of the
naturalism program, especially materialism and central state reductionism and
the unified science ideal, have had counterparts in the North, but the program
has,
for
the most
part,
despite export efforts,
smoothly, moreover,
and
earthy, so
retained
its
distinctively
it never caught on in New Zealand.
into Australian culture.
far as
Australian character
philosophy can
""^Anderson’s metaphysics
was however
-
The program fits
It is similarly down-to-earth,
be, without
the fancy ideas or effete
far more opposed
to reductions
than
what has succeeded it. For an account of Anderson’s philosophy, and a history
and account of Australian naturalism and materialism, see especially Grave,
op.cit.
idealism of European philosophy or the spirituality and suppressed puritanism
with
much
which
pragmatism).
of
yet
And
and
commitments,
North
American
does
it
though it
is
thinking
not
simmers
shrink
from
metaphysical
explicit
it
is not
from
the
basically empiricist,
nowadays,
(including
positivistic
(rejecting a verification principle, in particular).
It
is
a
city
program,
based
broadcast
mainly
University
of
Sydney to other metropolitan universities; but the program does extend outside
the universities a bit (a tiny bit) to the larger metropolitan culture.
No th America,
the
broader
Russell,
so in Australasia, little professional philosophy Impinges on
+
community,
Popper
AusLralasia
As in
and
would
be
or
Kuhn
quite
even on
being
an
the wider academic
(To
exceptional.
achievement,
one
community,
turn
worth
this
working
work by
around
for.)
now reaches
in
The
naturalism program used
to
Perth, and
in Canberra, as well as a core of opposition there.
has outliers
stretch
Apart from notable exceptions,
more than a rather
through
to
Adelaide;
the program has never had
precarious hold,
it
the
in Melbourne:nor, more
same
hold,
to
or
surprisingly,
24,
Jn Canada, for example, while most academics from other disciplines would
know of, and perhaps a little about, Russell, far fewer would know of
Wittgenstein (though he is becoming known to lit. crit. groups), and virtually
none would know of Quine.
(The sampling Is subjective.)
On the fairly recent ’triumph of professionalism’ in philosophy in USA, see
Kuklick, op.cit., p.565ff.
Kuklick brings out well some of the more
disastrous features of professionalism, but does not sufficiently notice that
the
virtuous
features
resulting
from some
professionalisation can
be
synthesized with broader philosophical activity.
25
The exceptions include Ellis's distinctive program, which can be accounted
part of the broader naturalist program, and at Monash the work of F. Jackson
and, earlier, of H. Munro in value theory.
22
has it had heavyweight criticism from there (or indeed much external criticism
from elsewhere),
Melbourne
out.
the old confrontation of major city philosophies having died
is more
philosophy
stricken than Sydney; Melbourne
by
dominated
Continental
a
philosophy;
then,
a
fashions:
Northern
recently,
more
philosophy;
remarkable
religion
philosophy, much more than Sydney, has been
of
procession
historically oriented and more
Quine,
Davidson
and
and
language
ordinary
Wittgenstein,
turnabout,
idealism
earlier
extensional
reduction; now perhaps Lewis,iKripke and Dummett?
one
The
program
reaches
that
beyond
confines
the
of
the
cities
in
Australia - which is after all a metropolitan dominated culture, the vast land
always
being
the other
-
a rather
Australian environmentalism,
is
diffuse
program, which has connections with the Colleges of Advanced Education in the
country towns and the communes on the North Coast.
So far the program is as
much distinguished
is.
environmental
Europe
by what
positions are
specifically having
it
a
not
is
as
feature of
what
it
Serious
the New World,
of
transformed most
its
and
deeper
the Old World,
and
environment
and
natural
having little wild untouched country left, and little sensitivity accordingly
to
issues
Europe
that
such as
tend
admit
European
those
to concern
of
the
wilderness.
built
shallow approaches
superficiality
environmentalism
outside
continues
North
environmental
human-transformed
and
(and
The main
encourage
to
America.
environment,
techno-fix
dominate
North
much
Issues
situations).
of
American
the
New
in
issues
And
World
environmentalism
differs significantly however from Antipodean environmentalism, most obviously
in
the
religious-spiritual
component
respects as well (see further Culture).
of
the
former,
but
in
several
other
23
More positively, there are three strands to Australian environmentalism:Firstly, there is an extended utilitarianism, differing little in theory from
Bentham’s enlarged position, which insists upon counting in the utilities of
creatures.
all sentient
figured
though
prominently
it
This
in animal
focussed
has
position,
developed
from a British base,
has
animal
liberation movements:
and
welfare and
on domestic
animals,
animals
used
in
and
research
hunted (wild) animals, it has also become entangled in issues of bio-research
more generally such as genetic engineering.
or much
interested in,
endangered species,
the conversion of forests,
animal pain and pleasure.
except
deal.
Secondly,
utilitarian
forests and
differs
insofar as
these have a
and
which
American
Thirdly,
naturalism.26
inadequate
there is a wider and a deeper ecological position, which is
recognises
irreducible
which finds
value
elsewhere
intrinsic value
ecosystems, especially wild and natural systems.
from
lands,
bearing on
and so deeper concerns get an
psychological states,
sentience or
the disappearance of wild
Wider and deeper environmental concerns appear only
spinoff from animal welfare,
as a
not
etc.,
It is not however concerned with,
and
spiritualism
is
there
of
from
an
extension
than
in trees
and
This
position
of
American
course
as
almost
everywhere,
a
reactionary component, critical of the other strands, which Insists that all
that
needs
to be
accomplished
on
the
environmental
front
can
be
achieved
within older established (European) ethical and political frameworks.
Whereas materialism is
based in Sydney, environmentalism is centred
in
Melbourne and Canberra, but also includes Brisbane and Perth. Also centred in
described more
fully elsewhere:
see,
in particular,
<ed- D- Mannison and others), RSSS, Australian
National University, 1980.
It
has
been
Canberra, and reaching across the country, with good connections in Melbourne,
few
but
in
Sydney,
is
the
materialism and
environmental
further
from
input
affecting
program
other
which
program,
elsewhere.
and
and
is
of
Includes
more
to
extends
essentially
philosophy,
centres
New
in metaphysics,
with
respectively,
the
theory
value
a
Zealand ,
program,
logic
especially
in
the
Whereas
but
one
metaphysics.
Australia
than
has
been
also
any
The
other
described
27
The main
logic
perhaps
which
program
areas
major
their core
programs have
epistemology
relevant/paraconsistent
program.
relevant/paraconsistent.
grounded
research program evident
program.
in New Zealand
from the work of
A program emanating
located mainly in Wellington,
philosophy
is
also a
Prior and
now
it might be. called the extended modal program.
The impact of the program on philosophy is
perhaps best
seen in Cresswell’s
work.
Australian philosophy used to be known,
for its hard-headed empiricism;
not
known
and still
is in some quarters,
regrettably New Zealand philosophy is mostly
for anything much, except
perhaps, in UK,
that Prior brought
his
27
Again, like all the Australian programs, both those mentioned and others,
in Grave, op.cit. But see further, R.
Routley,
’Research in Logic in
Australia, New Zealand and Oceania’, Research Papers in Logic #14, Australian
National University, 1983 (which also considers other programs in logic);
G. Priest and R. Routley, op. cit.; and R. Routley, R.K. Meyer and others,
Relevant Logics and Their Rivals, Ridgeview, California, 1982.
28
See especially M.J. Cresswell, Logics and Languages, Methuen, London,
1973; but see also work by Goldblatt and by Hughes referred to in Research in
Logic, op.cit.
Also described there is an original version of the modal
program (transparent intensional logic) elaborated by Tichy at Otago.
25
unusual adaption of Russellian philosophy from that remote place.
Neither of
these impressions is particularly accurate; both are rather out-of-date.
But
the aim of work of the present type is, of course, not just to correct these
impressions,
not just
to reflect or report on culture - for what one would
like to reflect upon is not sufficiently there - but also to help manufacture
elements of a culture, to make an image.
To
resist
the
already flourishing
North,
we
should
increase
our
efforts
to
programs, and perhaps other sunrise projects;
further
29
the
to build
teaching and research around the programs selected for promotion, elaboration,
and criticism, to orient appointments, especially of involved local people, to
29
Among sunrise projects in Australian philosophy so far suggested (not all
of them feasible) are these:
Australian feminism, Antipodean social and
political alternatives,
peace
studies,
indigenous
regional
philosophies
(especially Aboriginal, Melanesian, and Polynesian). Another promising field,
with practical consequences,
for local initiative is the philosophy of
education, where material produced by R.S. Peters has dominated the market,
with stultifying effects it is now alleged.
As foreshadowed with the notion of "sunrise projects", much of the rhetoric,
and argument, concerning science and technology policy (presented in the case
of Australia in Jones, op.cit.) can be taken over to apply to X policy, where
X is some subject discipline, such as philosophy.
/
26
on
Why bother?
these programs.
Why not simply buy our philosophy, like almost
all our technology, off the shelf, from the North? There are several arguments
for not doing this, in more than a limited fashion, which are now sketched.
There
is,
firstly,
Northern products,
the
inferiority
despite their
and
built-in
attractive packaging.
obsolence
of
most
putting
too
fine a point on it, many of the imported intellectual goods are shoddy,
and
Without
only work for a very limited range of applications (e.g.
the
vicinity
Antipodean
of
contradictions
philosophy
dilemmas).
or
undoubtedly
derives
from
Much
they’re hopeless in
that
shoddy
is
wrong
intellectual
with
goods
30
In fact something like the last has been the policy of the LSE Philosophy
Department, where the only outside appointment over a long period was that of
Lakatos (hardly a person far removed ideologically).
As observed, it now
looks like the practice of the Otago Department also; and apparently it used
to be a tendency at Melbourne. But in most places the practice is condemned as
nepotistic or parochial, and overridden by the call for "new (Northern)
blood".
However there can be significant differences between nepotistic
appointments and those strengthening local programs.
It is at this stage, among others that administrative measures do matter;
for example, to ensure that suitable locally-engaged locals gain employment
rather than Northern stooges, to direct funds into on-going local programs
rather than imported fashions, etc.
There are various ways appropriate
administrative details can be handled, locally or nationally; but nothing
draconian, such as wholesale exclusion of noncitizens, is required.
Observe, indeed, that no restriction of academic appointments to nationals
(in Canadian style) or the like is being advocated.
Anyone who arrives at a
conclusion of that sort from what has been argued has misunderstood the case
in crucial
respects.
As a matter of
simple mathematics,
restricting
appointment fields characteristically reduces both quality of candidates
available (however quality is assessed) and range of possibilities open for
future research; and no such restrictions are advocated.
The author has
witnessed the debilitating effects of field restrictions at the Australian
National University and elsewhere.
31
Some of these
centre also.
arguments
support
change
(perhaps
revolutionary)
at
the
27
Yet buying this material is encouraged by hard-sell
imported from the North.
cultural ambassadors from the North, who are often enough paid Lo visit.
is
part of
Northern
the
philosophical imperialism from the North —
colonialism
that
-
the
Antipodes
too
willing
This
the successor
suffers,
or,
to
more
remarkable, encourages I
Secondly, there is the inappropriateness of much of the Northern product,
especially
considered
as
a
metaphysics, environmental
package,
concerns.
to
instance,
for
cover,
well
as
as
The European North has no satisfactory
land or environmental ethic fit for Antipodean circumstances, and the deeper
American
package
too
is
spiritually-loaded
mainstream
for
Australian
In political theory, American work is much too individualistic and
culture.
competition-based, and
the European product, especially the Marxist form,
unsuited being both too
precious and
for local
too high-tech
is
circumstances,
especially again for more environmentally-perceptive people.
features
of
telling
also
Thirdly,
import
world’s markets
power structures
against
substitution
and
comparative
advantage,
regionalism;
namely,
and pressures and fashions,
(including the Old Boy’s
are
appealing
avoidance
of
the
removal of overseas control
and
network in
jobs,
policies,
etc.),
and gaining of local control, employment of local people, etc.
Fourthly,
32
there
are
arguments
for
cultural
diversity,
applied
to
The point is elaborated in Culture.
At a more practical level Northern
products are again often unsuitable, though for different reasons.
For
example, the transfer of American agricultural methods and equipment to the
thin poor soils of the Antipodes has had disastrous effects, at last beginning
to be recognised.
28
philosophy
as
complexity,
sheer
part
of
intellectual
diversity,
stability,
culture:
etc.33
arguments
In fact,
built into the whole notion of 'culture’ transfers.
dense,
Naturally we want a rich,
weeds and many
We obtain not only good products,
being introduced.
Indian maize
and European cultivars, but European pests and American weeds.
selectiveness
and
control
are
essential,
as
richness,
the garden analogy
But not only seeds and plants but
productive garden.
pests are
from
This is why
previous
against
haphazard
procedures.
The proposal is not for, nor would the case sustain, a narrow localism,
with local products, whatever their quality,
heroes, replacing Northern ones.
local fashions,
and local cq|t
That is certainly not the preferred way of
the newer regionalism, which tends to do without fashions and heroes and which
seeks durable quality in products, low environmental impact, and so on; nor is
it the way of technology policy.
Rather, as with technology policy, we select
niches which are not occupied or satisfactorily filled,
where we
difference, and use and develop local skills and methods.
has
to
outlets,
be
selective
etc.).
given
our
resource
But granting regionalism,
base
(of
can make a
Indeed the policy
philosophers,
publishing
to what extent should components,
for instance people, books and other teaching elements, theories and ideas, be
imported
and
to
what
extent
should
they
be
produced,
trained,
conceived
locally? The possibility of selectiveness in different components means that
many mixes are possible.
particular mix.
There is no need to insist,
so far at least, on a
The case for the present is mainly for a regional shift,
for
33c
See, for instance, A.A. Mazrui, A World Federation of Cultures: An African
Perspective, Free Press, New York, 1976.
------ -- ---------- ---
a significantly greater degree of local autonomy and production.
But it
will do
local favour.
no harm
Negatively,
elements
Indicate
to
of a mix
removal
of
the
Locke-Berkelcy-Hume
undue
(a
that
finds much
the suggestion is that we try to eradicate much of
the Oxford style of teaching and doing philosophy.
as
Q/
on
emphasis
standard
British
That includes such things
empiricism
British
focus);
of
the
centred
on
quasi-historleal
approach with however no proper attention to sources; of reinforcement of the
prevailing
Anglo-American
status
quo.
The
heavy
particular, has mostly been a very conservative one.
the
main
movements
philosophy,
but
emanating
also
the
from
England,
Moore-Wittgenstein
Oxford
influence,
in
More generally, many of
especially
practice,
ordinary
have
language
been
very
protective of the Northern status quo; they tend to leave things very much as
they
are,
and
recommend
just
this.
35
Positively,
the
proposal
is
that we
achieve further disassociation from the Anglo-American empiricist past in two
34
Does it sound familiar? Outside philosophy, it should. For example, we
have now been told by the Americans that our defence role, unlike theirs, is
regional, not global: this is supposed to shed great light on our previously
confused defence policies.
35
The point is laboured in E. Gellner, Words_ and Things, Victor Gollancz,
London, 1959.
But even ordinary language philosophy, though conservative, and
though it much contracted the proper range of philosophical investigations,
had its liberating elements, e.g. removal of some of the narrowness and more
cramping assumptions induced by technical jargon.
Nor has the social impact changed much with the subsequent decline, since
1959, of ordinary language philosophy, the increasing insolvency of Oxbridge
philosophy, and its consequent limited take-over by right-wing Ivy League
American philosophy.
By contrast, the less economically influential growth of
redbrick and applied philosophy
in some of the
British redbrick and
polytechnic institutes has touched no more than the surface of Oxbridge
practice.
30
by
ways:
local
emphasizing
framework,
by
and
diversifying
move
that
projects
of
range
the
outside
constricting
that
traditions
philosophical
selectively drawn upon, to include not only neglected Continental strands and
but also
parts of Eastern thought,
The
philosophy.
is
idea
that
Pacific ethnic material and Australasian
plurality of
such a
especially
sources,
in
teaching, will assist in removing narrower cultural biasses, such as British
parochialism,
enable more
and
discrimination
be obtained.
to
Then
too we
should be better able to see the ranges of theories that are open to us in the
Antipodes and how to advance our own programs.
There remain some things we should want to see whatever mixes are chosen
One crucial issue is the removal of Northern
in different Antipodean regions.
bias from papers and publications, research seminars and lectures, letters of
This Northern bias is a disposition to cite and discuss
reference, and so on.
the
projects
and
works
irrespective
and
discussion
the
of
to
of
Northern
quality
ignore
of
the
authors,
their
works
the
more
of
authors,
local
irrespective of the quality of their contribution.
defer to
write oi
not
been
opinions of worth,
importance,
It
etc.
better,
topic
again
under
largely
It is the disposition to
authors from prestigious Northern institutions,
accept their
the
to
contribution
the
famous
is
and to uncritically
the disposition
to
lecture as though work produced locally either does not exist or has
influential
philosopl e s,
are,
(thus
if
ensuring
anything,
more
that
it
Inclined
is
to
not).
Northern
And
Australasian
bias
than
many
overseas intellectuals, who are perhaps less concerned to be seen as belonging
to the Northern mainstream.
bias
affects
not
only
the
The reduction, and eventual removal,
practice
of
Individual
of Northern
philosophers,
but
the
policies of selection and review committees as well as of editors and referees
31
of
local
reorientation,
innovations
It
journals.
with
better,
involves,
philosophers
Antipodean
so
they
among
can
cite
work
initiatives and developments - things that would b<
content
in courses
leave, and so on.
taught,
more
time
spent
at
intellectual
to know local
getting
local
things,
other
or
point
out
work and
regional
assisted by greater local
local
institutions on
study
32
APPENDIX 1.
considering
the
corresponding
initial
Lebensanchauung’
argument
Philosophy
both
Anderson,
as
is
truth
and
its
theory may not
a
that
be
or
confirmation
independent of national sympathies or prejudices'.
mean
Science’.
The
’are
falsification
Granted: but that does not
fostered, etc.,
held,
and
Weltanschauung
Christian
a
as
senses
two
’a scheme of the universe’,
that of
ridiculous
(Australian)
distinguished
between
distinction
In the first,
(p.292).
that
is
German
the
Philosophy’,
National
a
Francis
AJPP,
’the
to
’an Australian
of
possibility
’the
of
Editor
In
On the earlier idea of a National Philosophy for Australia.
in one
region but
not
others, as intultionism was for long in in Holland, or Cartesianism in France.
In a second 'more intimate and personal’ way,
'a nation like an individual may
develop a certain temperamental attitude to the problems of existence, which
we may
A nation’s philosophy, like its art
... call its philosophy of life.
and its literature,
is a mode of expression for
the national
It is a specialised form of the national genius ....’
short, part of the evolving national culture.
is
by
no
entirely
means
from
separate
(pp.292-3).
It is,
in the first place,
But,
initial
the
consciousness.
sense,
a
in
this
philosophy
comprising not merely a fairly comprehensive theory but also an integrated set
of attitudes (like an operational paradigm).
are such items as
accounted
’the national consciousness’ and
units
single
philosophy,
like
particularly
Furthermore, only by concession
meriting
Australian
distinctive
(in
definite
of
literature,
has
any
sense):
does
not
Australian
descriptors.
many
such
'the Australian landscape'
strands
things
to
form
it,
some
rather
not
loose
families.
Anderson
does
not
find,
really
hope
to
find
in
’a
modern
industrialised community’ - with its modular parts interchangeable with those
of others
- a national philosophy of
life,
with a difference.
In
fact
he
33
claims to find a (somewhat) trite moral base to build on,
humour,
fair
and
courage
particularly phllosphical.
at
least
various
apart
of
but
life,
regional
is
So far,
not;
this
problems about
nothing
does
however
not
local
as
research
Identifying and
trouble derives from the extravagant claim that
with
Goodness
these
and
-
distinctive,
all
or
there
exclude
programs).
legitimating
being
So
a
far,
national
But shortly Anderson is plunged into inconsistency: the
philosophy, so good.
do
at
there could a national philosophy,
then,
(such
philosophies
from rational
but
dealing',
'traditions ... of
the
Beauty
-
then
of
values
eternal
and
only
Philosophy' (p.295 with rearrangement).
the
then
'if Australia has nothing to
Spirit,
has
she
the
Ideals
nothing
to
of
Truth,
with
do
But, as Australia has nothing per se
to do with these - as is virtually conceded,
these values involving a
'wider
sweep' than any national boundaries ~ "she" has nothing to do with Philosophy,
contradicting
the
possibility
of
a
National
Philosophy.
Though
the
contradiction is easily avoided by rescinding the extravagant claim, the ideal
of a National Philosophy should be allowed
to rest in peace: nationalism has
had its time.
Richard Routley^
Research School of Social Sciences
Australian National University
or
With thanks to R. Elliot, W. Godfrey-Smith, S. Grave and L. Mirlin, to
several members of the audience at the presentation of the paper at the 1983
Australasian Association of Philosophy Conference, University of Adelaide, to
several referees for this Journal, and, not least, to the present Editor.
..A
PROSPECTS FOR REGIONAL PHILOSOPHIES IN AUSTRALASIA
Philosophy, especially academic philosophy but also folk
intellectual
other
dominated, indeed
Europe,
swamped,
largely
by
Northern
now increasingly from North America.
a
such
populations,
have to stay that way.
like
higher cultural activity in Australasia, has long been
and
influences,
composition
of
result was virtually inevitable.
Suitable
policies,
from
initially
Given the migration patterns, the
cultural and other baggage imported, the ethnic
ruling
philosophy,
a
good
philosophy
the
resulting
But it does not
policy,
could
change things.
The thought of a regional philosophy, perhaps matching a regional
In 1923, a New Zealand correspondent to the newly-launched
is hardly a new one.
Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy mentioned the
’a
new
kind
or
culture,
temper
philosophy
of
possibility
of
under these southern skies’ which the
Journal might foster.1 The Journal has however hardly fulfilled such a role (or,
for
that
matter,
actively
pursued
professional philosophers but a wider
things
some
have
changed
in
its pronounced aim of reaching not merely
Australasian
Australia,
community).
laying a solid foundation for a new
regionalism in philosophy, that possibility of a new temper
hardly
been
realised.
but
few
of
philosophy
had
There is little in the way of a new kind and temper of
philosophy under New Zealand skies, which the southern skies
include:
although
And
features,
distinctive
‘no
were
distinctively
characteristics, have shown up in New Zealand philosophy’2.
intended
New
Zealand
New Zealand remains
1.
AJPP, March 1923, p.74. The question was taken up by the Editor
same volume, p.292.ff; his discussion is considered below.
2.
S.A. Grave, A History pf Philosophy in Australia, Queensland
Press, 1983, p.l. Page references are to the manuscript.
1
to
in
the
University
v, •? 1 nSOphy
of
a substantial net importer
of
dominance
colonial
but also
philosophy,
inns been
,
philosophers.
and
used to prevail in Australia, where virtually all
that
chairs, and many other academic posts in philosophy, were
the
from
no established chairs are
where
most strikingly exhibited
at
the
of
orientation
Northern
New Zealand is not surprising.
in
academics
small
courses designed, topics covered and considered and especially
in
appointments made, the heavy
researched
Zealand,
New
by
filled
Given the usual power and influence of professors in
occupied by locals.
departments,
in
persists
North,
situation
The
oldest
of
philosophy
taught
and
(The Northern control is perhaps
Zealand
New
universities,
the
University of Otago, where the Philosophy Department has been virtually captured
by a British School and looks increasingly like an offshoot of the London School
q,
of
In
Economics.)
kC-f" Ct
event the overwhelming Anglo-American dominance of New
any
Zealand philosophy — also a feature only in slightly lesser degree of Australian
philosophy
-
confirmed by a content survey of the courses offered and
be
can
research papers written at New Zealand universities.
to
Even when local people have been appointed
they
have
been
generally forged
requirements
brought
or
up
on
finished
the
North
as
B.Phil.
hard
well.
In
particular,
the
to
beat
case
of
philosophy
by
the
Many departments of philosophy remain full of products
degree.
of this cultural mill:
were
Australasia,
of the Australasian universities in the major period of post-World
War II expansion were conveniently seen to in the
Oxford
in
solid diet of Anglo-American material, and
a
in
positions
indeed until the mid 70s candidates finished
out
when
they
applied
for
positions,
in
such
Oxford
was
the
(unwarranted) prestige of Oxford and the continuing "cultural cringe".
Nonetheless, despite the Northern dominance, significant changes have
been
occurring in the Antipodes, especially on the Australian philosophical scene (as
will be indicated).
It is worth asking whether Australian philosophy is
2
moving
hiiosophy
towards the sort of change that occurred in USA more than 100 years ago when the
Harvard Philosophy Department was brought (or bought) together, and its
age
"golden
American philosophy was never quite the same again, and became its
began.
own thing.
There are
Australian
philosophy
now
new
operating
forces
in such a direction.
which
help
could
to
move
There is the widespread emergence,
particularly in alternative culture, of a new (bio-)regionalism^, which
to cultural and ideological choice along with other local choices;
applies
and in stark
contrast, there is the centralised fashioning of national science and technology
which not only provides a model for reflection in regional philosophy
policies,
but
policy
also
directly
bears
on
parts
of
the
of
philosophy
science.
Unfortunately there are also some serious obstacles to regional philosophies and
to the very idea of a regional philosophy.
USA, long an importer of culture from Europe, has
of
certainly
of
lower
components of higher culture such
as
philosophy
exporter
philosophical
culture,
output
from
Oxford
has
culture,
taken).
recently
but
evidently
(witness
Are
become
net
also
any
of
turn
American
the
there
a
reasons why
Australasia, if not following suit, should not achieve a better cultural balance
of
payments,
especially
Yes, there are reasons.
in philosophy?
In the first
place, the change in the cultural position of the USA went with, and perhaps
part
derived
from,
vast
in
changes
economic^power relations.
dominance entails cultural dominance, there
Australasia’s
is
little
prospect
in
If economic
for
most
of
culture, since there is no serious prospect that Australasia will
ever emulate or attain American economic eminence (at least not without
nuclear
3.
See B. Kuklick, The Rise of American Philosophy;
Cambridge, Massachusetts
1860-1930, Yale University Press, 1977, Parts 2 and 3.
4.
See especially, Fourth World News, vol.
1,
1983, and
Scale, Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, New York, 1980.
3
K.
Sale,
Human
-uilosopM but
also
has long '’een
destruction of the North, and disruption of
cultural
entire
flow
of
commodities,
Secondly, as observed, Antipodean universities not only
other).
and
the
contain a large component of Northern academics, increasingly of Americans, they
also
include
a
substantial
additional contingent of fellow-travellers, whose
research and teaching is bent to Northern concerns.
influential
jL
segment,
4A4X
y
e
unlikely
that
this
(become so locally
will
group,
former
the
It is
Gy I
acclimatised as to) give up its Northern^cultural commitments,
isolated
person.
Nor
apart
the
from
As long as Antipodeans do not drastically
should they.
alter their cultural priorities, they are in a bind situation;
for
it
can
be
persuasively argued that they would be better off, as far as quality and product
goes,
stocking
their
universities
with
American
teaching
components
and
researching American-oriented concerns.
One simple numerical argument that Antipodean universities would be
off with Americans in the main, takes the following lines:graduates
Australasian
of
and
American, are
A
distinguished, at least in subjects such as philosophy.
academics
of quality
produced
per
number
of
say there is 1 per every n graduates.
graduates;
The (higher degree)
significantly
not
culturally
Consider now the number
higher
degree
Austroamerican
The (great) preponderance of
graduates will be Americans, just by virtue of their vastly
and
better
their more extensive system of university education.
greater
population
So also then, just by
ratio considerations, the great preponderance of quality academics drawn from an
Austroamerican
base will be American, as will the upper percentiles among those
quality products.
be
5.
appointing
Clearly, Antipodeans, were they interested in quality,
more Americans to their universities.
would
Such an argument does not
As indicated in Appendix 1, the ratio of philosophy graduates with
doctorates is in the order of 30 to 1 for USA as compared with Australia.
And, ; > is well-known, the extent of university education is much greater
in USA than in Australasia: indeed Australia is in this respect the worst
educated of the developed nations, as OECD figures have made plain (see,
e.g., B. Jones, Sleepers Awake, Penguin, 1982, p.
).
Co***)
fa
/o
.. w. also folk
work to show that, for similar reasons, American universities should be full
or
Chinese
Indian
professors,
two reasons;
for
cultural differences between Asians and
as philosophy;
such
of
first there are significant
especially
Americans,
disciplines
in
and secondly, their university systems do not deliver such
great quotas of higher degree or high quality graduates, at least in philosophy.
The conclusion of the numerical argument will not be a
popular
one.
The
anti Americanism felt in portions of the Australasian community extends into the
and recently there has been increasing insistence, especially
universities;
the
aging
now
younger
Turks that university positions should be reserved for
This at the same time as these Turks often preach of
locals.
community
of
scholars,
by
presumably^/ then
an
international
"free" interchange, etc.
They
cannot have it ail ways.
So long as there is a free—flow interchange of
will
centre
dominate
the
ideas
personnel,
and
periphery culturally as well as economically;
will have more than us, and jobs here should go by and large to them
if
the
they
it
is
quality in this high cultural business that we seek, as we mostly claim.
Now it is widely enough recognised, lower-down hierarchical ladders anyway,
that there is something drastically wrong with these sorts of arguments.
are not flooded with high-quality Northerners
local
contenders
who
better.
retain
have
appointment
the
messages
of
out
the centre better than locals do, and
higher—echelon
(often
Northern
committees than dusty locals whose shortcomings are known
As is beginning to be recognised too,
their
drive
rather we are inundated by Americans with inflated
remote Northern fields tend to look greener to
biassed)
regularly
for positions, if we only preferred the Northerners when they
were quite visibly superior:
references,
would
who
For we
higher-quality
products,
periphery only if they somehow fall foul
5
and
of
Northern
the
allow
the
them
system
centres
to
(e.s5.
tend
to
be exiled to the
the
academic
philosophy»
folk
w also
•
it
All this makes the position look doubly bad. /Wejought,
appointing
especially
Northerners,
Americans,
yet
And
doing
so
to
seems,
to
order
maximize
does not achieve the desired quality result, and
J?
breeds discontent elsewhere, especially among the aging Turks.
Cx-z'J2-^
Fortunately there is a way out from this awkward situation and these
arguments;
and
that
the
is
us.
the
Then
shaky
shaky
way of regionalism. (^We) do our own things;
obtain sufficient cultural distance,
for
be
if they are overrated in
even
their references, and usually not out of the top drawer, in
quality.
/■jxc*</-C-vuaxt
so that they are not
numerical
argument
simply
does fall down.
and
sul^itutable
But before we
elaborate the emerging proposal there are other influential arguments to dispose
of, and the disposal bears on the proposal.
There is, to begin with, the argument for
have
so
far
been
conceded:
all more or
institutions
maximize.
most
of
crave
and
seek
excellence,
elements
of
which
that there is an objective commodity, quality or
less__agree
and
what
about,
which
appointments
is
what
academic
to capture, indeed
aim
That at least is the type of myth most of us have
encountered;
ow know it is a myth, in fact a dangerous myth.
Host places don’t
even try to make appointments that way, any more that organisations aim just
maximize
profit,
but
rather
seek
some
Ability
to
fit
sort of program, teaching or research, is another, and commonly more
important factor;
6.
to
to satisfice on a mix of factors, of which
assessed qualityjis only one, and not the highest ranking one.
into
and
and there is no good reason why such
a
program
should
not
This is easier in the cultural than the technological sphere.
However it
is also possible technologically:
(stronger) theses of technological
determinism, and so of cultural determinism, are false.
We can choose
different options, technologically, as well as culturally.
sometimes be a regionally oriented one.
So
like
Mii 1 OSOphy *
1
prevailing
given
the
practices,
argument from excellence does not exclude regional philosophy programs.
The deeper-cutting objection is that there
the
with
that
objective importancej
criticism
as
excellence,
objective
of
idea
notions
these
notions
objective
of
is
something
and
with
the
are
open
to
values
more
seriously
connected notion of
the
same
sorts
generally,
that
they have
viewpoint
rather
narrow
to
which
these
intellectual
of
the framework
bracketed out the contextual—relativisation component of valuing:
or
amiss
relate.? While those operating within a
values
paradigm,
as
such
ordinary
Oxbridge
language
philosophy or Sydney materialism say, can bracket out the viewpoint, since it is
objective
incorporated in the operational paradigm, and so arrive at
seemingly
quality judgements, the judgements are not preserved (e.g.
in truth value) when
transposed
Consider,
to
frameworks,
other
e.g.
idealistic
or
for comparison, the judgements as to the quality or worth of a forest
made variously by a deep ecologist, an industrial forester, and
officer.
viewpoints.
Marxist
Compare
environmental
judgements
as
by
philosopher,
Califorman—environmentalist
to
the
quality
There
recreational
of a holistically-inclined
Marxist
language,
ordinary
philosophers.
a
are
philosophers who
even
pretend that such environmental work cannot be judged, seemingly because
not
done
by
institutions.
members
of
such
is
■F
the
importance
of
work
quality
done
or
importance of problems and issues is highly paradigm
problems
it
of the main philosophical peer group at Harvard and like
As this begins to reveal, judgements of
judgements
and
as
those
are
not
problems
independent
tackled.
dependent.
For
of
But the
example,
of quantifying-in and of possible worlds and of de re
What follows also begins to bring out what is om^Qitted in a main
R.S.
Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance,
197 .
--
theme
of
thought which assume immense importance
within
mainstream
the
for
referential
fashionable
theories
paradigm, vanish to relative insignificance
empiricist
outside that restricted viewpoint.
Now observe that most judgements as to
what
are the important problems and what constitutes important work - matters helping
determine quality - are shipped
relative
to
their
down
from
placement,
paradigmatic
the
Their
North.
and
the
importance
is
paradigms concerned are
exported to the Antipodes through the main channels already indicated.
We
are
free to reject these paradigms and select alternatives, and there are, it can be
argued, good reasons to do just that, much as there are good reasons
different
energy
technology
different
(or
military
technology)
choose
to
that
from
generally favoured in the North which the North is eager to export southwards.
Similar points apply against the cosmopolitan/international argument
might
which
alternatively be called the Peter Stuyvesant international argument, that
sophisticated people everywhere smoke this superior
-marketed from Holland;
product
mass-produced
cigarette-sophistication is cosmopolitan.
and
The argument
is based on the assumption that philosophy is a ’cosmopolitan subject’, that
is
is not the sort of enterprise for which place and people are significant as they
are for poetry or the novel.8 The assumption has only
questioned.
to
be
production also.
like
a
process
of
But in the process of production the place and people involved
And if the product is like a work
in discussion) are material.
of
art,
a piece of literature, and not just theorems and arguments assembled in an
internationally-approved format,
Q
then again
the
historical
setting
since philosophy, no more than literature, does not emerge in a vacuum.
8.
be
It takes for granted, for one important thing, that philosophy is a
finished product of a certain sort (a propositional theory), not
(e.g.
to
presented
matters,
Plato's
Grave, op.cit, p.2:
the term ’cosmopolitan subject’ is said to come from
Donegan.
As to the significance of place and people for literature, see
further C.
Partridge, The Making of New Cultures, Editions Rodopi,
Amsterdam, 1982.
8
philosophy could not have emerged in ancient Australia, and if
cribbed
in
mid
20th century Oxford would surely have been marked down or rejected.111
It is important not to be sidetracked into issues - resembling problems
aesthetics
-
that do not need to be contested, such as whether and what extent
sets of themes and arguments produced in one place and setting could
produced
in
in
another.
have
been
A nonnuclear technology of some sort could be adopted in
Europe but apparently will not be, whereas there is reasonable prospect that New
Zealand,
in
contrast with Australia, will pursue a nonnuclear energy strategy.
It is the doing* and not what could
logic,
which
be
substantial cultural resistance):
to be done in the Anglo-American
their
done,
that
matters
Dialethic
here.
invalidates the technique and methodology of much philosophy done
in the North, could perhaps
choose
be
own
distinctive thing.
distinctive
done
in
the
North
(though
there
would
be
it is not being done there, and is not likely
sphere.11
To
this
extent,
Antipodeans
can
technology and logical techniques, do their own
The international/cosmopolitan argument, stated
in
a
form
that would be telling, fails.
9.
Like a paper Ln the biological sciences.
But here again technique
methodology, which may both be regional, are crucially important.
10.
Related points can be made concerning modern American work. Consider, for
instance such texts as W.V. Quine's Word and Object, (Wiley, New York,
1960) or R. Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia (Basic Books, New York,
1974).
The assumptions taken for granted, the arguments involved, etc.,
are especially American: it is not just the style. The acceptability of
arguments and positions is dependent on place and received paradigm.
11.
Much as communist anarchism, a live possibility for communes and perhaps
communities in Australia, is culturally excluded in North America, owing to
the extreme individualism of that culture.
9
and
tUK KLUJLUNAL
Hi JLLUbUrdltb
IN AUblKALAbLA
Of course it can be argued, it is being argued, that Antipodeans don’t need
to
be,
or
even oughtn’t to be pursuing their own energy or logic policies and
But meeting these considerations takes us to
apparatus.
concerning
issues
merit
the
of
a
we
shall
return,
our
own
cuisine
cooking is adequate:
that we don't
or wine styles.
arguments,
The new
need
to
be
or
oughtn’t
to
to
be
British, or at least cosmopolitan,
we should stick to that and buy it off the shelf from
ideally importing the cooks also.
North,
of
are not a lot more convincing however than comparable
arguments concerning cooking:
devising
set
policies and programs, the point of
various
diversity, etc.— far beyond the cosmopolitan argument.
which
new
whole
the
Do we have good reasons to think that
British philosophy is better, these days, than British cooking? 12
Antipodeans are free in principle, then, to
and
to
pursue
their
own
paradigms;
do so they will by and large want to, and mostly have to, appoint their
own people, people they have educated - not saboteurs or people who
to be re-educated, from elsewhere, in particular from the North.
(had)
have
But will their
intellectual paradigms tie with cultural paradigms, with distinctive features of
the
local
7
culture.
In
a loose way, at least, they may link, though works of
philosophy will not usually tie in with the culture in the integral fashion that
novels
(as
distinct
from more technical works) sometimes do.
Grave considers
two cultural features, not restricted to particular philosophical programs, that
help
mark
philosophy
in
Australia
as ’an Australian product’ - ’unimportant
though this is compared with what matters in philosophy’ he hastens to add.
But
style, acceptability, truth, do matter, and are not independent - or independent
mofar as their perception goes in the case of truth and
12.
correctness13
-
from
One correspondent (name supplied) suggested I ’might note the stultifying
crap produced by R.S.
Peters Inc.
and marketed as philosophy of
education’. Certainly, as Grave’s discussion (op.cit.
p.318) reveals,
Peters’
influence in this area has been very substantial: this indicates
another field for local initiative.
saco-s. -fo (K
t* th-
STS FOR REGIONAL PHILOSOPHIES IN AUSTRALASIA
underlying broad theory or received paradigm.
However the marks Grave cautiously advances do not serve to distinguish the
Australian
product,
being
features
philosophy exhibits in lesser
Australian
degree than the more adventurous and polemical philosophy
antiquity.
Greek
first, described by Passmore as ’most typical of Australian philosophy’, is
The
a ’diversity of approach and readiness
unfashionable
point
of
view’,
put
to
forward
much
something
more
an
unconventional
typical
or
classical
of
The second, and more surprising, mark is the manifestoed characte^
philosophy.
of
of
Australian philosophy, 'the most notable example ...
between Wittgensteinian Melbourne and Andersonian Sydney,
philosophy
Andersonian
itself'
(p.2).
This
example
being ...
if
is
it
the line-up
was
not
the
far from isolated:
others among them concern the fervour generated by "Australian materialism", the
extraordinary
discussed
by
political
Grave),
engagement
and
the
by
some
growing
philosophy
confrontation
departments
concerning
(both
the
relevant/paraconsistent program, with the local ("adversarial") style leading to
sharp criticism by Americans.
Grave
The third and especially the fourth marks are, as
notes, hardly distinguishing marks, namely the contrast of the Australian
reputation in philosophy with that in other subjects and
the
anti-intellectual
national stereotype, and the separation of the academic philosophy from the sort
of mostly-imported philosophy of interest in literary and arty-crafty circles.
13.
Nothing need be conceded to strong cultural relativity themes, though they
would support the case. It is enough that our theories remain radically
incomplete and that there can accordingly be rival theories as to what is
true. Similarly, however philosophy is conceived, as the search for truth,
explanation, understanding (all of these really), or as inquiry of a
certain sort, there can be - will be - competing accounts.
11
— ruK REGIONAL PHILOSOPHIES IN AUSTRALAQi A
The failure of the marks to adequately separate off
Australian
from the particular local examples) does not matter.
(apart
Australian produce is sufficiently separated
another,
by
projects.
For
regionalism should not be confused with nationalism, nor more regional
positions such as Sydneyside materialism or Wellington
Nationalism
philosophies.
in
philosophy,
undesirable trait, not to be encouraged:
cultural
other
For one thing, the
research
its
philosophy
as
in
modalism
most
with
national
things, is an
other
and the new regionalism is linked,
in
with the breakdown of nations and contraction of state
things,
power. 14
To get back to where we were:
-
better much increase - doing our own distinctive things, and that we team
or
In fact there are several suggestions that begin to
up to do so.
just
the emerging proposal is this, thatQ^e/start
emerge;
not
that we do our own selection, decide our own priorities, instead of having
these foisted upon us;
invented
instead
here
of
competitive
or
taken
Gridiron
model
in favour of a
not just, that is, that we play our own
and
over
from
Basketball,
games,
whether
the North and not theirs, Rules and Rugby
but
that
we
abandon
the
individual
of cultural achievement sold to us and fostered by the North
group
cooperative
approach
(elements
of
which
are
already
modelled in Antipodean social clubs).
14.
See, e.g., Sale, op.cit., and L.
London, 1957.
Kohr,
The
Breakdown
of
Nations,
RKP,
The Editor of the new 1923 AJPP did however take seriously the notion of
National Philosophy, of an Australian Philosophy; some of the issues there
raised (p.292ff) are addressed in Appendix 2.
12
p_FOR regional PHILOSOPHIES in AUSTRAtacta
The thoughts here are
example:
ditch-digging
more
ditch
rapidly
the
On
than
enjoyably
and
two
people
On the other side, experience
cannot
individually
achievements in their programs.
situation.
communi ation
working
complete
very
shows
depends
results
builds
on
Despite
the
For, despite, the individualism
the
work
of
in
obtaining
we
that
highly
myth
rapid
publication
of
competitive
predominantly
much in the attainment
work
is
jointly
based,
Then again communications
the
idea
or
the
are
tend
to
lose
There are nationalistic considerations (e.g.
fact
achieves
There is the fact that much is
conveyed verbally and through face-to-face seminars so that local
is
and
result, and the
Here again people at the periphery
a result at about the same time as an outsider).
There
the
when the time is ripe for some idea or result,
many:
There are a mix of reasons:-
conveyed.
in
One is the
Poles tend to promote Polish results, Russians will cite a Russian who
be
ditch
rapid verbal communication and access to unpublished
upon
assignment of credit for it.
out.
the
There are several reasons for this.
several clever people will be able to hit on it.
important
on
successfully with the centre on
individualistic nature of American academic enterprise,15
material.
the
is
it is well-known that two people cooperating can dig a
enjoyment in the doing.
of
side
one
Cooperative work tends to pay off in terms of output, quality, and
separately.
periphery
familiar.
and
simple
results
will
of limited reading, and that people at the
centre tend to concentrate when they read on material from the centre by central
people, so that published items and results from the periphery will often not be
noticed, and may well lose out to
15.
central
competitors
even
if
they
achieve
Reflecting other features of the culture and enterprise of the centre which
are not so deeply embedded in Australasia:
see further R. Routley,
’Culture, philosophy, and approaches to the natural environment - an
Australian
perspective’,
and
’Culture and the roots of political
divergence:
the Australian/American contrast’,
typescripts, Canberra,
1983; both referred to subsequently as ’Culture’.
13
^2^Sl2IWL_PHILOSOPHTro T.
central publication.
There is also the fact that people at the centre
to
merit for merit, more publication and communication opportunities than
receive,
Here economic factors such as
people towards the periphery.
market
tend
(there
are,
a
e.g.,
many
great
size
of
academic
more academic philosophers in North
America than in the whole rest of the world), control of publishing outlets
etc.
journals,
(with few exceptions all Northern), do begin to enter.
economic power does not, and need not, determine culture -^we)can shut
philosophical
Northern
we
sets if
propaganda
want
really
to.
in
we
And
and
However
off
the
much the way we shut off our television
can
stop
being
impressed
by
those
philosophical middle-men who make a living by importing the Northern stuff.
So what do we do?
We adapt to the cultural-philosophical level, several of
things, that have been suggested in the new (bio-)regionalism.
those
some regional awakening and local self-management.
We
do
not
We aim at
slavish
remain
importers and imitators of, and local commentators on and peddlars of, doctrines
and positions from the North.
to
trying
tease
out
For example, we don’t spend
our
academic
what Wittgenstein or Dummett16 or Quine meant by this or
that in the hope that some pale Northern light will perhaps filter through.
be
lives
To
I am not suggesting that we emulate the appalling ignorance of people
sure,
from the North who visit the Antipodes and know little or nothing about what has
been
done
or is being done here;
so that we have eminent visitors, their bags
heavy with cultural accroutrements, trekking
University
(now
the
main
for
centre
through
investigation
the
Australian
of relevant logics) and
informing us that, or relying crucially on the assumption that, a
entails
16.
every proposition.
National
contradiction
One reason that these Northerners often know little
Nor do we really need C. Martin (an American, formerly professor at Sydney
University, now at Calgary) coming by to tell us there are severe
difficulties in making Dummett’s stuff work or even cohere (though it’s
nice to see him again).
14
^~^-^S2NAL PHiLosn
1
or nothing about distinctive positions and advances
prevailing
of
assumption
the
is
Antipodes
is
the
the inferiority of cultural and intellectual life in
these former southern colonies;
another is the narrow (predominantly local) and
limited reading undertaken by Northern luminaries.
But, despite having been given sufficient cause, we shouldn’t cut ourselves
off
We can reasonably use what we need from these
anyway).
so
from Northern paradigms and influences (we could hardly manage to
entirely
we
should
enterprises.
stay
informed
In any case,
but
of,
imitators
not
cultures
regional
continuing
are
in
just as the people are largely European stock.
traditions,
or part of, their
of,
rooted
older
minority)
and
traditions,
Northern
So far from cutting
loose from these traditions and starting afresh from nowhere, these
likely
traditions:
older
(and
the local variations that have emerged, are
what we want to develop and perhaps mutate, as again with wine styles.
The proposal is
encourage
then
develop
and
paradigms, rather than
paradigms
we
that
do
increasingly
own
our
working
with
pale
nor-thorn
reflections
research
of
fortunately,
being
do
we
programs
already
grounded
in
need
to
features
make
New
Zealand
is
a
different
and
which
initiated,
of
the
to
pull
have
larger
For
the very great
culture.17
Nor,
more
Australia
difficult proposition - is already
All one really has to
do
out programs he has already indicated and provide some elaboration
and commentary.
17.
components.
Much of the story, for
indicated in Grave’s survey of Australian philosophy.
is
Northern
the story up - though helping to shape the
future is part of what the proposal is about.
-
of
It is not as if we have to build from nothing, to do - what is very
are
advantage
things,
own research programs, and so shape new Antipodean
our
difficult - entirely original work, to try to create cultural
there
local
To pull the investigation down to
See Culture, op.cit.
15
a
more
concrete
level,
I
PHTr
mo____
shall list some more prominent programs — not the only ones — and remark on some
features of them.
The longest running and best known program is, without much doubt, that
AusfcraATan
naturalism,
which is generally traced back to Anderson’s empiricist
and which aims to see the natural world, and everything else,
metaphysics,
encompassed
suitably
program
a
and Smart in Adelaide which has since died out there.
has included such famous components as the mental-material
theme
and
central
materialism,
state
derivatively, a version of functionalism.
failures
conspicuous
scientifically
relations
of
as
the frame work of the world of /physical scienc^f.
within
It contains as a major subprogram Sydney materialism,
Place
of
its
in
nowadays
and
Faced
like
plans,
reduction
The latter program
contingent
it
all
it
by
initiated
identity
in,
more
physicalisms
with
takes
incorporates
now
a
trimmed theory of universals, and an account of natural laws as
universals.
Parts
of
the
program, especially materialism and
central state reductionism and the unified science ideal, have had
counterparts
in the North, but the program has, for the most part, retained its distinctively
Australian character (it never caught on in
smoothly, moreover, into Australian culture.
New
Zealand).
The
program
It is similarly down—to—earth, and
earthy, so far as philosophy can be, without the fancy ideas or effete
of
idealism
European philosophy or the spirituality and suppressed puritanism with which
much of North American thinking simmers (including nowadays,
yet
fits
pragmatism).
And
it does not shrink from explicit metaphysical commitments, and though it is
basically
empiricist,
it
is
positivistic
not
(rejecting
a
verification
principle, in particular).
18.
Anderson’s metaphysics was far more opposed to reductions than what has
succeeded it.
For an account of Anderson’s philosophy, and a history and
account of Australian naturalism and materialism, see especially Grave,
op.cit.
16
It is a city, primarily «G4t-y o£ Sydney, based program, but the program does
extend
outside
universities a bit (a tiny bit) to the larger metropolitan
the
As in North America, so in Australasia, little professional philosophy
impinges
on
broader community1920
, or even on the wider academic community
the
work by Russell, Popper and Kuhn being exceptional.
Australasia
would
be
an
quite
Perth,
and
has
outliers
in
Apart from notable exceptions,
one
achievement,
naturalism program used to stretch through
to
elsewhere),
the
old
from
worth
it
the program has never had
there
now
for.)
reaches
in
The
to
(or
indeed
the
same
hold,
or
nor, surprisingly, has it had
much
external
criticism
from
confrontation of major city philosophies having died out.
more
religion
stricken
Melbourne philosophy, much more than Sydney, has been dominated by
a procession of Northern fashions:
more
working
around
Canberra, as well as a core of opposition there.
Melbourne philosophy is more historically oriented and
than Sydney;
this
turn
Adelaide;
more than a rather precarious hold, in Melbourne:
heavyweight criticism
(To
recently,
earlier idealism and Continental philosophy;
Wittgenstein, ordinary language philosophy;
turnabout, Quine, Davidson and extensional reduction;
then, a remarkable
now perhaps Lewis, Kripke
and Dummett?
19.
In Canada while most academics from other disciplines would know of, and
perhaps a little about, Russell, far fewer would know of Wittgenstein
(though he is becoming known to lit. crit. groups), and virtually none
would know of Quine. (Subjective sampling).
On the ’triumph of professionalism’ in philosophy in USA, see Kuklick,
op.cit., p.565ff.
Kuklick brings out well some of the more disastrous
features of professionalism, but does not sufficiently notice that the
virtuous
features
resulting
from
some professionalisation can be
synthesized with broader philosophical activity.
20.
Ellis’s work, and more recently the work of F. Jackson and others (e.g in
value theory, H.
Munro), which can be accounted part of the broader
naturalist program.
17
*• I
culture.
The one program that reaches beyond the confines of the cities in Australia
-
is
which
a metropolitan dominated culture, the vast land always
all
after
environmentalism,
being the other - is Australian
which
has
the Colleges of Advanced Education in the country
with
connections
towns and the communes on the North Coast.
So
far
distinguished by what it is not as what it is.
of
most
transformed
Europe
World,
to
untouched country left, and little sensitivity accordingly
those
the
and
built
approaches.
human-transformed
environment,
specifically,
issues
as
such
that
issues
admit
shallow
European superficiality continues to dominate much of the New
And
World environmentalism outside North America.
differs
much
as
The main environmental issues in Europe tend to concern
wilderness.
of
is
and having little wild
environment
natural
its
program
the
Serious and deeper environmental
positions are a feature of the New World, the Old
having
program,
diffuse
rather
a
significantly
North
environmentalism
American
however from Antipodean environmentalism, most obviously
in the religious-spiritual
of
component
former,
the
in
but
other
several
respects as well (see further Culture).
Australian
More positively, there are three strands to
there
Firstly,
is
an extended utilitarianism, differing little from Bentham’s
enlarged position, which insists upon counting the
This
creatures.
environmentalism#*-
position,
developed
from
a
of
utilities
British
base,
prominently in animal welfare and animal liberation movements:
on
focussed
animals,
domestic
animals
used
in
as
engineering.
genetic
interested
in,
conversion
of
endangered
forests,
pain and pleasure.
spinoff
from
It
species,
is
the
not
of
figured
it
has
wild
generally
with, or much
the
lands,
etc., except insofar as these have a bearing on animal
Wider and deeper environmental concerns
animal
more
concerned
disappearance
sentient
and hunted (wild)
research
however
has
though
animals, it has also become entangled in issues of bio-research
such
all
welfare,
and
18
appear
only
as
a
so deeper concerns get an inadequate deal.
Secondly, there is a wider and
utilitarian
and
ecological
deeper
a
especially
wild
and
in
value
trees
is
is
not
forests
and
and
This position differs from
natural systems.
American spiritualism and from an extension of American
there
which
which recognises irreducible value elsewhere than sentience or
psychological states, which finds intrinsic
ecosystems,
position,
Thirdly,
naturalism.
of course, as almost everywhere, a reactionary component, critical of
the other strands, which insists that all that needs to be accomplished
environmental
front
be
can
achieved
within
older
established
on
the
ethical and
political frameworks.
Whereas materialism is based in
Canberra
and
Sydney,
environmentalism
Melbourne, but also includes Brisbane and Perth.
none
in
Sydney,
is
the
relevant/paraconsistent
materialism and environmental programs have
further
input
from
relevant/paraconsistent
affecting
epistemology
program
and
a
in
in
logic
metaphysics,
respectively,
program,
other major areas of philosophy, especially metaphysics.
which perhaps includes more centres in Australia than
any
Melbourne,
Whereas the
program.
theory
value
essentially
is
core
their
in
Also centred in
Canberra, and reaching across the country, with good connections
but
centred
is
other
but
with
the
one
The program
program,
and
which extends to New Zealand, has also been described elsewhere.*
22
21.
It has been described more fully elsewhere:
see,
in
particular,
Environmental Philosophy (ed. D. Mannison and others), RSSS, Australian
National University, 1980.
22.
Again, like all the Australian programs, both those mentionedand others,
in Grave,
op.cit.
But see
further, R. Routley, ’Research in Logic in
Australia,
New Zealand and
Oceania’, Research Papers in
Logic #14,
Australian
National University,
1983;
G.
Priest and R. Routley, On
Paraconsistency, Research Papers in Logic #13,
1983;
R.
Routley and
others, Relevant Logics and Their PJLvals, Ridgeview, California, 1983.
19
The main research program evident in New Zealand philosophy is also a logic
A
program.
grounded
program emanating from the work of Prior and now located
mainly in Wellington, it might be called the extended modal program.
of
the
on
program
The impact
is perhaps best seen in Cresswell’s Logics and
philosophy
Languages.
Australian philosophy used to be known, and still is in some quarters,
its
hard-headed
empiricism;
regrettably New Zealand philosophy is mostly not
known for anything much, except perhaps, in UK, that Prior brought
adaption
of
philosophy
Russellian
work
the
of
present
type
that remote place.
from
impressions is particularly accurate;
of
for
is,
his
Neither of these
both are rather out-of-date.
of
course,
not
just
unusual
to
But the aim
correct these
impressions, not just to reflect or report on culture - for what one would
to
reflect
upon
is
not
sufficiently
there
-
like
but also to help manufacture
elements of a culture, to make an image.
To resist the North, we should increase our efforts to further the
flourishing
already
programs, and perhaps other sunrise projects, to build teaching and
research around the programs selected for promotion, elaboration, and criticism,
to
orient
appointments,
programs. 23
24 Why bother?
technology,
especially
of
involved
local
people,
off the shelf, from the North?
There is, firstly, the
inferiority
built-in
and
despite their attractive packaging.
23.
limited
range
of applications (e.g.
obsolence
25
of
Northern
Without putting too fine a point
for
a
they're hopeless in the vicinity of
Methuen, London, 1973.
See also work by Goldblatt and by
to in Research in Logic, op.cit.
20
our
There are several arguments for not
on it, many of the imported intellectual goods are shoddy, and only work
very
these
Why not simply buy our philosophy, like almost all
doing this, in more than a limited fashion, which are now sketched.
products,
to
Hughes
referred
contradictions or dilemmas).
Much that
is
wrong
with
philosophy
Antipodean
undoubtedly derives from shoddy intellectual goods imported from the North.
Yet
buying this material is encouraged by hard-sell cultural
the
North,
who
are
often enough paid to visit.
from
ambassadors
This is part of the philosophical
imperialism from the North - the successor to Northern colonialism
that
-
the
Antipodes too willingfysuffers , or, more remarkable, encourages!
Secondly, there is the inappropriateness of much of the
especially
considered
as
a
package,
metaphysics, environmental concerns.
land
or
for
instance,
The European
North
to
Northern
cover,
has
no
as
product,
well as
satisfactory
environmental ethic fit for Antipodean circumstances, and the American
24. In fact something like the last has been the policy of the LSE. Philosophy
Department, where the only outside appointment over a long period was that
of Lakatos (hardly a person far removed ideologically).
As observed, it
now loc s like the practice of the Otago Department also: and apparently
it used to be a tendency at Melbourne. But in most places the practice^ is
condemned as nepotistic or parochial, and overridden by the call for new
(Northern) blood".
It is at this stage, among others that administrative measures do matter;
for example, to ensure that suitable locally-engaged locals gain employment
rather than Northern stooges, in order to inject funds for on-going or new
programs, etc.
Among sunrise projects in Australian philosophy so far suggested are these:
Australian feminism, Antipodean social alternatives, indigenous regiona
philosophies (especially Aboriginal, Melanesian, and Polynesian).
As
foreshadowed with the notion "sunrise projects", much of the rhetoric, and
arguments, concerning science policy can be taken over to aPP-Y to >
policy, where X is some subject discipline, such as philosophy.
25. Some of these arguments
change
support
centre also.
21
(perhaps
revolutionary)
at
the
I
too
product is
spiritually-loaded
theory,
political
Australian
mainstream
for
culture.
26
In
work is much too individualistic, and the European
American
product, especially the Marxist form, unsuited
too
and
for
high-tech,
local
circumstances, especially again for more environmentally-perceptive people.
Thirdly, also telling against comparative advantage, are appealing features
of
and
markets
and
substitution
import
(including
removal
fashions,
the
Old
Boy’s
of
overseas
of the world’s
avoidance
namely,
regionalism;
control
and
structures
power
network in jobs, policies, etc.) and local control,
employment of local people, etc.
Fourthly, there are arguments for cultural diversity, applied to philosophy
as
part
of
intellectual
arguments from richness, complexity, sheer
culture:
into
diversity, stability, etc.26
27 In fact, the garden analogy built
notion
of
garden.
’culture’
transfers.
introduced.
We
obtain
not
only
but
good
whole
we want a rich, dense, productive
Naturally
But not only seeds and plants
the
and
weeds
products,
cultivars, but European pests and American weeds.
many
pests
are
being
maize and European
Indian
This is why selectiveness and
control are essential, as against previous haphazard procedures.
The proposal is not for, nor would the case
sustain,
a
narrow
localism.
The suggestion is for carefully selective penetration of intellectual areas.
with
technology
policy,
we
select
niches
which
are
not
occupied
As
or
satisfactorily filled, where we can make a difference, and use and develop local
skills and methods.
base
Indeed the policy has to be selective
(of philosophers, publishing outlets, etc.).
what extent should components, for instance people,
our
resource
But granting regionalism, to
books
26.
The point is elaborated in Culture.
27.
See, for instance, A.A.
Mazrui, A World Federation
African Perspective, Free Press, New York, 1976.
22
given
and
of
other
teaching
Cultures:
An
elements, theories and ideas, be imported and to
trained,
produced,
conceived
locally?
The
extent
what
possibility
different components means that many mixes are possible.
insist,
so
far
at
least,
on
they
be
of selectLveness in
There is
no
need
to
The case for the present is
a particular mix.
of
local
But it will do no harm to indicate elements of a mix that finds much
local
merely for a regional
shift,
autonomy and production.
Negatively,
favour.
for
significantly
a
undue
emphasis
is
suggestion
the
on
the
(also a Cambridge focus);
proper
conservative
that we try to get rid of the Oxford
That includes such things as removal of
quasi-historical
with
one.
generally
More
practice,
have
the
proposal
is
no
however
The heavy Oxford influence, in particular, has mostly been
many
been
that
a
very
of the main movements emanating from
but
also
the
Moore - later
very protective of the Northern status quo;
they tend to leave things very much as they
Positively,
approach
of reinforcement of the prevailing Anglo-American
England, especially ordinary language philosophy,
Wittgenstein
degree
British empiricism centred on Locke-Berkeley-Hume
of the
attention to sources;
status quo.
greater
28
style of teaching and doing philosophy.
the
should
are,
and
recommend
just
this.
29
we achieve further disassociation from the
Anglo-American empiricist past by widening the range of philosophical traditions
28.
Does it sound familiar? Outside philosophy, it should.
For example, we
have now been told by the Americans that our defence role, unlike theirs,
is regional, not global:
this is supposed to shed great light on our
previously confused defence policies.
29.
The point is laboured in E. Gellner, Words and Things, Victor Collancz,
London,
1959.
But even ordinary language philosophy, though it much
contracted the proper range of philosophical investigations, had its
liberating elements, e.g.
removal of some of the narrowness and more
cramping assumptions induced by technical jargon.
drawn upon, to include not only
thought,
Eastern
neglected
in
parts
of
but also Pacific ethnic material and Australasian philosophy.
The idea is that such a plurality
assist
and
strands
continental
sources,
of
especially
in
will
teaching,
removing narrower cultural biasses and enable more discrimination to
Then too we should be better able to see the
be obtained.
ranges
theories
of
that are open to us in the Antipodes and how to advance our own programs.
APPENDIX
1.
Notes
investigation
of
on
the
philosophical
supply
situation.
Sociological
the philosophy labour market in Australia and New Zealand has
yet to be attempted.
of
But a picture
some
the
underlying
elements
simple
numerical argument of the text can be gained from the following table:
TABLE 1. Ph.Ds in Philosophy: a USA/Australian comparison
USA
Number (Male/Female)
1977
330 (264/66)
1978
283 (235/48)
1979
285 (204/54)
Australia
Number
9
1980
4
1981
4
Notes:
1.
New Zealand
Number
The breakdown of the USA numbers by sexes
is
(male/female)
given.
Similar figures do not appear to be available for Australia.
2.
The US figures are for the academic year ending in the
e.g.
1978
covers
the
Northern
Year
academic year 1977-78.
shown,
Southern
figures are for the calendar year shown.
In applying table 1 some simplifying assumptions are made.
candidates
for
appointment
to
regular
university
It is
positions
assumed
now
that
require a
9
find
trite
a
moral
fair dealing'), but nothing at all distinctive.
national
philosophy,
exclude there being
programs).
So
Australia
has
at
least
various
life,
of
regional
far, then, all is well.
the
inconsistency:
of humour, courage and
base to build on ('traditions ...
trouble
derives
but
So far, then, there
be
(such
as
local
research
But shortly the Editor is plunged into
from
the
extravagant
claim
that
Philosophy'
(p.295;
with rearrangement).
sweep'
than
any
national
boundaries
—
these
"she
values
is
a
Though
the
easily avoided by rescinding the extravagant claim, the ideal
of a National Philosophy should be allowed to rest in
had its time.
involving
has nothing to do with
Philosophy, contradicting the possibility of a National Philosophy.
contradiction
do
But, as Australia has nothing
per se to do with these - as is virtually conceded,
'wider
'if
nothing to do with these - the eternal values of the Spirit, the
Ideals of Truth, Goodness and Beauty - then and only then has she nothing to
with
a
this does not however
is not:
philosophies
can
peace:
nationalism
has
PROSPECTS FOR REGIONAL PHILOSOPHIES IN AUSTRALASIA
Philosophy, especially academic philosophy but also folk philosophy, like
intellectual and higher cultural activity in Australasia, has long been
(Uhfi
swainped,
by
Northern
increayngly from North America.
Europe, now
inltutal
i!t
largely
indeed
dominated,
the
from
patterns,
of
composition
ethnic
resulting uU-HT; populations, such a result was virtually
does not
initially
the migration
Given
imported,
baggage
and/other
Influences,
the
But it
inevitable.
Suitable policies, a good philosophy policy,
have to stay that way.
could change things.
I he
of
thought
is
cultuie,
hardly a
regional
a
new one.
philosophy,
In
1923,
a
matching
perhaps
a
regional
correspondent to the
New Zealand
newly-1aunched Aust r a1asIan Journa1 of Psychology and Philosophy mentioned the
possibility of 'a new kind or temper of philosophy under these southern skies’
which
the
11 o
*5
SIK
reaching
for
(or,
not
community).
soi id
might
Journal,
merely
foundation
that
for a
matter,
professional
although
And
The
foster.
some
Journal has
actively
pursued
philosophers
things
new regionalism
however hardly
but
have changed
in philosophy,
its
a
fulfilled
pronounced
wider
of
aim
Australasian
in Australia,
laying
a
that possibility of a
new Lemper of phiLosophy has hardly been realised. There is little in the way
of
a
new kind
and
temper of
philosophy
southern skies were intended to include:
distinctively
New
Zealand
skies, which
the
but few distinguishing features,
’no
under
characteristics,
New
have
Zealand
shown
up
in
New
Zealand
The question was taken up by the Editor in the
discussion is considered below, especially in
p/ces
1
pin losophy' .-
New Zealand remains a substantial net
The situation of colonial dominance that used to prevail in
and philosophers.
Aus 11.11. la,
wheie
virtually
all
chairs,
were filled by academics
philosophy,
Importer of philosophy,
and
many
from the North,
posts
academic
other
in
tends to persist in New
Zealand, where no established chairs are occupied by locals.\ Given the usual
power and Influence of professors
topics
coveted
considered
and
in small
and
in courses designed,
departments,
especially
appointments
made,
the
heavy
Northern orientation of philosophy taught and researched in New Zealand is not
The Northern control is perhaps most strikingly exhibited at the
surprising.
oldest
of
New
Zealand
Philosophy Department
event ,
the
the
University
of
has been substantially captured by a
like
increasingly
looks
universities,
an offshoot
of
overwhelming Anglo-American
the
Otago,
where
the
British School and
University of London.In any
dominance
of
New Zealand
philosophy
1 so <1 feature only in slightly lesser degree of Australian philosophy — can
be confirmed
by a
content survey of the courses offered and research papers
written at Now Zealand universities.
Even when local
people have been appointed
to positions in Australasia,
they have been brought up on a solid diet of Anglo-American material, and they
have often been reforged or finished in the North as well.
In particular, the
S.A. Grave, A History of Philosophy in Australia, Queensland University
Piess,
1)84, p.l. Page references are to the manuscript.
The paper draws/
heavily on this history.
/
/
was correct at the t^me
of presentation of
J ' J/ '
v/i th the recent loss of^Xiair at Wellington, the
qualification, but the pattern of domination persists.
the pager
(August
claimrequires
*ln the 1981 Commonwealth University Handbook listing, 6 of the 8 members of
the Department held their main degree, Ph.D., from London, and one of the
remainder from Exeter.
Only one member of the Department, soon to retire,
falls outside the nexus.
of
requirements
the major
period
post
of
li expansion were conveniently seen to in the case of philosophy by
World War
the
in
the Australasian universities
B.Phil,
Oxford
products of
Many
degree.
fill's cultural mill:
in Oxford were hard
(unwarranted)
departments of
indeed until
philosophy
full
remain
of
the mid 70s candidates finished
to beat out when they applied for positions, such was the
prestige of Oxford and
the regrettable,
but still
continuing,
"cultural cringe".
Nonetheless,
been
occurring
scene
(as
in
Northern
it
indicated).
significant
dominance,
especially on
the Antipodes,
be
will
the
despite
the Australian
worth
is
asking
changes
have
philosophical
Australian
whether
phiLosophy is moving towards the sort of change that occurred in USA more than
100 years ago when the Harvard Philosophy Department was brought (or bought)
together,
its "golden
and
age"
began.’
American
the same again, and became its own thing.
philosophy was never quite
There are now new forces operating
which could help to move Australian philosophy in such a direction.
the
widespread
regionalism/'
other
provides
a
which
applies
choices;
local
fashioning
emergence,
of
national
model
for
and
particularly
cultural
to
in
in
alternative
and
there are
of
choice
along
ideological
contrast,
there
and
technology
policies,
reflection
in
regional
also some
is
philosophy
directly bears on parts of the philosophy of science.
soon appear,
culture,
stark
science
serious obstacles
There is
the
a
new
with
centralised
which
not
only
policy
but
also
Unfortunately, as will
to regional
philosophies
and to the very idea of a regional philosophy.
See B. Kuklick, The Rise of American Philosophy; Cambridge, Massachusetts
1860-1930, Yale University Press, 1977 , Parts 2 and 3.
On this bio-regionalism, see especially, Fourth World News, vol. 1,
and K. Sale, Hitman Scale, Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, New York, 1930.
1983,
1 other seek
b,1!
(Iu<i'!iy
fs
to satisfice on a mix of
factors, of which assessed
only one, and not often the highest ranking one.
Ability to fit
program, teaching or research, is another, and commonly more
lnto
8ort
iiipo/iant
factor;
and
so H ! linGS bc a regionally
reason why such a program should not
is no good
there
So given prevailing practices,
oriented one.
the
argument from excellence does not exclude regional philosophy programs.
in
my event,
there are enough local candidates of sufficient worth to proceed
>‘-giona]
w!I;i
And,
programs
without
sacrifice
clearcut
excellence.
of
Local
enterprise need entail no loss of excellence, and could well increase it.
btP'!
1 s"
v • 1 i!
■
1 b'J
objection is that
cutting
of
excellence,
objective
obJt( ■ *
importance;
that
criticism
is
of
notions
llL'J' ' ' 1 '".ll_ ff".l
these
there is something seriously amiss
and
notions
objective
values
with
open
are
more
contextual-re lativisation
a
rather
narrow
intellectual
the
to
generally,
of
component
paradigm,
notion
same
sorts
they
that
of
of
have
the
valuing:
While those operating
framework or viewpoint to which these values relate.10
within
connected
the
as
such
ordinary
Oxbridge
language philosophy or Sydney materialism say, can bracket out the viewpoint,
'1
's
incorporated
in
the
operat ional
paradigm,
and
so
arrive
at
set !! :s’’1 y objective quality judgements, the judgements are not preserved (e.g.
m
truth
Marxist
value)
when
viewpoints.
transposed
ConsidcZ
to
for
other
frameworks,
comparison,
the
e.g.
idealistic
judgements
as
to
or
the
quality or worth of a forestWade variously by a deep ecologist, an industrial
forester, and a recreational officer.
Compare judgements as to the quality of
What fol lows also begins to bring out what is omitted in a main theme if
R.S. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motor Cyc1e Maintenance, Bodley Head, Lond
1974.
Note that
efusing the notion of objective excellence does not lea^
subjectivism.
T
avoid the customary false dichotomy , compare the noti
validity (usuall
Ci1 led to themselves these days by classical logicians' with
that of quality^/.
9
a
ho 1 i s i /c a I 1 y-i nc I. i ned
Marxi st,
philosophers
it
group
As
because
the
of
problems such
'!lt »
is
importance
of
are
be
cannot
even
judged,
main philosophical
work
are not
of quality
peer
done
problems
or
independent of
But
tackled.
issues is highly paradigm dependent.
the
For example,
those of qu in t i f y i ng-i n and of poss l b Le worlds and of de re
importance for
immense
mainsti -am empiricist
restricted
that
ire
judgements
reveal,
to
which assume
the
language,
There
work
by members of the
not done
problems and
import nice of
whit
is
ordinary
philosophers.
environmental
such
that
by
like institutions.
begins
this
outside
it
Harvard and
judgements
witiiiii
pretend
who
philosopher,
environmental
Californian
and
seemi ng 1y
environmental
the important
fashionable referential
theories
paradigm, vanish to relative insignificance
Now observe
viewpoint.
that most
judgements as
to
problems and what constitutes importkj/t work - matters
tbechelping, determine quality - are shipped down from the North.
is relative
to
their paradigmatic placement, and
Their importance
the paradigms concerned are
exported to the Antipodes through the main channels already indicated.
fri'e to reject
be .argued,
choose
that
these paradigms and select alternatives,
good
reasons
different
generally
energy
favoured
to do
just
technology
in
the
that,
much as
(or different
North
the
which
We are
and there are, it can
there are
military
North
is
good reasons
technology)
eager
to
to
from
export
southwards.
against
which
might
alternatively
be
the
called
cosmopolitan/internalional
the
Peter
Stuyvesant
argument
international
r
argument ,
everrywhere smoke
that
mass-produced
and
-marketed
The argument
' cosmopol i t in subject',
pJL
Jo-Zj
cvnYy'
c.
Pi
^e/S3)r?'5"?.
is based
that is
a
from
i s not
Holland;
this superior
product..
cigarette-sophist lest ion
on the assumption that pM
the sort of enterprise for wht
f '/is
c^ra-
10
poetry
for
assumpt ion has only
important
sori
(a
to be presented
propositional
to be questioned.
that philosophy
thing,
theory),
not a
is a
1 i terature ,
and
work
not
just.
theorems
i nternati ona11y-approved format,12
’
philosophy,
since
no
more
than
It
and
The
takes for granted,
finished product of a certain
(e.g.
involved
the
if
And
novel.11
the
process of production also.
process of production the place and people
mater i a I
or
of
in discussion)
art ,
a rg urn e n t s
But in the
like
a
piece
assembled
in
are
of
an
then again the historical setting ma t ters ,
literature,
does
not
emerge
in
a
vacuum.
Plato's philosophy could not have emerged in ancient Australia, and if cribbed
in mid 20th century Oxford would surely have been marked down or rejected.
fmpoi taut not
1
in aesthet ics extent
sets
ol
adopted
in
prospect
themes
nonnucleai
Europe
that
do not
that
been produced
New
to be sidetracked
need
and arguments
in another.
but
to
be contested,
produced
.
such as
whether and what
in one place and setting could
A nonnuclear technology of some sort could be
apparently will
Zealand,
into issues — resembling problems
in
not
contrast
It is J
be,
with
whereas
there
Australia,
is
will
reasonable
pursue
a
>t what could be done, that
Eravi.’, op.cit., p.2:
the term 'cosmopolitan subject' used there comes
fioni Donegan.
As to the significance of place and people for literature, see
fin ! hi’i C. Partridge, The Making of New Cultures, Editions Rodopi, Amsterdam,
bike i paper in the biological sciences.
But here again technique
methodology, which may both be regional, are crucially important.
and
13
■pies, e.g. concerning
modem American work.
Consider, for instance such texts as W.V. Quine's Word
_ (bi ley, New York, 1.960) or R. Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia
(Basic Books, New York, 1974).
The assumptions taken Tor granted, the
arguments involved, etc., are especially American: it is not just the style.
£9_c-ePta^j 1 i ty of arguments and positions is dependent on place and
r e c e 1 v ed par a d I gm .
11
.71 a L t < • r s
here .
Dialethic
much Anglo-American
methodology of
which
logic,
invalidates
philosophy, could
the
and
technique
perhaps be
done
in
the
North (though there1 would be substantial cultural resistance): it is not being
done
there,
this
extent,
and
is not
likely
Antipodeans
can
their
choose
the! r
own
international/cosmopo11 tan argument,
s tit ed
techniques,
Of course
do
it can
the Anglo-American sphere.To
to be done in
be argued,
o wn
distinctive
dis tine t ive
and
technology
The
thing.
in a form that would be telling,
it is being argued,
that Antipodeans don’t
need to be, or even oughtn't to be pursuing their own energy or logic policies
and apparatus.
of
But meeting
these considerations takes us
to a whole new set
issues concerning the merit of various policies and programs,
diversity, etc. - far beyond the cosmopolitan argument.
which we shall
return,
arguments concerning
are not a
cooking:
the. point of
The new arguments, to
lot more convincing however than comparable
that
we
don't,
devising our own cuisine or wine, styles.
need
to
be
or
oughtn't
to
be
British, or at least cosmopolitan,
cooking is adequate: we. should stick, to that and buy it off the shelf from the
North,
ideally importing
the cooks
also.
Do we
have good
reasons to
think
that British philosophy is better, these days, than British cooking?
Antipodeans are
free,
in principle
then,
to pursue their own paradigms;
and to do so they will by and large want to, and mostly have to, appoint their
own people, people they have educated - not saboteurs or people who have (had)
14,
Much as communist anarchism, a live possibility for communes and perhaps
communities in Australia, is culturally excluded in North America, owing to
tiie extreme possessive individualism of that culture.
On dialethic logic, see G. Priest and R. Routley, On Paraconsistency,
Research Papers In Logic, #13, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian
National University, 1983.
12
elsuJhere, in particular from the North.
parad igms
features
of
the
I oca 1
though works of
integral
do.
cultural paradigms, with distinctive
culture?
way,
philosophy will
to
not usually
programs,
unimportant
Independent
features,
not
But
or
at
least,
with
tie in
style,
I5
do
already
restricted
with
link,
they may
culture in
the
link.
the
truth,
far
considers
Grave
particular
philosophical
'an Australian
wha t matters
acceptabilit/,
so
to
Australia as
compared
is
independent
mJ correctness
they
philosophy in
this
though
add.
-
extent,
help mark
that
to
limited
a
cultural
certain
truth
tic
4
fashion that novels (as distinct from more technical works) sometimes
Indeed,
hastens
perused
But will the
do
product'
he
in philosophy’
and
matter,
are
not
percept ion
from under lyi/g broad theory or received paradigm.
CG'n £)Q_
However the marks Grave
U-y ut Ivin ecu/,
A
do
not
features
serve
to
the
distinguish
philosophy
Australian
Australian
exhibits
in
s i g n i f 1 c a n t though they are,
product,
lesser
the
degree
adventurous and polemical philosophy of Greek antiquity.
by
Passmore
as
'most
typical
of
Australian
first
two
than
the
being
more
The first, described
philosophy' ,
is
a
'diversity of
approach and readiness to put forward an unconventional or unfashionable point
of
v iew' ,' (>
philosophy,
something
wh ich
more
(with
typical
some
of
notable
ancient
philosophy
exceptions)
than
exhibits
Australian
an
austere
15
Nothing need be conceded to strong
cultural relativity themes, though they
would support the case.
It is enough that our theories remain radically
incom|> 1 e te and th.11 there
can accordingly be rival theories as to what is
true.
Similarly, however philosophy is conceived - as the search for truth,
explan it. ion, understanding and wisdom (all of these and more, really), or as,
more vaguely, inquiry of a certain soil - there can be, and will, be, competing
accounts; so a pluralistic theory is inevitable in giving a fuller view.
Both preceding quotations, while included as such in Grave's Introduction,
are It™ J. Passmore, 'Philosophy', in The Pattern of Australian Culture fed.
' " 'lcL«'0O, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y., 1963 , pp.131-163.
The
same annotation also applies to the third mark.
13
uni1ormit y
re fI ec t i ng
more
and
that often at/rlbuted
sorprising ,
most
'the
philosophy,
WittgensteLnian
Andersonian
notable
Melbourne
philosophy
i s ^’the
mark
...
example
and
itself
manifestoed
character’
Andersonian
Sydney,
This
example
(p.2).
the
...
being
'The second,
itself.
Land
to the
is
line-up
it
if
Australian
of
the
not
was
far
between
isolated:
from
ited by "Australian materialism",
■
discussed
by
Grave),
relevant/pa raconsis tent
to
sharp
criticism
by
and
growing
the
program,
with
Americans.
philosophy departments
confrontation
(both
concerning
the local ('adversarial’) style leading
Connected
with
these
first
marks
two
furl her character 1st les of much Australian philosophy, as of much
unkindly
unwillingness
add
(in
the
mu file poi n t s ,
hope
of
locating
A
are
8th century
turi^-of- this-century Cambridge philosophy!
di rec tness ,
the
namely
surface clarity/and,
some would
difference),
bluntness,
genuine
unsubtlety and crudity.
third and the Jour th marks yklvnnci'^/
are very different-
~~
A
Anglo-American
philosophy;
namely
Australasia from, and its general
the
isolation
of
academic
philosophy
indifference or even hostility to,
in
the sort
tZ7
1 7
Though:for the most p<
that influenced by Sydney rather than that
originating 1 n^JJpl bourne.
"this
reflects the different historical
i nJ 1 u_e 11 c e s -rhrriT
Sydney and Melbourne philosophy.f-oj-’ a-h4 y
Scottish
dZTf-rrf- Contineryfal antecedents.
A 1 Cj? V A"
I
r
V
of
(e.g.
philosophy
imported
of
that
Nietzsche
and
the
existentialists)
8eneratlng Interest in literary and arts circlls.
rhe
philosophy
failure
does
of
not
such
marks
matter.
to
one
For
lts
Australian
!cts-
.nother,
Australian
is
produce
regionalism
>ot more regional positions such as
.
•lism «fth national philosophies.
ChlnJ, is an undesirable trait,
> as In
Na‘
the
thing,
r<
nationa11
out
separate
"Ot
in other cultural
» 'S^nked,
with the breakdown of nations and contraction of state power.18
*
*
:
............ merging proposal
loin
1,1
181,1
irch in
iiors-
°f
COP1CS
1
:
■
>d«.
ind
18t< 1 “t”>n UB
not
8
suggestions
lecide
, ,
Sale,
that
that begin
to
our
own
priorities,
that is, that we play our
th
North) and not theirs,
Gridiron and Basketball - but that we abandon the
individual competitive model of cultural achievement,
18Q<
aec > e.g.,
London, 1957.
we
that we do our own selection
just,
fr<
RU1<
that
> Pt bllcatlons and appointments, study
1
styl
this,
oir own distinctive things, and
11
1
is
op.cit.,
and
L. ?’011 r >
sold to us and fostered
Tlu>_ breakdown
of Nations ,
RKP ,
Ihe Editor of the new.1923 AJPP did
however take seriously the notion of
National Philosophy, of (what must have
surprised some New Zealand readers) an
Australian Philosophy; some of the issui
s there raised (p.292ff) are addressed
in Appendix 2.
In favour of a group cooperative approach (elements of which are
by the .Iort.ii,
already modelled in Antipodean social clubs).
ihe thoughts here are simple and familiar.
digging example:
more
rapidly
On the one side is the ditch-
it is well-known that two people cooperating c.an
and enjoyably
than two
people working
Cooperalive work ten Is to pay off
output,
quality,
and enjoyment
the
in
doing.
on
dig a ditch
:he ditch
separately.
or el ewhere
in terms of
On the ot her side,
experience
shows that we in the periphery cannot individually cmip^el
ete very successfully
with the centre on achievements in
ior this.
the
attainment
nature of
results
of
depends
acce:;:i to unpublished material.
There are several reasons
Despite the highly competitive
Ono is the communication situation.
p r s ’ i omi nan tIy ind i vi iua 1is t ic
in
their programs.
American academic
upon
enterprise,^ much
verbal
rapid
communication
and
For, despite the individualism myth, work is
joint ly based, and builds on the work of many; when the time is ripe for some-
several clever people will
idea or result,
communications
result:,
an I
periphery
the
tend
na t i oiri 1 is t 1 c
are
to
Important
assignment
lose
out.
considerations
Russians will
obtaining
in
of
credit
Again
(e.g.
for
is
th e
facc~ I o- f ace scm 1 nars
so
that
fact
Poles
that
Local
rapid
Here
it.
much
results
tend
Then again
the
publication of
there is a mix
Russian who achieves a
The re
be able to hit on it.
to
again
result at
or
at
the
There
are
people
of reasons:-
promote
idea
Polish
results,
about the same time as
is conveyed verbally and
will be conveyed.
through
There is
the
IH'llecling other features oi Ihe culture and enterprise of the centre
which are not so deeply embedded in Australasia: see further R. Routley,
Culture,
philosophy,
and
approaches to
the natural
environment an
Austral I in
perspective',
in The
Environment,
Ethics
and
Ecology
(ed.
D. Bennett), The Faculties, Aust raIian National University, 1984, and also
Culture and
the roots of political divergence:
the Australian/American
contrast , typescript , Canberra, 1981;
both referred
to subsequently as
' Cu J ture ’ .
fact
Limited
of
when
1.11 e y
pub 1 i shed
may
reading,
read
on
and
that
material
from
L terns and results
we J I
I ose
out
There
publication.
receive,
to
merit
also
for merit,
the
from the
central
is
people at
more
by
to
tend
central
concentrate
so
people,
that
periphery wi 11, often not be noticed, and
fact
that
publication
towards the periphery.
thin people
centre
competitors
the
the centre
even
they
if
the
at
people
achieve
Here economic
tend
centre
communication
and
central
to
opportunities
factors do begin to enter;
ket (there are, e.g., a
grept many more academic philosophers in North America than in the whole rest
of the world), control of publishing outlets and journals (with few exceptions
all Northern),
etc.
culture - we can
shut off
way we
being
However economic power does not, and need not, determine
the Northern
shut off
our television
impressed
by
sets
if
philosophical
those
philosophical propaganda in much the
we really want
middle-men
to.
who
And we can stop
make
a
living
by
importing the Northern stuff.
So what do we do? We adapt to
of
the cultural-philosophical level, several
those things, that have been suggested in the newer regionalism.
some
regional
importers
and
doctrines
and
awakening
and
self-reliance.
of,
and
local
from
the
North.
imitators
positions
local
We do
commentators
For
not remain
on
example,
We aim at
we
and
slavish
peddlars
of,
spend
our
don't
academic Lives trying to tease out what Davidson or Dumrnett or Kripke meant by
this
or
through.
that
To
in the
be
hope
sure,
I
that
am
some pale
not
Northern light
sugg esting
that
we
will perhaps
emulate
the
filter
appalling
ignorance of people from the No r t h who visit the Antipodes and know little or
nothing
about
what
has
been
done
or
Jis
being done
here;^ so
that we
Regrettably, the Ignorance extends to many locals.
In particular,
infected with Sydney materialism appear remarkably ill-informed as to
features oi other Australasian programs.
have
those
basic
17
vi: Hors,
Australian
the
through
investigation of
heavy
bags
their
cultural
with
University
National
the
(now
main
relevant logics) and Informing us that, or relying crucially
positions
'■ n
advances is
ind
! ioiity
colo!IJ(
often
Northerners
these
for
centre
One reason
on tnu assumption that, a contradiction entails every proposition.
that
trekking
accroutrements,
cultural
of
and
intellectual
narrow
nothing
or
is the
t.he Antipodes
the
is
another
little
know
about
distinctive
prevailing assumption of
life
these
in
(predominantly local)
and
former
the
southern
limited
reading
undertaken by Northern luminaries.
despite /having
But,
ourselves off
to anyway:
been
fro/ Northern paradigms and
az I
propaganda is different).
of, or
part of,
in
'
their enterprises.
c u t ’ *1 k ’
these
nowliere*
1 oose
1.r om
(and
older
shouldn’t
cut
Influences (we could hardly manage
We can reasonably use what we need from
In any case,
regional cultures are rooted
■
1
we
cause,
so we should stay informed of, but not imitators
continuing traditions:
tiics<
sufficient
given
these
likely
traditions
minority)
a nd
rgely European stock.
start! ng afresh
traditions,
and
the
from
local
variations that have already appeared are what we want to develop and perhaps
mutate, as again with wine styles.
1,111
things,
ol
L-K‘
Proposal
is
then
that
encourage and develop our own
Antlpodean
paradigmfl,
’•
rather
H
is
increasingly
research programs,
than working
not as
we
H ™
very Sreat
a
nt
own
local
and so shape newer
- to
bui Id from nothing,
to
of
do
to try to create cultural
programs ilready Initiated, which have the
of being grounded
2I .
’ See Cuiture, op.cit.
our
with pale northern reflections
“ entirely ori Inal work,
are res< lrcl
do
in features
of the larger culture.212
18
Nor,
do we need
fortunately,
-
Australia
part
1 j
u'■ o! c
New
Zealand
to do
*
more difficult
the story,
for
proposition -
is
All one really
To pull the investigation down to a more concrete
sketch some more
prominent cooperative
programs - by no means
on Ly programs - and remark on some rel evant features of them.
‘L?.
longest running and
PdJ 111
.... .IdJL
and
1 r sin ,
science.
(physical)
best known program is,
which
’ 1 >r
program
The
c'.ipi r i <-ist metaphysics,...
and
state
version
of
tr famed
as
materialism,
both
back
and
world,
and*
22
Faced
plans,
like
il
takes
it
initiated
in,
identity theme
more
physicalisms
all
now
Anderson's
It
in
The latter program has included
there.
nowadays
to
program
the mental-material contingent
’1reduction
theory of
uiiivcisals,
that
in Armstrong's work.
a
functionalism.
,n
natural
traced
subpro
components
central
generally
is
is now best exhibited
Adelaide which subsequently died out
famous
the
see
to
aims
without much doubt,
as suitably encompassed within the framework of the world of
e[se,
incorporates
a
derivatively,
with
and
a
conspicuous
"scientifically"
and an account of natural laws as relations of
universals,
components of
the developing
Sydney realism.
Parts of the
nd central state reduction^sm and
y matei
science ideal, have had counterparts in the North, but the program
t!!l
has,
Much of
about.
to bring out programs he has already indicated and provide some
is
I. shall
Jlie
such
is
different and
is a
elaboration and commentary.
level,
proposal
chough helping to shape
in Grave's survey of Australian philosophy.
already indicated
has
the
what
of
the story up -
to make
for
the
most
part,
retained
its
distinctively
Australian
character
22 >
An Arson's metaphysics was however far more opposed to reductions than
whal has succeeded it. For an account of Anderson's philosophy, and a history
and account
op.cit.
of
Australian naturalism
and materialism,
see especially Grave
r
y
,
19
respite export efforts, it never caught on in New Zealand.
It is similarly down-to-earth,
-
earthy,
and
so
far as
whlch
much
of
American
North
does
not
n
city
r
‘
from
>23
or
'
positivistic
the
University
would
be
quite
ropolitan culture.
of
the
,ider
turn
achievement,
h
one
to
through
1
notable
community,
icademic
■
an
exceptions,
the
As in
tonal philosophy impinges on
11
even on
8t
from
from
mainly
' t£ny hit) to t
ia,
Apart
not
is
it
universltles; but the program does extend outside
th
lstrala81a
metaphysical
explicit
in particular).
broadcast
program,
based
it ink
piricist,
(rejecting a verification principle,
’s
effete
nowadays,
(including
simmers
thinking
ba*
18
£t
!t
ideas or
fancy
the
without
philosophy or the spirituality and suppressed puritanistn
111901 01 Eu 01
Wlth
be,
philosophy can
The program fits
program
worth
this
working
lelaide;
it
work by
around
for.)
now reaches
in
The
to
1 core of opposition there.
has never
had
the
same hold,
or
’or example, while most academics from other disciplines would
°f’ and perhaps a little about, Russell, far fewer would know of
iH;! - i'1 (though fie is becoming known to lit. crit. groups), and virtually
none would know of Quine.
(The sampling is subjective.)
kHOW
On the
hL'?-’
fairly recent
'triumph of professionalism'
in philosophy in USA, see
b--’65ff.
Kuklick brings out well some of the more
r/Hls ''^Oures ol professionalism, but does not sufficiently notice that
7 1* 1
features
resulting
from
some
pro fess tonalisation
can
be
synthesized with broader philosophical activity.
20
more
i rather precarious hold,
than
in Melbourne: 4
nor, more surprisingly,
has it. had heavyweight criticism from there (or indeed much external criticism
from elsewhere),
the old confrontation of major city philosophies having died
Melbourne
out.
than
stricken
Continental
procession
a
then,
philosophy;
fashions:
recently,
remarkable
a
Northern
of
more
philosophy;
oriented
historically
and more
reLigion
philosophy, much more than Sydney,
Sydney; Melbourne
by
dominated
is more
philosophy
earlier
Wittgenstein,
Quine,
turnabout,
has
been
idealism
and
language
ordinary
and
Davidson
extensional
reduction; now perhaps Lewis, Kripke and Dumrnett?
one
The
program
beyond
reaches
that
confines
the
of
the
cities
in
Australia - which is after all a metropolitan dominated culture, the vast land
always
the other
being
a
Australian environmentalism,
is
-
rather
diffuse
of Advanced Education in the
towns and
country
much distinguished
environmental
by what
positions
are
it
a
is
not
as
feature of
transformed
the New
most
specifically
having
little wild untouched country left, and
such as
issues
Europe
that
tend
admit
Ihii opt*.in
to
having
those
concern
shallow
the
wilderness.
built
approaches
superficiality
environmentalism
of
outside
(and
continues
North
and
it
what
Europe
to
So far the program is as
the communes on the North Coast.
is.
World,
its
of
natural
America.
deeper
Old World,
and
environment
and
environmental
human-trans formed
to
the
and
little sensitivity accordingly
The main
encourage
Serious
environment,
techno-fix
dominate
North
much
issues
situations).
of
American
the
New
in
Issues
And
World
environmentalism
differs significantly however from Antipodean environmentalism, most obviously
' ‘ihe exceptions include Ellis's distinctive program, which can be accounted
part of the broader naturalist program, and at Monash the work of F. Jackson
and, earlier, of il. Munro in value theory.
21
in
the
religious-spiritual
component
of
the
former
but
several
in
other
respects as well (see further Culture).
More
there
positively,
are
an
is
there
enviton.nentallsmfirstly,
strands
three
Australian
to
utilitarianism,
extended
differing
1‘' in theory from Bentham's enlarged position, which insists upon counting
In
the utilities of all
Iris figured prominently In animal welfare and animal liberation
British base,
movements:
This position, developed from a
sentient creatures.
though
and
it
has
focussed
bio-research more generally such as genetic
engineering.
endangered species,
or much interested in,
concerned with,
animals used
in
it has also become entangled in issues of
animals,
researm and hunted (wild)
domestic animals,
on
It is not however
the disappearance
of wild lands, the conversion of forests, etc., except insofar as these have a
bearing on animal pain and pleasure.
Wider and deeper environmental concerns
appear only as a
spinoff from animal welfare, and so deeper concerns get an
inadequate deal.
Secondly, there is a wider and a deeper ecological position,
which is not utilitarian and which recognises irreducible value elsewhere than
sentience or
forests and
differs
ecosystems,
American
from
nature 1 Ism.
s t a t es ,
p s y c h o 1 og i c. a 1
as
Thirdly,
which finds
especially
there
is
reactionary component, critical of
needs
that
to
be
accomplished
natural
wild and
spiritualism
on
and
of
intrinsic value
from
course,
an
as
the other strands,
the
environmental
systems.
in
trees
This
position
of
American
extens ion
everywhere,
almost
and
a
which insists that all
front
can
be
achieved
within older estab I tshed (European) ethical and political frameworks.
Whereas
materialism
is
based
in
Sydney,
environmentalism
is centred
in
has
been described more
fully
elsewhere:
see,
in
particular,
cn La 1
Philosophy (ed.
D. Mannison and others),
RSSS,
Australian
National University, 1980.
It:
22
;llld Canberra, but also Includes
'11 ’*!) '111
Brisbane and
Perth. Also centred in
Canberra, and reaching across the country, with good connections Ln Melbourne,
!ew
b,lt
in
materialism and
epistemology
from
reLevant/paraconsistent
other
affecting
program
wh i ch
program,
a nd
programs have
environmental
input
perhaps
wh ich
is
program
areas
major
program.
relevant/paraconsistent
the
is
Sydney,
New
in
Zealand,
respectively,
the
program,
one
logic
especially
centres
more
to
extends
a
essentially
but
The
metaphysics.
Australia
than
also
been
has
with
in metaphysics,
theory
value
philosophy,
of
includes
and
their core
the
Whereas
any
other
described
,
26
elsewhere.
n 1 *n
! !H
logic
grounded
research program
program.
A
impact
of
the
in
New Zealand philosophy
program emanating
ton,
Inc
evident
program on
it might
from the
work of
is also
Prior and
a
now
be called the extended modal program.
philosophy is perhaps best seen in Cresswell’s
work.27
Australian philosophy used
for
its
hard-headed
known
fo1
empiricism;
to
be known,
is in some quarters,
regrettably New Zealand philosophy is mostly
anything much, except
unu.-,u.i] adaption o!
and still
t
rh ps,
in UK,
that
Prior brought
Russellian philosophy from that remote place.
his
Neither of
...‘,ain, like al] the Australian programs, both those mentioned and others,
{_’rave> op.cit.
But
see
further,
R. Routley,
'Research in Logic in
KTU!,ral;a ’ NeW Ze
Jceania' , R search Papers in Logic #14, Australian
National University, 1983 (which also considers other programs in logic)*
G- Priest and R. Routley, op. cit.; and R. Routley, R.K. Meyer and others’,
-J- -£?C2JLL
s a nd
e i r Rivals, Ridgev lew, California , 1982.
2 7 c.
, „-,,,Se,e especially
N.J. Cresswell, Logics
and
, '
—o---.........
.. Languages, Methuen,
ucuuu^u, London,
iy/3; but see also
-1 — ----’ 1by Goldblatt
- .
.
■ and- -by Hughes
--------------------work
referred to in Research in
Logic, op.cit.
Also described there is <an original
,1....1 version of the modal
program (transparent intensional logic) elaborated by Tlchy at Otago.
2J
these impressions
is particularly accurate; both are rather out-of-date.
work of
l!::i
impress Lons,
the present type is, of course,
not just
to reflect
or report
not just
But
to correct these
on culture - for what one
would
like to reflect upon is not sufficiently there - but also to help manufacture
elements of a culture, to make an image.
io
resist
the
North,
we
should
Increase
our
efforts
to
further
the
sunrise projectsbuild
f e,lr ding .Jiid research
and criticism,
iround tin’ programs selected for promotion, elaboration,
to orient: appointments, especially of involved local people, to
28.
4
...nong sunrise projects in Australian philosophy so far suggested (not all
°* Ihiin feasible) are these:
Australian feminism, Antipodean social and
political.
alternatives,
peace
studies,
indigenous regional
philosophies
(especially Aboriginal, Melanesian, and Polynesian).
Another promising field,
witli practical
consequences, for local initiative is the philosophy of
education, where material produced by R.S. Peters has dominated the market,
with stultifying effects It is now alleged.
As foreshadowed with the notion of "sunrise projects", much of the rhetoric,
cl nd a i gum on t, concerning science and technology policy (presented in the case
of Australia in Jones, op.cit.) can be taken over to apply to X policy, where
X is some subject discipline, such as philosophy.
24
i
2 9,
these programs."
Why bother?
for not doing this,
there
Northern
in more than a limited fashion, which are now sketched.
the
firstly,
is,
products,
point on
despite
vicinity
it, many of
Antipodean
of
the
imported
obsolence
of
most
Without putting
too
intellectual goods are shoddy,
and
packaging.
dilemmas).
or
undoubtedly
imported from Idle North.
built-in
range of applications (e.g.
contradictions
philosophy
and
inferiority
their attractive
only work for a very limited
tiie
simply buy our philosophy, like almost
technology, off the shelf, from the North? There are several, arguments
I oui
fine a
Why not
derives
from
they’re hopeless in
that
Much
shoddy
is
with
wrong
goods
intellectual
Yet buying this material is encouraged by hard-sell
cultural ambassadors from the North, who are often enough paid to visit.
This
In fact something like the last has been the policy of the LSE Philosophy
Department, where the only outside appointment over a long period was that of
Lakatos (hardly a person far removed ideologically).
As observed, it now
looks like the practice of the Otago Department also; and apparently it used
to be a tendency at Melbourne. But in most, places the practice is condemned as
nepotistic or parochial, and overridden by the call for "new (Northern)
blood .
however there can be significant differences between nepotistic
appointments and those strengthening local programs.
Is ;,t this stage, among others that administrative measures do matter;
for example, to ensure that suitable locally-engaged locals gain employment
rather than Northern stooges, to direct funds into on-going local programs
rather thin Imported fashions, etc.
There are various ways appropriate
administrative details can be handled, locally or nationally; but nothing
draconian, such as wholesale exclusion of noncitizens, is required.
Observe, indeed, that no restriction of academic appointments to nationals
(in Canadian style) or the like is being advocated.
Anyone who arrives at a
conclusion of that sort from what has been argued has misunderstood the case
in
crucial
respects.
As
a matter of
simple
mathematics,
restricting
appointment fields characteristically reduces both quality of candidates
available (however quality is assessed) and range of possibilities open for
future research; and no such restrictions are advocated.
The author has
witnessed the debilitating effects of field restrictions at the Australian
National University and elsewhere.
30p
Borne of
centre also.
t hesi!
arguments
support
change
(perhaps
revolutionary)
at
the
25
is
part
Northern
of
philosophical
the
-
colonialism
Imperialism
the
that
from the
too
Antipodes
the successor
North -
suffers,
willing
to
more-
or,
remarkable, encourages!
Secondly,
especially
there is the inappropriateness of much of the Northern product,
considered
as
metaphysics, environmental
for
package,
a
cover,
to
as
well
as
The European North has no satisfactory
concerns.
land or environmental ethic
instance,
fit for Antipodean circumstances,
the deeper
and
American pack ige is too spiritually-loaded for mainstream Australian culture.
31
In
political
is
work
the European product,
and
competition-based,
unsuited being
American
theory,
both too
precious and
much
individualistic
too
especially the Marxist
too high-tech
for
local
form,
and
is
circumstances,
especially again for more environmentally-perceptive people.
also
thirdly,
features
of
import
woi Id's markets
power
substitution
and
structures
against
telling
pressures
and
the
(including
and
comparative
advantage,
regionalism;
namely,
fashions,
Old Boy’s
removal, of
network in
are
appealing
of
the
overseas control
and
avoidance
jobs,
policies,
etc.),
and gaining of local control, employment of local people, etc.
Fourthly,
there
philosophy
as
complexity,
sheer
part
are
of
arguments
intellectual
diversity,
stability,
for
cultural
arguments
culture:
32
etc. “
diversity,
In
fact,
from
applied
to
richness,
the garden analogy
i’he point is elaborated in Culture.
At a more practical level Northern
products arc; again often unsuitable, though for different reasons.
For
example, the transfer of American agricultural methods and equipment to the
thin poor soils of the Antipodes has bad disastrous effects, at last beginning
to be recognised.
See, for instance, A.A. Mazrui, A World Federat ion of Cultures: An African
Per spec live, Free Press, New York, 1976.
Into the whole notion of 'culture’
built
dense,
garden.
productive
transfers.
Naturally we want a rich,
But not only seeds and
plants but weeds and many
being introduced.
pests are
We
obtain not only good
cultivars, but European pests
and European
and
selectiveness
are
control
products,
Indian maize
and American weeds.
This is why
as
essantLal,
against
haphazard
previous
procedures.
i'he proposal
with
local
Is not
whatever
products,
their quality,
replacing Northern ones.
heroes,
the case sustain,
nor would
for,
That
local
a narrow localisiiri^
fashions,
and
local.
cMl t
is certainly not the preferred wai of
the newer regionalism, which tends to do without fashions and heroes and leeks
impact, and so on;
low environmental
durable quality in products,
nor is the
way ol
technology policy.
Rather, as with technology policy, we select niches
which
are
or
not
occupied
filled,
satisfactorily
where
to
outlets,
be
selective
etc.).
given
our
base
resource
(of
can
make
a
Indeed the policy
difference, and use and develop local skills and methods.
has
we
philosophers,
publishing
to what extent should components,
But granting regionalism,
for instance people, books and other teaching elements, theories and ideas, be
imported
and
locally?
I’he
to
what
extent
should
they
be
particular mix.
There is no need
The case for
the present
trained,
conceived
in different components means that
possibility of selectiveness
many mixes are possible.
produced,
to insist,
so far at least, on a
is mainly for a regional shift, for
a significantly greater degree of local, autonomy and production
But
it
will
do
no
harm
to
indicate
elements of
a mix
that
finds much
Docs it sound familiar? Outside philosophy, it should. For example, we
have now been told by the Americans that our defence role, unlike theirs, is
regional, not global: this is supposed to shed great light on our previously
confused defence policies.
27
local
the suggestion
Negatively,
favour.
is that we try to eradicate much of
the Oxford style of
Leaching and doing philosophy.
as
undue
removal
of
Berke1ey-Hume
with
the
(a
however
no
standard
emphasis
on
British
focus);
attention
proper
empiricism
British
to
of
of
sources;
movements
emanating
from
England,
they
are,
pi
the Northern status quo;
recommend
and
this.
just
1
approach
the
of
influence,
in
More generally, many of
especially
the
protective ol
ord
Locke-
on
reinforcement
heavy
particular, his mostly been a very conservative one.
main
centred
quasi-historical
the
us
the
Includes such things
That
-lice,
language
ordinary
have
been
very
to leave things very much as
they tend
Positively,
the
proposal
is
that
we
achieve further disassociation from the Anglo-American empiricist past in two
ways:
by
framework,
emphasizing
by
and
to
Eastern thought,
philosophy.
teaching, will
parochialism,
The
idea
assist
and
projects
diversifying
selectively drawn upon,
parts of
local
is
the
include not
but also
that
that
move
range
constricting
that
philosophical
of
traditions
only neglected Continental strands and
Pacific ethnic
such a
outside
material and
plural i ty of
sources,
Australasian
especially
in
in removing narrower cultural biasses, such as British
enable more
discrimination
to
be
obtained.
Then
too we
should be better able to see the ranges of theories that are open to us in the
Antipodes and how to advance our own programs.
36
I'he point is laboured in E. Gellner, Words and Things, Victor Gollancz,
London, 1959.
But even ordinary language? philosophy, though conservative, and
though it much contracted the proper range of philosophical investigations,
had its liberating elements, e.g. removal of some of the narrowness and more
cramping assumptions induced by technical jargon.
Nor lias the social impact changed much with the subsequent/ decline, since
1959, o 1 ordinary language philosophy, the Increasing insolvency of Oxbridge
philosophy, and its consequent limited take-over by right-wing Ivy League
American philosophy.
By contrast, the less economically influential growth of
redbrick and applied philosophy in some of the British r-fttl
and polytechnic
institutes his touched no more than the surface of Oxbridge Practice.
T
There remain some things we should want to see whatever mixes are chosen
in
iiiiereni Antipodean regions.
bias from papers and
publications, research seminars and lectures, letters of
reference, and so on.
the
works
and
irrespective
discussion
write
not
Northern
to
their
of
the
ignore
authors,
works
the
contribution
of
famous
more
authors,
local
their
lecture as
or
been
under
largely
again
etc.
It
and
to uncritically
the disposition
is
to
to
though work produced locally either does not exist or has
influential
philosophers,
importance,
worth,
topic
It is the disposition
the quality of their contribution.
opinions of
better,
the
the
to
authors from prestigious Northern institutions,
to
accept
of
quality
the
and
irrespective of
defer
This Northern bias is a disposition to cite and discuss
projects
of
One crucial issue is the removal of Northern
are,
(thus
if
ensuring
more
anything,
it
that
inclined
Northern
to
Australasian
And
not).
is
than
bias
many
overseas intellectuals, who are perhaps less concerned to be seen as belonging
to tl-'l Northern mainstream.
bias effects
policies of
ot
local
not
only
practice
the
of
individual,
philosophers,
but
the
selection and review committees as well as of editors and referees
journals.
reorientation,
with
It
developments ~
things
taught, more
so
they
that
philosophers
can
would
cite
be
other
among
involves,
Antipodean
it ions \ better,
courses
The reduction, and eventual removal, of Northern
getting
to
work
or
local
assisted
time spent at local
by
intellectual
things,
know
local
point
greater
out
local
work
and
regional
content
in
institutions on study leave, and so
on.
APPENDIX 1. Background notes on the philosophy supply situation.
Sociological
investigation of the philosophy labour market in Australia and New Zealand has
1° be
numerical
attempted.
But a
picture of
some elements underlying
the
argument of the text can be gained from the following table:
simple
29
TABLE 1. Ph.Ds In Philosophy: a USA ~ Australasian comparison
USA
Number (Male/Female)
Aust ra1i a
New Zealand
1974
413 (346/67)
6
0
19 75
375 (318/57)
5
0
1976
382 (319/63)
8
0
197 7
330 (264/66)
3
2 (1/1)
1978
2 83 (235/48)
5
5 (4/1)
1979
285 (204/54)
9
3 (2/1)
1980
2 4 6 (187/59)
4
N.A.
1981
N.A.
4
0
Notes:
1. The breakdown of the USA and New Zealand numbers by sexes (male/female) is
given.
SimiLar figures do not appear to be available for Australia.
2.
The US figures are for the academic year ending in the Year shown, e.g.
1978 covers the Northern academic year 1977-78. Southern figures are for the
calendar year shown.
Sources: Di gest__of__ Education Statistics, US National Center for
Education Statistics; University Statistics, Australian Bureau of
Census Statistics; New Zealand Education Statistics.
Comments:
1.
The contraction of US doctoral, production and the concomitant rise in
female representation, are clearly indicated.
The Australian figures are
likely too small to reflect such trends and responses to the academic market.
2.
Nome of Llr* Australasian numbers include Americans; likewise the American
figures provide no nationality breakdown.
3.
There is no information available on the number of Australians proceeding
to higher degrees in philosophy outside. Australia.
Tn applying table 1 some simplifying assumptions are made.
assumed
tbit
candidates
for appointment
to regular
For example, it is
university positions
now
would t.ave a doctorate or- the equivalent (until recently a B.Phll was taken as
a
near
well).
equivalent
It
is
of
a
assumed,
North
what
American
seems
to
Ph.D.
take
publications
the
case,
that
could
the
serve
as
number
of
30
Austi il is Lans proceeding to higher degrees in philosophy abroad is relatively
Smail, and no more than the order of Ph.Ds.
upsetting applications of table
without
say,
Is no compiled
I, that Australasian graduates match,
information on academic vacancies in philosophy in
Aust ra1 ia < r New Zealand
Az matter
to
I di j oil,1'.
on the lumbers of vacancies, on how the positions
It would however be a routine,
nationalities, sexes, etc.
by what
re1
It can be assumed,
Lhe upper half of American graduates in standard attained.
There
if
taken locally.
some of
assemble
data,
this
which
is
considerable
of
' incc to the planning of philosophy programs.
Un
considering
'the
Editor
In
a National Philosophy', the (Australian)
possibility
r*
, /r
<(
I
initial AJPP^ d istinguished two senses corresponding to 'the
the
of
of a National Phi 1osophy for Australia.
the earlier
APPENDIX 2.
I
G e rm an distinction
b etwee n
W e11 a n sc hauung
I
I
the first, that of 'a scheme of the universe',
ridiculous
as
con f i rm.a t ion
a
or
Christian
Sc ience .
fa 1 sificationV
Granted: but
'are
Lebensanchauung7
a nd
The
In
n Ihilos>phy
I hlLos
is as
is
argument
independent
that does not mean
(p.292).
that^Jirutly
national
of
that a
and
sympathies
its
or
theory may not be held,
in one region but not. others, as intuitionism was for long in
in
Holland,
or
'a
nation
second
a
in
France.
In
like
an
individual
may
'more
develop
ternperament a 1 attitude to the problems of existence, which we may
life.
is a mode of
form of
A nation's philosophy,
expression for
the national
(.'VO I V I up,
like
its art and
the national consciousness.
But,
a
and
certain
. . call its
Its 1i terature,
It is a specialised
short,
genius
intimate
part of the
by
no means
sepa ra t e from t he initial sense, a philosophy comprising no t merely a
fairly comprehensive
theory but also an integrated
set of attitudes (like an
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4
USA,
expoi ter
cul Lure,
of
certainly
of
higher
culture
philosophical
output
from
components
Australasia,
as
culture,
philosophy
has
Oxford
not
in philosophy?
but
also
evidently
(witness
the
Are
there
taken).
should
suit,
payments, especially
balance of
lower
of
such
following
not
if
has recently become a net
importer of culture from Europe,
m
Long
achieve
a
American
turn
reasons
why
cultural
better
there are reasons.
Yes,
of
In
the first place, the change in the cultural position of the USA went with, and
perhaps
economic dominance
most
of
not only
increasingly
of
former
Northern
they.
prioi sties,
that
little prospect
for
there
the
contain
also
fellow-travellers,
whose
It is unlikely that
group,
(become
will
commitments,
as
Long
so
there
is
is
serious
no
prospect
in a bind
and disruption of the
Secondly,
component
Include
that
academics,
Northern
of
and
additional
is
teaching
this influential segment,
from
not
situation;
acclimatised
the
isolated
drastically
as
bent
to
especially
to)
give
person.
Nor
alter
entire
Antipodean
as observed,
a substantial
research
locally
apart
Antipoduans’ do
they are
I hey would be
North,
large
a
they
cultural
As
since
culture,
Americans,
Northern concerns.
the
If
cultural dominance,
cultural and other).
universities
of
in economic power relations.
ever emulate or attain American economic eminence (at least
commodities,
cont ingent
changes
nuclear destruction of
without
flow of
entails
Australasia's
Australasia will
not
from, vast
part derived
in
their
up
its
should
cultural
for it can be persuasively argued
better off, as far as quality and
product goes,
stocking
their universities with American teaching components and researching Americanoriented concerns.
One
simple
arg urn e n t
nurn er1c a I
th it
Antipodean
universities
would
be
better off with Americans in the main, takes the following lines:- The (higher
degree)
graduates
of
Australasian
culturally distinguished,
at
and
American
are
not
significantly
least in subjects such as philosophy.
Consider
now
the
number
quality
of
academics
produced
number
per
of
higher
uates.
preponderance of
The (great)
just, by virtue of their vastly
graduates will be Americans,
greater population and
degree
their more extensive system of university education.'7
So also then, just by ratio considerations, the great preponderance of quality
academics
drawn
an
from
percentiles among
uppei
interested
they
universities.
in
those quality
quality,
Such
an
base
Austroamerlean
argument
does
appointing
not
as will
Clearly, Antipodeans,
products.
be
would
be American,
will
work
to
more
show
Americans
that,
for
the
were
their
to
similar
reasons, American universities should be full of Chinese or Indian professors,
for
two
Asians
reasons;
and
first
there
are
especially
Americans,
significant
in
cultural
disciplines
such
differences
as
between
philosophy;
and
secondly, their university systems do not deliver such great quotas of higher
degree or high quality graduates, at least
in philosophy.
fhe conclusion of the numerical argument will not be a popular one.
anti-Americanism felt
the
universities;
especially by
and
recently
the Australasian community extends into
there
has
been
increasing
insistence,
the now aging younger Turks that university positions should be
reserved for locals.
international
in portions of
The
This at the same time as these Turks often preach of an
community of scholars,
presumably then with "free"
interchange,
X'
indicated in Appendix 1, where assumptions made In the argument are
defended, the ratio of US philosophy graduates with doctorates as compared
with Australian exceeds 30 to 1.
And, as Is well-known, the extent of
university education is much greater in USA than in Australasia: indeed
Australia is in this respect among the ______
worst educated of the developed
nations, as OECD figures have made plain (see, e.g., B. Jones, Sleepers Wake!,
Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1.982, Chapter 7).
■
6
etc.
I'hey cannot have it all ways.''
So
as
long
the
cont inues,
present
centre
will
they wi! I
economically;
large to
the
it
them if
is
free-flow
Interchange
the
dominate
than us,
have more
jobs
(centrally-determined) quality
well
as
should
here
personnel
and
culturally
periphery
and
ideas
of
go by
as
and
in this high cultural
business that we seek, as mostly claim.
Now
anyway,
It
is
there
that
arguments.
widely
For
is
ire
we
regularly drive out
enough
recognised,
drastically
something
not
lower-down
flooded
wrong
with high-quality
local contenders for positions,
ladders
hierarchical
with
these
sorts
Northerners who
of
would
if we only preferred the
Northerners when they were quite visibly superior: rather we are inundated by
Americans with inflated references, who have the messages of the centre better
tbur
local;;
echelon
wnocf
do,
(often
and
remote Northern
Northern
shortcomings
biassed)
are known
the Northern centres tend
fields tend
appointment
better.
to look
committees
A.s is beginning
greener to
than
dusty
higherlocals
to be recognised
to retain their higher-quality products,
too,
and allow
A reverse flow of the better orthodox academics from Australasia to America
should also be expected (outside times of university contraction).
According
to issumptions of this brain drain argument, which is based on labour market
considerations,
appointment
and
lifestyle conditions
for academics
are
general ly better in USA than Australia and much better than those in
economicaLly-depressed New Zealand (e.g. higher salaries, better standard of
living, superior research conditions, etc.).
So, other things being equal,
able academics from the Antipodes will relocate in USA as academic positions
become available.
The argument also helps explain why Antipodean universities
cannot, expect, for the most part., t.o attract really top-drawer Northerners for
very long.
Of course, economically irrelevant factors do induce interference; e.g.
perverse commitments to odd-ball Antipodean intellectual enterprises which
reduce market acceptability, or pre-industrial ties to place or persons or
lifestyle which unduly restrict mobility (such as local roots,
family
attachments, even distaste for American urban lifestyles).
7
them
exiled
be
to
the
to
periphery
only
if
they
fali
somehow
the
foul of
Too
system (e.g. of the academic system for political or personal reasons) .
often
the
Nori hern
have
centres
disposed
their
of
inferior
intellectually
products In the periphery.
this makes the
All
appointing
especially Americans,
Northerners,
their references, and usually not out
And yet.
quality.
it seems,
position look doubly bad. We ought,
even
if
are overrated
they
of the top drawer,
to be
in
in order to maximize
doing so does not achieve the desired quality result,
and
breeds discontent elsewhere, especially among the aging Turks.
there
fortunately
is
cultural
sufficient
obtain
lor us.
subtitutabIe
before
way
out
this
from
t is the wraj
'
and
a
We do our own
Lonal Lsm.
distance,'
so
and
situation
that
they
are
these
things;
not
simply
Then the shaky numerical argument does fall down.
elaborate
we
awkward
the
emerging
proposal
are
there
other
But
influential
arguments to dispose of, and the disposal bears on the proposal.
There
have so
is,
to begin with,
far been conceded:
exce Hence,
which
the argument for excellence,
that
we all more or
there is an objective commodity, quality or
less agree
seek and what appointments aim to capture,
the type of myth most ol
myth,
In
fact
appointments
about,
which is proportionately
in the North, and which is what academic
more abundant
a
that
institutions crave and
indeed maximize.
That at least is
us have encountered; and many of us now know it is a
dangerous
way,
elements of which
any
Most
myth.
more
that
places
don't
organisations
aim
even
just
try
to
to
make
maximize
9- M
Iliis is easier in the cultural than the technological sphere.
However it
is
also
possible technologically:
(stronger)
theses of
technological
determinism, and so of cultural determinism, are false.
We can choose
different options, technologically, as well as culturally.
->)
)
./
A- u
I
PROSPECTS FOR REGIONAL PHILOSOPHIES IN AUSTRALASIA
Philosophy, especially academic philosophy but also folk philosophy, 1 ike
other intellectual and higher cultural activity in Australasia, has long been
dominated,
largely
swamped,
by
Northern
now increasingly from North America.
Europe,
the
indeed
and
cultural
resulting
baggage
other
controlling
such
But it does not have to stay that way.
a
initially
from
the migration patterns,
Given
the
ethnic
result
was
imported,
populations,
influences,
of
composition
virtually
the
inevitable.
Suitable policies, a good philosophy
policy, could change things.
The
culture,
thought
is
of
hardly a
a
philosophy,
regional
perhaps
In 1923, a New Zealand
new one.
a
matching
regional
correspondent to the
newly-launched Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy mentioned the
possibility of ’a new kind or temper of philosophy under these southern skies’
which the Journal might
such a
role
reaching
(or,
not
community).
for
merely
And
The Journal
foster.1
matter,
that
professional
although
some
actively
pursued
philosophers
things
however hardly
has
but
have changed
solid foundation for a new regionalism in philosophy,
its
a
fulfilled
pronounced
wider
Australasian
in Australia,
that
of
aim
laying a
possibility of
a
new temper of philosophy has hardly been realised. There is little in the way
of a
new kind
and
temper of
philosophy under New Zealand
southern skies were intended to include:
distinctively
New
Zealand
AJPP, March 1923, p.74.
same volume, p.292ff; his
Appendix 2/
7
skies,
which
the
but few distinguishing features,
’no
characteristics,
have
shown
up
in
New
Zealand
The question was taken up by the Editor in the
discussion is considered below, especially in
2
philosophy’.
New Zealand remains a substantial net importer of philosophy,
The situation of colonial dominance that used to prevail in
and philosophers.
Australia,
where
virtually
all
chairs,
and
many
philosophy, were filled by academics from the North,
and
considered
and
Given the usual
in courses designed,
power and influence of professors in small departments,
covered
in
tends to persist in New
Zealand, where no established chairs are occupied by locals/
topics
posts
academic
other
especially appointments
made,
the
heavy
Northern orientation of philosophy taught and researched in New Zealand is not
surprising.
oldest
of
The Northern control is perhaps most strikingly exhibited at the
New
Zealand
the
universities,
University
of
Otago,
where
the
Philosophy Department has been substantially captured by a British School and
increasingly
looks
event,
like
an offshoot
of
the
University of London/
In any
the overwhelming Anglo-American dominance of New Zealand philosophy -
also a feature only in slightly lesser degree of Australian philosophy - can
be confirmed by a content survey of the
courses offered
and research
papers
written at New Zealand universities.
Even when local people have been appointed to positions in Australasia,
2
S.A. Grave, A History of Philosophy in Australia, Queensland University
Press, 1984, p.l. Page references are to the manuscript.
The paper draws
heavily on this history.
3
This claim was correct at the time of presentation of the paper (August
1983).
With the recent loss of a chair at Wellington, the claim requires
qualification, but the pattern of domination persists.
4In the 1983 Commonwealth University Handbook listing, 6 of the 8 members of
the Department held their main degree, Ph.D., from London, and one of the
remainder from Exeter.
Only one member of the Department, soon to retire,
falls outside the nexus.
3
they have been brought up on a solid diet of Anglo-American material, and they
In particular, the
have often been reforged or finished in the North as well.
post-World
War
philosophy
by
remain
full
candidates
the
of
requirements
II
universities
in
were
conveniently
seen
expansion
Oxford
the
of
Australasian
of
products
finished
B.Phil.
this
Many
degree.
cultural
to
in
departments
out
period
the
of
of
case
of
philosophy
the mid
70s
when they applied
for
until
indeed
mill:
to beat
in Oxford were hard
major
the
positions, such was the (unwarranted) prestige of Oxford and the regrettable,
but still continuing, "cultural cringe".
Nonetheless,
(as
will
indicated).
be
dominance,
Northern
in the Antipodes,
been occurring
scene
the
despite
especially on
worth
is
It
significant
have
changes
the Australian philosophical
whether
asking
Australian
philosophy is moving towards the sort of change that occurred in USA more than
100 years ago when the Harvard Philosophy Department was brought (or bought)
together,
and its "golden age"
American philosophy was never quite
began.''
the same again, and became its own thing.
There are now new forces operating
which could help to move Australian philosophy in such a direction.
the
widespread
regionalism,6
other
5See B.
which
applies
choices;
local
fashioning
emergence,
of
national
and
particularly
to
in
science
cultural
in
and
alternative
culture,
ideological
stark
contrast,
and
technology
there
There is
of
a
choice along
is
policies,
the
which
new
with
centralised
not
only
Kuklick, The Rise of American Philosophy; Cambridge, Massachusetts
1860-1930, Yale University Press, 1977, Parts 2 and 3.
6
On this bio-regionalism, see especially, Fourth World News, vol. I,
and K. Sale, Human Scale, Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, New York, 1980.
1983,
4
a
provides
for
model
reflection
philosophy
regional
in
directly bears on parts of the philosophy of science.
there are also some
soon appear,
policy
Unfortunately, as will
to regional
serious obstacles
also
but
philosophies
and to the very idea of a regional philosophy.
USA, long an importer of culture from Europe, has recently become a net
culture,
of
exporter
components
of higher
philosophical
Australasia,
from
output
if
not
Oxford
following
but
evidently
philosophy (witness
such as
culture
culture,
lower
of
certainly
taken).
has
should
suit,
not
balance of payments, especially in philosophy?
the American
there
Are
also
achieve
reasons
better
a
turn
why
cultural
there are reasons.
Yes,
of
In
the first place, the change in the cultural position of the USA went with, and
perhaps in part derived from, vast changes in economic power relations.
economic
dominance
most
Australasia’s
of
entails
cultural dominance,
culture,
since
there
there is
is
little prospect
serious
no
prospect
If
for
that
Australasia will ever emulate or attain American economic eminence (at least
nuclear destruction of
not without
the North,
flow of commodities, cultural and other).
universities
not
only
increasingly
of
Americans,
contingent
of
former
Northern
they.
group,
cultural
As
priorities,
long
component
also
include
whose
research
they
disruption of
the entire
as observed, Antipodean
Secondly,
large
fellow-travellers,
Northern
academics,
substantial
additional
of
a
and
teaching
is
bent
to
It is unlikely that this influential segment, especially
Northern concerns.
the
a
contain
and
will
commitments,
as
so
(become
apart
Antipodeans
they are in a bind
locally acclimatised
do
from the
not
situation;
isolated
drastically
as
to)
person.
alter
give up
its
Nor should
their
cultural
for it can be persuasively argued
that they would be better off, as far as quality and
product goes,
stocking
5
universities
their
American
with
and
components
teaching
researching
American-oriented concerns.
that
argument
numerical
simple
One
Antipodean
universities
would
be
better off with Americans in the main, takes the following lines:- The (higher
degree)
of
graduates
Australasian
culturally distinguished,
now the
number of
produced
0
population and
then,
So also
just
not
number
per
of
say there is 1 per every n graduates.
preponderance of graduates will be Americans,
greater
are
American
significantly
at least in subjects such as philosophy.
quality academics
Austroamerican graduates;
and
their more
by ratio
Consider
higher
degree
The (great)
just by virtue of their vastly
extensive system of university education.
considerations,
the great
preponderance
of
quality academics drawn from an Austroamerican base will be American, as will
the
upper
percentiles among
those quality products.
Clearly,
Antipodeans,
were they interested in quality, would be appointing more Americans to their
universities.
Such
an
argument
does
not
work
to
show
that,
for
similar
reasons, American universities should be full of Chinese or Indian professors,
for
two
Asians
reasons;
and
first
Americans,
there
are
especially
significant
in
cultural
disciplines
such
differences
as
between
philosophy;
and
secondly, their university systems do not deliver such great quotas of higher
degree or high quality graduates, at least in philosophy.
As indicated in Appendix 1, where assumptions made in the argument are
defended, the ratio of US philosophy graduates with doctorates as compared
with Australian exceeds 30 to 1.
And, as is well-known, the extent of
university education is much greater in USA than in Australasia: indeed
Australia is in this respect among the worst educated of the developed
nations, as OECD figures have made plain (see, e.g., B. Jones, Sleepers Wake’,
Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1982, Chapter 7).
/
6
The conclusion of the numerical argument will not be a popular one.
The
anti-Americanism felt in portions of the Australasian community extends
into
the
universities;
and
recently
has
there
been
insistence,
increasing
especially by the now aging younger Turks that university positions should be
This at the same time as these Turks often preach of an
reserved for locals.
international community of scholars, presumably then with "free" interchange,
etc.
They cannot have it all ways.^
So
long
as
the
continues,
economically;
the
present
centre
will
free-flow
dominate
they will have more
large to them if it
interchange
the
than us,
periphery
and
of
ideas
culturally
jobs here
is (centrally-determined) quality in
personnel
and
as
should
well
as
go by and
this high cultural
business that we seek, as mostly claim.
Now
anyway,
it
that
arguments.
is
widely
there
For we
is
enough
recognised
something
are not
lower-down
drastically
wrong
hierarchical
with
these
ladders
sorts
of
flooded with high-quality Northerners who would
g
A reverse flow of the better orthodox academics from Australasia to America
should also be expected (outside times of university contraction).
According
to assumptions of this brain drain argument, which is based on labour market
considerations, appointment
and lifestyle
conditions
for academics
are
generally better in USA than Australia and much better than those in
economically-depressed New Zealand (e.g. higher salaries, better standard of
living, superior research conditions, etc.).
So, other things being equal,
able academics from the Antipodes will relocate in USA as academic positions
become available. The argument also helps explain why Antipodean universities
cannot expect, for the most part, to attract really top-drawer Northerners for
very long.
Of course, economically irrelevant factors do induce interference; e.g.
perverse commitments to odd-ball Antipodean intellectual enterprises which
reduce market acceptability, or pre-industrial ties to place or persons or
lifestyle which unduly restrict mobility (such as local roots,
family
attachments, even distaste for American urban lifestyles).
7
regularly drive out local
contenders for positions,
if we only preferred the
Northerners when they were quite visibly superior: rather we are inundated by
Americans with inflated references, who have the messages of the centre better
do,
locals
than
higher-echelon
remote
and
Northern
(often
Northern
biassed)
fields
appointment
the Northern centres
greener
look
to
committees
than
dusty
retain their higher-quality products,
tend to
to
As is beginning to be recognised
locals whose shortcomings are known better.
too,
tend
and
allow them to be exiled to the periphery only if they somehow fall foul of the
system (e.g. of the academic system for political or personal reasons).
often
Northern
the
centres
have
disposed o
their
intellectually
Too
inferior
products in the periphery.
to
be
especially Americans, even if they are overrated
in
All this makes the position look doubly bad. We ought,
appointing Northerners,
it
seems,
their references, and usually not out of the top drawer, in order to maximize
And yet
quality.
doing so does not achieve the desired quality result, and
breeds discontent elsewhere, especially among the aging Turks.
Fortunately
shaky arguments;
and
obtain
there
9
we
way out
from
this
sufficient
elaborate
cultural
distance,9
situation and
awkward
and that is the way of regionalism.
subtitutable for us.
before
is a
so
that
We do our own things;
they
are
Then the shaky numerical argument does fall
the
emerging
proposal
there
these
are
other
not
simply
down.
But
influential
This is easier in the cultural than the technological, sphere.
However it
is
also
possible technologically:
(stronger)
theses of
technological
determinism, and so of cultural determinism, are false.
We can choose
different options, technologically, as well as culturally.
8
arguments to dispose of, and the disposal bears on the proposal.
There is,
have so
to begin with,
far been conceded:
the argument for excellence,
that
elements of which
there is an objective commodity, quality or
excellence, which we all more or less agree about,
which is
proportionately
more abundant in the North, and which is what academic institutions crave and
indeed maximize.
seek and what appointments aim to capture,
That at least is
the type of myth most of us have encountered; and many of us now know it is a
myth,
in
fact
appointments
dangerous
a
that
any
way,
myth.
more
that
don’t
places
Most
organisations
aim
just
profit, but rather seek to satisfice on a mix of factors,
quality is
make
maximize
to
of which assessed
and not often the highest ranking one.
only one,
to
try
even
Ability to fit
into some sort of program, teaching or research, is another, and commonly more
important factor;
and there
is no good reason why such a program should not
sometimes be a regionally oriented
one.
the
So given prevailing practices,
argument from excellence does not exclude regional philosophy programs.
And,
in any event, there are enough local candidates of sufficient worth to proceed
with
regional
programs
without
clearcut
sacrifice
of
excellence.
Local
enterprise need entail no loss of excellence, and could well increase it.
The deeper-cutting objection is that there is something seriously amiss
with
the
idea
of
objective
objective
importance;
criticism
as
bracketed
out
notions
the
that
of
excellence,
these
objective
and
notions
values
with
are
open
more
contextual-relativisation
the
to
connected
the
generally,
component
of
same
that
notion
of
sorts
of
they
valuing:
have
the
9
framework or viewpoint to which these values relate.While those operating
within
rather
a
narrow
intellectual
paradigm,
as
such
ordinary
Oxbridge
language philosophy or Sydney materialism say, can bracket out the viewpoint,
since
incorporated
is
it
the
in
operational
paradigm,
and
arrive
so
at
seemingly objective quality judgements, the judgements are not preserved (e.g.
in
truth
value)
when
Marxist
viewpoints.
quality
or
worth
for
Consider,
of
to
transposed
a
other
the
comparison,
made
forest,
frameworks,
variously
industrial forester, and a recreational officer.
quality
of
a
holistically-inclined
by
who
seemingly because
pretend
that
a
deep
the
ecologist,
philosopher,
environmental
it is not done by members
to
or
an
Compare judgements as to the
environmental
such
as
judgements
language, Marxist, and Californian environmental philosophers.
philosophers
idealistic
e.g.
of
work
by
ordinary
There are even
be
cannot
judged,
the main philosophical
peer
group at Harvard and like institutions.
As this
judgements
of
begins to
the
reveal,
importance
judgements of quality are not independent of
of
work
done
or
problems
tackled.
importance of problems and issues is highly paradigm dependent.
But
the
For example,
problems such as those of quantifying-in and of possible worlds and of de re
thought, which assume immense importance for fashionable referential theories
within the mainstream empiricist paradigm, vanish
outside
that
restricted viewpoint.
Now observe
to relative insignificance
that most
judgements as
to
What follows also begins to bring out what is omitted in a main theme of
R.S. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance, Bodley Head, London,
1974.
Note that defusing the notion of objective excellence does not lead to
subjectivism.
To avoid the customary false dichotomy, compare the notion of
validity (usually ceded to themselves these days by classical logicians) with
that of quality.
10
what are the Important problems and what constitutes important work - matters
helping
quality
determine
is
relative
to
their
are
exported
to
the Antipodes
importance
concerned
shipped
are
-
from
down
the
paradigmatic placement,
through
the
North.11
and
Their
paradigms
the
main channels
already
indicated.
We are free to reject these paradigms and select alternatives, and
there are,
it can be argued, good reasons to do just that, much as there are
good
reasons
choose
to
energy technology
different
(or different
military
technology) from that generally favoured in the North which the North is eager
to export southwards.
points
Similar
which
might
argument,
apply
against
alternatively
that
sophisticated
people
-marketed
mass-produced
and
cosmopolitan.
The argument
called
be
from
is based
cosmopolitan/international
the
the
Peter
everywhere
Holland;
international
Stuyvesant
smoke
this
argument
superior
product
cigarette-sophistication
is
on the assumption that philosophy is a
’cosmopolitan subject’, that is is not the sort of enterprise for which place
and
people
are
significant
as
they
are
for
or
poetry
assumption has only to be presented to be questioned.
for one important thing,
that philosophy is a
the
novel.12
It takes for granted,
finished product
sort (a propositional theory), not a process of production also.
110ften
enough
fashionability
is
mistaken
for
The
importance.
of a
certain
But in the
As
to
the
unsatisfactory way in which such '’important" problems are commonly set, see
F. Dyson, ’Unfashionable pursuits’, The Mathematical Intelligencer 5 (1983)
47-5?.
-----12
Grave, op.cit., p.2:
the term ’cosmopolitan subject’ used there comes
from Donegan. As to the significance of place and people for literature, see
further C. Partridge, The Making of New Cultures, Editions Rodopi, Amsterdam,
1982.
----------------------------
11
process of production the place and people involved (e.g.
material.
And
literature,
the
if
and
not
product
just
is
theorems
more
no
philosophy,
than
work
a
and
of
art,
arguments
like
a
assembled
piece
of
in
an
then again the historical setting matters,
internationally-approved format,
since
like
in discussion) are
literature,
not
does
emerge
in
a
vacuum.
Plato’s philosophy could not have emerged in ancient Australia, and if cribbed
in mid 20th century Oxford would surely have been marked down or rejected.^
It is important not to be sidetracked into issues - resembling problems
in aesthetics - that
extent sets
do not need to be contested,
of themes and arguments
such as whether and what
produced in one place and setting could
have been produced in another. A nonnuclear technology of some sort could be
adopted
prospect
in
Europe but
that
New
apparently will
Zealand,
nonnuclear energy strategy.
matters
here.
Dial ethic
in
not
contrast
whereas
be,
with
there
Australia,
is
will
reasonable
pursue
a
It is the doing, and not what could be done, that
logic,
which
invalidates
methodology of much Anglo-American philosophy,
could
the
technique
perhaps be done in
and
the
North (though there would be substantial cultural resistance): it is not being
13
Like a paper in the biological sciences.
But here again technique and
methodology, which may both be regional, are crucially important.
Related points can be made using less extreme examples, e.g. concerning
modern American work.
Consider, for instance such texts as W.V. Quine’s Word
and Object, (Wiley, New York, 1960) or R. Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia
(Basic Books, New York, 1974).
The assumptions taken for granted, the
arguments involved, etc., are especially American: it is not just the style.
The acceptability of arguments and positions is dependent on place and
received paradigm.
12
and is not likely to be done in the Anglo-American sphere.to
done there,
this
extent,
logical
Antipodeans
techniques,
can
do
choose
their
their
own
international/cosmopolitan argument,
own
distinctive
distinctive
technology
thing.
stated tn a form that would be
and
The
telling,
fails.
Of course
it can be argued,
it is being argued,
that Antipodeans don’t
need to be, or even oughtn’t to be pursuing their own energy or logic policies
and apparatus.
But meeting these considerations takes us to a whole new set
of issues concerning the merit of various policies and programs,
diversity, etc. - far beyond the cosmopolitan argument.
the point of
The new arguments, to
which we shall return, are not a lot more convincing however than comparable
arguments
concerning
cooking:
that
we don’t
devising our own cuisine or wine styles.
need
to
be or
oughtn’t
to
be
British, or at least cosmopolitan,
cooking is adequate: we should stick to that and buy it off the shelf from the
North,
ideally
importing the
cooks also.
Do we have good reasons
to
think
that British philosophy is better, these days, than British cooking?
Antipodeans are free,
in principle then,
to pursue their own paradigms;
and to do so they will by and large want to, and mostly have to, appoint their
own people, people they have educated - not saboteurs or people who have (had)
Much as communist anarchism, a live possibility for communes and perhaps
communities in Australia, is culturally excluded in North America, owing to
the extreme possessive individualism of that culture.
On dialethic logic, see G. Priest and R. Routley, On Paraconsistency,
Research Papers in Logic, #13, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian
National University, 1983.
13
to be re-educated, from elsewhere, in particular from the North.
But will the
intellectual paradigms pursued tie with cultural paradigms, with distinctive
features
of
local
the
culture?
In a
loose way,
at
they may
least,
tie in with the
though works of philosophy will not usually
link,
culture in
the
integral fashion that novels (as distinct from more technical works) sometimes
do.
Indeed,
certain
to
a
cultural
limited
extent,
features,
not
they
restricted
to
particular
programs, that help mark philosophy in Australia as
’unimportant
hastens
to
though
add.
this
But
is
style,
compared
Grave considers
do already link.
with
acceptability,
what
’an Australian product’ -
matters
truth,
philosophical
he
philosophy’
in
do matter,
and
are
not
independent - or independent so far as their perception goes in the case of
truth and correctness16 - from underlying broad theory or received paradigm.
However the marks which can be extracted from Grave,
significant though
they are, do not serve to distinguish the Australian product,
the first
two
being features Australian philosophy exhibits in lesser degree than the more
adventurous and polemical philosophy of Greek antiquity.
by Passmore
as
’most
typical
of Australian philosophy’,
The first, described
is
a
’diversity of
approach and readiness to put forward an unconventional or unfashionable point
16
Nothing need be conceded to strong cultural relativity themes, though they
would support the case.
It is enough that our theories remain radically
incomplete and that there can accordingly be rival theories as to what is
true.
Similarly, however philosophy is conceived - as the search for truth,
explanation, understanding and wisdom (all of these and more, really), or as,
more vaguely, inquiry of a certain sort - there can be, and will be, competing
accounts; so a pluralistic theory is inevitable in giving a fuller view.
14
of
view*,
17
philosophy,
something
which
more
typical
some
(with
of
exceptions)
notable
exhibits
an
Canada,
is that
Africa,
South
adventurous
compared with other recent
and
provincial
and
diverse.
second,
The
...
the
between
line-up
Australian
and
surprising,
mark
far
from isolated:
others
Melbourne
Wittgensteinian
"Australian
materialism",
philosophy
departments
the
(both
confrontation concerning the
among
them concern
extraordinary
discussed
the
political
by
is
is
’the
’the most notable example ...
Andersonian
and
Sydney, if it was not the Andersonian philosophy itself’ (p.2).
is
such as
philosophy
England,
manifestoed character* of Australian philosophy,
being
"Oxbridge colonies",
more
austere
What may be
uniformity reflecting that often attributed to the land itself.
nearer true
Australian
than
philosophy
ancient
This example
fervour generated
engagement
Grave),
the
and
relevant/paraconsistent program,
by
by
some
growing
with the
local
(’adversarial*) style leading to sharp criticism by Americans. Connected with
these
first
philosophy,
century
two
marks
J as of much
Cambridge
further
are
characteristics
of
much
18th century Scottish philosophy and
philosophy:
points, surface clarity, and,
namely
directness,
Australian
turn-of-this-
unwillingness
to
muffle
some would unkindly add (in the hope perhaps of
locating a genuine difference), bluntness, unsubtlety and crudity.
Both preceding quotations, while included as such in Grave’s Introduction,
are from J. Passmore, ’Philosophy’, in The Pattern of Australian Culture (ed.
A.L. McLeod), Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y., 1963, pp.131-168.
The
same annotation also applies to the third mark.
18
Though again for the most part that influenced by Sydney rather than that
originating in Melbourne.
To some extent this reflects the different
historical influences shaping Sydney and Melbourne philosophy:
roughly,
Scottish as opposed to Continental antecedents.
15
The
third
and
the
fourth
marks are
but
very different,
again
hardly
distinguishing features of Australian philosophy as Grave, who wouldn’t
them marks at all, in effect observes.
areas,
intellectual
the
of
Australian
the anti-intellectual national stereotype of Australians as a people
to
physical
mark
is
achievement
especially
of
isolation
a
academic
rather
than
feature
of
philosophy
indifference or even hostility to,
in
reputation
’center of philosophical inquiry’, with
indeed of Australia as a
philosophy,
The third, which applies well to other
contrast
the
is
call
to
intellectual
Anglo-American
Australasia
in
subtlety’.
the
namely
general
its
and
fourth
The
philosophy;
from,
’devoted
the sort of imported philosophy (e.g.
that
of Nietzsche and the existentialists) generating interest in literary and arts
circles.
The failure of such marks to entirely separate out Australian philosophy
does
not
matter.
For
thing,
one
the
separated by its research projects.
confused
with
nationalism,
nor
Australian
For another,
produce
such as
materialism or Wellington modalism with national philosophies.
philosophy,
as
encouraged;
and
in
most
the new
other
is
things,
regionalism
is
an
undesirable
commonly
sufficiently
regionalism should not
regional positions
more
is
linked,
be
Sydneyside
Nationalism in
trait,
not
in other
to
be
cultural
things, with the breakdown of nations and contraction of state power.
19
See, e.g.,
London, 1957.
Sale,
op.cit.,
and L.
Kohr,
The Breakdown of Nations,
RKP,
The Editor of the new 1923 AJPP did however take seriously the notion of
National Philosophy, of (what must have surprised some New Zealand readers) an
Australian Philosophy; some of the issues there raised (p.292ff) are addressed
in Appendix 2.
1
16
*
To get
back to where we were:
*
emerging proposal
the
is
this,
that we
s.rsrt - or better much increase - doing our own distinctive things, and that
we
team up
to do so.
Tn fact
there are
several suggestions
that begin to
emerge, concerning research and teaching, publications and appointments, study
leave and sponsored visitors. These are not just that we do our own selection
of
topics
and
style
and
people,
and
methods,
decide
priorities,
own
our
instead of having these foisted upon us - not just, that is, that we play our
own games (whether invented here or taken over from the North) and not theirs,
Rules and Rugby instead of Gridiron and Basketball - but that we abandon the
individual competitive model of cultural achievement, sold to us and fostered
by the North, in favour of a group cooperative approach (elements of which are
already modelled in Antipodean social clubs).
The
ditch-digging example:
ditch
more
separately.
rapidly
simple
and
familiar.
On
the
one
side
is
the
it is well-known that two people cooperating can dig a
and
enjoyably
than
two
people
working
on
the
ditch
Cooperative work tends to pay off - in philosophy or elsewhere -
in terms of output,
experience
are
here
thoughts
shows
that we
successfully with
several reasons
quality, and enjoyment in the doing.
in the
the centre
for this.
periphery cannot
on achievements
One
highly competitive predominantly
On the other side,
individually compete very
in their programs.
is the communication situation.
There
are
Despite the
individualistic nature of American academic
1.
<3
enterprise,
20
' much
communication
in the
and
individualism myth,
attainment
of
results
access
to
work is
jointly based,
unpublished
upon rapid
depends
material.
For,
verbal
despite
the
and builds on the work of many;
when the time is ripe for some idea or result,
several clever people will be
Then again communications are important in obtaining rapid
able to hit on it.
publication of the idea or result, and the assignment of credit for it.
again people at the periphery tend to lose out.
Again
there
are
nationalistic
considerations
There are a mix of reasons
(e.g.
Polish results, Russians will cite a Russian who
the
same
verbally
conveyed.
tend
time
and
as
an outsider).
through
face-to-face
There
is
seminars
Here
the
so
Poles
achieves a
fact
that
that
local
tend
to
promote
result at
much
is
results
about
conveyed
will
be
There is the fact of limited reading, and that people at the centre
to concentrate when
they read
on material
from the centre by
central
people, so that published items and results from the periphery will often not
be noticed, and may well lose out to central
central publication.
receive,
merit
competitors even if they achieve
There is also the fact that people at the centre tend to
for merit,
more publication
than people towards the periphery.
and
communication
opportunities
Here economic factors do begin to enter;
consider the size and distribution of the academic market (there are, e.g., a
great many more academic philosophers in North America than in the whole rest
of the world), control of publishing outlets and journals (with few exceptions
20
Reflecting other features of the culture and enterprise of the centre
which are not so deeply embedded in Australasia: see further R. Routley,
’Culture,
philosophy, and
approaches to
the natural
environment - an
Australian perspective’,
in The Environment,
Ethics
and Ecology
(ed.
D. Bennett), The Faculties,^ Australian National University, 1984, and also
’Culture and the roots of political divergence)^ the Australian/American
contrast’, typescript, Canberra, 1983;
both referred to subsequently as
’Culture’.
. . //
/ -
18
However economic power does not, and need not, determine
etc.
all Northern),
culture - we can shut off the Northern philosophical propaganda
shut off
way we
being
sets if we really want to.
our television
by
impressed
middle-men
philosophical
those
the
And we can stop
a
make
who
in much
living
by
importing the Northern stuff.
So what do we do? We adapt to the cultural-philosophical level,
We aim at
of those things, that have been suggested in the newer regionalism.
some
awakening and
regional
importers
and
doctrines
and
imitators
local
of,
positions
from
and
We do not remain slavish
self-reliance.
on
commentators
local
the North.
For
several
example,
peddlars
and
don’t
we
spend
of,
our
academic lives trying to tease out what Davidson or Dummett or Kripke meant by
this
in the hope that
or that
To
through.
be
sure,
I
some pale Northern light will
am not
suggesting
we
that
perhaps
emulate
filter
appalling
the
ignorance of people from the North who visit the Antipodes and know little or
nothing about what has been done or
is
eminent
with
through
visitors,
the
their
Australian
bags
heavy
National
being done here;
cultural
University
(now
so
that we have
accroutrements,
the
main
trekking
centre
for
investigation of relevant logics) and informing us that, or relying crucially
on the assumption that, a contradiction entails every proposition.
that
these
Northerners
often
know
little
positions and advances is the Antipodes is
inferiority
colonies;
21
of
cultural
another
is
the
and
intellectual
narrow
or
nothing
about
One reason
distinctive
the prevailing assumption of
life
(predominantly
in
these
local)
and
former
limited
the
southern
reading
Regrettably, the ignorance extends to many locals.
In particular, those
infected with Sydney materialism appear remarkably ill-informed as to basic
features of other Australasian programs.
19
undertaken by Northern luminaries.
But,
having
despite
been
given
sufficient
we
cause,
shouldn’t
cut
ourselves off from Northern paradigms and influences (we could hardly manage
to anyway:
propaganda is different).
so we should stay informed of, but not imitators
these continuing traditions:
of, or part of,
far
from
cutting
these
nowhere,
In any case,
their enterprises.
in older Northern traditions,
So
loose
regional cultures are rooted
just as the people are largely European stock.
from these
(and
older
We can reasonably use what we need from
likely
traditions and
starting afresh
and
traditions,
minority)
the
from
local
variations that have already appeared are what we want to develop and perhaps
mutate, as again with wine styles.
Part
things,
of
the
proposal
then
we
that
increasingly
Northern paradigms.
what is
very great
Nor,
our
own
local
rather than working with pale northern reflections of
It is not as if we have to build from nothing,
very difficult - entirely original work,
components.
do
and so shape newer
encourage and develop our own research programs,
Antipodean paradigms,
22
is
to
to do -
to create cultural
try
For there are research programs already initiated, which have the
advantage
fortunately,
of
being grounded
do we need
in
to make
features
of
the
the story up -
shape the future is part of what the proposal
is about.
larger
culture.
though helping
to
Much of the story,
for Australia - New Zealand is a different and more difficult proposition - is
already indicated in Grave’s survey of Australian philosophy.
All one really
has to do is to bring out programs he has already indicated and provide some
22
See Culture, op.cit.
20
To pull the investigation down to a more concrete
elaboration and commentary.
level,
I shall sketch some more prominent cooperative programs - by no means
the only programs - and remark on some relevant features of them.
The longest running and best known program is, without much doubt,
of
Australian
naturalism,
and
which
aims
to
see
natural
the
that
world,
and
everything else, as suitably encompassed within the framework of the world of
(physical)
science.
empiricist metaphysics,
contains
as
program
The
23
is
generally
materialism,
Adelaide which subsequently died out there.
such famous
state
version
of
failures
in
materialism,
and
functionalism.
its
a
Anderson’s
program initiated
nowadays
Faced
reduction
trimmed theory of universals,
plans,
like
it
it
takes
all
now
Tt
in
The latter program has included
the mental-material contingent
components as
central
to
and is now best exhibited in Armstrong’s work.
subprogram Sydney
a major
back
traced
in,
identity theme and
more derivatively,
physicalisms
incorporates
a
with
a
conspicuous
"scientifically"
and an account of natural laws as relations of
universals, both components of
the developing
Sydney realism.
Parts of the
naturalism program, especially materialism and central state reductionism and
the unified science ideal, have had counterparts in the North, but the program
has,
for
the most
part,
despite export efforts,
smoothly, moreover,
and
23
earthy,
so
retained
its
distinctively
it never caught on in New Zealand.
into Australian culture.
far as
Australian character
-
The program fits
It is similarly down-to-earth,
philosophy can be, without
the fancy ideas or effete
Anderson’s metaphysics was however far more opposed to reductions than
what has succeeded it. For an account of Anderson’s philosophy, and a history
and account of Australian naturalism and materialism, see especially Grave,
op.cit.
21
idealism of European philosophy or the spirituality and suppressed puritanism
with
which
much
pragmatism).
commitments,
of
And
and
North
it
yet
though it
not
does
is
(including
simmers
thinking
American
shrink
from
basically empiricist,
explicit
nowadays,
metaphysical
it
is not
from
the
positivistic
(rejecting a verification principle, in particular).
It
is
a city
program,
based
broadcast
mainly
University
of
Sydney to other metropolitan universities; but the program does extend outside
the universities a bit (a tiny bit) to the larger metropolitan culture.
North America,
the
broader
Russell,
so in Australasia,
community,or
Popper
Australasia
would
and
be
Kuhn
quite
little professional philosophy impinges on
even on
being
an
As in
the wider academic community,
(To
exceptional.
achievement,
through
one
to
turn
worth
this
working
work by
around
for.)
now reaches
in
The
naturalism program used
to
Perth, and has outliers
in Canberra, as well as a core of opposition there.
stretch
Apart from notable exceptions,
Adelaide;
the program has never had
more than a rather precarious hold,
in Melbourne:
25
it
the
same hold,
to
or
nor, more surprisingly,
24
In Canada, for example, while most academics from other disciplines would
know of, and perhaps a little about, Russell, far fewer would know of
Wittgenstein (though he is becoming known to lit. crit. groups), and virtually
none would know of Quine.
(The sampling is subjective.)
On the fairly recent ’triumph of professionalism* in philosophy in USA, see
Kuklick, op.cit., p.565ff.
Kuklick brings out well some of the more
disastrous features of professionalism, but does not sufficiently notice that
the virtuous
features
resulting
from some
professionalisation
can
be
synthesized with broader philosophical activity.
25
The exceptions include Ellis’s distinctive program, which can be accounted
part of the broader naturalist program, and at Monash the work of F. Jackson
and, earlier, of H. Munro in value theory.
22
has it had heavyweight criticism from there (or indeed much external criticism
from elsewhere),
the old confrontation of major city philosophies having died
out.
philosophy
Melbourne
is more historically oriented
stricken than Sydney; Melbourne
by
dominated
procession
a
a
then,
philosophy;
been
idealism
and
fashions:
Northern
earlier
Wittgenstein,
recently,
remarkable
religion
philosophy, much more than Sydney, has
of
more
philosophy;
Continental
and more
turnabout,
ordinary
Davidson
Quine,
and
language
extensional
reduction; now perhaps Lewis, Kripke and Dummett?
one
The
program
that
reaches
the
beyond
of
confines
the
cities
in
Australia - which is after all a metropolitan dominated culture, the vast land
always
being
the other
Australian environmentalism,
- is
a
rather
diffuse
program, which has connections with the Colleges of Advanced Education in the
country towns and the communes on the North Coast.
much distinguished
environmental
Europe
by what
positions
it
are a
specifically having
as
not
is
feature of
what
So far the program is as
it
Serious and
is.
the New World,
of
transformed most
its
deeper
the Old World,
and
environment
and
natural
having little wild untouched country left, and little sensitivity accordingly
to
issues
Europe
that
such as
tend
admit
European
to
those of
concern
the
wilderness.
built
shallow approaches
superficiality
environmentalism
outside
and
(and
continues
North
The main
environmental
human-transformed
encourage
to
America.
environment,
situations).
techno-fix
dominate
North
much
issues
of
American
the
New
in
issues
And
World
environmentalism
differs significantly however from Antipodean environmentalism, most obviously
in
the
religious-spiritual
component
respects as well (see further Culture).
of
the
former,
but
in
several
other
23
More positively, there are three strands to Australian environmentalism:-
Firstly, there is an extended utilitarianism, differing little in theory from
Bentham’s enlarged position, which insists upon counting in the utilities of
all sentient
figured
though
creatures.
prominently
it
has
position,
This
in animal
from a British base,
has
animal
liberation movements:
and
research
and
and
welfare
on domestic
focussed
developed
animals
animals,
used
in
hunted (wild) animals, it has also become entangled in issues of bio-research
more generally such as genetic engineering.
or much
interested in,
endangered species,
etc., except
the conversion of forests,
Secondly,
not
utilitarian
forests and
differs
naturalism.
and
which
ecosystems,
from
irreducible
recognises
which finds
especially wild and
American
26
lands,
bearing on
these have a
an
inadequate
there is a wider and a deeper ecological position, which is
psychological states,
sentience or
insofar as
and so deeper concerns get
spinoff from animal welfare,
deal.
the disappearance of wild
Wider and deeper environmental concerns appear only
animal pain and pleasure.
as a
It is not however concerned with,
Thirdly,
and
spiritualism
is
there
of
value
elsewhere
intrinsic value
natural
from
course,
an
as
systems.
in trees
and
This
position
of
American
extension
almost
than
everywhere,
a
reactionary component, critical of the other strands, which insists that all
that
needs
to be
accomplished
on
the
environmental
front
can
be
achieved
within older established (European) ethical and political frameworks.
Whereas materialism
is
based in Sydney, environmentalism is centred
in
Melbourne and Canberra, but also includes Brisbane and Perth. Also centred in
26
It
has
been described more
Environmental Philosophy (ed. D.
National University, 1980.
fully elsewhere:
see,
in
particular,
Mannison and others), RSSS, Australian
Canberra, and reaching across the country, with good connections in Melbourne,
but
in
few
Sydney,
and
materialism
program
other
which
program,
elsewhere.
and
major
perhaps
which
philosophy,
more
includes
to
centres
New
in metaphysics,
with
respectively,
the
theory
value
essentially
is
of
extends
and
their core
logic
a
especially
in
Zealand ,
program,
one
but
metaphysics.
Australia
than
also
been
has
the
Whereas
any
The
other
described
?7
The main
logic grounded
research program evident
program.
of the
in New Zealand
philosophy
is also
A program emanating from the work of Prior and
located mainly in Wellington,
The impact
programs have
program
areas
program.
relevant/paraconsistent
epistemology
from
relevant/paraconsistent
affecting
the
environmental
input
further
is
it might be called the extended modal
a
now
program.
program on philosophy is perhaps best seen in Cresswell’s
work.
Australian philosophy used to be known,
for its hard-headed empiricism;
not known
and still
is in some quarters,
regrettably New Zealand philosophy is mostly
for anything much, except
perhaps,
in UK,
that
Prior brought
his
27
Again, like all the Australian programs, both those mentioned and others,
in Grave, op.cit. But see further, R. Routley,
’Research in Logic in
Australia, New Zealand and Oceania’, Research Papers in Logic #14, Australian
National University, 1983 (which also considers other programs in logic);
G.
riest and R. Routley, op. cit.; and R. Routley, R.K. Meyer and others,
Relevant Logics and Their Rivals, Ridgeview, California, 1982.
28
See especially M.J. Cresswell, Logics and Languages, Methuen, London,
1973; but see also work by Goldblatt and by Hughes referred to in Research in
Logic, op.cit.
Also described there is an original version of the modal
program (transparent intensional logic) elaborated by Tlchy at Otago.
25
unusual adaption of Russellian philosophy from that remote place.
Neither of
these impressions is particularly accurate; both are rather out-of-date.
the aim of work of the present type is, of course,
impressions,
not just
to reflect
or report
But
not just to correct these
on culture - for what one would
like to reflect upon is not sufficiently there - but also to help manufacture
elements of a culture, to make an image.
To
resist
the
North,
we
should
increase
our
efforts
to
further
the
nq
already flourishing
programs, and perhaps other sunrise projects;
to build
teaching and research around the programs selected for promotion, elaboration,
and criticism, to orient appointments, especially of involved local people, to
29
Among sunrise projects in Australian philosophy so far suggested (not all
of them feasible) are these:
Australian feminism, Antipodean social and
political alternatives,
peace
studies,
indigenous
regional
philosophies
(especially Aboriginal, Melanesian, and Polynesian). Another promising field,
with practical consequences,
for local
initiative is the philosophy of
education, where material produced by R.S. Peters has dominated the market,
with stultifying effects it is now alleged.
As foreshadowed with the notion of "sunrise projects", much of the rhetoric,
and argument, concerning science and technology policy (presented in the case
of Australia in Jones, op.cit.) can be taken over to apply to X policy, where
X is some subject discipline, such as philosophy.
26
on
Why bother?
these programs.
Why not simply buy our philosophy, like almost
all our technology, off the shelf, from the North? There are several arguments
for not doing this, in more than a limited fashion, which are now sketched.
There
is,
firstly,
Northern products,
fine a
the
inferiority
and
built-in
Without
despite their attractive packaging.
most
of
putting
too
point on it, many of the imported intellectual goods are shoddy, and
only work for a very limited range of applications (e.g.
the
obsolence
vicinity
Antipodean
of
contradictions
philosophy
or
undoubtedly
dilemmas).
derives
from
Much
they’re hopeless in
that
shoddy
is
wrong
intellectual
with
goods
30
In fact something like the last has been the policy of the LSE Philosophy
Department, where the only outside appointment over a long period was that of
Lakatos (hardly a person far removed ideologically).
As observed, it now
looks like the practice of the Otago Department also; and apparently it used
to be a tendency at Melbourne. But in most places the practice is condemned as
nepotistic or parochial, and overridden by the call for "new (Northern!
blood".
However there can be significant differences between nepotistic
appointments and those strengthening local programs.
It is at this stage, among others that administrative measures do matter;
for example, to ensure that suitable locally-engaged locals gain employment
rather than Northern stooges, to direct funds into on-going local programs
rather than imported fashions, etc.
There are various ways appropriate
administrative details can be handled, locally or nationally; but nothing
draconian, such as wholesale exclusion of noncitizens, is required.
Observe, indeed, that no restriction of academic appointments to nationals
(in Canadian style) or the like is being advocated.
Anyone who arrives at a
conclusion of that sort from what has been argued has misunderstood the case
in
crucial
respects.
As
a matter of
simple mathematics,
restricting
appointment fields characteristically reduces both quality of candidates
available (however quality is assessed) and range of possibilities open for
future research; and no such restrictions are advocated.
The author has
witnessed the debilitating effects of field restrictions at the Australian
National University and elsewhere.
31
Some of these arguments
centre also.
support
change
(perhaps
revolutionary)
at
the
Yet buying this material is encouraged by hard-sell
imported from the North.
cultural ambassadors from the North, who are often enough paid to visit.
is
part
Northern
of
the
philosophical imperialism
colonialism
that
-
the
This
from the North - the successor
Antipodes
too
suffers,
willing
or,
to
more
remarkable, encourages!
Secondly, there is the inappropriateness of much of the Northern product,
especially
considered
metaphysics,
as
package,
a
environmental
concerns.
for
instance,
to
cover,
well
as
as
The European North has no satisfactory
land or environmental ethic fit for Antipodean circumstances, and the deeper
American package is too spiritually-loaded for mainstream Australian culture.
32
In
political
theory,
work
is
much
too
individualistic
the European product, especially the Marxist form,
and
competition-based,
American
unsuited being both too
precious and
for local
too high-tech
and
is
circumstances,
especially again for more environmentally-perceptive people.
Thirdly,
features
of
telling
also
import
comparative
advantage,
and
regionalism;
namely,
substitution
world’s markets and pressures
power structures
against
and fashions,
(including the Old Boy’s
removal
network in
are
appealing
avoidance
of
the
of overseas control
and
jobs, policies,
etc.),
and gaining of local control, employment of local people, etc.
Fourthly,
32
there
are
arguments
for
cultural
diversity,
applied
to
The point is elaborated in Culture.
At a more practical level Northern
products are again often unsuitable, though for different reasons.
For
example, the transfer of American agricultural methods and equipment to the
thin poor soils of the Antipodes has had disastrous effects, at last beginning
to be recognised.
28
part
philosophy
as
complexity,
sheer diversity,
of
culture:
intellectual
stability,
arguments
In fact,
etc.
built into the whole notion of 'culture’ transfers.
dense,
productive garden.
the garden analogy
Naturally we want a rich,
But not only seeds and plants but weeds and many
We
pests are being introduced.
obtain not only good products,
Indian maize
This is why
and European cultivars, but European pests and American weeds.
selectiveness
and
control
richness,
from
essential,
are
as
against
haphazard
previous
procedures.
The proposal is not for, nor would the case sustain, a narrow localism,
with local
products, whatever
their quality,
heroes, replacing Northern ones.
local fashions,
and local
cult
That is certainly not the preferred way of
the newer regionalism, which tends to do without fashions and heroes and which
seeks durable quality in products,
is
it the way of
low environmental impact, and so on|^ nor
technology policy.
Rather,
as with
technology policy,
select niches which are not occupied or satisfactorily filled,
make a difference,
policy
has
to
be
publishing outlets,
components,
and ideas,
and use and develop local skills and methods.
selective
etc.).
given
resource
our
But granting
base
(of
can
Indeed the
philosophers,
regionalism, to what extent
should
for instance people, books and other teaching elements,
theories
and to what extent should they be produced,
trained,
be imported
conceived locally?
The possibility of selectiveness
means that many mixes
are possible.
least, on a particular mix.
33
where we
we
There
in different
is no need to insist,
components
so far at
The case for the present is mainly for a regional
See, for instance, A.A. Mazrui, A World Federation of Cultures: An African
Perspective, Free Press, New York, 1976.
29
shift, for a significantly greater degree of local autonomy and production.^
But it will do no harm to
Negatively,
local favour.
indicate
elements of a mix that
the suggestion is that we try to eradicate much of
That includes such things
the Oxford style of teaching and doing philosophy.
removal
as
of
the
Locke-Berkeley-Hume
emphasis
undue
(a
finds much
standard
on
British
British
focus);
empiricism
of
centred
on
quasi-historical
the
approach with however no proper attention to sources; of reinforcement of the
prevailing
Anglo-American
status
quo.
The
heavy
particular, has mostly been a very conservative one.
the
main
movements
philosophy,
but
emanating
also
the
from
England,
Moore-Wittgenstein
Oxford
influence,
in
More generally, many of
especially
practice,
ordinary
have
language
been
very
protective of the Northern status quo; they tend to leave things very much as
they are,
and
recommend
just
this.
Positively,
the
proposal
is
that we
achieve further disassociation from the Anglo-American empiricist past in two
34
Does it sound familiar? Outside philosophy, it should. For example, we
have now been told by the Americans that our defence role, unlike theirs, is
regional, not global: this is supposed to shed great light on our previously
confused defence policies.
35
The point is laboured in E. Gellner, Words and Things, Victor Gollancz,
London, 1959.
But even ordinary language philosophy, though conservative, and
though it much contracted the proper range of philosophical investigations,
had its liberating elements, e.g. removal of some of the narrowness and more
cramping assumptions induced by technical jargon.
Nor has the social impact changed much with the subsequent decline, since
1959, of ordinary language philosophy, the increasing insolvency of Oxbridge
philosophy, and its consequent limited take-over by right-wing Ivy League
American philosophy.
By contrast, the less economically influential growth of
redbrick and applied philosophy
in some of the
British redbrick and
polytechnic institutes has touched no more than the surface of Oxbridge
practice.
30
local
emphasizing
by
ways:
framework,
and
projects
range
the
diversifying
by
move
that
outside
of
that
constricting
philosophical
traditions
selectively drawn upon, to include not only neglected Continental strands and
but also
parts of Eastern thought,
philosophy.
idea
The
is
that
Australasian
Pacific ethnic material and
plurality of
such a
especially
sources,
in
teaching, will assist in removing narrower cultural biasses, such as British
enable more
and
parochialism,
be obtained.
to
discrimination
Then
too we
should be better able to see the ranges of theories that are open to us in the
Antipodes and how to advance our own programs.
There remain some things we should want to see whatever mixes are chosen
in different Antipodean regions.
One crucial issue is the removal of Northern
bias from papers and publications, research seminars and lectures, letters of
reference, and so on.
the
and
works
irrespective
discussion
This Northern bias is a disposition to cite and discuss
projects
of
and
Northern
quality
the
to
of
ignore
of
the
authors,
their
works
the
more
contribution
of
the
to
authors,
local
irrespective of the quality of their contribution.
defer to
famous
better,
the
under
topic
again
largely
It is the disposition to
authors from prestigious Northern institutions, and to uncritically
accept their opinions of worth,
importance,
It
etc.
is
the disposition
to
write or lecture as though work produced locally either does not exist or has
not
been
influential
philosophers,
are,
(thus
if
ensuring
anything,
more
that
it
inclined
is
to
not).
Northern
And
Australasian
bias
than
many
overseas intellectuals, who are perhaps less concerned to be seen as belonging
to the Northern mainstream.
bias
affects
not
only
the
The reduction, and eventual removal, of Northern
practice
of
individual
philosophers,
but
the
policies of selection and review committees as well as of editors and referees
of
local
reorientation,
innovations
It
journals.
among
involves,
Antipodean philosophers
with
so
better,
they
can
cite
other
getting
local
work
things,
intellectual
to know local work and
or
point
out
regional
Initiatives and developments - things that would be assisted by greater local
content
in courses
taught,
more
time
spent
at
local
institutions on
study
leave, and so on.
APPENDIX 1. Background notes on the philosophy supply situation.
Sociological
investigation of the philosophy labour market in Australia and New Zealand has
yet
to be
attempted.
But a
picture of
some elements underlying the
numerical argument of the text can be gained from the following table:
simple
32
TABLE 1. Ph.Ds in Philosophy: a USA - Australasian comparison
USA
Number (Male./Female)
Australia
New Zealand
1974
413 (346/67)
6
0
1975
375 (318/57)
5
0
1976
382 (319/63)
8
0
1977
330 (264/66)
3
2 (1/1)
1978
283 (235/48)
5
5 (4/1)
1979
285 (204/54)
9
3 (2/1)
1980
246 (187/59)
4
N.A.
1981
N.A.
4
0
Notes:
1. The breakdown of the USA and New Zealand numbers by sexes (male/female) is
given.
Similar figures do not appear to be available for Australia.
2.
The US figures are for the academic year ending in the Year shown, e.g.
1978 covers the Northern academic year 1977-78. Southern figures are for the
calendar year shown.
Sources:
Digest of Education Statistics, US National Center for Education
Statistics;
University Statistics,
Australian Bureau of
Census
Statistics; New Zealand Education Statistics.
Comments:
1.
The contraction of US doctoral production and the concomitant rise in
female representation, are clearly indicated.
The Australian figures are
likely too small to reflect such trends and responses to the academic market.
2.
Some of the Australasian numbers include Americans; likewise the American
figures provide no nationality breakdown.
3. There is no information available on the number of Australians proceeding
to higher degrees in philosophy outside Australia.
In applying table 1 some simplifying assumptions are made.
assumed that
For example, it is
candidates for appointment to regular university positions now
would have a doctorate or the equivalent (until recently a B.Phil was taken as
a
near
of
equivalent
It
well).
a North
what
assumed,
is
American
Ph.D.;
seems
take
to
could
publications
case,
the
that
serve
as
the number
of
Australasians proceeding to higher degrees in philosophy abroad is relatively
small, and no more than the order of Ph.Ds. taken locally.
without upsetting applications of table 1,
It can be assumed,
that Australasian graduates match,
say, the upper half of American graduates in standard attained.
There is no compiled information on academic vacancies in philosophy in
Australia or New Zealand - on the numbers of vacancies, on how the positions
It would however be a routine,
are filled, by what nationalities, sexes, etc.
if tedious,
matter to assemble some of this
data,
is of considerable
which
relevance to the planning of philosophy programs.
4.
On the earlier idea of a National Philosophy for Australia.
APPENDIX 2.
considering
Editor
the
of
initial
to
corresponding
Lebensanchauung ’
’an Australian
argument
is
possibility
’the
AJPP,
Francis
Philosophy
is
as
truth
and
its
between
as
that
a
theory may not
be held,
(Australian)
two
senses
Weltanschauung
and
'a scheme of the universe’,
that of
a
Christian
confirmation
independent of national sympathies or prejudices’.
mean
distinguished
Anderson,
ridiculous
the
Philosophy’,
distinction
In the first,
(p.292).
both
National
a
German
’the
that
of
In
or
Science’.
falsification
The
’are
Granted: but that does not
fostered, etc.,
in one region but
not
others, as intuitionism was for long in in Holland, or Cartesianism in France.
In a second ’more intimate and personal’ way,
’a nation like an individual may
develop a certain temperamental attitude to the problems of existence, which
we may ... call its philosophy of life.
and its literature,
is a mode of
A nation’s philosophy,
expression for
the national
like its art
consciousness.
34
(pp.292-3).
It is a specialised form of the national genius ....’
short, part of the evolving national
culture.
is
from
by
entirely
means
no
separate
in the first place,
But,
the
It is,
initial
sense,
in
this
philosophy
a
comprising not merely a fairly comprehensive theory but also an integrated set
Furthermore, only by concession
of attitudes (like an operational paradigm).
units
single
accounted
philosophy,
of
meriting
distinctive
definite
literature,
Australian
like
particularly
’the Australian landscape’
’the national consciousness’ and
are such items as
(in
many
has
any
sense):
does
not
Australian
descriptors.
such
strands
things
to
form
it,
not
some
rather
loose
families.
Anderson
not
does
find,
really
to
hope
find
’a
in
modern
industrialised community’ - with its modular parts interchangeable with those
of others - a national philosophy of
with
life,
a
difference.
claims to find a (somewhat) trite moral base to build on,
humour,
courage
and
fair
particularly philosphical.
at
least
various
apart
of
life,
regional
is
but
dealing’,
So far,
not;
philosophies
then,
this
nothing
however
not
local
research
identifying and
trouble derives from the extravagant claim that
with
Goodness
these
and
-
’traditions ... of
distinctive,
all
or
there
exclude
So
programs).
legitimating a
being
far,
national
But shortly Anderson is plunged into inconsistency: the
philosophy, so good.
do
at
he
there could a national philosophy,
does
as
(such
problems about
from rational
but
fact
Tn
the
Beauty
eternal
-
then
of
values
and
only
Philosophy’ (p.295 with rearrangement).
the
then
But,
to do with these - as is virtually conceded,
’if Australia has nothing to
Spirit,
has
she
the
Ideals
nothing
to
of
Truth,
do
with
as Australia has nothing per se
these values involving a
’wider
sweep’ than any national boundaries - "she" has nothing to do with Philosophy,
contradicting
the
possibility
of
a
National
Philosophy.
Though
the
35
contradiction is easily avoided by rescinding the extravagant claim, the ideal
of a National Philosophy should be allowed to rest in peace: nationalism has
had its time.
-r /I
ZR. Routley^
Research School of Social Sciences
Australian National University
With thanks to R. Elliot, W. Godfrey-Smith, S. Grave and L. Mirlin, to
several members of the audience at the presentation of the paper at the 19R3
Australasian Association of Philosophy Conference, University of Adelaide, to
several referees for this Journal, and, not least, to the present Editor.
PROSPECTS FOR REGIONAL PHILOSOPHIES IN AUSTRALASIA
Philosophy, especially academic philosophy but also folk philosophy, like
has long been
other intellectual and higher cultural activity in Australasia,
indeed
dominated,
swamped,
Northern
by
increasingly from North America.
Europe, now
the
largely
and
cultural
baggage
other
imported,
influences,
Given
the
initially
the migration
ethnic
patterns,
composition
of
resulting ruling populations, such a result was virtually inevitable.
does not have to stay that way.
from
the
But it
Suitable policies, a good philosophy policy,
could change things.
The
of
thought
culture,
is
a
philosophy,
regional
hardly a new one.
In 1923,
matching
perhaps
a
regional
correspondent to the
a New Zealand
newly-launched Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy mentioned the
possibility of ’a new kind or temper of philosophy under these southern skies’
which
Journal might
the
such a
reaching
role
for
(or,
not
community).
that
although
And
matter,
professional
merely
solid foundation
foster.The Journal has
for a
some
actively
pursued
philosophers
things
new regionalism
however hardly
but
have changed
in philosophy,
its
a
fulfilled
pronounced
wider
aim
of
Australasian
in Australia,
laying a
that possibility of a
new temper of philosophy has hardly been realised. There is little in the way
the
southern skies were intended to include: but few distinguishing features,
’no
a new kind
distinctively
^AJPP, March
same volume,
Appendix 2.
and
New
temper of
philosophy under New Zealand
skies, which
of
Zealand
1923,
p.74.
p.292.ff;
his
characteristics,
The
have
question was
discussion
is
shown
up
in
New
Zealand
taken up by the Editor in the
considered
below,
especially
in
2
philosophy’.
9
New Zealand remains a substantial net importer of philosophy,
The situation of colonial dominance that used to prevail in
and philosophers.
Australia,
where
virtually
and
chairs,
all
many
other
philosophy, were filled by academics from the North,
posts
academic
in
tends to persist in New
Zealand, where no established chairs are occupied by locals.Given the. usual
power and influence of professors in small departments,
topics
covered
and
considered
and
in courses designed,
especially appointments
made,
the
heavy
Northern orientation of philosophy taught and researched in New Zealand is not
The Northern control is perhaps most strikingly exhibited at the
surprising.
oldest
of
New
Zealand
universities,
University
the
of
Otago,
where
the
Philosophy Department has been substantially captured by a British School and
increasingly
looks
event,
the
like an offshoot of
overwhelming
Anglo-American
the
University of London.In any
dominance of
New Zealand
philosophy
also a feature only in slightly lesser degree of Australian philosophy - can
be confirmed
by a
content survey of the courses offered and research papers
written at New Zealand universities.
Even when local people have been appointed to positions in Australasia,
they have been brought up on a solid diet of Anglo-American material, and they
have often been reforged or finished in the North as well.
In particular, the
2,
S.A. Grave, A History of Philosophy in Australia, Queensland University
Press, 1983, p.l. Page references are to the manuscript.
The paper draws
heavily on this history.
^This
claim was
correct at the
time of
presentation of
1983).
With the recent loss of chair at Wellington,
qualification, but the pattern of domination persists.
the
the paper
(August
claim may
require
4In the 1983 Commonwealth University Handbook listing, 6 of the 8 members of
the Department held their main degree, Ph.D., from London, and one of the
remainder from Exeter.
Only one member of the Department, soon to retire,
falls outside the nexus.
3
requirements
in
the Australasian universities
of
period of
the major
post
World War II expansion were conveniently seen to in the case of philosophy by
the
Oxford
B.Phil.
Many
degree.
of
departments
philosophy
remain
full
of
products of this cultural mill: indeed until the mid 70s candidates finished
in Oxford were hard
to beat out when they applied for positions, such was the
prestige of Oxford and
(unwarranted)
the regrettable,
continuing,
but still
"cultural cringe".
Nonetheless,
been
in
occurring
scene
the
Northern
the Antipodes,
be
will
(as
despite
especially on
indicated).
significant
dominance,
is
It
the Australian
worth
asking
changes
have
philosophical
Australian
whether
philosophy is moving towards the sort of change that occurred in USA more than
100 years ago when the Harvard Philosophy Department was brought (or bought)
and
together,
its "golden age" began.American
the same again, and became its own thing.
philosophy was never quite
There are nouT new forces operating
which could help to move Australian philosophy in such a direction.
the
widespread
regionalism,0
other
local
fashioning
provides
a
emergence,
which
applies
choices;
of
national
model
for
and
particularly
to
in
cultural
stark
science
reflection
and
in
in
alternative
and
technology
regional
there
there are
also some
of
choice
along
is
policies,
philosophy
directly bears on parts of the philosophy of science.
soon appear,
culture,
ideological
contrast,
serious obstacles
There is
the
a
new
with
centralised
which
not
only
policy
but
also
Unfortunately, as will
to regional
philosophies
and to the very idea of a regional philosophy.
See B. Kuklick, The Rise of American Philosophy; Cambridge, Massachusetts
1860-1930, Yale University Press, 1977, Parts 2 and 3.
60n this bio-regionalism, see especially, Fourth World News, vol.
1,
and K. Sale, Human Scale, Cox^ard, McCann and Geoghegan, New York, 1980.
1983,
USA, long an importer of culture from Europe,
of
exporter
culture,
certainly
components of
higher culture
philosophical
output
Australasia,
not
if
from
such as
Oxford
following
philosophy
should
not
but
achieve
also
the American
there
Are
Yes,
in philosophy?
evidently
(witness
taken).
has
suit,
payments, especially
balance of
culture,
lower
of
has recently become a net
a
reasons
better
of
turn
why
cultural
there are reasons.
In
the first place, the change in the cultural position of the USA went with, and
perhaps in
part derived
entails
economic
dominance
most
Australasia’s
of
from, vast changes in economic power relations.
cultural dominance,
since
culture,
there
there is
is
little prospect
serious
no
prospect
If
for
that
Australasia will ever emulate or attain American economic eminence (at least
nuclear destruction of
not without
the North,
flow of commodities, cultural and other).
universities
not
only
increasingly
of
Americans,
contingent
of
former
group,
Northern cultural
As
they.
priorities,
that
they
whose
entire
as observed,
Antipodean
Northern
academics,
of
include
a
research
and
additional
substantial
teaching
is
bent
to
It is unlikely that this influential segment, especially
will
(become
commitments,
long
component
also
fellow-travellers,
Northern concerns.
the
Secondly,
large
a
contain
and disruption of the
as
so
apart
Antipoduans
they are in a bind
locally acclimatised as
do
from
not
situation;
the
isolated
drastically
to)
give up
Nor
person.
alter
their
its
should
cultural
for it can be persuasively argued
they would be better off, as far as quality and product goes, stocking
their universities with American teaching components and researching Americanoriented concerns.
One
simple
numerical
argument
that
Antipodean
universities
would
be
better off with Americans in the main, takes the following lines:- The (higher
degree)
graduates
of
Australasian
culturally distinguished, at
and
American
are
not
significantly
least in subjects such as philosophy.
Consider
5
now
number
the
quality
of
Austroamerican graduates;
academics
of higher
per number
produced
say there is 1 per every n graduates.
degree
The (great)
preponderance of graduates will be Americans, just by virtue of their vastly
greater population and their more extensive system of university education.
So also then, just by ratio considerations, the great preponderance of quality
academics
from an
drawn
percentiles among
upper
they
interested
universities.
Austroamerican base
those quality products.
quality,
in
an
Such
be American,
will
would
argument
does
CLearly, Antipodeans,
appointing
be
not
as will
work
to
more
show
Americans
that,
for
the
were
their
to
similar
reasons, American universities should be full of Chinese or Indian professors,
for
two
Asians
reasons;
and
first
Americans,
there
are
especially
significant
in
cultural differences
disciplines
such
as
between
philosophy;
and
secondly, their university systems do not deliver such great quotas of higher
degree or high quality graduates, at least in philosophy.
The conclusion of the numerical argument will not be a popular one.
anti-Americanism felt
the
universities;
The
in portions of the Australasian community extends into
and
recently
there
has
been
increasing
insistence,
especially by the now aging younger Turks that university positions should be
reserved for locals.
This at the same time as these Turks often preach of an
international community of scholars,
presumably then with "free"
interchange,
As indicated in Appendix 1, where assumptions made in the argument are
defended, the ratio of US philosophy graduates with doctorates as compared
with Australian exceeds 30 to 1.
And, as is well-known, the extent of
university education is much greater in USA than in Australasia: indeed
Australia is in this respect among the worst educated of the developed
nations, as OECD figures have made plain (see, e.g., B. Jones, Sleepers Wake',
Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1982, Chapter 7).
6
etc.
They cannot have it all ways.3
So
long
the
continues,
the
present
centre
will
as
they will
economically;
them if
large to
it is
free-flow
the
dominate
have more
interchange
than us,
periphery
and
ideas
of
and
culturally
jobs
here
personnel
as
well
as
should go by and
(centrally-determined) quality in this high cultural
business that we seek, as mostly claim.
it
Now
anyway,
is
that
arguments.
widely
there
For we
is
are
enough
recognised,
something
not
lower-down
drastically
wrong
hierarchical
with
these
ladders
sorts
flooded with high-quality Northerners who
regularly drive out local contenders for positions,
of
would
if we only preferred the
Northerners when they were quite visibly superior: rather we are inundated by
Americans with inflated references, who have the messages of the centre better
than
locals
echelon
do,
(often
and
remote Northern
Northern
whose shortcomings
biassed)
fields tend
appointment
are known better.
to look greener to
committees
than
dusty
higherlocals
As is beginning to be recognised too,
the Northern centres tend to retain their higher-quality products, and allow
g
A reverse flow of the better orthodox academics from Australasia to America
should also be expected (outside times of university contraction).
According
to assumptions of this brain, drain argument, which is based on labour market
considerations,
appointment
and
lifestyle conditions
for academics
are
generally better in USA than Australia and much better than those in
economically-depressed New Zealand (e.g. higher salaries, better standard of
living, superior research conditions, etc.).
So, other things being equal,
able academics from the Antipodes will relocate in USA as academic positions
become available. The argument also helps explain why Antipodean universities
cannot expect, for the most part, to attract really top-drawer Northerners for
very long.
Of course, economically irrelevant factors do induce interference; e.g.
perverse commitments to odd-ball Antipodean intellectual enterprises which
reduce market acceptability, or pre-industrial ties to place or persons or
lifestyle which unduly restrict mobility (such as local roots,
family
attachments, even distaste for American urban lifestyles).
7
them
be
to
exiled
the
to
periphery
only
if
they
fall
somehow
foul of
the
system (e.g. of the academic system for political or personal reasons).
often
Northern
the
have
centres
disposed of
their
intellectually
Too
inferior
products in the periphery.
All this makes the
appointing
Northerners,
position look doubly bad. We ought,
especially Americans,
even if they are overrated
their references, and usually not out of the top drawer,
quality.
And yet
to be
it seems,
in
in order to maximize
doing so does not achieve the desired quality result, and
breeds discontent elsewhere, especially among the aging Turks.
there
Fortunately
obtain
way out
a
from
this
awkward
and that is the way of regionalism.
shaky arguments;
and
is
cultural
sufficient
distance,9
so
that
situation and
these
We do our own things;
they
are
not
simply
subtitutable for us.
Then the shaky numerical argument does fall down.
before
the
we
elaborate
emerging
proposal
there
are
other
But
influential
arguments to dispose of, and the disposal bears on the proposal.
There is,
have so
to begin with,
far been conceded:
the argument for excellence,
that
excellence, which we all more or
elements of which
there is an objective commodity, quality or
less agree
about, which is proportionately
more abundant in the North, and which is what academic institutions crave and
seek and what appointments aim to capture, indeed maximize.
That at least is
the type of myth most of us have encountered; and many of us now know it is a
myth,
in
fact
appointments
a
that
dangerous
way,
any
Most
myth.
more
that
places
don’t
organisations
aim
even
just
try
to
to
make
maximize
9
This is easier in the cultural than the technological sphere.
However it
is
also
possible technologically:
(stronger)
theses of
technological
determinism, and so of cultural determinism, are false.
We can choose
different options, technologically, as well as culturally.
8
profit, but
quality is
to satisfice on a mix of factors, of which assessed
rather seek
only one, and not often the highest ranking one.
Ability to fit
into some sort of program, teaching or research, is another, and commonly more
important factor;
is no good reason why such a program should not
and there
So given prevailing practices,
sometimes be a regionally oriented one.
the
argument from excellence does not exclude regional philosophy programs.
And,
in any event, there are enough local candidates of sufficient worth to proceed
regional
with
programs
without
sacrifice
clearcut
of
Local
excellence.
enterprise need entail no loss of excellence, and could well increase it.
The deeper-cutting objection is that there is something seriously amiss
with
the
idea
of
objective
objective
importance;
criticism
as
bracketed
out
notions
the
that
of
excellence,
and
notions
these
values
objective
with
are
open
more
contextual-relativisation
connected
the
to
the
generally,
component
of
notion
of
sorts
of
same
they
that
valuing:
have
the
framework or viewpoint to which these values relate.10
While those operating
within
as
a
rather
narrow
intellectual
paradigm,
such
ordinary
Oxbridge
language philosophy or Sydney materialism say, can bracket out the viewpoint,
since
it
is
incorporated
in
the
operational
paradigm,
and
so
arrive
at
seemingly objective quality judgements, the judgements are not preserved (e.g.
in
truth
Marxist
value)
when
viewpoints.
transposed
Consider,
to
for
other
frameworks,
comparison,
the
e.g.
idealistic
judgements
as
to
or
the
quality or worth of a forest,made variously by a deep ecologist, an industrial
forester, and a recreational officer.
Compare judgements as to the quality of
What follows also begins to bring out what is omitted in a main theme of
R.S. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance, Bodley Head, London,
1974.
Note that defusing the notion of objective excellence does not lead to
subjectivism.
To avoid the customary false dichotomy, compare the notion of
validity (usually ceded to themselves these days by classical logicians with
that of quality).
9
a
holistically-inclined
Marxist,
and
environmental
Californian
philosophers
pretend
who
seemingly because
it
philosopher,
environmental
such
language,
are
There
work
judged,
be.
cannot
even
of the main philosophical
by members
is not done
ordinary
philosophers.
environmental
that
by
peer
group at Harvard and like institutions.
this
As
judgements
begins
the
of
to
reveal, judgements of quality are not independent of
work
of
importance
or
done
But
tackled.
problems
importance of problems and issues is highly paradigm dependent.
the
For example,
problems such as those of quantifying-in and of possible worlds and of de re
thought, which assume immense importance for fashionable referential
within the mainstream empiricist
restricted
that
outside
theories
paradigm, vanish to relative insignificance
viewpoint.
Now observe
that most
judgements as
to
what are the important problems and what constitutes important work - matters
helping determine quality - are shipped down from the North.
Their Importance
is relative to their paradigmatic placement, and the paradigms concerned are
exported to the Antipodes through the main channels already indicated.
We are
free to reject these paradigms and select alternatives, and there are, it can
good reasons
be argued,
choose
that
different
generally
energy
favoured
to do
just
technology
in
the
that,
much as
(or different
North
the
which
there are good reasons
military
North
is
from
technology)
eager
to
to
export
southwards.
Similar
which
might
argument,
points
apply
against
alternatively
that
be
mass-produced
and
cosmopolitan.
The argument
-marketed
'cosmopolitan subject',
called
people
sophisticated
the
from
is based
cosmopolitan/international
the
Peter
everywhere
Holland;
Stuyvesant
smoke
this
argument
international
superior
product
cigarette-sophistication
is
on the assumption that philosophy is a
that is is not the sort of enterprise for which place
10
and
people
are
significant
as
they
assumption has only to be presented
important thing,
for one
for
are
poetry
the
or
to be questioned.
novel.
is a finished product of a certain
that philosophy
process of production the place and people involved (e.g.
And
literature,
the
if
and
not
product
philosophy,
no
more
12
than
work
a
like
theorems
just
internationally-approved format,
since
is
The
It takes for granted,
sort (a propositional theory), not a process of production also.
material.
11
of
in discussion) are
art,
arguments
and
But in the
like
a
piece
assembled
in
of
an
then again the historical setting matters,
literature,
not
does
emerge
in
a
vacuum.
Plato’s philosophy could not have emerged in ancient Australia, and if cribbed
in mid 20th century Oxford would surely have been marked down or rejected.
It is important not to be sidetracked
do not
in aesthetics - that
extent sets
of themes
need
to
and arguments
into issues - resembling problems
be contested,
such as whether and what
produced in one place and setting could
have been produced in another. A nonnuclear technology of some sort could be
adopted
prospect
in
Europe
that
New
but
apparently will
Zealand,
nonnuclear energy strategy.
in
not
contrast
be,
with
whereas
there
Australia,
is
will
reasonable
pursue
a
It is the doing, and not what could be done, that
Grave, op.cit., p.2:
the term ’cosmopolitan subject’ used there comes
from Donegan.
As to the significance of place and people for literature, see
further C. Partridge, The Making of New Cultures, Editions Rodopi, Amsterdam,
1982.
12
Like a paper in the biological sciences.
But here again technique
methodology, which may both be regional, are crucially important.
13
and
Related points can be made using less extreme examples, e.g. concerning
modern American work.
Consider, for instance such texts as W.V. Quine’s Word
and Object, (Wiley, New York, 1960) or R. Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia
(Basic Books, New York, 1974).
The assumptions taken for granted, the
arguments involved, etc., are especially American: it is not just the style.
The acceptability of arguments and positions is dependent on place and
received paradigm.
11
here.
matters
Dialethic
which
logic,
the
invalidates
methodology of much Anglo-American philosophy, could
technique
and
perhaps be done in
the
North (though there would be substantial cultural resistance): it is not being
and is not likely to be done in the Anglo-American sphere.To
done
there,
this
extent,
Antipodeans
do
techniques,
logical
can
choose
their
international/cosmopolitan argument,
distinctive
own
their
distinctive
own
technology
thing.
and
The
stated in a form that would be telling,
fails.
Of course
it can be argued,
it is being argued, that Antipodeans don't
need to be, or even oughtn't to be pursuing their own energy or logic policies
and apparatus.
But meeting these considerations takes us to a whole new set
of issues concerning the merit of various policies and programs,
diversity, etc. - far beyond the cosmopolitan argument.
which we shaLl return,
arguments
concerning
the point of
The new arguments, to
are not a lot more convincing however than comparable
cooking:
that
we
don't
devising our own cuisine or wine styles.
need
to
be or
oughtn't
to
be
British, or at least cosmopolitan,
cooking is adequate: we should stick to that and buy it off the shelf from the
North,
ideally importing
the cooks
also.
Do we
have good
reasons to
think
that British philosophy is better, these days, than British cooking?
Antipodeans are free,
in principle then,
to pursue their own paradigms;
and to do so they will by and large want to, and mostly have to, appoint their
own people, people they have educated - not saboteurs or people who have (had)
Much as communist anarchism, a live possibility for communes and perhaps
communities in Australia, is culturally excluded in North America, owing to
the extreme possessive individualism of that culture.
On dialethic logic, see G. Priest and R. Routley, On Paraconsistency,
Research Papers in Logic, #13, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian
National University, 1983.
12
to be re-educated, from elsewhere, in particular from the North.
intellectual paradigms
the
of
features
local
But will the
perused tie with cultural paradigms, with distinctive
In a
culture?
though works of philosophy will
loose
not usually
at
way,
they may link,
least,
culture in
tie in with the
the
integral fashion that novels (as distinct from more technical works) sometimes
do.
Indeed,
cultural
certain
programs,
-
to
limited
extent,
features,
not
they
do
restricted
already link.
add.
But
style,
independent - or independent
acceptability,
truth,
philosophical
’an Australian
compared with what matters
is
this
though
considers
Grave
particular
to
help mark philosophy in Australia as
that
'unimportant
hastens
a
to
product'
in philosophy'
do matter,
and
are
he
not
so far as their perception goes in the case of
truth and correctness^3 - from underlying broad theory or received paradigm.
However the marks Grave cautiously advances, significant though they are,
do
not
serve
features
to
the
distinguish
Australian
philosophy
Australian
exhibits
in
product,
lesser
the
degree
adventurous and polemical philosophy of Greek antiquity.
by Passmore
as
'most
typical
of
first
two
the
than
being
more
The first, described
Australian philosophy',
is
a 'diversity of
approach and readiness to put forward an unconventional or unfashionable point
of
view',
philosophy,
something
which
more
(with
typical
some
of
notable
ancient
philosophy
exceptions)
than
exhibits
Australian
a.i
austere
Nothing need be conceded to strong cultural relativity themes, though they
would support the case.
It is enough that our theories remain radically
incomplete and that there can accordingly be rival theories as to what is
true.
Similarly, however philosophy is conceived - as the search for truth,
explanation, understanding and wisdom (all of these and more, really), or as,
more vaguely, inquiry of a certain sort - there can be, and will be, competing
accounts; so a pluralistic theory is inevitable in giving a fuller view.
l^Both preceding quotations, while included as such in Grave's Introduction,
are from J. Passmore, 'Philosophy', in The Pattern of Australian Culture (ed.
A.L. McLeod), Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y., 1963, pp.131-168.
The
same annotation also applies to the third mark.
13
uniformity reflecting that often attributed to the land itself.
and
surprising,
more
most
'the
philosophy,
Wittgensteinian
extraordinary
discussed
by
itself’
Grave) ,
criticism by
sharp
and
political
relevant/paraconsistent
to
example
...
Andersonian
(p.2).
This
of
character'
manifestoed
the
the
__
being
if
Sydney,
example
is
Australian
line-up
it
was
far
from
between
the
not
isolated:
them concern the fervour generated by "Australian materialism",
others among
the
notable
Melbourne
philosophy
Andersonian
is
mark
The second,
engagement
the
and
by
some
growing
philosophy departments
confrontation
(both
concerning
the
program, with the local ('adversarial') style leading
Connected
Americans.
these
with
first
two marks
are
further characteristics of much Australian philosophy, as of much 18th century
Scottish philosophy and
directness,
unkindly
turn of
unwillingness
(in
add
the
this century Cambridge philosophy:17
to muffle points,
hope
of
locating
a
namely
surface clarity and,
some would
difference),
bluntness,
genuine
unsubtlety and crudity.
The third and the fourth marks advanced
Grave
in
philosophy.
effect
notes,
hardly
are very different, but again as
distinguishing
features
of
Australian
The third, which applies well to other intellectual areas, is the
contrast of the Australian reputation in philosophy indeed of Australia as a
center
of
philosophical
inquiry’,
with
the
anti—intellectual
national
stereotype of Australians as a people ’devoted to physical achievement rather
than to
intellectual subtlety’.
Anglo-American
philosophy;
namely
The
the
fourth mark is especially a feature of
isolation
of
academic
philosophy
Australasia from, and its general indifference or even hostility to,
in
the sort
17 •
though for the most part that influenced by Sydney rather than that
originating in Melbourne.
This again reflects the different historical
influences bearing in Sydney and Melbourne philosophy:
roughly, Scottish
versus Continental antecedents.
14
of
imported
philosophy
(e.g.
that
Nietzsche
of
and
the
existentialists)
generating interest in literary and arts circles.
The
failure
philosophy
sufficiently
matter.
not
does
separated
For
its
by
to
marks
such
of
adequately
one
the
thing,
out
separate
research projects.
Australian
For
another,
Australian
produce
is
regionalism
should not be confused with nationalism, nor more regional positions such as
Sydneyside
materialism
modalism
Wellington
or
with
Nationalism in philosophy, as in most other things,
not
to
be
the
and
encouraged;
new regionalism
philosophies.
national
is an undesirable trait,
is linked,
in other cultural
things, with the breakdown of nations and contraction of state power.
-A
■A
To get
back
*
to where we were:
A
the
A
emerging
proposal
is
this,
that
we
start - or better much increase - doing our own distinctive things, and that
we
team up
to
do
so.
In fact
there are
several suggestions
that begin
to
emerge, concerning research and teaching, publications and appointments, study
These are not just that we do our own selection
leave and sponsored visitors.
topics
of
and
people,
and
style
and
methods,
decide
instead of having these foisted upon us - not just,
our
own
priorities,
that is, that we play our
own games (whether invented here or taken over from the North) and not theirs,
Rules and Rugby instead of Gridiron and Basketball - but. that we abandon the
individual competitive model of cultural achievement, sold to us and fostered
18
See, e.g.,
London, 1957.
Sale,
op.cit.,
and
L. Kohr,
The
Breakdown
of Nations,
RKP,
The Editor of the new 1923 AJPP did however take seriously the notion of
National Philosophy, of (what must have surprised some New Zealand readers) an
Australian Philosophy; some of the issues there raised (p.292ff) are addressed
in Appendix 2.
15
by the North, in favour of a group cooperative approach (elements of which are
already modelled in Antipodean social clubs).
The thoughts here are simple and familiar.
digging example:
it is well-known that two people cooperating can dig a ditch
and enjoyably
more rapidly
On the one side is the ditch
than two
people working
on the ditch separately.
Cooperative work tends to pay off - in philosophy or elsewhere - in terms of
output,
and enjoyment
quality,
in the
doing.
On the other side, experience
shows that we in the periphery cannot individually complete very successfully
with the centre on achievements in their programs.
for this.
the
nature of American academic
attainment
of
depends
results
access to unpublished material.
and
periphery
nationalistic
are
the
tend
verbal
rapid
communication
and
For, despite the individualism myth, work is
several clever people will be able to hit on it.
idea or result,
communications
upon
enterprise,^ much
and builds on the work of many; when the time is ripe for some-
jointly based,
result,
Despite the highly competitive
One is the communication situation.
predominantly individualistic
in
There are several reasons
to
important
assignment
lose out.
considerations
in obtaining
of
credit
Again
(e.g.
for
rapid
it.
publication of
Here
there is a mix
PoLes
tend
Then again
to
again
the
people
of reasons:promote
idea or
at
the
There
are
Polish
results,
Russians will cite a Russian who achieves a result at about the same time as
an outsider).
There
face-to-face seminars
19
is the fact that much is conveyed verbally and through
so that
local results will be conveyed.
There is the
Reflecting other features of the culture and enterprise of the centre
which are not so deeply embedded in Australasia: see further R. Routley,
'Culture,
philosophy,
and
approaches to
the natural
environment an
Australian
perspective’,
in The
Environment,
Ethics
and Ecology
(ed.
D. Bennett), The Faculties, Australian National University, 1984, and also
'Culture and the roots of political divergence: the Australian/American
contrast’, typescript, Canberra, 1983;
both referred to subsequently as
'Culture'.
16
limited
fact of
they
when
reading,
on
read
and that
people at
the
from
material
the centre
central
by
centre
tend to
concentrate
peopLe,
that
so
published items and results from the periphery will often not be noticed, and
may
well
out
lose
to
There
publication.
is
the
also
for merit,
receive, merit
competitors
central
more
fact
that
publication
than people towards the periphery.
if
even
people
and
they
achieve
the
at
centre
communication
central
tend
to
opportunities
Here economic factors do begin to enter;
consider the size and distribution of the academic market (there are, e.g., a
great many more academic philosophers in North America than in the whole rest
of the world), control of publishing outlets and journals (with few exceptions
all Northern), etc.
culture — we can
way we
shut off
the Northern philosophical propaganda in much the
shut off
our television
impressed
being
However economic power does not, and need not, determine
by
philosophical
those
to.
sets if we really want
middle-men
And we can stop
make
who
a
living
by
importing the Northern stuff.
So what do we do? We adapt to the cultural-philosophical level, several
of those things, that have been suggested in the newer regionalism.
some
regional
importers
and
doctrines
and
awakening
and
self-reliance.
of,
and
local
from
the
North.
imitators
positions
local
We do not remain
commentators
For
We aim at
on
example,
we
and
slavish
peddlars
don’t
spend
of,
our
academic lives trying to tease out what Davidson or Dummett or Kripke meant by
this
or that
through.
To
in the
be
hope that
sure,
I
am
some pale Northern light will perhaps
not
suggesting
that we
emulate
the
filter
appalling
ignorance of people from the North who visit the Antipodes and know little or
nothing
about what
has
been done
or
is
being done here;^^ so
that we
have
Regrettably, the ignorance extends to many locals.
In particular, those
infected with Sydney materialism appear remarkably ill-informed as to basic
features of other Australasian programs.
17
eminent
their
visitors,
the
through
bags
National
Australian
cultural
with
heavy
University
accroutrements,
(now
the
main
trekking
centre
for
investigation of relevant logics) and Informing us that, or relying crucially
on the assumption that, a contradiction entails every proposition.
that
advances is
positions and
inferiority
cultural
of
another
colonies;
is
know
often
Northerners
these
little
is the
the Antipodes
intellectual
and
the
nothing
or
distinctive
prevailing assumption of the
in
life
these
(predominantly local)
narrow
about
One reason
former
and
southern
limited
reading
undertaken by Northern luminaries.
But,
despite
having
been
sufficient
given
cause,
we
shouldn’t
cut
ourselves off from Northern paradigms and influences (we could hardly manage
We can reasonably use what we need from
propoganda is different).
to anyway:
so we should stay informed of, but not imitators
these continuing traditions:
of, or part of,
In any case,
their enterprises.
the people are largely European stock.
in older Northern traditions, just as
So
far
from
nowhere,
cutting
these
loose
from
(and
older
these
likely
regional cultures are rooted
traditions
minority)
and
starting afresh
traditions,
and
the
from
local
variations that have already appeared are what we want to develop and perhaps
mutate, as again with wine styles.
Part
of
the
proposal
Is
then
that
things, encourage and develop our own
Antipodean
Northern
paradigms,
paradigms.
rather
It
is
we
increasingly
research programs,
very great
71
our
own
local
and so shape newer
than working with pale northern reflections
not as
if we
have to
- what is very difficult - entirely original work,
components.
do
build from nothing,
to
of
do
to try to create cultural
For there are research programs already initiated, which have the
advantage of
See Culture, op.cit.
being grounded
in features of the larger culture."1
18
Nor,
the
do we need
fortunately,
future
is
part
to make the story up - though helping to shape
of what the
Australia - New Zealand
proposal
Much of
about.
is
different and more difficult
is a
is
All one really
to bring out programs he has already indicated and provide some
to do is
elaboration and commentary.
level,
for
proposition -
already indicated in Grave’s survey of Australian philosophy.
has
the story,
To pull the investigation down to a more concrete
I shall sketch some more prominent cooperative programs - by no means
the only programs - and remark on some relevant features of them.
The longest running and best known program is, without much doubt,
of
Australian
naturalism,
and
which
aims
see
to
natural
the
that
world,
and
everything else, as suitably encompassed within the framework of the world of
(physical)
science.
The
program
is
generally
traced
as
a major
subprogram Sydney materialism,
Adelaide which subsequently died out there.
such
famous
components
central
state
version
of
failures
functionalism.
its
in
a
reduction
and
nowadays
Faced
plans,
like
it
It
in
The latter program has included
takes
it
all
now
Anderson’s
program initiated
as the mental-material contingent
materialism,
to
in Armstrong’s work.
empiricist metaphysics,-- and is now best exhibited
contains
back
in,
identity theme
and
more derivatively,
physicalisms
incorporates
a
with
a
conspicuous
"scientifically"
trimmed theory of universals, and an account of natural laws as relations of
universals, both components of
the developing
Sydney realism.
Parts of the
naturalism program, especially materialism and central state reductionism and
the unified science ideal, have had counterparts in the North, but the program
has,
for
the
most
part,
retained
its
distinctively
Australian
character
22
Anderson’s metaphysics was however far more opposed to reductions than
what has succeeded it. For an account of Anderson’s philosophy, and a history
and account
op.cit.
of Australian naturalism and materialism,
see especially Grave,
19
- despite export efforts, it never caught on in New Zealand.
smoothly, moreover,
and
philosophy can
far as
so
earthy,
into Australian culture.
The program fits
It is similarly down-to-earth,
be, without
ideas or
the fancy
effete
idealism of European philosophy or the spirituality and suppressed puritanism
much
which
with
pragmatism).
North
of
And
commitments,
and
American
it
yet
it
though
not
does
is
simmers
thinking
basically
shrink
from
metaphysical
explicit
empiricist,
nowadays,
(including
is
it
not
positivistic
(rejecting a verification principle, in particular).
It
is
a
city
based
program,
broadcast
mainly
from
the University
of
Sydney to other metropolitan universities; but the program does extend outside
the universities a bit (a tiny bit) to the larger metropolitan culture.
North America,
the
broader
Russell,
so in Australasia, little professional philosophy impinges on
community,’-^
Popper
and
would
naturalism
program
Perth, and
has outliers
Apart
notable
be
or
Kuhn
Australasia
from
As in
quite
used
to
even on
being
an
the wider
exceptional.
achievement,
stretch
through
one
academic
(To
community,
turn
worth
to Adelaide;
this
working
it
work by
around
for.)
now reaches
in
The
to
in Canberra, as well as a core of opposition there.
exceptions,
the program has never had the
same hold,
or
In Canada, for example, while most academics from other disciplines would
know of, and perhaps a little about, Russell, far fewer would know of
Wittgenstein (though he is becoming known to lit. crit. groups), and virtually
none would know of Quine.
(The sampling is subjective.)
On the fairly recent ’triumph of professionalism’ in philosophy in USA, see
Kuklick, op.cit., p.565ff.
Iluklick brings out well some of the more
disastrous features of professionalism, but does not sufficiently notice that
the virtuous
features
resulting
from
some
professionalisation
can be
synthesized with broader philosophical activity.
20
0
more than a rather precarious hold,
f
in Melbourne:^2
4
*
nor, more surprisingly,
has it had heavyweight criticism from there (or indeed much external criticism
the old confrontation of major city philosophies having died
from elsewhere),
Melbourne
out.
is more
philosophy
stricken than Sydney; Melbourne
by
dominated
a
procession
philosophy;
Continental
then,
philosophy;
religion
philosophy, much more than Sydney, has
Northern
of
earlier
fashions:
recently,
more
remarkable
a
and more
historically oriented
and
Davidson
Quine,
turnabout,
idealism
ordinary
Wittgenstein,
been
and
language
extensional
reduction; now perhaps Lewis, Kripke and Dummett?
The
one
program
that
reaches
the
beyond
confines
of
the
cities
in
Australia - which is after all a metropolitan dominated culture, the vast land
always
the other
being
-
Australian environmentalism,
is
a
rather
diffuse
program, which has connections with the Colleges of Advanced Education in the
the communes on the North Coast.
country towns and
much distinguished
environmental
Europe
by what
positions
specifically
it
are a
having
is
not
as
feature of
transformed
what
So far the program is as
it
is.
the New World,
most
its
of
Serious
the
natural
and
deeper
Old World,
and
environment
and
having little wild untouched country left, and little sensitivity accordingly
to
such as
issues
Europe
that
tend
admit
European
to
those of
concern
shallow
built
approaches
superficiality
environmentalism
the
wilderness.
outside
(and
continues
North
and
The main
environmental
human-transformed
encourage
to
America.
environment,
situations).
techno-fix
dominate
North
much
issues
of
American
the
New
in
issues
And
World
environmentalism
differs significantly however from Antipodean environmentalism, most obviously
2A
rhe exceptions include Ellis’s distinctive program, which can be accounted
part of the broader naturalist program, and at Monash the work of F. Jackson
and, earlier, of H. Munro in value theory.
21
in
the
religious-spiritual
component
of
the
former,
in
but
several
other
respects as well (see further Culture).
positively,
More
environmentalism:-
there
Firstly,
three
are
an
is
there
strands
extended
Australian
to
utilitarianism,
differing
little in theory from Bentham’s enlarged position, which insists upon counting
in the utilities of all sentient creatures.
British base,
has figured prominently in animal welfare and animal liberation
though
and
movements:
This position, developed from a
it
has
on domestic animals,
focussed
animals used
in
research and hunted (wild) animals, it has also become entangled in issues of
bio-research more generally such as genetic
or much interested in,
concerned with,
engineering.
endangered species,
It is not however
the disappearance
of wild lands, the conversion of forests, etc., except insofar as these have a
bearing on animal pain and pleasure.
Wider and deeper environmental concerns
appear only as a
spinoff from animal welfare, and so deeper concerns get an
inadequate deal.
Secondly, there is a wider and a deeper ecological position,
which is not utilitarian and which recognises irreducible value elsewhere than
forests and
differs
ecosystems, especially wild and
American
from
naturalism.
which finds
states,
psychological
sentience or
25
Thirdly,
spiritualism
there
is
and
of
intrinsic value
natural systems.
from
course,
an
as
in trees
This
position
of
American
extension
everywhere,
almost
and
a
reactionary component, critical of the other strands, which insists that all
that
needs
to
be
accomplished
on
the
environmental
front
can
be
achieved
within older established (European) ethical and political frameworks.
Whereas
materialism
is
based in Sydney,
environmentalism
is centred
in
It
has
been described
more
fully
elsewhere:
see,
in particular,
Environmental Philosophy (ed.
D. Mannison and others), RSSS, Australian
National University, 1980.
22
Melbourne and Canberra, but also includes Brisbane and Perth. Also centred in
Canberra, and reaching across the country, with good connections in Melbourne,
but
in
few
Sydney,
materialism and
from
program
other
which
program,
and
logic
program
perhaps
includes
extends
their core
value
more
to
centres
New
respectively,
the
especially
philosophy,
in
the
with
Logic
a
Whereas
in metaphysics,
theory
essentially
is
of
areas
major
which
and
program.
program,
but
one
metaphysics.
The
Australia
than
also
been
described
in New Zealand philosophy
is also a
Zealand,
has
any
other
26
elsewhere
The
programs have
epistemology
relevant/paraconsistent
affecting
relevant/paraconsistent
environmental
input
further
the
is
main
grounded
research program
program.
A
program emanating
located mainly in Wellington,
The impact
of the
evident
program on
from the
it might be called
work of
Prior and
now
the extended modal program.
philosophy is perhaps best seen in Cresswell’s
27
work. “
Australian philosophy used
for its
not
hard-headed empiricism;
known
for
to
be known,
and still
is in some quarters,
regrettably New Zealand philosophy is mostly
anything much, except
perhaps,
in UK,
that
Prior brought
unusual adaption of Russellian philosophy from that remote place.
his
Neither of
26
Again, like all the Australian programs, both those mentioned and others,
in Grave, op.cit.
But see further,
R. Routley,
'Research in Logic in
Australia, New Zealand and Oceania', Research Papers in Logic #14, Australian
National University, 1983 (which also considers other programs in logic);
G. Priest and R. Routley, op. cit.; and R. Routley, R.K. Meyer and others,
Relevant Logics and Their Rivals, Ridgeview, California, 1982.
27
See especially M.J. Cresswel.1, Logics and Languages, Methuen, London,
1973; but see also work by Goldblatt and by Hughes referred to in Research in
Logic, op.cit.
Also described there is an original version of the modal
program (transparent intensional logic) elaborated by Tichy at Otago.
23
these impressions is particularly accurate; both are rather out-of-date.
But
the aim of work of the present type is, of course, not just to correct these
impressions,
not just
to reflect
or report
on culture - for what one
would
like to reflect upon is not sufficiently there - but also to help manufacture
elements of a culture, to make an image.
To
resist
the
already flourishing
North,
we
should
increase
our
efforts
to
further
the
programs, and perhaps other sunrise projects;*'^ to build
teaching and research around the programs selected for promotion, elaboration,
and criticism, to orient appointments, especially of involved local people, to
Among sunrise projects in Australian philosophy so far suggested (not all
of them feasible) are these:
Australian feminism, Antipodean social and
political
alternatives,
peace
studies,
indigenous regional
philosophies
(especially Aboriginal, Melanesian, and Polynesian). Another promising field,
with practical consequences, for local initiative is the philosophy of
education, where material produced by R.S. Peters has dominated the market,
with stultifying effects it is now alleged.
As foreshadowed with the notion of "sunrise projects", much of the rhetoric,
and argument, concerning science and technology policy (presented in the case
of Australia in Jones, op.cit.) can be taken over to apply to X policy, where
X is some subject discipline, such as philosophy.
24
these programs.
79
Why bother?
Why not simply buy our philosophy, like almost
all our technology, off the shelf, from the North? There are several arguments
for not doing this, in more than a limited fashion, which are now sketched.
There
Northern
fine a
is,
firstly,
products,
the
despite
inferiority
their attractive
and
built-in
packaging.
of
most
Without putting
too
point on it, many of the imported intellectual goods are shoddy, and
only work for a very limited range of applications (e.g.
the
obsolence
vicinity
Antipodean
of
contradictions
philosophy
undoubtedly
imported from the North.
dilemmas).
or
derives
from
Much
shoddy
they’re hopeless in
that
is
wrong
intellectual
with
goods
Yet buying this material is encouraged by hard-sell
cultural ambassadors from the North, who are often enough paid to visit.
This
29
In fact something like the last has been the policy of the LSE Philosophy
Department, where the only outside appointment over a long period was that of
Lakatos (hardly a person far removed ideologically).
As observed, it now
looks like the practice of the Otago Department also; and apparently it used
to be a tendency at Melbourne. But in most places the practice is condemned as
nepotistic or parochial, and overridden by the call for "new (Northern)
blood .
However there can be significant differences between nepotistic
appointments and those strengthening local programs.
It is at this stage, among others that administrative measures do matter;
for example, to ensure that suitable locally-engaged locals gain employment
rather than Northern stooges, to direct funds into on-going local programs
rather than imported fashions, etc.
There are various ways appropriate
administrative details can be handled, locally or nationally; but nothing
draconian, such as wholesale exclusion of noncitizens, is required.
Observe, indeed, that no restriction of academic appointments to nationals
(in Canadian style) or the like is being advocated.
Anyone who arrives at a
conclusion of that sort from what has been argued has misunderstood the case
in crucial
respects.
As
a matter of
simple mathematics,
restricting
appointment fields characteristically reduces both quality of candidates
available (however quality is assessed) and range of possibilities open for
future research; and no such restrictions are advocated.
The author has
witnessed the debilitating effects of field restrictions at the Australian
National University and elsewhere.
30t,
c
Some of
centre also.
,
these
arguments
support
change
(perhaps
revolutionary)
at
the
25
is
part of
Northern
philosophical
the
colonialism
the
that
-
imperialism
North -
from the
too
Antipodes
willing
the successor
suffers,
or,
to
more
remarkable, encourages!
Secondly, there is the inappropriateness of much of the Northern product,
especially
considered
as
metaphysics, environmental
for
package,
a
to
cover,
well
as
as
The European North has no satisfactory
concerns.
land or environmental ethic
instance,
fit for Antipodean circumstances, and the deeper
American package is too spiritually-loaded for mainstream Australian culture.
In
political
American
work
is
much
too
individualistic
the European product, especially the Marxist form,
and
competition-based,
unsuited being
theory,
both too
precious and
too high-tech for local
and
is
circumstances,
especially again for more environmentally-perceptive people.
features
of
telling
also
Thirdly,
import
world’s markets
power structures
against
substitution
and pressures
and
comparative
advantage,
regionalism;
namely,
and fashions,
(including the Old Boy’s
are
appealing
avoidance of
the
removal of overseas control
and
network in
jobs,
policies,
etc.),
and gaining of local control, employment of local people, etc.
Fourthly,
there
arguments
are
philosophy
as
complexity,
sheer diversity,
part
of
intellectual
stability,
for
cultural
culture:
39
etc. “
diversity,
arguments
In fact,
from
applied
to
richness,
the garden analogy
31
The point is elaborated in Culture.
At a more practical level Northern
products are again often unsuitable, though for different reasons.
For
example, the transfer of American agricultural methods and equipment to the
thin poor soils of the Antipodes has had disastrous effects, at last beginning
to be recognised.
“See, for instance, A.A. Mazrui, A World Federation of Cultures: An African
Perspective, Free Press, New York, 1976.
26
built into the whole notion of ’culture' transfers.
dense,
But not only seeds and plants but weeds and many
productive garden.
pests are
We
being introduced.
and European
and
are
control
obtain not only good products,
European pests
cultivars, but
selectiveness
Naturally we want a rich,
Indian maize
and American weeds.
as
essential,
against
This is why
haphazard
previous
procedures.
The proposal
with local
is not for, nor would the case sustain, a narrow localism,
products, whatever
local
their quality,
heroes, replacing Northern ones.
fashions,
and local
cult
That is certainly not the preferred way of
the newer regionalism, which tends to do without fashions and heroes and seeks
durable quality in products,
way of technology policy.
which
are
difference,
has
to
outlets,
be
not
occupied
impact, and so on;
low environmental
Rather, as with technology policy, we select niches
satisfactorily
or
where
filled,
given
etc.).
our
resource
But granting regionalism,
base
(of
we
can
make
a
Indeed the policy
and use and develop local skills and methods.
selective
nor is the
philosophers,
publishing
to what extent should components,
for instance people, books and other teaching elements, theories and ideas, be
imported
and
Locally? The
to
what
extent
should
they
be
produced,
trained,
conceived
possibility of selectiveness in different components means that
many mixes are possible.
particular mix.
There is no need to insist,
so far at least, on a
The case for the present is mainly for a regional shift, for
a significantly greater degree of local autonomy and production.^
But
it will
do
no
harm
to
indicate
elements of a mix
that finds much
Does it sound familiar? Outside philosophy, it should. For example, we
have now been told by the Americans that our defence role, unlike theirs, is
regional, not global: this is supposed to shed great light on our previously
confused defence policies.
27
the suggestion is that we try to eradicate much of
Negatively,
local favour.
the Oxford style of teaching and doing philosophy.
as
removal
Berkeley-Hume
with
(a
however
prevailing
undue
the
of
no
standard
on
British
focus);
attention
proper
status
Anglo-American
empiricism
British
emphasis
to
quo.
That includes such things
of
of
heavy
The
particular, has mostly been a very conservative one.
the
movements
main
philosophy,
but
from
emanating
also
the
England,
protective of the Northern status quo;
they are,
recommend
and
this.
just
reinforcement
Oxford
Locke-
approach
the
of
in
influence,
More generally, many of
especially
Moore-Wittgenstein
on
quasi-historical
the
sources;
centred
practice,
ordinary
have
language
been
very
they tend to leave things very much as
the
Positively,
proposal
is
that
we
achieve further disassociation from the Anglo-American empiricist past in two
ways:
by
framework,
emphasizing
and
by
local
projects
diversifying
the
that
move
range
outside
of
constricting
that
philosophical
traditions
selectively drawn upon, to include not only neglected Continental strands and
parts of
Eastern thought,
philosophy.
The
idea
is
but also
that
Pacific ethnic
such a
material and
plurality of
sources,
Australasian
especially
in
teaching, will assist in removing narrower cultural biasses, such as British
parochialism,
and
enable more
discrimination
to
be
obtained.
Then
too we
should be better able to see the ranges of theories that are open to us in the
Antipodes and how to advance our own programs.
34
The point is laboured in E. Gellner, Words and Things, Victor Gollancz,
London, 1959.
But even ordinary language philosophy, though conservative, and
though it much contracted the proper range of philosophical investigations,
had its liberating elements, e.g. removal of some of the narrowness and more
cramping assumptions induced by technical jargon.
Nor has the social impact changed much with the subsequent decline, since
1959, of ordinary language philosophy, the increasing insolvency of Oxbridge
philosophy, and its consequent limited take-over by right-wing Ivy League
American philosophy. By contrast, the less economically influential growth of
redbrick and applied philosophy in some of the British radical and polytechnic
institutes has touched no more than the surface of Oxbridge practice.
28
There remain some things we should want to see whatever mixes are chosen
One crucial issue is the removal of Northern
in different Antipodean regions.
bias from papers and publications, research seminars and lectures, letters of
This Northern bias is a disposition to cite and discuss
reference, and so on.
the
and
works
of
irrespective
discussion
projects
and
of
quality
the
ignore
to
authors,
Northern
of
their
contribution
works
the
more
the
of
irrespective of the quality of their contribution.
accept
opinions of worth,
their
been
(thus
Influential
philosophers,
under
topic
largely
again
It is
etc.
to uncritically
and
the disposition
to
though work produced locally either does not exist or has
write or lecture as
not
importance,
better,
It is the disposition to
to authors from prestigious Northern institutions,
defer
the
to
authors,
local
the
famous
are,
ensuring
anything,
if
that
it
inclined
more
is
not).
And
Northern
to
Australasian
bias
than
many
overseas intellectuals, who are perhaps less concerned to be seen as belonging
to the Northern mainstream.
bias
effects
not
The reduction, and eventual removal, of Northern
practice
the
only
of
individual
philosophers,
but
the
policies of selection and review committees as well as of editors and referees
of
It
journals.
local
reorientation,
with
innovations
better,
development
-
involves,
among
Antipodean philosophers
things
so
they
that
can
would
cite
be
getting
local
assisted
things,
other
work
by
intellectual
to know local
work and
out
regional
or
point
greater
local
content
in
courses taught, more time spent at local institutions on study leave, and so
on.
APPENDIX 1. Background notes on the philosophy supply situation.
Sociological
investigation of the philosophy labour market in Australia and New Zealand has
yet
to be
attempted.
But a
picture of
some elements
underlying the
numerical argument of the text can be gained from the following table:
simple
29
TABLE 1. Ph.Ds in Philosophy: a USA - Australasian comparison
USA
Number (Male/Female)
Australia
New Zealand
1974
413 (346/67)
6
0
1975
375 (318/57)
5
0
1976
382 (319/63)
8
0
1977
330 (264/66)
3
2 (1/1)
1978
283 (235/43)
5
5 (4/1)
1979
285 (204/54)
9
3 (2/1)
1980
246 (187/59)
4
N. A.
1981
N.A.
4
0
Notes:
1. The breakdown of the USA and New Zealand numbers by sexes (male/female) is
given.
Similar figures do not appear to be available for Australia.
2.
The US figures are. for the academic year ending in the Year shown, e.g.
1978 covers the Northern academic year 1977-78. Southern figures are for the
calendar year shown.
Sources: Digest of Education Statistics, US National Center for
Education Statistics; University Statistics, Australian Bureau of
Census Statistics; New Zealand Education Statistics.
Comments:
1.
The contraction of US doctoral production and the concomitant rise in
female representation, are clearly indicated.
The Australian figures are
likely too small to reflect such trends and responses to the academic market.
2.
Some of the Australasian numbers include Americans; likewise the American
figures provide no nationality breakdown.
3.
There is no information available on the number of Australians proceeding
to higher degrees in philosophy outside Australia.
In applying table 1 some simplifying assumptions are made.
assumed
that
candidates
for appointment
For example, it is
to regular university positions now
would have a doctorate or the equivalent (until recently a B.Phil was taken as
a
near
well).
equivalent
It
is
of
a
assumed,
North
what
American
seems
to
Ph.D.;
take
publications
the
case,
that
serve
as
the number
of
could
30
Australasians proceeding to higher degrees in philosophy abroad is relatively
small, and no more than the order of Ph.Ds. taken locally.
It can be assumed,
without upsetting applications of table 1, that Australasian graduates match,
say, the upper half of American graduates in standard attained.
There is no compiled information on academic vacancies in philosophy in
Australia or New Zealand - on the numbers of vacancies, on how the positions
It would however be a routine,
are filled, by what nationalities, sexes, etc.
if
matter
tedious
some of
assemble
to
data,
this
is of considerable
which
relevlance to the planning of philosophy programs.
APPENDIX 2.
On the earlier
considering
the
Editor
of
the
idea of a National
of
possibility
initial
German distinction
a
National
AJPP distinguished
two
between Weltanschauung
and
Philosophy for Australia.
Philosophy’,
the
(Australian)
corresponding
senses
In
Lebensanchauung’
to
(p.292).
'the
In
the first, that of ’a scheme of the universe’, ’an Australian Philosophy is as
as
ridiculous
confirmation
prejud ices’.
Holland,
personal’
Science’.
falsification,
or
Granted:
fostered, etc .,
in
Christian
a
’are
The
is
argument
of
independent
truth,
that
national
and
sympathies
its
or
but that does not mean that a theory may not be held,
in one region but not others, as intuitionism was for long in
or
way,
Cartesianism
’a
nation
in
France.
like
an
In
a
second
individual
may
’more
develop
intimate
a
and
certain
temperamental attitude to the problems of existence, which we may ... call its
philosophy of life.
A nation’s philosophy,
like its art and its literature,
is a mode of expression for the national consciousness.
form of
evolving
the national genius
national
culture.
....’
But,
(pp.292-3).
in
the
first
It is,
place,
It is a specialised
in short,
this
is
part of the
by no means
entirely separate from the initial sense, a philosophy comprising not merely a
fairly comprehensive theory but also an integrated set of attitudes (like an
31
operational paradigm).
Furthermore, only by concession are such items as ’the
national consciousness’
and 'the Australian landscape’
of
meriting
definite
Australian
descriptors.
literature, has many strands to it,
accounted single units
philosophy,
Australian
like
some not particularly distinctive (in any
sense): such things form rather loose families.
Editor
The
does
not
find,
does
not
really
hope
to
in
find
’a modern
industrialised community’ - with its modular parts interchangeable with those
of
others - a
claims
find
to
and
courage
a
fair
trite
life,
with a difference.
build
on
(’traditions
but nothing at all
distinctive.
philosophy of
national
moral
dealing’),
base
to
In fact
... of
humour,
So far,
be a national philosophy, at least of life, but is not;
there can
he
then,
this does
not however exclude there being various regional philosophies (such as local
research programs).
plunged
that
into
’if
So
far,
inconsistency:
then,
the
all is well.
trouble
derives
But shortly
from the
the Editor is
extravagant claim
Australia has nothing to do with these - the eternal values of the
Spirit, the Ideals of Truth, Goodness and Beauty - then and only then has she
nothing to do with Philosophy’
(p.295; with rearrangement).
But, as Australia
has nothing per se to do with these - as is virtually conceded, these values
involving a 'wider sweep’
do
with Philosophy,
Though
the
than any national boundaries - "she" has nothing to
contradicting the
contradiction
is
easily
possibility of
avoided
by
a National
Philosophy.
the
extravagant
rescinding
claim, the ideal of a National Philosophy should be allowed to rest in peace:
nationalism has had its time.
32
R. Routley35
Research School of Social Sciences
Australian National University
35
With thanks to R. Elliot, W. Godfrey-Smith, S. Grave and L. Mirlin, to
several members of the audience at the presentation of the paper at the 1983
Australasian Association of Philosophy Conference, University of Adelaide, to
several referees for this Journal, and, not least, to the present Editor.
t
•r
■
PROSPECTS FOR REGIONAL PHILOSOPHIES IN AUSTRALASIA
Philosophy, especially academic philosophy but also folk philosophy, like
other intellectual and higher cultural activity in Australasia, has long been
dominated,
indeed
Europe, now
the
largely
swamped,
by
Northern
Given
increasingly from North America.
cultural
and
other
baggage
the
imported,
influences,
initially
the migration
patterns,
composition
ethnic
resulting ruling populations, such a result was virtually inevitable.
does not have to stay that way.
from
of
the
But it
Suitable policies, a good philosophy policy,
could change things.
thought
The
of
a
is hardly a new one.
culture,
In 1923, a
matching
perhaps
philosophy,
regional
regional
a
New Zealand correspondent to the
newly-launched Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy mentioned the
possibility of ’a new kind or temper of philosophy under these southern skies’
which
the
such a
reaching
Journal might
role
(or,
not
community).
for
merely
And
that
matter,
professional
although
however hardly
The Journal has
foster.1
actively
philosophers
some things
solid foundation for a new regionalism
its
pursued
have changed
pronounced aim
wider
a
but
in Australia,
in philosophy,
and
temper of
southern skies were intended
distinctively
1AJPP, March
same volume,
Appendix 2.
New
Zealand
1923, p.74.
p.292.ff;
his
philosophy under
to
include:
but
characteristics,
The
question was
discussion
is
laying
a
that possibility of a
New Zealan
few distiri
have
of
Australasian
new temper of philosophy has hardly been realised. There is
of a new kind
fulfilled
shown
up
le in the way
ies, which
the
y features,
’ no
in
New
Zealand
taken up by the Editor in the
considered
below,
especially
in
2
7
philosophy’.
New Zealand remains a substantial net importer of philosophy,
The situation of colonial dominance that used to prevail in
and philosophers.
Australia,
where
virtually
chairs,
all
and
many
philosophy, were filled by academics from the North,
power and influence of professors in small departments,
and
covered
considered
and
in
tends to persist in New
Zealand, where no established chairs are occupied by locals.2
3
topics
posts
academic
other
Given the usual
in courses designed,
especially appointments
made,
the
heavy
Northern orientation of philosophy taught and researched in New Zealand is not
The Northern control is perhaps most strikingly exhibited at the
surprising.
oldest
of
New
Zealand
universities,
the
University
of
Otago,
where
the
Philosophy Department has been substantially captured by a British School and
increasingly
looks
event,
the
like an offshoot of
overwhelming Anglo-American
the University of London.4
dominance
of
New Zealand
In any
philosophy
also a feature only in slightly lesser degree of Australian philosophy - can
be confirmed
by a content survey of the courses offered and research papers
written at New Zealand universities.
Even when local people have been appointed
to positions in Australasia,
they have been brought up on a solid diet of Anglo-American material, and they
have often been reforged or finished in the North as well.
*
In particular, the
2
S.A. Grave, A History of Philosophy in Australia, Queensland University
Press, 1983, p.l. Page references are to the manuscript.
The paper draws
heavily on this history.
3
This claim was correct at the
1983).
With the recent loss of
qualification, but the pattern of
4In the 1983
presentation of the paper (August
Wellington, the claim may require
mination persists.
Commonwealth University Handbook listing, 6 of the 8 members of
the Department held their main degree, Ph.D., from -the London/?and one of the
remainder from. Exeter).
Only one member of the Department, soon to retire,
falls outside me nexus.
3
requirements of
the Australasian universities
in the major
period of
post
World War II expansion were conveniently seen to in the case of philosophy by
Many
degree.
B.Phil.
the Oxford
of
departments
philosophy
remain full
of
products of this cultural mill: indeed until the mid 70s candidates finished
in Oxford were hard to beat out when they applied for positions, such was the
prestige of Oxford and
(unwarranted)
the regrettable,
but still
continuing,
"cultural cringe".
Nonetheless,
in
been occurring
scene
will
(as
despite
the
Northern
the Antipodes,
be
especially on
indicated).
significant
dominance,
worth
is
It
changes
have
the Australian philosophical
asking
whether
Australian
philosophy is moving towards the sort of change that occurred in USA more than
100 years ago when the Harvard Philosophy Department was brought (or bought)
together,
its "golden
and
age" began.American philosophy was never quite
the same again, and became its own thing.
There are now new forces operating
which could help to move Australian philosophy in such a direction.
the
widespread
emergence,
particularly
in
alternative
There is
culture,
of
choice
along
a
new
£
which
regionalism,
other
choices;
local
fashioning
provides
applies
of
a
national
model
for
and
to
in
cultural
stark
science
reflection
and
in
and
ideological
contrast,
technology
regional
there
policies,
philosophy
directly bears on parts of the philosophy of science.
soon appear,
there are
also some
is
serious obstacles
the
with
centralised
which
not
only
policy
but
also
Unfortunately, as will
to regional
philosophies
and to the very idea of a regional philosophy.
^See B. Kuklick, The Rise of American Philosophy; Cambridge, Massachusetts
1860-1930, Yale University Press, 1977, Parts 2 and 3.
On this bio-regionalism, see especially, Fourth World News, vol. 1,
and K. Sale, Human Scale, Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, New York, 1980.
1983,
USA, long an importer of culture from Europe, has recently become a net
components
of
philosophical
following
not
culture,
taken).
suit,
should
evidently
but
Are
reasons
there
achieve
not
also
the gAmerican
(witness
philosophy
has
Oxford
from
output
lower
of
such as
higher culture
if
Australasia,
balance of
certainly
culture,
of
exporter
a
better
turn
why
cultural
Yes, there are reasons.
payments, especially in philosophy?
of
In
the first place, the change in the cultural position of the USA went with, and
perhaps in part derived
economic
of
most
dominance
entails
Australasia’s
changes in economic power relations.
from, vast
there is
cultural dominance,
culture,
there
since
is
little prospect
serious
no
prospect
If
for
that
Australasia will ever emulate or attain American economic eminence (at least
not without nuclear destruction of
the North,
flow of commodities, cultural and other).
universities
not only
increasingly
of
of
contingent
Americans,
former
group,
Northern cultural
they.
As
priorities,
a
they
also
component
include
whose
research
of
Northern academics,
substantial
a
and
teaching
additional
is
bent
to
It is unlikely that this influential segment, especially
(become so
will
commitments,
long
entire
Secondly, as observed, Antipodean
large
fellow-travellers,
Northern concerns.
the
contain
and disruption of the
as
apart
Antipodeans
they are in a bind
locally acclimatised
do
from the
not
situation;
isolated
drastically
as
to)
give up
Nor
person.
alter
their
its
should
cultural
for it can be persuasively argued
that they would be better off, as far as quality and product goes, stocking
their universities with American teaching components and researching American-
oriented concerns.
One
simple
numerical
argument
that
Antipodean
universities
would
be
better off with Americans in the main, takes the following lines:- The (higher
degree)
graduates
of
Australasian
culturally distinguished,
and
American
are
not
significantly
at least in subjects such as philosophy.
Consider
now
number
the
of
quality
Austroamerican graduates;
academics
produced
of
per number
degree
higher
say there is 1 per every n graduates.
The (great)
preponderance of graduates will be Americans, just by virtue of their vastly
greater population and their more extensive system of university education.7
So also then, just by ratio considerations, the great preponderance of quality
academics
from an
drawn
upper percentiles among
they
interested
universities.
Austroamerican base
an
Such
would
argument
appointing
be
does
not
as will
Clearly, Antipodeans,
those quality products.
quality,
in
will be American,
work
to
more
show
Americans
that,
for
to
the
were
their
similar
reasons, American universities should be full of Chinese or Indian professors,
for
two
Asians
reasons;
and
first
Americans,
there
are
especially
significant
in
cultural differences
disciplines
such
as
between
philosophy;
and
secondly, their university systems do not deliver such great quotas of higher
degree or high quality graduates, at least in philosophy.
The conclusion of the numerical argument will not be a popular one.
anti-Americanism felt
the
universities;
The
in portions of the Australasian community extends into
and
recently
there
has
been
increasing
insistence,
especially by the now aging younger Turks that university positions should be
reserved for locals.
This at the same time as these Turks often preach of an
international community of scholars,
presumably then with "free" interchange,
As indicated in Appendix 1, whereassumptions made in the argument are
.
defended, the ratio of US philosophy graduates with doctorates as compared
with Australian exceeds 30 to 1.
And, as is weM-known, the extent of
university education is much greater
in USA than! in Australasia: indeed
Australia is in this respect
among the worst edlated of the developed
nations, as OECD figures have made plain (see, e.g. Jb. Jones, Sleepers Wake^^
Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1982, Chapter
I
I
J
/
>
6
etc.
They cannot have it all ways.3
So
long
continues,
the
present
centre
will
as
the
dominate
they will have more
economically;
them if
large to
free-flow
than us,
and
and
culturally
periphery
the
ideas
of
interchange
personnel
well
as
as
should go by and
jobs here
(centrally-determined) quality in this high cultural
it is
business that we seek, as mostly claim.
Now
anyway,
it
is
there
that
arguments.
For
enough
widely
is
we are
recognised,
something
not
lower-down
drastically
wrong
hierarchical
with
these
ladders
sorts
of
flooded with high-quality Northerners who would
regularly drive out local contenders for positions,
if we only preferred the
Northerners when they were quite visibly superior: rather we are inundated by
Americans with inflated references, who have the messages of the centre better
than
locals
echelon
do,
(often
and
remote Northern fields tend
Northern
biassed)
appointment
to look greener to higher-
committees
than
dusty
locals
As is beginning to be recognised too,
whose shortcomings are known better.
the Northern centres tend to retain their higher-quality products, and allow
them
to
be
exiled
to
the
periphery
only
if
they
somehow fall
foul
of
system (e.g. of the academic system for political or personal reasons).
8A reverse flow of the better or
the
Too
//K
odox academics from Australasia to A Leica
should also be expected (outside
mes of university contraction).
Acci yrding
_____d
argument, which is based on labour] larket
to assumptions of this brain
considerations, appointment and lifestyle conditions for academics arej etter
in USA than Australia and much better than those in economically—depressed New
jhejr salaries, better standard of living, superio
Zealand (e.g. high'
research
conditions, etc.)
things being £equal, able academic
from the
Antipodes will rel;||jBate in USA as academic positions become avai
ble.
The
argument also help^^xplain why Antipodean ui 'versifies cannot ex
:, for the
most part, to attract really top-drawer Nojrt
Nortl srners for very long.'T' Of course,
economically
illy irrelevant
irrele
factors do in^Tu®
interference; e.g.
perverse
t«gTua
itsl to oddJball Antipodean intellectual enterprises which reduce
commitment
-ceLtabilit*^ or pre-industrial ties to place or persons or lifestyle
market acc
which imsmulaiS-y
L_ _ restrict mobility (such as local roots, family attachments, even
distaste for American urban lifestyles).
7
often
Northern
the
centres
have
disposed of
intellectually
their
inferior
products in the periphery.
All this makes the
especially Americans,
Northerners,
appointing
position look doubly bad. We ought, it seems, to be
even
if they are overrated
their references, and usually not out of the top drawer,
And yet
quality.
in
in order to maximize
doing so does not achieve the desired quality result, and
breeds discontent elsewhere, especially among the aging Turks.
Fortunately
there
obtain
cultural
sufficient
subtitutable for us.
we
before
from this awkward
and that is the way of regionalism.
shaky arguments;
and
way out
is a
elaborate
distance,so
that
situation and
these
We do our own things;
they
are
not
simply
Then the shaky numerical argument does fall down.
the
emerging
proposal
there
are
other
But
influential
arguments to dispose of, and the disposal bears on the proposal.
to begin with,
There is,
have so
far been conceded:
the argument for excellence,
that
excellence, which we all more or
elements of which
there is an objective commodity, quality or
less agree
about, which is proportionately
more abundant in the North, and which is what academic institutions crave and
seek and what appointments aim to capture, indeed maximize.
That at least is
the type of myth most of us have encountered; and many of us now know it is a
myth,
in
fact
appointments
profit, but
a
that
dangerous
way,
rather seek
any
myth.
more
Most
that
places
don’t
organisations
aim
even
try
just
to
to
make
maximize
to satisfice on a mix of factors, of which assessed
quality is only one, and not often the highest ranking one.
Ability to fit
^This is easier in the cultural than the technological sphere.
However it
is
also
possible technologically:
(stronger)
theses of
technological
determinism, and so of cultural determinism, are false.
We can choose
different options, technologically, as well as culturally.
8
into some sort of program, teaching or research, is another, and commonly more
important factor;
is no good reason why such a program should not
and there
sometimes be a regionally oriented one.
So given prevailing practices,
the
And,
argument from excellence does not exclude regional philosophy programs.
in any event, there are enough local candidates of sufficient worth to proceed
with
regional
programs
clearcut
without
of/ excellence.
sacrifice
Local
Jl
enterprise need entail no loss of excellence, and could increase it.
A
The deeper-cutting
with
idea
the
objection is that there is something seriously amiss
objective
of
objective
importance;
criticism
as
bracketed
out
notions
the
that
excellence,
these
with
more
values
contextual—relativisation
a
rather
generally,
component
paradigm,
intellectual
narrow
the
to
framework or viewpoint to which these values relate.10
within
connected
the
open
are
notions
objective
of
and
of
sorts
of
same
they
that
of
notion
have
the
valuing:
While those operating
as
such
Oxbridge
ordinary
language philosophy or Sydney materialism say, can bracket out the viewpoint,
since
it
is
incorporated
in
the
operational
paradigm,
and
so
arrive
at
seemingly objective quality judgements, the judgements are not preserved (e.g.
in
truth
Marxist
value)
when
viewpoints.
transposed
Consider,
to
for
other
frameworks,
comparison,
the
e.g.
idealistic
judgements
as
to
or
the
quality or worth of a forest^made variously by a deep ecologist, an industrial
forester, and a recreational officer.
a
holistically-inclined
Marxist,
and
philosophers
Californian
who
pretend
Compare judgements as to the quality of
philosopher,
environmental
environmental
that
such
by
philosophers.
environmental
work
language,
ordinary
There
cannot
are
be
even
judged,
hat follows also> Begins to bring out what is omitted in a main theme of
R.S.JPirsig, _______
Zen and __
,
d/e
Art
Motor Cycle Maintenance, Bodley H^lad , London,
__ of
— ---— the notion of objective excellence doe
, Note that defSwring
not lead to
ivism.
To avoid the customary false dichotomy, compare
e notion of
validity (usually ceded to themselves these days by classical lo cians).
cw
9
seemingly because
it
of the main philosophical
by members
is not done
peer
group at Harvard and like institutions.
As this
begins
the
of
judgements
to
reveal, judgements
importance
work
of
of quality are not independent of
done
or
problems
tackled.
importance of problems and issues is highly paradigm dependent.
the
But
For example,
problems suet/ as those of quantifying-in and of possible worlds and of de re
thought^ ^ich assume immense
importance for fashionable referential theories
within the mainstream empiricist paradigm, vanish to relative insignificance
outside
that
restricted viewpoint.
that most
Now observe
judgements as
to
what are the important problems and what constitutes important work - matters
helping determine quality - are shipped down from the North.
Their importance
is relative to their paradigmatic placement, and the paradigms concerned are
exported to the Antipodes through the main channels already indicated.
We are
free to reject these paradigms and select alternatives, and there are, it can
be argued,
good reasons
choose different
that
generally
energy
favoured
just that, much as
to do
technology
the
in
(or different
the
which
North
there are good reasons to
military technology)
North
is
eager
to
from
export
southwards.
Similar
which
might
argument,
points
apply
against
alternatively
that
be
sophisticated
mass-produced
and
cosmopolitan.
The argument
'cosmopolitan subject’,
called
people
-marketed
the
from
is based
cosmopolitan/international
the
Peter
everywhere
Holland;
Stuyvesant
smoke
this
argument
international
superior
product
cigarette-sophistication
is
on the assumption that philosophy is a
that is is not the sort of enterprise for which place
10
and
people
are
as
significant
they
are
for
poetry
or
that philosophy
important thing,
is a finished product of a certain
sort (a propositional theory), not a process of production also.
process of production the place and people involved (e.g.
material.
And
and
literature,
the
if
not
since
no
philosophy,
format,
12
than
more
work
a
like
theorems
just
internationally-approved
is
product
The
novel.
It takes for granted,
assumption has only to be presented to be questioned.
for one
the
and
of
art,
But in the
in discussion) are
like
a
piece
assembled
arguments
in
of
an
then again the historical setting matters,
literature,
does
not
emerge
in
a
vacuum.
Plato’s philosophy could not have emerged in ancient Australia, and if cribbed
&
13
in mid 20th century Oxford would surely have been marked down or rejected.
It
is
important not
to be
sidetracked into issues -
resembling problems
in
aesthetics - that do not need to be contested, such as whether and what extent
sets of themes and arguments produced in one place and setting could have been
produced in another. A nonnuclear technology of some sort could be adopted in
Europe but apparently will not be, whereas there is reasonable prospect that
New
Zealand,
strategy.
^Grave,
in
It is
contrast
with
the doing,
op.cit.,
p.2:
Australia,
will
and not what could
the
term
pursue
a
be done,
’cosmopolitan subject’
nonnuclear
energy
that matters here.
used
there
comes
from Donegan.
As to the significance of place and people for literature, see
further C. Partridge, The Making of New Cultures, Editions Rodopi, Amsterdam,
1982.
xz,Like a paper in the biological sciences.
But here again technique
methodology, which may both be regional, are crucially important.
1 3 Related
and
points can be made using less extreme examples, e.g. concerning
modern American work.
Consider, for instance such texts as W.V. Quine’s Word
and Object, (Wiley, New York, 1960) or R. Nozick*s Anarchy, State and Utopia
(Basic Books, New York, 1974).
The assumptions taken for granted, the
arguments involved, etc., are especially American: it is not just the style.
The acceptability of arguments and positions is dependent on place and
received paradigm.
11
logic,
Dialethic
which
invalidates
Anglo-American philosophy,
the
could perhaps
technique
and
methodology
of
in the North (though
be done
much
there
would be substantial cultural resistance): it is not being done there, and is
not
likely
Antipodeans
techniques,
to
be
in
choose
can
do
done
the
their
Anglo-American
own
their own distinctive
sphere.^
distinctive
thing.
The
To
technology
this
extent,
and
logical
international/cosmopolitan
argument, stated in a form that would be telling, fails.
Of course
it can be argued,
it is being argued,
that Antipodeans don’t
need to be, or even oughtn’t to be pursuing their own energy or logic policies
and apparatus.
But meeting these considerations takes us to a whole new set
of issues concerning the merit of various policies and programs, the point of
diversity, etc. - far beyond the cosmopolitan argument.
The new arguments, to
which we shall return, are not a lot more convincing however than comparable
arguments
concerning
cooking:
that
we don’t
devising our own cuisine or wine styles.
need
to
be or
oughtn’t
to
be
British, or at least cosmopolitan,
cooking is adequate: we should stick to that and buy it off the shelf from the
North,
ideally importing
the cooks also.
Do we
that British philosophy is
have good
reasons to
think
than British cooking?
Antipodeans are free^in principle^ then,
to pursue their own paradigms;
and to do so they will by and large want to, and mostly have to, appoint their
own people, people they have educated - not saboteurs or people who have (had )
to
be
re-educated,
from el
where,
in
particular from the North.
But
will
•^Much as co
communities
the extreme
nist anarchism, a live possibility for communes and perhaps
Australia, is culturally excluded in North America, owing to
ndividualism of that culture.
On dialethic logic, see G. Priest and R. Routley, On Paraconsistency,
Research Papers in Logic, #13, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian
National University, 1983.
12
paradigms^, tie
their intellectual
of
features
the
cultur
local
though works of
with cultural
In a loose way,
philosophy wi
not usually
with
paradigms,
least,
at
distinctive
they may link,
tie in with the culture in
the
_______
____ z sometimes
distinct
from_______________
more technical works)
integral fashion that novels
A> a. /sn-X'etL
do.^ Grave considers certain cultural features, not restricted to particular
programs,
philosophical
Australian product’
help
that
in
philosophy
Australia
as
’ an
- ’unimportant though this is compared with what matters
But style, acceptability, truth, do matter,
in philosophy' he hastens to add.
and are
mark
not independent - or independent so far as their perception goes in
the case of truth and correctness15 - from underlying broad theory or received
paradigm.
However the marks Grave cautiously advances, significant though they are,
do
not
features
serve
to
distinguish
the
philosophy
Australian
Australian
exhibits
in
the
product,
lesser
degree
adventurous and polemical philosophy of Greek antiquity.
by Passmore as
'most
typical
first
two
than
the
being
more
The first, described
of Australian philosophy’,
is
a ’diversity of
approach and readiness to put forward an unconventional or unfashionable point
view',1^
of
philosophy,
something
which
more
(with
typical
some
of
notable
ancient
philosophy
exceptions)
than
exhibits
uniformity reflecting that often attributed to the land itself.
Australian
an
austere
The second,
15Nothing need be conceded to
trong cultural relativity themes,
ough they
would support the case
L Iia L tour
'/is enough that
theories remain radically
_ y bei
incomplete and that there/^/^n accordingly
b
rival theories as
what is
is
true.
Similarly, however^
phy is j concaved ~as the sea
or truth,
seian/Mrore, really), or a
explanation, uifierstanding^
these
inquiry of a
certain sort^Fthere can bez45^will be
be, ^/competing accounts; so a pluralistic
theory is inevitable in giving a fuller view.
1
Both preceding quotations, while included as such in Grave’s Introduction,
are from J. Passmore, ’Philosophy', in The Pattern of Australian Culture (ed.
A.L. McLeod), Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y., 1963, pp.131-168.
The
same annotation also applies to the third mark.
Ke
surprising,
more
and
’the
philosophy,
Wittgensteinian
mark
most
notable
political
extraordinary
by
discussed
Andersonian
itself’
(p.2).
...
being
This
the
example
is
line-up
it
was
far
from
if
Sydney,
Australian
between
the
not
isolated:
them concern the fervour generated by "Australian materialism",
others among
the
..
example
and
Melbourne
Andersonian philosophy
of
character’
Grave),
engagement
and
by some philosophy departments
confrontation
growing
the
(both
concerning
the
relevant/paraconsistent program, with the local (’adversarial’) style leading
to
criticism by
sharp
Americans.
with
Connected
these
firs
two marks
are .
—■--------------- ------
furthe
part.
of much
characteristics
Australian
Aiilosophy y(^ho
for
hat influenced by jSydney rather than originating in Melb
the most
namely
directness, unwillingne
to muffle points, surface clarity
/occj/
unkindly add,
untne
, unsubtjety and crudity.> The third and
t
A
fourth marks
as Grave i
effect notes, hardly distinguishing features of
Australian philosophy.
areas,
is
third, which applies well
to other
intellectual
the contrast of the Australian reputation in philosophy indeed of
Australia as
national
The
a ’center of philosophical inquiry’, with the anti-intellectual
stereotype
achievement
Australians
than
rather
especially a
of
feature
of
as
intellectual
to
a
people
subtlety’.
Anglo-American philosophy;
’devoted
The
namely
physical
to
fourth
the
mark
is
isolation of
academic philosophy in Australasia from, and its general indifference or even
hostility to,
the sort of imported philosophy (e.g.
that of Nietzsche and the
existentialists) generating interest in literary and arts circles.
The
philosophy
failure
does
of
not
marks
such
matter.
sufficiently separated
by its
For
to
adequately
one
thing,
separate
the
research projects.
out
Australian
For another,
Australian
produce
is
regionalism
should not be confused with nationalism, nor more regional positions such as
Sydneyside
materialism
or
Wellington
modalism
with
national
philosophies.
14
as in mojjt other things,
Nationalism in philoso^iy,
to
not
be encouragedand the new regionalism
is an undesirable trait,
is linked,
in other
cultural
things, with the breakdown of nations and contraction of state power.
*
To get
back
*
*
to where we were:
*
*
the emerging
proposal
is
this, that we
start - or better much increase - doing our own distinctive things, and that
we
team up
to do
In fact
so.
there are
several suggestions
that begin
to
emerge, concerning research and teaching, publications and appointments, study
leave and sponsored visitors. These are not just that we do our own selection
of
topics
and
people,
and
style
and
methods,
decide
instead of having these foisted upon us - not just,
our
own
priorities,
that is, that we play our
own games (whether invented here or taken over from the North) and not theirs,
Rules and Rugby instead of Gridiron and Basketball - but that we abandon the
individual competitive model of cultural achievement,
sold to us and fostered
by the North, in favour of a group cooperative approach (elements of which are
already modelled in Antipodean social clubs).
The thoughts here are simple and familiar.
digging example:
it is well-known that two people cooperating can dig a ditch
more rapidly and enjoyably
17
See, e.g.,
London, 1957.
On the one side is the ditch
Sale,
than two
op.cit.,
people working on the ditch separately.
and L. Kohr,
The
Breakdown
of Nations,
RKP,
The Editor of the new 1923 AJPP did however take seriously the notion of
National Philosophy, of (what must have surprised some New Zealand readers) an
Australian Philosophy; some of the issues there raised (p.292ff) are addressed
in Appendix 2.
15
Cooperative work tends to pay off - in philosophy or elsewhere - in terms of
output, quality,
and enjoyment
in the doing.
On the other side, experience
shows that we in the periphery cannot individually complete very successfully
with the centre on achievements in their programs.
predominantly individualistic
the
in
Despite the highly competitive
One is the communication situation.
for this.
attainment
nature of
results
of
depends
There are several reasons
American academic enterprise,much
upon
verbal
rapid
and
communication
For, despite the individualism myth, work is
access to unpublished material.
jointly based, and builds on the work of manyji^hen the time is ripe for some
idea or result,
several clever people will be able to hit on it.
communications are
nationalistic
important
considerations
in obtaining rapid
(e.g.
Poles
tend
publication of
to
promote
Then again
the
Polish
idea or
results,
Russians will cite a Russian who achieves a result at about the same time as
an outsider).
There
face-to-face seminars
fact of
when
limited
read
they
is the fact that much is conveyed verbally and through
so that
and that
reading,
on
local results will be conveyed.
material
from
people at
the
the centre
centre
by
There is the
tend to concentrate
central
people,
so
that
published items and results from the periphery will often not be noticed, and
may
well
lose
publication.
receive,
18
merit
out
There
to
is
central
also
for merit,
competitors
the
more
fact
that
publication
even
if
people
they
at
the
achieve
centre
and communication
central
tend
to
opportunities
Reflecting other features of the culture and enterprise of the centre
which are not so deeply embedded in Australasia: see further R. Routley,
’Culture,
philosophy,
and
approaches to
the natural
environment - an
Australian perspective’,
in The
Environment,
Ethics and
Ecology
(Ed.
D. Bennett), The Faculties, Australian National University, 1984, and also
’Culture and the roots of political divergence: the Australian/American
contrast’, typescript, Canberra, 1983;
both referred to subsequently as
’Culture’ .
16
than people towards the periphery.
the
size
and
Here economic factors do begin to enter;,
distribution of the academic market
e.g., a great
(there are,
many more academic phzilosophe s in North America than in the whole rest of the
world), control of
outlets and journalj^ (with few exceptions all
Northern)^etc.
economic
power
does
and
not,
not,
need
determine culture - we can shut off the Northern philosophical propaganda in
much the way we shut off our television sets if we really want to.
stop being
impressed by
And we can
those philosophical middle-men who make a living by
importing the Northern stuff.
So what do we do? We adapt to the cultural-philosophical level,
several
h
of those things, that have been suggested in the regionalism.
We aim at some
A
regional
importers
awakening
and
doctrines and
and
local
imitators
positions
of,
from
self-reliance.
and
local
the North.
We
do
commentators
For
on
example ,
we
slavish
remain
not
and
peddlars
don’t
spend
of,
our
academic lives trying to tease out what Davidson or Dummett or Kripke meant by
this
or that
through.
To
in the hope that
be
sure,
I
am
some pale Northern light will perhaps
not
suggesting
that
emulate
the
filter
appalling
17
But,
des xLte
having
been
given
sufficient
cause,
we
shouldn’t
cut
ourselves off 'from Northern paradigms and influences (we could hardly manage
A
anyway).
to
We
A
traditions:
use
what
we
need
these
from
continuing
o we should stay informed of, but not imitators of, or part of,
In
enterprises.
their
reasonably
can
just as
Northern traditions,
from cutting
from
loose
case,
any
regional
are
rooted
in
the people are largely European stock.
these
traditions and
(and likely minority) traditions,
these older
cultures
older
So far
starting afresh from nowhere,
and the
local variations
that
have already appeared are what we want to develop and perhaps mutate, as again
with wine styles.
of
Part
the
proposal
then
is
that
encourage and develop our own
things,
Antipodean paradigms,
Northern
paradigms.
rather
It
we
research programs,
very great
Nor,
the
locaY
and so shape nefer
is not as
if we have to build from nothing,
to do
to try to create cultural
For there are research programs already initiated, which have the
advantage of
fortunately,
future
our own
than working with pale northern reflections of
- what is very difficult - entirely original work,
components.
do
increasingly
is
being grounded
in features of the larger culture.
do we need to make the story up - though helping to shape
part of what the
Australia - New Zealand
proposal is
about.
Much of
is a different and more difficult
already indicated in Grave’s survey of Australian philosophy.
the story,
for
proposition -
is
All one really
has to do is to bring out programs he has already indicated and provide some
elaboration and commentary.
level,
I shall
To pull the investigation down to a more concrete
fooyxizci/li/esketch some more prominent programs - by no means the only
A
programs - and remark on some relevant features of them.
19 See Culture, op.cit.
18
The longest running and best known program is, without much doubt,
of
Australian
naturalism,
and
which
aims
see
to
the
that
world,
natural
and
everything else, as suitably encompassed within the framework of the world of
science.
(physical)
The
as
generally
is
subprogram Sydney materialism,
a major
Adelaide which subsequently died out there.
such
famous
components
central
state
version
of
failures
in
to
Anderson’s
functionalism
and
nowadays
like
Faced
reduction
in
The latter program has included
takes
all
now
it
plans,
it
It
program initiated
a
identity theme
as the mental-material contingent
materialism,
its
back
traced
and is now best exhibited in Armstrong’s work.
empiricist metaphysics,
contains
program
and
more derivatively,
in,
with
physicalisms
incorporates
a
conspicuous
"scientifically"
a
trimmed theory of universals, and an account/of natural laws as relations of
universals, both components of the develop®®^ Sydney reali
naturalism program,
sm.
Parts of the
especially materialism and central state reductionism and
the unified science ideal, have had counterparts in the North, but the program
l^s, for the most part, retained its distinctively Austr^/ian character
/(“despite export efforts, it never caught on in New Zealand^7 The program fits
smoothly, moreover,
and
earthy,
so
into Australian culture.
far as
It is similarly down-to-earth,
philosophy can be, without
the fancy
ideas or effete
idealism of European philosophy or the spirituality and suppressed puritanism
with
which
pragmatism).
commitments,
much
of
And
and
North
yet
though
it
it
American
does
thinking
not
shrink
(including
simmers
from
is basically empiricist,
explicit
it
is not
nowadays,
metaphysical
positivistic
(rejecting a verification principle, in particular).
20
Anderson’s metaphysics was however far more opposed to reductions than
what has succeeded it. For an account of Anderson’s philosophy, and a history
and account
op.cit.
of Australian naturalism and materialism,
see especially Grave,
19
It
is
a
city
program,
based
broadcast
from
mainly
the University
of
Sydney to other metropolitan universities; but the program does extend outside
the universities a bit (a tiny bit) to the larger metropolitan culture.
North America,
the broader
Russell,
so in Australasia, little professional philosophy impinges on
community,
Popper
and
21
naturalism
program
Perth, and
has outliers
from notable
used
even on
being
quite
would
be
or
Kuhn
Australasia
Apart
As in
to
an
the wider academic community,
exceptional.
achievement,
stretch
through
one
(To
turn
worth
to Adelaide;
in
around
this
working
work by
for.)
The
it now reaches
to
in Canberra, as well as a core of opposition there.
exceptions,
the program has never had the
more than a rather precarious hold,
same hold,
or
nor, more surprisingly,
in Melbourne:
has it had heavyweight criticism from there (or indeed much external criticism
from elsewhere),
out.
the old confrontation of major city philosophies having died
Melbourne philosophy
is more historically oriented
stricken than Sydney; Melbourne
dominated
Continental
philosophy;
by
a
procession
philosophy;
then,
a
of
more
remarkable
and more
religion
philosophy, much more than Sydney, has
Northern
recently,
turnabout,
fashions:
earlier
Wittgenstein,
Quine,
idealism
ordinary
Davidson
and
been
and
language
extensional
reduction; now perhaps Lewis, Kripke and Dummett?
21
In Canada, for example, while most academics from other disciplines would
know of, and perhaps a little about, Russell, far fewer would know of
Wittgenstein (though he is becoming known to lit. crit. groups), and virtually
none would know of Quine.
(The sampling is subjective.)
On the fairly recent ’triumph of professionalism’ in philosophy in USA, see
Kuklick, op.cit., p.565ff.
Kuklick brings out well some of the more
disastrous features of professionalism, but does not sufficiently notice that
the virtuous
features
resulting
from
some
professionalisation can be
synthesized with broader philosophical activity.
22
The exceptions Include Ellis’s distinctive program, which can be accounted
part of the broader naturalist program, and at Monash the work of F. Jackson
and, earlier, of H. Munro in value theory.
20
one
The
reaches
that
program
beyond
the
of
confines
the
cities
in
Australia - which is after all a metropolitan dominated culture, the vast land
always
the other
being
Australian environmentalism,
is
-
a rather
diffuse
program, which has connections with the Colleges of Advanced Education in the
country towns and the communes on the North Coast.
So far the program is as
much distinguished
is.
environmental
Europe
by what
positions
specifically
feature of
are a
having
not as
is
it
it
what
the New World,
most of
transformed
Serious
deeper
and
the Old World,
its natural
environment
and
and
having little wild untouched country left, and little sensitivity accordingly
to
such as
issues
Europe
that
tend
admit
those of
to concern
shallow
outside
environmentalism
the
built
approaches
superficiality
European
The main
wilderness.
continues
North
issues
human-transformed environment,
and
(and
environmental
encourage
techno-fix
dominate
to
America.
North
issues
situations).
of
much
the
New
in
And
World
environmentalism
American
differs significantly however from Antipodean environmentalism, most obviously
in
the
religious-spiritual
of
component
the
former,
but
in
several
other
respects as well (see further Culture).
positively,
More
environmentalism:-
Firstly,
there
there
three
are
an
is
strands
to
extended utilitarianism,
Australian/
differing
little in theory from Bentham’s enlarged position, which insists upon counting)
the utilities
British base,
movements:
of all
sentient creatures.
This
position,
developed
from a
has figured prominently in animal welfare and animal liberation
and
though it has
focussed
on domestic animals,
animals used
in
research and hunted (wild) animals, it has also become entangled in issues of
bio-research more generally such as genetic engineering.
concerned with,
or much interested in, endangered species,
It is not however
the disappearance
of wild lands, the conversion of forests, etc., except insofar as these have a
bearing on animal pain and pleasure.
Wider and deeper environmental concerns
21
appear only as a
spinoff from animal welfare,
inadequate deal.
Secondly, there is a wider and a deeper ecological position,
and so deeper concerns get an
which is not utilitarian and which recognises irreducible value elsewhere than
sentience or
forests and
differs
natural systems.
ecosystems, especially wild and
from
spiritualism
American
Thirdly,
naturalism.
there
intrinsic value
which finds
psychological states,
and
of
is
from
an
course,
extension
almost
as
in trees
and
This
position
of
American
everywhere,
a
reactionary component, critical of the other strands, which insists that all
that
be
to
needs
on
accomplished
the
environmental
can be
front
achieved
within older established (European) ethical and political frameworks.
Whereas materialism is
based in Sydney, environmentalism is centred
in
Melbourne and Canberra, but also includes Brisbane and Perth. Also centred in
Canberra, and reaching across the country, with good connections in Melbourne,
but
few
in
Sydney,
materialism and
further
environmental
input
from
relevant/paraconsistent
affecting
program
program
other
hich
the
is
major
perhaps
relevant/paraconsistent
programs have
and
epistemology
program
areas
of
includes
and which extends
is
their core
value
philosophy,
centres
a
the
with
respectively,
the
logic
especially
in
Whereas
in metaphysics,
theory
essentially
more
program.
program,
but
metaphysics
Australia
than
any
one
The
other
to New Zealand, has also been described elsewhere.
23
It
has
been described more
fully elsewhere:
see,
in particular,
Environmental Philosophy (ed.
D. Mannison and others), RSSS, Australian
National University, 1980.
o/
Again, like all the Australian programs, both those mentioned and others,
in Grave, op.cit. But see further/ R. Routley,
’Research in Logic in
Australia, New Zealand and Oceania’, Research Papers in Logic #14, Australian
National University, 1983 (which alto considers other programs in logic);
G. Priest and R. Routley, op. cit.^and R. Routley, R.K. Meyer and others,
Relevant Logics and Their Rivals, Ridgeview, California, 1982.
22
The main research
grounded
logic
program
program.
of the
in New Zealand philosophy is also
A program emanating
located mainly in Wellington,
The impact
evident
from the work of Prior and
a
now
it might be called the extended modal program.
program on philosophy is perhaps best seen in Cresswell's
work.2
Australian philosophy used to be known,
for its
is in some quarters,
regrettably New Zealand philosophy is mostly
hard-headed empiricism;
not known
and still
for anything much, except
perhaps, in UK,
that Prior brought
unusual adaption of Russellian philosophy from that remote place.
his
Neither of
these impressions is particularly accurate; both are rather out-of-date.
But
the alm of work of the present type is, of course, not just to correct these
impressions,
not just
to reflect
or report on culture - for what one would
like to reflect upon is not sufficiently there - but also to help manufacture
elements of a culture, to make an image.
To
resist
the
already flourishing
North,
we
should
increase
our
efforts
to
further
the
programs, and perhaps other sunrige projects;26 to build*
7
,^fjee especially M.J. Cresswell,
_&ics and ^.anguages, Methuen, London,
1973; but see also work by Goldblatt, rra by Hugtrfs--referred to in Research in
Logic, op.cit. Also described i
h ifi anvoriginal version of the modal
program (transparent intensional logic) elaborated by Tichy at Otago.
7A
°Among sunrise projects in Australian philosophy so far suggested (not all
of them feasible) are these:
Australian feminism, Antipodean social and
political
alternatives,
peace
studies,
indigenous regional
philosophies
(especially Aboriginal, Melanesian, and Polynesian). Another promising field,
with practical consequences, for local initiative is the philosophy of
education, where material produced yby R.S. Peters has dominated the market,
with stultifying effects it is now Alleged.
y
As foreshadowed with the notion, "sunrise projects", much of the rhetoric,
and argument, concerning science and technology policy (presented in the case
of Australia in Jones, op.cit.) can be taken over to apply to X policy, where
X is some subject discipline, such as philosophy.
A
23
teaching and research around the programs selected for promotion, elaboration,
and criticism, to orient appointments, especially of involved local people, to
Why not simply buy our philosophy, like almost
Why bother?
these programs.
all our technology, off the shelf, from the North? There are several arguments
for not doing this, in more than a limited fashion, which are now sketched/. °
is,
There
firstly,
the
inferiority and
built-in obsolence of Northern
A
products,
despite
their attractive
packaging.
Without
putting
too
fine
a
point on it, many of the imported intellectual goods are shoddy, and only work
for
a
very
limited
range
of
applications
vicinity of contradictions or dilemmas).
philosophy undoubtedly derives
from
(e.g.
they’re
hopeless
in
the
Much that is wrong with Antipodean
shoddy intellectual goods
imported
from
27
In fact something like the last has been the polictf of the LSE Philosophy
Department, where the only outside appointment over a Aong period was that of
Lakatos (hardly a person far removed ideologically)/.
As observed, it now
looks like the practice of the Otago Department also; and apparently it used
to be a tendency at Melbourne. But in most places the practice is condemned as
nepotistic or parochial, and overridden by the call for "new (Northern)
blood'.
However there can be significant differences between nepotistic
appointments and those strengthening local programs.
It is at this
for example, to
rather than Northern stc/oges,
rather than imported fashions,
administrative details
draconian,
do matter;
employment
n-going local programs
ious ways appropriate
Observe^ that no
Canadian style) or the like is being advocated.
conclusion of that sort from what has been argued has misunderstood the
in crucial
respects.
As a t matter of
simple mathematics,
appointment fields characteristically reduces both quality of
available (however quality i
assessed)
range of possibilities open
future research;
d no s h restrictioi/s are advocated.
The author
witnessed the se
times disastrous eff
s of field restrictions at
Australian National University.
—
Some of
centre also.
2g
___
these arguments
support
change
(perhaps
revolutionary)
at
the
24
the
North.
Yet
buying
this material
is
by hard-sell
encouraged
ambassadors from the North, who are often enough paid to visit.
of the
philosophical imperialism from the North that
colonialism -
the Antipodes
too willing
cultural
This is part
the successor to Northern
suffers,
or,
remarkable,
more
encourages!
Secondly, there is the inappropriateness of much of the Northern product,
especially
considered
as
metaphysics, environmental
a
for
package,
concerns.
instance,
to
cover,
as
well
as
The European North has no satisfactory
land or environmental ethic fit for Antipodean circumstances, and the deeper
American package is too spiritually-loaded for mainstream Australian culture.
29
In
political
competition-based,
unsuited being
theory,
American
work
is
too
much
individualistic
the European product, especially the Marxist form,
and
both too
precious and
too high-tech for local
and
is
circumstances,
especially again for more environmentally-perceptive people.
Thirdly,
features
of
telling
also
Import
against
substitution
and
comparative
advantage,
regionalism;
namely,
world’s markets and pressures and fashions,
are
appealing
avoidance of
the
removal of overseas control
anra
power structures (including the Old Boy’s network in jobs, policies, etc.) and
gaining of local control, employment of local people, etc.
Fourthly,
philosophy
as
there
part
are
of
arguments
intellectual
for
cultural
culture:
diversity,
arguments
from
applied
to
richness,
.
.
/
The point is elaborated in Culture.
At a more practical level Northern
products are again often unsuitable, though for different reasons.
For
example, the transfer of American agricultural methods and equipment to /the
thin poor soils of the Antipodes has had disastrous effects, at ttfast
beginning to be recognised.
v—*
29
25
complexity, sheer diversity,
stability,
etc.
30
In fact,
built into the whole notion of ’culture’ transfers.
dense, productive garden.
We obtain not only good products,
and European cultivars, but European pests
and
Naturally we want a rich,
But not only seeds and plants but weeds and many
pests are being introduced.
selectiveness
the garden analogy
control
are
essential,
and American weeds.
as
against
Indian maize
This is why
previous
haphazard
/
/
procedures.
The proposal is not for, nor would the case sustain
as
with
technology
policy,
satisfactorily filled,
local
we
select
niches
which
a narrow localism
are
where we can make a difference, and
skills and methods.
Indeed the
policy has
to be
not
occupied
or
use and develop
selective given our
30 See,
for instance, A.A. Mazrui, A World Federation of Cultures: An African
Perspective, Free Press, New York, 1976.
31 Does
it sound familiar? Outside philosophy, it should. For example, we
have now been told by the Americans that our defence role, unlike theirs, is
regional, not global: this is supposed to shed great light on our previously
confused defence policies.
26
That includes such things as
Oxford style of teaching and doing philosophy.
removal of the undue emphasis on British empiricism centred on Locke-BerkeleyHume (a standard British focus); of the quasi-historical approach with however
no
proper
attention
to
quo.
American status
sources;
reinforcement/of
The heavy Oxford influence^
very conservative
been a
of
emanating from England,
the prevailing
in particular, has mostly
More generally; many of
one.
Anglo-
the main movements
especially ordinary language philosophy, but also the
Moore-Wittgenstein practice, have been very protective of the Northern status
quo; they tend to leave things very much as they are, and recommend just this.
32
Positively,
the
proposal is
that we achieve further disassociation from
the Anglo-American empiricist past in two ways:
by emphasizing local projects
that move outside that constricting framework, and by diversifying the range
philosophical
of
traditions
selectively
drawn
upon,
include
to
not
only
neglected Continental strands and parts of Eastern thought, but also Pacific
ethnic
material
and
Australasian
philosophy.
The
idea
is
that
such
a
plurality of sources, especially in teaching, will assist in removing narrower
cultural biasses, such as British parochialism, and enable more discrimination
to
be
obtained.
theories
that
Then too
are open
we
to us
should
in
be better
the Antipodes
able
and
to
how
see
the
ranges of
to advance our own
programs.
32
The point is laboured in E. Gellner, Words and Things, Victor Gollancz,
London, 1959.
But even ordinary language philosophy, though conservative, and
though it much contracted the proper range of philosophical investigations,
had its liberating elements, e.g. removal of some of the narrowness and more
cramping assumptions induced by technical jargon.
Nor has the social impact changed much with the subsequent decline, since
1959, of ordinary language philosophy, the increasing insolvency of Oxbridge
philosophy, and its consequent limited take-over by righ^:-wing Ivy League
American philosophy. By contrast, the less economically ^g/ljiential growth of
radical and applied philosophy in some of the British r-aH icad, and polytechnic
institutes has touched no more than the surface of Oxbridge practice.
27
There remain some things we should want to see whatever mixes are chosen
One crucial issue is the removal of Northern
in different Ai^ipodean regions.
bias from pap/rs and publications, research seminars and lectures, letters of
referencez\o/ so on.
the
works
and
irrespective
discussion
This Northern bias is a disposition to cite and discuss
of
projects
of
and
quality
the
of
the
ignore
to
authors,
Northern
their
works
the
more
contributyon
of
famous
to
the
local/ authors,
irrespective of the quality of their contribution.
better,
the
topic
again
under
largely
It is the disposition to
write or lecture as though work produced locally either does not exist or has
not
been
influential
philosophers,
are,
ensuring
(thus
if
anything,
that
more
it
inclined
is
to
not).
Northern
And
Australasian
bias
than
many
overseas intellectuals, who are perhaps less concerned to be seen as belonging
to the Northern
The reduction, and eventual removal, of Northern
tream.
bias effects
of fe/ec/'/
Inly -the
policies
and
practice
/
*
W
cours
*
2S
philosophers,
individual
eferees of local journals.
but
the
It involves, among other
work\nd innovations better, so they can
tg to
point
of
i/Quc.
that would be assisted by greater local
out
A
taught,
more
time
spent at
local
institutions on
study
oq/
leave, and so for-th.
xS? c* /I
x
APPENDIX 1. Background notes on the philosophy supply situation.
Sociological
investigation of the philosophy labour market in Australia and New Zealand has
o
yet
to be attempted.
But a
picture of
some elements underlying the
numerical argument of the text can be gained from the following table:
simple
28
TABLE 1. Ph.Ds in Philosophy: a USA - Australasian comparison
USA
Number (Male/Female)
New Zealand
Australia
1974
413 (346/67)
6
0
1975
375 (318/57)
5
0
1976
382 (319/63)
8
0
1977
330 (264/66)
3
2 (1/1)
1978
283 (235^/48)
5
5 (4/1)
1979
285 (20-754)
9
3 (2/1)
4
N.A.
4
0
1980
N.A.
1981
1. The breakdown of the USA and New Zealand numbers by sexes (male/female) is
given.- ,
Similar figures do not appear to be available for Australia,
2.
The US figures are for the academic year ending in the Year shown, e.g.
1978 covers the Northern academic yeai 1977-78. Southern figures are for the
calendar year shown
Digest of Education Statistfcs, US National Center for Education
Statistics;
University STA1 STICS,
Australian Bureau of
Census
Statistics; New Zealand Education Statistics.
Sources:
-41/
Comments:
1.
The contraction of US doctoral
female
0^.
r
representation,
production and
are
cooarHn-itant
Australian
likely too small to reflect
2.
the
rise
figures
in
are
to the academic market.
Some of the Australasian raaembers include Americans; likewise the American
figures provide no nationality breakdown.
3 %
There
is
no
information
available
on
the
number’
proceeding to higher degrees in philosophy outside Australia.
of
Australians
29
For example, it is
In applying table 1 some simplifying assumptions are made.
assumed
to regular university positions now
for appointment
that candidates
would have a doctorate or the equivalent (until recently a B.Phil was taken as
a
near
of
equivalent
well).
It
is
a
assumed,
Ph.D.;
North American
seems
what
to
take
publications
the
case,
serve
as
the number
of
could
that
Australasians proceeding to higher degrees in philosophy abroad is relatively
small, and no more than the order of Ph.Ds. taken locally.
It can be assumed,
without upsetting applications of table 1, that Australasian graduates match,
say, the upper half of American graduates in standard attained.
There is no compiled information /n academic vacancies in philosophy in
/
of
Australia or New Zealand -Mln the numbers, on how the positions are filled, by
A
what nationalities,
sexes,
etc.
It would however be a
routine,
if
tedious
matter to assemble some of this data, which is of considerable relevlance to
the planning of philosophy programs.
On the earlier idea of a National Philosophy for Australia.
APPENDIX 2.
’the
considering
Editor of
the
possibility
initial
of
National
a
AJPP distinguished
two
German distinction between Weltanschauung and
Philosophy*,
senses
the
In
(Australian)
corresponding
Lebensanchauung’
to
’the
(p.292).
In
the first, that of ’a scheme of the universe’, ’an Australian Philosophy is as
ridiculous
as
confirmation
prejudices’.
a Christian
or
Holland,
personal’
falsification,
’are
The argument
independent
is
of
that
truth,
national
and
sympathies
its
or
Granted: but that does not mean that a theory may not be held,
fostered, etc.,
in
Science’.
or
way,
in one region but not others, as intuitionism was for long in
Cartesianism
’a
nation
in
France.
like
an
In
a
individual
second
may
’more
develop
intimate
a
and
certain
temperamental attitude to the problems of existence, which we may ... call its
philosophy of life.
A nation’s philosophy, like its art and its literature,
30
is a mode of expression for the national consciousness.
form of
(pp.292-3).
the national genius
evolving
culture.
national
in
But,
the
It is,
first
place,
It is a specialised
in short, part of the
this
is by no means
entirely separate from the initial sense, a philosophy comprising not merely a
fairly comprehensive theory but also an integrated set of attitudes (like an
operational paradigm).
Furthermore, only by concession are such items as ’the
national consciousness’
and ’the Australian landscape’
of
meriting
definite
Australian
descriptors.
literature, has many strands
to it,
accounted single units
like
philosophy,
Australian
some not particularly distinctive (in any
sense): such things form rather loose families.
The Editor
does not
find,
does
not
really
hope
to
in
find
’a modern
industrialised community’ - with its modular parts interchangeable with those
of
others - a
claims
courage
to
find
and
national
a
philosophy of
trite moral
fair dealing'),
base
life,
to build
In fact
with a difference.
on
(’traditions
but nothing at all distinctive.
he
... of humour,
So far,
there can be a national philosophy, at least of life, but is not;
then,
this does
not however exclude there being various regional philosophies (such as local
research programs).
plunged
that
into
So
then,
far,
Inconsistency:
the
all is well.
trouble derives
But shortly the Editor is
from the
extravagant
claim
’if Australia has nothing to do with these - the eternal values of the
Spirit, the Ideals of Truth, Goodness and Beauty - then and only then has she
nothing to do with Philosophy'
(p.295; with rearrangement).
But, as Australia
has nothing per se to do with these - as is virtually conceded, these values
involving a 'wider sweep'
do with Philosophy,
Though
the
than any national boundaries - "she" has nothing to
contradicting the
contradiction
is
easily
possibility of a National Philosophy.
avoided
by
rescinding
claim, the ideal of a National Philosophy should be allowed
nationalism has had its time.
the
extravagant
to rest in peace:
31
R. Routley
33
Research School of Social Sciences
Australian National University
3^with
thanks
to R. Elliot,
W. Godfrey-Smith,
S. Grave
and
L. ? irlin, to
several members of the audience at the presentation of the paper a: the 1983
to
Australasian Association of Philosophy Conference, University of\Adelaide,
’
several referees for this Journal, and, not least, to the present ijai tor.
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Text
WORKING DRAFT
ON THE ETHICS OF LARGE-SCALE NUCLEAR WAR AND WAR-DETERRENCE
AND THE POLITICAL FALL-OUT
Because of their projected effects - which are said to differ from those of
the
even
largest
difference in kind -
generated,
encounters.
exchanges
either
at
all
wars
nuclear
large-scale
World
(the
wars
conventional
Wars)
raise
to
as
and
not
or nearly so forcefully, by previous human military
Certainly exchanges such as nuclear wars involve,
such
constitute a
questions
ethical
deterrence
nuclear
investigation
is
and
threatened
presupposes, are neither envisaged nor
fully accommodated by traditional theories of just wars.
reflection
as
even
required,
if
Much new
philosohical
well-tested and
rather
old-fashioned moral principles will serve as ethical base.
Nuclear wars - though a fine class of nonexistent object,
is
existence
whose
however best confined to other (already uncomfortably neighbouring) possible
worlds - have several distinctive properties and come in several varieties.
particular,
limited
nuclear
wars
which
(of
tactical
or
strategic
subvarieties) contrast with large-scale nuclear wars, LN-type-wars,
large quantities of nuclear devices over a sizeable region;
two
main
parameters:
are
need
A large-scale nuclear war involves the explosion of
however be unlimited
not
which
In
quantity
it is a function of
of explosive) and distribution.
(megatonnage
Such a war differs markedly from a limited (or tactical
or
strategic)
nuclear
war which is limited - by assumption, the chances of escalation are however very
real
3
- to much smaller quantities of explosives
characteristically
circumscribed,
installations in a given region.
wars
and
their
prevention,
and
where
the
targets
are
confined
to
military
Though the focus in what follows
is
upon
e.g.
limited
in
nuclear
principle
LN
wars are by no means a separate
�Page 2
issue, since a nuclear arsenal is
escalation
of
such
are
wars
a
and
prerequisite,
high
probabilities
of
assumptions of
reasonable
usual
(given
the
follow-up or second strike, etc.)
§1.
is
What
different
old
of
appropriateness
and
models
wars:____ the
nuclear
about
theories
resulting
war.
of
limited
model of war that
A
dominates much thinking, including [even] strategic thinking, is the
two
party
4
(or even two person) game or, a complication of that, the clan or tribe battle .
A picture of war built up, especially as a result of medieval discussion of
just
war,
which
inapplicable.
for
such
technological
have
advances
The traditional theory, hardly surprisingly,
phenomena
Dresden and Tokyo.
mass
as
bombing
inappropriate
rendered
no
made
the
and
allowance
large cities, such as occurred with
of
And nuclear bombing, with its many further
crucial
effects
beyond mass bombing, adds further new dimensions.
Yet it is Important, for the argument to
anchors,
historical
linkages
and
to be aware of what counted as war (the semantics of the matter^), and
of when, and why, wars and military actions
Firstly,
retain
were
accounted
unjust
war is essentially a matter of states and their control:
or
wrong.
to elaborate
the OED account, war is ’hostile contention by means of armed forces, carried on
between
nations,
states,
or
rulers, or between parties in the same nation or
state’ for control of the state :
literal,
but
transferred,
antagonists or players;
other
metaphoric,
forces comprising
senses
of
etc.?
States
armed
the
’war’
noun
not
the protagonists,
are
soldiers
are
are
the
means
of
contention or combat, and combat or forceful (typically violent) exchange is the
actual experience.
function
of
remove states:
Thus wars are external or internal (civil),
states or their rule.
but
always,
a
An obvious way then to eliminate wars is to
in short, wars are an outcome of political
structure,
and
are
�Page 3
altering the structure .
by
removed
This is an initial reason why the radical
argument against nuclear wars and deterrence devolves into an
argument
the (self-legitimised) war-declarers and war-makers, against states.
the traditional theory, wars
were
restricted
to
external
against
In fact on
which
wars,
were
construed as the right of states or their rulers (princes) for certain political
purposes, the argument being that private persons with grievences had access
the
while
courts,
did not
states
legitimate
(wars were, so to speak, the international
But this is itself a very
analogue of the law courts).
the
9
to
statist
conception
of
the semantics is not so restrictive and permits
place of wars;
internal wars, for example, to end wars.
Let us however - to bring out what is different now - confine attention
a
basic
and most familiar case, external wars between two states or set (axes)
of states, two-player external wars.
games
competitive
could
be
won.
It was assumed
be
well
no
winning strategy.
waste
of
the
Northern
huge surrounding areas of countryside.
hemisphere
and
not
like
a
draw,
or
like
the
strange
out
for
the
simultaneously knock each
other
element,
emphasis
the
inevitable
is
disputes,
removed:
be
pointfully
fought.
Certainly,
elements of gamesmenship had a role
count.)
in
for,
deterrence,
earlier
wars,
(So
where two boxers
situation
on pure deterrence;
that are most elaborately prepared for (exercised
never
the
settled with main protagonists substantially obliterated^, and all
is
is
there
Thus too the point of
main players very substantially worse off than at the outset of the "play".
it
like
An LN war could involve destruction of all
war as traditionally seen, to settle serious interstate
nothing
wars,
that
With LN wars it no longer holds;
main Western metropolitan agglomerations in
laying
firstly
That assumption still held good for massive
armed exchanges such as the World Wars.
may
to
Hence
another
newer
the phenomenon of wars
etc.),
but
which
can
bluff,
and
the other
it
was
not
but
pure
�Page 4
deterrence.
to
principle
important,
Most
military
next,
traditional
and
targets
military
gross ways to uninvolved parties sacrifice
effects
nuclear
of
large nuclear wars cannot
(presented
horrifying
in
be
confined in
be
could
This
exchanges.
feature
is
for, as we shall see, wars that spill over in
fundamental as regards just wars;
special
wars
any
The
morality.
to
pretension
explosives, especially in mass, mean however that
legitimately
detail
in
confined.
popular
These
effects
special
sources such as Schell) include
radioactivity, ozone destruction, shockwaves, fireball or firestorm devastation,
etc., etc .
. ..
The moral situation, and the tendency of moral
§2.
entirely
in the context of war.
submerged
case of war to maintain a firm grasp on the
expediency.
What
is
to
considerations
become
It is particularly important in the
distinction
between
morality
done in war, especially for local or national advantage,
may be very different from what ought morally to be done, whether the latter
ought not to be
done
codes and conventions of war, or otherwise
in
war
is
done,
despite
modern
.
military
conventions and the like, for one (alleged) advantage or another.
live in a rather barbarous age:
go
unremarked,
if
so
numbing,
codes
the history gets written (accurately) that is.
tends
13
to
induce
a
and
Militarily we
will
the horrors of the twentieth century
military thinking and strategic planning
is
A
,
Much that
12
the
using
determined
and
not
Furthermore
certain
moral
that a range of morally excluded actions, such as wiping our rural
populations, become real ("moral’') possibilities, to be reckoned,
for
example,
into consequentialist calculations of maximising expediency.
The reason is that
strategic planning is characteristically based on expediency
(and
extent
displaces
morality).
so
to
that
For each side in a military encounter determines
its "strategy" by considering only its own advantages and disadvantages, its own
gains
and
losses
as a result of alternative possible moves, not, as it ought,
�Page 5
those of the other side(s) as well.
Indeed it has been contended that war should be planned and conducted
way,
no-holds-barred-combat fought to the maximal (local) advantage, without
a
limits, moral or other (except insofar as technology limits the means of
etc.,
themselves).
Such
is
the
And Clausowicz tries to
repeated.
argue,
through
14
an
be
broken
by
player
each
in
from
And the argument is inconclusive;
c
Thus too an
It would follow
for the
players
from
the
can
choose
15
A state engaged in war - this will no doubt include nuclear
nowadays
war
sees itself as entirely bound by constraints of morality:
to be mere prudence on the part
no-immoral-holds-barred
of
approach
those
they
attacked
to
take
-
seldom
it is taken
account
of
the
may well encounter, especially from the
So each group potentially engaged in war forces
other side.
the
question
not
as to what it ought to do in morally permissible situations, but also both
what it ought really do and what it can do in the morally flawed
finds
enforced)
escalate, and, for example, agree to abide by arranged practices, types
to
of weapons, etc.
only
The
that the idea of a limited war is some sort of contradiction in terms.
But it is not.
not
escalation
externally
for advantage.
turn
extraordinarily narrow motivational base is assumed.
argument
incremental
), that there can be no limit.
assumption is that any merely selected (as distinct
will
force,
so-called "classic" view of Clausowicz, oft
argument (but really "the bald man" fallacy
limit
this
itself
in.
But
last
the
question
does
not
then
situations
it
reduce to one of
expediency.
There is
expediency,
involves.
no
question
of
morality
giving
or
having
to
give
way
to
for instance under extreme circumstances such as prospect of LN war
For it is not as if shaky considerations of morality are bound to
to
�Page 6
give
not only
firm ground of expediency when the chips are down:
the
to
way
does this in fact often enough not happen in crises situations, but the fact
that
is
both morality and expediency fall within the same, equally shaky or solid,
Expediency does not (meticulously) deliver us from
domain of value theory.
fact, but simply takes narrowly-construed local advantage or power as
to
value
what is valuable, as what matters;
family,
that
urges
values
local
-
of
self,
region or nation - are what really count and override or
class,
clan,
it
are to be maximized at the expense of
remote
or
considerations.
foreign
By
morality requires, as a matter of its proper characterisation, a much
contrast,
more universal distribution of value
thereby
the
through
imposes,
requirements
general
of
universalizable
intersubstitutivity
resultant
equillbity
fairness,
of the same results not holding when x and y are interchanged, under
Not
evaluations 16.
certain
principles,
justice.
and
and
principles,
The
deep
expediency derives from the failure of interreplacement,
of
unsatisfactoriness
so
and
only
can
expediency
be given a deontic presentation, as
expediency
through such slogans as "might is right", but theories or utility do not have to
be
positions
of
expediency
utilitarianism proper —
morality,
which
if
can
utility
meet
not
is
locally
intersubstltutivity
Thus
confined.
requirements
of
unlike the war game theory, does not assign different weights
which,
to (say) the individual utility of Americans as opposed to Russians — is not
to
be dismissed as considering only expediency.
There are however significant moral differences, between
and
utilitarians
17
deontologists especially, which serve to further complicate the moral picture
Thus utilitarian approaches have seemed to
justify
ugly
strategies
and
practices
render
as
morally
regards
deontological principles would not permit (even with the
convenient
law
of
double
effects).
But
this
is
permissible
enemy
best
already
or
civilians,
bending
to
of
to
that
the
effect some
�Page 8
Characteristically, national interest is taken
to
differently,
to
override
morality
impose Irresistible ethical claims that dominate more ordinary
ethical considerations (such as even the immorality of killing millions).
as
or,
Schell puts it,
Thus,
’What is being claimed is that one or two countries have the
right to jeopardise all countries and their descendents in the name
certain
of
beliefs’ (II, p.70).
But morally national interest can do neither of those things.
simply
the
The first is
substitution of expediency for morality, which entirely lacks moral
justification, while
second,
the
the
alleged
moral
dominance
of
national
fails in important classes of cases, including, so the argument will
Interests,
go, the case of LN war.
States may insist upon operating on a selfish national interest basis,
let
it
not
pretended
be
expediency (’’group
governments.
Morality
it
is
a moral basis as distinct from one of
There
is
no
that
egoism’’).
works
in
the
special
dispensation
moral
For
example,
what
ought
be
to
as
regards
x
semantically, what would happen as regards x in all ideal worlds;
no
difference
x
is
an
individual
or
States such as Israel (in its recent
organisation.
behaving
whether
just
as
immorally
as
brigands
individual
invasion
or mass killers:
difference.
Certainly there are grounds on which states or
claimed
been conceded special moral dispensations;
or
for
same way for groups as for individuals:
there is no logical difference in the pattern of justification, or
obligation.
but
are no more than that and do not stand up to criticism.
of
analysis
is,
analysed
and it
makes
system, group or
of
are
Lebanon)
there is no moral
their
agents
have
but the excuses offered
A
satisfactory
moral
theory cannot furnish two (Incompatible) moralities, a state or public one and a
private or individual citizen one - state expediency and individual
morality
-
�Page 7
partisanship - since utilitarians would
the
reject
description
practices
of
permitted under their principles as ’ugly’ - and an objective in what follows is
to avoid metaethlcal partisanship, to achieve metaethical, though of course
moral,
neutrality.
argument can begin.
several
And morally there is a large area of consensus
Virtually all positions
cities
major
in
agree
that
the
18
not
from which
obliteration
of
a LN war would be wrong - indeed morally outrageous.
Where there is dissension, as there may be among nuclear strategists who seem to
feel
qualms
no
when it comes to trading loss of some American cities for some
Russian ones, simply increase the costs involved, up to loss of whole nations if
necessary,
then try to work down again.
until moral repugnance is encountered;
The fact remains however that things have got substantially out of
perspective,
Strategic thinking, in particular, has tended to abandon, or suppress
morally.
moral considerations (as indeed many theories of the state also pretend to do).
Naturally the fact of broad consensus as to the morality of the matter does
not
mean that there are none who would welcome such outrageous happenings, that
total nuclear destruction of the North even, would be
Consider
the
world empire.
be
realised.
rising
southern
(hemisphere)
no
one’s
While the superpowers of the north remain SS’s dream
Thus
his
best
strategy,
exchange
in
the
North.
There
advantage.
strongman, SS, who has visions of
will
can
be
to
a
encourage
point
an
all-out
then in securing
institutional arrangements so that potential SS’s do not accumulate much
especially
given
the
that is to anticipate:
has
its
limitations,
structural adjustments.
hardly
rid of southern waters of US
having
submarines and southern lands of US bases, is to try
nuclear
to
power,
apparent instability of crucial world arrangements.
the present point is that (the fact of) moral
and
is
an
inadequate
But
consensus
constraint without accompanying
�Page 9
19
because this would lead to violations of substitutivity , neutrality, etc.
instance, a state operative x could use state
cover
morally impermissible ways, ways ruled out (e.g.
y are permuted.
derivative
A group or organisation or
in
consideration
can
but
role,
bound
be
by
moral principles.
special
these are derivative
principles, good for any such institution, which fit within and answer
general
in
y
by state interests) when x and
person
its
of
virtue
citizen
damage
to
For
back
to
So it is also with a state which is an institutional
arrangement justified (insofar as it is) by the way it answers back to some
least)
its
of
citizens:
its
(at
charter does not legitimate emergent allegedly
moral principles which conveniently coincide with those of state expediency.
particular,
In
state is not (morally) entitled to risk the lives of many of its
a
own citizens and of other peoples and creatures for its own ends, even
its
for
own survival.
§3.
Arguments to the Immorality of LN wars.
can
which
set
be
since
aside,
the
concede that war per se is not a crime.
but
pacifist
positions
immorality of LN wars follows at once -
Not all wars are immoral,
though
states.
aristocratic
Among
young
men
admissible
wars
are
the
external
tournaments
or
of
or warriors who volunteer as soldiers where the action
does not spill over onto noncombatants, and some early and medieval wars,
few
even
wars may be pointless or inferior ways of settling political issues
inoffensive
between
All
no combatants even were killed in war.
where
Since the establishment of such
induction practices as conscription and recruitment of the near-destitute,
have
largely
ceased
to take these inoffensive forms:
far removed from the ideal
ecotopian
literature
war-tournament
(where
type,
that
its position is dubious).
immoral, but few to such an extent as LN wars.
wars
modern massive wars are
features
now
only
in
Most sorts of wars are
�Page 10
argument
The first key
to
(1KA)
the
of
(and
wars
LN
of
immorality
sufficiently large-scale wars generally) takes the following form:
Pi.
The deliberate killing in mass of noncombatants is wrong.
Pli.
LN wars involve the killing in mass of noncombatants.
(KA)
What involves what is wrong is wrong.
Piii .
LN wars are wrong.
J
Supplementary remarks are called for:- Firstly, the
(1KA)
is
one
just
representative
of
a
Characteristically, in Western culture, it
is
arguments
of
that
thought
argument
given
of
type.
mass
this
taken
But the focus can be
off
the
killing:
destruction
of
a first variation on (KA) replaces ’killing
the
is
basis
of
may
each
be
attacked
of its premisses.
wrong
is
as
There
slack
by
a
has
in
effect
been
Let us consider these in
that
what
involves
are,
in
particular,
such
those generated by Good Samaritan arguments, which purport to show
that some proper obligations involve wrongdoing.
too
noncombatants’
wrong, often expanded to a "distribution of obligation over
entailment" principle, has been challenged.
problems
(and
The principle, Piii, used in the argument,
reverse order.
what
of
Other variations will emerge in the discussion.
but
The argument is valid,
on
mass
Thus
concerning ’huge destruction of lifestyle of uninvolved or not
clause
directly involved creatures’.
attacked)
in
of
lifestyle
nonhumans and humans alike that an LN war will bring is sufficiently evil.
suitable
of
killing
about the worst thing that can happen (after the killing of police).
is
humans
set
particular
a
notion
of
involvement;
linked to paradox-free entailment
20
But the problems
derive
from
with a tighter Involvement connective,
, the problems disappear, and Piii stands.
�Page 11
As against Pii, it may be
legitimately
argued
against
directed
nuclear
that
military
targets.
wars
can
encounters
be
But given the character of
nuclear weapons, LN wars could in no way be confined to such targets.
merely the likelihood that many missiles explode off target.
not
the other effects of large-scale nuclear bombings, for example
down-wind
fallout
There
is
There are all
the
radioactive
military targets, which in the case of US and European
from
targets especially will effect large concentrations of people, Including therein
perhaps uninvolved countries such as Canada.
There may be an attempt to avoid the problem of massive civilian casualties
by
appeal
to such dubious principles as the doctrine of double effect (or side
21
effect)
If missiles were characteristically
was
which
intended
only
to
destroy
an
reliably
underground
unmanned
unfortunately went off course and destroyed a large city, it
the
that
Such claims should be rejected:
not
wrongness
lessened
could make a difference;
for
firing
the city.
the
and
one
missile silo
could
be
claimed
mass destruction is legitimised under the double effect
(unintended)
principle.
target,
on
the action would be wrong, and
by the given intention.
the
Nonetheless the circumstances
for they may mitigate attitudes to
those
responsible
missile, since it was not as if they had deliberately aimed at
The double effect principle confuses [diminution of]
the
allocation
of responsibility for an act with the [diminution of] wrongness of the act.
As against Pi, and as regards the middle term of Pi
argued
that there is an important equivocation.
the bracketed term,
killing
’deliberate’.
While it will
and
Pii,
it
may
be
The equivocation is induced by
be
that
admitted
deliberate
of genuine innocents is impermissble , it will be contended firstly that
they
noncombatants, insofar
as
innocent,
directly
many
being
are
distinguishable,
involved
in
are
by
no
means
all
military effort, whether just as
�Page 12
taxpayers or as suppliers of goods
farmers
or
services
used
innocent.
second
The
point
Because Pii so amended in less defensible, and/or other reasons,
discussed.
leave
to
out the "modifier" ’deliberate’.
of
the perpetrators.
it
What is important for the
present purposes is the moral status of what is done, not that
motives
e.g.
military,
a much narrower - and less defensible - version of premiss Pll already
concerns
best
the
and secondly LN wars do not involve the
or bootmakers or entertainers;
deliberate killing of those properly excluded as
is
by
mixed
with
the
So ’deliberate’ is out, equivocation is avoided,
22
Pii stands, and so does
Pl.
For
not
does
Pi
’deliberate’, or ’intentional’ or the like.
require
the
qualification
Admittedly also ’noncombatant’ is a
fuzzy term, but none the worse for that, and there
is
no
problem
serious
in
marking out a class of clear noncombatants, people who are not directly involved
in the command and action chains.
practice,
deriving
from
There is, moreover,
Catholicism,
of
no
need
to
the
adopt
stating an initial version of Pi in
terms of innocents - at least as problematic a class as that of noncombatants to
try
to characterize - and then endeavouring to make the difficult transition to
noncombatants.
Not only can arguments against the premisses of the argument be met,
art
arguments
for
the
premisses, though for the substantive moral premiss Pi
they are of the characteristically nonconclusive moral sort
vary somewhat with the underlying ethical theory.
and
will
tend
seriously
understate
the
point)
minimal respect owed to them as persons
doing
so
23
The argument from historical requirements on just wars
from
convergence.
conclusion
that
fails to treat them with the
§4.
The
to
For example, one argument for
Pi, and for objecting to the killing of noncombatants, is the Kantian one,
(to
there
that
and
the
argument
LN wars cannot be justly waged - and
�Page 13
accordingly are unjustified - is not merely something dreamed up by contemporary
opponents
The same conclusion falls out of various traditional requirements, worked
etc).
out
America or of the capitalist State (and communistically inspired,
of
times
mdeieval
in
just
for
variant on the key argument (1KA).
was
justly
that
not
it
be
One of the requirements gives but a
wars.
For a necessary condition for fighting a war
the
that
case
noncombatants are bound to be killed (cf.
numbers
large
[innocent]
of
Barnes, p.775).
A just war requires just means, that the war should be
fought
morally
by
which
implies in particular that there is no indiscriminate
killing of noncombatants.
The implied principle was escapsulated in a principle
legitimate
of
means,
(between combatants and others) which ’prohibits all actions
discrimination
directly Intended to take the lives of
p.312)
24
civilians
and
of
(PL,
noncombatants’
LN wars, where not only military installations are targeted, violate
.
U.
.
25
this requirement
Overlapping the requirement of just means is that of
proportion being that of net evil to net good):
’the damage to be inflicted and
costs Incurred by the war must be proportionate to the good expected
up
arms’
(PL,
p.312).
disproportionate
to
moral
goods
proportionality requirement is
criterion
of
by
the
which
achieved
in
doctrine
"improvement" through war :
not
are
of
that
nationally
way.
confined,
overall
consequences
of
abstaining
improvement "puts wrongs to rights":
"ameliorative"
conditions
and
war
according to the first,
justly
the
’X wages war
bad,
from war’ (Barnes, p.72).
’A nation wages war
are
Entangled with the
justly upon y if the overall consequences of war are better, or less
the
taking
is not difficult to see that LN wars violate this
It
the damage and costs,
requirement:
(the
proportionality
only
than
Similarly
if
the
for that nation or the wronged nation it is supporting have a decent
�Page 14
chance of being better after the fighting ends’ (Wakin, p.20).
way
LN war can in no
satisfy these conditions, as scenarios depicting the aftermath of such wars
reveal.
Some of the lesser requirements for a just war are infringed
wars;
LN
It seems that there can
for example, that of reasonable expectation of success.
be no reasonable expectation of success in an LN
by
war,
the
whatever
prospects of success with more limited nuclear exchanges.
(limited)
What is less clearcut
is the question of whether LN wars conflict with the requirements of just
cause
or due fault and of right intention.
For this depends on the sensitive issue of
the weight assigned to what are seen
as
basic
rights
human
and
fundamental
values, and the extent to which just wars can be ideologically justified.
the
mainstream
justified
position
and
wars
definitively excluded
however,
in
puzzling
of
medieval
"humanitarian"
by
the
over
decisive against LN wars.
theory
wars
(cf.
traditional
was
opposed
to
While
ideologically
Barnes, p.778), these were not
theory.
There
is
merit,
little
dubiously effective requirements, when so many are
Finally, these arguments from historical requirements
do not violate prescriptive requirements:
the argument is not a simple argument
from historical authority, but also
premisses
uses
requirements imposed (and used) were justified.
the
to
effect
that
the
As they are.
In the Christian tradition there were two main strands of reflection on the
moral
rightness
or
justness
of
wars
9A
,
the
just
war
theory
and a rival
pacificist strand, prominent in early Christianity, but submerged from Augustine
on until contemporary times.
Both exclude nuclear wars, one strand because they
are inevitably unjust, the other because they are wars and
This
is
the
involve
violence
beginning of the convergence argument against nuclear wars:
such wars are excluded from all ethical perspectives, once
expediency
is
27
that
duly
�Page 15
The detailed argument
They are morally wrong however you look at it.
removed.
is an exhaustive case by case one, from each type of moral theory.
can
details
For deontological and contractual theories lead back
be shortcut.
to requirements for a just war,
violate.
Fortunately
which
it
has
already
shown,
been
In fact conditions for just wars were sometimes arrived at or defended
through principles of such moral theories, so that a good deal of the
work
argumentative
already
has
brand
utilitarian
of
finally accomplished;
for
such
and
is
adopted,
not
is
far
to
have
effect
in
shown
pleasure,
reason
The
wars Involves such massive
that
this
dominates
genuine alternative to LN war is better
or
28
outlined
against
overwhelming moral case against such wars.
wars
LN
do
not
exhaust
the
For there are other moral principles
(derivative in some of the theories just considered) which the waging of
war would violate.
in
are accomplished in utilitarian fashion, so that any
they
The arguments given
LN
that
utility maximisation is
however
seek:
infliction of pain and colossal removal of
however
others
requisite
latter point holds also as
LN wars are excluded on utilitarian grounds.
convergence
assessments
The
done.
been
regards utilitarianism, where Lackey
whatever
wars
LN
an
LN
Among such principles are conservative ones, that we have an
obligation to maintain the earth in proper shape and not
degrade
its
systems,
that we have a responsibility to future generations, to whom we are accountable,
to "pass the world on" not in substantially worse condition
it".
Such
conservative
principles
than
we
"received
- however they are finally satisfactorily
formulated - are bound to be violated in the event of an LN war.
§5.
The shift to
nuclear
lobby
nuclear
arguments
deterrence:
to
its
immorality.
The
has a way of halting, and if not defeating, certainly deflating,
arguments against
the
immorality
of
LN
wars,
namely
there
is
no
actual
�Page 16
such
any
In
engagement
wars.
different from engagement in
war:
LN
being done is, it is claimed, quite
is
What
is
deterrence
indeed
important
most
precisely in preventing such wars from ever occurring, as well as in maintaining
(other) fundamental [Western] values.
obtaining
desiderata.
both
is
deterrence
pronouncements,
claims
The
reasons:- A first reason is that
Indeed it is the only
there
are
is
much
for
more
than
deterrence can account neither for
strategy
military
Western
disarmament to
expected
be
On
deterrence.
29
the
despite
For if it
and sometimes even a drive for superiority.
this,
actual
nuclear
of
In fact there has been a
were "sufficiency" to deter would be an adequate goal.
quest
that,
evidence
the - the only - military goal.
not
way
dubious, for several
decidedly
too
practical
nor
weapons
for
Pure
orthodox
Nor has deterrence set in motion the process of
.
to
armaments
reduce
"its"
under
contrary,
to
levels
impulse
there
sufficient
has
for
been almost
unlimited acceleration in building arms (PL, p.318, quotes inserted).
Another
of
deterrence
reason
for
the
type
serious
that
is
doubt
being
concerns
other reasons also, connected
with
pure
deterrence
The reasons include the
for
nuclear
war
and
with
to
For
original
(its
threatening
posture
deterrence
for, the propaganda that must be promulgated to maintain credibility with
a population whose interests are being
etc.
conditions
the "cold war", the probability of a LN war has increased considerably
in the last 30 years.
calls
factor:
to that extent, at least, enhanced its prospects of occurring.
and
setting)
probability
practised, which involves full-scale
preparation for nuclear war, has prepared the
occur,
the
The
"sacrificed"
for
objectives,
situation has now been reached where many theorists think there is a
high probability at least of an LN war this century, i.e.
certainly
military
be
before 2000.
It
can
argued - though there seems no way to make any such a probability
argument at all tight, and it may be demonstrable that it cannot be made tight -
�Page 17
that there is a non-negligible probability of an LN war before 2000.
If it is wrong that X should occur, then it is also wrong that
Cl.
be
But
highly
probably
that
should
it
X occur, and it is wrong to increase the probability
that X occur.
This is the first
several
of
connecting
doxastic
mapping
principles
moral
considerations against LN war into arguments against deterrence of LN war by the
perverse practice of preparing for it and thereby helping "to
the sense of raising the probability).
(in
it
bring
about"
But like most principles in ethics,
Cl requires complication to avoid defeat by counterexamples.
The second part of
Cl encounters apparent trouble where clash of principles occurs.
Thus it may be
argued that it is permissible to increase the probability that X occurs to avoid
a
greater
Consider for example the pilot who increases the probability
evil.
that the passenger plane he is flying crashes in order to
aircraft
troubled
does
not
make
hit city apartment buildings
30
.
sure
Such a defeating
condition does not apply in the case of nuclear deterrence where
is
there
(though
of principles) wrongness of a practice is not offset or removed by
clash
a
the
that
its role in avoiding greater evil.
It can be argued that it is;
argument
from
the
previous
such is part of
success
of
the
deterrence.
point
of
the
popular
This inductive argument
deserves little more credence than the racing driver’s argument, perhaps from
similar
that because he hasn’t had a fatal crash yet (despite some
base,
time
a
close calls), he won’t.
There are, furthermore, reasons for concluding
continue
to
work.
of
will
not
One is the deterrence depends upon judgements regarding the
other side, which may be mistaken:
perception
deterrence
that
what
strategy
’each
is
is
at
rational",
the
mercy
what
kind
the
of
of
other’s
damage
is
�Page 18
one
"unacceptable", how "convincing"
Not
p.313).
threat
side’s
other’
the
(PL.
as
rational,
regards
limited
but there must be severe doubts as to whether rational principles
war,
As to the last consider, for example, the
are operating effectively.
idea
to
is there evidence that one side (the USA) has misjudged the
only
other side’s (the USSR’s) perception of what is
nuclear
is
(already
erroneous
to, as held in high places of power) that LN war can be
alluded
survived in rudimentary shelters, and also won.
Deterrence consists in preventing something (often some wrong) by
threats
including
31
OED) .
(cf.
fright
For most
people
without
not
Immoral
destruction of New York.)
deterrence,
that
is
his graphic descriptions
But though deterrence per
deterrence
from
suchmeans is of course not immoral.
publishing
in
them
LN
expense, trouble and wastage of preparing to
enormous
And deterrence by
engage in them.
was
the
all
or
scenarios
vivid
portraying the horror or LN wars would serve adequately to deter
wars,
fear
by
complete
se
is
the
of
(Schell
nuclear
permissible,
war
preparation of the object to be
prevented, is not, where this object Itself is not
permissible.
The
argument
for this is through the principle
C2.
If X is wrong then complete preparation of X is wrong.
Hence since LN wars are wrong and war-deterrence implies
of LN wars is wrong.
war—deterrence
X is just as bad as doing X:
Y.
preparation,
It is not being claimed that preparing for
Y and Z may both be wrong and Z (much) worse
than
, 32
What is wrong is by no means uniformly evil
Principle C2
principles:
a
part
is
way
succeeds
or
down
the
line
in
a
series
of
connecting
principle of the same sort that it higher in the series is that
connecting X with attempted X:
X
complete
not
33
.
But
if X is wrong then attempted X is wrong, whether
the
series
ends;
it cuts off well before mere
�Page 19
intentionality, contrary to the claims
example,
it
does
various
of
religious
For
positions.
not follow that if X is wrong then the contemplation of X is
wrong or that mere non-action-oriented consideration of carrying out X is wrong.
The
applies
point
nightmares.
or
war,
equally
sexual fantasies, power fantasies, and nuclear
to
In particular there is nothing
reflecting
upon
it,
as we are:
wrong
nuclear
nuclear wars, even if their horrors
don't bear thinking on, are not unthinkable, and in
thinkable.
contemplating
with
some
senses
are
all
too
Indeed one of the reasons why the connecting principles hold is that
each involves decidedly increased probability of the evil
outcome
it
connects
Accompanying the increased probability are certain sets of reprehensible
with.
these are not those
attitudes tied to the action the evil outcome involves;
mere passive contemplation
of
34
this
War-deterrence involves not only war preparation, but announcement of
accompanied by threats and a threatening posture.
For some party, the potential
enemy, has to be frightened, if deterrence is to succeed.
This aspect of (war-)
deterrence yields a further connecting principle,
If X is wrong then threatening X is also wrong.
C3.
is
wrong
to do ...
then
the
declared
Intent
put
to
that
Intending to do wrong is wrong, and so also is
favourable
circumstances
for
one’s
alternatively be argued semantically:
(e.g.
into
Intending
position
committing
35
.
rape)
The
is
practice is also wrong.
to
prevail.
if a world with X
'What
Ramsey:
is wrong to threaten ...’ (quoted in Walzer p.272)
reason is that if putting something into practice
wrong
Thus too
is
do
wrong
The
never
unless
point
ideal
can
then
neither is a world in which X is only conditionally blocked, in which X may well
occur.
�Page 20
By detachment from the connecting principles - one sound one would
but
logically,
defensible
three
ones is good measure - nuclear deterrence by
preparation for and threat of LN war is
This
wrong.
also
reveals
suffice
Deterrence
wrong.
of
this
type
the suggestion that the morality of the whole
why
deterrence thing depended on war itself never occurring was so bizarre:
connections between war and war-deterrence.
the
out
is
it left
War-deterrence should not
be practised any more than nuclear war itself should be engaged in - unless
directions can be drastically changed (e.g.
its
at least limited, per impossible in
the case of nuclear, to purely military targets).
There are other concomitant reasons for
the
Firstly,
with
dissatisfaction
deterrence.
it has provided (nuclear peace, as there is no shortage of
peace
small-scale conventional wars) is at least a tenuous peace, which is not stable,
liable
but
upset at any stage by a range of factors, including error (both
to
It does not offer genuine peace, of the sort required for
human and technical).
a
international life, but only a fragile "peace of a sort" (PL, p.316).
stable
Secondly, there is enormous cost, the
because
on
expenditure
it
moral
excludes
Bishops put their point in a surprising
opportunity
urgent
other
by
Marxist
cost
of
deterrence,
The US
moral priorities.
way:
in
terms
of
’the
between what is spent for destructive capacity and what is needed
contradiction
for constructive development’ (PL, p.316).
§6.
The
and
super-states;
arguments to
persuasive
prudential
practical,
the
the
resulting
arguments
(that
have
war
persuaded
justifiability of nuclear war preparation in
basic
argument
is
simply
an
elaboration,
build-up
nuclear
situation.
moral-fix
nuclear
of
immorality
to
argument
Not
preparation;
many
the
or
theorists)
present
of
the
only are there
there
to
are
the
circumstances.
also
moral
The
state-uplift, of that for the
�Page 21
escalation of weapons at the local level, for acquiring a gun or for stocking-up
the
armoury [and every bit as doubtful as that argument].
neighbourhood
that nuclear preparation,
first
danger:
of
nuclear destruction.
blackmail,
’so we have
been
told,
against
guards
all atomic blackmail and foreign domination;
The two
together,
go
since
if
did
we
double
the
and second of
not
the
fear
we might adopt a policy of appeasement or surrender and so avoid the
destruction’ (Walzer, p.273).
In fact it is supposed to guard against more than
there is a crucial third element, namely, loss of basic rights (freedom,
these;
equality, etc.) and fundamental values (preservation of
etc.)
and
ways of life integrated with these.
truth,
dignity,
human
This further set of elements is
linked to the danger of foreign domination - which is really a separate
from
It is
risk
blackmail.
of
element
Though foreign domination need not imply the loss of
most basic values it does imply the loss of at least of one, self-determination,
freedom
to choose various national objectives;
conversely loss or infringement
of basic values can occur without foreign domination, e.g.
of
by
internal
change
government or governmental approach, by the increased security and control a
nuclear state demands, etc.
values,
through
Nuclear destruction can also involve loss of
destruction
but the converse does not hold.
basic
of the material base of the cherished life-style;
It should be observed that not all
the
values
concerned are equally fundamental:
one of the main values of deterrence theory,
the resistance to and
of
containment
"communism",
is
questionable
this
in
regard.
The theme is, in short,
NA.
Because of multiple (connected)
states)
which
have
nuclear
dangers
from
another
state
(or
other
weapons, a state - any state that is too large to
rely upon other states - is obliged to invest in [matching] nuclear weapons.
�Page 22
Hence, by detachment, a nation-state, such as USA, ought to
order
the
of
nuclear
armoury
that
it
something
have
in
has, or, weakening the theme to meet
objections concerning excess, "overkill", capacity, at least a solid core of the
nuclear
devices
it
has.
out whether the obligation is a moral one,
Sorting
because for instance of the character of the values supposedly being
merely
or
one
protected,
of prudential reason - it is presumably somewhat more than mere
expediency - can be set aside for the present.
On the
same
basis
it
can
be
argued that unilateral disarmament against a dangerous nuclear opponent would be
prudentially irrational.
It can be freely admitted that what is prudentially required is,
like
the
common strategies of the prisoners’ dilemma situation and of certain competitive
games, a suboptimal strategy;
sufficient
trust,
that a
superior
strategy
for
adversaries,
if
etc., could be achieved, would be a cooperative arrangement.
Joint agreement would be better not merely in removing the moral dilemma, but in
a
range of other respects:
it would be much less risky, expensive, draining of
resources and destructive of the environment, etc.
However for the present
and
the foreseeable future the prospects of cooperation appear, so we are repeatedly
told, unfortunately rather remote:
or
the only sure insurance is nuclear
if one is a smaller nation, a larger ally who has an arsenal.
force
(Here a level
of trust is called for which is far from foolproof, and which contrasts strongly
with
the
lack of trust displayed elsewhere.)
The nuclear theme for a middling
or lesser power is a bit different from NA and ends rather as follows:
MA.
Because ..., a state that cannot rely on
obliged
ally.
its
own
nuclear
resources
is
to accommodate the nuclear installations and facilities of a protecting
�Page 23
Principle MA is not very plausible, nor are the
for
substitutes
obvious
Not only MA but also NA, is now coming under question by disarmament
it ° .
who
groups,
more
challenge
the
basic
assumptions
of
the
underlying
general
retaliatory model that
Safely lies in weapons, and
1)
More weapons imply more security
ii)
37
Certainly, for more isolated states, such as New Zealand,
lies
attack
submarines).
more
of
a
in
excluding
nuclear
facilities
from
safety
nuclear
(including visits from nuclear
Europeans are arguing in a similar way, that the present system is
risk
[liability] than a protection (p.251, Thompson);
nuclear installations, Europe cannot be the
envisaged
and without
for
theatre
a
limited
nuclear war it is now seen as by US (but not Soviet) strategists.
Once i) and ii) are questioned, other assumptions of the retaliatory
model
and its variants come up for examination, namely
iii)
iv)
Whether the proper response to danger is armament, in particular
Whether the proper response is through nuclear armament, as
opposed
to other military responses (such as conventional arms),
and generalising on part of Hi),
v)
Whether military approaches/procedures (through armaments, etc.)
the
proper
is
method, or should be the method, of conflict resolution
at the international level.
It is plausibly argued against military procedures that at no ordinary level
do
we set about meeting danger or settling disputes by acquiring lethal weapons and
threatening to use them - except perhaps
warranted,
frontier
ethics.
But
on
an
out-dated,
and
never
really
this takes us into the issue of alternative
defence systems, an important matter beginning to
obtain
the
contemporary
38
explanation it deserves, but one that already anticipates subsequent questioning
�Page 24
While the state system is intact,
of the framework of nation-states.
not
and
exceptional
inevitable:
according
military
to
is
are
to
be expected and are likely
permanent place
in
the
procedures
’force has [a] ...
force
nation-state
system’
Ramsey (p.xv) who uses this as part of his case for a nuclear war
doctrine.
far
Assembling the arguments so
to as the nuclear fix:-
referred
hereafter
developed
engage
to
sections)
it
is
and
immoral,
in war-deterrence, for prudential reasons (as argued using NA
This dilemma is no idle construction
and MA).
dilemma,
deontic
States both ought not to engage in
war-deterrence, because (as argued in previous
ought
the
yields
(concocted
to
demonstrate
of paraconsistent logic), but a serious real-life dilemma, the outlines
virtues
of which are repeatedly encountered in texts on nuclear war and its aspects
The nuclear fix is in part simply a more intense
dilemma
beyond
produced
purely
by
itself^,
war
military
typically
transport,
(since
targets
rely
on
or
version
of
deontic
the
civilian ones).
e.g.
arrangements,
military
rail
The main dilemma arises from a
War is
required
for defence of the state and values it upholds (or pretends to uphold);
also involves immoral acts and evil consequences.
also
seen
be
’some
The doctrine
"just
of
justifications
of
war
evil
alm
are
consequences
to
morally
war’
(Walls, p.260).
dilemmas, e.g.
most
difficult
war"
the
aegis
War and preparedness for war also generate subsidiary
a severe tension between freedom and
problems
justified.
show that actions deemed normally
forbidden by moral mandates are now permissible when performed under
of
but war
as attempting a reconciliation by trying to show that under
certain circumstances these really
Thus
39
at least war which spreads inevitably
combination of the retaliatory model with the features of war.
can
the
of
war
Involves
authority:
defending
a
’one
of
the
free society without
�Page 25
destroying the values that give it meaning and validity’ (PL, p.324).
The essential feature of a moral dilemma is that both A and the negation of
A
are
well
essential role of moral dilemmas is not widely or
literature
41
The place and
(or differently, obligatory), for some suitable A.
wrong
.
positions
Moreover
understood
utilitarianism
like
cannot
ethical
in
at all easily
accommodate moral dilemmas or the data which gives rise to them - but then
such
positions do not really offer reportive accounts of wrong and obligation anyway.
Contrary to utilitarian perceptions a dilemma
does
not
any
have
necessarily
moral solution, though there may be better and worse ways out.
Reactions and responses that are characteristic of
the
from
nuclear
moral
dilemmas
There is an unsteadiness, an uncertainty as to what to
fix.
do, which way to proceed, which principles in watered-down form to
temporary
Thus,
crutch.
for
world’
best"
42
as
a
of
way
"morally
never
our
exercising
moral
, that is in a morally-strapped world.
ethical
Bishops who
the
of
’strictly
conditional’
moral fix.
Deterrence has a strictly temporary role
but
can
be
responsibility
a
shift
"morally
in a fallen
to
a
’moral
"second
acceptability’
try to escape ’the paradox of deterrence’, i.e.
while
acceptability,
good",
A similar
deterrence
we
as
(as from good to acceptable) is made by the US Catholic
functor
speak
grasp
example, the Bishop of London contends that the
possession of nuclear weapons ’while
acceptable"
emerge
the
object
must
and
strictly
be to move beyond deterrence,
of
from the
conditional
’towards a
world free of the threat of deterrence’ (PL, p.317), out of the nuclear fix.
To make matters worse the nuclear fix
is
is,
not
furthermore,
a
fix
of
(more
something they happened into, by
affluent)
states’
accident.
The initial nuclear involvement was deliberately chosen, primarily by
USA,
and
the
own
making.
It
escalation has by and large also been deliberately chosen, again
�Page 26
In these respects the situation is like that
often by the USA.
who
person
deliberately lets perself to be involved in two incompatible relations, and
that
currency,
of
adoption
nuclear
is
the
that
nuclear
build-up.
The recent (1980)
programme is to be in addition to existing
are
(which
Soviet
USA Initiated nuclear armament, and has frequently led
escalation, and apparently still does.
resources
some
weaponry, and nuclear build-up, in North
America occurred on a defensive basis in response to
fact
with
It is a myth, though one
builds up conflicting obligations thereby.
The
the
of
generally
United
strategic
be already in excess of
to
agreed
States’
Russia’s, and which always have been so) (Thompson, p.21).
The present dilemma is then a direct outcome
advanced
of
state
policy,
especially
by
capitalist nations, and not merely a response to the Soviets (or state
socialism).
There is a two-way connection between world political arrangements
and
nation-states
the
nuclear
fix.
On
the
one
hand,
situation
increasingly
is
political arrangements
/ Q
;
seen
political
these
arrangements are an evident source of the dilemma with the result
through
that
nuclear
as indicating the inadequacy of present world
on the other, the nuclear fix tends to lock political
arrangements into the statist form (into statist arrangements of an increasingly
centralist cast).
peace
The espoused purpose of nuclear weapons may be
to
keep
the
(!) and to defend national interests, but there are other reasons such as
perpetuating the system of sovereign states and politically
confrontation.
The
argument
to
the
theme
that
advantageous
the very nuclear situation
arising from the statist arrangements and interrelationals (economic
conflicting
rivalries,
ideologies, etc.) tends to, and is used to, lock the world into the
present arrangements of sovereign states and zones of interest, is
practical
state
one.
Consider
first,
the
matter
from
a
piecemeal
the Soviet side where the
�Page 27
pattern of national control and military economic reorientation is clearer.
The threat from the West, whether it exists
or
not
(and
in
Soviet
perception it certainly does), has become a necessary legitimation for
the power of the ruling elites, an excuse for their many economic
and
social failures, and an argument to isolate and silence critics within
their own borders.
In the West we have
controlled
carefully
...
and
...
selective
release of ’official information’ (Thompson, p.20).
Secondly, there is evidence of entrenchment of the arrangements,
by
the
SALT negotiations:
of
rules
not
regarded
as
threatening
US
in
place
by
The Soviet
invasion
interests", and so the US is not
"vital
What was different, what
particularly worried about Afghanistan and its people.
it
held
penalty for breaking the rules is the threat of annihilation).
(the
Thirdly, there are cases, such as the Afghanistan example.
is
shown
there are fixed superpowers and a (growing) nuclear
club of nations all governed by a negotiated set
deterrence
as
was worried about and made nuclear threats concerning, were adjacent Western
these lay within the US zone of interest.
oil supplies:
44
and complicates other dilemmas
The nuclear fix enhances
contemporary
sovereign
state, in particular the deep tensions between national
security and the operation of liberal-democratic arrangements (e.g.
liberty,
popular
control of institutions, etc).
personal subsidiary dilemmas, as for example the
obligations
to
a
nuclear
conflicting obligations
the
by
induced
as
state,
a
or
doctor
It also spotlights other more
extent
role-induced
or
a
individual
nuclear
of
(political)
one’s
dilemmas
armaments
such
as
one’s
processor
or
researcher (the question of political obligations is considered in Appendix 2).
§7.
Ways out of the moral dilemmas:
[initial]
political
fall-out
from
the
�Page 28
conclusions.
ethical
all the ways are ways of limitation, and they
Virtually
all Involve in one way or another limitations on nuclear arms or
are
limitations on the powers of states.
and
deployed
the
they
way
The limitations may be
45
reached by agreement and negotiation and more or less voluntarily
agreed
,
to
or they may be imposed, or worst of all, they may emerge from an initial war.
As with other fixes produced by
are
there
suggested
structure
there
and
relations
power
and
extra—state
approaches.
"realistic",
attempts
All
to
cow,
as unilateral disarmament.
is
it
states
the
or
alter
the
remove them altogether,
allegedly
familiar,
the
seriously
do
which
and
"practical"
nuclear problem - e.g.
disarmament by
they do not tamper with that
- are inter-state;
But in fact there is nothing very sacred
not
even
a
very
long-standing
arrangement, nor, as a matter or empirical fact, is
one.
states,
of
and the same goes for less "realistic" proposals, such
the state;
nation-state;
arrangements
which
ways
are
of
resolve
neutral arms limitations, etc.
sacred
structural
out which do not interfere with these arrangements,
ways
inter-state approaches,
the
it
form
about
the
political
of
particularly
a
stable
We are certainly free - in more liberal states, it should be everywhere -
to theorise as to its demise and replacement by alternative arrangements.
Extra-state approaches take one of two
routes,
the
way
up,
to
genuine
46
power, or the way down, through fractionation or deunionisation
international
of states.
not
to
The ways up and down are by no means one and the same;
necessarily
world
government
Were
law-courts.
remedy, namely
intra-state
incompatible.
the
through
to
Some of the important machinery, for the way up
operate,
courts
legal
but they are
is
assigned
action,
already
there
sufficient
that
medieval
the
international
authority
and power, the
in
theorists
saw
to
all
disputes could be extended to interstate disputes, and the just war
�Page 29
between states S and T superseded by the just case of S versus T.
one
statist,
more
legalistic
of trying to get to grips with the nuclear
way
problem, and accordingly is often mentioned, though
dismissed
47
in
,
orthodox
The Way Up is
mostly
passing
in
strategic texts on thermonuclear war.
It is however
beginning to be much more sympathetically considered by those who take
rather than strategic viewpoint.
moral
a
There is a renewed emphasis on world order, in
reaching ’towards a morally integrated international system’;
element
be
to
and ’the
missing
of world order today is the absence of a properly constituted political
The Way Down - though, like The Way
authority’ (PL, p.320).
by
Up,
no
means
new, turning back to the anarchist positions of a century ago - is, by contrast,
scarcely mentioned in the orthodox discussions, but is making an
appearance
(a
which
is
comeback) in some more radical discussions.
A main argument for The Way Up is
to
supposed
underpin
statist
just
arrangements
a
repetition
in
first
the
argument from (generous) variations upon the Prisoners’
that
of
place, namely the
Dilemma,
the
as
such
Tragedy of the Commons, that authority and coercion - in the form of the state are requiried to ensure best solutions,
ecological order.
especially
regards
of
part
the
sort of super-state.
of
the
"tragedy"
is
destruction
when
to
assume
in
fact
assumptions
48
of
a
commons by nuclear war, the solution is now said to be some
Of course, this begins to undermine an earlier application
argument,
since
states
will
lose
their sovereignty, and
political obligation to states will be correspondingly weakened.
is
and
order
So with the "tragedy of nation-states", where the players are
not herdsmen but nation-states, and one of the prospects
good
public
But
all
this
that these "tragedy" arguments are good ones in the first place,
they
are
not
but
are
only
sound
under
quite
restrictive
�Page 30
There are many problems with the Way Up, both theoretical and
practical.An
theoretical hitch is that the Way Up merely repeats statist arrangments
initial
at a level up, by way
contingency,
of
super-state
It
arrangements.
only
is
through
a
of there being no rival Intelligent civilisations nearby, that the
problems of interstate relations
not
are
repeated
level
a
The
up.
major
practical hitch is that there is no prospect at all of getting such a "solution"
to work in time to serve its intended
interstate
future
the
For
purpose.
ideological differences, including especially differences as
to how political arrangements should be effected, exclude
world
operative
hostilities.
government
of
prospect
any
an
or world legal system capable of resolving nuclear
In some ways, perhaps, this is just
World
well.
as
government
be extremely monolithic, would entrench bureaucracy with all its damaging
would
features, and could easily tend to totalitarianism.
on
nuclear
foreseeable
the
It would
impose
certainly
an exploitative economic system which would do immense damage to
world
many remaining natural systems.
The Way Up thus presupposes an unlikely,
undesirable,
level
ideological,
indeed
requisite
unity
of
political
paradigmatic,
cannot
be
and
and
expected
unity
economic
separation
with
some
in
of
nuclear
main
crucial
respects,
Moreover,
given the
Northern
cultures,
deadlines.
When not even
nuclear weapons limitations can be worked out how much less likely
much
more
sweeping
sovereignty, could
be
agreements,
negotiated?
Involving
genuine
There
an
is
is
limitations
almost
endless
that
it
of
state
series
of
blockages and deadlocks in the way of such state reconciliation.
The nuclear fix emerging from nation-state arrangements - combined with the
apparent
impotence
of
interstate relations to alleviate the situation, indeed
with the ability only to push the world further into the situation and nearer to
�Page 31
nuclear
now
is
-
"brink"
taken
to
indicate (from yet a further angle) the
inadequacy of nation-state political arrangements, and has given new impetus
resolutions.
extra-state
other
of
consideration
to
The thesis that the nuclear
problem indicates the radical unsatisfactoriness of national sovereignty and the
present
system
namely in Schell.
’full-scale
nation states has even reached the best-seller book stands,
of
According to Schell the nuclear situation should
they operate' ...
which
himself
avoids
these
reality
and in ’workfing] out the practical steps by which
'awesome
(III,
p.92).
Schell
However
urgent tasks, which, imposed on us by history,
constitute the political work of our age’^9,
history
consonant with the global
can reorganise its political life’
mankind ...
a
of the foundations of political thought’ required to
reexamination
make ’the world’s political institutions ...
in
to
lead
So, not feeling the
pressures
of
overimpressed by the realities of (unstable) nation-states, do most
or
political theorists.
But, having rashly ventured this far, we can hardly
avoid
some of these tasks.
The central argument arising from the nuclear fix, for questioning
political
arrangements
and
seriously
current
considering changing them (in theory at
least), takes the following shape:-
H1.
Political arrangements should answer back to certain requirements and
justified
in
terms
of
doing
so.
are
These requirements include such things as
enabling good and meaningful lives for those who operate under the arrangements,
at least where (as certainly in the West) the basic material conditions for such
lives are met.
H2.
these
Because of the nuclear fix, nation-state arrangements have ceased to
requirements.
For
guarantee the prospect of
arrangements.
nation-states,
good
and
at
meaningful
meet
least in the North can no longer
lives
to
those
under
their
A life's meaningfulness is certainly diminished if it ends before
�Page 32
its prime in a nuclear disaster;
yet there is a non-negligible probability that
many such lives may terminate, less than fulfilled, in this way.
Therefore,
Nation-state arrangements have forfeited their justification,
H3.
should
and
be changed.
There is enough evidence that power brokers who control states,
both
more
powerful states and lesser states (sometimes with some claim to popular mandate,
often without), have lost sight of - or worse don’t care about -
the
point
of
political arrangments, of what justifies or is supposed to justify their states.
The situation has been reached where ’nuclear powers, or
higher
value
This is already illustrated
by
states in nonnuclear military situations:
have
much
forfeited
of
what
claim
Vietnam
Israel,
many
and
the principles of just warfare
have been blatantly violated repeatedly, as have many
states
put
statesmen,
on national sovereignty than they do on human survival’ (Schell’s
conclusion, p.76).
other
their
they
Such
principles.
other
had to external respect or
internal political obedience.
It could just be, of course, that there are no alternatives, or no possibly
better
But
alternatives.
alternatives there are, as we have seen, though but
little work has been expended on working out the range of alternatives or
features (except perhaps for the option of world government).
As to whether all
such alternatives can be dismissed, for instance as lacking feasibility,
difficult
to
be all sure without being dogmatic:
operate,
once
adjusted,
very
far
on
organising
is
humans,
for
under substantially different arrangments.
But, once again, nuclear deadlines do not appear
proceed
it
alternatives have been given
very little opportunity to work, and we know very little about how
instance,
their
to
give
sufficient
time
to
and trying out alternative arrangments, even
those of the more accessible Way Down.
Thus alternative
political
and
social
�Page 33
while theoretically feasible and certainly a longer-term goal, do
arrangements,
not presently offer a satisfactory practical response to the nuclear fix.
There is no need to insist upon a
dilemma
to
single-track
the
of
out
nuclear
We can not only
quite the contrary.
exclusion of all others:
the
way
afford to be fairly catholic about "second best" approaches pursued and
whatever
to be working or looks like helping, within reorganised ethical
seems
Indeed,
(and other) constraints:
situation,
methods,
should
we
as
such
urgency,
the
the
of
direness
the
and
nondemocratlc
very
(and
down
certainly
negotiations on arms limitations between main nuclear states.
The direction of most hope
is
given
be fairly catholic and not inflexibly commited to narrow
bogged
unrepresentative)
direction
embrace
for
especially new.
not
has
progress
however
come
into
view;
the
The political means of the Way Out are what
they have been on almost every larger liberal or
that
issue
humanitarian
has
from outside state governmental apparatus by organised pressure from
mattered;
within or without upon it, characteristically Bottom-Up
Such
Top-Down.
familiar
and
practically
never
considerations are but part of the more general, and
very effective, case against reliance upon states for a range of things they are
now
supposed
required,
to
more
supply,
effectively
but
can almost Invariably be obtained, where
which
and
less
expensively
without
(and
them
their
monopolies).
In the case of security it is states, with very few exceptions,
that
have
imposed, or acquiesed in, military solutions involving nuclear installations and
The
nuclear weapons.
frequently
from
across nations.
installations
opposition
local
and
the
to
neighbourhood
These groups have been
and
establishing,
for
escalating
groups,
successful
the
time
nuclear
fix
has
come
some of them now federated
in
blocking
being,
some
some
nuclear
nuclear-free
�Page 34
The patchwork grass-roots movement against nuclear is strongest
neighbourhoods.
in
which
Europe,
- as the movement realised, and what gave it impetus - a
is
leading theatre, on US
American
touching
thinking,
strategic
American nuclear installations in Europe will make it a
contrary
it
probable
seems
nuclear
limited
a
war
that
Europe
safer
much
become
will
place:
safer
on
the
if
the
anti-nuclear movements succeed in having these installations removed and
rendered nuclear-free.
not
is extremely doubtful that increasing NATO and
It
shores.
for
Europe
The chances of grossly immoral conduct will thereby also
be considerably reduced.
What the movements must press for is accordingly clear
it
is
in
broad
outline:
what they have been pushing for, nuclear reduction and disarmament.
But
the argument also makes it clearer how far this should go, namely all the way to
nuclear
unilateral
disarmament
if
necessary,
certainly to local disarmament
across progressively larger parts of the planet’s surface.
is
its
demoted,
importance
and
the
necessity
of
For once
the
state
its maintenance properly
downgraded and reliance on its decision-making diminished in favour of localised
decision-making
(say)
-
once
all
that
happens or is allowed for, one major
component in the nuclear fix is removed, namely the worry about
sovereignty.
the
of
that
sovereignty
has
of
been assigned a mistaken
weakest links in the moral fix structure.
In the weigh-up that should
occur in charting a way out of moral dilemma, much more Important elements
features
state
The state, and accompanying features such as misplaced nationalism,
importance.
are
Maintenance
loss
than
the state are those things the state is supposed to safeguard such
of
as individual and local welfare and autonomy, but they are better ensured by the
removal
of
nuclear
weapons.
The
nuclear circumstances threaten the loss of basic values,
autonomy,
for
in particular,
main reasons are familiar;
such
as
welfare
and
many creatures and regions, and the potential loss is in general
�Page 35
much greater than in a nuclear-free situation (even should
party
remain
armed
with nuclear weapons).
for example, the production
(because
of
nuclear
another
ideological
There are also subsidiary reasons;
weapons
reduces
local
both
welfare
of the opportunity costs of weapons manufacture) and autonomy (because
of the accompanying security measures).
Thus the nuclear fix is resolved, theoretically at
loss
of the state.
any
rate,
by
risking
But, although that is the best way out at least cost in the
circumstances, it will be strongly resisted in practice, since
those
who
hold
power hold it, in one way or another, under the auspices of state.
FOOTNOTES
1.
The US Catholic Bishops make the point forcefully:
’Nuclear weapons
...
and nuclear warfare ... are new moral issues ... There exists a capacity
to do something no other age could imagine: we can threaten the
created
order ...
We could destroy [God’s] work’ (PL, p.312). While the analysis
offered in what follows has a great deal in common with the
Bishop’s
position, it differs significantly in removing the religious backdrop and
associated features and, it is hoped, in bringing out the logical structure
of the argument more clearly and sharply (the paper was Initially drafted
independently of PL).
To illustrate the differences that emerge with
removal of the religious backdrop and its acoutrements, consider two
examples from PL, p.323:- Firstly, peace is possible without religious
enlightenment if it is possible with it: religious enlightenment is not an
essential condition as there implied. Secondly, violence does not take all
the forms the Bishops try to give it, e.g. sexual discrimination is hardly
a form of violence, pornography can operate without it, etc.
It is a
serious mistake to try to heap so many diverse and independent issues
together under the one head (forms of violence) as if they stood and fell
together, e.g. abortion and nuclear war.
2.
Another dimension of variation concerns the sequence of the war, especially
the type of strike involved. Though the sequence is important for the moral
assessment, for example of the main actors, it is in no way alters the
immorality of LN wars, as will emerge.
3.
’The overwhelming probability [is] that a nuclear exchange would have no
limits’,
(PL, p.314). Hence a major argument against limited nuclear wars:
that any such war risks, indeed renders highly probable, an unlimited war,
and risk is far too large to take.
The point in fact follows by
straightforward application of decision theory, multiplying the massive
undesirability (moral and otherwise) of an LN war by its probability given a
�Page 36
limited nuclear war. Given the character of weapons development and present
communication arrangements, the idea of a purely nuclear exchange between
the superpowers, perhaps in the European "theatre", is really a myth.
But
limited wars are not the present focus.
4.
There was a substantial element of sport (and connected features of prowess)
in traditional wars that has been eroded in modern technological wars.
Nuclear wars are not just unsporting, in that no notice is given, etc. They
are unjust in a much deeper way.
5.
There are interesting sidelights concerning even the etymology of the term
’war’, which was derived from a term meaning ’confusion’. In particular,
’it is a curious fact that no Germanic nation in early historic times had in
living use any world properly meaning ’war’’.
(OED)
6.
But of course there can be something quite analogous to war between clans,
multinational firms, even nature, etc.
(To this extent, a strict definition
of ’war’ is being insisted upon.) So the diffusion of power structures has
to extend beyond just the break-down of states.
7.
Thus the ubiquitous war against Nature of modern times, which features just
as large in marxists as in capitalists. As could have been guessed, someone
- it was James - suggested chanelling all war into "war" in the metaphorical
sense against that unarmed and nonaggressive "opponent", Nature. James
proposed as a substitute for war proper, conscription of the youth for a war
against Nature (see Wasserstrom, p.12). What it boiled down to, however,
was that youth was to be channelled into all the dirty work, in that way to
acquire manly virtues military activities "rightly" instil, especially
discipline, but also service, devotion, physical fitness, constructive
exertion, responsibility, and order. Another less diabolical substitute for
wars proper is through war games and other games of competitive cast. Again
specious arguments enter for bringing out the "best" in human males.
8.
War can be seen as a structural problem of state arrangments, to be removed
along with these (otherwise defective) arrangements.
Wars arise from
political organisation of states - a situational fix.
9.
Thus Aquinas and Grotius for example (see Barnes, p.776, top). The argument
presupposes rather a lot, Including a neat public/private distinction. Put
Aquinas’s way, it looks as if it could be readily transferred into an
argument for international government, or at least effective law-courts.
Yet all Christendom was supposed at that time to be one state!
10.
There is however the degenerate idea of war as annihilation or extinction,
and of winning a nuclear war as annihilation of the enemy while not being
entirely annihilated oneself: the side that somehow "survives" is said to
"win".
But this is an extremely tenuous sense of winning. Moreover any
such war is radically unjust, because of violation of the traditional
requirement of proportionality, and for other reasons developed in the text.
Recent talk about winning or even surviving a nuclear war must
reflect a failure to appreciate a medical reality: Any nuclear
war would inevitably cause death, disease and suffering of
pandemonic proportions and without the possibility of effective
medical intervention ... (PL, p.313).
�Page 37
Unfortunately as documented in Scheer, significant officials who are
responsible for the nuclear destiny of the U.S.A. - and so of the world think that the devastation of nuclear war can be survived and that a global
nuclear war can actually be won!
11.
In practice they often were not, they drained limited economies, they layed
waste countryside (though to a minor extent by nuclear or chemical or modern
mining standards), impoverishing Inhabitants, etc.
12.
For as Nagel contents (early on), there are moral restrictions on the
conduct of warfare which are not legalistic only and which are neither
arbitrary not merely conventional nor a matter of usefulness. These themes
run entirely counter to the classic theory of war of Clausowicz - a theory
outlined in Walzer.
13.
As Nagel remarks.
14.
The progressive escalation argument is an incremental
Sorites. This is part of the so-called "logic of war".
15.
As Walzer argues, p.24.
16.
The severe limitations of those
also come from the failure
person from inside the homeland
which excessive applications of
17.
Thus the differences between Nagel on the one side, and Brandt and
the other, in Cohen et al.
18.
The pattern of moral argument has much in common with procedure in anarchist
political discussion.
19.
There are other arguments against two (or
Routley and Plumwood.
20.
For details see Routley and Plumwood.
21.
According to the doctrine, which is one concerning responsibility, we are
responsible
only
for
the intended effects or consequences of our
freely-chosen actions, and not for other (side) effects or consequences,
even
if
these are forseen and/or intimately tied to the intended
consequences. The doctrine is pernicious allowing those who adjust their
intention
suitably to escape responsibility for evil they knowingly
perpetrate. Thus, for instance, a Russian supreme command which intended
only to take out US military targets would, under double effects,
effects have no
responsibility for the resultant effect on American and Canadian cities!
22.
Despite Nagel’s suggestion (pp.158).
23.
Of course there are counterarguments too, and not merely from military in
the case of small numbers of obstructive noncombatants. One is a variation
of the Bald Man:
there is no clear line between
combatants
and
noncombatants.
However as Nagel argues (p.20) there are distinctions
between them, firstly in terms of their roles, e.g. in carrying or using
argument
like
the
lesser virtues, nationalism and patriotimsm,
of replacement - try for example swapping a
by one from outside as regards treatment patriotism can engender.
multiple)
morality
Hare
lines:
on
see
�Page 38
arms or directing those who do, and secondly in terms of their harmfulness,
the threat they offer. See also PL, p.312, where a simple and effective
paradigm case argument is applied.
24.
The principle can be argued to in various ways.
One (not entirely
conclusive) way is Nagel’s way, from the requirements of directness and
relevance in combat, the underlying principle being that, ’whatever one does
to another person intentionally must be aimed at him as a subject, with the
intention that he receive it as a subject’. (p.15)
25.
The situation with limited nuclear wars where the targets are essentially
military ones, and noncombatants are unaccountably killed "indirectly' is
different. Such wars are not however excused by the pernicious doctrine of
double effect.
For such wars remain unjust on several counts, e.g. they
inflict disproportionate damage, e.g. on life systems. As Zuckermann says,
’It is still inevitable that were military installations rather than cities
to become the objectives of nuclear attack, millions, even tens of millions
of civilians would be killed ...’ (quoted in Thompson and Smith, p.14 where
the Italics are added).
26.
Throughout the OED equations,reflecting common usage, of just with
right or correct, and unjust with morally wrong, are adopted.
27.
These alternatives are not as far removed practically as may appear.
For
the aim of just war theory is not ’to legitimize war but to prevent it.
The
presumption is against the use of force’ (PL, p.312).
And most types
of
wars are ruled out by the theory.
However not all wars or violent
revolutions are excluded, and that is enough to guarantee the distinction
between the alternatives.
In particular, defensive wars are allowed - at
least for the defending side, though from a wider viewpoint these too may be
condemned - ’the classic case [of the just war] ... was the use of lethal
force to prevent aggression against innocent victims’
(PL,
p.311).
Under
Twentieth Century international law defence, narrowly construed, is the only
legitimate basis for war; Roman law was only slightly more generous, in
allowing for the restitution of goods (see Barnes, p.780).
28.
An argument of this sort is developed in more detail, though not in complete
generality, in Goodin.
29.
As to the first point, there is not only overkill capacity and the drive for
superiority (often represented via "negotiating" strength) but the matter of
counterforce weapons which are offensive weapons.
As regards the second
point, US policy has been decidedly expansionist with regular intervention
in other nations; there have been repeated US threats to use nuclear
weapons, especially to deal with revolutionary activities in the third
world, but also in Europe in "limited" nuclear war;
and in official
military strategy no sharpline has been drawn between conventional and
nuclear weapons: on these and other related points see further Lackey 82,
p.l91ff., and also Thompson and Smith.
30.
The example was supplied by D.
31.
Deterrence also commonly includes elements of
mendacity,
deception,
misinformation.
There is a grain of truth in the claim that ’deterrence is
primarily about what the other side thinks, not what we think’
(Pym quoted
morally
Johnson.
�Page 39
in Thompson, p.19).
simply
32.
Nor are degrees of wrongness required:
ordered as regards worseness.
33.
Can this be done semantically in terms of closeness/worseness
The attempted X world is close to the X world?
34.
There is a need for further clarification here.
Passive spectatorship of
evil events where one is in a position to make a difference is quite another
thing, from contemplation of other worlds where evil occurs.
35.
It is this principle especially that forces Ramsey, a Protestant theologian
who is a nuclear hawk, into the tight position he ends in, which as Walzer
explains, really leaves no room to move. For in virtue of C3 it must be
allowed that the threatened wars are permissible to carry out. Ramsey tries
to limit these to military exchanges. But to be effective as a deterrent,
the exchange permitted must both threaten and also, in view of C3, not
threaten nonmilitary targets, collateral non-combatant populations.
It
appears that Ramsey’s position, if worked out, would be inconsistent.
wrongs
can
be
partially
of
worlds?
Principle C3 is also invoked by the US Catholic Bishops:
see PL, p.316.
They put the point both in terms of threat and of declared intent to use
nuclear weapons, which they pronounce morally wrong.
36.
As is widely known, inadmissible considerations of expediency frequently
enter into reasons why states allow foreign nuclear facilities upon their
territories, e.g. economic considerations such as trade or local revenue
and jobs.
37.
Cf.
38.
It was considered long ago in China by the
alternative systems, see especially Sharp.
39.
Thus Green, along with many others, ’find[s] nuclear deterrence ...
the
best of practical policies available to us now ... given the realities of
world politics’ but ’still demurfs] because of moral qualms’ (p.xil). Green
also represents both Morgenthau and Halle as having ’rather agonisingly
presented a ... case for a deterrence strategy, even while asserting that
the strategy is morally indefensible according to the traditional ethical
codes’ (p.252). Walzer ends in a similar dilemma (he is committed to a
stronger and less qualified form of it than he sets down):
’... though it
[deterrence] is a bad way, there may well be no other that is practical in a
world of sovereign and suspicious states’ (p.274) (an indictment of the
state system that Walzer does not pursue).
the last article in Thompson.
Mohists.
For
contemporary
Similarly the Catholic Bishops present the situation in terms of a moral
dilemma:
they speak of ’the political paradox of deterrence ... the
dilemma of how to prevent the use of nuclear weapons ... (PL, p.313).
40.
Situations in war are also a major source of moral dilemmas.
See Routley
and Plumwood where several examples are given. A general logical account of
and theory of moral dilemmas is elaborated therein.
�Page 40
41.
There are exceptions of course, e.g. Sartre; and Nagel’s final example is
very instructive.
For a full theory of moral dilemmas see however Routley
and Plumwood.
42.
Reported in The Economist; reprinted in The
1983, Weekend Magazine p.2.
43.
This is no longer a radical theme but is widely promulgated.
The source of
the nuclear problem comes from state arrangements: it is ’... a world of
sovereign states ... which brought the world to the present dangerous
situation’.
(PL, p.313)
44.
It is not alone responsible for these other dilemmas.
Large-scale nuclear
power and other types of warfare and security arrangements also contribute.
45.
In principle it would be relatively easy for states to agree to settlement
of their disputes by less damaging and expensive contests than military
ones, e.g. by contests of selected representatives, and not just through
fighting in some form but by contests of footballers, singers, dancers,
lawyers, or etc. In practice, however, such more civilized alternatives are
never considered. Animals, by contrast, are smart enough to settle disputes
by means much more like these.
46.
Americans, for example, tend to forget that their State (like USSR) is a
union, of fairly recent origin; and that a State of the Union message could
consider the dissolution of the union.
47.
Thus for example, Kahn, where such a "solution" is quickly dismissed as,
impractical,
etc.
Hardly necessary to say the Way Up has won most favour
with the legal fraternity, and from more authoritarian organisations.
48.
See further Routley and
especially Griffin.
49.
Schell does not make it clear whether he is thinking of the Way Up or the
Way Down, but some of the names he drops suggest the Way Up. So can some of
what he says, e.g.
’Thus the peril of extinction is the price that the
world pays not for "safety" or "survival" but for its [sic!] insistence on
continuing to divide Itself up into sovereign nations’ (p.76, III), as if
the natural or original state were an undivided one?
Routley
and
Australian,
material
referred
February
to
12-
therein,
13
and
�Page 41
APPENDIX 1; Remarks on J. Schell’s THE FATE OF THE EARTH.
Schell’s book is an important and influential document, which is
significant
having
a
and
urgently
needed effect in shifting attitudes towards nuclear.
It is especially
valuable
for
aftermath
example
defects.
is
Some
exhibits,
also
it
just
nothing else that we undertake together can make any
sense
...’
the
of
both
for
rubbish,
a world-wide program of action for preserving the [human]
’without ...
species ...
moral
scenarios
horrifying
Unfortunately
severe
philosophically and factually,
and
vivid
attack.
nuclear
of
its
(p.104,
Humans
rearranged).
however like rabbits in
are
Australia, virtually beyond human power to extirpate.
or
practical
The claim presupposes two
of the major defective assumptions of the book:
51.
That nuclear war will eliminate life, human life, at least, on earth
total extermination assumption);
(the
and
52.
That very many notions, not only those of morality and value, but those of
time
and
space,
make
no sense in the absence of humans, or, to put it into a
more sympathetic philosophical form, in the absence of an actual
context
human
(the anthropocentric assumption).
The frequent applications of S2, which
philosophical
depth
and
induce
give
the
book
some
of
its
apparent
suitable puzzlement through their paradoxical
without total extermination
aspects, depend essentially on SI;
there
will
be
humans, about to make past and future, good and evil, go on making sense!
Now although the factual assumption SI is
possibility,
unlikely.
example,
it
appears
in
Schell’s argument
on
an
unjustified
no
means
ruled
out
as
a
light of present (inadequate) knowledge most
the
to
by
SI
is
extremely
extrapolation
from
Hemisphere, but for the most part it does that very
flimsy.
It
depends,
for
the Northern to the Southern
North
American
thing,
of
�Page 42
the
contracting
North
to
world
(All that matters, all worthwhile
America.
civilization, is in USA, or at least, to be more charitable,
and
Europe,
also be wiped out, i.e.
will
which
eliminated in the nuclear holocaust).
the
example
out of date.
America
North
its human population will be
Some of the data Schell relies upon,
for
of nuclear explosions on the ozone layer, is significantly
Other effects than ozone destruction transfer even less well
South.
to
North
effect
in
from
A factually superior study of nuclear disaster that Schell’s,
Preddy and others, indicates that parts of the Southern Hemisphere, New
Zealand
and Southern Africa and America could escape relatively unscathed even from most
massive northern exchanges.
The penetration of human chauvinism as in S2 is not something
Schell
but
product
a
is
of
truths
necessary
mathematics
of
and
in Wittgenstein ’s philosophy, where even the
are a product of human conventions and would
In Schell human chauvinism is dished up in a particularly
vanish with humans!).
powerful
obnoxious
Kantian
Thoughts
form.
tenses, values and morality, all depend in the
and
propositions, time and
presence
life-giving
of
human
- past or future or merely potential humans are not enough, persons that
beings
are not humans are certainly not enough.
’...
e.g.):
Thus according to
(II,
Schell
p.74,
the thought "Humanity is not extinct" is an impossible one for a
rational person, because as soon as it is, we are not.
In imagining
any
other
we look ahead to a moment that is still within the stream of human time,
event,
...’.
right
to
philosophy especially, which is still
European
unfortunately alive and well (e.g.
peculiar
The thought is however perfectly possible for humans;
now.
Though
we
(p.74)l.
’...
outside
can
have
it
no doubt have it falsely a later rational creature may
well be able to have it truly.
"later"
we
the
Schell erroneously denies
human
tenses
of
past,
that:
there
is
no
present, and future ...’
Human extinction eliminates ’the creature that divides time into past,
�Page 43
present
future’:
and
so annihilation cannot ’come to pass’ (p.77).
simply false that the tenses are human:
the
tenses
depend
on
But it is
time
local
a
(perceptible to many creatures other than humans, but not depending at
ordering
all on perceptibility for its viability) relating other times to the present, to
now
(also
a
human-independent location, evident to other creatures, and borne
witness to by such sequences as the passing seasons).
too
easily
come
And annihilation may also
to pass, for many humans in the North at least, as it came to
pass in recent geological times that humans began to exist upon
that there was a time before there were any human beings.
earth.
Before
Here as elsewhere the
human chauvinism is mixed with other distorting metaphysical assumptions of
Western
our
heritage, verlficationism and Implicit ontic assumptions (to the effect
that there are severe difficulties in talking about what does not exist).
Thus,
for example, Schell takes over dubious metaphysics from Freud, according to whom
"it is indeed impossible to imagine our own death;
do
so,
we
(p.77/4?).
In
can
perceive
that
we
are
in
attempt
and whenever we
fact still present as spectators"
The second clause goes a good distance towards refuting
first.
the
fact there is no great problem in describing counterfactual situations which
undermine both Freud’s claims.
chauvinism
into
one
of
The same goes for Schell’s extensions
human
of
its main traditional strongholds, value theory:
the simple and basic fact [sic!] that before there can be good or evil,
or
to
service
harm, lamenting or rejoicing there must be life’, human life (p.103).
are no facts, but entrenched philosophical assumptions which have
been
’...
These
exposed
2
and criticised elsewhere .
Another obnoxious theme, which Schell repeatedly infiltrates, is
the
Pogo
theme, which
S3.
Distributes responsibility for
the
present
really) onto everyone, every human in the world.
nuclear
situation
(fiasco,
An especially blatant example
3
�Page 44
the world’s political
runs as follows:
menace
leaders
...
though
the earth with nuclear weapons, do so only with our permission, and even
at our bidding.
theme
At least, this is true
elsewhere
elaborated
is
’...
for
democracies’
pay
4
we are the authors of the destruction .
while for the peoples of the non-nuclear-armed world it
sense
to
an
argument
of
all
The moral cost of
only
true
in
the
sensitivity
nuclear
of
representative
And again ’...
we
is
it
armaments
that
of us underwriters of the slaughter of hundreds of millions - ’.
And again ’[as] perpetrators ...
is not sacred but is worthless;
be killed’ (p.88).
vote
the
against
of the populace they allegedly govern.
many
are potential mass—killers.
makes
is
that they fail to try to do anything about the danger)’ (p.87).
But this is more of
government
since
extinction and support the governments that pose the threat of it,
for
negative
The
III).
(p.106,
(For the populations of the superpowers this is true in a positive sense,
we
now
they
we convey the steady messsage ...
it ...
that ...
Little of this is true.
that
life
is acceptable for everyone to
Those who campaign against nuclear,
against nuclear-committed parties so far as is possible, and the like, are
certainly not the authors of potential destruction, and responsibility
nuclear situation does not simply distribute onto them.
- or the unlikely opinions as
to
worth
Schell
everyone - fall on those who have done less.
for
the
Nor does responsibility
illegitimately
attributes
to
Responsibility for decisions taken
in "liberal democracies" even by representatives (in the unlikely event of
this
happening in the case of anything as important as defence) cannot be traced back
to those represented, since among many other things, a
representative
of
a
party
is
only
which offers a complex and often ill-characterised
package of policies, and a voter may vote for zero
package.
representative
or
more
policies
of
this
Only in the (unlikely) event of a clear single issue referendum, which
is adopted, can responsibility, still of a qualified sort, be sheeted
home,
to
�Page 45
those who voted for it, not every one in the community.
When however the Pogo assumption is disentangled from the
following
theme
what results is decidedly along the right lines:
The controllers [not to be confused, in Schell’s fashion, with all of
S4.
have failed to change our pre-nuclear institutions.
The sovereign system is out
HI)
(p.51,
of step with nuclear age, the one-earth system, etc.
earth
us]
(the
whole
Unfortunately Schell often loses sight of this important theme.
theme).
S4 forms part of Schell’s critique of the state which is, by an large, scattered
and
fragmentary.
As
we saw, in §7, Schell arrives at the conclusion that the
nation-state has outlasted its usefulness, and that new
institutions
political
more ’consonant the global reality’ are required as a matter of urgency.
evades what he admits is the major task, making
viable
out
But he
alternatives.
most he makes some passing suggestions, some of which point to the Way Up.
he remains clear about are the serious defects of the state and
the
At
What
frequently
immoral purposes for which the state is used.
At one stage he contrasts what he calls Socratic-Christian ethics with that
of
state,
where ’the end [state] justifies the means . .., the raison d’etre of
government, is the basis on which
themselves
to
commit
crimes
of
governments,
every
in
sort’.
anything whatever in the name of [their] survival’.
that
all
So
times,
licensed
’states may do virtually
Schell then argues however,
extinction nullifies end-means justification by destroying every end;
that argument is far from sound, and depends again on extreme
(S2)
have
combined with ontic assumptions.
under system SI) ends could remain, e.g.
human
but
chauvinism
Even if all humans were extinguished (as
for nonhumans (actual or not).
�Page 46
As to the part of the state and (state) sovereignty in war,
in
us
Schell
leaves
A sovereign state is virtually defined as one that enjoys the
no doubt.
right and power to go to war in defence or pursuit of its interests (III, p.51).
War
from how things are:
arises
jealous nation states (p.51).
and
sovereignty
from the arrangement of political affairs via
Indeed there is a two-way linkage between
On the one side, sovereignty is, Schell
capacity to wage war.
contends, necessary for people to organise for war.
is impossible to preserve sovereignty.
it
war
transparently clear as they stand.
having
On the other side,
without
Neither of these contentions is
Now that the state system in entrenched,
it
however easy for conservatives (in particular) to argue from the "realities"
is
of international life, which include self-interest,
is
It
on
basis
this
that
peace
arrangements
aggression,
readily
are
hatred.
fear,
dismissed
as
unrealistic, utopian, even (amusingly) as extremist.
Schell’s further theme that nuclear "war" is not war threatens to undermine
his
case
erroneous
an
sovereign
characterisation
nation to achieve an end’ (III,
sufficient
for
p.52):
war as ’a violent means employed by a
of
but
neither
considerations
but not all wars or games are won).
It
they
fail
(even
on one side being defeated
on
a
But in nuclear "war" this doesn’t happen, ’no one’s strength
But what these sorts
contribute to showing is not that nuclear wars are not wars,
but that they are not wars of certain sorts, e.g., not just wars
because
nor
LN
falls until both sides have been annihilated* (III, p.52).
of
necessary
if
is also claimed that war depends on weakness;
by arms.
is
But nuclear attacks can certainly have ends
cannot be won in the older sense:
decision
this
It is then claimed that war requires an end which nuclear
war.
"war" does not have.
wars
state based, for example, on its nuclear war
But the not-war theme needs much qualification, and starts out
making capacity.
from
the
against
on
such
criteria
as
reasonable
when
LN
wars
prospect of success and
�Page 47
improvement, not rational wars (in a good sense), and so on.
wars
nuclear weapons have also ruined "conventional" wars, and
that
demise
the
war
of
not
just
on
his
connected
the
mistaken
has
removed
been
proposition
The
(p.52).
concerning
the
conventional war and the mistaken proposition that war of some sort
the
theme
has left no means to finally settle disputes between
nations, for the final court of appeal
depends
conventional
nuclear times does damage to Schell’s argument that
into
persisted
have
That
theme
demise
has
to
of
be
"court of appeal" between nations (for, as observed, there are other
final
types of contests that could serve, and there is also the
cooperative
behaviour,
e.g.
joint referenda);
possibility
of
more
it also imports the assumption
of Clausowicz (criticised earlier) that war has to proceed to the
technological
limit - as if war and violence were thoroughly natural activities independent of
recognised social settings (for winning, surrender, etc.) and ruleless.
wars
contrary,
are
parasitic
on
On
the
social organisations such as states and are
They are a social
governed by a range of understandings, conventions and rules.
phenomenon, with a rule structure if not a logic.
Much capital has been made from what is called "the
and
the
"logic
logic
of
deterrence"
The message that is usually
of nuclear (strategic) planning".
supposed to come through is that the massive nuclear arraangements the world
now
entangled
in
are perfectly logical, sound, reasonable, rational.
this represents little more than a cheap semantical
the
justifies
reasonable.
can
be
present
arrangements,
or
trick.
anything
in strategic planning;
values
no
in
way
in Jeffrey)
which
but is does not yield specific results
without desirability measures being assigned to alternative
without
However
like them, or renders them
There is a logic of decision (as presented e.g.
applied
Logic
is
being pumped in, extralogically .
outcomes,
that
is
There are varaious ways these
value assignments may be determined, to meet moral requirements or not;
but
in
�Page 48
nuclear
planning
strategic
(Selecting the usual
expediency.
automatically;
is
have invariably been settled on the basis of
game
theory
setting
based
something
cover
strategy of’.
term
almost
Thus too the presumption in Walzer, p.277, that the logic of
on eye-for-eye and tooth-for-tooth assumptions.)
’logic of’ tends to be used very generously, as a word of general
to
this
to
sees
for it is then assumed that each player plays to maximize his or
her own advantage.
deterrence
they
like
In fact
commendation,
’rational considerations entering into the policy or
In these terms, Schell, who like others enjoys playing
with
the
’logic of’, should write of ’the illoglc of deterrence’, for he emphasizes
(III, p.80) the disparity between the supposed rationality of threatening use of
nuclear
weapons and the irrationality (even from a national interest viewpoint)
of actually using them should the threat fail:
doctrine
depends
irrational use.
deterrence
(e.g.
on
credibility
of
the
yet the
threat
of
of
success
this
deterrence
unjustifiable and
Indeed Schell wants to go further and locate a contradiction in
HI,
pp.67-8):
but the argument depends on an interesting
confusion of contradiction with cancellation, which deterrence
is
supposed
to
(etc.)
is
involve.
FOOTNOTES
1.
The appalling theme that humans create past, present and
repeated, e.g. p.104 top.
2.
See e.g.
’Human chauvinism and environmental ethics’ in Environmental
Philosophy (editor Mannison and others), Research School of Social Sciences,
Australian National University, 1980.
3.
Another example of spreading the responsibility runs as follows (Schell
p.46, III): we plan to exterminate species in certain circumstance, though
we don’t quite admit this to ourselves, as sane or sensible (or rational?).
Further (p.55 III),
’the world ...
chose the course of attempting to
refashion the system of sovereignty to accommodate nuclear weapons’:
the
world?
Connected with this is the argument from defence of fundamentals
[ideology] - e.g. for liberty, the (USA) nation, and against socialism. In
the course of this yet another fallacious assumption is rolled out:
’The
means to the end are not limited, for the end itself sets the limits in each
future
�Page 49
case’
[?]
4.
There is also, mixed in, a weaker more plausible claim that gives lie to the
stronger one, namely that we have some responsibility (the Nazi situation is
compared).
5.
There is however a simple solution to Schell’s problem of the missing
motive, namely an ideological one: remove the rival ideology from future
dominance.
�Page 50
APPENDIX 2: Strategies and the Matter of Collective and
Individual Responsibility
What one does depends, naturally, on where one lives
and what sort of power it is.
responsibility
work
to
entirely
to
an
In present circumstances states have
and
states,
there
ends:
responsibilities
these
no individual, or (smaller scale)
is
collective responsibility to work out a policy or
people
on
stance
matters
such
as
While such a non-responsibility
nuclear and still less to act on such a stance.
(or opt-out) theme no doubt suits many
evident
There are however some persuasive
out their policies.
arguments that this is where the responsibility
accrue
one
means
what
as what strategy a state should adopt depends on where it is located
much
has,
and
—
many
for
some,
themselves,
especially more authoritarian power-holders, for others - it does involve opting
out of moral responsibilities, responsibilities acquired by virtue
of
being
a
person within the framework of certain social arrangments.
Now there is no doubt that individuals and a group can
out.
They can neglect their moral responsibilities;
in doing so.
being
this,
do
can
opt
but they are not justified
Against this claim, which is based ultimately upon
each
person’s
caught in a web of responsibility-inducing social relations, whether they
like it or not, there are some neat arguments which appear to permit opting out.
One goes as follows:
1.
The (ordinary) individual,
difference to what happens.
2.
Such
difference.
3.
individuals,
or
or
group,
has
no
possibility
of
making
a
make
a
Therefore
groups,
have
no
obligation
to
try
to
Hence
Such individuals, or groups, are not morally responsible, for instance when
things go wrong.
�Page 51
There are two main assumptions
resisted;
this
in
argument,
both
which
of
be
firstly, a variant of the ought implies can theme , and secondly, the
assumption that individuals can’t make a difference.
cannot
individuals
competitive
highly
that
true
What an
individuals
do.
full of hopeful free-riders, a person may
communities,
encouter a familiar impasse:
is
on their own, together they can.
much
accomplish
it
While
individual can achieve depends on what sufficiently many other
In
should
that he or she acts M-ly (e.g.
against
morally,
nuclear arrangements, present destruction) at considerable personal cost with no
Such an impasse no
guarantee that others will also act M-ly.
longer
faces
so
many in the West at least as regards initial steps against nuclear arrangements.
The individual can cooperate with others in ways that do make a difference.
An
individual is not exonerated from responsibility by the argument.
While individuals can respond by joining organisations whose activities are
at
directed
difference, many individuals also have the option of
some
making
more individualistic action in such
disobedience.
important
An
forms
as
or
deployment)
Evidently,
various
or
parts
redirection
however,
work more effectively
go
slows,
political
form of individual resistance, already adopted in
Canada and north-western USA is refusal to pay
defence
boycotts,
thereof
of
such
(e.g.
taxes,
income
taxes
nuclear
for
directed
weapons
Instance
towards
production
to
peace
and
funds.
all these more individualistic forms of political activity
if
individuals
integrate
their
activities
since
the
impacts aggregate (and appear after a certain stage to exponentiate).
There are arguments of some weight that individuals are under some sort
moral
obligation
to take political action to disaffiliate themselves from what
contributes to the prospects of nuclear
depends
on
the
of
sort
of
state
war.
What
type
of
action
this
is
one resides in, e.g., whether it is a nuclear
�Page 52
power, whether it provides nuclear
issues
complicating
as
or
bases
facilities,
and
such
on
kind of preventive action the state is likely to
what
One argument - it is one of a type
take in return.
etc.,
be
can
that
varied
from
making nuclear weapons to, for example, providing facilities for them - proceeds
from the wrongness of nuclear war to the position that it is
making
weapons
the
such
for
The
war.
argument
here
not
applies
principles (like that of §5), for instance that the manufacture
of such weapoons increases the risk of such war.
right
and
to
connecting
deployment
But if it is not morally right
to be making such weapons then those who live in a state that is doing so
to
disaffiliate
themselves
from
such
substantive
without
The argument is
but
the
assumptions
opt-outers
and
do-nothingers
assumption,
ought
defence production, and disaffiliation
2
includes not paying for such production through defence taxes .
not
be
morally
appear
reasonable and defensible.
Such arguments not only
insofar
as
they
put
to
contribute
national
for
those
3
take action, even limited action such as redirection of taxes .
in some fashion to moral obligations;
political obligations.
And
political
limited, by moral constraints.
are
already
answer
for then moral obligations override
obligations
are
already
significantly
The nuclear situation does not so much bring out
new limits on political obligation, as emphasize the
obligations
who
There is
however no dilemma under any theory which takes political obligations to
back
spot
the
objectives, they also raise serious
questions and perhaps dilemmas as regards political obligations
would
on
limited,
and
respects
in
which
those
introduce further moral considerations
against sponsorship of national defence arrangements.
�Page 53
An obligation to try
war
does not commit one to more than this:
for
an
to an obligation, for example,
work
to
But
alternative national defence policy which avoids nuclear elements.
no doubt this would be a good thing to try to contribute to.
one
nuclear
spending part of one’s working life contributing indirectly to it,
not
by
to disaffiliate oneself from preparation for
attempts
depends
commitments, and
on
forth.
so
where
lives,
one
For
not
only
the
level
are
Once
of
again,
one’s pacificist
types
different
what
policy
of
appropriate for different nations and regions, but there are more
reorientation
superficial and deeper reorientations that can be worked out and promoted,
schemes
that
"conventional"
leave
e.g.
warfare apparatus more or less Intact, and
deeper (ecological) schemes that change that.
The US Bishops, for example, present a shallower set of goals for
such
power
as
the
USA,
which
includes
such
as preventing the
objectives
working
development and deployment of destabilizing nuclear weapons systems and
for
better
of already operational systems (see PL, p.317).
control
super
a
For those
whose very limited political Influence is exerted in considerably lesser
even
the
shallow goals may look quite different:
there are no weapons (except
perhaps those of another power planted on local territory)
better
control.
The
view
from
the
very
minor
to
in
or
redeploy
to
powers in the Antipodes is
furthermore different from that of the medium powers in Europe.
prospect
powers
is
There
some
the Antipodes of avoiding the more immediate effects of an LN war,
while there is little such prospect in Europe (cf.
Preddy and
others).
There
is accordingly some obligation - an obligation little considered and not grasped
by the power holders - on those in the Antipodes to make some effort to preserve
there
elements
of
what is valuable in world civilization.
Local and regional
self-interest would also suggest steps towards self-preservation that
been initiated.
have
not
�Page 54
What is broadly required in the Andipodes is a
work
out
once
removal of American bases
alliance, which is in any case of questionable merit;
and
withdrawal
of
American
rightss for nuclear-carrying equipment to
access
ports, air bases and other facilities, so as to remove
pursuit
of
more
a
evenhanded
policy
targets;
nuclear
is
That much
easy,
in
principle.
difficult to ensure is that economic and cultural collapse does not follow
an LN war in the North.
independence
Secondly then the building of Increased
in the Antipodes is required.
sustainable
of
life
its
exercise unless combined with
and
Preddey
it
others
is
own.
’the region must also
other
desirable
objectives:
unlikely - the structural readjustment
aims
of
moving
for
example,
in
estimated that 25 per cent of GDP would have to be
included Australia the costs would be less.
desirable
have
For a small region that looks a very costly
diverted to build up New Zealand’s economic independence.
which
socio-economic
It is not enough to make the region
a nuclear-free zone not worth targeting militarily:
a
local
of nonalignment (something quite small
powers elsewhere have managed to achieve).
More
to
Firstly, withdrawal from the American
goals are glimpsed.
the
matter
straightforward
the
were
For a
larger
region
If, furthermore - what seems
combined
with
the
independently
whole region towards a multicultural conserver
society and diverting "defence" spending to connected self-management and
civil
be considerably lessened.
They only appear great in the
setting of an on-going consumer-defence socleity.
In any case where life itself
defence
goals,
would
is concerned, the costs do not appear excessive.
FOOTNOTES
1.
Any satisfactory deontic theory which takes moral dilemmas with due
seriousness is bound to reject this theme. There are also independent
grounds for jettisoning this Kantian theme:
see Routley and Plumwood.
�Page 55
Seatie
2.
An argument of this type was deployed by Bishop
support of his refusal to pay defence taxes.
3.
This dilemma and option is now removed for most wage earners by Pay As You
Earn taxation schemes, schemes apparently introduced to give the state
interest on gross earnings, but obviously very effective in removing
taxation power from most workers, and so from individuals to the state.
4.
Given the power of institutions and the state one may be able to do little
more than try, without giving up one’s work and therby one’s ability to
contribute to other deserving causes. For example, it may be virtually
impossible for one to avoid contributing to a superannuation fund which is
investing in projects which one opposes and/or ought to oppose.
Hunthaassen
of
in
�Page 56
REFERENCES
Berg, Reinhabiting a Separate
1979.
P.
M.
Cohen, Nagel, Scanlan
Princeton, 1974.
Country,
(editors)
Planet
War
and
Drum,
Moral
San
Francisco,
Responsibility ,
R.E.
Goodin,
’Disarming nuclear apologists’, typescript, 1982.
R.E.
Goodin,
’Disarmament as a moral certalnuity’, typescript, 1983.
P(hilip) Green, Deadly Logic: The Theory of Nuclear Deterrence, Ohio State
University Press, Columbus, 1966.
N.
Griffin, ’Lifeboat USA', typescript, 1982.
Ground Zero Organisation, Nuclear War:
New York, 1982.
R.
Jeffrey, The Logic of Decision
H.
Kahn, On Thermonuclear War.
What’s In It For You?
Pocket
Book
(editor
D.P.
Lackey, ’Ethics and nuclear deterrence*, in Moral
James Rachels), Harper and Row, New York, 1979.
D.P.
Lackey,
'Missiles and morals:
a utilitarian look at nuclear
deterrence’ Philosophy and Public Affairs 11 (1982) pp.189-213.
J.C.
Problems
Murray, Morality and Modern War,
T.
Nagel, ’War and Massacre' in Cohen et al, pp.3-24.
J.
Narvesen,
'Violence and War’ in Regan, pp.109-146.
National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Committee on War and Peace,
’The
challenge of peace: God’s promise and our response’, Origins 12 (20)
(1982) pp.306-328 [hereafter referred to as PL, for ’New Draft of
Pastoral Letter’].
G.F.
Preddey and others, Future Contingencies 4.
Nuclear Disasters, A
Report
to
the
Commision for the Future, Government Printer,
Wellington, New Zealand, 1982.
T.
Regan (editor), Matters of Life and
1980.
R.
Routley and V. Routley,
Alternatives, (1982).
R.
Routley and V. Plumwood, 'Moral dilemmas and
(edit.
notions’ in Paraconsistent Logic,
Philosophla Verlag, 1983.
'The
Death,
Random
irrefutability
of
the
G.
House,
New
anarchism’,
York,
Social
logic of deontic
Priest and others)
�Page 57
R.
Scheer, With Enough Shovels:
House, New York, 1982.
J.
Schell, ’Reflections (Nuclear Arms - Parts I-III)’, The New Yorker,
February
1, 8, and 15, 1982, pp.47-113, 48-109, and 45-107,
respectively. This series subtitled The Fate of the Earth, has now
appeared as a book with that title (Kopf, New York, 1982). References
in the text are to the original articles.
All references by parts
labels ’I’-’III’ are to these articles.
T.C .
Reagan,
Bush
and
Nuclear
Sharp, Exploring Nonviolent Alternatives, Boston, 1971.
T.
Taylor, Nuremburg and Vietnam:
R.W..
M.M..
M.
R.A.
S.
Random
Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, Harvard University Press, 1980.
G.
E.P..
War,
Thompson and D.
New York, 1981.
An American Tragedy,
Smith, Protest and Survive,
Monthly
Review
Press,
Tucker, The Just War,
Wakin (editor), War, Morality and the Military Profession,
Boulder, Colorado, 1979.
Westview,
Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, Basic Books, New York, 1977.
Wasserstrom (editor)
California, 1970.
War
and
Morality,
Wadsworth,
Zuckerman, Nuclear Illusion and Reality, Collins, London, 1982.
Belmont,
�
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WORKING DRAFT
ON THE ETHICS OF LARGE-SCALE NUCLEAR WAR AND WAR-DETERRENCE
AND THE POLITICAL FALL-OUT
Because of their projected effects - which are said to differ from those of
the
even
largest
difference in kind -
generated,
encounters.
exchanges
either
at
all
wars
nuclear
large-scale
World
(the
wars
conventional
Wars)
raise
to
as
and
not
or nearly so forcefully, by previous human military
Certainly exchanges such as nuclear wars involve,
such
constitute a
questions
ethical
deterrence
nuclear
investigation
is
and
threatened
presupposes, are neither envisaged nor
fully accommodated by traditional theories of just wars.
reflection
as
even
required,
if
Much new
philosohical
well-tested and
rather
old-fashioned moral principles will serve as ethical base.
Nuclear wars - though a fine class of nonexistent object,
is
existence
whose
however best confined to other (already uncomfortably neighbouring) possible
worlds - have several distinctive properties and come in several varieties.
particular,
limited
nuclear
wars
which
(of
tactical
or
strategic
subvarieties) contrast with large-scale nuclear wars, LN-type-wars,
large quantities of nuclear devices over a sizeable region;
two
main
parameters:
are
need
A large-scale nuclear war involves the explosion of
however be unlimited
not
which
In
quantity
it is a function of
of explosive) and distribution.
(megatonnage
Such a war differs markedly from a limited (or tactical
or
strategic)
nuclear
war which is limited - by assumption, the chances of escalation are however very
real
3
- to much smaller quantities of explosives
characteristically
circumscribed,
installations in a given region.
wars
and
their
prevention,
and
where
the
targets
are
confined
to
military
Though the focus in what follows
is
upon
e.g.
limited
in
nuclear
principle
LN
wars are by no means a separate
Page 2
issue, since a nuclear arsenal is
escalation
of
such
are
wars
a
and
prerequisite,
high
probabilities
of
assumptions of
reasonable
usual
(given
the
follow-up or second strike, etc.)
§1.
is
What
different
old
of
appropriateness
and
models
wars:____ the
nuclear
about
theories
resulting
war.
of
limited
model of war that
A
dominates much thinking, including [even] strategic thinking, is the
two
party
4
(or even two person) game or, a complication of that, the clan or tribe battle .
A picture of war built up, especially as a result of medieval discussion of
just
war,
which
inapplicable.
for
such
technological
have
advances
The traditional theory, hardly surprisingly,
phenomena
Dresden and Tokyo.
mass
as
bombing
inappropriate
rendered
no
made
the
and
allowance
large cities, such as occurred with
of
And nuclear bombing, with its many further
crucial
effects
beyond mass bombing, adds further new dimensions.
Yet it is Important, for the argument to
anchors,
historical
linkages
and
to be aware of what counted as war (the semantics of the matter^), and
of when, and why, wars and military actions
Firstly,
retain
were
accounted
unjust
war is essentially a matter of states and their control:
or
wrong.
to elaborate
the OED account, war is ’hostile contention by means of armed forces, carried on
between
nations,
states,
or
rulers, or between parties in the same nation or
state’ for control of the state :
literal,
but
transferred,
antagonists or players;
other
metaphoric,
forces comprising
senses
of
etc.?
States
armed
the
’war’
noun
not
the protagonists,
are
soldiers
are
are
the
means
of
contention or combat, and combat or forceful (typically violent) exchange is the
actual experience.
function
of
remove states:
Thus wars are external or internal (civil),
states or their rule.
but
always,
a
An obvious way then to eliminate wars is to
in short, wars are an outcome of political
structure,
and
are
Page 3
altering the structure .
by
removed
This is an initial reason why the radical
argument against nuclear wars and deterrence devolves into an
argument
the (self-legitimised) war-declarers and war-makers, against states.
the traditional theory, wars
were
restricted
to
external
against
In fact on
which
wars,
were
construed as the right of states or their rulers (princes) for certain political
purposes, the argument being that private persons with grievences had access
the
while
courts,
did not
states
legitimate
(wars were, so to speak, the international
But this is itself a very
analogue of the law courts).
the
9
to
statist
conception
of
the semantics is not so restrictive and permits
place of wars;
internal wars, for example, to end wars.
Let us however - to bring out what is different now - confine attention
a
basic
and most familiar case, external wars between two states or set (axes)
of states, two-player external wars.
games
competitive
could
be
won.
It was assumed
be
well
no
winning strategy.
waste
of
the
Northern
huge surrounding areas of countryside.
hemisphere
and
not
like
a
draw,
or
like
the
strange
out
for
the
simultaneously knock each
other
element,
emphasis
the
inevitable
is
disputes,
removed:
be
pointfully
fought.
Certainly,
elements of gamesmenship had a role
count.)
in
for,
deterrence,
earlier
wars,
(So
where two boxers
situation
on pure deterrence;
that are most elaborately prepared for (exercised
never
the
settled with main protagonists substantially obliterated^, and all
is
is
there
Thus too the point of
main players very substantially worse off than at the outset of the "play".
it
like
An LN war could involve destruction of all
war as traditionally seen, to settle serious interstate
nothing
wars,
that
With LN wars it no longer holds;
main Western metropolitan agglomerations in
laying
firstly
That assumption still held good for massive
armed exchanges such as the World Wars.
may
to
Hence
another
newer
the phenomenon of wars
etc.),
but
which
can
bluff,
and
the other
it
was
not
but
pure
Page 4
deterrence.
to
principle
important,
Most
military
next,
traditional
and
targets
military
gross ways to uninvolved parties sacrifice
effects
nuclear
of
large nuclear wars cannot
(presented
horrifying
in
be
confined in
be
could
This
exchanges.
feature
is
for, as we shall see, wars that spill over in
fundamental as regards just wars;
special
wars
any
The
morality.
to
pretension
explosives, especially in mass, mean however that
legitimately
detail
in
confined.
popular
These
effects
special
sources such as Schell) include
radioactivity, ozone destruction, shockwaves, fireball or firestorm devastation,
etc., etc .
. ..
The moral situation, and the tendency of moral
§2.
entirely
in the context of war.
submerged
case of war to maintain a firm grasp on the
expediency.
What
is
to
considerations
become
It is particularly important in the
distinction
between
morality
done in war, especially for local or national advantage,
may be very different from what ought morally to be done, whether the latter
ought not to be
done
codes and conventions of war, or otherwise
in
war
is
done,
despite
modern
.
military
conventions and the like, for one (alleged) advantage or another.
live in a rather barbarous age:
go
unremarked,
if
so
numbing,
codes
the history gets written (accurately) that is.
tends
13
to
induce
a
and
Militarily we
will
the horrors of the twentieth century
military thinking and strategic planning
is
A
,
Much that
12
the
using
determined
and
not
Furthermore
certain
moral
that a range of morally excluded actions, such as wiping our rural
populations, become real ("moral’') possibilities, to be reckoned,
for
example,
into consequentialist calculations of maximising expediency.
The reason is that
strategic planning is characteristically based on expediency
(and
extent
displaces
morality).
so
to
that
For each side in a military encounter determines
its "strategy" by considering only its own advantages and disadvantages, its own
gains
and
losses
as a result of alternative possible moves, not, as it ought,
Page 5
those of the other side(s) as well.
Indeed it has been contended that war should be planned and conducted
way,
no-holds-barred-combat fought to the maximal (local) advantage, without
a
limits, moral or other (except insofar as technology limits the means of
etc.,
themselves).
Such
is
the
And Clausowicz tries to
repeated.
argue,
through
14
an
be
broken
by
player
each
in
from
And the argument is inconclusive;
c
Thus too an
It would follow
for the
players
from
the
can
choose
15
A state engaged in war - this will no doubt include nuclear
nowadays
war
sees itself as entirely bound by constraints of morality:
to be mere prudence on the part
no-immoral-holds-barred
of
approach
those
they
attacked
to
take
-
seldom
it is taken
account
of
the
may well encounter, especially from the
So each group potentially engaged in war forces
other side.
the
question
not
as to what it ought to do in morally permissible situations, but also both
what it ought really do and what it can do in the morally flawed
finds
enforced)
escalate, and, for example, agree to abide by arranged practices, types
to
of weapons, etc.
only
The
that the idea of a limited war is some sort of contradiction in terms.
But it is not.
not
escalation
externally
for advantage.
turn
extraordinarily narrow motivational base is assumed.
argument
incremental
), that there can be no limit.
assumption is that any merely selected (as distinct
will
force,
so-called "classic" view of Clausowicz, oft
argument (but really "the bald man" fallacy
limit
this
itself
in.
But
last
the
question
does
not
then
situations
it
reduce to one of
expediency.
There is
expediency,
involves.
no
question
of
morality
giving
or
having
to
give
way
to
for instance under extreme circumstances such as prospect of LN war
For it is not as if shaky considerations of morality are bound to
to
Page 6
give
not only
firm ground of expediency when the chips are down:
the
to
way
does this in fact often enough not happen in crises situations, but the fact
that
is
both morality and expediency fall within the same, equally shaky or solid,
Expediency does not (meticulously) deliver us from
domain of value theory.
fact, but simply takes narrowly-construed local advantage or power as
to
value
what is valuable, as what matters;
family,
that
urges
values
local
-
of
self,
region or nation - are what really count and override or
class,
clan,
it
are to be maximized at the expense of
remote
or
considerations.
foreign
By
morality requires, as a matter of its proper characterisation, a much
contrast,
more universal distribution of value
thereby
the
through
imposes,
requirements
general
of
universalizable
intersubstitutivity
resultant
equillbity
fairness,
of the same results not holding when x and y are interchanged, under
Not
evaluations 16.
certain
principles,
justice.
and
and
principles,
The
deep
expediency derives from the failure of interreplacement,
of
unsatisfactoriness
so
and
only
can
expediency
be given a deontic presentation, as
expediency
through such slogans as "might is right", but theories or utility do not have to
be
positions
of
expediency
utilitarianism proper —
morality,
which
if
can
utility
meet
not
is
locally
intersubstltutivity
Thus
confined.
requirements
of
unlike the war game theory, does not assign different weights
which,
to (say) the individual utility of Americans as opposed to Russians — is not
to
be dismissed as considering only expediency.
There are however significant moral differences, between
and
utilitarians
17
deontologists especially, which serve to further complicate the moral picture
Thus utilitarian approaches have seemed to
justify
ugly
strategies
and
practices
render
as
morally
regards
deontological principles would not permit (even with the
convenient
law
of
double
effects).
But
this
is
permissible
enemy
best
already
or
civilians,
bending
to
of
to
that
the
effect some
Page 8
Characteristically, national interest is taken
to
differently,
to
override
morality
impose Irresistible ethical claims that dominate more ordinary
ethical considerations (such as even the immorality of killing millions).
as
or,
Schell puts it,
Thus,
’What is being claimed is that one or two countries have the
right to jeopardise all countries and their descendents in the name
certain
of
beliefs’ (II, p.70).
But morally national interest can do neither of those things.
simply
the
The first is
substitution of expediency for morality, which entirely lacks moral
justification, while
second,
the
the
alleged
moral
dominance
of
national
fails in important classes of cases, including, so the argument will
Interests,
go, the case of LN war.
States may insist upon operating on a selfish national interest basis,
let
it
not
pretended
be
expediency (’’group
governments.
Morality
it
is
a moral basis as distinct from one of
There
is
no
that
egoism’’).
works
in
the
special
dispensation
moral
For
example,
what
ought
be
to
as
regards
x
semantically, what would happen as regards x in all ideal worlds;
no
difference
x
is
an
individual
or
States such as Israel (in its recent
organisation.
behaving
whether
just
as
immorally
as
brigands
individual
invasion
or mass killers:
difference.
Certainly there are grounds on which states or
claimed
been conceded special moral dispensations;
or
for
same way for groups as for individuals:
there is no logical difference in the pattern of justification, or
obligation.
but
are no more than that and do not stand up to criticism.
of
analysis
is,
analysed
and it
makes
system, group or
of
are
Lebanon)
there is no moral
their
agents
have
but the excuses offered
A
satisfactory
moral
theory cannot furnish two (Incompatible) moralities, a state or public one and a
private or individual citizen one - state expediency and individual
morality
-
Page 7
partisanship - since utilitarians would
the
reject
description
practices
of
permitted under their principles as ’ugly’ - and an objective in what follows is
to avoid metaethlcal partisanship, to achieve metaethical, though of course
moral,
neutrality.
argument can begin.
several
And morally there is a large area of consensus
Virtually all positions
cities
major
in
agree
that
the
18
not
from which
obliteration
of
a LN war would be wrong - indeed morally outrageous.
Where there is dissension, as there may be among nuclear strategists who seem to
feel
qualms
no
when it comes to trading loss of some American cities for some
Russian ones, simply increase the costs involved, up to loss of whole nations if
necessary,
then try to work down again.
until moral repugnance is encountered;
The fact remains however that things have got substantially out of
perspective,
Strategic thinking, in particular, has tended to abandon, or suppress
morally.
moral considerations (as indeed many theories of the state also pretend to do).
Naturally the fact of broad consensus as to the morality of the matter does
not
mean that there are none who would welcome such outrageous happenings, that
total nuclear destruction of the North even, would be
Consider
the
world empire.
be
realised.
rising
southern
(hemisphere)
no
one’s
While the superpowers of the north remain SS’s dream
Thus
his
best
strategy,
exchange
in
the
North.
There
advantage.
strongman, SS, who has visions of
will
can
be
to
a
encourage
point
an
all-out
then in securing
institutional arrangements so that potential SS’s do not accumulate much
especially
given
the
that is to anticipate:
has
its
limitations,
structural adjustments.
hardly
rid of southern waters of US
having
submarines and southern lands of US bases, is to try
nuclear
to
power,
apparent instability of crucial world arrangements.
the present point is that (the fact of) moral
and
is
an
inadequate
But
consensus
constraint without accompanying
Page 9
19
because this would lead to violations of substitutivity , neutrality, etc.
instance, a state operative x could use state
cover
morally impermissible ways, ways ruled out (e.g.
y are permuted.
derivative
A group or organisation or
in
consideration
can
but
role,
bound
be
by
moral principles.
special
these are derivative
principles, good for any such institution, which fit within and answer
general
in
y
by state interests) when x and
person
its
of
virtue
citizen
damage
to
For
back
to
So it is also with a state which is an institutional
arrangement justified (insofar as it is) by the way it answers back to some
least)
its
of
citizens:
its
(at
charter does not legitimate emergent allegedly
moral principles which conveniently coincide with those of state expediency.
particular,
In
state is not (morally) entitled to risk the lives of many of its
a
own citizens and of other peoples and creatures for its own ends, even
its
for
own survival.
§3.
Arguments to the Immorality of LN wars.
can
which
set
be
since
aside,
the
concede that war per se is not a crime.
but
pacifist
positions
immorality of LN wars follows at once -
Not all wars are immoral,
though
states.
aristocratic
Among
young
men
admissible
wars
are
the
external
tournaments
or
of
or warriors who volunteer as soldiers where the action
does not spill over onto noncombatants, and some early and medieval wars,
few
even
wars may be pointless or inferior ways of settling political issues
inoffensive
between
All
no combatants even were killed in war.
where
Since the establishment of such
induction practices as conscription and recruitment of the near-destitute,
have
largely
ceased
to take these inoffensive forms:
far removed from the ideal
ecotopian
literature
war-tournament
(where
type,
that
its position is dubious).
immoral, but few to such an extent as LN wars.
wars
modern massive wars are
features
now
only
in
Most sorts of wars are
Page 10
argument
The first key
to
(1KA)
the
of
(and
wars
LN
of
immorality
sufficiently large-scale wars generally) takes the following form:
Pi.
The deliberate killing in mass of noncombatants is wrong.
Pli.
LN wars involve the killing in mass of noncombatants.
(KA)
What involves what is wrong is wrong.
Piii .
LN wars are wrong.
J
Supplementary remarks are called for:- Firstly, the
(1KA)
is
one
just
representative
of
a
Characteristically, in Western culture, it
is
arguments
of
that
thought
argument
given
of
type.
mass
this
taken
But the focus can be
off
the
killing:
destruction
of
a first variation on (KA) replaces ’killing
the
is
basis
of
may
each
be
attacked
of its premisses.
wrong
is
as
There
slack
by
a
has
in
effect
been
Let us consider these in
that
what
involves
are,
in
particular,
such
those generated by Good Samaritan arguments, which purport to show
that some proper obligations involve wrongdoing.
too
noncombatants’
wrong, often expanded to a "distribution of obligation over
entailment" principle, has been challenged.
problems
(and
The principle, Piii, used in the argument,
reverse order.
what
of
Other variations will emerge in the discussion.
but
The argument is valid,
on
mass
Thus
concerning ’huge destruction of lifestyle of uninvolved or not
clause
directly involved creatures’.
attacked)
in
of
lifestyle
nonhumans and humans alike that an LN war will bring is sufficiently evil.
suitable
of
killing
about the worst thing that can happen (after the killing of police).
is
humans
set
particular
a
notion
of
involvement;
linked to paradox-free entailment
20
But the problems
derive
from
with a tighter Involvement connective,
, the problems disappear, and Piii stands.
Page 11
As against Pii, it may be
legitimately
argued
against
directed
nuclear
that
military
targets.
wars
can
encounters
be
But given the character of
nuclear weapons, LN wars could in no way be confined to such targets.
merely the likelihood that many missiles explode off target.
not
the other effects of large-scale nuclear bombings, for example
down-wind
fallout
There
is
There are all
the
radioactive
military targets, which in the case of US and European
from
targets especially will effect large concentrations of people, Including therein
perhaps uninvolved countries such as Canada.
There may be an attempt to avoid the problem of massive civilian casualties
by
appeal
to such dubious principles as the doctrine of double effect (or side
21
effect)
If missiles were characteristically
was
which
intended
only
to
destroy
an
reliably
underground
unmanned
unfortunately went off course and destroyed a large city, it
the
that
Such claims should be rejected:
not
wrongness
lessened
could make a difference;
for
firing
the city.
the
and
one
missile silo
could
be
claimed
mass destruction is legitimised under the double effect
(unintended)
principle.
target,
on
the action would be wrong, and
by the given intention.
the
Nonetheless the circumstances
for they may mitigate attitudes to
those
responsible
missile, since it was not as if they had deliberately aimed at
The double effect principle confuses [diminution of]
the
allocation
of responsibility for an act with the [diminution of] wrongness of the act.
As against Pi, and as regards the middle term of Pi
argued
that there is an important equivocation.
the bracketed term,
killing
’deliberate’.
While it will
and
Pii,
it
may
be
The equivocation is induced by
be
that
admitted
deliberate
of genuine innocents is impermissble , it will be contended firstly that
they
noncombatants, insofar
as
innocent,
directly
many
being
are
distinguishable,
involved
in
are
by
no
means
all
military effort, whether just as
Page 12
taxpayers or as suppliers of goods
farmers
or
services
used
innocent.
second
The
point
Because Pii so amended in less defensible, and/or other reasons,
discussed.
leave
to
out the "modifier" ’deliberate’.
of
the perpetrators.
it
What is important for the
present purposes is the moral status of what is done, not that
motives
e.g.
military,
a much narrower - and less defensible - version of premiss Pll already
concerns
best
the
and secondly LN wars do not involve the
or bootmakers or entertainers;
deliberate killing of those properly excluded as
is
by
mixed
with
the
So ’deliberate’ is out, equivocation is avoided,
22
Pii stands, and so does
Pl.
For
not
does
Pi
’deliberate’, or ’intentional’ or the like.
require
the
qualification
Admittedly also ’noncombatant’ is a
fuzzy term, but none the worse for that, and there
is
no
problem
serious
in
marking out a class of clear noncombatants, people who are not directly involved
in the command and action chains.
practice,
deriving
from
There is, moreover,
Catholicism,
of
no
need
to
the
adopt
stating an initial version of Pi in
terms of innocents - at least as problematic a class as that of noncombatants to
try
to characterize - and then endeavouring to make the difficult transition to
noncombatants.
Not only can arguments against the premisses of the argument be met,
art
arguments
for
the
premisses, though for the substantive moral premiss Pi
they are of the characteristically nonconclusive moral sort
vary somewhat with the underlying ethical theory.
and
will
tend
seriously
understate
the
point)
minimal respect owed to them as persons
doing
so
23
The argument from historical requirements on just wars
from
convergence.
conclusion
that
fails to treat them with the
§4.
The
to
For example, one argument for
Pi, and for objecting to the killing of noncombatants, is the Kantian one,
(to
there
that
and
the
argument
LN wars cannot be justly waged - and
Page 13
accordingly are unjustified - is not merely something dreamed up by contemporary
opponents
The same conclusion falls out of various traditional requirements, worked
etc).
out
America or of the capitalist State (and communistically inspired,
of
times
mdeieval
in
just
for
variant on the key argument (1KA).
was
justly
that
not
it
be
One of the requirements gives but a
wars.
For a necessary condition for fighting a war
the
that
case
noncombatants are bound to be killed (cf.
numbers
large
[innocent]
of
Barnes, p.775).
A just war requires just means, that the war should be
fought
morally
by
which
implies in particular that there is no indiscriminate
killing of noncombatants.
The implied principle was escapsulated in a principle
legitimate
of
means,
(between combatants and others) which ’prohibits all actions
discrimination
directly Intended to take the lives of
p.312)
24
civilians
and
of
(PL,
noncombatants’
LN wars, where not only military installations are targeted, violate
.
U.
.
25
this requirement
Overlapping the requirement of just means is that of
proportion being that of net evil to net good):
’the damage to be inflicted and
costs Incurred by the war must be proportionate to the good expected
up
arms’
(PL,
p.312).
disproportionate
to
moral
goods
proportionality requirement is
criterion
of
by
the
which
achieved
in
doctrine
"improvement" through war :
not
are
of
that
nationally
way.
confined,
overall
consequences
of
abstaining
improvement "puts wrongs to rights":
"ameliorative"
conditions
and
war
according to the first,
justly
the
’X wages war
bad,
from war’ (Barnes, p.72).
’A nation wages war
are
Entangled with the
justly upon y if the overall consequences of war are better, or less
the
taking
is not difficult to see that LN wars violate this
It
the damage and costs,
requirement:
(the
proportionality
only
than
Similarly
if
the
for that nation or the wronged nation it is supporting have a decent
Page 14
chance of being better after the fighting ends’ (Wakin, p.20).
way
LN war can in no
satisfy these conditions, as scenarios depicting the aftermath of such wars
reveal.
Some of the lesser requirements for a just war are infringed
wars;
LN
It seems that there can
for example, that of reasonable expectation of success.
be no reasonable expectation of success in an LN
by
war,
the
whatever
prospects of success with more limited nuclear exchanges.
(limited)
What is less clearcut
is the question of whether LN wars conflict with the requirements of just
cause
or due fault and of right intention.
For this depends on the sensitive issue of
the weight assigned to what are seen
as
basic
rights
human
and
fundamental
values, and the extent to which just wars can be ideologically justified.
the
mainstream
justified
position
and
wars
definitively excluded
however,
in
puzzling
of
medieval
"humanitarian"
by
the
over
decisive against LN wars.
theory
wars
(cf.
traditional
was
opposed
to
While
ideologically
Barnes, p.778), these were not
theory.
There
is
merit,
little
dubiously effective requirements, when so many are
Finally, these arguments from historical requirements
do not violate prescriptive requirements:
the argument is not a simple argument
from historical authority, but also
premisses
uses
requirements imposed (and used) were justified.
the
to
effect
that
the
As they are.
In the Christian tradition there were two main strands of reflection on the
moral
rightness
or
justness
of
wars
9A
,
the
just
war
theory
and a rival
pacificist strand, prominent in early Christianity, but submerged from Augustine
on until contemporary times.
Both exclude nuclear wars, one strand because they
are inevitably unjust, the other because they are wars and
This
is
the
involve
violence
beginning of the convergence argument against nuclear wars:
such wars are excluded from all ethical perspectives, once
expediency
is
27
that
duly
Page 15
The detailed argument
They are morally wrong however you look at it.
removed.
is an exhaustive case by case one, from each type of moral theory.
can
details
For deontological and contractual theories lead back
be shortcut.
to requirements for a just war,
violate.
Fortunately
which
it
has
already
shown,
been
In fact conditions for just wars were sometimes arrived at or defended
through principles of such moral theories, so that a good deal of the
work
argumentative
already
has
brand
utilitarian
of
finally accomplished;
for
such
and
is
adopted,
not
is
far
to
have
effect
in
shown
pleasure,
reason
The
wars Involves such massive
that
this
dominates
genuine alternative to LN war is better
or
28
outlined
against
overwhelming moral case against such wars.
wars
LN
do
not
exhaust
the
For there are other moral principles
(derivative in some of the theories just considered) which the waging of
war would violate.
in
are accomplished in utilitarian fashion, so that any
they
The arguments given
LN
that
utility maximisation is
however
seek:
infliction of pain and colossal removal of
however
others
requisite
latter point holds also as
LN wars are excluded on utilitarian grounds.
convergence
assessments
The
done.
been
regards utilitarianism, where Lackey
whatever
wars
LN
an
LN
Among such principles are conservative ones, that we have an
obligation to maintain the earth in proper shape and not
degrade
its
systems,
that we have a responsibility to future generations, to whom we are accountable,
to "pass the world on" not in substantially worse condition
it".
Such
conservative
principles
than
we
"received
- however they are finally satisfactorily
formulated - are bound to be violated in the event of an LN war.
§5.
The shift to
nuclear
lobby
nuclear
arguments
deterrence:
to
its
immorality.
The
has a way of halting, and if not defeating, certainly deflating,
arguments against
the
immorality
of
LN
wars,
namely
there
is
no
actual
Page 16
such
any
In
engagement
wars.
different from engagement in
war:
LN
being done is, it is claimed, quite
is
What
is
deterrence
indeed
important
most
precisely in preventing such wars from ever occurring, as well as in maintaining
(other) fundamental [Western] values.
obtaining
desiderata.
both
is
deterrence
pronouncements,
claims
The
reasons:- A first reason is that
Indeed it is the only
there
are
is
much
for
more
than
deterrence can account neither for
strategy
military
Western
disarmament to
expected
be
On
deterrence.
29
the
despite
For if it
and sometimes even a drive for superiority.
this,
actual
nuclear
of
In fact there has been a
were "sufficiency" to deter would be an adequate goal.
quest
that,
evidence
the - the only - military goal.
not
way
dubious, for several
decidedly
too
practical
nor
weapons
for
Pure
orthodox
Nor has deterrence set in motion the process of
.
to
armaments
reduce
"its"
under
contrary,
to
levels
impulse
there
sufficient
has
for
been almost
unlimited acceleration in building arms (PL, p.318, quotes inserted).
Another
of
deterrence
reason
for
the
type
serious
that
is
doubt
being
concerns
other reasons also, connected
with
pure
deterrence
The reasons include the
for
nuclear
war
and
with
to
For
original
(its
threatening
posture
deterrence
for, the propaganda that must be promulgated to maintain credibility with
a population whose interests are being
etc.
conditions
the "cold war", the probability of a LN war has increased considerably
in the last 30 years.
calls
factor:
to that extent, at least, enhanced its prospects of occurring.
and
setting)
probability
practised, which involves full-scale
preparation for nuclear war, has prepared the
occur,
the
The
"sacrificed"
for
objectives,
situation has now been reached where many theorists think there is a
high probability at least of an LN war this century, i.e.
certainly
military
be
before 2000.
It
can
argued - though there seems no way to make any such a probability
argument at all tight, and it may be demonstrable that it cannot be made tight -
Page 17
that there is a non-negligible probability of an LN war before 2000.
If it is wrong that X should occur, then it is also wrong that
Cl.
be
But
highly
probably
that
should
it
X occur, and it is wrong to increase the probability
that X occur.
This is the first
several
of
connecting
doxastic
mapping
principles
moral
considerations against LN war into arguments against deterrence of LN war by the
perverse practice of preparing for it and thereby helping "to
the sense of raising the probability).
(in
it
bring
about"
But like most principles in ethics,
Cl requires complication to avoid defeat by counterexamples.
The second part of
Cl encounters apparent trouble where clash of principles occurs.
Thus it may be
argued that it is permissible to increase the probability that X occurs to avoid
a
greater
Consider for example the pilot who increases the probability
evil.
that the passenger plane he is flying crashes in order to
aircraft
troubled
does
not
make
hit city apartment buildings
30
.
sure
Such a defeating
condition does not apply in the case of nuclear deterrence where
is
there
(though
of principles) wrongness of a practice is not offset or removed by
clash
a
the
that
its role in avoiding greater evil.
It can be argued that it is;
argument
from
the
previous
such is part of
success
of
the
deterrence.
point
of
the
popular
This inductive argument
deserves little more credence than the racing driver’s argument, perhaps from
similar
that because he hasn’t had a fatal crash yet (despite some
base,
time
a
close calls), he won’t.
There are, furthermore, reasons for concluding
continue
to
work.
of
will
not
One is the deterrence depends upon judgements regarding the
other side, which may be mistaken:
perception
deterrence
that
what
strategy
’each
is
is
at
rational",
the
mercy
what
kind
the
of
of
other’s
damage
is
Page 18
one
"unacceptable", how "convincing"
Not
p.313).
threat
side’s
other’
the
(PL.
as
rational,
regards
limited
but there must be severe doubts as to whether rational principles
war,
As to the last consider, for example, the
are operating effectively.
idea
to
is there evidence that one side (the USA) has misjudged the
only
other side’s (the USSR’s) perception of what is
nuclear
is
(already
erroneous
to, as held in high places of power) that LN war can be
alluded
survived in rudimentary shelters, and also won.
Deterrence consists in preventing something (often some wrong) by
threats
including
31
OED) .
(cf.
fright
For most
people
without
not
Immoral
destruction of New York.)
deterrence,
that
is
his graphic descriptions
But though deterrence per
deterrence
from
suchmeans is of course not immoral.
publishing
in
them
LN
expense, trouble and wastage of preparing to
enormous
And deterrence by
engage in them.
was
the
all
or
scenarios
vivid
portraying the horror or LN wars would serve adequately to deter
wars,
fear
by
complete
se
is
the
of
(Schell
nuclear
permissible,
war
preparation of the object to be
prevented, is not, where this object Itself is not
permissible.
The
argument
for this is through the principle
C2.
If X is wrong then complete preparation of X is wrong.
Hence since LN wars are wrong and war-deterrence implies
of LN wars is wrong.
war—deterrence
X is just as bad as doing X:
Y.
preparation,
It is not being claimed that preparing for
Y and Z may both be wrong and Z (much) worse
than
, 32
What is wrong is by no means uniformly evil
Principle C2
principles:
a
part
is
way
succeeds
or
down
the
line
in
a
series
of
connecting
principle of the same sort that it higher in the series is that
connecting X with attempted X:
X
complete
not
33
.
But
if X is wrong then attempted X is wrong, whether
the
series
ends;
it cuts off well before mere
Page 19
intentionality, contrary to the claims
example,
it
does
various
of
religious
For
positions.
not follow that if X is wrong then the contemplation of X is
wrong or that mere non-action-oriented consideration of carrying out X is wrong.
The
applies
point
nightmares.
or
war,
equally
sexual fantasies, power fantasies, and nuclear
to
In particular there is nothing
reflecting
upon
it,
as we are:
wrong
nuclear
nuclear wars, even if their horrors
don't bear thinking on, are not unthinkable, and in
thinkable.
contemplating
with
some
senses
are
all
too
Indeed one of the reasons why the connecting principles hold is that
each involves decidedly increased probability of the evil
outcome
it
connects
Accompanying the increased probability are certain sets of reprehensible
with.
these are not those
attitudes tied to the action the evil outcome involves;
mere passive contemplation
of
34
this
War-deterrence involves not only war preparation, but announcement of
accompanied by threats and a threatening posture.
For some party, the potential
enemy, has to be frightened, if deterrence is to succeed.
This aspect of (war-)
deterrence yields a further connecting principle,
If X is wrong then threatening X is also wrong.
C3.
is
wrong
to do ...
then
the
declared
Intent
put
to
that
Intending to do wrong is wrong, and so also is
favourable
circumstances
for
one’s
alternatively be argued semantically:
(e.g.
into
Intending
position
committing
35
.
rape)
The
is
practice is also wrong.
to
prevail.
if a world with X
'What
Ramsey:
is wrong to threaten ...’ (quoted in Walzer p.272)
reason is that if putting something into practice
wrong
Thus too
is
do
wrong
The
never
unless
point
ideal
can
then
neither is a world in which X is only conditionally blocked, in which X may well
occur.
Page 20
By detachment from the connecting principles - one sound one would
but
logically,
defensible
three
ones is good measure - nuclear deterrence by
preparation for and threat of LN war is
This
wrong.
also
reveals
suffice
Deterrence
wrong.
of
this
type
the suggestion that the morality of the whole
why
deterrence thing depended on war itself never occurring was so bizarre:
connections between war and war-deterrence.
the
out
is
it left
War-deterrence should not
be practised any more than nuclear war itself should be engaged in - unless
directions can be drastically changed (e.g.
its
at least limited, per impossible in
the case of nuclear, to purely military targets).
There are other concomitant reasons for
the
Firstly,
with
dissatisfaction
deterrence.
it has provided (nuclear peace, as there is no shortage of
peace
small-scale conventional wars) is at least a tenuous peace, which is not stable,
liable
but
upset at any stage by a range of factors, including error (both
to
It does not offer genuine peace, of the sort required for
human and technical).
a
international life, but only a fragile "peace of a sort" (PL, p.316).
stable
Secondly, there is enormous cost, the
because
on
expenditure
it
moral
excludes
Bishops put their point in a surprising
opportunity
urgent
other
by
Marxist
cost
of
deterrence,
The US
moral priorities.
way:
in
terms
of
’the
between what is spent for destructive capacity and what is needed
contradiction
for constructive development’ (PL, p.316).
§6.
The
and
super-states;
arguments to
persuasive
prudential
practical,
the
the
resulting
arguments
(that
have
war
persuaded
justifiability of nuclear war preparation in
basic
argument
is
simply
an
elaboration,
build-up
nuclear
situation.
moral-fix
nuclear
of
immorality
to
argument
Not
preparation;
many
the
or
theorists)
present
of
the
only are there
there
to
are
the
circumstances.
also
moral
The
state-uplift, of that for the
Page 21
escalation of weapons at the local level, for acquiring a gun or for stocking-up
the
armoury [and every bit as doubtful as that argument].
neighbourhood
that nuclear preparation,
first
danger:
of
nuclear destruction.
blackmail,
’so we have
been
told,
against
guards
all atomic blackmail and foreign domination;
The two
together,
go
since
if
did
we
double
the
and second of
not
the
fear
we might adopt a policy of appeasement or surrender and so avoid the
destruction’ (Walzer, p.273).
In fact it is supposed to guard against more than
there is a crucial third element, namely, loss of basic rights (freedom,
these;
equality, etc.) and fundamental values (preservation of
etc.)
and
ways of life integrated with these.
truth,
dignity,
human
This further set of elements is
linked to the danger of foreign domination - which is really a separate
from
It is
risk
blackmail.
of
element
Though foreign domination need not imply the loss of
most basic values it does imply the loss of at least of one, self-determination,
freedom
to choose various national objectives;
conversely loss or infringement
of basic values can occur without foreign domination, e.g.
of
by
internal
change
government or governmental approach, by the increased security and control a
nuclear state demands, etc.
values,
through
Nuclear destruction can also involve loss of
destruction
but the converse does not hold.
basic
of the material base of the cherished life-style;
It should be observed that not all
the
values
concerned are equally fundamental:
one of the main values of deterrence theory,
the resistance to and
of
containment
"communism",
is
questionable
this
in
regard.
The theme is, in short,
NA.
Because of multiple (connected)
states)
which
have
nuclear
dangers
from
another
state
(or
other
weapons, a state - any state that is too large to
rely upon other states - is obliged to invest in [matching] nuclear weapons.
Page 22
Hence, by detachment, a nation-state, such as USA, ought to
order
the
of
nuclear
armoury
that
it
something
have
in
has, or, weakening the theme to meet
objections concerning excess, "overkill", capacity, at least a solid core of the
nuclear
devices
it
has.
out whether the obligation is a moral one,
Sorting
because for instance of the character of the values supposedly being
merely
or
one
protected,
of prudential reason - it is presumably somewhat more than mere
expediency - can be set aside for the present.
On the
same
basis
it
can
be
argued that unilateral disarmament against a dangerous nuclear opponent would be
prudentially irrational.
It can be freely admitted that what is prudentially required is,
like
the
common strategies of the prisoners’ dilemma situation and of certain competitive
games, a suboptimal strategy;
sufficient
trust,
that a
superior
strategy
for
adversaries,
if
etc., could be achieved, would be a cooperative arrangement.
Joint agreement would be better not merely in removing the moral dilemma, but in
a
range of other respects:
it would be much less risky, expensive, draining of
resources and destructive of the environment, etc.
However for the present
and
the foreseeable future the prospects of cooperation appear, so we are repeatedly
told, unfortunately rather remote:
or
the only sure insurance is nuclear
if one is a smaller nation, a larger ally who has an arsenal.
force
(Here a level
of trust is called for which is far from foolproof, and which contrasts strongly
with
the
lack of trust displayed elsewhere.)
The nuclear theme for a middling
or lesser power is a bit different from NA and ends rather as follows:
MA.
Because ..., a state that cannot rely on
obliged
ally.
its
own
nuclear
resources
is
to accommodate the nuclear installations and facilities of a protecting
Page 23
Principle MA is not very plausible, nor are the
for
substitutes
obvious
Not only MA but also NA, is now coming under question by disarmament
it ° .
who
groups,
more
challenge
the
basic
assumptions
of
the
underlying
general
retaliatory model that
Safely lies in weapons, and
1)
More weapons imply more security
ii)
37
Certainly, for more isolated states, such as New Zealand,
lies
attack
submarines).
more
of
a
in
excluding
nuclear
facilities
from
safety
nuclear
(including visits from nuclear
Europeans are arguing in a similar way, that the present system is
risk
[liability] than a protection (p.251, Thompson);
nuclear installations, Europe cannot be the
envisaged
and without
for
theatre
a
limited
nuclear war it is now seen as by US (but not Soviet) strategists.
Once i) and ii) are questioned, other assumptions of the retaliatory
model
and its variants come up for examination, namely
iii)
iv)
Whether the proper response to danger is armament, in particular
Whether the proper response is through nuclear armament, as
opposed
to other military responses (such as conventional arms),
and generalising on part of Hi),
v)
Whether military approaches/procedures (through armaments, etc.)
the
proper
is
method, or should be the method, of conflict resolution
at the international level.
It is plausibly argued against military procedures that at no ordinary level
do
we set about meeting danger or settling disputes by acquiring lethal weapons and
threatening to use them - except perhaps
warranted,
frontier
ethics.
But
on
an
out-dated,
and
never
really
this takes us into the issue of alternative
defence systems, an important matter beginning to
obtain
the
contemporary
38
explanation it deserves, but one that already anticipates subsequent questioning
Page 24
While the state system is intact,
of the framework of nation-states.
not
and
exceptional
inevitable:
according
military
to
is
are
to
be expected and are likely
permanent place
in
the
procedures
’force has [a] ...
force
nation-state
system’
Ramsey (p.xv) who uses this as part of his case for a nuclear war
doctrine.
far
Assembling the arguments so
to as the nuclear fix:-
referred
hereafter
developed
engage
to
sections)
it
is
and
immoral,
in war-deterrence, for prudential reasons (as argued using NA
This dilemma is no idle construction
and MA).
dilemma,
deontic
States both ought not to engage in
war-deterrence, because (as argued in previous
ought
the
yields
(concocted
to
demonstrate
of paraconsistent logic), but a serious real-life dilemma, the outlines
virtues
of which are repeatedly encountered in texts on nuclear war and its aspects
The nuclear fix is in part simply a more intense
dilemma
beyond
produced
purely
by
itself^,
war
military
typically
transport,
(since
targets
rely
on
or
version
of
deontic
the
civilian ones).
e.g.
arrangements,
military
rail
The main dilemma arises from a
War is
required
for defence of the state and values it upholds (or pretends to uphold);
also involves immoral acts and evil consequences.
also
seen
be
’some
The doctrine
"just
of
justifications
of
war
evil
alm
are
consequences
to
morally
war’
(Walls, p.260).
dilemmas, e.g.
most
difficult
war"
the
aegis
War and preparedness for war also generate subsidiary
a severe tension between freedom and
problems
justified.
show that actions deemed normally
forbidden by moral mandates are now permissible when performed under
of
but war
as attempting a reconciliation by trying to show that under
certain circumstances these really
Thus
39
at least war which spreads inevitably
combination of the retaliatory model with the features of war.
can
the
of
war
Involves
authority:
defending
a
’one
of
the
free society without
Page 25
destroying the values that give it meaning and validity’ (PL, p.324).
The essential feature of a moral dilemma is that both A and the negation of
A
are
well
essential role of moral dilemmas is not widely or
literature
41
The place and
(or differently, obligatory), for some suitable A.
wrong
.
positions
Moreover
understood
utilitarianism
like
cannot
ethical
in
at all easily
accommodate moral dilemmas or the data which gives rise to them - but then
such
positions do not really offer reportive accounts of wrong and obligation anyway.
Contrary to utilitarian perceptions a dilemma
does
not
any
have
necessarily
moral solution, though there may be better and worse ways out.
Reactions and responses that are characteristic of
the
from
nuclear
moral
dilemmas
There is an unsteadiness, an uncertainty as to what to
fix.
do, which way to proceed, which principles in watered-down form to
temporary
Thus,
crutch.
for
world’
best"
42
as
a
of
way
"morally
never
our
exercising
moral
, that is in a morally-strapped world.
ethical
Bishops who
the
of
’strictly
conditional’
moral fix.
Deterrence has a strictly temporary role
but
can
be
responsibility
a
shift
"morally
in a fallen
to
a
’moral
"second
acceptability’
try to escape ’the paradox of deterrence’, i.e.
while
acceptability,
good",
A similar
deterrence
we
as
(as from good to acceptable) is made by the US Catholic
functor
speak
grasp
example, the Bishop of London contends that the
possession of nuclear weapons ’while
acceptable"
emerge
the
object
must
and
strictly
be to move beyond deterrence,
of
from the
conditional
’towards a
world free of the threat of deterrence’ (PL, p.317), out of the nuclear fix.
To make matters worse the nuclear fix
is
is,
not
furthermore,
a
fix
of
(more
something they happened into, by
affluent)
states’
accident.
The initial nuclear involvement was deliberately chosen, primarily by
USA,
and
the
own
making.
It
escalation has by and large also been deliberately chosen, again
Page 26
In these respects the situation is like that
often by the USA.
who
person
deliberately lets perself to be involved in two incompatible relations, and
that
currency,
of
adoption
nuclear
is
the
that
nuclear
build-up.
The recent (1980)
programme is to be in addition to existing
are
(which
Soviet
USA Initiated nuclear armament, and has frequently led
escalation, and apparently still does.
resources
some
weaponry, and nuclear build-up, in North
America occurred on a defensive basis in response to
fact
with
It is a myth, though one
builds up conflicting obligations thereby.
The
the
of
generally
United
strategic
be already in excess of
to
agreed
States’
Russia’s, and which always have been so) (Thompson, p.21).
The present dilemma is then a direct outcome
advanced
of
state
policy,
especially
by
capitalist nations, and not merely a response to the Soviets (or state
socialism).
There is a two-way connection between world political arrangements
and
nation-states
the
nuclear
fix.
On
the
one
hand,
situation
increasingly
is
political arrangements
/ Q
;
seen
political
these
arrangements are an evident source of the dilemma with the result
through
that
nuclear
as indicating the inadequacy of present world
on the other, the nuclear fix tends to lock political
arrangements into the statist form (into statist arrangements of an increasingly
centralist cast).
peace
The espoused purpose of nuclear weapons may be
to
keep
the
(!) and to defend national interests, but there are other reasons such as
perpetuating the system of sovereign states and politically
confrontation.
The
argument
to
the
theme
that
advantageous
the very nuclear situation
arising from the statist arrangements and interrelationals (economic
conflicting
rivalries,
ideologies, etc.) tends to, and is used to, lock the world into the
present arrangements of sovereign states and zones of interest, is
practical
state
one.
Consider
first,
the
matter
from
a
piecemeal
the Soviet side where the
Page 27
pattern of national control and military economic reorientation is clearer.
The threat from the West, whether it exists
or
not
(and
in
Soviet
perception it certainly does), has become a necessary legitimation for
the power of the ruling elites, an excuse for their many economic
and
social failures, and an argument to isolate and silence critics within
their own borders.
In the West we have
controlled
carefully
...
and
...
selective
release of ’official information’ (Thompson, p.20).
Secondly, there is evidence of entrenchment of the arrangements,
by
the
SALT negotiations:
of
rules
not
regarded
as
threatening
US
in
place
by
The Soviet
invasion
interests", and so the US is not
"vital
What was different, what
particularly worried about Afghanistan and its people.
it
held
penalty for breaking the rules is the threat of annihilation).
(the
Thirdly, there are cases, such as the Afghanistan example.
is
shown
there are fixed superpowers and a (growing) nuclear
club of nations all governed by a negotiated set
deterrence
as
was worried about and made nuclear threats concerning, were adjacent Western
these lay within the US zone of interest.
oil supplies:
44
and complicates other dilemmas
The nuclear fix enhances
contemporary
sovereign
state, in particular the deep tensions between national
security and the operation of liberal-democratic arrangements (e.g.
liberty,
popular
control of institutions, etc).
personal subsidiary dilemmas, as for example the
obligations
to
a
nuclear
conflicting obligations
the
by
induced
as
state,
a
or
doctor
It also spotlights other more
extent
role-induced
or
a
individual
nuclear
of
(political)
one’s
dilemmas
armaments
such
as
one’s
processor
or
researcher (the question of political obligations is considered in Appendix 2).
§7.
Ways out of the moral dilemmas:
[initial]
political
fall-out
from
the
Page 28
conclusions.
ethical
all the ways are ways of limitation, and they
Virtually
all Involve in one way or another limitations on nuclear arms or
are
limitations on the powers of states.
and
deployed
the
they
way
The limitations may be
45
reached by agreement and negotiation and more or less voluntarily
agreed
,
to
or they may be imposed, or worst of all, they may emerge from an initial war.
As with other fixes produced by
are
there
suggested
structure
there
and
relations
power
and
extra—state
approaches.
"realistic",
attempts
All
to
cow,
as unilateral disarmament.
is
it
states
the
or
alter
the
remove them altogether,
allegedly
familiar,
the
seriously
do
which
and
"practical"
nuclear problem - e.g.
disarmament by
they do not tamper with that
- are inter-state;
But in fact there is nothing very sacred
not
even
a
very
long-standing
arrangement, nor, as a matter or empirical fact, is
one.
states,
of
and the same goes for less "realistic" proposals, such
the state;
nation-state;
arrangements
which
ways
are
of
resolve
neutral arms limitations, etc.
sacred
structural
out which do not interfere with these arrangements,
ways
inter-state approaches,
the
it
form
about
the
political
of
particularly
a
stable
We are certainly free - in more liberal states, it should be everywhere -
to theorise as to its demise and replacement by alternative arrangements.
Extra-state approaches take one of two
routes,
the
way
up,
to
genuine
46
power, or the way down, through fractionation or deunionisation
international
of states.
not
to
The ways up and down are by no means one and the same;
necessarily
world
government
Were
law-courts.
remedy, namely
intra-state
incompatible.
the
through
to
Some of the important machinery, for the way up
operate,
courts
legal
but they are
is
assigned
action,
already
there
sufficient
that
medieval
the
international
authority
and power, the
in
theorists
saw
to
all
disputes could be extended to interstate disputes, and the just war
Page 29
between states S and T superseded by the just case of S versus T.
one
statist,
more
legalistic
of trying to get to grips with the nuclear
way
problem, and accordingly is often mentioned, though
dismissed
47
in
,
orthodox
The Way Up is
mostly
passing
in
strategic texts on thermonuclear war.
It is however
beginning to be much more sympathetically considered by those who take
rather than strategic viewpoint.
moral
a
There is a renewed emphasis on world order, in
reaching ’towards a morally integrated international system’;
element
be
to
and ’the
missing
of world order today is the absence of a properly constituted political
The Way Down - though, like The Way
authority’ (PL, p.320).
by
Up,
no
means
new, turning back to the anarchist positions of a century ago - is, by contrast,
scarcely mentioned in the orthodox discussions, but is making an
appearance
(a
which
is
comeback) in some more radical discussions.
A main argument for The Way Up is
to
supposed
underpin
statist
just
arrangements
a
repetition
in
first
the
argument from (generous) variations upon the Prisoners’
that
of
place, namely the
Dilemma,
the
as
such
Tragedy of the Commons, that authority and coercion - in the form of the state are requiried to ensure best solutions,
ecological order.
especially
regards
of
part
the
sort of super-state.
of
the
"tragedy"
is
destruction
when
to
assume
in
fact
assumptions
48
of
a
commons by nuclear war, the solution is now said to be some
Of course, this begins to undermine an earlier application
argument,
since
states
will
lose
their sovereignty, and
political obligation to states will be correspondingly weakened.
is
and
order
So with the "tragedy of nation-states", where the players are
not herdsmen but nation-states, and one of the prospects
good
public
But
all
this
that these "tragedy" arguments are good ones in the first place,
they
are
not
but
are
only
sound
under
quite
restrictive
Page 30
There are many problems with the Way Up, both theoretical and
practical.An
theoretical hitch is that the Way Up merely repeats statist arrangments
initial
at a level up, by way
contingency,
of
super-state
It
arrangements.
only
is
through
a
of there being no rival Intelligent civilisations nearby, that the
problems of interstate relations
not
are
repeated
level
a
The
up.
major
practical hitch is that there is no prospect at all of getting such a "solution"
to work in time to serve its intended
interstate
future
the
For
purpose.
ideological differences, including especially differences as
to how political arrangements should be effected, exclude
world
operative
hostilities.
government
of
prospect
any
an
or world legal system capable of resolving nuclear
In some ways, perhaps, this is just
World
well.
as
government
be extremely monolithic, would entrench bureaucracy with all its damaging
would
features, and could easily tend to totalitarianism.
on
nuclear
foreseeable
the
It would
impose
certainly
an exploitative economic system which would do immense damage to
world
many remaining natural systems.
The Way Up thus presupposes an unlikely,
undesirable,
level
ideological,
indeed
requisite
unity
of
political
paradigmatic,
cannot
be
and
and
expected
unity
economic
separation
with
some
in
of
nuclear
main
crucial
respects,
Moreover,
given the
Northern
cultures,
deadlines.
When not even
nuclear weapons limitations can be worked out how much less likely
much
more
sweeping
sovereignty, could
be
agreements,
negotiated?
Involving
genuine
There
an
is
is
limitations
almost
endless
that
it
of
state
series
of
blockages and deadlocks in the way of such state reconciliation.
The nuclear fix emerging from nation-state arrangements - combined with the
apparent
impotence
of
interstate relations to alleviate the situation, indeed
with the ability only to push the world further into the situation and nearer to
Page 31
nuclear
now
is
-
"brink"
taken
to
indicate (from yet a further angle) the
inadequacy of nation-state political arrangements, and has given new impetus
resolutions.
extra-state
other
of
consideration
to
The thesis that the nuclear
problem indicates the radical unsatisfactoriness of national sovereignty and the
present
system
namely in Schell.
’full-scale
nation states has even reached the best-seller book stands,
of
According to Schell the nuclear situation should
they operate' ...
which
himself
avoids
these
reality
and in ’workfing] out the practical steps by which
'awesome
(III,
p.92).
Schell
However
urgent tasks, which, imposed on us by history,
constitute the political work of our age’^9,
history
consonant with the global
can reorganise its political life’
mankind ...
a
of the foundations of political thought’ required to
reexamination
make ’the world’s political institutions ...
in
to
lead
So, not feeling the
pressures
of
overimpressed by the realities of (unstable) nation-states, do most
or
political theorists.
But, having rashly ventured this far, we can hardly
avoid
some of these tasks.
The central argument arising from the nuclear fix, for questioning
political
arrangements
and
seriously
current
considering changing them (in theory at
least), takes the following shape:-
H1.
Political arrangements should answer back to certain requirements and
justified
in
terms
of
doing
so.
are
These requirements include such things as
enabling good and meaningful lives for those who operate under the arrangements,
at least where (as certainly in the West) the basic material conditions for such
lives are met.
H2.
these
Because of the nuclear fix, nation-state arrangements have ceased to
requirements.
For
guarantee the prospect of
arrangements.
nation-states,
good
and
at
meaningful
meet
least in the North can no longer
lives
to
those
under
their
A life's meaningfulness is certainly diminished if it ends before
Page 32
its prime in a nuclear disaster;
yet there is a non-negligible probability that
many such lives may terminate, less than fulfilled, in this way.
Therefore,
Nation-state arrangements have forfeited their justification,
H3.
should
and
be changed.
There is enough evidence that power brokers who control states,
both
more
powerful states and lesser states (sometimes with some claim to popular mandate,
often without), have lost sight of - or worse don’t care about -
the
point
of
political arrangments, of what justifies or is supposed to justify their states.
The situation has been reached where ’nuclear powers, or
higher
value
This is already illustrated
by
states in nonnuclear military situations:
have
much
forfeited
of
what
claim
Vietnam
Israel,
many
and
the principles of just warfare
have been blatantly violated repeatedly, as have many
states
put
statesmen,
on national sovereignty than they do on human survival’ (Schell’s
conclusion, p.76).
other
their
they
Such
principles.
other
had to external respect or
internal political obedience.
It could just be, of course, that there are no alternatives, or no possibly
better
But
alternatives.
alternatives there are, as we have seen, though but
little work has been expended on working out the range of alternatives or
features (except perhaps for the option of world government).
As to whether all
such alternatives can be dismissed, for instance as lacking feasibility,
difficult
to
be all sure without being dogmatic:
operate,
once
adjusted,
very
far
on
organising
is
humans,
for
under substantially different arrangments.
But, once again, nuclear deadlines do not appear
proceed
it
alternatives have been given
very little opportunity to work, and we know very little about how
instance,
their
to
give
sufficient
time
to
and trying out alternative arrangments, even
those of the more accessible Way Down.
Thus alternative
political
and
social
Page 33
while theoretically feasible and certainly a longer-term goal, do
arrangements,
not presently offer a satisfactory practical response to the nuclear fix.
There is no need to insist upon a
dilemma
to
single-track
the
of
out
nuclear
We can not only
quite the contrary.
exclusion of all others:
the
way
afford to be fairly catholic about "second best" approaches pursued and
whatever
to be working or looks like helping, within reorganised ethical
seems
Indeed,
(and other) constraints:
situation,
methods,
should
we
as
such
urgency,
the
the
of
direness
the
and
nondemocratlc
very
(and
down
certainly
negotiations on arms limitations between main nuclear states.
The direction of most hope
is
given
be fairly catholic and not inflexibly commited to narrow
bogged
unrepresentative)
direction
embrace
for
especially new.
not
has
progress
however
come
into
view;
the
The political means of the Way Out are what
they have been on almost every larger liberal or
that
issue
humanitarian
has
from outside state governmental apparatus by organised pressure from
mattered;
within or without upon it, characteristically Bottom-Up
Such
Top-Down.
familiar
and
practically
never
considerations are but part of the more general, and
very effective, case against reliance upon states for a range of things they are
now
supposed
required,
to
more
supply,
effectively
but
can almost Invariably be obtained, where
which
and
less
expensively
without
(and
them
their
monopolies).
In the case of security it is states, with very few exceptions,
that
have
imposed, or acquiesed in, military solutions involving nuclear installations and
The
nuclear weapons.
frequently
from
across nations.
installations
opposition
local
and
the
to
neighbourhood
These groups have been
and
establishing,
for
escalating
groups,
successful
the
time
nuclear
fix
has
come
some of them now federated
in
blocking
being,
some
some
nuclear
nuclear-free
Page 34
The patchwork grass-roots movement against nuclear is strongest
neighbourhoods.
in
which
Europe,
- as the movement realised, and what gave it impetus - a
is
leading theatre, on US
American
touching
thinking,
strategic
American nuclear installations in Europe will make it a
contrary
it
probable
seems
nuclear
limited
a
war
that
Europe
safer
much
become
will
place:
safer
on
the
if
the
anti-nuclear movements succeed in having these installations removed and
rendered nuclear-free.
not
is extremely doubtful that increasing NATO and
It
shores.
for
Europe
The chances of grossly immoral conduct will thereby also
be considerably reduced.
What the movements must press for is accordingly clear
it
is
in
broad
outline:
what they have been pushing for, nuclear reduction and disarmament.
But
the argument also makes it clearer how far this should go, namely all the way to
nuclear
unilateral
disarmament
if
necessary,
certainly to local disarmament
across progressively larger parts of the planet’s surface.
is
its
demoted,
importance
and
the
necessity
of
For once
the
state
its maintenance properly
downgraded and reliance on its decision-making diminished in favour of localised
decision-making
(say)
-
once
all
that
happens or is allowed for, one major
component in the nuclear fix is removed, namely the worry about
sovereignty.
the
of
that
sovereignty
has
of
been assigned a mistaken
weakest links in the moral fix structure.
In the weigh-up that should
occur in charting a way out of moral dilemma, much more Important elements
features
state
The state, and accompanying features such as misplaced nationalism,
importance.
are
Maintenance
loss
than
the state are those things the state is supposed to safeguard such
of
as individual and local welfare and autonomy, but they are better ensured by the
removal
of
nuclear
weapons.
The
nuclear circumstances threaten the loss of basic values,
autonomy,
for
in particular,
main reasons are familiar;
such
as
welfare
and
many creatures and regions, and the potential loss is in general
Page 35
much greater than in a nuclear-free situation (even should
party
remain
armed
with nuclear weapons).
for example, the production
(because
of
nuclear
another
ideological
There are also subsidiary reasons;
weapons
reduces
local
both
welfare
of the opportunity costs of weapons manufacture) and autonomy (because
of the accompanying security measures).
Thus the nuclear fix is resolved, theoretically at
loss
of the state.
any
rate,
by
risking
But, although that is the best way out at least cost in the
circumstances, it will be strongly resisted in practice, since
those
who
hold
power hold it, in one way or another, under the auspices of state.
FOOTNOTES
1.
The US Catholic Bishops make the point forcefully:
’Nuclear weapons
...
and nuclear warfare ... are new moral issues ... There exists a capacity
to do something no other age could imagine: we can threaten the
created
order ...
We could destroy [God’s] work’ (PL, p.312). While the analysis
offered in what follows has a great deal in common with the
Bishop’s
position, it differs significantly in removing the religious backdrop and
associated features and, it is hoped, in bringing out the logical structure
of the argument more clearly and sharply (the paper was Initially drafted
independently of PL).
To illustrate the differences that emerge with
removal of the religious backdrop and its acoutrements, consider two
examples from PL, p.323:- Firstly, peace is possible without religious
enlightenment if it is possible with it: religious enlightenment is not an
essential condition as there implied. Secondly, violence does not take all
the forms the Bishops try to give it, e.g. sexual discrimination is hardly
a form of violence, pornography can operate without it, etc.
It is a
serious mistake to try to heap so many diverse and independent issues
together under the one head (forms of violence) as if they stood and fell
together, e.g. abortion and nuclear war.
2.
Another dimension of variation concerns the sequence of the war, especially
the type of strike involved. Though the sequence is important for the moral
assessment, for example of the main actors, it is in no way alters the
immorality of LN wars, as will emerge.
3.
’The overwhelming probability [is] that a nuclear exchange would have no
limits’,
(PL, p.314). Hence a major argument against limited nuclear wars:
that any such war risks, indeed renders highly probable, an unlimited war,
and risk is far too large to take.
The point in fact follows by
straightforward application of decision theory, multiplying the massive
undesirability (moral and otherwise) of an LN war by its probability given a
Page 36
limited nuclear war. Given the character of weapons development and present
communication arrangements, the idea of a purely nuclear exchange between
the superpowers, perhaps in the European "theatre", is really a myth.
But
limited wars are not the present focus.
4.
There was a substantial element of sport (and connected features of prowess)
in traditional wars that has been eroded in modern technological wars.
Nuclear wars are not just unsporting, in that no notice is given, etc. They
are unjust in a much deeper way.
5.
There are interesting sidelights concerning even the etymology of the term
’war’, which was derived from a term meaning ’confusion’. In particular,
’it is a curious fact that no Germanic nation in early historic times had in
living use any world properly meaning ’war’’.
(OED)
6.
But of course there can be something quite analogous to war between clans,
multinational firms, even nature, etc.
(To this extent, a strict definition
of ’war’ is being insisted upon.) So the diffusion of power structures has
to extend beyond just the break-down of states.
7.
Thus the ubiquitous war against Nature of modern times, which features just
as large in marxists as in capitalists. As could have been guessed, someone
- it was James - suggested chanelling all war into "war" in the metaphorical
sense against that unarmed and nonaggressive "opponent", Nature. James
proposed as a substitute for war proper, conscription of the youth for a war
against Nature (see Wasserstrom, p.12). What it boiled down to, however,
was that youth was to be channelled into all the dirty work, in that way to
acquire manly virtues military activities "rightly" instil, especially
discipline, but also service, devotion, physical fitness, constructive
exertion, responsibility, and order. Another less diabolical substitute for
wars proper is through war games and other games of competitive cast. Again
specious arguments enter for bringing out the "best" in human males.
8.
War can be seen as a structural problem of state arrangments, to be removed
along with these (otherwise defective) arrangements.
Wars arise from
political organisation of states - a situational fix.
9.
Thus Aquinas and Grotius for example (see Barnes, p.776, top). The argument
presupposes rather a lot, Including a neat public/private distinction. Put
Aquinas’s way, it looks as if it could be readily transferred into an
argument for international government, or at least effective law-courts.
Yet all Christendom was supposed at that time to be one state!
10.
There is however the degenerate idea of war as annihilation or extinction,
and of winning a nuclear war as annihilation of the enemy while not being
entirely annihilated oneself: the side that somehow "survives" is said to
"win".
But this is an extremely tenuous sense of winning. Moreover any
such war is radically unjust, because of violation of the traditional
requirement of proportionality, and for other reasons developed in the text.
Recent talk about winning or even surviving a nuclear war must
reflect a failure to appreciate a medical reality: Any nuclear
war would inevitably cause death, disease and suffering of
pandemonic proportions and without the possibility of effective
medical intervention ... (PL, p.313).
Page 37
Unfortunately as documented in Scheer, significant officials who are
responsible for the nuclear destiny of the U.S.A. - and so of the world think that the devastation of nuclear war can be survived and that a global
nuclear war can actually be won!
11.
In practice they often were not, they drained limited economies, they layed
waste countryside (though to a minor extent by nuclear or chemical or modern
mining standards), impoverishing Inhabitants, etc.
12.
For as Nagel contents (early on), there are moral restrictions on the
conduct of warfare which are not legalistic only and which are neither
arbitrary not merely conventional nor a matter of usefulness. These themes
run entirely counter to the classic theory of war of Clausowicz - a theory
outlined in Walzer.
13.
As Nagel remarks.
14.
The progressive escalation argument is an incremental
Sorites. This is part of the so-called "logic of war".
15.
As Walzer argues, p.24.
16.
The severe limitations of those
also come from the failure
person from inside the homeland
which excessive applications of
17.
Thus the differences between Nagel on the one side, and Brandt and
the other, in Cohen et al.
18.
The pattern of moral argument has much in common with procedure in anarchist
political discussion.
19.
There are other arguments against two (or
Routley and Plumwood.
20.
For details see Routley and Plumwood.
21.
According to the doctrine, which is one concerning responsibility, we are
responsible
only
for
the intended effects or consequences of our
freely-chosen actions, and not for other (side) effects or consequences,
even
if
these are forseen and/or intimately tied to the intended
consequences. The doctrine is pernicious allowing those who adjust their
intention
suitably to escape responsibility for evil they knowingly
perpetrate. Thus, for instance, a Russian supreme command which intended
only to take out US military targets would, under double effects,
effects have no
responsibility for the resultant effect on American and Canadian cities!
22.
Despite Nagel’s suggestion (pp.158).
23.
Of course there are counterarguments too, and not merely from military in
the case of small numbers of obstructive noncombatants. One is a variation
of the Bald Man:
there is no clear line between
combatants
and
noncombatants.
However as Nagel argues (p.20) there are distinctions
between them, firstly in terms of their roles, e.g. in carrying or using
argument
like
the
lesser virtues, nationalism and patriotimsm,
of replacement - try for example swapping a
by one from outside as regards treatment patriotism can engender.
multiple)
morality
Hare
lines:
on
see
Page 38
arms or directing those who do, and secondly in terms of their harmfulness,
the threat they offer. See also PL, p.312, where a simple and effective
paradigm case argument is applied.
24.
The principle can be argued to in various ways.
One (not entirely
conclusive) way is Nagel’s way, from the requirements of directness and
relevance in combat, the underlying principle being that, ’whatever one does
to another person intentionally must be aimed at him as a subject, with the
intention that he receive it as a subject’. (p.15)
25.
The situation with limited nuclear wars where the targets are essentially
military ones, and noncombatants are unaccountably killed "indirectly' is
different. Such wars are not however excused by the pernicious doctrine of
double effect.
For such wars remain unjust on several counts, e.g. they
inflict disproportionate damage, e.g. on life systems. As Zuckermann says,
’It is still inevitable that were military installations rather than cities
to become the objectives of nuclear attack, millions, even tens of millions
of civilians would be killed ...’ (quoted in Thompson and Smith, p.14 where
the Italics are added).
26.
Throughout the OED equations,reflecting common usage, of just with
right or correct, and unjust with morally wrong, are adopted.
27.
These alternatives are not as far removed practically as may appear.
For
the aim of just war theory is not ’to legitimize war but to prevent it.
The
presumption is against the use of force’ (PL, p.312).
And most types
of
wars are ruled out by the theory.
However not all wars or violent
revolutions are excluded, and that is enough to guarantee the distinction
between the alternatives.
In particular, defensive wars are allowed - at
least for the defending side, though from a wider viewpoint these too may be
condemned - ’the classic case [of the just war] ... was the use of lethal
force to prevent aggression against innocent victims’
(PL,
p.311).
Under
Twentieth Century international law defence, narrowly construed, is the only
legitimate basis for war; Roman law was only slightly more generous, in
allowing for the restitution of goods (see Barnes, p.780).
28.
An argument of this sort is developed in more detail, though not in complete
generality, in Goodin.
29.
As to the first point, there is not only overkill capacity and the drive for
superiority (often represented via "negotiating" strength) but the matter of
counterforce weapons which are offensive weapons.
As regards the second
point, US policy has been decidedly expansionist with regular intervention
in other nations; there have been repeated US threats to use nuclear
weapons, especially to deal with revolutionary activities in the third
world, but also in Europe in "limited" nuclear war;
and in official
military strategy no sharpline has been drawn between conventional and
nuclear weapons: on these and other related points see further Lackey 82,
p.l91ff., and also Thompson and Smith.
30.
The example was supplied by D.
31.
Deterrence also commonly includes elements of
mendacity,
deception,
misinformation.
There is a grain of truth in the claim that ’deterrence is
primarily about what the other side thinks, not what we think’
(Pym quoted
morally
Johnson.
Page 39
in Thompson, p.19).
simply
32.
Nor are degrees of wrongness required:
ordered as regards worseness.
33.
Can this be done semantically in terms of closeness/worseness
The attempted X world is close to the X world?
34.
There is a need for further clarification here.
Passive spectatorship of
evil events where one is in a position to make a difference is quite another
thing, from contemplation of other worlds where evil occurs.
35.
It is this principle especially that forces Ramsey, a Protestant theologian
who is a nuclear hawk, into the tight position he ends in, which as Walzer
explains, really leaves no room to move. For in virtue of C3 it must be
allowed that the threatened wars are permissible to carry out. Ramsey tries
to limit these to military exchanges. But to be effective as a deterrent,
the exchange permitted must both threaten and also, in view of C3, not
threaten nonmilitary targets, collateral non-combatant populations.
It
appears that Ramsey’s position, if worked out, would be inconsistent.
wrongs
can
be
partially
of
worlds?
Principle C3 is also invoked by the US Catholic Bishops:
see PL, p.316.
They put the point both in terms of threat and of declared intent to use
nuclear weapons, which they pronounce morally wrong.
36.
As is widely known, inadmissible considerations of expediency frequently
enter into reasons why states allow foreign nuclear facilities upon their
territories, e.g. economic considerations such as trade or local revenue
and jobs.
37.
Cf.
38.
It was considered long ago in China by the
alternative systems, see especially Sharp.
39.
Thus Green, along with many others, ’find[s] nuclear deterrence ...
the
best of practical policies available to us now ... given the realities of
world politics’ but ’still demurfs] because of moral qualms’ (p.xil). Green
also represents both Morgenthau and Halle as having ’rather agonisingly
presented a ... case for a deterrence strategy, even while asserting that
the strategy is morally indefensible according to the traditional ethical
codes’ (p.252). Walzer ends in a similar dilemma (he is committed to a
stronger and less qualified form of it than he sets down):
’... though it
[deterrence] is a bad way, there may well be no other that is practical in a
world of sovereign and suspicious states’ (p.274) (an indictment of the
state system that Walzer does not pursue).
the last article in Thompson.
Mohists.
For
contemporary
Similarly the Catholic Bishops present the situation in terms of a moral
dilemma:
they speak of ’the political paradox of deterrence ... the
dilemma of how to prevent the use of nuclear weapons ... (PL, p.313).
40.
Situations in war are also a major source of moral dilemmas.
See Routley
and Plumwood where several examples are given. A general logical account of
and theory of moral dilemmas is elaborated therein.
Page 40
41.
There are exceptions of course, e.g. Sartre; and Nagel’s final example is
very instructive.
For a full theory of moral dilemmas see however Routley
and Plumwood.
42.
Reported in The Economist; reprinted in The
1983, Weekend Magazine p.2.
43.
This is no longer a radical theme but is widely promulgated.
The source of
the nuclear problem comes from state arrangements: it is ’... a world of
sovereign states ... which brought the world to the present dangerous
situation’.
(PL, p.313)
44.
It is not alone responsible for these other dilemmas.
Large-scale nuclear
power and other types of warfare and security arrangements also contribute.
45.
In principle it would be relatively easy for states to agree to settlement
of their disputes by less damaging and expensive contests than military
ones, e.g. by contests of selected representatives, and not just through
fighting in some form but by contests of footballers, singers, dancers,
lawyers, or etc. In practice, however, such more civilized alternatives are
never considered. Animals, by contrast, are smart enough to settle disputes
by means much more like these.
46.
Americans, for example, tend to forget that their State (like USSR) is a
union, of fairly recent origin; and that a State of the Union message could
consider the dissolution of the union.
47.
Thus for example, Kahn, where such a "solution" is quickly dismissed as,
impractical,
etc.
Hardly necessary to say the Way Up has won most favour
with the legal fraternity, and from more authoritarian organisations.
48.
See further Routley and
especially Griffin.
49.
Schell does not make it clear whether he is thinking of the Way Up or the
Way Down, but some of the names he drops suggest the Way Up. So can some of
what he says, e.g.
’Thus the peril of extinction is the price that the
world pays not for "safety" or "survival" but for its [sic!] insistence on
continuing to divide Itself up into sovereign nations’ (p.76, III), as if
the natural or original state were an undivided one?
Routley
and
Australian,
material
referred
February
to
12-
therein,
13
and
Page 41
APPENDIX 1; Remarks on J. Schell’s THE FATE OF THE EARTH.
Schell’s book is an important and influential document, which is
significant
having
a
and
urgently
needed effect in shifting attitudes towards nuclear.
It is especially
valuable
for
aftermath
example
defects.
is
Some
exhibits,
also
it
just
nothing else that we undertake together can make any
sense
...’
the
of
both
for
rubbish,
a world-wide program of action for preserving the [human]
’without ...
species ...
moral
scenarios
horrifying
Unfortunately
severe
philosophically and factually,
and
vivid
attack.
nuclear
of
its
(p.104,
Humans
rearranged).
however like rabbits in
are
Australia, virtually beyond human power to extirpate.
or
practical
The claim presupposes two
of the major defective assumptions of the book:
51.
That nuclear war will eliminate life, human life, at least, on earth
total extermination assumption);
(the
and
52.
That very many notions, not only those of morality and value, but those of
time
and
space,
make
no sense in the absence of humans, or, to put it into a
more sympathetic philosophical form, in the absence of an actual
context
human
(the anthropocentric assumption).
The frequent applications of S2, which
philosophical
depth
and
induce
give
the
book
some
of
its
apparent
suitable puzzlement through their paradoxical
without total extermination
aspects, depend essentially on SI;
there
will
be
humans, about to make past and future, good and evil, go on making sense!
Now although the factual assumption SI is
possibility,
unlikely.
example,
it
appears
in
Schell’s argument
on
an
unjustified
no
means
ruled
out
as
a
light of present (inadequate) knowledge most
the
to
by
SI
is
extremely
extrapolation
from
Hemisphere, but for the most part it does that very
flimsy.
It
depends,
for
the Northern to the Southern
North
American
thing,
of
Page 42
the
contracting
North
to
world
(All that matters, all worthwhile
America.
civilization, is in USA, or at least, to be more charitable,
and
Europe,
also be wiped out, i.e.
will
which
eliminated in the nuclear holocaust).
the
example
out of date.
America
North
its human population will be
Some of the data Schell relies upon,
for
of nuclear explosions on the ozone layer, is significantly
Other effects than ozone destruction transfer even less well
South.
to
North
effect
in
from
A factually superior study of nuclear disaster that Schell’s,
Preddy and others, indicates that parts of the Southern Hemisphere, New
Zealand
and Southern Africa and America could escape relatively unscathed even from most
massive northern exchanges.
The penetration of human chauvinism as in S2 is not something
Schell
but
product
a
is
of
truths
necessary
mathematics
of
and
in Wittgenstein ’s philosophy, where even the
are a product of human conventions and would
In Schell human chauvinism is dished up in a particularly
vanish with humans!).
powerful
obnoxious
Kantian
Thoughts
form.
tenses, values and morality, all depend in the
and
propositions, time and
presence
life-giving
of
human
- past or future or merely potential humans are not enough, persons that
beings
are not humans are certainly not enough.
’...
e.g.):
Thus according to
(II,
Schell
p.74,
the thought "Humanity is not extinct" is an impossible one for a
rational person, because as soon as it is, we are not.
In imagining
any
other
we look ahead to a moment that is still within the stream of human time,
event,
...’.
right
to
philosophy especially, which is still
European
unfortunately alive and well (e.g.
peculiar
The thought is however perfectly possible for humans;
now.
Though
we
(p.74)l.
’...
outside
can
have
it
no doubt have it falsely a later rational creature may
well be able to have it truly.
"later"
we
the
Schell erroneously denies
human
tenses
of
past,
that:
there
is
no
present, and future ...’
Human extinction eliminates ’the creature that divides time into past,
Page 43
present
future’:
and
so annihilation cannot ’come to pass’ (p.77).
simply false that the tenses are human:
the
tenses
depend
on
But it is
time
local
a
(perceptible to many creatures other than humans, but not depending at
ordering
all on perceptibility for its viability) relating other times to the present, to
now
(also
a
human-independent location, evident to other creatures, and borne
witness to by such sequences as the passing seasons).
too
easily
come
And annihilation may also
to pass, for many humans in the North at least, as it came to
pass in recent geological times that humans began to exist upon
that there was a time before there were any human beings.
earth.
Before
Here as elsewhere the
human chauvinism is mixed with other distorting metaphysical assumptions of
Western
our
heritage, verlficationism and Implicit ontic assumptions (to the effect
that there are severe difficulties in talking about what does not exist).
Thus,
for example, Schell takes over dubious metaphysics from Freud, according to whom
"it is indeed impossible to imagine our own death;
do
so,
we
(p.77/4?).
In
can
perceive
that
we
are
in
attempt
and whenever we
fact still present as spectators"
The second clause goes a good distance towards refuting
first.
the
fact there is no great problem in describing counterfactual situations which
undermine both Freud’s claims.
chauvinism
into
one
of
The same goes for Schell’s extensions
human
of
its main traditional strongholds, value theory:
the simple and basic fact [sic!] that before there can be good or evil,
or
to
service
harm, lamenting or rejoicing there must be life’, human life (p.103).
are no facts, but entrenched philosophical assumptions which have
been
’...
These
exposed
2
and criticised elsewhere .
Another obnoxious theme, which Schell repeatedly infiltrates, is
the
Pogo
theme, which
S3.
Distributes responsibility for
the
present
really) onto everyone, every human in the world.
nuclear
situation
(fiasco,
An especially blatant example
3
Page 44
the world’s political
runs as follows:
menace
leaders
...
though
the earth with nuclear weapons, do so only with our permission, and even
at our bidding.
theme
At least, this is true
elsewhere
elaborated
is
’...
for
democracies’
pay
4
we are the authors of the destruction .
while for the peoples of the non-nuclear-armed world it
sense
to
an
argument
of
all
The moral cost of
only
true
in
the
sensitivity
nuclear
of
representative
And again ’...
we
is
it
armaments
that
of us underwriters of the slaughter of hundreds of millions - ’.
And again ’[as] perpetrators ...
is not sacred but is worthless;
be killed’ (p.88).
vote
the
against
of the populace they allegedly govern.
many
are potential mass—killers.
makes
is
that they fail to try to do anything about the danger)’ (p.87).
But this is more of
government
since
extinction and support the governments that pose the threat of it,
for
negative
The
III).
(p.106,
(For the populations of the superpowers this is true in a positive sense,
we
now
they
we convey the steady messsage ...
it ...
that ...
Little of this is true.
that
life
is acceptable for everyone to
Those who campaign against nuclear,
against nuclear-committed parties so far as is possible, and the like, are
certainly not the authors of potential destruction, and responsibility
nuclear situation does not simply distribute onto them.
- or the unlikely opinions as
to
worth
Schell
everyone - fall on those who have done less.
for
the
Nor does responsibility
illegitimately
attributes
to
Responsibility for decisions taken
in "liberal democracies" even by representatives (in the unlikely event of
this
happening in the case of anything as important as defence) cannot be traced back
to those represented, since among many other things, a
representative
of
a
party
is
only
which offers a complex and often ill-characterised
package of policies, and a voter may vote for zero
package.
representative
or
more
policies
of
this
Only in the (unlikely) event of a clear single issue referendum, which
is adopted, can responsibility, still of a qualified sort, be sheeted
home,
to
Page 45
those who voted for it, not every one in the community.
When however the Pogo assumption is disentangled from the
following
theme
what results is decidedly along the right lines:
The controllers [not to be confused, in Schell’s fashion, with all of
S4.
have failed to change our pre-nuclear institutions.
The sovereign system is out
HI)
(p.51,
of step with nuclear age, the one-earth system, etc.
earth
us]
(the
whole
Unfortunately Schell often loses sight of this important theme.
theme).
S4 forms part of Schell’s critique of the state which is, by an large, scattered
and
fragmentary.
As
we saw, in §7, Schell arrives at the conclusion that the
nation-state has outlasted its usefulness, and that new
institutions
political
more ’consonant the global reality’ are required as a matter of urgency.
evades what he admits is the major task, making
viable
out
But he
alternatives.
most he makes some passing suggestions, some of which point to the Way Up.
he remains clear about are the serious defects of the state and
the
At
What
frequently
immoral purposes for which the state is used.
At one stage he contrasts what he calls Socratic-Christian ethics with that
of
state,
where ’the end [state] justifies the means . .., the raison d’etre of
government, is the basis on which
themselves
to
commit
crimes
of
governments,
every
in
sort’.
anything whatever in the name of [their] survival’.
that
all
So
times,
licensed
’states may do virtually
Schell then argues however,
extinction nullifies end-means justification by destroying every end;
that argument is far from sound, and depends again on extreme
(S2)
have
combined with ontic assumptions.
under system SI) ends could remain, e.g.
human
but
chauvinism
Even if all humans were extinguished (as
for nonhumans (actual or not).
Page 46
As to the part of the state and (state) sovereignty in war,
in
us
Schell
leaves
A sovereign state is virtually defined as one that enjoys the
no doubt.
right and power to go to war in defence or pursuit of its interests (III, p.51).
War
from how things are:
arises
jealous nation states (p.51).
and
sovereignty
from the arrangement of political affairs via
Indeed there is a two-way linkage between
On the one side, sovereignty is, Schell
capacity to wage war.
contends, necessary for people to organise for war.
is impossible to preserve sovereignty.
it
war
transparently clear as they stand.
having
On the other side,
without
Neither of these contentions is
Now that the state system in entrenched,
it
however easy for conservatives (in particular) to argue from the "realities"
is
of international life, which include self-interest,
is
It
on
basis
this
that
peace
arrangements
aggression,
readily
are
hatred.
fear,
dismissed
as
unrealistic, utopian, even (amusingly) as extremist.
Schell’s further theme that nuclear "war" is not war threatens to undermine
his
case
erroneous
an
sovereign
characterisation
nation to achieve an end’ (III,
sufficient
for
p.52):
war as ’a violent means employed by a
of
but
neither
considerations
but not all wars or games are won).
It
they
fail
(even
on one side being defeated
on
a
But in nuclear "war" this doesn’t happen, ’no one’s strength
But what these sorts
contribute to showing is not that nuclear wars are not wars,
but that they are not wars of certain sorts, e.g., not just wars
because
nor
LN
falls until both sides have been annihilated* (III, p.52).
of
necessary
if
is also claimed that war depends on weakness;
by arms.
is
But nuclear attacks can certainly have ends
cannot be won in the older sense:
decision
this
It is then claimed that war requires an end which nuclear
war.
"war" does not have.
wars
state based, for example, on its nuclear war
But the not-war theme needs much qualification, and starts out
making capacity.
from
the
against
on
such
criteria
as
reasonable
when
LN
wars
prospect of success and
Page 47
improvement, not rational wars (in a good sense), and so on.
wars
nuclear weapons have also ruined "conventional" wars, and
that
demise
the
war
of
not
just
on
his
connected
the
mistaken
has
removed
been
proposition
The
(p.52).
concerning
the
conventional war and the mistaken proposition that war of some sort
the
theme
has left no means to finally settle disputes between
nations, for the final court of appeal
depends
conventional
nuclear times does damage to Schell’s argument that
into
persisted
have
That
theme
demise
has
to
of
be
"court of appeal" between nations (for, as observed, there are other
final
types of contests that could serve, and there is also the
cooperative
behaviour,
e.g.
joint referenda);
possibility
of
more
it also imports the assumption
of Clausowicz (criticised earlier) that war has to proceed to the
technological
limit - as if war and violence were thoroughly natural activities independent of
recognised social settings (for winning, surrender, etc.) and ruleless.
wars
contrary,
are
parasitic
on
On
the
social organisations such as states and are
They are a social
governed by a range of understandings, conventions and rules.
phenomenon, with a rule structure if not a logic.
Much capital has been made from what is called "the
and
the
"logic
logic
of
deterrence"
The message that is usually
of nuclear (strategic) planning".
supposed to come through is that the massive nuclear arraangements the world
now
entangled
in
are perfectly logical, sound, reasonable, rational.
this represents little more than a cheap semantical
the
justifies
reasonable.
can
be
present
arrangements,
or
trick.
anything
in strategic planning;
values
no
in
way
in Jeffrey)
which
but is does not yield specific results
without desirability measures being assigned to alternative
without
However
like them, or renders them
There is a logic of decision (as presented e.g.
applied
Logic
is
being pumped in, extralogically .
outcomes,
that
is
There are varaious ways these
value assignments may be determined, to meet moral requirements or not;
but
in
Page 48
nuclear
planning
strategic
(Selecting the usual
expediency.
automatically;
is
have invariably been settled on the basis of
game
theory
setting
based
something
cover
strategy of’.
term
almost
Thus too the presumption in Walzer, p.277, that the logic of
on eye-for-eye and tooth-for-tooth assumptions.)
’logic of’ tends to be used very generously, as a word of general
to
this
to
sees
for it is then assumed that each player plays to maximize his or
her own advantage.
deterrence
they
like
In fact
commendation,
’rational considerations entering into the policy or
In these terms, Schell, who like others enjoys playing
with
the
’logic of’, should write of ’the illoglc of deterrence’, for he emphasizes
(III, p.80) the disparity between the supposed rationality of threatening use of
nuclear
weapons and the irrationality (even from a national interest viewpoint)
of actually using them should the threat fail:
doctrine
depends
irrational use.
deterrence
(e.g.
on
credibility
of
the
yet the
threat
of
of
success
this
deterrence
unjustifiable and
Indeed Schell wants to go further and locate a contradiction in
HI,
pp.67-8):
but the argument depends on an interesting
confusion of contradiction with cancellation, which deterrence
is
supposed
to
(etc.)
is
involve.
FOOTNOTES
1.
The appalling theme that humans create past, present and
repeated, e.g. p.104 top.
2.
See e.g.
’Human chauvinism and environmental ethics’ in Environmental
Philosophy (editor Mannison and others), Research School of Social Sciences,
Australian National University, 1980.
3.
Another example of spreading the responsibility runs as follows (Schell
p.46, III): we plan to exterminate species in certain circumstance, though
we don’t quite admit this to ourselves, as sane or sensible (or rational?).
Further (p.55 III),
’the world ...
chose the course of attempting to
refashion the system of sovereignty to accommodate nuclear weapons’:
the
world?
Connected with this is the argument from defence of fundamentals
[ideology] - e.g. for liberty, the (USA) nation, and against socialism. In
the course of this yet another fallacious assumption is rolled out:
’The
means to the end are not limited, for the end itself sets the limits in each
future
Page 49
case’
[?]
4.
There is also, mixed in, a weaker more plausible claim that gives lie to the
stronger one, namely that we have some responsibility (the Nazi situation is
compared).
5.
There is however a simple solution to Schell’s problem of the missing
motive, namely an ideological one: remove the rival ideology from future
dominance.
Page 50
APPENDIX 2: Strategies and the Matter of Collective and
Individual Responsibility
What one does depends, naturally, on where one lives
and what sort of power it is.
responsibility
work
to
entirely
to
an
In present circumstances states have
and
states,
there
ends:
responsibilities
these
no individual, or (smaller scale)
is
collective responsibility to work out a policy or
people
on
stance
matters
such
as
While such a non-responsibility
nuclear and still less to act on such a stance.
(or opt-out) theme no doubt suits many
evident
There are however some persuasive
out their policies.
arguments that this is where the responsibility
accrue
one
means
what
as what strategy a state should adopt depends on where it is located
much
has,
and
—
many
for
some,
themselves,
especially more authoritarian power-holders, for others - it does involve opting
out of moral responsibilities, responsibilities acquired by virtue
of
being
a
person within the framework of certain social arrangments.
Now there is no doubt that individuals and a group can
out.
They can neglect their moral responsibilities;
in doing so.
being
this,
do
can
opt
but they are not justified
Against this claim, which is based ultimately upon
each
person’s
caught in a web of responsibility-inducing social relations, whether they
like it or not, there are some neat arguments which appear to permit opting out.
One goes as follows:
1.
The (ordinary) individual,
difference to what happens.
2.
Such
difference.
3.
individuals,
or
or
group,
has
no
possibility
of
making
a
make
a
Therefore
groups,
have
no
obligation
to
try
to
Hence
Such individuals, or groups, are not morally responsible, for instance when
things go wrong.
Page 51
There are two main assumptions
resisted;
this
in
argument,
both
which
of
be
firstly, a variant of the ought implies can theme , and secondly, the
assumption that individuals can’t make a difference.
cannot
individuals
competitive
highly
that
true
What an
individuals
do.
full of hopeful free-riders, a person may
communities,
encouter a familiar impasse:
is
on their own, together they can.
much
accomplish
it
While
individual can achieve depends on what sufficiently many other
In
should
that he or she acts M-ly (e.g.
against
morally,
nuclear arrangements, present destruction) at considerable personal cost with no
Such an impasse no
guarantee that others will also act M-ly.
longer
faces
so
many in the West at least as regards initial steps against nuclear arrangements.
The individual can cooperate with others in ways that do make a difference.
An
individual is not exonerated from responsibility by the argument.
While individuals can respond by joining organisations whose activities are
at
directed
difference, many individuals also have the option of
some
making
more individualistic action in such
disobedience.
important
An
forms
as
or
deployment)
Evidently,
various
or
parts
redirection
however,
work more effectively
go
slows,
political
form of individual resistance, already adopted in
Canada and north-western USA is refusal to pay
defence
boycotts,
thereof
of
such
(e.g.
taxes,
income
taxes
nuclear
for
directed
weapons
Instance
towards
production
to
peace
and
funds.
all these more individualistic forms of political activity
if
individuals
integrate
their
activities
since
the
impacts aggregate (and appear after a certain stage to exponentiate).
There are arguments of some weight that individuals are under some sort
moral
obligation
to take political action to disaffiliate themselves from what
contributes to the prospects of nuclear
depends
on
the
of
sort
of
state
war.
What
type
of
action
this
is
one resides in, e.g., whether it is a nuclear
Page 52
power, whether it provides nuclear
issues
complicating
as
or
bases
facilities,
and
such
on
kind of preventive action the state is likely to
what
One argument - it is one of a type
take in return.
etc.,
be
can
that
varied
from
making nuclear weapons to, for example, providing facilities for them - proceeds
from the wrongness of nuclear war to the position that it is
making
weapons
the
such
for
The
war.
argument
here
not
applies
principles (like that of §5), for instance that the manufacture
of such weapoons increases the risk of such war.
right
and
to
connecting
deployment
But if it is not morally right
to be making such weapons then those who live in a state that is doing so
to
disaffiliate
themselves
from
such
substantive
without
The argument is
but
the
assumptions
opt-outers
and
do-nothingers
assumption,
ought
defence production, and disaffiliation
2
includes not paying for such production through defence taxes .
not
be
morally
appear
reasonable and defensible.
Such arguments not only
insofar
as
they
put
to
contribute
national
for
those
3
take action, even limited action such as redirection of taxes .
in some fashion to moral obligations;
political obligations.
And
political
limited, by moral constraints.
are
already
answer
for then moral obligations override
obligations
are
already
significantly
The nuclear situation does not so much bring out
new limits on political obligation, as emphasize the
obligations
who
There is
however no dilemma under any theory which takes political obligations to
back
spot
the
objectives, they also raise serious
questions and perhaps dilemmas as regards political obligations
would
on
limited,
and
respects
in
which
those
introduce further moral considerations
against sponsorship of national defence arrangements.
Page 53
An obligation to try
war
does not commit one to more than this:
for
an
to an obligation, for example,
work
to
But
alternative national defence policy which avoids nuclear elements.
no doubt this would be a good thing to try to contribute to.
one
nuclear
spending part of one’s working life contributing indirectly to it,
not
by
to disaffiliate oneself from preparation for
attempts
depends
commitments, and
on
forth.
so
where
lives,
one
For
not
only
the
level
are
Once
of
again,
one’s pacificist
types
different
what
policy
of
appropriate for different nations and regions, but there are more
reorientation
superficial and deeper reorientations that can be worked out and promoted,
schemes
that
"conventional"
leave
e.g.
warfare apparatus more or less Intact, and
deeper (ecological) schemes that change that.
The US Bishops, for example, present a shallower set of goals for
such
power
as
the
USA,
which
includes
such
as preventing the
objectives
working
development and deployment of destabilizing nuclear weapons systems and
for
better
of already operational systems (see PL, p.317).
control
super
a
For those
whose very limited political Influence is exerted in considerably lesser
even
the
shallow goals may look quite different:
there are no weapons (except
perhaps those of another power planted on local territory)
better
control.
The
view
from
the
very
minor
to
in
or
redeploy
to
powers in the Antipodes is
furthermore different from that of the medium powers in Europe.
prospect
powers
is
There
some
the Antipodes of avoiding the more immediate effects of an LN war,
while there is little such prospect in Europe (cf.
Preddy and
others).
There
is accordingly some obligation - an obligation little considered and not grasped
by the power holders - on those in the Antipodes to make some effort to preserve
there
elements
of
what is valuable in world civilization.
Local and regional
self-interest would also suggest steps towards self-preservation that
been initiated.
have
not
Page 54
What is broadly required in the Andipodes is a
work
out
once
removal of American bases
alliance, which is in any case of questionable merit;
and
withdrawal
of
American
rightss for nuclear-carrying equipment to
access
ports, air bases and other facilities, so as to remove
pursuit
of
more
a
evenhanded
policy
targets;
nuclear
is
That much
easy,
in
principle.
difficult to ensure is that economic and cultural collapse does not follow
an LN war in the North.
independence
Secondly then the building of Increased
in the Antipodes is required.
sustainable
of
life
its
exercise unless combined with
and
Preddey
it
others
is
own.
’the region must also
other
desirable
objectives:
unlikely - the structural readjustment
aims
of
moving
for
example,
in
estimated that 25 per cent of GDP would have to be
included Australia the costs would be less.
desirable
have
For a small region that looks a very costly
diverted to build up New Zealand’s economic independence.
which
socio-economic
It is not enough to make the region
a nuclear-free zone not worth targeting militarily:
a
local
of nonalignment (something quite small
powers elsewhere have managed to achieve).
More
to
Firstly, withdrawal from the American
goals are glimpsed.
the
matter
straightforward
the
were
For a
larger
region
If, furthermore - what seems
combined
with
the
independently
whole region towards a multicultural conserver
society and diverting "defence" spending to connected self-management and
civil
be considerably lessened.
They only appear great in the
setting of an on-going consumer-defence socleity.
In any case where life itself
defence
goals,
would
is concerned, the costs do not appear excessive.
FOOTNOTES
1.
Any satisfactory deontic theory which takes moral dilemmas with due
seriousness is bound to reject this theme. There are also independent
grounds for jettisoning this Kantian theme:
see Routley and Plumwood.
Page 55
Seatie
2.
An argument of this type was deployed by Bishop
support of his refusal to pay defence taxes.
3.
This dilemma and option is now removed for most wage earners by Pay As You
Earn taxation schemes, schemes apparently introduced to give the state
interest on gross earnings, but obviously very effective in removing
taxation power from most workers, and so from individuals to the state.
4.
Given the power of institutions and the state one may be able to do little
more than try, without giving up one’s work and therby one’s ability to
contribute to other deserving causes. For example, it may be virtually
impossible for one to avoid contributing to a superannuation fund which is
investing in projects which one opposes and/or ought to oppose.
Hunthaassen
of
in
Page 56
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Berg, Reinhabiting a Separate
1979.
P.
M.
Cohen, Nagel, Scanlan
Princeton, 1974.
Country,
(editors)
Planet
War
and
Drum,
Moral
San
Francisco,
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Goodin,
’Disarming nuclear apologists’, typescript, 1982.
R.E.
Goodin,
’Disarmament as a moral certalnuity’, typescript, 1983.
P(hilip) Green, Deadly Logic: The Theory of Nuclear Deterrence, Ohio State
University Press, Columbus, 1966.
N.
Griffin, ’Lifeboat USA', typescript, 1982.
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New York, 1982.
R.
Jeffrey, The Logic of Decision
H.
Kahn, On Thermonuclear War.
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D.P.
Lackey, ’Ethics and nuclear deterrence*, in Moral
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D.P.
Lackey,
'Missiles and morals:
a utilitarian look at nuclear
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J.C.
Problems
Murray, Morality and Modern War,
T.
Nagel, ’War and Massacre' in Cohen et al, pp.3-24.
J.
Narvesen,
'Violence and War’ in Regan, pp.109-146.
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(1982) pp.306-328 [hereafter referred to as PL, for ’New Draft of
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G.F.
Preddey and others, Future Contingencies 4.
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Wellington, New Zealand, 1982.
T.
Regan (editor), Matters of Life and
1980.
R.
Routley and V. Routley,
Alternatives, (1982).
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Routley and V. Plumwood, 'Moral dilemmas and
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Philosophla Verlag, 1983.
'The
Death,
Random
irrefutability
of
the
G.
House,
New
anarchism’,
York,
Social
logic of deontic
Priest and others)
Page 57
R.
Scheer, With Enough Shovels:
House, New York, 1982.
J.
Schell, ’Reflections (Nuclear Arms - Parts I-III)’, The New Yorker,
February
1, 8, and 15, 1982, pp.47-113, 48-109, and 45-107,
respectively. This series subtitled The Fate of the Earth, has now
appeared as a book with that title (Kopf, New York, 1982). References
in the text are to the original articles.
All references by parts
labels ’I’-’III’ are to these articles.
T.C .
Reagan,
Bush
and
Nuclear
Sharp, Exploring Nonviolent Alternatives, Boston, 1971.
T.
Taylor, Nuremburg and Vietnam:
R.W..
M.M..
M.
R.A.
S.
Random
Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, Harvard University Press, 1980.
G.
E.P..
War,
Thompson and D.
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An American Tragedy,
Smith, Protest and Survive,
Monthly
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Tucker, The Just War,
Wakin (editor), War, Morality and the Military Profession,
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Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, Basic Books, New York, 1977.
Wasserstrom (editor)
California, 1970.
War
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Morality,
Wadsworth,
Zuckerman, Nuclear Illusion and Reality, Collins, London, 1982.
Belmont,
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Box 97: Paper - Extracts - Articles and Chapters by Richard Sylvan
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7
DEEPER NUCLEAR
roots of the arms race lie in the character of science and technology:
such R & D drives the arms race.
science.
But it is disguised by myth of neutral
Deeper still the drives lie in maximisation drives for power, knowledge,
—————
4
the "newer" virtures, Enlightenment but Faustian virtues.
But the attainment of these even approximately is impossible, because of limitations, because for instance ultimate power means loss of power (for power
becomes go great it goes out of control).
This is a variation on the paradox
For these Enlightenment ends there is no maximization ///
because of limits and associated paradoxes, only an illusion of attainment.
A
of
omnipotence.
Thus maximization is here irrational.
and Gods;
In earlier times the drive le^d to God,
later defter the Enlightenment i’£ led to science -
a new, much more
effective God since it delivers so much cargo.
In the same framework, recast Foley's paradoxes of unlimited power:-
1.
Omnipotence leads to impotence
2.
Omniscience leads to ignorance
3.
Total rationality becomes total irrationality:
[becomes?]
and technicized our means, the more irrational our ends.
/
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the more rational
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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
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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.
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/
7
DEEPER NUCLEAR
roots of the arms race lie in the character of science and technology:
such R & D drives the arms race.
science.
But it is disguised by myth of neutral
Deeper still the drives lie in maximisation drives for power, knowledge,
—————
4
the "newer" virtures, Enlightenment but Faustian virtues.
But the attainment of these even approximately is impossible, because of limitations, because for instance ultimate power means loss of power (for power
becomes go great it goes out of control).
This is a variation on the paradox
For these Enlightenment ends there is no maximization ///
because of limits and associated paradoxes, only an illusion of attainment.
A
of
omnipotence.
Thus maximization is here irrational.
and Gods;
In earlier times the drive le^d to God,
later defter the Enlightenment i’£ led to science -
a new, much more
effective God since it delivers so much cargo.
In the same framework, recast Foley's paradoxes of unlimited power:-
1.
Omnipotence leads to impotence
2.
Omniscience leads to ignorance
3.
Total rationality becomes total irrationality:
[becomes?]
and technicized our means, the more irrational our ends.
/
z
the more rational
sr
X>£. e &
f
c/~lu
cr-t/^ J
'7
I
r/^e wl-
_ -O'- rf
Jo-d
, </« sT-rf
; 7^/?/°;
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rSH-,
G-'l J
c /
/Astr*^? '•*-*- /• z
//c.sw'lfas- f J'^./^f /t/77
4
r
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Box 106, Item 1: Abstract on deeper nuclear and miscellaneous notes
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Box 106: Culture, Politics, Environment, Economics [War and Peace]
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Box 106, Item 2: OED definition of nuclear deterrence
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R TREATISE ON POLITICAL THEORY
OTHER HQJOR TOPICS (UNOROERED):-
1.
PturatisM and pturatisMS: the otd (and Marxist) fallacy
of one form.
2.
Power,
hierarchies,
Constitutions, corporations, states and
transnationats
Authoritarian
rotations;
organisations.
3.
Undertying Metaphysics.
(not independent things).
Stytes of denocracy, and inproving denocracy.
6.
A Major source of power: property.
Land rights.
��INTRODUCTION
Present poLet Leet arrangements are hardig satisfactorg, angMhere. Theg
not
de Livering
adequate
shoutd at Least assist Ln
environment,
Meifare,
of mang of* the things that such arrangements
Levels^
productLon
the
are
or
education^
LiveLihood,
of,
attainment
...
e.g.
securLtg,
. Thus if better Mags to do
these things can be found, theg shouLd be sought, and tried.
Perhaps surprisingLg, there has been remarkabLg Lit tie effort expended upon
surveuing the range of poLLticaL
atternatives
(as
compared,
e.g.,
Mith
the
effort put into defending the status quo), or to Mork out, so far as can or need
be
done,
areas,
detaiLs
Mhere
of the more promising options.
entrenched
positions
Indeed, as Mith so mang other
dominate^ there
been
has
cons iderabLe
discouraoement of such important investigation.
R s ign if ican t r ange of a L te ma t i ves, sea roe Lg g i ven a triaL in
modern
historg, are these arrangements Mhich reduce domination and the exercise
of poMer and increase freedom. The present studg concentrates on these sorts
arrangements,
not
in
totaLitarian
of
or fascist or imperiaiist structures Mhich
have more than sufficient exempiification in recent times, despite their Lack of
justification and base in raM poMer and brute force.
10.
POLITICS WITHOUT DONINRTION:
Rnakgr ie means
varietg
of
RNRKYRIE RND RNRRCHISM
Mi thout domination.
domination.
For
domination
That
incLudes
comes
in
the
Mhoie
range
mang forms: of citizens bg
states, civiLians bg miLitarg, poor bg rich, bLacks bg Mhites, thirdMoriders
-1-
and
bg
�HMerLeans
)
Russ Lans. MOMen bu nan. young by otder, anLMaLs by huMans, nature
'.
\
. RnaRyrLsM consLsts Ln socLaL arrangeMents desLgned to avoLd aLL
e<.c*i v.*? , ^etA/'o
, py<-.
'fiohcoAc^
forMs of doMLnatLon-^ [There Ls nothLng Ln the account so far g^v^n whLch
bu Men?
such
orr
...
<3/*
LMpLLes that Lt Must taRe a gLven shape, that Lt Ls unLquety deterMLned.]
RnarchLsM
dLrectLy
Ls
MLth
concerned
onLy one part of Mhat anahyrLe Ls
about: doMLnatLon by peopte by states (Mhether theLr OMn or that of others), and
rewovaL of thLs doMLnatLon by aboLLtLon of the state. But there are
forMs
other
not essenttaLLy bound up MLth thLs forM, and aboLLtcon of
doMLnatLon
of
Many
the state Ls but oney rather drasttcyMay of reMovtng state doMLnatLon.
RnarchLsM has been extended, for Lnstance to eco-anarchLsM (as feMLnLsM has
been broadened to eco-feMLnLsM), Ln an effort to overcoMe a conspLcuous part of
c/
n/ttj
19th
C
anarchLsM tended to accept the saMe doMLnatLon of
the probteM,
that
nature by
Lndeed
and
huMans,
the
saMe
sort
of
scLentLfLo
reductLonLstLc
MaterLaL',SM, as Lts doMLnant rLvats, capLtaLLsM and (MarxLst) socLaLLsM. But the
broadenLng
caLLs
for
atso
further
expLanatLon,
to
LncLude
other types of
doMLnatLony^id strLctLy,such a recr^antatLon as to LnvoLve a change Ln MeanLng,
A
Ln Mhat Mas Meant by
anarchLsM .
In these cLrcuMstances, Lt Ls
More
forMard and Less MLsLeadLng sLMpLy to Lntroduce neM terMLnoLogy. Rtw
straLghtthere
are
, good reasons for seeRLng neM terMLnoLogy.
In
More
than
a century of use
anarchy
and Lts derLvatLves have becoMe
thoroughLy oenve-p-tied- MLth undesLrabte and LnapproprLate assoc LatLons, to such an
extent that soMe of these, such as chaos and dLsorder, are no&'saLd to gLve part
/
of the MeanLng of
anarchy'.
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139
genuine solution' since it combines both autonomy and authority; the difficulty i* 3
that it is empirically unrealistic? I shall return to WolfFs reasons for hesitating to 3
accept his own philosophical anarchist conclusions in a moment. Godwin, in his
F/M/mry Concerning Po/Mcu/ Justice, was not so timid. Godwin's theory is extremely
interesting for any discussion of political obligation because, like Hobbes' theory, it 3
shows the full implications of one form of adherence to radical, abstract
individualism.
B
Godwin's theory is a mirror image of Hobbes'. He ends where Hobbes begins^
with a collection of individuals who each view the world through their own,
subjective viewpoint. For Hobbes, the absolute freedom of individual private
judgement leads to complete insecurity and arbitrariness; for Godwin, the
unspeakably beautiful' practice of absolutely free exercise of individual private
judgement is the only way to peace (p. 208).*" Hobbes creates an artificial social
union held together by the Sword and reduces obligation' to enforced submission
and obedience. Godwin relies on reified Reason that speaks identically to
individual and he completely eliminates obligation' along with all other social
relationships. Social institutions and social relationships, Godwin argues, merely
stand in the way of individual judgement by preventing individuals seeing things as
they really are." Unhindered by governments, and other social institutions such as
promising, each individual will be able to decide for herself what ought to be done
and individuals' judgements will coincide. Reason will speak to all in a single voice
because, in the absence of social institutions, reality will stand revealed in all its
transparency.
Godwin's objections to the practice of promising are similar to his objections to
political institutions. Promising is absolutely considered, an evil' (p. 218). It may
occasionally be necessary to make a promise in order not to mislead other people
about one's intentions, but a defence of necessity in specific cases does not detract
from the essential evil of the practice itself. The evils of promising are twofold: first,
promising binds future conduct and thus rules out further individual judgement as
information and circumstances change. Secondly, promising encourages individuals
to act from 'a precarious and temporary motive' (p. 219). It distracts attention front
the consequences of particular actions, and hence obscures their intrinsic merits. If
the individual judges that an action ought to be performed (and Godwin saw this
judgement as a utilitarian calculation) then a promise adds nothing; it merely clouds
the moral worth, or otherwise, of the judgement itself. Political institutions function
in the same way to prevent individuals seeing things as they really are. For example;
they give an appearance of permanence to opinions that prevail at their inception and
thus cause the stagnation of judgement. Laws, like obligations, bind future conduct
and, being general in form, can take no account of the fact that each case is unique
and should be judged, according to Reason, on its own merits. Moreover, political
assemblies impose a factitious unanimity' on their members. Decisions have to bn
reached in which all the members must acquiesce, thus pretending that they am
something more than a collection of individuals, each with their own opinions;
Deliberation has to be cut short ly a vote and everyone, if their efforts are not to be
for nothing, has to see themselves as obliged' to carry out the decision: 'Nothing can
'3
?
3:
?
3;
'
y
more directly contribute to the depravation of the human understanding and
character' (p. 547).
Properly, according to Godwin, there are no obligations, only actions that ought
to be performed, or refrained from; nor is there any political authority, only a
coincidence of individual judgements that certain things ought to be done. Godwin's
individuals, unlike those who enter a social contract, are bound to nothing'. If an
individual joins in a 'common deliberation', he is, 'when the deliberation is over,...
as much disengaged as ever' (p. 234). This is not to say that he will never act with his
fellows; they may independently have arrived at the same judgement as to the right
course of action. Godwin also allows that individuals may sometimes defer to the
judgements of an authority on a particular matter; this he calls authority' that
depends upon the conhdence of him with whom it prevails' (p. 242). This deference
should, however, be rarely given, or it may tip over into a misplaced 'conhdence' in
alleged superiors who make judgements for others, and so inculcate those slavish
feelings that shrink up the soul' (p. 232). This form of obedience is a greater source
of degradation and depravity' than if the individual bows to political authority out
of fear of the sanctions for disobedience. Here Godwin anticipates Wolffs denial' of
the authority of the state. Wolff recognizes that there are many reasons for
compliance, but these are irrelevant providing that the claims of the state are
subjectively denied a binding moral force'." Similarly, Godwin argued almost two
hundred years ago that the individual who obeys solely to avoid punishment, may
reserve, in its most essential sense, his independence. He may be informed in
judgement,... and suffer his understanding neither to be seduced nor confounded'
(p. 141).
Godwin was confident that the philosophical anarchist denial' of authority and
obligation could be put into practice. Through discussion and education, and the
example of sincerity and frankness, individuals will become enlightened and develop
an appreciation of the evils of social institutions and social cooperation. Godwin
ruled out a sudden revolutionary change as this would not be based on the necessary
development of individual understanding. As a transitional measure he advocated a
system of 'juries', within small political communities or parishes', the juries dating
with individual offenders and disputes over property. He expected that disputes
between parishes would be rare and that the obvious principles of convenience'
would soon suggest a settlement (p. 546). A national assembly' might occasionally
be necessary to adjudicate in such matters, but it would not be a permanent body. At
first, all these institutions would exercise political 'authority' but, in time, Godwin
expected that they would merely issue invitations' to ^individuals to cooperate in
executing their verdicts, and, eventually, ail political institutions and cooperation
would wither away.
Abstract individualism rests on heroic assumptions. In Godwin 's case he assumes
that individual moral judgement can be exercised in complete absence of intersubjective theoretical categories and communal relationships. The argument of the
&!<7uiry implies that that which can be thought can be put into practice. Because it is
Possible to imagine an individual abstracted from social life, yet endowed with
Reason and a capacity for moral judgement, Godwin also assumes that, given a
�140
sufficient period of education and social and political change, those individuals could
actually exist, with their social past 'stored', as it were, within the consciousness of
each one. They would exist largely in isolation and yet, on occasions, emerge, inspect
reality and make an individual judgement that would coincide with judgements and
Reason of others.
Godwin's theory has some extremely charming aspects, but they cannot hide the
philosophically and sociologically bizarre consequences of radical individualism
taken to one of its extremes. Everything, except their own judgements, and actions
that flow immediately and unhindered from them, is foreign to one of Godwin's
individuals. Even the individual's own physical needs or freely created relationships
appear as impediments. A solitary individual, Godwin writes, is prevented from
executing his judgements 'in compliance with his necessities, or his frailties' (p. 758).
The evils of social cooperation are much worse, but technological progress will
enable individuals to do many things for themselves in the future that now require
the help of others. Godwin expects that concerts and plays will cease to be
performed; what enlightened individual would want to mouth the words or play the
compositions of another ? Eventually, the individual will come to see society as 'not a
necessary of life, but a luxury, innocent and enviable, in which he joyfully indulges'
(p. 761). At this point, however, there is no 'society' for them to indulge in. Godwin
relies on a reified Reason to link his individuals together but this cannot take the
place of the social relationships he has wished away.
Once again, the impossibility of distinguishing between institutions in various
dimensions of social life from within an abstractly individualist perspective is
demonstrated. Godwin treats promising as just as much a constraint and
impediment, and just as mystifying, as the laws of the state. It is worth emphasizing
that Godwin ends by depriving his individuals of the means of transcending their
own subjectivity. They have no social means of acting on their judgements and thus
must remain totally immersed in their own assessments of what 'ought' to be done.
The creative moral and social capacities of individuals are meaningless treated in the
abstract; they presuppose, and, in practice, can only be exercised and developed as a
part of social relationships including relationships of obligation.
A tacit realization of the peculiar conclusion of philosophical anarchism seems to
underlie Wolfs equivocations about the 'just state'. In the last part of /n Defence of
,4norchism, Wolff offers some 'deeper philosophical reasons' why he is unwilling to
accept the 'negative results' of his argument; the social world, unlike the natural
world, is not 'irreducibly other'. Wolff is thus implicitly arguing against Godwin
when he says that the state is 'no more than the totality of the beliefs, expectations,
habits, and interacting roles of its members and subjects.... The state,... cannot be
ineradicably other'." In other words, instead of arguing that all authority is
illegitimate, Wolff is now moving to the opposite theoretical extreme and putting
forward a version of the conceptual argument; the state is no more than the
association of its members and so necessary to them, so there is no problem about its
authority. Wolff also suggests that there might be a practical solution to the problem
of authority; political institutions must be decentralized and based on 'voluntary
compliance' (although he may be arguing that a system based on 'voluntary
141
compliance' does not involve authority at all). Curiously, Wolff does not appear to
see anything odd in an 'anarchism' that proclaims the necessity of the state. The
-central argument of anarchism is precisely that the state, including the liberal
democratic state, is inherently 'other', and so its claim to authority can never be
justified.
Anarchists, philosophical or otherwise, it will be objected at this point, make a
much larger claim than this. Like Wolff, they argue that all political authority, not
just that of the state, is illegitimate. It is true that anarchist writings are full of
statements to this effect. Kropotkin, for example, writes that 'anarchism... works to
destroy authority in all its aspects'." Such statements are usually taken at face value.
Flathman, for instance, criticizing Pitkin's comments on 'authority', argues that the
state of nature in Hobbes' and Locke's theories provides an example of individuals
living together without authority, and he asks what else have anarchists been
putting forward as an ideal?'." But, as I have shown, any social relationships
existing in Hobbes' radically individualist natural condition are likely to be based on
force and power, not authority, and Locke's state of nature, with its father-rulers
and capitalist economy, would certainly not And favour with anarchists. Nor is it
self-evident that the anarchist ideal does involve an absence of authority; not, that is,
if anarchism is seen as a political theory and not merely as a variety of philosophical
scepticism.
The political theory of anarchism is not a theory of the chaos with which
'anarchy' is popularly equated, but a theory of a specihc form of socio-political
organization that is, as it must be, ordered and rule-governed. Anarchists have
usually been political activists and popular pamphleteers and not concerned with
precise conceptual distinctions. They have tended to treat authority' as a synonym
for 'authoritarian', and so have identified authority' with hierarchical power
structures, especially those of the state. Nevertheless, their practical proposals and
some of their theoretical discussions present a different picture. Kropotkin calls
anarchism the 'no-govemment system of socialism'," but on one occasion he also
distinguishes 'government' and the 'state'. He writes that 'it seems to me that in State
and government we have two concepts of a different order'." Unfortunately,
Kropotkin does not pursue this distinction, but it suggests that one anarchist, at least,
did not totally reject political authority. This conclusion is also suggested by the
social and political changes advocated by Kropotkin. He argued that abolition of the
political institutions of the state would allow 'mutual aid' to become the ordering
principle of socio-political life. His discussion of this principle presents similar
dif&culties to the recent philosophically sophisticated discussions of cooperation,
reciprocity and obligation. In part, Kropotkin 's claim can be seen as a version of the
conceptual argument: 'the practice of mutual aid... [has] created the very conditions
of society ...'.** He also used mutual aid to refer to actual historical examples of
cooperative institutions based on the voluntary agreement of the members, and it is
the principle of free agreement that will govern an anarchist socio-political order.
However, as I have argued, in political life self-assumed obligation and authority
presuppose such 'free agreement'. Kropotkin's sketch of the internal organization of
the communes that will replace the state is significant here. Kropotkin envisages
���ct^—
C ^u^n.
^41
7
?
<*W
��THE SERRCH FOR RNRRCHISil - RND FOR RN RPPROPRIRTE NE!*f TITLE FOR IT.
IB.
term
The
anarchism
has acquired such an encrustation of unfortunate and
undesirabLe associations that it is time for a ciear neM term to rep Lace Lt. But
that is not so easg, one reason being that it is not at aLL easg to sag Mhat the
[neM] position the term is to ref Leet is Like, even in
rough
outLine,
or
hoM
that position (that nonstate state) might come about. [RepLace B approach Mith R
approach.]
It
easier
is
to be negative than positive, to sag (as
LtseLf
anarchism
does) Mhat anarchism, or the repLacement $-ism (sag) is not, rather than Mhat it
is.
LJhat the position is not is, firstig^a state of chaos. R state
not
one
of
disorder;
on
contrarg^ ^-istic
the
arrangements
definiteLg be sociai and poLiticaL arrangements - MiLL be
coroLLarg
-
since
(thermodgnamicaLLg)
energg for its production
extremeLg
untikeLg
and
-
$-g
is
there MiLL
organLsed.
R
organised sgstem or state requires
an
maintenance
highLg
of
-
is
that
a
t^-istic
sgstem
is
to arise spontaneousig. Directed urganisationaL energg must
be put into the attainment of a ^-istic endstate. Sought
d)-istic
sgstems
MiLL
' )
simpig
not
emerge spontaneousLg,
even Mhen energg LeveLs have been raised and
states excited, as in vigorous demonstrations or in revoLutionarg activities.
Furthermore, t^-ism does not inciude^ ang more than anarchism need
invoLve
vioLet=tee: Nur need a ^-istic sgstem emerge in a vioient Mag. Even if it arises
in
a
revoiutionarg Mag, there is no need for the route to incLude substantiaL,
or even perhaps ang vioience. The notion of a nonvioient
contradictorg
revoLution
is
not
a
one. Nor are rapid nonvioLentig induced changes begond the bounds
of reaL posstbeietg Ln severaL parts of the Morid.
-3-
.
�Rn additionat
anarchLsM
set
froM
derives
EngeLs-LenLn
anarchLsM,
Mounted
as
negative
of
the
assoc tat Lons
pretty
a
pubLLeatLon
the
for
reasons
scurrLLous,
against
and
Rnarcho-
reveaLs. R Main reason for the Marxist reject Lon of
synd Lea L Lsw
term
caMpaign
RnarchLSM
LenLn.
EngeLs
Marx
the
grafted on to Lt by Marxists. Marx-
and
reguLar,
MLth
dispensing
anarch LSM
Mas
that Lt Mas assuMed to LnvoLve LMMed Late transact Lon to state Less socLety.
Uhat aLL anarchist trends have Ln coMMon Ls a utop Lan vLsLon of
settLng up a socLety ML thout state and expLotttng cLasses through a
spontaneous rebeLLLon by the Masses and instant abotition of state
poMer and aLL Lts LnstLtut Lons, instead of through potiticat struggLe
bu the working cLass, socLaLLst revoLutLon, and estabtishMent of a
proietarian dictatorship (p.9).
ThLs Last LnvoLves a faLse dLchotoMy. SiMitarLy there Ls heavy crLtLcLsM of
anarehLst dogwas
about
revoLutLon (p.I7). The
transition
aboiishing
opposLng
the
as
state"
the
idea Mas that of the
fLrst
as
state
step
Ln
affording
the
a
period". But reaLLy there Ls no opposLtLon: both are coMpatLbLe with
anarchLsM: there Ls /yio^d than one May of deaiing MLth a scoundreL.
The qeneraL shape of poLLtLcaL transfurMation, both Ln
cLassicat
MarxisM
and Ln anarchLsM, Ls a MuLti-stage transforMation MLth
1)
transLtLon states, Mhere the state Ls retaLned,
2)
an end state, Mhere the state Ls reMoved.
But
the
suggestion,
especiaLLy
LenLn,
Ln
that even Ln the end state of
Ls
cuMHUH LSM, the s ta te M L L L surv eve:
criticai
Marx Lsts
anarchist
of
proposeLs
for
the
destruction of authority of every k end, and the introduction of totaL decentrat
er L tic LsM
ts
decentraLisation^; but it
difference
(which
ref Leet
unfairLg
never the Less
deeper
with
Loaded,
r*.
MBf^S
out
differences
Ln
every kind and totaL
Lts
tMO
areas
MorLd
of
substantLaL
vieM). For exaMpLe,
Leadership need not be excLuded, Mhere roLe to direct is freeLy granted and does
-4-
�not devoive into 3 fixed or imposed power relationship?
and
influence
mag
be
exercised from federai to Locai LeveL as we Li as from LocaL to federai.
There
are
batch
a
sort of theorg to
anarchism.
Like
of iesser associations aiso removed bg distancing the
be
outiined
from
its
dominant
rivaL, accepted too much Eniightenment doctrine,
anarchism.
For
(e.g. the essentiai goodness of man, the unaiieged
instance,
benigness
centurg
19th
science,
of
and
worthwhiLeness of dominant economic goats. Not ontg was it too much a product of
thinking:
Eniightenment
it
shared with Marxist unecoLogicaL assumptions about
the eiimination of scarcitg, and with capitalism
assumption
an
reduction (at Least in most of its
individuai
of
being an exception).
If we trg to reach behind the contrasts, of 19th centurg poLiticaL thought.
both orthodox and
at ternatives"'.
do
we
reduct ion ism, . science
individuai
especiaLLg
what
find?
and
Not
reduct ion ism,
ontg
worship,
techno Logg
and
maximisation, but mang other doctrines from its mgre orthodox, powerfut and
yei/cvc-Z
successfui rivais, incLuding domination, ^forms of domination. It is the removai
of a wide varietg of forms of domination, of
a ims
at
(Martin's
power
getting rid of)^
the
structures,
that
negative side of anakgrie.
rTn-srchg, w t th the remove L of state, ts ontg part of that: tt aLsc
remova L
anakgrie
concerns
the
of domination of nature (bg humans), countrgside (bg cities), women (bg
men), b Lacks (bg whites), etc.
Rs the removai of weeds makes wag for new growth, so the removaL
of
domination
makes
wag
respects
too
reiations
anakgrie
forms
for new relations. The primitive side of anakgrie is
concerned, among other things with such retations, especiaiig
seLf-reguLating
of
of
reaches
this
far
with
stabie
sort, and wags of achieving them.
begond
what
anarch ism.
5-
and
In these
was normaLLg encompassed bg
j
�was selected
RnakgrLe
tupographLc
to
resembLance
resembLance,
and
e^c4mf"Cttics4T.3
get
It
-
Ln
tern
the
was
It
of*
because
Lts
and
phonetcc
cLose enough to benefit bg the
Ls
hopefuLLg,
to
shed
the
bed
/A <%<2
the fLrst term arrLved at, bg eng weans, get Lt
not
removed,
means rough Lu the same as the fLrst.
resuLt
however
anarkLe .
enough
farMas
part
SRNOOillNISfl,
In the
search
terms
new
for
f'crst
the
L.e. sandomLn (wtthout waster or authorLtg)
But atthough domLnatLon cs one of the ma tn thcngs to be removed tn
served for
aLternatLve
arrangements,
especLaLLg)
Ls
onLg
Ln
domLnatLon
part
range
pLcture.
the
of
a
of
forms
(envLronmentaL
DLth domLnatLon Ls assumed to go
subject Lon and expLoLtatLon of what Ls domLnated. LIL th domLnatLon a Lso tends
go
Yet
expans ton.
there
are
other
thtngs. [Expand, when Look at domLnatLon
Later.J Finother word Looked at that has some currencg
state Less
roughLg
LLteraLLg Lt means
to
acephaLous
Ls
wLthout a head
head Less .
meaning
It Ls not a
part Lou LarLg good term for present purposes.
state
The
operates
wLth,ratLfLes,
SLnce both AnakgrLe
domLnatLon.
the same road for a Long part of
ensure,
and
reLg
upon,
and
LegLtLmLzes
forms
of
and anarchg aLm to eLLmLnate these, theg traveL
thejourneg. Find
forms
of domLnatLon -
Lf
the
rLde
together;
and
state
Ls
as mang crLtLcs,
anarchLsts, have argued - then anakgrLe LncLudes anarchg.
of the LnLtLaL argument, theg
mang
some
In ang case
bound
to
not reaLLg
for
sssLmLLatLon^ Ln
much
the
interests of brevLtgwLLL not be too mLsLeadLng.
S
great
Ls proper - Ls
advantage of anakgrLe, however - and one reason whg the LncLusLon
thLsj- The
rewovaL
of
domLnatLon
gLves
actLvLsts
something
LmmedLate to work for, and Ln an ef'fectLve wag — 3gaLn bg contrast wLth anarchg,
whLch
mau
be
a Long-term project, or aLmost a do-nothLng one Ln some advanced
capLtaLLst states.
-6-
�FOOTNOTES
The probiem is frequentiy not one of suppiy, but rather of
1.
distribution
stiii -3 matter of poiitico-economic arrangements.
2.
Negativety remains a prob Lem. It is considered beioM.
3.
foLLoM
Preface
iJhat
are
from the
by N.Y. KeLpinsky, to thLs work.
couLd
be argued is that the idea of immediate
modern states is rather naive.
)
A
<3'
/ZuA
<5^
/7^
c
y*&"-
-7-
7
�21/3/84 - I.
ANARCHISM :
%ea</oc/
s
The multiple
aims of
Often
theory.
political
an aim,^ is
takq^ to
(model) of the good society, or even more strongly (and less likely) of
a
or perfect, society.
But, to put it in an old-fashioned way, there is no
"X
such
thing as the good society, any more than there is such a thing as the good life.
In
at
principle
least,
are
there
variety
a
of
good
and
societies,
even
pluralistically there are different mixes (or pluralities) of good societies.
ft
-Ritter's
Rosseau,
(p.135)
problem
A
with
of
'
Marx,
equality, vs.
with
models
material
of
the
good
de^dgnce^ vs
society
(e-g-
Prato,
with
The^ can be combined in a pluralistic framework of
intellectual virtues)^ vanishes,
many good societies.
competing
Likewise the problem of conflicting values is
much reduced,
4
and indeed given sufficient tolerance of other arrangements largely vanishes.
Ritter,
Equality.
'The real
p.137:
/?*
diversity that matlcs anarchist society is
supposed to be accompanied by equality of staffs'.
But this is not required.
even is equality of power, but rather removal of social power.
Nor
This leads Ritter
on to the alleged conflict of community, which is 'repressive', and individuality.
But
some conflict
Ae.
^following
is alright^
as Ritter admits later (pp.138-9), where he gives
conflict:
pairs? generating
diversity/equality,
r?J
censure/^o^^^
individuality/community.
Consistency requirements.
required
to
demonstrate
Ritter^ at^mp^yes these everywhere; e.g.
the
of
public
censure.
, from partial models,
argues
of
a
state-less
issue
f
____ of.consistency of freedom with use
But see also(p.l, p.9^
Ritter
harmoniousness)
*i ^3-
/
condition, p.138.
(also
consistency
anarchists are
to
consistency,
and
permissibility
of
some
limited communities and arrangements of anarchistic
(primarily those given by Krop^t^ut)^
�1.
Criticisms^
'Individualism
gone
wild'
destructive
'socially
(Hyndman),
This confuses pluralistic/socialistic anarchism with right-
selfishness (Rp.140).
And as R's model one has 'communal individuality'.
leaning^
2.
Social
oppressiveness
gang'
'adolescent
picture^
Thus
But,
e.g.
on
suffocating
contrary
group
peer
considerable
very
permit^
pressures;
individualism and choice.
Insufficient 'provision for privacy, for external self-expression and for
3.
meeting
claims
in
problems
of
distributive
some anarchist
justice'
communities,
While
(Rp.140).
things
these
'Godwin's conversational
e.g.
may
be
anarchy',
they are not problems in pluralistic arrangements.
Ritter argues however that
in the anarchistic society
the needs
for privacy
vanishes - both as refuge from considerable intrusions and as a place of seclusion
A
for inner growth or restoration.
But these things depend on much^improved other
people.
3.2
Of course nothing excludes solitude.
4
The issue of
older
character
of
such
behaviour
by
reasoned
ties up with the
the expression of emotions
anarchism,
argument.
the
settling
ig&aanarchisms
of
reject
disputes
rationalistic
and
reliance
the
controlling
on
reason,
because reason has too often been used for evil ends, etc., and because emotional
attributes are considered
to
be more central
MiilLLiinally-oriented anarchism,
to
Ritter draws on
the
In rejecting more
person.
the
reason/formation
*
dichotomy.
*
t i
'
vp-v
{y
But emotion does not exclude or block out reason indefinitely.
emotion does not interfere with freedom:
So too
it is false that 'the extensive freedom
/!
of classical anarchy is simply unattainable without the limits on emotional self
expression that non-rational anarchists reject'
(Rp.143).
�3.3
special
failure
The
of
bestow
to
on
benefits
from a one-track view,
This again comes
talents.
society
anarchistic
those
with
from pure communistic
anarchism alone.
Ritter argues
[or
understanding',
people will not
receive
is better
It
'desire
, efficient production
incentives'
(p.143).
He argues
to develop
... native
talents',
'satisfaction
'polytechnical education'
that people not of
to argue
'just de^ejfft'^
re&SM^@d]
A
usual
varied work',
voluntary,
etc.
these
without
'mutual
...
some
in terms of what they put in, still '
v'tewetf
occurs
though
that
(of English
from
in
character!),
this sort will choose different
life-styles, in different communities.
The
4.
political
'unanimous
'repudiation of
(Rp.144).
direct
democracy'.
individuality
between
This
theory'
citizenship is
and
which
active citizenship'
to
has
argued
Rosseau
(see
citizenship
correlative to a state,
do
with
'is a
anarchistic
there
that
recurrent theme
Rp.145):
was
a
criticism
of
contradiction
itself.
dubious
in
But
.
.
.
,
,
so^not too surprising that it is damaged.
Anarchism gives much greater scope for the do-nothing or do—it-when-you-feel-like-
it life.
No filling-in blw form; at this
cn.
times, voting^ those Ejeg^ixicLal days, etc.
demoded,
time,
registrations at those
,
That is, it offers a range of freedoms the
citizen does not get.
Presumably also then the Kantian idea of man as a self-governing citizen also
gets ditched.
public
But the alleged accompanying virtues - such as being self-directred,
spirited,
controlling
die t ing
-
are
not
lost,
but
enhanced.
For
communities replace the state as the place where they are manifested.
5.
1 Argument
making.
roblem
from the strange character of anarchist
arises
because
it
(p.148), provided Wational procedural
permits
bad
freedom and decision-
decision-making,
rules are met.
so
R
claims
This is very curious.
But
�4
cjoc4
the problem of
appeals to
rationality-justified
freely-chosen
exploitation ^arise^ here.
constraints - which from a consistency viewpoint limits freedom.
R
The
constraints are internalisation, positional authority, censorial rebuke.
Anarchist arrangements
are better
superior to feasible alternatives,
than where we are.
Since they are also
that is enough for movement in that direction.
No requirement of best need be met.
5.
dm rd al
Anarchism is a dangerous ideal, because it helps undermine the established
4
social order.
But it is pernicious because that ideal is unattainable.
)
6.
no
place
Objection to anarchist methods.
in
them.
example' (p.152).
According
to R
But aversion and fraud are said to have
the main
methods are
'fr#ecof argument and
But this ^gnves out a range of i-ndi-catrrves and strategies.
��s
THE^ARCUhEETS HJR THE STATE.
There are a variety of arguments^*which will be ass^^bled at first
a
jumbled
order.
Other arguments are:
in
from organisational demands, from
law and order, from provision of public goods generally, from
maximization
(ana prisoners' dilemma, etc.)
(e.g.A A.
surprising Argument for the State is given by economists
Atkinson
and
Lectures
Stieglit^,
in
Economics).
Public
required to regulate market(s) and ensure that
theorems
of
The state is
welfare
even
ground that it
apply, Is that .case? .the market is invariably recommended
------- /)
is self-regulating, and can dispense with government.
Argument for^ state
appalling^from
ideal).
that
overcoming
CrSiK
angle^
angle
deficiencies
really
of ^market
For it means that the market is assumed (as
All.argument shows ^is that market isn't means of regulation^
that
should adopts^ In a way it is a reductio of ^market.
It may be claimed that
it
is
analytically
that
true
any
society
involves a state. This is false. Social arrangements without state powers
A)ct
5M!
L' /
J -- CT
are perfectly possible. ^&onstruct small social moael^,,
The argument that no society &ommon4ry-1 s
anthropologists
iI^
defence
of
the
claim
that
71c
internal
by
some
primitive society is
anarchic - depends on an A-conversion. ^rgument^^j QJ
(a) every society has exhibits (some)
used
stateless
order
,
fJ"—
(otherwise
it
would not be a society)
(b) the basic proper^function of
order, i .e.
(c)
the
fA/e
is
to
ensure
internal
state^(ought to% impl^) order.
there is internal order.there must be some sort of state.
��7
^77777^77- /71
<?/=
^7757777;
- /<F^ /
�3?
ARGUMENTS AGAINST STATES AND THEIR POKERS
Nation-state arrangements, which
based
on
assumptions
of
are
fairly
recent
phenomena,
are
a cert^jn amount of independence and isolation.
The rise of technology, including communication, have put these assumptions
in doubt, as has.war.
1
'The presumption of the nation-state system, that sovereignty
implied
an ability to protect a nation's territory and population, is precisely the
presumption denied by the nuclear, capacities
313).
This
was
already
put
in
doubt
by
of
both
other
superpowers'
things:
(PL,
now also by
Consider again also
Argument A.
1) Kars are the rights of states only.3
'x may [wagej war upon y only if x is a sovereign state;
has
legal
means
(Barnes, p.776).
declaration
of
by
which
it
may
3.
not
of
authority,
requires 'just authority' to do so, thus:
authority of a prince, at whose command the war is to
does
otherwise
x
and must settle the claim against y'
Thus Aquinas explains the condition
war
for
be
that
'first the
waged;
for
it
belong to a private person to start a war since he can prosecute
Naturally one has to worry about private armies and so forth, as well.
But undoubtedly the overwhelming problem in the case of 4cyp*=. LN wars
with the superstate.
his rights in the court of a superior' (Aquinas, quoted in Barnes,
In tact however an alternative factual premiss will serve as well:
(a) only (super)states are capable of waging
LN wars.
p.776).
�PATHS TO ANARCHISTIC END-STATE
Pasture of stages ( o ) and transitions (o ** o)
finish
start
Golden
future
age
Present
Past
Intermediate states
'?
Pluralist
anarchism
Communist
anarchism
Kingdom of
God
Corporate
capitalism
State socialism
Democratic
socialism
Totalitarianism
A useful model for the process is that of punctuated equilibrium, drawn from
recently
reformulated
evolutionary
theory.
Another
useful
model
is
Kuhn's
picture of the growth of science, which is also one of punctuated equilibrium,
the
equilibrium
dominates,
There
is
states
or
stages
being
those
where
a
scientific
paradigm
the transitions between stages being rapid and even revolutionary.
presumably
a
general
model
of
this
type within
the
framework
of
systems theory, which brings models of this type together [verify *1].
The classical anarchist assumption is that no intermediate stages need be
involved, we can transit directly (in a single revolutionary upheaval) into an
anarchistic end-state - a pretty unplanned and unprepared for end-state.
the
fast
increasing
size of
the world's
With
human population and complexity of
modern organisation - both further locking things into statist frames - that
assumption looks
increasingly untenable.
reasons for supposing
necessary.
There
are
also,
and always were,
that intermediate preparation and planning stages are
For what have to be altered,
in particular, are human attitudes,
�2
expectations, etc. - malleable parts of human "nature" that can be altered by
reeducation, reflection and immersion in alternative conditions.
What has to be changed?
Much.
The modern encouragement of greed - in
such forms as maximum consumption, maximum production, etc.
of
gross
inequality.
economic
bottom up,
The
is
reversal
to be achieved in affluent
and by redirecting military and industrial
What still has some appeal is
reorganising.
The entrenchment
the idea,
spending into
social
suggested by Marx's
work, of initial transition into a state governed from the bottom (certainly
no longer workers) instead of from the top:
this pending
of
states' structure
could
but the intended good effects of
be
rather
quickly
lost
(like
the
Aid
effects of shallowly^/cultural revolutions).
A
critical
question
is
what
produces
the direction and
so on are desirable.
decidedly undesirable, e.g. nuclear war.
But
one
state
to
some causes of^ transition are
There are other ways as the models
natural cataclysm, economic instability
The anarchistic
which -
from
For if we can find out perhaps we can hasten the process - assuming
another?
reveal,
transition
route
is a branch on the
1
accumulation o^f anomalies.
2
tree of future political options,
blown over and assuming a single starting point (that of Australia
say) - schematically looks like this?
^E.g.
the present
loans and deficit situation,
especially
in
third world
countries.
2
Including undermining of state economies by al ternative economies (examples
from places like Peru).
�3
Anarchistic
branches
It is crucial to avoid many of the alternative futures possible from where we
are, e.g. transitions to the increasing state-corporate control of life.
The Kingdom of God can^ be comjhpared with the marxist findj state?
The
Kingdom of God is pacifist (state).
Peace is fully realised, and
justice i^foundation of it (yet there are tensions between them
sometimes?)
J/
�/ _---- .--------------
seek 3 newer world.
'Its
%
<7^t/
1
?V^^/ 4^7
1
state has destroyed so Much of coMMunity arrangeMents that
road
anarchism wiii have to Make use of the state. 11 Ls L ike 3 weed such as
lantana,
It has suppressed growth of the new forest, But simply sorting it
out will
expose the ground to forces fertile to the new forest aiso (moisture
stress,
erosion, etc.), bo the state Must be pruned awasy, substituted
for, and
Jttirpated bit by bit.
&. There is now so Much governMent - the governMent
effectively
in
Many
so
areas
of
IsoMMunal structures - that simply/
social
life, Ibreaking down and displacing
dispensing
with
governMent,
an
immediate
to coMMunal arrangeMents, could not be accomplished without Massive dislocation. Short of a Massive disaster, disabling governmental s^^ructure,
return
instant
anarchisM
is
not
feasible.
Since such a disaster is not improbable,
instant anarchism should not however be excluded, but,
-^pnte.s
states,
allowed
and
planned
for.
Otherwise,
the
like
route
more
evolutionary
is by replacement,
ching us or substituting for the displaced coMMunity structures
broken
down
state ac t iv i ty.
Removal of government - not from where controls are required ac^trarl
rep lacements^e.g. transitional penetration, big business,(are developed^ - from
exploitative areas, e.g. gambling, drugs, prostitution, etc. 5et up instead nets
to gatch people/victijhs of these things.
�voluntarg arrangement freelg unLirtt/ted to, then contributions
to state coffer^ should also be votuntarg, likewise involving free assent, not
If ^the state
compulsorg as theg are.
But
then
free-rider
problems,
etc. No, onlg showing there wasn t consent, bg
mang exodus from fragments. If there were onlg a few free-riders^ these people
who didn't have a state constribution and would get state carried, such as
police - as simple as RR
You bug state protection, whatever, just Ibke
state insurance.
/
. E Is ter Sour Gr apes p. 37_bqttow
(a Iso
surrounding
section))
....... ...... —' ------------- ------------------------
ueMucracg
anc^-
o the r po1i t ica1 :sustems advanted bu various authors for their side effects
Z! o
which obtainable better in other wags. Lare for anarchism here. Patemen good
A
____ J*
j
�On Tr.3nsn.3t Lona Ls
The sources of
-3re power of one sort or another. SocLaL
arrangements wLthout ^%?-W^-b^-h'A^^>wLLL be designed so far as possLbLe to LLmLt
such power and prevent Lts accumutatLon.
Prevent,^ gLobaL corp^arrangements/ LnternatLonaLLsm^ aLready over hLLL. Rnd good
twenty years our of date.
//GLobaL (^each p.368.. Rehun^ the prob Lem — passed by the gLobaL corporatLon ...
---------------------/)
ms
Ls excessLve power, and the seLf-Lmpatred LLmLtatLon on power cs not characterr Jsttc of human LnstLtutLons',^ rearranged?.
Remedies.
1.
at
InformatLon and end to secrecy, as a
way
to
socLaL
responses.^
books as pubLLc documents etc., p.369.
2.
TndLspensLbLe data for natLonaL program of natLonaL and Lnternat-
LonaL reguLatLon, 370. Sc<%/<)<2
,
Standsrd Last Lon of accountLng -r-------- and practLces.
p.3*^/ Breakdown of pubLLc/prLvate dLstLnctLon and dLsappearance of free market?
'L--------- .
GLobaL co rpo rat Lons buLLt on socLaL cap^taL consp ucuous L^*
p.376
RLternatLon of t3X Laws to remove credLts and
Tax bLas Ln favour of transnatLonaLs.
counterrLdLng power / be^^re strateggt^ ,
pubLLc dLrectors , better uaadetermLnatLon , pre^Ldents runnLng for
c?r
companys at Least eLectLonjfor candLdates of reguLati)$y comm css conf
GeneraLLyatter tax Laws, remove subsLdLes whLch 4ncouraaa the accumutatLon of
.
,7
prLvate weaLth, and power, us Lng pubLLc/socLat and bLoLogLcaL capLtaL. ^7^
/j /y
CCyTY
^g
-y
power.
fAc
State underpinning of multinationals.
Multinationals would not have
arisen to their present position of eminence without state assistance - and
infrastructure, education, security, etc.
N^d detailed evidence of this.
Then can argue that problem of multinationals can be resolved, more or
-3
p
less automatically, with problem of state.
�/^*
/?
-e^—
�7
0
,%?.
rofit system^never satisfactory,^now extremely dama^gmg. Compare^ damag
fetnoTie.
,
/ i
be
profits - and look at the way these
^to worlds
by destruction for
profits are spent.
Profit system compare with (ccyM?) sovereignty systems.
�an anarchist.theory.
LAW
.
jLaw is incompatible with anarchist utopianism.
Anarchism can retain a framework of rules.
are backed up, and enforced.
where this involves violence.
pre^$e, etc.
consider,
This is false.
The key issue is how these rules
What anarchism excludes is coercive backing
Opposition usually involves sliding on coergion,
So it looks as if there are several different theses to
depending on how enforcement, rules, etc. are expanded.
Kam argued that anarchism could not handle law on basis of
A
i.
A
level of detail of law.
ii. amount of procedural detail.
But there are no barrier at all.
be refuted by a countermodel.
Complexity is no bar.
The claims can
One such is the model Chom^siey appeals to,
that of rules of language, which are complex and intricate enough, and nvj
backed by force (Passmore wanted to suggest they were!
But it is obvious
that they need not be, whatever lapses occurred in the 16th century.)
As a matter of history, several anarchist thinkers were not opposed to
operation of law, but included it in their framework.
Proudhon.
Others?
One example is
�/^ <2
��MY ENGAGEMENT WITH SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THEORY
Over the past decadeI have found myself increasingly concerned with
social and political problems and more and more immersed in the theoretical
issues raised thereby.
In large part this has arisen from environmental
involvement, especially on forestry and nuclear matters, and the realisation
that the basic problems mostly lay with social and political arrangements.
It
thus became important to try to determine what those really were, and how they
might be changed, what the alternatives weie.
But in part also my legitimate intellectual movement from logic and meta
physics^ to a wider perspective which includes social and political philosophy
as major area of concern has come about as a result of reflection on the
unsatisfactory and fragmented state of philosophy and its surrounds.
It became
increasingly hard (in particular for someone trained in analytic philosophy with
a heavy Oxbridge orientation) to avoid noting, especially when confronted with
wider philosophical and social issues, that one's philosophical education and
ifn 1972 I presented and circulated a paper, 'Is there a need for a new, and
environmental ethic?' which played an influential part in the rapid growth of
environmental philosophy in New Zealand and Australia (on the latter see D.
Mannison and M. McRobbie in Environmental Philosophy). Such an excursion into
ethics was not without precedent. My research work in fact began in ethical
theory, with a thesis on moral scepticism, and I thought about and wrote on
deontic problems in the sixties.
^The point is explained in detail in work cited in the accompanying curriculum
vitae (where all otherwise unreferenced work is listed).
In the case of
forestry see for example 'Destructive forestry in Australia and Melanesia' and
'World rainforest destruction - the social factors'; as to nuclear see
'Nuclear power - some ethical and social dimensions' and 'The ethics of nuclear
war, and political fall-out'; and for the general argument see 'Social theories,
self management and environmental problems'.
^This does not mean that I have entirely abandoned these areas. Logic is, I
believe (with Anderson, and so with the mainstream of Australia's most
significant philosophical movement), the central part of philosophy, and many
conceptual problems in applied philosophy will continue to require return to
logical ground in order to find satsifactory solutions. A sound training in
logical theory is essential for deeper solutions for some of these problems.
I should add that I never have been a very pure logician. I moved into logic
in order to try to solve severe conceptual problems first in the philosophy of
science and then in metaphysics. Now that these problems are largely solved
(to my satisfaction at any rate) I can presumably move on to other things.
�2.
practice offered only a somewhat limited set of tools and techniques for
tackling wider philosophical concerns and, worse, but few instruction as to how
to apply these analytic techniques more widely.
Nor had the inadequacy of
such an education and the sort of philosophy to which it led gone
unremarked.
It was charged that philosophy had abdicated several of its proper respons
ibilities - for example, to organise knowledge into some more coherent whole
or world-view, to elaborate a social theory and influence social criticism,
even to afford intellectual leadership - and had become excessively analytic
and specialised, and therewith narrow and sterile (concerned, e.g., merely with
linguistic niceties, conservative commonsense and/or scholastic logic-chopping).
It was charged that academic philosophy not only had become excessively timid and
accordingly lost intellectual excitement and appeal, but also had lost relevance
to and touch with the important intellectual issues of the times and had failed
in the business of addressing a larger audience with philosophical interests.
These charges, which have a solid foundation, did not come from within academic
philosophy but were most evocatively made by people outside philosophy (though
with some knowledge of it) or by those in the margins of academic, professional
ised^ philosophy.
Thus Durrant, an outsider, has powerfully expressed a part of
the charges:
... philosophy itself, which had once summoned all sciences to its
aid in making a coherent image of the world and an alluring picture
of the good, found its task of inordination too stupendous for its
usage, ran away from ... .'LtheJ battlefronts of truth, and hid itself
in recondite and narrow lanes, timidly secure from the issues and
responsibilities of life.*
Philosophy began to change in the Seventies, some philosophers naturally
changing with it.
We aimed to address a wider range of socially relevant
topics - and also sometimes a .wider audience - for example, to get beyond the
^W. Durrant, The Story of Philosophy, Second edition, Simon and Schuster, New
York, 1926, p.v. Durrant though (or perhaps because) a leading populariser
of philosophy in North America, is not usually at all well regarded by
academic philosophers.
�3.
sterile examples of previous texts on moral philosophy to live issues, from
minor cases of promising and truth-telling to abortion and euthanasia, genetic
engineering and the treatment of animals, violence and nuclear war.
But the
analytical methods used for the most part did not change, the widening of
horizons in applied philosophy proceeded from a narrow and inadequate logical
(argumentive) and metaphysical base.
stagnation:
The applied expansion went with theoretical
mainstream theoretical philosophy sat in the doldrums.
Nor has the applied transformation gone far enough.
Significant issues
have been left to theologians and journalists.And there has been insufficient
effort by philosophers (even those addressing relevant issues) to integrate
their work with that of other (social) sciences that shed light on the issues,
to overcome discipline fragmentation by synthesis.
For it was not merely that
philosophy itself was fragmented and often irrelevant, it had also become
largley isolated
from other disciplines and had ceased to be properly informed
by them - or to inform them.
This unsplendid isolation is particularly conspicuous in the case of
political philosophy, which often proceeds in much the way it did in the
17th century, with little of the import it should be receiving from recent
advances in social psychology and
well-founded) sociobiology.
ethology and (to the extent that it is
More generally, the way in which areas have been
isolated from one another, and ceased communicating, to the disadvantage to
all, is a matter for serious concern.
It is not merely that philosophy, for
example, can be enriched by taking due account of the social sciences.
The
^This description derives from Passmore.
^Philosophers and other academics should not be led in these areas, but do
the leading. One of the roles of the academic community - a role in which
philosophy in Australia (much, degenerated by too long an incestuous history)
mostly fails - is to address a wider public than part of itself. Philosophers
may justly complain that there is little competent public discussion of these
issues where applied philosophy matters and no reputable intellectua
ea er
ship in Australia at present, but they have by and large done little to
rectify the matter.
�4.
social sciences also can be improved, and much rubbish removed, by taking account
of philosophical criticism.Each impacts on the others, in ways that should
be taken into account.
Moreover the interplay of different parts is fruitful.2
There is a richness to be generated if the interaction works well.
And such
interaction is required to pull much material into a more coherent whole.
Such sentiments on integrating areas and rendering work more informed and
holistic have been expressed before.
another putting them into effect.
It is one thing expressing them, and
The tasks involved are difficult.
And
putting them into effect is not of course a task for just one person, but for
several.
A start can however be made with interdisciplinary people who
willingly cross discipline boundaries, because they need to, and see the need
to;
by people who are able to adopt the often special methods and procedures
of other disciplines and combine them with those of their own.
But a start can
not in general be satisfactorily initiated just by administrative fiat.
A
good deal of evidence has now accumulated to show that an administrator cannot
simply pull together a successful interdisciplinary research group by hiring
people skilled in the different disciplines concerned and putting them in a
common setting.
Such, groups can evolve however by individuals with wide-ranging
concerns interesting other researchers or like-inclined people from other
disciplines in overlapping or joint problems.
And in setting up the conditions
for such collaborative research to evolve, administrative inputs are important.
It is, for example, an astute move to have a position linking several different
departments 3 attached to none of them but to a section that sits so-to-speak
above them;
for in this way the researcher has access to all the departments
concerned but is confined to none.
*New philosophies of nature call for much more than this, indeed for major theor
etical reorientation of some social sciences. The point is elaborated in the
concluding part of 'Human chauvinism and environmental ethics'.
2Nor will unified or coherent social sciences be arrived at without substantial
philosophical imports.
3 As the present post does.
influenced the move.
No doubt other political considerations have also
�5.
I think I can justifiably account myself an interdisciplinary person.
Firstly, I have considerable experience in collaborative work, an advantage
that philosophers, in contrast to experimental scientists, seldom enjoy.
claim
is supported by my publication record.
The
While that indicates the extent of
my joint activity in research, it does not fully record cooperative activity
in organising conferences and workshops, both in logic and in environmental
philosophy, in helping found or reestablish organisations (the Australasian
Association of Logic is the main example, but the local AAP is another), in
establishing publications (e.g. the Environmental Philosophy Discussion Papers
serve both Philosophy Departments) and so on.
More significantly, I can also fairly claim substantial experience in
interdisciplinary work, as well as in other fields of philosophy.
For example,
I have worked not only in philosophy departments but in mathematics and in
environmental studies programs.i
Furthermore, my work in forestry, which is
continuing, brought me into close touch with people from a broad spectrum of
fields, not only forestry, but also economics, geography, demography, botany
and zoology.
The work, which is well-known locally and referred to in inter
national textbooks, has for the most part been well received by people in
those area, except forestry, and has been taken seriously .by those who disagree
with the often controversial positions developed.
My more recent work on
environmental problems has led me to communicate and interchange material with
sociologists and political Scientists in North American and England, and also
with people in a variety of fields in Australian Colleges of Advanced Education.
Naturally then, much of the resulting work reaches people in a range of fields.
My work on environmental problems has also resulted in invitations to participate
in conferences in a wide range of areas, on forestry (in several Australian
^1 declined invitations to work in interdisciplinary research groups in Washington
and The Hague primarily because they would have kept me away from Australia too
long and obliged me to endure northern winters.
�6.
states), on energy, on the environment (in New Guinea and USA).
I have twice been
invited to present papers at Australian Sociology conferences, but been unable to
do so because of commitments abroad.
The basic forestry book The Fight for the Forests, and subsequent forestry
and environmental papers, already included much that bears upon and is informed
by social and political theory.
A new book, tentatively entitled Forestry in
Australia, now in preparation by a team of people drawn from a wide range of
disciplines - which is intended to replace The Fight for the Forests, long out
of print - will be even more closely involved with social and political theory.
It includes much fuller analysis of social classes and power structures (and
models of these) as well as, like earlier work, examination of elites, and types
of inequality.
This should also begin to reveal how my work on apparently diverse areas is
interrelated, and not a result of compartmentalisation.
Most obviously, my
work on forestry, which directly involves a range of environmental problems, in
a very practical way, leads directly into areas of social and political theory.
It is less obvious, but nonetheless a fact, that work on environmental problems,
value theory and logic, is not disconnected, but joined by several connecting
ways.
For example, relevant deontic logic has shown how the key moral matter of
moral dilemmas and conflicts of value can be treated.
The logic of obligation
is important in rejecting arguments that there is a significant separate
"morality" for nation states or for public representatives of these which
exonerates them from normal responsibility.
Differently, logic provides the
basis of decision theory, which is important in structuring environmental
problems.
And so on, to look at some of the more straightforward connections.
There are larger connections.
Social and political theory necessarily presupposes
^Explanations of these connections are much expanded in "The logical basis of the
social sciences'.
�7.
a metaphysics, and this in turn a logical theory X
Philosophers of very
different persuasions, for instance Hegel and Mill, have agreed about this.
Of course work in logic, such as that in probability theory and on
statistical inference, sometimes speaks directly to other areas in the social
sciences.
My own work on universal semantics is of interest to linguists, and
'Universal semantics?' was abstracted in Sociological Abstracts, as have been
several of my philosophical papers, on for example metaphysics, limits to
Work on the recent history of logic and
knowledge and animal intentionality.
of philosophy of science in Australasia has led me into some sociological as
well as historical investigations.
political science and economics.
Logical pursuits have also lead me into
Because of my interest in applied logic I came
to take over supervision of B. Embury's doctoral dissertation on voting theory,
a thesis in the Department of Political Science.
in work with a post-doctoral
social choice theory.
My interests also involved me
fellow on preference and decision theory and
Regretably no joint work issued from this enterprise, but
I did publish some papers in the area, and emerged with further ideas for research
jotted down:
these ideas, mainly for further impossibility and limitative
results in social theory, have yet to be followed through.
My present research in social and political theory has (like a conic
section) double foci.
One focus (Fl) is a book tentatively entitled The
Philosophic Reach of Environmental Problems and intended to supersede
Environmental Philosophy in main respects, on the ethical, social and political
dimensions of environmental problems.2
familiar list:
The central problems yield a now rather
for instance, those of human and animal populations, disappearing
species, vanishing rainforests and other habitats and ecosystems, treatment
(and rights) of indigenous peoples, of animals and of plants, cities and
substantial start in explaining these deeper connections is made in 'Social
theories, self management and environment problems' and in Exploring Meinong's
Jungle and Beyond, chapter 9, ^12.
^Here environmental is used in the wide sense, of which the ecological is only a
quite proper part.
�8.
neighbourhoods, landscape transformation or destruction, mining, pollution,
nuclear and energy issues, and so on.
The underlying problems have significant
features in common and common social and political sources.
Before the integrative
task is tackled in detail however, an analytical approximative approach is being
followed.
Discussion papers on several of the topics listed are being researched
or written, and discussion papers on others will follow, before the whole thing
is pulled together.
The other focus (F2) is a book on what might be called New Age Social
Organisation, investigating alternatives to prevailing social, economical and
political arrangements.
Major alternatives considered in detail include left
leaning and right-leaning anarchisms, which will involve a careful examination
of the extent to which social arrangements and political organisations can
be self-managed and self-regulating.
While it is ambitiously hoped that the investigation will not only result
(ideally) in a more philosophically-adequate left-leaning anarchist theory
than has so far been produced, that is only part of its purpose.
Another very
important part of the enterprise is to give some better understanding of the
range of alternatives to present (monopolistic capitalist and state socialist)
arrangements that there are and that could be tried.
A further part is, by
considering alternatives, to shed light on the prevailing systems (their
structures, institutions, etc.), in particular to bring out more clearly their
underlying assumptions,the extent of their necessity, to give a better idea
^In several respects the term 'anarchism' is unsatisfactory and will have event
ually to be replaced, perhaps by a neologism, since no available term delineates
the types of socio-political arrangements envisaged.
It should perhaps be remarked, in case it is thought that I have no academic
background in political theory, that my university education did include courses
and seminars in the area. Furthermore I have more recently acquired a good
working knowledge of the anarchist literature, and am well advanced in the
process of obtaining a grasp of organisation theory and the necessary parts
of social psychology.
Some of these assumptions are rejected or varied in an assessment of alternatives.
Thus, as a much better idea of euclidean geometry was obtained with the elaboration
of hyperbolic and Riemannian geometry, and similarly of arithmetic with the
formulation of nonstandard arithmetics, so also a much better appreciation of
mainstream social theory should be achieved by investigating nonstandard social
theories and assumptions. This method of variation of assumptions is a fruitful
one as regards many scientific,theories.
�of the values they write in, of their desirability or undesirability, and so on.
Although my enagement has two main foci, naturally there are also other and
smaller endeavours under way:
of these - but only some.
the attached curriculum vitae gives some indication
For example, the trilogy of papers on the meaning of
life, nihilism, and the ultimate existence question is to be arranged into a book
which will probably also address such related issues as the quality of life.
Richard Routlev
�zi___ A_
��^L</^—*^/y
/J
&4n^-*-
""
J^TL^
r/7v—,
7/
/<?\A<?/
Ay 3
��ANAKYRIE.
In Chapter 1
The multiple and inconsistent axioms of political theory : pluralism,
morality, ...
The differences in theory begin at the beginning, in what political arrangements
are for, what they are about, whom they are for, how they apply.
There are
important differences in the extent to which peoples' and other creatures'
activities and lives can be controlled and regulated.
More authoritarian
or paternalistic political arrangements impose much more in the way of
regulations than more liberal arrangements which in theJlimit reduce regulation
or setting for pursuit of satisfactory lives.
to some minimum, to some
So far as political relations are concerned, the world (Terr& is a closed
system.
Political influence is not exercised from outside that system,
nor f!'o political influences of significance so far flow from Terra elsewhere.
(All that may of course change, in which case the problem is reset in terms
of some larger system, the Universe providing an upper limit - unless some
extraspb tial gods are invoked.)
With the advance of industrialisation,
communications and spill-over technology, few communities smaller than the
world system are any longer effectively closed.
The general political problem is unsolvable. The argument for this
theme is that the problem is only solvable for small relatively uniform
But we no longer have such, given modern interference
com-unities (Taylor).
effects.
The basic picture is of a network of goal-directed
Defining the^problem:
creatures and systems.
The aim (political goal) is to ensure that these
creatures are able to pursue goals so far as these are satisfactory.
A major value judgment is inserted here : what of wiping out lives, of
war, etc., those that interfere seriously with others?
A liberal setting such
as Redman sketched is operating in the background here.
Present political arrangements anachronistic : they were introduced at a
time when much less interference was technically possible.
longer appropriate.
The
They are no
of empires now affects everyone s lives,
so on democratic grounds all should have say (or vote).
But they don t :
democracy stops at national borders (even in those borders where it kmd-of
operates).
�2
Present political arrangements, by increasing population,
etc. for what sort of consumption high can be obtained by present people
are making things much worse.
For the benefit of present power-holders,
their maintenance of power and privilege,
short-term drr
the inadequacies of
%^ts - of present economics within political frameworks.
On the End State:
According to Kamenka a central deficiency of a M^up-ist account is its pre
industrial character, also its romantic character, and its view of creative
labour.
These are a result in part of looking for utopia in the past, the
sources of which according to Kumenka are:
(i)
a mistaken view of the happy (noble) savage;
(ii)
the abundance of industry;
(iii) the rationality of industry (presumably its increasingly automatic and
self-regularity character?).
This is confused.
Sources
(ii) and (iii) are the basis of the past industrial
character of the end state (where the machines are really whirring along).
The main source of the search in the past is quite different, namely the search
for historical models, however partial, of the good or better life.
The
reason is that
(iv)
there is something drastically wrong with present arrangements which not
rectified by minor adjustments.
The end state, so far as it is described, is certainly a curious mixture of
A'
pre- and past-industrial elements.
The end state is not a static state, but a stable, climax state.
analogy is again useful here.
The ecological
Capitalism is like a pioneering stage.
Stable
states may have been achieved in the past, to be disturbed in one way or another.
That is one reason why it is important to look in the past - for fc^r^r
of past stable states.
Political theory (note A *)
As a result of the way 'political system' is commonly defined, anarchy is not a
political system.
The reason is that 'most authors consider the modern
political system to be that system which controls the use of power or force in
society'
(Kaplan, p.22).
therewith that system.
Anarchy aims to remove use of power and force, and
The exclusion could of course be taken to be a (further)
inadequacy in the definition, a mere technicality almost, got around by
expanding 'controls' disjunctively to 'controls or removes'.
�3
For whether or not anarchy is a political system, it is certainly an
organisational system or structure.
POLITICAL THEORY AND MORALITY
1.
On the one hand, it is claimed that 'any acceptable form of social
order...must rest on moral foundations, which are in principle ascertainable
at any period, and permanently valid'.'*'
(Donegan, p.xiv)
On the other, and more common view, politics simply tramples over morality
when it suits it.
However that is a matter of one morality, e.g. of a
Christian established form, being overwhelmed by another Mafia-style morality
not the absence of a value position.
theory.
2.
Any political theory rests on a value
That is the point.
There is the problem of evil, powerful people, often unintentionally
evil people such as Reagan, Thatcher, ... Hitler flourished most of his life;
he led an active (etc.) life ...
3.
Anarchism does not require especially good people.
But political life
would run much more easily without a certain range of people.
(Of course,
states think this, and totalitarian states try to realise theit aim).
4.
On Political Obligation
obligation.
There is no good ground as basis of political
All arguments designed to establish obligation to a state -
of people living in it ('its territory') especially - are wanting.
(Argument for this there).
Scepticism about political obligation does
not imply scepticism about obligation.
So moral scepticism is not implied.
And on the contrary, most requirements are of the first importance in
outlining alternatives to the state.
Hobbes problem was that of political obligation - 'reasonswhy we ought to
change the state'
(R p.61).
Hobbes finds three causes of disorder (competition - reflecting self
interest drives;
distrust;
argued for on ground that
enjoyment of power ('glory') [Self-interest is
motive is self-preservation.]
To these he opposes inter - from desire for security.
1.
This involves a very dubious objectivity.
�4
On Marx-Engels way
Although Marx and Engels say comparatively little about their projected
end state, they say a great deal about the route through the new state -
to that end, and about the means to be used along that route.
By contrast with means, they are far too restrictive about routes, ruling
out many plausible roads to change (including peasant revolutions, etc.)
Engels' proposed route is through 'a new social order' where production and
industry run on behalf of society, according to a social plan.
The main
features are addition of private property (vol.l, p.88) and of private
means of communication (p.92).
Note that it is unclear whether this social
order is an immediate or end state, but those features are common to both.
There is massive industrial and agricultural production (though not over
production) by (rationalised) planned economy without (
) private
property (I,p.92).
Hence, division into antagonistic clauses becomes superfluous.
There are
new all-round people (p.93), a disappearance of division of labour, for
flexible labour.
There is association instead of competition.
Fusion of
town and country (p.94).
According to Marx-Engels (I,p.l83) the route is through the central state.
'The workers must not only strive [against democrats]
for a single and
indivisible...republic, but also within this republic for the most
determined centralisation of power in the hands of the state authority.
They must not allow themselves to be misguided by the democratic talk of
freedom for the communities, of self-government, etc.'
No communal property
'Concentrate productive
to remain :
etc... in
means of
of state'.
This account is
extremely top-down.
As to means, it looks as if Marx and Engels are prepared to adopt any means,
likely or not.
For Marx, the main means are by violent revolution (last
page Poverty of Philosophy).
of classes.
Revolution is the outcome of the contradiction
By contrast, Engels prefers peaceful means (in 1847 i.e.
vol 1, p.89);
but he won't at all rule out revolution.
But together Marx and Engels emphasise violent means, and encourage excuses
on occasions (
p.180).
�5
Under the pretext that the petty bourgeous democrats will betray the
workers, the subversion (destabilization) of their government is planned
(Vol 1. address of CC to League, pp.180-1) Unlike Bak
Marx and Engels.advocate fostering massacres etc.
stuff mean?), and a regime of terror.
(for what else can this
Bak
thinks that in a
revolutionary situation such things may occur but should be immunized
(I can easily check the reference in Bak
if necessary (p.180).
For the most part, Engels was much more inclined to peaceful and established
means to change, even to change by way of ballot box and universal suffrage;
the Democratic route to state transformation (1, p.195, also 1, p.202).
Note Engels' introduction to Class Struggles in France written in 1895 (p.195),
e.
i.
later than the more bellicose texts Lenin is relying on - and as the
fruit of a riper experience of politics.
He says that by party action
universal suffrage
'transforme de mayer de dupere qu'il a ete jusqui'
en instrument
d'emarcqation'and this as footnote shows is a quote from Marx.
This suggests that it can be used to gain control of and subsequently transform
state app
In 1895 (pp.199-200) Engels suggests a revision of
.
Now show
means, propaganda etc., to win over the mass of people [different from
technological determination!]
No doubt because of technological determination,
there is no need to be too specific about means;
for it is not as if activity
is shaping the course of things, only speeding up the (in
) process.
Reasons for the lack of detailed description of the end state in Marx-Engels:
1.
This would be to try to set the future, which is reactionary (Why?
Because
of historical determination?), and unnecessary, because future people will be
wiser than us.
2.
Standard explanation, suggested by Marx:
'scientific socialism cannot
describe in any detail the society that will replace capitalism.
Utopians
speculate about the socialist future : Marxists analyse the capitalist present'
(Moore, p.76).
Moore argues the standard explanation is implausible.
�6
Principles of Individualism [ ?]
1.
Government based on individually-given consent of citizens - 'its
authority or legitimacy deriving from that consent'
(Lubes, p.ll)
Consent-answering back requirement
2.
Political representation as representing individual interests, not
classes, estates, etc.
3.
That's all.
interests.
Government confined to enabling satisfaction of individual
Hence towards laissez-faire, against paternalism, influencing
or interpreting individual wants.
(79).
�
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R TREATISE ON POLITICAL THEORY
OTHER HQJOR TOPICS (UNOROERED):-
1.
PturatisM and pturatisMS: the otd (and Marxist) fallacy
of one form.
2.
Power,
hierarchies,
Constitutions, corporations, states and
transnationats
Authoritarian
rotations;
organisations.
3.
Undertying Metaphysics.
(not independent things).
Stytes of denocracy, and inproving denocracy.
6.
A Major source of power: property.
Land rights.
INTRODUCTION
Present poLet Leet arrangements are hardig satisfactorg, angMhere. Theg
not
de Livering
adequate
shoutd at Least assist Ln
environment,
Meifare,
of mang of* the things that such arrangements
Levels^
productLon
the
are
or
education^
LiveLihood,
of,
attainment
...
e.g.
securLtg,
. Thus if better Mags to do
these things can be found, theg shouLd be sought, and tried.
Perhaps surprisingLg, there has been remarkabLg Lit tie effort expended upon
surveuing the range of poLLticaL
atternatives
(as
compared,
e.g.,
Mith
the
effort put into defending the status quo), or to Mork out, so far as can or need
be
done,
areas,
detaiLs
Mhere
of the more promising options.
entrenched
positions
Indeed, as Mith so mang other
dominate^ there
been
has
cons iderabLe
discouraoement of such important investigation.
R s ign if ican t r ange of a L te ma t i ves, sea roe Lg g i ven a triaL in
modern
historg, are these arrangements Mhich reduce domination and the exercise
of poMer and increase freedom. The present studg concentrates on these sorts
arrangements,
not
in
totaLitarian
of
or fascist or imperiaiist structures Mhich
have more than sufficient exempiification in recent times, despite their Lack of
justification and base in raM poMer and brute force.
10.
POLITICS WITHOUT DONINRTION:
Rnakgr ie means
varietg
of
RNRKYRIE RND RNRRCHISM
Mi thout domination.
domination.
For
domination
That
incLudes
comes
in
the
Mhoie
range
mang forms: of citizens bg
states, civiLians bg miLitarg, poor bg rich, bLacks bg Mhites, thirdMoriders
-1-
and
bg
HMerLeans
)
Russ Lans. MOMen bu nan. young by otder, anLMaLs by huMans, nature
'.
\
. RnaRyrLsM consLsts Ln socLaL arrangeMents desLgned to avoLd aLL
e<.c*i v.*? , ^etA/'o
, py<-.
'fiohcoAc^
forMs of doMLnatLon-^ [There Ls nothLng Ln the account so far g^v^n whLch
bu Men?
such
orr
...
<3/*
LMpLLes that Lt Must taRe a gLven shape, that Lt Ls unLquety deterMLned.]
RnarchLsM
dLrectLy
Ls
MLth
concerned
onLy one part of Mhat anahyrLe Ls
about: doMLnatLon by peopte by states (Mhether theLr OMn or that of others), and
rewovaL of thLs doMLnatLon by aboLLtLon of the state. But there are
forMs
other
not essenttaLLy bound up MLth thLs forM, and aboLLtcon of
doMLnatLon
of
Many
the state Ls but oney rather drasttcyMay of reMovtng state doMLnatLon.
RnarchLsM has been extended, for Lnstance to eco-anarchLsM (as feMLnLsM has
been broadened to eco-feMLnLsM), Ln an effort to overcoMe a conspLcuous part of
c/
n/ttj
19th
C
anarchLsM tended to accept the saMe doMLnatLon of
the probteM,
that
nature by
Lndeed
and
huMans,
the
saMe
sort
of
scLentLfLo
reductLonLstLc
MaterLaL',SM, as Lts doMLnant rLvats, capLtaLLsM and (MarxLst) socLaLLsM. But the
broadenLng
caLLs
for
atso
further
expLanatLon,
to
LncLude
other types of
doMLnatLony^id strLctLy,such a recr^antatLon as to LnvoLve a change Ln MeanLng,
A
Ln Mhat Mas Meant by
anarchLsM .
In these cLrcuMstances, Lt Ls
More
forMard and Less MLsLeadLng sLMpLy to Lntroduce neM terMLnoLogy. Rtw
straLghtthere
are
, good reasons for seeRLng neM terMLnoLogy.
In
More
than
a century of use
anarchy
and Lts derLvatLves have becoMe
thoroughLy oenve-p-tied- MLth undesLrabte and LnapproprLate assoc LatLons, to such an
extent that soMe of these, such as chaos and dLsorder, are no&'saLd to gLve part
/
of the MeanLng of
anarchy'.
3.
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138
139
genuine solution' since it combines both autonomy and authority; the difficulty i* 3
that it is empirically unrealistic? I shall return to WolfFs reasons for hesitating to 3
accept his own philosophical anarchist conclusions in a moment. Godwin, in his
F/M/mry Concerning Po/Mcu/ Justice, was not so timid. Godwin's theory is extremely
interesting for any discussion of political obligation because, like Hobbes' theory, it 3
shows the full implications of one form of adherence to radical, abstract
individualism.
B
Godwin's theory is a mirror image of Hobbes'. He ends where Hobbes begins^
with a collection of individuals who each view the world through their own,
subjective viewpoint. For Hobbes, the absolute freedom of individual private
judgement leads to complete insecurity and arbitrariness; for Godwin, the
unspeakably beautiful' practice of absolutely free exercise of individual private
judgement is the only way to peace (p. 208).*" Hobbes creates an artificial social
union held together by the Sword and reduces obligation' to enforced submission
and obedience. Godwin relies on reified Reason that speaks identically to
individual and he completely eliminates obligation' along with all other social
relationships. Social institutions and social relationships, Godwin argues, merely
stand in the way of individual judgement by preventing individuals seeing things as
they really are." Unhindered by governments, and other social institutions such as
promising, each individual will be able to decide for herself what ought to be done
and individuals' judgements will coincide. Reason will speak to all in a single voice
because, in the absence of social institutions, reality will stand revealed in all its
transparency.
Godwin's objections to the practice of promising are similar to his objections to
political institutions. Promising is absolutely considered, an evil' (p. 218). It may
occasionally be necessary to make a promise in order not to mislead other people
about one's intentions, but a defence of necessity in specific cases does not detract
from the essential evil of the practice itself. The evils of promising are twofold: first,
promising binds future conduct and thus rules out further individual judgement as
information and circumstances change. Secondly, promising encourages individuals
to act from 'a precarious and temporary motive' (p. 219). It distracts attention front
the consequences of particular actions, and hence obscures their intrinsic merits. If
the individual judges that an action ought to be performed (and Godwin saw this
judgement as a utilitarian calculation) then a promise adds nothing; it merely clouds
the moral worth, or otherwise, of the judgement itself. Political institutions function
in the same way to prevent individuals seeing things as they really are. For example;
they give an appearance of permanence to opinions that prevail at their inception and
thus cause the stagnation of judgement. Laws, like obligations, bind future conduct
and, being general in form, can take no account of the fact that each case is unique
and should be judged, according to Reason, on its own merits. Moreover, political
assemblies impose a factitious unanimity' on their members. Decisions have to bn
reached in which all the members must acquiesce, thus pretending that they am
something more than a collection of individuals, each with their own opinions;
Deliberation has to be cut short ly a vote and everyone, if their efforts are not to be
for nothing, has to see themselves as obliged' to carry out the decision: 'Nothing can
'3
?
3:
?
3;
'
y
more directly contribute to the depravation of the human understanding and
character' (p. 547).
Properly, according to Godwin, there are no obligations, only actions that ought
to be performed, or refrained from; nor is there any political authority, only a
coincidence of individual judgements that certain things ought to be done. Godwin's
individuals, unlike those who enter a social contract, are bound to nothing'. If an
individual joins in a 'common deliberation', he is, 'when the deliberation is over,...
as much disengaged as ever' (p. 234). This is not to say that he will never act with his
fellows; they may independently have arrived at the same judgement as to the right
course of action. Godwin also allows that individuals may sometimes defer to the
judgements of an authority on a particular matter; this he calls authority' that
depends upon the conhdence of him with whom it prevails' (p. 242). This deference
should, however, be rarely given, or it may tip over into a misplaced 'conhdence' in
alleged superiors who make judgements for others, and so inculcate those slavish
feelings that shrink up the soul' (p. 232). This form of obedience is a greater source
of degradation and depravity' than if the individual bows to political authority out
of fear of the sanctions for disobedience. Here Godwin anticipates Wolffs denial' of
the authority of the state. Wolff recognizes that there are many reasons for
compliance, but these are irrelevant providing that the claims of the state are
subjectively denied a binding moral force'." Similarly, Godwin argued almost two
hundred years ago that the individual who obeys solely to avoid punishment, may
reserve, in its most essential sense, his independence. He may be informed in
judgement,... and suffer his understanding neither to be seduced nor confounded'
(p. 141).
Godwin was confident that the philosophical anarchist denial' of authority and
obligation could be put into practice. Through discussion and education, and the
example of sincerity and frankness, individuals will become enlightened and develop
an appreciation of the evils of social institutions and social cooperation. Godwin
ruled out a sudden revolutionary change as this would not be based on the necessary
development of individual understanding. As a transitional measure he advocated a
system of 'juries', within small political communities or parishes', the juries dating
with individual offenders and disputes over property. He expected that disputes
between parishes would be rare and that the obvious principles of convenience'
would soon suggest a settlement (p. 546). A national assembly' might occasionally
be necessary to adjudicate in such matters, but it would not be a permanent body. At
first, all these institutions would exercise political 'authority' but, in time, Godwin
expected that they would merely issue invitations' to ^individuals to cooperate in
executing their verdicts, and, eventually, ail political institutions and cooperation
would wither away.
Abstract individualism rests on heroic assumptions. In Godwin 's case he assumes
that individual moral judgement can be exercised in complete absence of intersubjective theoretical categories and communal relationships. The argument of the
&!<7uiry implies that that which can be thought can be put into practice. Because it is
Possible to imagine an individual abstracted from social life, yet endowed with
Reason and a capacity for moral judgement, Godwin also assumes that, given a
140
sufficient period of education and social and political change, those individuals could
actually exist, with their social past 'stored', as it were, within the consciousness of
each one. They would exist largely in isolation and yet, on occasions, emerge, inspect
reality and make an individual judgement that would coincide with judgements and
Reason of others.
Godwin's theory has some extremely charming aspects, but they cannot hide the
philosophically and sociologically bizarre consequences of radical individualism
taken to one of its extremes. Everything, except their own judgements, and actions
that flow immediately and unhindered from them, is foreign to one of Godwin's
individuals. Even the individual's own physical needs or freely created relationships
appear as impediments. A solitary individual, Godwin writes, is prevented from
executing his judgements 'in compliance with his necessities, or his frailties' (p. 758).
The evils of social cooperation are much worse, but technological progress will
enable individuals to do many things for themselves in the future that now require
the help of others. Godwin expects that concerts and plays will cease to be
performed; what enlightened individual would want to mouth the words or play the
compositions of another ? Eventually, the individual will come to see society as 'not a
necessary of life, but a luxury, innocent and enviable, in which he joyfully indulges'
(p. 761). At this point, however, there is no 'society' for them to indulge in. Godwin
relies on a reified Reason to link his individuals together but this cannot take the
place of the social relationships he has wished away.
Once again, the impossibility of distinguishing between institutions in various
dimensions of social life from within an abstractly individualist perspective is
demonstrated. Godwin treats promising as just as much a constraint and
impediment, and just as mystifying, as the laws of the state. It is worth emphasizing
that Godwin ends by depriving his individuals of the means of transcending their
own subjectivity. They have no social means of acting on their judgements and thus
must remain totally immersed in their own assessments of what 'ought' to be done.
The creative moral and social capacities of individuals are meaningless treated in the
abstract; they presuppose, and, in practice, can only be exercised and developed as a
part of social relationships including relationships of obligation.
A tacit realization of the peculiar conclusion of philosophical anarchism seems to
underlie Wolfs equivocations about the 'just state'. In the last part of /n Defence of
,4norchism, Wolff offers some 'deeper philosophical reasons' why he is unwilling to
accept the 'negative results' of his argument; the social world, unlike the natural
world, is not 'irreducibly other'. Wolff is thus implicitly arguing against Godwin
when he says that the state is 'no more than the totality of the beliefs, expectations,
habits, and interacting roles of its members and subjects.... The state,... cannot be
ineradicably other'." In other words, instead of arguing that all authority is
illegitimate, Wolff is now moving to the opposite theoretical extreme and putting
forward a version of the conceptual argument; the state is no more than the
association of its members and so necessary to them, so there is no problem about its
authority. Wolff also suggests that there might be a practical solution to the problem
of authority; political institutions must be decentralized and based on 'voluntary
compliance' (although he may be arguing that a system based on 'voluntary
141
compliance' does not involve authority at all). Curiously, Wolff does not appear to
see anything odd in an 'anarchism' that proclaims the necessity of the state. The
-central argument of anarchism is precisely that the state, including the liberal
democratic state, is inherently 'other', and so its claim to authority can never be
justified.
Anarchists, philosophical or otherwise, it will be objected at this point, make a
much larger claim than this. Like Wolff, they argue that all political authority, not
just that of the state, is illegitimate. It is true that anarchist writings are full of
statements to this effect. Kropotkin, for example, writes that 'anarchism... works to
destroy authority in all its aspects'." Such statements are usually taken at face value.
Flathman, for instance, criticizing Pitkin's comments on 'authority', argues that the
state of nature in Hobbes' and Locke's theories provides an example of individuals
living together without authority, and he asks what else have anarchists been
putting forward as an ideal?'." But, as I have shown, any social relationships
existing in Hobbes' radically individualist natural condition are likely to be based on
force and power, not authority, and Locke's state of nature, with its father-rulers
and capitalist economy, would certainly not And favour with anarchists. Nor is it
self-evident that the anarchist ideal does involve an absence of authority; not, that is,
if anarchism is seen as a political theory and not merely as a variety of philosophical
scepticism.
The political theory of anarchism is not a theory of the chaos with which
'anarchy' is popularly equated, but a theory of a specihc form of socio-political
organization that is, as it must be, ordered and rule-governed. Anarchists have
usually been political activists and popular pamphleteers and not concerned with
precise conceptual distinctions. They have tended to treat authority' as a synonym
for 'authoritarian', and so have identified authority' with hierarchical power
structures, especially those of the state. Nevertheless, their practical proposals and
some of their theoretical discussions present a different picture. Kropotkin calls
anarchism the 'no-govemment system of socialism'," but on one occasion he also
distinguishes 'government' and the 'state'. He writes that 'it seems to me that in State
and government we have two concepts of a different order'." Unfortunately,
Kropotkin does not pursue this distinction, but it suggests that one anarchist, at least,
did not totally reject political authority. This conclusion is also suggested by the
social and political changes advocated by Kropotkin. He argued that abolition of the
political institutions of the state would allow 'mutual aid' to become the ordering
principle of socio-political life. His discussion of this principle presents similar
dif&culties to the recent philosophically sophisticated discussions of cooperation,
reciprocity and obligation. In part, Kropotkin 's claim can be seen as a version of the
conceptual argument: 'the practice of mutual aid... [has] created the very conditions
of society ...'.** He also used mutual aid to refer to actual historical examples of
cooperative institutions based on the voluntary agreement of the members, and it is
the principle of free agreement that will govern an anarchist socio-political order.
However, as I have argued, in political life self-assumed obligation and authority
presuppose such 'free agreement'. Kropotkin's sketch of the internal organization of
the communes that will replace the state is significant here. Kropotkin envisages
ct^—
C ^u^n.
^41
7
?
<*W
THE SERRCH FOR RNRRCHISil - RND FOR RN RPPROPRIRTE NE!*f TITLE FOR IT.
IB.
term
The
anarchism
has acquired such an encrustation of unfortunate and
undesirabLe associations that it is time for a ciear neM term to rep Lace Lt. But
that is not so easg, one reason being that it is not at aLL easg to sag Mhat the
[neM] position the term is to ref Leet is Like, even in
rough
outLine,
or
hoM
that position (that nonstate state) might come about. [RepLace B approach Mith R
approach.]
It
easier
is
to be negative than positive, to sag (as
LtseLf
anarchism
does) Mhat anarchism, or the repLacement $-ism (sag) is not, rather than Mhat it
is.
LJhat the position is not is, firstig^a state of chaos. R state
not
one
of
disorder;
on
contrarg^ ^-istic
the
arrangements
definiteLg be sociai and poLiticaL arrangements - MiLL be
coroLLarg
-
since
(thermodgnamicaLLg)
energg for its production
extremeLg
untikeLg
and
-
$-g
is
there MiLL
organLsed.
R
organised sgstem or state requires
an
maintenance
highLg
of
-
is
that
a
t^-istic
sgstem
is
to arise spontaneousig. Directed urganisationaL energg must
be put into the attainment of a ^-istic endstate. Sought
d)-istic
sgstems
MiLL
' )
simpig
not
emerge spontaneousLg,
even Mhen energg LeveLs have been raised and
states excited, as in vigorous demonstrations or in revoLutionarg activities.
Furthermore, t^-ism does not inciude^ ang more than anarchism need
invoLve
vioLet=tee: Nur need a ^-istic sgstem emerge in a vioient Mag. Even if it arises
in
a
revoiutionarg Mag, there is no need for the route to incLude substantiaL,
or even perhaps ang vioience. The notion of a nonvioient
contradictorg
revoLution
is
not
a
one. Nor are rapid nonvioLentig induced changes begond the bounds
of reaL posstbeietg Ln severaL parts of the Morid.
-3-
.
Rn additionat
anarchLsM
set
froM
derives
EngeLs-LenLn
anarchLsM,
Mounted
as
negative
of
the
assoc tat Lons
pretty
a
pubLLeatLon
the
for
reasons
scurrLLous,
against
and
Rnarcho-
reveaLs. R Main reason for the Marxist reject Lon of
synd Lea L Lsw
term
caMpaign
RnarchLSM
LenLn.
EngeLs
Marx
the
grafted on to Lt by Marxists. Marx-
and
reguLar,
MLth
dispensing
anarch LSM
Mas
that Lt Mas assuMed to LnvoLve LMMed Late transact Lon to state Less socLety.
Uhat aLL anarchist trends have Ln coMMon Ls a utop Lan vLsLon of
settLng up a socLety ML thout state and expLotttng cLasses through a
spontaneous rebeLLLon by the Masses and instant abotition of state
poMer and aLL Lts LnstLtut Lons, instead of through potiticat struggLe
bu the working cLass, socLaLLst revoLutLon, and estabtishMent of a
proietarian dictatorship (p.9).
ThLs Last LnvoLves a faLse dLchotoMy. SiMitarLy there Ls heavy crLtLcLsM of
anarehLst dogwas
about
revoLutLon (p.I7). The
transition
aboiishing
opposLng
the
as
state"
the
idea Mas that of the
fLrst
as
state
step
Ln
affording
the
a
period". But reaLLy there Ls no opposLtLon: both are coMpatLbLe with
anarchLsM: there Ls /yio^d than one May of deaiing MLth a scoundreL.
The qeneraL shape of poLLtLcaL transfurMation, both Ln
cLassicat
MarxisM
and Ln anarchLsM, Ls a MuLti-stage transforMation MLth
1)
transLtLon states, Mhere the state Ls retaLned,
2)
an end state, Mhere the state Ls reMoved.
But
the
suggestion,
especiaLLy
LenLn,
Ln
that even Ln the end state of
Ls
cuMHUH LSM, the s ta te M L L L surv eve:
criticai
Marx Lsts
anarchist
of
proposeLs
for
the
destruction of authority of every k end, and the introduction of totaL decentrat
er L tic LsM
ts
decentraLisation^; but it
difference
(which
ref Leet
unfairLg
never the Less
deeper
with
Loaded,
r*.
MBf^S
out
differences
Ln
every kind and totaL
Lts
tMO
areas
MorLd
of
substantLaL
vieM). For exaMpLe,
Leadership need not be excLuded, Mhere roLe to direct is freeLy granted and does
-4-
not devoive into 3 fixed or imposed power relationship?
and
influence
mag
be
exercised from federai to Locai LeveL as we Li as from LocaL to federai.
There
are
batch
a
sort of theorg to
anarchism.
Like
of iesser associations aiso removed bg distancing the
be
outiined
from
its
dominant
rivaL, accepted too much Eniightenment doctrine,
anarchism.
For
(e.g. the essentiai goodness of man, the unaiieged
instance,
benigness
centurg
19th
science,
of
and
worthwhiLeness of dominant economic goats. Not ontg was it too much a product of
thinking:
Eniightenment
it
shared with Marxist unecoLogicaL assumptions about
the eiimination of scarcitg, and with capitalism
assumption
an
reduction (at Least in most of its
individuai
of
being an exception).
If we trg to reach behind the contrasts, of 19th centurg poLiticaL thought.
both orthodox and
at ternatives"'.
do
we
reduct ion ism, . science
individuai
especiaLLg
what
find?
and
Not
reduct ion ism,
ontg
worship,
techno Logg
and
maximisation, but mang other doctrines from its mgre orthodox, powerfut and
yei/cvc-Z
successfui rivais, incLuding domination, ^forms of domination. It is the removai
of a wide varietg of forms of domination, of
a ims
at
(Martin's
power
getting rid of)^
the
structures,
that
negative side of anakgrie.
rTn-srchg, w t th the remove L of state, ts ontg part of that: tt aLsc
remova L
anakgrie
concerns
the
of domination of nature (bg humans), countrgside (bg cities), women (bg
men), b Lacks (bg whites), etc.
Rs the removai of weeds makes wag for new growth, so the removaL
of
domination
makes
wag
respects
too
reiations
anakgrie
forms
for new relations. The primitive side of anakgrie is
concerned, among other things with such retations, especiaiig
seLf-reguLating
of
of
reaches
this
far
with
stabie
sort, and wags of achieving them.
begond
what
anarch ism.
5-
and
In these
was normaLLg encompassed bg
j
was selected
RnakgrLe
tupographLc
to
resembLance
resembLance,
and
e^c4mf"Cttics4T.3
get
It
-
Ln
tern
the
was
It
of*
because
Lts
and
phonetcc
cLose enough to benefit bg the
Ls
hopefuLLg,
to
shed
the
bed
/A <%<2
the fLrst term arrLved at, bg eng weans, get Lt
not
removed,
means rough Lu the same as the fLrst.
resuLt
however
anarkLe .
enough
farMas
part
SRNOOillNISfl,
In the
search
terms
new
for
f'crst
the
L.e. sandomLn (wtthout waster or authorLtg)
But atthough domLnatLon cs one of the ma tn thcngs to be removed tn
served for
aLternatLve
arrangements,
especLaLLg)
Ls
onLg
Ln
domLnatLon
part
range
pLcture.
the
of
a
of
forms
(envLronmentaL
DLth domLnatLon Ls assumed to go
subject Lon and expLoLtatLon of what Ls domLnated. LIL th domLnatLon a Lso tends
go
Yet
expans ton.
there
are
other
thtngs. [Expand, when Look at domLnatLon
Later.J Finother word Looked at that has some currencg
state Less
roughLg
LLteraLLg Lt means
to
acephaLous
Ls
wLthout a head
head Less .
meaning
It Ls not a
part Lou LarLg good term for present purposes.
state
The
operates
wLth,ratLfLes,
SLnce both AnakgrLe
domLnatLon.
the same road for a Long part of
ensure,
and
reLg
upon,
and
LegLtLmLzes
forms
of
and anarchg aLm to eLLmLnate these, theg traveL
thejourneg. Find
forms
of domLnatLon -
Lf
the
rLde
together;
and
state
Ls
as mang crLtLcs,
anarchLsts, have argued - then anakgrLe LncLudes anarchg.
of the LnLtLaL argument, theg
mang
some
In ang case
bound
to
not reaLLg
for
sssLmLLatLon^ Ln
much
the
interests of brevLtgwLLL not be too mLsLeadLng.
S
great
Ls proper - Ls
advantage of anakgrLe, however - and one reason whg the LncLusLon
thLsj- The
rewovaL
of
domLnatLon
gLves
actLvLsts
something
LmmedLate to work for, and Ln an ef'fectLve wag — 3gaLn bg contrast wLth anarchg,
whLch
mau
be
a Long-term project, or aLmost a do-nothLng one Ln some advanced
capLtaLLst states.
-6-
FOOTNOTES
The probiem is frequentiy not one of suppiy, but rather of
1.
distribution
stiii -3 matter of poiitico-economic arrangements.
2.
Negativety remains a prob Lem. It is considered beioM.
3.
foLLoM
Preface
iJhat
are
from the
by N.Y. KeLpinsky, to thLs work.
couLd
be argued is that the idea of immediate
modern states is rather naive.
)
A
<3'
/ZuA
<5^
/7^
c
y*&"-
-7-
7
21/3/84 - I.
ANARCHISM :
%ea</oc/
s
The multiple
aims of
Often
theory.
political
an aim,^ is
takq^ to
(model) of the good society, or even more strongly (and less likely) of
a
or perfect, society.
But, to put it in an old-fashioned way, there is no
"X
such
thing as the good society, any more than there is such a thing as the good life.
In
at
principle
least,
are
there
variety
a
of
good
and
societies,
even
pluralistically there are different mixes (or pluralities) of good societies.
ft
-Ritter's
Rosseau,
(p.135)
problem
A
with
of
'
Marx,
equality, vs.
with
models
material
of
the
good
de^dgnce^ vs
society
(e-g-
Prato,
with
The^ can be combined in a pluralistic framework of
intellectual virtues)^ vanishes,
many good societies.
competing
Likewise the problem of conflicting values is
much reduced,
4
and indeed given sufficient tolerance of other arrangements largely vanishes.
Ritter,
Equality.
'The real
p.137:
/?*
diversity that matlcs anarchist society is
supposed to be accompanied by equality of staffs'.
But this is not required.
even is equality of power, but rather removal of social power.
Nor
This leads Ritter
on to the alleged conflict of community, which is 'repressive', and individuality.
But
some conflict
Ae.
^following
is alright^
as Ritter admits later (pp.138-9), where he gives
conflict:
pairs? generating
diversity/equality,
r?J
censure/^o^^^
individuality/community.
Consistency requirements.
required
to
demonstrate
Ritter^ at^mp^yes these everywhere; e.g.
the
of
public
censure.
, from partial models,
argues
of
a
state-less
issue
f
____ of.consistency of freedom with use
But see also(p.l, p.9^
Ritter
harmoniousness)
*i ^3-
/
condition, p.138.
(also
consistency
anarchists are
to
consistency,
and
permissibility
of
some
limited communities and arrangements of anarchistic
(primarily those given by Krop^t^ut)^
1.
Criticisms^
'Individualism
gone
wild'
destructive
'socially
(Hyndman),
This confuses pluralistic/socialistic anarchism with right-
selfishness (Rp.140).
And as R's model one has 'communal individuality'.
leaning^
2.
Social
oppressiveness
gang'
'adolescent
picture^
Thus
But,
e.g.
on
suffocating
contrary
group
peer
considerable
very
permit^
pressures;
individualism and choice.
Insufficient 'provision for privacy, for external self-expression and for
3.
meeting
claims
in
problems
of
distributive
some anarchist
justice'
communities,
While
(Rp.140).
things
these
'Godwin's conversational
e.g.
may
be
anarchy',
they are not problems in pluralistic arrangements.
Ritter argues however that
in the anarchistic society
the needs
for privacy
vanishes - both as refuge from considerable intrusions and as a place of seclusion
A
for inner growth or restoration.
But these things depend on much^improved other
people.
3.2
Of course nothing excludes solitude.
4
The issue of
older
character
of
such
behaviour
by
reasoned
ties up with the
the expression of emotions
anarchism,
argument.
the
settling
ig&aanarchisms
of
reject
disputes
rationalistic
and
reliance
the
controlling
on
reason,
because reason has too often been used for evil ends, etc., and because emotional
attributes are considered
to
be more central
MiilLLiinally-oriented anarchism,
to
Ritter draws on
the
In rejecting more
person.
the
reason/formation
*
dichotomy.
*
t i
'
vp-v
{y
But emotion does not exclude or block out reason indefinitely.
emotion does not interfere with freedom:
So too
it is false that 'the extensive freedom
/!
of classical anarchy is simply unattainable without the limits on emotional self
expression that non-rational anarchists reject'
(Rp.143).
3.3
special
failure
The
of
bestow
to
on
benefits
from a one-track view,
This again comes
talents.
society
anarchistic
those
with
from pure communistic
anarchism alone.
Ritter argues
[or
understanding',
people will not
receive
is better
It
'desire
, efficient production
incentives'
(p.143).
He argues
to develop
... native
talents',
'satisfaction
'polytechnical education'
that people not of
to argue
'just de^ejfft'^
re&SM^@d]
A
usual
varied work',
voluntary,
etc.
these
without
'mutual
...
some
in terms of what they put in, still '
v'tewetf
occurs
though
that
(of English
from
in
character!),
this sort will choose different
life-styles, in different communities.
The
4.
political
'unanimous
'repudiation of
(Rp.144).
direct
democracy'.
individuality
between
This
theory'
citizenship is
and
which
active citizenship'
to
has
argued
Rosseau
(see
citizenship
correlative to a state,
do
with
'is a
anarchistic
there
that
recurrent theme
Rp.145):
was
a
criticism
of
contradiction
itself.
dubious
in
But
.
.
.
,
,
so^not too surprising that it is damaged.
Anarchism gives much greater scope for the do-nothing or do—it-when-you-feel-like-
it life.
No filling-in blw form; at this
cn.
times, voting^ those Ejeg^ixicLal days, etc.
demoded,
time,
registrations at those
,
That is, it offers a range of freedoms the
citizen does not get.
Presumably also then the Kantian idea of man as a self-governing citizen also
gets ditched.
public
But the alleged accompanying virtues - such as being self-directred,
spirited,
controlling
die t ing
-
are
not
lost,
but
enhanced.
For
communities replace the state as the place where they are manifested.
5.
1 Argument
making.
roblem
from the strange character of anarchist
arises
because
it
(p.148), provided Wational procedural
permits
bad
freedom and decision-
decision-making,
rules are met.
so
R
claims
This is very curious.
But
4
cjoc4
the problem of
appeals to
rationality-justified
freely-chosen
exploitation ^arise^ here.
constraints - which from a consistency viewpoint limits freedom.
R
The
constraints are internalisation, positional authority, censorial rebuke.
Anarchist arrangements
are better
superior to feasible alternatives,
than where we are.
Since they are also
that is enough for movement in that direction.
No requirement of best need be met.
5.
dm rd al
Anarchism is a dangerous ideal, because it helps undermine the established
4
social order.
But it is pernicious because that ideal is unattainable.
)
6.
no
place
Objection to anarchist methods.
in
them.
example' (p.152).
According
to R
But aversion and fraud are said to have
the main
methods are
'fr#ecof argument and
But this ^gnves out a range of i-ndi-catrrves and strategies.
s
THE^ARCUhEETS HJR THE STATE.
There are a variety of arguments^*which will be ass^^bled at first
a
jumbled
order.
Other arguments are:
in
from organisational demands, from
law and order, from provision of public goods generally, from
maximization
(ana prisoners' dilemma, etc.)
(e.g.A A.
surprising Argument for the State is given by economists
Atkinson
and
Lectures
Stieglit^,
in
Economics).
Public
required to regulate market(s) and ensure that
theorems
of
The state is
welfare
even
ground that it
apply, Is that .case? .the market is invariably recommended
------- /)
is self-regulating, and can dispense with government.
Argument for^ state
appalling^from
ideal).
that
overcoming
CrSiK
angle^
angle
deficiencies
really
of ^market
For it means that the market is assumed (as
All.argument shows ^is that market isn't means of regulation^
that
should adopts^ In a way it is a reductio of ^market.
It may be claimed that
it
is
analytically
that
true
any
society
involves a state. This is false. Social arrangements without state powers
A)ct
5M!
L' /
J -- CT
are perfectly possible. ^&onstruct small social moael^,,
The argument that no society &ommon4ry-1 s
anthropologists
iI^
defence
of
the
claim
that
71c
internal
by
some
primitive society is
anarchic - depends on an A-conversion. ^rgument^^j QJ
(a) every society has exhibits (some)
used
stateless
order
,
fJ"—
(otherwise
it
would not be a society)
(b) the basic proper^function of
order, i .e.
(c)
the
fA/e
is
to
ensure
internal
state^(ought to% impl^) order.
there is internal order.there must be some sort of state.
7
^77777^77- /71
<?/=
^7757777;
- /<F^ /
3?
ARGUMENTS AGAINST STATES AND THEIR POKERS
Nation-state arrangements, which
based
on
assumptions
of
are
fairly
recent
phenomena,
are
a cert^jn amount of independence and isolation.
The rise of technology, including communication, have put these assumptions
in doubt, as has.war.
1
'The presumption of the nation-state system, that sovereignty
implied
an ability to protect a nation's territory and population, is precisely the
presumption denied by the nuclear, capacities
313).
This
was
already
put
in
doubt
by
of
both
other
superpowers'
things:
(PL,
now also by
Consider again also
Argument A.
1) Kars are the rights of states only.3
'x may [wagej war upon y only if x is a sovereign state;
has
legal
means
(Barnes, p.776).
declaration
of
by
which
it
may
3.
not
of
authority,
requires 'just authority' to do so, thus:
authority of a prince, at whose command the war is to
does
otherwise
x
and must settle the claim against y'
Thus Aquinas explains the condition
war
for
be
that
'first the
waged;
for
it
belong to a private person to start a war since he can prosecute
Naturally one has to worry about private armies and so forth, as well.
But undoubtedly the overwhelming problem in the case of 4cyp*=. LN wars
with the superstate.
his rights in the court of a superior' (Aquinas, quoted in Barnes,
In tact however an alternative factual premiss will serve as well:
(a) only (super)states are capable of waging
LN wars.
p.776).
PATHS TO ANARCHISTIC END-STATE
Pasture of stages ( o ) and transitions (o ** o)
finish
start
Golden
future
age
Present
Past
Intermediate states
'?
Pluralist
anarchism
Communist
anarchism
Kingdom of
God
Corporate
capitalism
State socialism
Democratic
socialism
Totalitarianism
A useful model for the process is that of punctuated equilibrium, drawn from
recently
reformulated
evolutionary
theory.
Another
useful
model
is
Kuhn's
picture of the growth of science, which is also one of punctuated equilibrium,
the
equilibrium
dominates,
There
is
states
or
stages
being
those
where
a
scientific
paradigm
the transitions between stages being rapid and even revolutionary.
presumably
a
general
model
of
this
type within
the
framework
of
systems theory, which brings models of this type together [verify *1].
The classical anarchist assumption is that no intermediate stages need be
involved, we can transit directly (in a single revolutionary upheaval) into an
anarchistic end-state - a pretty unplanned and unprepared for end-state.
the
fast
increasing
size of
the world's
With
human population and complexity of
modern organisation - both further locking things into statist frames - that
assumption looks
increasingly untenable.
reasons for supposing
necessary.
There
are
also,
and always were,
that intermediate preparation and planning stages are
For what have to be altered,
in particular, are human attitudes,
2
expectations, etc. - malleable parts of human "nature" that can be altered by
reeducation, reflection and immersion in alternative conditions.
What has to be changed?
Much.
The modern encouragement of greed - in
such forms as maximum consumption, maximum production, etc.
of
gross
inequality.
economic
bottom up,
The
is
reversal
to be achieved in affluent
and by redirecting military and industrial
What still has some appeal is
reorganising.
The entrenchment
the idea,
spending into
social
suggested by Marx's
work, of initial transition into a state governed from the bottom (certainly
no longer workers) instead of from the top:
this pending
of
states' structure
could
but the intended good effects of
be
rather
quickly
lost
(like
the
Aid
effects of shallowly^/cultural revolutions).
A
critical
question
is
what
produces
the direction and
so on are desirable.
decidedly undesirable, e.g. nuclear war.
But
one
state
to
some causes of^ transition are
There are other ways as the models
natural cataclysm, economic instability
The anarchistic
which -
from
For if we can find out perhaps we can hasten the process - assuming
another?
reveal,
transition
route
is a branch on the
1
accumulation o^f anomalies.
2
tree of future political options,
blown over and assuming a single starting point (that of Australia
say) - schematically looks like this?
^E.g.
the present
loans and deficit situation,
especially
in
third world
countries.
2
Including undermining of state economies by al ternative economies (examples
from places like Peru).
3
Anarchistic
branches
It is crucial to avoid many of the alternative futures possible from where we
are, e.g. transitions to the increasing state-corporate control of life.
The Kingdom of God can^ be comjhpared with the marxist findj state?
The
Kingdom of God is pacifist (state).
Peace is fully realised, and
justice i^foundation of it (yet there are tensions between them
sometimes?)
J/
/ _---- .--------------
seek 3 newer world.
'Its
%
<7^t/
1
?V^^/ 4^7
1
state has destroyed so Much of coMMunity arrangeMents that
road
anarchism wiii have to Make use of the state. 11 Ls L ike 3 weed such as
lantana,
It has suppressed growth of the new forest, But simply sorting it
out will
expose the ground to forces fertile to the new forest aiso (moisture
stress,
erosion, etc.), bo the state Must be pruned awasy, substituted
for, and
Jttirpated bit by bit.
&. There is now so Much governMent - the governMent
effectively
in
Many
so
areas
of
IsoMMunal structures - that simply/
social
life, Ibreaking down and displacing
dispensing
with
governMent,
an
immediate
to coMMunal arrangeMents, could not be accomplished without Massive dislocation. Short of a Massive disaster, disabling governmental s^^ructure,
return
instant
anarchisM
is
not
feasible.
Since such a disaster is not improbable,
instant anarchism should not however be excluded, but,
-^pnte.s
states,
allowed
and
planned
for.
Otherwise,
the
like
route
more
evolutionary
is by replacement,
ching us or substituting for the displaced coMMunity structures
broken
down
state ac t iv i ty.
Removal of government - not from where controls are required ac^trarl
rep lacements^e.g. transitional penetration, big business,(are developed^ - from
exploitative areas, e.g. gambling, drugs, prostitution, etc. 5et up instead nets
to gatch people/victijhs of these things.
voluntarg arrangement freelg unLirtt/ted to, then contributions
to state coffer^ should also be votuntarg, likewise involving free assent, not
If ^the state
compulsorg as theg are.
But
then
free-rider
problems,
etc. No, onlg showing there wasn t consent, bg
mang exodus from fragments. If there were onlg a few free-riders^ these people
who didn't have a state constribution and would get state carried, such as
police - as simple as RR
You bug state protection, whatever, just Ibke
state insurance.
/
. E Is ter Sour Gr apes p. 37_bqttow
(a Iso
surrounding
section))
....... ...... —' ------------- ------------------------
ueMucracg
anc^-
o the r po1i t ica1 :sustems advanted bu various authors for their side effects
Z! o
which obtainable better in other wags. Lare for anarchism here. Patemen good
A
____ J*
j
On Tr.3nsn.3t Lona Ls
The sources of
-3re power of one sort or another. SocLaL
arrangements wLthout ^%?-W^-b^-h'A^^>wLLL be designed so far as possLbLe to LLmLt
such power and prevent Lts accumutatLon.
Prevent,^ gLobaL corp^arrangements/ LnternatLonaLLsm^ aLready over hLLL. Rnd good
twenty years our of date.
//GLobaL (^each p.368.. Rehun^ the prob Lem — passed by the gLobaL corporatLon ...
---------------------/)
ms
Ls excessLve power, and the seLf-Lmpatred LLmLtatLon on power cs not characterr Jsttc of human LnstLtutLons',^ rearranged?.
Remedies.
1.
at
InformatLon and end to secrecy, as a
way
to
socLaL
responses.^
books as pubLLc documents etc., p.369.
2.
TndLspensLbLe data for natLonaL program of natLonaL and Lnternat-
LonaL reguLatLon, 370. Sc<%/<)<2
,
Standsrd Last Lon of accountLng -r-------- and practLces.
p.3*^/ Breakdown of pubLLc/prLvate dLstLnctLon and dLsappearance of free market?
'L--------- .
GLobaL co rpo rat Lons buLLt on socLaL cap^taL consp ucuous L^*
p.376
RLternatLon of t3X Laws to remove credLts and
Tax bLas Ln favour of transnatLonaLs.
counterrLdLng power / be^^re strateggt^ ,
pubLLc dLrectors , better uaadetermLnatLon , pre^Ldents runnLng for
c?r
companys at Least eLectLonjfor candLdates of reguLati)$y comm css conf
GeneraLLyatter tax Laws, remove subsLdLes whLch 4ncouraaa the accumutatLon of
.
,7
prLvate weaLth, and power, us Lng pubLLc/socLat and bLoLogLcaL capLtaL. ^7^
/j /y
CCyTY
^g
-y
power.
fAc
State underpinning of multinationals.
Multinationals would not have
arisen to their present position of eminence without state assistance - and
infrastructure, education, security, etc.
N^d detailed evidence of this.
Then can argue that problem of multinationals can be resolved, more or
-3
p
less automatically, with problem of state.
/^*
/?
-e^—
7
0
,%?.
rofit system^never satisfactory,^now extremely dama^gmg. Compare^ damag
fetnoTie.
,
/ i
be
profits - and look at the way these
^to worlds
by destruction for
profits are spent.
Profit system compare with (ccyM?) sovereignty systems.
an anarchist.theory.
LAW
.
jLaw is incompatible with anarchist utopianism.
Anarchism can retain a framework of rules.
are backed up, and enforced.
where this involves violence.
pre^$e, etc.
consider,
This is false.
The key issue is how these rules
What anarchism excludes is coercive backing
Opposition usually involves sliding on coergion,
So it looks as if there are several different theses to
depending on how enforcement, rules, etc. are expanded.
Kam argued that anarchism could not handle law on basis of
A
i.
A
level of detail of law.
ii. amount of procedural detail.
But there are no barrier at all.
be refuted by a countermodel.
Complexity is no bar.
The claims can
One such is the model Chom^siey appeals to,
that of rules of language, which are complex and intricate enough, and nvj
backed by force (Passmore wanted to suggest they were!
But it is obvious
that they need not be, whatever lapses occurred in the 16th century.)
As a matter of history, several anarchist thinkers were not opposed to
operation of law, but included it in their framework.
Proudhon.
Others?
One example is
/^ <2
MY ENGAGEMENT WITH SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THEORY
Over the past decadeI have found myself increasingly concerned with
social and political problems and more and more immersed in the theoretical
issues raised thereby.
In large part this has arisen from environmental
involvement, especially on forestry and nuclear matters, and the realisation
that the basic problems mostly lay with social and political arrangements.
It
thus became important to try to determine what those really were, and how they
might be changed, what the alternatives weie.
But in part also my legitimate intellectual movement from logic and meta
physics^ to a wider perspective which includes social and political philosophy
as major area of concern has come about as a result of reflection on the
unsatisfactory and fragmented state of philosophy and its surrounds.
It became
increasingly hard (in particular for someone trained in analytic philosophy with
a heavy Oxbridge orientation) to avoid noting, especially when confronted with
wider philosophical and social issues, that one's philosophical education and
ifn 1972 I presented and circulated a paper, 'Is there a need for a new, and
environmental ethic?' which played an influential part in the rapid growth of
environmental philosophy in New Zealand and Australia (on the latter see D.
Mannison and M. McRobbie in Environmental Philosophy). Such an excursion into
ethics was not without precedent. My research work in fact began in ethical
theory, with a thesis on moral scepticism, and I thought about and wrote on
deontic problems in the sixties.
^The point is explained in detail in work cited in the accompanying curriculum
vitae (where all otherwise unreferenced work is listed).
In the case of
forestry see for example 'Destructive forestry in Australia and Melanesia' and
'World rainforest destruction - the social factors'; as to nuclear see
'Nuclear power - some ethical and social dimensions' and 'The ethics of nuclear
war, and political fall-out'; and for the general argument see 'Social theories,
self management and environmental problems'.
^This does not mean that I have entirely abandoned these areas. Logic is, I
believe (with Anderson, and so with the mainstream of Australia's most
significant philosophical movement), the central part of philosophy, and many
conceptual problems in applied philosophy will continue to require return to
logical ground in order to find satsifactory solutions. A sound training in
logical theory is essential for deeper solutions for some of these problems.
I should add that I never have been a very pure logician. I moved into logic
in order to try to solve severe conceptual problems first in the philosophy of
science and then in metaphysics. Now that these problems are largely solved
(to my satisfaction at any rate) I can presumably move on to other things.
2.
practice offered only a somewhat limited set of tools and techniques for
tackling wider philosophical concerns and, worse, but few instruction as to how
to apply these analytic techniques more widely.
Nor had the inadequacy of
such an education and the sort of philosophy to which it led gone
unremarked.
It was charged that philosophy had abdicated several of its proper respons
ibilities - for example, to organise knowledge into some more coherent whole
or world-view, to elaborate a social theory and influence social criticism,
even to afford intellectual leadership - and had become excessively analytic
and specialised, and therewith narrow and sterile (concerned, e.g., merely with
linguistic niceties, conservative commonsense and/or scholastic logic-chopping).
It was charged that academic philosophy not only had become excessively timid and
accordingly lost intellectual excitement and appeal, but also had lost relevance
to and touch with the important intellectual issues of the times and had failed
in the business of addressing a larger audience with philosophical interests.
These charges, which have a solid foundation, did not come from within academic
philosophy but were most evocatively made by people outside philosophy (though
with some knowledge of it) or by those in the margins of academic, professional
ised^ philosophy.
Thus Durrant, an outsider, has powerfully expressed a part of
the charges:
... philosophy itself, which had once summoned all sciences to its
aid in making a coherent image of the world and an alluring picture
of the good, found its task of inordination too stupendous for its
usage, ran away from ... .'LtheJ battlefronts of truth, and hid itself
in recondite and narrow lanes, timidly secure from the issues and
responsibilities of life.*
Philosophy began to change in the Seventies, some philosophers naturally
changing with it.
We aimed to address a wider range of socially relevant
topics - and also sometimes a .wider audience - for example, to get beyond the
^W. Durrant, The Story of Philosophy, Second edition, Simon and Schuster, New
York, 1926, p.v. Durrant though (or perhaps because) a leading populariser
of philosophy in North America, is not usually at all well regarded by
academic philosophers.
3.
sterile examples of previous texts on moral philosophy to live issues, from
minor cases of promising and truth-telling to abortion and euthanasia, genetic
engineering and the treatment of animals, violence and nuclear war.
But the
analytical methods used for the most part did not change, the widening of
horizons in applied philosophy proceeded from a narrow and inadequate logical
(argumentive) and metaphysical base.
stagnation:
The applied expansion went with theoretical
mainstream theoretical philosophy sat in the doldrums.
Nor has the applied transformation gone far enough.
Significant issues
have been left to theologians and journalists.And there has been insufficient
effort by philosophers (even those addressing relevant issues) to integrate
their work with that of other (social) sciences that shed light on the issues,
to overcome discipline fragmentation by synthesis.
For it was not merely that
philosophy itself was fragmented and often irrelevant, it had also become
largley isolated
from other disciplines and had ceased to be properly informed
by them - or to inform them.
This unsplendid isolation is particularly conspicuous in the case of
political philosophy, which often proceeds in much the way it did in the
17th century, with little of the import it should be receiving from recent
advances in social psychology and
well-founded) sociobiology.
ethology and (to the extent that it is
More generally, the way in which areas have been
isolated from one another, and ceased communicating, to the disadvantage to
all, is a matter for serious concern.
It is not merely that philosophy, for
example, can be enriched by taking due account of the social sciences.
The
^This description derives from Passmore.
^Philosophers and other academics should not be led in these areas, but do
the leading. One of the roles of the academic community - a role in which
philosophy in Australia (much, degenerated by too long an incestuous history)
mostly fails - is to address a wider public than part of itself. Philosophers
may justly complain that there is little competent public discussion of these
issues where applied philosophy matters and no reputable intellectua
ea er
ship in Australia at present, but they have by and large done little to
rectify the matter.
4.
social sciences also can be improved, and much rubbish removed, by taking account
of philosophical criticism.Each impacts on the others, in ways that should
be taken into account.
Moreover the interplay of different parts is fruitful.2
There is a richness to be generated if the interaction works well.
And such
interaction is required to pull much material into a more coherent whole.
Such sentiments on integrating areas and rendering work more informed and
holistic have been expressed before.
another putting them into effect.
It is one thing expressing them, and
The tasks involved are difficult.
And
putting them into effect is not of course a task for just one person, but for
several.
A start can however be made with interdisciplinary people who
willingly cross discipline boundaries, because they need to, and see the need
to;
by people who are able to adopt the often special methods and procedures
of other disciplines and combine them with those of their own.
But a start can
not in general be satisfactorily initiated just by administrative fiat.
A
good deal of evidence has now accumulated to show that an administrator cannot
simply pull together a successful interdisciplinary research group by hiring
people skilled in the different disciplines concerned and putting them in a
common setting.
Such, groups can evolve however by individuals with wide-ranging
concerns interesting other researchers or like-inclined people from other
disciplines in overlapping or joint problems.
And in setting up the conditions
for such collaborative research to evolve, administrative inputs are important.
It is, for example, an astute move to have a position linking several different
departments 3 attached to none of them but to a section that sits so-to-speak
above them;
for in this way the researcher has access to all the departments
concerned but is confined to none.
*New philosophies of nature call for much more than this, indeed for major theor
etical reorientation of some social sciences. The point is elaborated in the
concluding part of 'Human chauvinism and environmental ethics'.
2Nor will unified or coherent social sciences be arrived at without substantial
philosophical imports.
3 As the present post does.
influenced the move.
No doubt other political considerations have also
5.
I think I can justifiably account myself an interdisciplinary person.
Firstly, I have considerable experience in collaborative work, an advantage
that philosophers, in contrast to experimental scientists, seldom enjoy.
claim
is supported by my publication record.
The
While that indicates the extent of
my joint activity in research, it does not fully record cooperative activity
in organising conferences and workshops, both in logic and in environmental
philosophy, in helping found or reestablish organisations (the Australasian
Association of Logic is the main example, but the local AAP is another), in
establishing publications (e.g. the Environmental Philosophy Discussion Papers
serve both Philosophy Departments) and so on.
More significantly, I can also fairly claim substantial experience in
interdisciplinary work, as well as in other fields of philosophy.
For example,
I have worked not only in philosophy departments but in mathematics and in
environmental studies programs.i
Furthermore, my work in forestry, which is
continuing, brought me into close touch with people from a broad spectrum of
fields, not only forestry, but also economics, geography, demography, botany
and zoology.
The work, which is well-known locally and referred to in inter
national textbooks, has for the most part been well received by people in
those area, except forestry, and has been taken seriously .by those who disagree
with the often controversial positions developed.
My more recent work on
environmental problems has led me to communicate and interchange material with
sociologists and political Scientists in North American and England, and also
with people in a variety of fields in Australian Colleges of Advanced Education.
Naturally then, much of the resulting work reaches people in a range of fields.
My work on environmental problems has also resulted in invitations to participate
in conferences in a wide range of areas, on forestry (in several Australian
^1 declined invitations to work in interdisciplinary research groups in Washington
and The Hague primarily because they would have kept me away from Australia too
long and obliged me to endure northern winters.
6.
states), on energy, on the environment (in New Guinea and USA).
I have twice been
invited to present papers at Australian Sociology conferences, but been unable to
do so because of commitments abroad.
The basic forestry book The Fight for the Forests, and subsequent forestry
and environmental papers, already included much that bears upon and is informed
by social and political theory.
A new book, tentatively entitled Forestry in
Australia, now in preparation by a team of people drawn from a wide range of
disciplines - which is intended to replace The Fight for the Forests, long out
of print - will be even more closely involved with social and political theory.
It includes much fuller analysis of social classes and power structures (and
models of these) as well as, like earlier work, examination of elites, and types
of inequality.
This should also begin to reveal how my work on apparently diverse areas is
interrelated, and not a result of compartmentalisation.
Most obviously, my
work on forestry, which directly involves a range of environmental problems, in
a very practical way, leads directly into areas of social and political theory.
It is less obvious, but nonetheless a fact, that work on environmental problems,
value theory and logic, is not disconnected, but joined by several connecting
ways.
For example, relevant deontic logic has shown how the key moral matter of
moral dilemmas and conflicts of value can be treated.
The logic of obligation
is important in rejecting arguments that there is a significant separate
"morality" for nation states or for public representatives of these which
exonerates them from normal responsibility.
Differently, logic provides the
basis of decision theory, which is important in structuring environmental
problems.
And so on, to look at some of the more straightforward connections.
There are larger connections.
Social and political theory necessarily presupposes
^Explanations of these connections are much expanded in "The logical basis of the
social sciences'.
7.
a metaphysics, and this in turn a logical theory X
Philosophers of very
different persuasions, for instance Hegel and Mill, have agreed about this.
Of course work in logic, such as that in probability theory and on
statistical inference, sometimes speaks directly to other areas in the social
sciences.
My own work on universal semantics is of interest to linguists, and
'Universal semantics?' was abstracted in Sociological Abstracts, as have been
several of my philosophical papers, on for example metaphysics, limits to
Work on the recent history of logic and
knowledge and animal intentionality.
of philosophy of science in Australasia has led me into some sociological as
well as historical investigations.
political science and economics.
Logical pursuits have also lead me into
Because of my interest in applied logic I came
to take over supervision of B. Embury's doctoral dissertation on voting theory,
a thesis in the Department of Political Science.
in work with a post-doctoral
social choice theory.
My interests also involved me
fellow on preference and decision theory and
Regretably no joint work issued from this enterprise, but
I did publish some papers in the area, and emerged with further ideas for research
jotted down:
these ideas, mainly for further impossibility and limitative
results in social theory, have yet to be followed through.
My present research in social and political theory has (like a conic
section) double foci.
One focus (Fl) is a book tentatively entitled The
Philosophic Reach of Environmental Problems and intended to supersede
Environmental Philosophy in main respects, on the ethical, social and political
dimensions of environmental problems.2
familiar list:
The central problems yield a now rather
for instance, those of human and animal populations, disappearing
species, vanishing rainforests and other habitats and ecosystems, treatment
(and rights) of indigenous peoples, of animals and of plants, cities and
substantial start in explaining these deeper connections is made in 'Social
theories, self management and environment problems' and in Exploring Meinong's
Jungle and Beyond, chapter 9, ^12.
^Here environmental is used in the wide sense, of which the ecological is only a
quite proper part.
8.
neighbourhoods, landscape transformation or destruction, mining, pollution,
nuclear and energy issues, and so on.
The underlying problems have significant
features in common and common social and political sources.
Before the integrative
task is tackled in detail however, an analytical approximative approach is being
followed.
Discussion papers on several of the topics listed are being researched
or written, and discussion papers on others will follow, before the whole thing
is pulled together.
The other focus (F2) is a book on what might be called New Age Social
Organisation, investigating alternatives to prevailing social, economical and
political arrangements.
Major alternatives considered in detail include left
leaning and right-leaning anarchisms, which will involve a careful examination
of the extent to which social arrangements and political organisations can
be self-managed and self-regulating.
While it is ambitiously hoped that the investigation will not only result
(ideally) in a more philosophically-adequate left-leaning anarchist theory
than has so far been produced, that is only part of its purpose.
Another very
important part of the enterprise is to give some better understanding of the
range of alternatives to present (monopolistic capitalist and state socialist)
arrangements that there are and that could be tried.
A further part is, by
considering alternatives, to shed light on the prevailing systems (their
structures, institutions, etc.), in particular to bring out more clearly their
underlying assumptions,the extent of their necessity, to give a better idea
^In several respects the term 'anarchism' is unsatisfactory and will have event
ually to be replaced, perhaps by a neologism, since no available term delineates
the types of socio-political arrangements envisaged.
It should perhaps be remarked, in case it is thought that I have no academic
background in political theory, that my university education did include courses
and seminars in the area. Furthermore I have more recently acquired a good
working knowledge of the anarchist literature, and am well advanced in the
process of obtaining a grasp of organisation theory and the necessary parts
of social psychology.
Some of these assumptions are rejected or varied in an assessment of alternatives.
Thus, as a much better idea of euclidean geometry was obtained with the elaboration
of hyperbolic and Riemannian geometry, and similarly of arithmetic with the
formulation of nonstandard arithmetics, so also a much better appreciation of
mainstream social theory should be achieved by investigating nonstandard social
theories and assumptions. This method of variation of assumptions is a fruitful
one as regards many scientific,theories.
of the values they write in, of their desirability or undesirability, and so on.
Although my enagement has two main foci, naturally there are also other and
smaller endeavours under way:
of these - but only some.
the attached curriculum vitae gives some indication
For example, the trilogy of papers on the meaning of
life, nihilism, and the ultimate existence question is to be arranged into a book
which will probably also address such related issues as the quality of life.
Richard Routlev
zi___ A_
^L</^—*^/y
/J
&4n^-*-
""
J^TL^
r/7v—,
7/
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Ay 3
ANAKYRIE.
In Chapter 1
The multiple and inconsistent axioms of political theory : pluralism,
morality, ...
The differences in theory begin at the beginning, in what political arrangements
are for, what they are about, whom they are for, how they apply.
There are
important differences in the extent to which peoples' and other creatures'
activities and lives can be controlled and regulated.
More authoritarian
or paternalistic political arrangements impose much more in the way of
regulations than more liberal arrangements which in theJlimit reduce regulation
or setting for pursuit of satisfactory lives.
to some minimum, to some
So far as political relations are concerned, the world (Terr& is a closed
system.
Political influence is not exercised from outside that system,
nor f!'o political influences of significance so far flow from Terra elsewhere.
(All that may of course change, in which case the problem is reset in terms
of some larger system, the Universe providing an upper limit - unless some
extraspb tial gods are invoked.)
With the advance of industrialisation,
communications and spill-over technology, few communities smaller than the
world system are any longer effectively closed.
The general political problem is unsolvable. The argument for this
theme is that the problem is only solvable for small relatively uniform
But we no longer have such, given modern interference
com-unities (Taylor).
effects.
The basic picture is of a network of goal-directed
Defining the^problem:
creatures and systems.
The aim (political goal) is to ensure that these
creatures are able to pursue goals so far as these are satisfactory.
A major value judgment is inserted here : what of wiping out lives, of
war, etc., those that interfere seriously with others?
A liberal setting such
as Redman sketched is operating in the background here.
Present political arrangements anachronistic : they were introduced at a
time when much less interference was technically possible.
longer appropriate.
The
They are no
of empires now affects everyone s lives,
so on democratic grounds all should have say (or vote).
But they don t :
democracy stops at national borders (even in those borders where it kmd-of
operates).
2
Present political arrangements, by increasing population,
etc. for what sort of consumption high can be obtained by present people
are making things much worse.
For the benefit of present power-holders,
their maintenance of power and privilege,
short-term drr
the inadequacies of
%^ts - of present economics within political frameworks.
On the End State:
According to Kamenka a central deficiency of a M^up-ist account is its pre
industrial character, also its romantic character, and its view of creative
labour.
These are a result in part of looking for utopia in the past, the
sources of which according to Kumenka are:
(i)
a mistaken view of the happy (noble) savage;
(ii)
the abundance of industry;
(iii) the rationality of industry (presumably its increasingly automatic and
self-regularity character?).
This is confused.
Sources
(ii) and (iii) are the basis of the past industrial
character of the end state (where the machines are really whirring along).
The main source of the search in the past is quite different, namely the search
for historical models, however partial, of the good or better life.
The
reason is that
(iv)
there is something drastically wrong with present arrangements which not
rectified by minor adjustments.
The end state, so far as it is described, is certainly a curious mixture of
A'
pre- and past-industrial elements.
The end state is not a static state, but a stable, climax state.
analogy is again useful here.
The ecological
Capitalism is like a pioneering stage.
Stable
states may have been achieved in the past, to be disturbed in one way or another.
That is one reason why it is important to look in the past - for fc^r^r
of past stable states.
Political theory (note A *)
As a result of the way 'political system' is commonly defined, anarchy is not a
political system.
The reason is that 'most authors consider the modern
political system to be that system which controls the use of power or force in
society'
(Kaplan, p.22).
therewith that system.
Anarchy aims to remove use of power and force, and
The exclusion could of course be taken to be a (further)
inadequacy in the definition, a mere technicality almost, got around by
expanding 'controls' disjunctively to 'controls or removes'.
3
For whether or not anarchy is a political system, it is certainly an
organisational system or structure.
POLITICAL THEORY AND MORALITY
1.
On the one hand, it is claimed that 'any acceptable form of social
order...must rest on moral foundations, which are in principle ascertainable
at any period, and permanently valid'.'*'
(Donegan, p.xiv)
On the other, and more common view, politics simply tramples over morality
when it suits it.
However that is a matter of one morality, e.g. of a
Christian established form, being overwhelmed by another Mafia-style morality
not the absence of a value position.
theory.
2.
Any political theory rests on a value
That is the point.
There is the problem of evil, powerful people, often unintentionally
evil people such as Reagan, Thatcher, ... Hitler flourished most of his life;
he led an active (etc.) life ...
3.
Anarchism does not require especially good people.
But political life
would run much more easily without a certain range of people.
(Of course,
states think this, and totalitarian states try to realise theit aim).
4.
On Political Obligation
obligation.
There is no good ground as basis of political
All arguments designed to establish obligation to a state -
of people living in it ('its territory') especially - are wanting.
(Argument for this there).
Scepticism about political obligation does
not imply scepticism about obligation.
So moral scepticism is not implied.
And on the contrary, most requirements are of the first importance in
outlining alternatives to the state.
Hobbes problem was that of political obligation - 'reasonswhy we ought to
change the state'
(R p.61).
Hobbes finds three causes of disorder (competition - reflecting self
interest drives;
distrust;
argued for on ground that
enjoyment of power ('glory') [Self-interest is
motive is self-preservation.]
To these he opposes inter - from desire for security.
1.
This involves a very dubious objectivity.
4
On Marx-Engels way
Although Marx and Engels say comparatively little about their projected
end state, they say a great deal about the route through the new state -
to that end, and about the means to be used along that route.
By contrast with means, they are far too restrictive about routes, ruling
out many plausible roads to change (including peasant revolutions, etc.)
Engels' proposed route is through 'a new social order' where production and
industry run on behalf of society, according to a social plan.
The main
features are addition of private property (vol.l, p.88) and of private
means of communication (p.92).
Note that it is unclear whether this social
order is an immediate or end state, but those features are common to both.
There is massive industrial and agricultural production (though not over
production) by (rationalised) planned economy without (
) private
property (I,p.92).
Hence, division into antagonistic clauses becomes superfluous.
There are
new all-round people (p.93), a disappearance of division of labour, for
flexible labour.
There is association instead of competition.
Fusion of
town and country (p.94).
According to Marx-Engels (I,p.l83) the route is through the central state.
'The workers must not only strive [against democrats]
for a single and
indivisible...republic, but also within this republic for the most
determined centralisation of power in the hands of the state authority.
They must not allow themselves to be misguided by the democratic talk of
freedom for the communities, of self-government, etc.'
No communal property
'Concentrate productive
to remain :
etc... in
means of
of state'.
This account is
extremely top-down.
As to means, it looks as if Marx and Engels are prepared to adopt any means,
likely or not.
For Marx, the main means are by violent revolution (last
page Poverty of Philosophy).
of classes.
Revolution is the outcome of the contradiction
By contrast, Engels prefers peaceful means (in 1847 i.e.
vol 1, p.89);
but he won't at all rule out revolution.
But together Marx and Engels emphasise violent means, and encourage excuses
on occasions (
p.180).
5
Under the pretext that the petty bourgeous democrats will betray the
workers, the subversion (destabilization) of their government is planned
(Vol 1. address of CC to League, pp.180-1) Unlike Bak
Marx and Engels.advocate fostering massacres etc.
stuff mean?), and a regime of terror.
(for what else can this
Bak
thinks that in a
revolutionary situation such things may occur but should be immunized
(I can easily check the reference in Bak
if necessary (p.180).
For the most part, Engels was much more inclined to peaceful and established
means to change, even to change by way of ballot box and universal suffrage;
the Democratic route to state transformation (1, p.195, also 1, p.202).
Note Engels' introduction to Class Struggles in France written in 1895 (p.195),
e.
i.
later than the more bellicose texts Lenin is relying on - and as the
fruit of a riper experience of politics.
He says that by party action
universal suffrage
'transforme de mayer de dupere qu'il a ete jusqui'
en instrument
d'emarcqation'and this as footnote shows is a quote from Marx.
This suggests that it can be used to gain control of and subsequently transform
state app
In 1895 (pp.199-200) Engels suggests a revision of
.
Now show
means, propaganda etc., to win over the mass of people [different from
technological determination!]
No doubt because of technological determination,
there is no need to be too specific about means;
for it is not as if activity
is shaping the course of things, only speeding up the (in
) process.
Reasons for the lack of detailed description of the end state in Marx-Engels:
1.
This would be to try to set the future, which is reactionary (Why?
Because
of historical determination?), and unnecessary, because future people will be
wiser than us.
2.
Standard explanation, suggested by Marx:
'scientific socialism cannot
describe in any detail the society that will replace capitalism.
Utopians
speculate about the socialist future : Marxists analyse the capitalist present'
(Moore, p.76).
Moore argues the standard explanation is implausible.
6
Principles of Individualism [ ?]
1.
Government based on individually-given consent of citizens - 'its
authority or legitimacy deriving from that consent'
(Lubes, p.ll)
Consent-answering back requirement
2.
Political representation as representing individual interests, not
classes, estates, etc.
3.
That's all.
interests.
Government confined to enabling satisfaction of individual
Hence towards laissez-faire, against paternalism, influencing
or interpreting individual wants.
(79).
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Box 120: Philosophy Wisdom to Wowserism
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<*
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).
�Tbe 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
2
hasn't at all - the no-abandonment-of-nuclear-power conclusion in no way fellows.
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.
Por 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
ot the extravagant energy use of only 5 generations or so.
Like the consigner in
the bus example, contemporary industrial society proposes, in extricating itself
^rom 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
What makes matters worse is that present industrial
action morally unacceptable.
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 simply 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 timej-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, intuitionisti
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;
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:
in the nuclear development case
this necessary condition is not satisfied.14oral 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.
�7.
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 enormous
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
�8.
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
Such an option would also fail, it seems, to satisfy the
consumption figures.
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
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 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.5
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 future;
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
y
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.
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-bodv
(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.
-1*
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.
Et 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.
�w
REFERENCES
B.L. Cohen, 'The disposal of radioactive wastes from fission reactors',
Sg-Zg^tf^a Amgr-faa^ 236 (June 1977) 22-31.
Flowers Report: Fz^aZgar Pazjgr a?zJ ^Fg FwPra^g??^. Sixth Report of
the British Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, London, 1976.
Fox Report.: Fa??pgr Pra??7'zw Pw-Zra?w?g7ztaZ
F-frst Report,
Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 19/7.
J.R. Hallam,
'Synroc or C#nroc?', F/za*Z?n Pgaat^azz 4 (2-3) (1979)
4-5.
A. Lovins, 'Energy strategy: the road not taken:', Forgan Aj^a-frs
55 (1) (October 1976) 65-96.
A. Lovins, Soft F%grgrp Pa^As, Friends of the Earth, San Francisco, 1977
B. Martin, 'Is alternative technology enough?', 6%a-f% Pgaat-Zaz?
3 (2) (1977) 17-21.
B. Martin, 'Call for research into Synroc', 7%g Fan&grua Tvxgs,
December 6, 1978, p.15.
G.T. Prance and T.S. Elias (editors),
Botanic Garden, 1977.
-fs Fcrgpgr, New York
A.E. Ringwood, Safa PZspasaZ a/
Pgz?gZ F^aZgar Fgaa^a?^ fVasZgs.*
4 Fgzj s^ratgpp, ANU Press, Canberra, 1978.
R. and V. Routley, 'Nuclear energy and obligations to the future',
21 (1978) 133-179.
R. and V. Routley, 'Some ethical aspects of energy options', in
Fzzgrpz/ a?%f PggpZg; Saa-ZaZ JmpZtaat'Za^s <pf P-Z/ygrgn^ F?zgrpz/ FM^z^rgs,
edited by M. Diesendorf, Society for Social Responsibility in Science
(A.C.T.), Canberra, 1979.
�
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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).
Tbe 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
2
hasn't at all - the no-abandonment-of-nuclear-power conclusion in no way fellows.
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.
Por 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
ot the extravagant energy use of only 5 generations or so.
Like the consigner in
the bus example, contemporary industrial society proposes, in extricating itself
^rom 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
What makes matters worse is that present industrial
action morally unacceptable.
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 simply 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 timej-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, intuitionisti
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;
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:
in the nuclear development case
this necessary condition is not satisfied.14oral 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.
7.
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 enormous
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
8.
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
Such an option would also fail, it seems, to satisfy the
consumption figures.
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
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 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.5
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 future;
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
y
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.
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-bodv
(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.
-1*
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.
Et 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.
w
REFERENCES
B.L. Cohen, 'The disposal of radioactive wastes from fission reactors',
Sg-Zg^tf^a Amgr-faa^ 236 (June 1977) 22-31.
Flowers Report: Fz^aZgar Pazjgr a?zJ ^Fg FwPra^g??^. Sixth Report of
the British Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, London, 1976.
Fox Report.: Fa??pgr Pra??7'zw Pw-Zra?w?g7ztaZ
F-frst Report,
Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 19/7.
J.R. Hallam,
'Synroc or C#nroc?', F/za*Z?n Pgaat^azz 4 (2-3) (1979)
4-5.
A. Lovins, 'Energy strategy: the road not taken:', Forgan Aj^a-frs
55 (1) (October 1976) 65-96.
A. Lovins, Soft F%grgrp Pa^As, Friends of the Earth, San Francisco, 1977
B. Martin, 'Is alternative technology enough?', 6%a-f% Pgaat-Zaz?
3 (2) (1977) 17-21.
B. Martin, 'Call for research into Synroc', 7%g Fan&grua Tvxgs,
December 6, 1978, p.15.
G.T. Prance and T.S. Elias (editors),
Botanic Garden, 1977.
-fs Fcrgpgr, New York
A.E. Ringwood, Safa PZspasaZ a/
Pgz?gZ F^aZgar Fgaa^a?^ fVasZgs.*
4 Fgzj s^ratgpp, ANU Press, Canberra, 1978.
R. and V. Routley, 'Nuclear energy and obligations to the future',
21 (1978) 133-179.
R. and V. Routley, 'Some ethical aspects of energy options', in
Fzzgrpz/ a?%f PggpZg; Saa-ZaZ JmpZtaat'Za^s <pf P-Z/ygrgn^ F?zgrpz/ FM^z^rgs,
edited by M. Diesendorf, Society for Social Responsibility in Science
(A.C.T.), Canberra, 1979.
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GAEAN GREENHOUSE, NUCLEAR WINTER,
AND ANTHROPIC DOOMSDAY?
... climate change, like no other issue, calls the whole notion of human
progress into question. The [ever promised] benefits of newer technologies,
more efficient economics, and improved political systems could be
overwhelmed by uncontrolled global warming.
... the pace of climate change will soon overwhelm natural variability in the
earth's climate. Indeed, it can be compared with nuclear war for its potential to
disrupt a wide range of human and natural systems, [severely] complicating the
task of managing economies and coping with other problems. Irrigation
works, settlement patterns, and food production [among others] would be
tragically disrupted ... (Worldwatch 89, p.ll, p.10)
There are many approaches to the
the cluster of problems upon
which this philosophical investigation focuses. These approaches range from playing the
issue down entirely, dismissing it as not a problem, not something anyone should worry
about, at the one end of the range, to playing it up at the other. Those who play it up may
even foresee the demise of the human race, unless substantially new socio-economic
arrangements - with restructured cities, revitalized lands, rejuvenated oceans - soon
eventuate.
There is certainly plenty of room for different approaches (see Diagram 1), and for
some eclecticism. For what is being relied upon, in every case, comprises shaky and
contestable arguments, from flimsy forecasting models lacking many apparently relevant
details. No one of sound judgment, aware that weather reports for twelve hours ahead can
be wildly astray, would place a very high level of confidence on climatic forecasts for fifty
years ahead down a very hazardous track. Nonetheless there is enough information to act;
and there is information rationally requiring action.
For things in the future are not going to be the same. It is very doubtful that they are
going to be any better (though much important economic theorizing presupposes as much,
such as the monetary discounting of the future). They are not going to be similar even,
because so many parameters important to life are changing, several at exponential rates.
Significant in these changes are likely climatic changes. The Greenhouse effect is among
these, a result of the increases of "greenhouse" gases, especially carbon dioxide and
methane, in the Earth's atmosphere, which have followed exponential paths since the highenergy phase of industrial culture (see Diagram 7). The growth in gas concentration
produces, what it is lagged by, but is now apparent, a significant increase in mean global
temperatures. This has major implications for much of life on Earth.
�Course of action
Reasons offered
Short response
No problem
Refutable
No certainty
Irrational
Adaptive capacity
Exaggerated
High-tech resolution
Wishful thinking
Severe dislocation
otherwise
Utopian
Individual
survival
Pointless
No action^
Moderate action
Considerable action
These very condensed responses will be expanded and explained as we proceed. In
accord with an esteemed philosophical tradition, a medical analogy is first deployed; it serves
to throw main points into high relief. Consider the possible illness of the Earth, for instance
as a result of brutalisation and poisoning. Look on the Earth then as a patient^, who exhibits
some symptoms of a possibly disabling illness; for instance the patient's system is
overloaded with troublesome trace elements and her temperature appears to be rising.
Compare rational medical practice where a human patient gives indications of possibly
disabling illness, for instance the patient shows signs of hypertension. Now consider some
of the spectrum of approaches. Suppose the advice is to take no action, to do nothing but
monitor the situation until further information comes in, until even (to take a worst case) it
becomes evident that the patient indeed has hypertension and suffers a severe consequence.
That would be regarded as irresponsible practice. To say that there is no problem when
symptoms are there, would be regarded as utterly irresponsible, and medically refutable. To
say that no action should be taken until certainty as to the complaint is established would be
seen as incompetent medical practice.
Taoist no-action would be different. It would not have undertaken excessive industrial action in
the first place.
This is precisely not the way less modest Gaean hypotheses regard the Earth. For there the Earth
is active, actively participating in co-evolutionary developments. But the health analogy does of
course go right back to ancient chthonic view, systematically presented in Plato, according to
which The Earth is a living being of whom humans are only a part. Right relationship with the
Earth means that the total organism is in good health; so environmental problems are seen as
illness, as a failure of one part of the organism to interact supportivcly with others' (Hughes,
p.60). For Gaean themes in other ancient philosophies, both before and after Plato, see Hughes
p.57.
�a
?
3
A responsible practitioner begins recommending some remedial action straight away.
Naturally there are various options open as to what may be prescribed. These include, at the
one end, high-tech procedures, such as, what would be ridiculous simply for hypertension,
full medical engine-and-gearbox replacement (heart and kidney transplant), or, a little less
ludicrous but ridiculously commonplace, a whole-remaining-life course of pharmaceutical
products, e.g. tablets. At the other end, lifestyle changes are proposed, such as more
exercise, weight loss, stress reduction, and an improved diet with less sodium input.
Reasonable advice would not include pure adaptation, that the patient went on living as
before in the expectation that her system would adapt to the situation. Nor would it be
reasonably suggested, except in somewhat unusual circumstances, that the patient entirely
change her lifestyle, abandon her work, house and so on, and live somewhere else. Even so
unusual circumstances, which might include residence in a very polluted environment or
work in a nuclear plant, are no doubt on the increase.
Like all analogies, the medical analogy has limitations. One feature it does not capture
concerns the holistic aspects of the Earth's sickness, and why accordingly an individualistic
survival approach, egotistically rational enough for hypertension and perhaps even for a
localised nuclear war, cannot succeed. The reason is, of course, that holistic problems are
too extensive for individuals, or even small collectives, acting on their own to be effective
or to make much difference. Some are too big even for large collectives or states, but would
require whole regions of the Earth acting in concert. But of course some state players, such
as the superpowers as regards nuclear winter, can make a substantial difference, or even all
the difference.
The medical analogy also indicates the outcome of further investigation of approaches.
Briefly, as with a chronic illness, the conclusion is that there is no very easy path; future
humans should expect a hard landing.
1. Investigative philosophy, argument and rational decision as applied to
climatic probiematiques.
The role of philosophy in such a complex problematique as that of Greenhouse effects
is not difficult to state briefly. Philosophy, Anglo-American philosophy especially, is
concerned above all with
Investigative philosophy resembles
philosophy, except that it may upset the philosophy it applies; it investigates arguments, their
features - assumptions, reliability, etc. - and their generalisation to rational processes and
methods, but
normal philosophical topics. The generalisation to rational processes
comprehends a wider range of philosophical throughput than the orthodox narrow range of
argument typically addressed in logic courses; to probabilistic and plausibilistic reasoning, to
decision processing and making.
�4
A main objective in this piece of investigative philosophy is to consider certain
argumcmj pointing to probabilities of severe dislocation as a result of Greenhouse effects,
and the resulting impact on rariana/
formation and action. There are certain
arguments of particular interest for radical decision and action: various neo-Malthusian
arguments, catastrophe arguments, and doomsday arguments.
A main run of arguments to considerable action are limitative in character. Such
ZimifafMm arguments are sometimes alternatively called *neo Malthusian', since Malthus
presented a very elementary, very controversial, argument of this general type. But such is
the hostility, especially in Marxist-influenced quarters, to Malthus's associated themes (some
of them admittedly repulsive) that merely to associate an argument terminologically with
Malthus is thereby likely to condemn it. To avoid such fallacious condemnation-byassociation, the graphic term 'neo-Malthusian' is largely avoided in what follows. The
general form of these limitation arguments is simply this: growth in some parameter over
time encounters limits, typically with severe, even catastrophic, effects; for seldom is the
transition to severely constrained behaviour smooth. A characteristic graphic representation
is as follows:
Diagram 2. GrowfA
ZimiM
growth
parameter
exponential growth
pattern
encountering
limits
subsequent
varying behaviour
The limits are often imposed just by finitude, for instance finiteness of a resource or a sink.
But other limits can be important, for instance where new phenomena or thresholds come
into play. General limitation arguments loom in the background in what follows, where we
shall be arguing on a double front:
�*
*
5
A. Significant disequilibrium of the Earth's systems is a real possibility, and
accordingly must be reckoned with in decision procedures. Though the probability of such
an outcome may only be modest, the case has to be taken seriously because the result
(arrived at by a limitation argument typically) is so bad. Suppose, for instance, the outcome
is that the Earth ceases to be habitable in present terms, to be able to carry its present
demanding load. Such an outcome would have an extremely high negative value, so it
would tend to dominate other alternatives. (But it need not be an entirely worst case, where
perhaps the dominant terrestrial species becomes extinct, or the Earth becomes devoid of
"higher" life. Under the bad result contemplated some better-off humans in special
circumstance may subsist for a while.) Such sufficiently bad cases
be taken account
of in decision making; they have to be taken account of in rgrz'o/ia/ decision procedures.
A*. Significant disequilibrium not only has a non-negligible probability, but set in the
proper content has a sizeable probability; so it cannot be ignored or discounted as too low to
bother about. For such an argument
has to be established at the outset than for a rational
decision theory argument.
Such a different argument, of especial concern as regard climatic changes, is the
following
argument:-
* There is some probability that the Gaean "greenhouse effect", generated by human
activity, will get out of control, that Gaean control mechanisms will fail, and that the Earth
will, for example, overheat (Runaway Greenhouse, or
premiss).
* That result would be disastrous for human activities, and indeed for humans
Pr<9.sp(?cf).
* Because of the unusual, and unusually precarious, position of humans (of certain critical
anthropic parameters), such a probability of disaster is not in fact small but decidedly large.
As a consequence then, the human species will probably sharply decline, and even become
extinct (C^^^p/26
That is, by a rectified version of Murphy's law - that if something can go wrong then in
appropriate unusual conditions, it very probably will - an incrementally small probability is
inflated into a very large probability.
It would be a mistake to conclude that because the argument itself looks an unlikely
one, everyone can stop worrying. The argument is but ong of a substantial raft of
arguments, suggesting that we are already in deep trouble, that 5/23^ have everyone
worried; it is but a final intellectual sting, so to say, from the previously inconspicuous
cosmological tail.
�6
Such a doomsday argument no doubt puts together, in one more exact form, some of
the sorts of considerations that are troubling many people, especially concerned youth, about
the Greenhouse business: that humans (including themselves) are on a decline or extinction
path. It is no doubt not the only consideration that should be troubling them or us. For
whether or not doomsday warnings are warranted, there are other matters that should be
sufficiently worrisome, to anyone of moral integrity:* Future times are likely to be exceedingly uncomfortable for very many creatures, as
habitats are destroyed, food producing regions are eliminated, and environments seriously
impoverished. (Many of these creatures are nonexistents, mere future existents, i.e.
creatures that do not yet exist or participate in market or voting rituals, but nonetheless they
wzZ/ exist and may participate. But, despite their presently unfavourable ontological status,
they are entitled to fair and decent treatment.)
* Given such future prospects, present practices which do nothing or vanishingly little to
ameliorate these prospects, are decidedly irrational. Indeed a main message that will emerge
from the present exercise is the mora/ Zrrtmpna/f/y of critical large-scale human practices.
The irrationality, morally-weighed-down irrationality, of present large-scale human
practices is already conspicuous from the wintry downside of climatic prospects of which
Greenhouse warming is the upside.
�7
Diagram 3. Macro-c/wKmc jarring am?Observed global average temperatures,
1880-1987, with forward projections (historic data from Worldwatch p.10).
mean
global
temperature
(degrees C)
The apparatus for conducting a world-wide nuclear war is entirely in place and indeed
on alert The probability of such a war, even if small, is not zero. Among the many awful
effects of a large nuclear war is that of nuclear winter, which would probably bring about the
demise of present human civilisation, and would at the very least mean enormous dislocation
for most surviving humans and other creatures. A sufficiently diabolical chemico-nuclear
war, reaching into all inhabited parts of the globe, could indeed drive the human species
close to extinction.
The decidedly dubious rationality and morality of these general nuclear arrangements both through what they are in themselves for what purposes, and through their moral
�8
opportunity costs - are widely appreciated. The thesis that the arrangements and practices
are immoral, irradonal, and ought to be dismantled - already much argued, and also
contested^ - is not the present concern. The thermonuclear downside is, by comparison, a
very easy case to examine philosophically, and argue, as compared with the greenhouse
upside.4 For there is, for instance, a case of sorts for much increased use of greenhouse
gases, such as CFCs in refrigerators, a case that hardly extends very plausibly to nuclear
weapons. It is a case heavily pressed by some "developing" nations, for polluting devices
already in widespread use in more affluent places, as necessary for local standards of living.
These nations want, or are heavily encouraged, to extend the war against Nature through the
habitats they have gained control over, in the name of economic progress.
War also joins Greenhouse summer and nuclear winter. For the barely-analogical
rapacious war against Nature is a major contributor to Greenhouse gas emissions, for
instance, in the domestication of wetlands for rice paddies, through the heavy pillaging of
forests, and the like, typically carried on with swords and bayonets reforged to jump
ploughs, chemical weapons turned to herbicide guns, and tanks converted to bulldozers.
The protracted war against Nature^, carried, it had been supposed, to a victorious conclusion
with the rise of science and technology and the ubiquitous advance of industralisation, seems
however to have backfired. For it is turning the Earth, Gaea herself, into a patient, with
crippled life support systems, thereby endangering the sustained future even of the
victorious. Yet another Pyrrhic victory.
Greenhouse and nuclear winter are more intricately connected than through war and as
the upside and downside of meteorological phenomena. One of the high-tech solutions
suggested for atmospheric overheating, involves the generation of wintering effects - to cool
things down - by flinging enough dust up into the atmosphere, a trick no doubt most easily
achieved on the requisite scale by nuclear explosives. Needless to say, like backbuming
against out-of-control fires, artificial winter would be a pretty desperate and, given present
expertise, dangerous expedient.
2. The Greenhouse debate, main policy responses, and irrational decision.
The Greenhouse debate, as to what to do, if anything, about forecast Greenhouse
effects on Earth, is intellectually disturbing. For it has revealed, as we shall soon see, that
many of those who have spoken, worse that /pta/ry q/ r/io-yg wAo
who have some role
For my very small contribution to this, see the War and Peace scries in
Papery
E/iwv/wig/mxZ
RSSS, Australian National University.
Global warming, by no means entirely certain, is assumed to be the outcome of increasing
greenhouse gas build up. Of course though some mean temperatures will rise, cooling will
probably occur also in some localized regions.
A war incited and applauded by illustrious philosophical forebears.
�*
&
9
in decision making (including both experts and politicians),
mah'ng in con^'n'on^ p/nncorrainiy or possible riskA
a J7rm gra.%? on
The main canvassed policy approaches to the Greenhouse problematique lie firmly
within the dominant social outlook, the high-tech growth and development ideology.
Diagram 4 E?r<9<26? po/z'cy
fa rA^ Gr^g/i/z<9^^ /?ra^/^marz^a^.
Dominant paradigm options
Alternative ecological outlook
Procrastination (wait-and-see)
Soft energy paths and
alternative regulation
Adaptation (sink-or-swim)
Socio-economic
transformation
Regulation
Intervention (star wars)
We will briefly outline, and find wanting, a// the dominant approaches.
* Procra^rznaaon, the prevailing response.
In fact the main governmental and conservative response thus far has been procrastination,
or "wait-and-see" as it is more benignly known.*? The approach makes much of the
uncertainties, of the shortcomings, in even the most elaborate general circulation models for
future climatic change, of the high noise-to-signal levels. On such bases it contends that it is
too early to do anything, except staging some meetings, organising some review
committees, undertaking some monitoring, and funding a little more "research". It
obviously does nothing to rock the growth ideology boat.
Certainly a few scientists, outside main policy making reaches, do have a sound intuitive
appreciation of these problems, and of the deficiencies of prevailing practices, e.g. Pittock 87.
There is little excuse for prevailing ignorance of or ignoring of decision theory: for the elements
of the standard theory are readily accessible and very elementary. In the present essay a
modification of standard decision theory (as expounded e.g. in Jeffrey) is assumed as background;
for details see Sylvan.
Following Knight, many economists (try to) distinguish between uncertainty and risk. Risk is
said to obtain when some more or less objective numerical probabilities can be assigned to
outcomes, a situation not obtaining as regards global greenhouse effects. Bayesians, who can
always assign subjective probabilities tend to eschew the distinction, e.g. Cyert and DeGroot,
who say that 'decision making under uncertainty refers to situations in which the outcome of the
decision is not precisely predictable'(p.3). Either way, Greenhouse involves uncertainty - to
which rational procedures should be applied.
There is significant rhetorical art in the choice of classificatory labels, a rather philosophically
neglected art. A PR person must have been hired to produce the Greenhouse adaptation of
'adaptation*.
�10
There is the pretence that we do not know enough to act.s But it is known that carbon
dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases are fast increasing. The main causes and
enough likely enough consequences are also known. Theoretical considerations have
already been partially confirmed by rising temperatures in the eighties. Outcomes of rising
temperatures are also known in broad outline: rising sea levels, and so forth. In addition,
there are partial small-scale models of Greenhouse effects in action. For example, a city
such as Mexico City, which is situated in the bowl-like valley, is placed in an environment
which traps heat as well as polludon. The ecological effects, like the human effects, are
pretty dramatic even at this small level, and hardly to be sought, or emulated elsewhere.
There is a pretence, fostered also by many sciendsts, that Greenhouse difficuldes have
only just been discovered; a date commonly set for that watershed event is the Villiers
conference and statement of 1985 (e.g. Pittock 87 pp.2-3). Actually there have been
Greenhouse warnings for more than a decade, and there has been a corresponding decade of
inacdon. Nor is any acdon of much significance presently seriously contemplated.
Back in 1979 Bernard wrote at length about and reported the substantial concern of
climatologists about Greenhouse effects. Even the magazine
not then noted for its
green sympathies, recorded that The release of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by the
burning of fossil fuels is, conceivably, the most important environmental issue in the world
today" (May 3 1979). Bernard quotes many other concerned scientists, several asserdng that
'the government must start dealing with this problem now". They meant the United States
government. "The"" government didn't take the hint. For more than a decade then, sciendsts
have been emphasizing that the Greenhouse threat is a major environmental problem, and
that action should be taken immediately. Over 10 years nothing of real significance to
counter the effects has happened. There has been more than a
q/TKacdo/t, during
which matters have got worse, and the time frame for evasive acdon disturbingly shorter. It
is already evident that requisite decision making under uncertainty is not taking place. On
straight inductive grounds, it would be reasonable to expect nothing will be done. While
there are theoretical grounds to back up such an assessment, still it is only just beginning to
get through to a much wider public (which can exercise a marginal influence on what
politicians say) that there is - or T/zay be, as some more reactionary modal-mongering
academics would have - a problem or two.
Part of the problem is that scientists have been caught out (e.g. crying wolf) and have become
ultra-cautious. With the advent of thermodymamics, for instance, scientists began 'threatening
mankind with a rather swift "heat death"' as the universe ran down. Thus M. Alier, on 'blatant
ideological use of science even by scientists themselves' (see Bernard p.9). More recently, many
rang alarm bells prematurely concerning an impending mini-ice-age.
The past predictive failures of scientists have been used as evidence for scepticism concerning
greenhouse effects; see Me Kibben p.8. It is an unsatisfactorily selective argument; interestingly
it is not used in a similar way against economists, whose predictive record is significantly worse.
�11
Many scientists have joined the wait-and-see queue, with their begging bowls, hoping
for more hand-outs for research. They assume, rightly enough, that more information
would assist with rational decision-making, and also, quite wrongly, that "scientific
certainty" is required for action to be taken. Physical scientists are not alone in their
misapprehension of rational decision methods.
Although there is a good deal of practical experience available of statistical-type
decision making under uncertainty, for instance as regards insurance coverage and
engineering projects, decision theory, especially as regards unrepeatable situations, has not
penetrated very far into standard scientific methodology or much into mainstream parts of
social sciences. 'Economists in particular have shown a talent for bringing every problem
back to a world of certainty where all solutions are known or can be easily found/ Natural
scientists including climatologists are, for the most part, on the same erroneous reducdon-tounattainable-certainty trip.
'This is not to say that economists have not worked on
uncertainty. ... however ... uncertainty is introduced and then taken out by assumption'
(Cyert and DeGroot, continuing, p.l).
But there are several classes of problemadc
situations, where decision and action may be required, where uncertainty
be
removed or discarded by fiat, reducdon stratagems or otherwise, notably:* inherently probabilistic situations, such as those of indeterminacy in quantum theory;
* essentially unpredictable situadons (which may be determinisdc) such as those now under
invesdgadon in chaos theory;
* presently uncertain situations and outcomes, which may eventually resolve into certain
cases, or may tum into some of the above classes, where there is not time to wait for
resolution.
The Greenhouse problem is regularly put into the latter class, a standard assumpdon being
that with enough money and research effort thrown at it, it will resolve to decent certainty.
But it may well not. Climate is now a prime arena for applications of chaos theory (in any
case inidal conditions for application of meteorological equadons are seldom very accurate
and are now shifting with the accumulation of Greenhouse gases). There are grounds for
supposing that critical parts of climatology will fall into the essentially unpredictable class,
that the sought certainly is unattainable. If so the standard begging-bowl posture of too
many research scientists: Supply more funding so we can go on researching undl we obtain
certainty, is misguided.^
Or, less charitably, downright dishonest. Nor does it seem to have occurred to most research
scientists demanding more money that an important reason why they are not obtaining the
funding they expect, or even enough to run complex modellings on expensive computers, is
because their research results could, if unfavourable, act as a serious drag on the industrial
establishment. 77zey are Aar<^/y go//7g to /?e we// jrt/tt/et/ to ^e/eg/twuze woder/i /a^artr/a/
society.
�12
There are thus some severe problems with this prevailing response. Firstly, it is
irrational. Certainty,
achieved, may be achieved too late. What was required for
rationality was decision making in advance of certainty. Secondly, certainty may be
unobtainable. The meteorological equations may be non-linear (nonadditive) and so
incapable of delivering firm results given slightly fluctuating initial data. Not only are many
experts and decision makers only comfortable about acting in circumstances of relative
certainty; almost as bad, where some uncertainty is involved, only what is considered Zz^/y
gets genuine consideration. Rational decision making has however to take account of what
may not be very likely at all, but may be quite disastrous should it occur (e.g. a nuclear
accident with full meltdown). In this respect too, the standard response is methodologically
unsound.
* AzZapzarz^n, learning to live with and love the Greenhouse.
The policy That tends to be favoured by most economists' is an adaptive strategy: '"Let
society adjust to environmental changes without attempting to mitigate or prevent the
changes in advance". We could adapt to climate change for example, by planting alternative
crop strains [themselves] ... more widely adapted... ' (Schneider p.8). Observe, however,
that it is a decidedly rayzrzcf&% "adaptation" that is being proposed, that humans adjust to the
results of present economic and industrial practices, rather than adjusting fAem. It is
zz^^zz/?z^6Z that economic growth comes first, that we do not change (e.g. through decent
regulation) high energy industrial practices. A fuller and smarter adaptation would adapt
r/z&yg practices. The policy is like a pernicious agriculture policy that says, "Let farmers
adjust to the results of soil erosion, salination and so on, without attempting to mitigate or
prevent these deleterious changes in advance." Such "adaptadve agriculture", the present
predominant practice in advanced agriculture, is anti-environmental, but is given a spurious
air of evolutionary inevitability and evolutionary redistributive justice; you can't buck natural
evolution, which is entirely natural, can you? Let us condense such far-from-inevitable and
highly artificial mal-adaptation in the neologism
Greenhouse adaptation, like
nuclear adaptation, is badaptation (some, less kind, would say wa^aptation).
There is a pragmatic, if cynical, political argument for badaptation, namely, that
zznzZat^raZ action to prevent a warming is unfeasible and requisite international cooperation is
unattainable. Both contentions are open to doubt. Unilateral action by the USA, by far the
Earth's heaviest resource and energy consumer (per capita and on several other relevant
dimensions), could make a major difference, especially when backed up by pressure
(familiar from other settings, such as the narcotics war) on other nations and through the
United Nations. Unfortunately the USA is also the world's largest supplier of influential
growth economists. In any case, international agreements such as those on whaling and
�13
concerning Antarctica, are attainable, and sometimes effective. The ozone protocols,
limiting production of CFCs, show that results can be achieved to limit trace gas emissions.
The adaptadon proposal is presently compatible with wait-and-see; both mean little or
no hauling back on trace gas production. Indeed procrastination will force sociedes towards
badaptation. Typical of adaptation, like procrastination, is an (over-)emphasis on the
uncertainties of Greenhouse forecasts, and on the decision-theoretic paralysis such
uncertaindes are alleged to produce. Characterisdc of adaptadon too is a minimisadon of the
of Greenhouse modification. No doubt the impression that things won't be so very
different, or far removed from what has already been experienced, is important in getting
adaptationism more readily accepted, as a radonal course of acdon (instead of the seemingly
irradonal course it is). Thus badaptation tends to play with figures at the low end of
projected ranges of temperature increase, such as 1.5°C for 2050, when in fact present data
indicates something rather in the vicinity of 4° C - in a setting, furthermore, where fracdons
of a degree centigrade may well be linked to macro-physical and macro-biological change.
Recent modellings deliver, on average, an increase in 2°C attributable to carbon dioxide, and
it is widely thought that other trace gases will double the CO2 effect^, thus yielding a 4°C
temperature increase around 2050.
The colossal extent of future human dislocation has correspondingly been deliberately
underemphasized. The adaptive capacides of human arrangements, when humans are living
at the margin, to massive natural shifts, has been grossly exaggerated. Consider agriculture
alone - set aside flooded cides, sunken atoll islands, and all the rest. Some of the Earth's
major grain producing regions - upon which famine relief projects depend - could be pushed
substantially out of business. The conditions which prevailed during the American dust
bowl experience of the nineteen-thirties were benign indeed compared with those which
threaten with mid twenty-first century Greenhouse condidons. The mid-continental summer
temperatures were only 1-2° C warmer than the present average; under greenhouse
conditions they could well be more than 3-4° C warmer. In the dust-bowl rainfall only
slipped at critical growing times (e.g. July for northern corn) to 80% of the contemporary
norm; but under Greenhouse conditions it could be significantly less again (only winter
precipitation increasing). A super dust-bowl is not improbable (for much more detail, see
Bernard). Similarly for other similar latitude Northern grain producing regions. But the
high-energy industrial superstructure is crucially based upon sufficient cheap food (bread)
for the urban masses.
10
See e.g. Pearman p.18. Note that methane is beginning to rival carbon dioxide as a gas whose
atmospheric propordons really matter and whose present exponential increase is excessive.
�14
* Tnfgrvenn'o?!, high-tech Earth engineering.
Interventionist proposals so far floated include
(D New oceans in parts of the Earth's land surface lying below, at, or near sea level. These
projects would make the mega-dams of recent times look like children's play.
@ Wintering effects. Production of sufficient dust in the atmosphere, achieved for instance
by nuclear detonations, to mitigate heating effects. Such enterprise would make
modification of the weather by cloud seeding look like childs' play.
Fortunately these and other expensive and grandiose proposals, which would call for
considerable international cooperation,
far down the planning track; with these schemes
procrastination is rational.
*
controlling free(-wheeling) enterprise.
Regulation itself is of course transparadigmatic; where it belongs depend on what measures
(what sorts of constraints, rights, etc.) are proposed and how they are imposed or enforced.
If it is, for example, some industrial law-and-order, smokestack scrubbing regulations or
Greenhouse polluting rights, within the status quo, that is one thing, but if a minimally-
constrained growth paradigm is questioned and alternative socio-economic arrangements
advocated, that is quite another, and falls outside the dominant paradigm. Such policies
involving regulations controlling fossil fuel emissions especially, are negatively labelled
in the predominantly American policy literature, though there is now no
preventing some Greenhouse effects; but the worse to follow could still be prevented. What
is usually covered under the label is however some regulation within prevailing political
arrangements. So energy efficiencies and savings for investment in growth elsewhere is
comprehensible, straight growth-curtailing non-consumption is not contemplated. But the
latter is just what alternatives do contemplate.
Democratic political arrangements do not exclude such alternatives; both the power
bases of political leaders and economic prescriptions do. Adequate regulation within
prevailing socio-economic arrangements is going to prove impossible, without adjustment of
power structures and economic imperatives - in effect without far-reaching systemic and
ideological adjustment. While such adjustment appears rational, it seems unlikely (see
further section 5). Power holders and the power structures into which they slot have too
much to lose. So it is hardly remarkable that regulation itself is not so bureaucratically
popular (at least under that mode of presentation) in these latter days of economic
irrationalism, and is strongly resented and resisted.
Some of the U.S. bureaucratic reaction to the Antarctic ozone hole, now regularly
attributed to extensive CFC usage, is instructive. A top Reagan official 'said that since
CFO's were useful to industry, people should use sunglasses and baseball caps as protection
against retina damage and skin cancer' - individualisdcally distributed adaptationism, terrific
�€?
&
15
for creatures outside "sunglasses and baseball caps" economies. Other Reagan
administrators spoke for procrastination, one academic-turned-bureaucrat observing that 'so
far the ozone hole has had little effect on skin cancer rates in the United States'. The
prevailing bureaucratic procrastination stance that was applied to the much easier ozone
problem (which has belated obtained weak international responses), is now extended to
Greenhouse effects. It is typically, typically irrationally, stated by high administrators that
'significant gaps exist in our knowledge .... These scientific uncertainties must be reduced
before we commit the
economic future to drastic and potentially misplaced policy
responses' (preceding quotations from McKibben p.10, p.ll, italics added).
and the
of the Greenhouse
business is thereby also revealed. Like heart disease and cancer, Greenhouse effects are
gaining much discussion and some funding because they just may severely effect the
affluent, affluent humans and affluent nations, that have a good deal to lose, in United States
especially. The impact will, however, be at least as severe in some third world nations,
whose lands or much of them will be flooded, countries which cannot afford extensive
The extensive
expensive dyking (or where such effort would be in the longer term, as seas rise, be
pointless), countries such as Pacific coral atoll nations and delta states like Bangladesh. But
the really serious losers will no doubt be, not humans , rich or poor, but nonhumans.
Biological diversity, already being reduced by various human activities, may be
one of the chief casualties of global warming. Massive destruction of forests,
wetlands, and even the polar tundra could irrevocably destroy complex eco
systems that have existed for millennia. Indeed, various biological reserves
created in the past decade to protect species diversity could become virtual death
traps as wildlife attempt to survive in conditions for which they are poorly
suited. Accelerated species extinction is an inevitable consequence of a rapid
warming (Worldwatch p.10).
3. Arguments to dislocation and for a Lesser Venus Prospect.
There is at least a small probability that predicted increases in mean atmospheric
temperatures will seriously interfere with most remaining natural habitats and result in the
degeneration or destruction of many of them, especially forests, wetlands, and marine
environments. For example, most wetlands will either be flooded or else evaporate under
increasing temperatures. Again, the prospect is for the boreal forest to shrink from about
23% of the world's forest to something like 1% of a much diminished forest covering. Nor
will adaptationism help here; for natural evolution is much too slow for adaptationism to
succeed n.
11
Cf. Keeton pp.763-4, '... typical migration rates for forest boundaries are of the order of 502000m per annum ... [A requisite] shift of 500-1000km would, however, take hundreds of years.
... Pollen evidence... suggests that large changes occurred in forest composition during the
Holocene period some 8000-10000 years ago, even though the climate changes then were less
�16
Natural ecosystems will not adapt effectively to rapid climatic change.... With
regard to forests, habitats for plants and animals cannot be re-created or
transplanted rapidly. Continuing climatic changes would strain the capabilities
of management practices even in commercial tree plantations (Beijer Institute
Report pp.21-3).
The decline or demise of these systems, vast reservoirs for greenhouse gases, will accelerate
the warming, and accordingly make matters substantially worse:
Trees are adapted to a narrow range of temperature and moisture levels, and
cannot cope with rapid climate change. A temperature increase of 1 degree
Celsius per decade in mid- to upper latitudes translates into a shift in vegetation
zones of 60-100 miles northward. Terrestrial ecosystems cannot migrate that
fast. Vast numbers of trees are likely to die, and new trees adapted to warmer
temperatures are unlikely to be able to replace them rapidly. During such a
disruption, huge areas of forest could die and, as they decay or bum, send large
quantities of additional CO2 into the atmosphere, accelerating the warming
(Worldwatch p.10).
Of course the immediate climatic patterns would be somewhat more complex. If enough
soot and ash from fires were flung into the atmosphere there would be a cooling effect, like
that of a small nuclear winter, before heating accelerated. The present pattern of ecosystemic
loss would also be sharply accelerated. For when natural ecosystems get reduced to about
30% of their initial size, they tend to collapse of themselves.
Moreover, there would be other significant positive feedback from ecosystems other
than the terrestrial forests, from the oceans especially. As the oceans warm, they lose their
capacity to serve as carbon dioxide reservoirs. So they too release additional gases,
including previously absorbed CO2, back into the atmosphere, further accelerating the
warming. A critical question arises as to how much danger such positive feedback poses?
As so often, informed opinions, and so probability estimates differ. However 'several
scientists working in the area consider that positive feedback effects will force a very bleak
picture to be drawn" (Worldwatch p.19).^
Unlike the interim effect of a small nuclear winter, where after a few years at most,
climatic behaviour (as distinct from radioactivity levels and, differently, from ecological
communities) would presumably return towards the previous norm, there will be /7<9 similar
under greenhouse impact. Technically then, stability would be lost under the
than those expected by 2030 [and forests were more extensive and less interfered with]' (Pittock
87a p.209, rearranged).
Second order probabilities, probabilities and uncertainties in the light of first order subjective
probabilities, enter importantly.
�17
impact,^ disequilibrium induced. An eventual long-term return to some different but
sufficiently congenial equilibrium could well be excluded. Under new climatic regimes
plants themselves may be able to do little more than hang on for part of their own lives. In
many places conditions would be too severe for much of the "year" to permit normal plant
functioning, including what is crucial for Greenhouse amelioration, photosynthesis. In most
plants, photosynthesis only occurs across a narrow band of temperatures (e.g. 6 - 34°C);
outside that range the plants shut down operations.^ Even more important, many plants
would leave few or no successful successors. Even where plants set seed, seedlings would
not survive under the severe conditions expected; for instance, they would be killed by hot
dry summer conditions, or in other places by frosts to which they are not adapted, both
phenomena already familiar after clearfelling of forests. The situation at a famous place in
southern Sahara, where there is but one ancient tree hanging on in thousands of square
kilometres of desert, a tree with viable seeds which sets no seedlings, could be more or less
replicated in many other places where forests or woody plants once grew.
In fact we are already witnessing the demise of the trees in much of Australia. Already
dead and dying trees form a predominant feature of the Australian rural landscape. Virtually
whichever way ecologists travel in Australia where trees remain, they are confronted with
dead and dying trees
The reasons for the present decline of trees in rural Australia is, for
the most part, not to be attributed to early Greenhouse or even pollution effects. "6 It is
thought to be due to a complex of factors, including a range of insect predators whose
efforts are concentrated on isolated trees left after an excessive zeal for clearing (i.e. holistic
effects enter as regards healthy persistence of trees). Excessive disturbance of ecological
systems, though overclearing of trees, has seriously upset the systems. Types of systemic
stress and disturbance are likely to be much accelerated given the additional impact of
Greenhouse warming on plant functioning and reproduction.
f<9 some
q/
worth
disentangling. Firstly, a system may be disturbed by interfering with critical components
There are several
within the system structure, processing parts, such as botanical systems or their
interconnections. As with a computer, if a cridcal component is broken or a circuit cut, the
probability of serious malfunction increases. Secondly, a system normally operates within a
Stability is defined in physics in terms of immediate return to an initial (inertial) position after
small disturbance.
The upper bound may be difficult to appreciate in most of Aotearoa. But in much of Australia,
during the summer, many plants close down their operations for much of the day.
Other effects of increased heat on major food plants matter for human affairs. Severe heat
interferes with fertilization and reproduction in com, and apparently affects the ability of rice in
Asia to reproduce; so considerably reduced yields of staple foods may be anticipated.
Reported by Recher on EarfAworw.
Thus coastline vegctational destruction through detergents in sewerage waters.
�18
certain range of condition. Take it outside these conditions or push it towards limits (let the
computer get too hot or too cold), and probability of breakdown is much increased.
Feedback loops, which are an important feature of cybernetic systems are particularly
vulnerable to normality disturbance. Cybernetic systems afford one example of more
holistic behaviour; dissipative systems, where perhaps strange new features may enter as
systemic loading is increased, another. Such new features may not be at all congenial to
dominant forms, or to maintenance of life support arrangements.
It should be evident from details already assembled that there is some probability the
Greenhouse efforts could seriously disturb the crucial carbon cycle. The carbon cycle loops,
in major fashion, through both the higher plant complexes and the oceans, both major
carbon dioxide reservoirs - but just how critically through them is uncertain. However,
with the serious disturbance of main components in the cycle, the real possibility of cycle
malfunction can hardly be excluded. Much the same holds with other crucial chemical
cycles, such as the sulphur cycle (though woody plants are perhaps less important here, the
oceans are highly significant, the oceans Costeau has already pronounced moribund). To a
lesser extent, several of the other well-known bio-chemical cycles, such as those for
nitrogen, sodium, and so forth, depend for their stability and maintenance on the adequate
operation of active ecological structures. Plainly if a cycle loops through a component, such
as a tropical forest, which is severely disturbed then the crucial cycle itself could be locally
disrupted.
There is some probability, furthermore, that the changes will disturb other physical
cycles crucial to the stability of systems. For some of the Earth's feedback systems are in
fact maintained in equilibrium through natural ecosystems. A striking example appears to be
the regulating of the Earth's temperature itself. Lovelock and collaborators have devised an
elementary daiyy wor/d m(9dg/ which reveals how a feedback system with two types of
daisies can, within limits, stabilize temperatures despite increasing solar energy input (see
the next diagram). The limits are important, for as these limits are approached the
maintenance systems break down. Thus again, instability could ensue under disturbance.
�19
Diagram 5.77z^rm<9.s7anc r^ga/aizoa a/*rA^ Earr/z j ^zayac^ i^mp^ramrf rAraag/z p/a/zM (a
much simplified picture from Lovelock 88 p.58).
!n the "Datsyworid" mode), tife adjusts the pfanefs
temperature to suit ttseif. A basic assumption is that on
Daisyworid, as on Earth, the sun is getting progressive^
hotter. Biack daisies grow best when the surface temperature
is tow, because their petals absorb radiation. As the sun's
heat increases, the white daisies begin to nourish. Their
petais reflect radiation, thus heipingto iower surface
temperature. Between the time the seeds first germinate and
when the sun gets too hot, the piants maintain a steady
surface temperature by adjusting the pfanefs aibedo.
Without doubt these matters are bad enough. Demise of most of the Earth's richness^
is not a minor matter. Worse could follow.
Apart from direct ecological breakdown, there are several other major ways through
which the maintenance structures of the Earth can be not merely awkwardly disturbed, but
thrown right out of kilter - perhaps, given the d^/zcacy of several critical matters, never to
return present norms. Most obvious and immediately threatening is
* nuclear warfare, and therewith nuclear winter.
But there are of course other severe shocks that the planet could suffer than those chemonuclear warfare, some human induced, some a "chance" matter of the planets' posidon in
space; namely
* a mini Big Bang, or an undermining of metastability, brought about through very high
energy experimentadon (see Leslie);
* a collision with a large meteorite or asteroid.
Such uncertaindes, not germane to the main climatic arguments, are listed, not to achieve a
bogus completeness, but to emphasize that complete certainty is not to expected, not
radonally. Should we obtain it, should we obtain easy relatively unproblemadc lives, then
we have, by world standards, been rather lucky. Moreover, these latter uncertaindes do so
17
Natural richness is its main richness, much exceeding human arufice.
�20
far appear negligible compared with those bound up with climate.is The Greenhouse
problemadque differs (as do nuclear winter and also high energy experimentation) from such
possibilities as destruction of the Earth's favourable climate or life-supports by collision with
an asteroid in two crucial respects:
the poor prognoses are largely a matter of human making (meaning the making of certain
among humans) and
the damaging situations could be substantially averted by positive or concerted human
activity.
According analogies with remote phenomena such as decline of the sun, asteroid collisions,
etc., sometimes applied to dismiss concerns with global environmental problems, do not
hold up, and should be resisted.
The human-induced climatic problems are primarily ascribable to:
* excess economic development. The practices involve a complex and sustained assault on
most of the Earth's major ecosystems, forests, seas, and so on, along with the alteration of
atmospheric composition by greenhouse gases. For example, the forests are cut down,
burnt, poisoned by herbicides and acid rain, or otherwise removed or destroyed. (Therewith
too a great deal more carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere and major sinks of
carbon dioxide are removed.) As a result of these concerted growth-and-development
activities such systems are driven to limits, and breakdown occurs. Once it occurs at some
weak point it can escalate elsewhere, like a conflagradon; thus again ecosystemic collapse for
example.
Quite apart from breakdown at or approaching limits, for instance because of systemic
overload, remarkable changes can occur in dissipative systems under stress or strain.
* excess energy or chemical loading. Though such striking examples as the chemical clock,
it has been demonstrated that dissipative systems can suddenly, and often rather
unpredictably, undergo extraordinary changes, as for instance energy flux is increased
(Prigogine and others).
Such non-additive or nonlinear effects, characteristic of more holistic dissipative
systems, seem bound to occur within the Earth's atmosphere and oceans as they undergo
compositional changes. Carbon dioxide itself provides a good example:
None of these assessments are strikingly objective, but are a matter of appearance. The risk of
catastrophic destruction of Earth civilization by an asteroid or comet is discussed, and compared
with either less exotic risks, in Chapman and Morrison, chapter 19. It has been guesstimated at
a 1 in 300,000 chance per year, a much smaller probability than that serious Greenhouse effect
will eventuate (often put at about 85%), but comparable with some rather more mundane risks
(see p.283). The risks from very high energy experimentation will no doubt rise sharply as
orders of attainable energy increase.
�21
With small quantities its effect on the temperature of the air is proportional to
the amount added; there is a linear effect. However once the carbon dioxide
concentration in the air approaches 1%, new nonlinear effects come into play
and heating greatly increases. In the absence of a biosphere to fix carbon
dioxide, its concentration in the atmosphere would probably exceed the critical
figure of 1%. The Earth would then heat up rapidly to a temperature near to
that of boiling water. Increasing temperatures would speed up chemical
reacdons and accelerate their progress towards chemical equilibrium. ...
eventually ... the Earth would become permanently cocooned in a brilliant white
cloud - a second Venus, although not quite as hot (Lovelock pp.45-6).
Fortunately for Gaean prospects, the percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is now
nowhere near 1% nor likely to be pushed near 1% by projected increases in carbon dioxide
levels under economic activity over the next 50 years^. However eventual exponential
growth will lead towards accentuated levels, and the side effect of such growth, the release
of carbon dioxide from forests and oceans and the considerable reduction in fixadon of
carbon dioxide with the decline of forests, will lead in that disastrous direction rather more
rapidly. The 1% bound constitutes just one of the many serious limits (fortunately a fairly
remote one) to condnuation of present developmental pracdces.
Now there can be no radonal confidence with respect to complex dissipadve systems about the behaviour of which we presendy know comparadvely little - that other nonaddidve
effects will not be encountered at a much earlier stage. After all, the Gaean system, its
atmosphere, oceans and ecosystems, will be pushed into essendally unexperienced and
substandally unknown reaches. There is, for example, no experience from comparable past
times of such elevated temperatures as Greenhouse effects will lead to, to draw upon.
'There is no evidence that the land-bound glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica have ever
completely melted in the last two million years'. There is experience of much colder
periods. 'During ice ages, the earth's average temperature has been about 5°C colder than at
present, with glaciers covering major portions of continents' (Barth p.7). But there is no
similar experience of temperatures 4-5° C warmer than at present (in any warm interglacial
period), 'a global increase of more than 2°C above present is unprecedented in the era of
human civilization' (Schneider p.6).
It would accordingly be decidedly rash, rash decision making, to assign a zero or
negligible probability to the emergence of new or unknown effects of relevance, to assume
all will go smoothly and well. That would presuppose, in any event, a completeness in
present scientific knowledge, contrary to the information we actually have that present
investigation of holistic systems, among much else, is still in its infancy. The probability of
19
In the atmosphere of the very early Earth, CO? exceeded the critical 1% figure; but solar
luminosity was about 25% less than now. With increasing solar flux the Earth would have
overheated had the proportion of CO2 not been much reduced (e.g. see Lovelock 88 p.56).
�22
something critical (e.g. perhaps radicals like hydroxyl) having been left out of estimations,
of room accordingly for something unexpected or for something to go wrong, may be small
(though experience implies it is not always so), but it certainly appears to be non-zero.
For the overconfident, with excess faith in the flimsy scientific edifice, there is a
salutary lesson to be drawn from the erratic and stumbling path of the main proponent of
Gaia hypotheses, Lovelock. Lovelock, coming from a working life as an industrial chemist,
part of that time for a giant chemical transnational, had, and retained for a considerable time
after he began his holistic hypothesizing, a strong antipathy for environmentalists.^ Even
Gaia was for industry and against the environmentalists; she was going to laughingly soak
up all the pollution, courtesy of the chemical companies especially, that we humans could
throw at her. In particular, we did not really need to worry much about ozone depletion or
greenhouse gas escalations^ 'Contrary to the forebodings of many environmentalists,
finding a suitable" destructive agent to bring about a 'doom scenario" 'turns out to be an
almost insoluble problem" (79 p.40). Lovelock makes it easier for himself by helping
himself to the assumption that a doomsday scenario involves the destruction of all "life"',
'down to the last spore of some deep-buried anaerobic bacteria" (p.40). But even for the
least chauvinistic of environmentalists, destruction of all humans but the select elect would
be quite enough for a decent doomsday. Lovelock's high redefinition of a environmental
'doomsday scenario" is unacceptable. Lovelock does not however stay within the bound of
his redefinition. He proceeds to pooh-pooh the idea that anything much that we humans
could accomplish would make any difference to Gaia (p.41) or even to most humans,
including use of nuclear devices.
Unfortunately for Lovelock's credibility, he was writing three years before the
seemingly obvious wintering effects of a major nuclear war were realised by the accredited
scientific community. Appealing in a common scienufic fashion to scientific authority, he
proceeds to minimalize the human and ecological effects of a major war. The report he relies
upon as authoritative was a 1975 (unreferenced) one of 'the US Nadonal Academy of
Sciences ... prepared by an eight-man committee of their own
assisted by forty-eight other
explosions and a//
chosen from those
members,
in the effects of nuclear
to them" (p.41, italics added). Lovelock draws from
the disdnguished expert report the findings that
Coupled with this, there was a certain schizophrenia in Lovelock's attitude to the natural
environment. There was also a matching schizophrenia as to the fragility of life on Earth. On
the one side, it required very delicate settings and fine tuning to arise; this is part of the argument
for a Gaia hypothesis. On the other side, life is 'tough, robust, and [highly] adaptable', virtually
indestructible (79 p.90). But though a flawed hero, Lovelock is a hero nonetheless.
See e.g. Lovelock 79, p.40ff; and also, on ozone, 88 p.63.
�23
... if half of all the nuclear weapons in the world's arsenals, about 10,000
megatons, were used in a nuclear war the effects on most of the human and
man-made ecosystems of the world would be small at first and would become
negligible within thirty years. Both aggressor and victim nations would of
course suffer catastrophic local devastation, but areas remote from the battle
and, especially important in the biosphere, marine and coastal ecosystems
would be minimally disturbed (p.41).
Three years later Turco and others proceeded to detail a very different scenario, that of
widespread and ecologically damaging nuclear winter. Not for the only time, Lovelock had
been caught out badly.
As with pollution, Lovelock has more recently shifted ground,^ considerably, on the
vulnerability of the Earth to human-induced disturbance. When a system such as Gaea in
homeostatis
is stressed to near the limits of regulation even a small disturbance may cause it
to jump to a new stable state or even fail entirely....
It could be that the regulation of the Earth's climate is not far from one of these
limits. Thus if some part of climate regulation is connected with the natural
level of CO2 then clearly we are close to the limits of its regulation. This is
because CO2 cannot be reduced much below the level observed for the last
glaciation, about 180 ppm, without seriously limiting the rate of growth of the
more abundant C3 type plants. If we perturb the Earth's radiation balance by
adding more CO2 and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere or reduce its
capacity to regulate by decreasing the area of forests or both of these together
then we could be surprised by a sudden jump of both CO2 and temperature to a
new and much warmer steady state; or by the initiation of periodic fluctuations
between that state and our present climate.
The anomalously low abundance of CO2 on Earth when compared with the
other terrestrial planets and especially the fact that the mean temperature of the
Earth is on the cool side of the optimum for regulation, suggests strongly that
the biota is regulating the climate by pumping CO2 from the air. The common
feature of most of our pollutions and of our exploitation of the land surface
seems to be unintentionally to thwart this natural process (Lovelock 85 pp.5354).
The argument to the lesser
par/i, to significant disequilibrium with the Earth's
ecological support system destabilized, takes the following lines. The Earth appears to be a
dissipative (far-from-equilibrium) system held at its present
by a combinadon of an
(increasing) solar flux - a main energy input into the system - and its major ecological
arrangements, especially vegetational complexes and live oceans. The sheer extent to which
the resulting system differs from the stable dead system it could otherwise be is shown by
the following table for atmospheric and oceanic composidon.
Shifdng ground may be fine, especially when it is to an improved position. But it should be
done honesdy and openly, not stealthily or shiftily. Lovelock proceeds to attribute a cancature
of his <9WH previous position to cdtics of the Gaia hypothesis (as a clever Tabneation', which
also it was not): that it is 'an argument developed to allow industry to pollute at will, since
mother Gaia will clean up the mess '(85 p.53).
�24
TABLE 1.
Substance
Funerary
Equilibrium
(principal components per cent).
Venus
Earth
Carbon dioxide
A
Nitrogen
1
R
Oxygen
Argon
0
C
E
A
N
S
Water
Lifeless
Mars
Earth
99
0
98
1.9
98
1.9
0
trace
trace
1
0.1
0.1
Earth
95
2.7
0.13
2
63
Salt
3.5
Sodium
nitrate
1.7
Present
0.03
79
21
1
96
n.a.
n.a.
3.5
traces
Surface
temperatures (°C)
n.a
477
Total pressure
(bars)
n.a.
90
290+50
60
-53
13
0064
1
The table is based upon tables 1 and 2 of Lovelock 79, p.37 and p.39.
The whole Earth system is accordingly far from equilibrium. Unpredictable behaviour
as loads increase is therefore almost to be expected. A likely moral is presumably: stress the
system, or destabilize ecosystem controls sufficiently, and the system may be in deep
trouble. It is relevant to inquire briefly into what evidence we so far have on this score.
To do so let us reconsider some of the array of arguments there are from some sort of
holistic organisation of the Earth (for a modest Gaea hypothesis, to the effect that the (outer)
Earth is a naturally regulated nonadditive cybernetic system, important attributes of which
are regulated by the biota).
/or the participation of the Earth's ecological support
systems, plant complexes especially, the Earth would not be blessed with its present life-
benign physical characteristics. The oceans would be much saltier and too salty for most
life, the air would not contain the present rich mixture of oxygen and carbon dioxide so
important for terrestrial life, and so on; perhaps most important the Earth would be
significantly hotter and too hot for most life, for most of what does the regulating and
stabilizing of present conditions. For the solar flux has increased in intensity about 30%
since life appeared on Earth, whereas the mean global temperatures have exhibited no
�25
corresponding increase, but have remained relatively constant. Such an expected constancy
in the face of disturbing inputs is ascribed, under holistic approaches that do something to
explain it, to the concerted activity of plant life, as already indicated.
The general tenor of the argument is so far this:- By arguments from physical and
other models, and because of uncertainties, the probability that something could go badly
wrong is not merely nonzero^ but indeed far from negligible. Part of the argument can be
put as follows:- There is a decent probability that a modest Gaea hypothesis holds. But
then, there is a considerable probability that excessive Greenhouse build-up will lead to
damaging system destabilization. So combining probabilities, there at least a nonnegligible
probability of such destabilization.
An analogy should now emphasize both the dubiousness of what is being proposed
under adaptationism and the precariousness of the human predicament. The proposal is to
take this ancient craft, now overloaded with human passengers and their heavy baggage, a
cargo it was never organised to carry, out on new routes and run it faster and higher than it
has ever travelled before. Even for an experimental prototype, a now very fast (air-)bus say,
with a select test crew, such a procedure, of running over new uncharted routes at speeds
and heights never attained before, would be risky enterprise. With an ancient craft, with a
heavy non-elite cargo of baggage and passengers (some whom try to interfere with the
controls), the proposal is extremely rash. For the chances that the craft will break/down and
perhaps crash, with serious consequences to passengers and for the baggage, are greatly
elevated over the risks of proceeding as usual much more slowly. With the costs of crashing
so severe, rational operators and sensible pilots would not take them.^
Unfortunately the analogy is not at all far-fetched, but resembles what is in store for
spaceship Earth, already under significant stress with its excessive human passenger load
and their heavy ecological practices. Not only is the future itself pretty new territory, but it
is a future at terrestrial temperatures never before attained. As a result too of these enhanced
temperatures, important processes will proceed faster than ever before, in particular all
chemical processes. Simply to take the craft up there, as do-nothing and adaptation
approaches would have is to emulate the risks and hubris of Daedelus; such approaches are
From logical theories of probability such as Camap's non-zero probabilities are rather easily
reached (perhaps too easily, with the converse feature that natural laws never obtain high
probabilities. The difficulty can be averted, to some extent, by restriction to physical models.)
The analogy is an old one, which we exploited before in the nuclear case; for the "bus analogy",
see Routley and Routley. The analogy admits of much graphic variation. Instead of running the
craft at excess speed, an alternative or additional image is that of destroying the controls of the
craft. Lovelock deploys this apposite image (88 p.63), which corresponds to the demolition of
Gaean control systems. Others speak of a colossal experiment with the Earth; but strictly the
conditions for a controlled experiment are not met.
�26
aptly named D<2^Zfa?i. Given anthropic terrestrial practices, a Daedelian future and fate
should not be excluded.
4. A Sting in the Cosmic Tail: the mini-Furphy theorem and on the iikeiy
decline of Homo sapiens spp. economicus.
The anthropic doomsday argument developed relies upon a modified Murphy's law.
The trouble with the initial formulation of Murphy's law:
^anyf/ung can go wrong, if wii/,
was that it was insufficiently qualified, much too absolutist, and apparently self-refuting.^
Certain crucial qualifications are required:* Replacement of the too certain conclusion by a somewhat weaker probabilistic one: for
instance, it pro&a&/y will.
* Correlative to weakening the conclusion, strengthening the premiss, by rendering it more
specific; namely, in place of "anything" or "something" put "some thing ... given a chancy
situation".
The modified formulation is accordingly the following mini-Furphy proposition^
r/HKg can ge/iMZMe/y go wrong, given o re/onvefy cAoncy Mfi/ohon,
zf pro/MZ&iy wi/i.
Here "chancy" means more or less what it means according to the dictionaries: doubtful,
decidedly risky, or as we shall construe it, having a comparadvely low probability vis-a-vis
its altemadves. The precise extent of relative chanciness will be explained as we go.
The proposidon is itself a corollary of a more general result, an ancient principle. The
generalisadon replaces "go wrong" by "happen'; the ancient principle is that of jy/^ndfM^,
sometimes stated, with quite insufficient reservations, as that all places are full, or ony
ggnfdn^/y
^fofg
&onn<% fo
rgo/fy^Z (when genuinely possible states are
compadble with all that is already transpiring). The principle, whose distinguished history is
traced in Lovejoy, has emerged in contemporary particle physics, in such forms as the
For this and other formulations of Murphy's law, and many loosely associated humorous
maxims with grains of truth encapsulated, see Block. As to the history of the "law", which
originated with J.M. Chase, editor of Aw'adPH
see the
A/nerzcgmi;
Chase's inidal formulation in a 1955 issue read 'If an aircraft part can be installed incorrectly,
someone will install it that way". Silberman's paradox, that if Murphy's Law can go wrong, it
will, is not a genuine paradox. For it can simply be asserted that where Murphy's Law is a real
law it will not go wrong. The connection of Murphy's Law with the pnnciple of plendtude
appears to have escaped much notice.
This little theorem was originally titled the Murphy-Leslie theorem. It is an adaptation,
suggested by Leslie's work, of Murphy's Law. While this secuon is overwhelmingly indebted to
Leslie, the arguments developed
from those Leslie advances. For Leslie's arguments and
also his debts, and so the transitive debts of this section, see Leslie himself, who deserves to be
read in defence his own legidmate doomsday apprehensions. The Appendix indicates the very
limited extent to which Leslie's arguments arc here endorsed.
�27
following: if a thing (e.g. an elementary particle) is not forbidden, excluded by quantum
rules, then it is bound to occur (or be realised), even is "compulsory". For things and
events generally, such completeness (all nonexcluded particle niches are occupied) cannot
reasonably be expected.^ The main mini-plentitude proposition has, like its mini-Furphy
specialization to bad outcomes, to take the much more hedged form: if something can
genuinely happen, given a relatively chancy situation, it probably will.
To prove this proposition, let us first recast it in appropriate symbolic form. Let D be
some arbitrary (bad) situation, a suitable disaster in the intended application. Let the
possibility of D's happening - such as something's going wrong - be represented by a non
zero probability, and genuineness by non-negligible probability. It can be assumed that that
probability, P(D), is small; if it were large enough the requisite conclusion would follow in
any case. Let C represent the relativizing features, what is given that renders the situation
chancy. Then what we aim to show is that where P(D) is small positive, P(D { C) is
probable.
The proof applies a special case of Bayes' theorem, which takes the following form
where there are n alternative hvpotheses hi,...,hn including h:
P(h { i)
=
"
* Pd 1 M
I P(hr) X P(i { hr)
r = 1
Here h is the hypothesis, which in our application is D, i is the additional information (or, as
in Carnap, a new observation), which in our case is C.28 P(h j i) is the probability of h
given i, or of h on condition i (the backward arrow notation, { , symbolises the condition
There is a marvellous Greek term,
which could serve to cover items where the particle
physics "principle" is satisfied. 'We may call an event agathonic to convey that, though in itself
it was highly unlikely, we might have known that something of that sort was bound to happen.
... from the name of the tragic poet to whom Aristotle attributes the view that it is very probable
that the improbable should happen. (Kaplan p.9 rearranged). Is the chronic chthonic Greenhouse
escalation agathonic?
The formulation is a special case of that proved in Carnap, p.331; namely that (absolute) case
where the evidence e is elided, or e set = 1. A similar result follows, subject to slightly more
rigorous conditions, in relevant probability theory; see Routley 79 p.954.
In effect we shall look at the form
P(h ) ,) =
--------------- * PC < D
'
P(h) X P(i { h) + XP(hr) X P(i { hr)
n
with the sum excluding the product for h.
Though demonstrable given satisfiable exclusion and exhaustion conditions, Bayes' theorem is
not lacking critics, in part because of the surprises this bit of logic can deliver. Carnap meets
the objection that Bayes' theorem has sometimes 'been applied to cases where it led to strange or
even absurd results' thus: 'This was mostly due to an uncritical use of the principle of
indifference :... [The] theorem is provable ... on the basis of those weak assumptions which
practically all theories of probability seem to have in common' (p.331, sub 1 elided). Of course
the present applications could (just) be objected to on the grounds that the logical conditions for
the theorem to apply are not fully satisfied.
�28
involved and shows its direction). For simplicity we shall suppose that all the alternatives to
D are concentrated (as far as symbolic exposure goes) in one, namely D*. Then the form we
seek to apply is simply:
P(D { C)
=
__________ { D)_______________ _
'
P(D) x P(C { D) + P(D*) x P(C { D*)
The arithmetic details needed can be tabulated in a revealing form as follows:
C<2.$ay
D
D*
Initial (or prior) probability
d
1-d
m, say 1/d
m/L,say 1/d!
of outcome
relative chance that C
As it is the
chance of C that matters, we can rescale to set m = 1/d. To make C
relatively chancy, L has some modest size; specifically let L exceed 1-d/d.
Then the probability to be estimated, P(D { C), is
d x 1/d
dxl/d + (l-d)/dL
_
"
__ 1
1+^
where k -
- That is, P(D { C) = y where k = 1,
andP(D { C)>
when
-when L >
.
Thus D is probable, at least in being more probable than not, given C, when L is of at least
modest size, i.e. given C is relatively chancy. In a merely apparently more general form of
the estimation, where we do not align m to d,
P(D { C)
______ d x m______
d x m + (1-d) x m/1
1
1
1 + k'
as before. That is, m drops out, only the relative chanciness really matters. The little
plendtude theorem follows as before.
Now to put some relevant flesh on these abstract statements and figures. Let D be
some future disaster such as the catastrophic decline, for instance, through summer or winter
phenomena, of the human species, from which the enormous present population never
recovers. At worst (from a chauvinistic angle) the population, like many catastrophically
effected by human activities, goes extinct. Suppose, for a bifurcating outcome, there is a
�29
catastrophe stage, before halfway through next century, 2050. If humans do not get their act
together before then, they go into catastrophic decline, as already indicated. If however they
do get their ecopolitical act together then humans, while they hardly live happily ever after
(poverty, inequality, domination, and other evils not being removed), continue to persist or
even grow in numbers, perhaps fanning out through the solar system (in the way envisaged
by too many physicists). Suppose further we are optimists, imagining that the prior
probability of D, ecodisaster and human decline, is small, say 1%. That is d = .01, and the
inidal probability of D*, human "success", is .99. The figures are pretty notional. Supreme
optimists would want to set d much smaller, pessimists rather at a higher probability.
Table 2.
D human decline
D* human success
Initial probabilities
1%, i.e. .01
99%, i.e. .99
Relative chanciness,
1/100, i.e. .01
1/100 x 1/1
ofC
Then the probability of human decline given C,
.01 X .01
P(D { C)
.01 x .01 + .99 x .01/1
1/2
, when 1 > 99.
For example, when 1 is set, conservatively, at 1,000, then the probability of human decline
given present chanciness is approximately 90%. It remains to fill out C, thereby showing
that 1 is very likely much much larger than 99, and correspondingly human decline so much
the more probable in the light of additional information, i.e. 6!
usual jargon.
probable in the
There are several high risk factors, acting in a certain concert, factors emphasized more
than a decade ago in world systems modellings (such as, most famously, that of the Club of
Rome), Malthusian factors such as human population, economic product, pollution, energy
consumption, ... . (The list rolls on.) It is appropriate to estimate posterior probability
relative to any one of these, any of which can serve as C, in order to expose the riskiness of
present gross human practices. In brief, because there are several high risk factors, so there
are several appropriate relative or reference classes. Thus the posterior probability is
assessed relative to such matters as humans now being thus and so, our or my being alive
�30
now (Leslie's first-person reference class), this being present energy use, present waste
output, present forest destruction and so forth. The upshot is not the triviality that
probability can be jacked up by placement in a suitably restricted context, though that
analyticity is established.^ The point is that, environmentally, more affluent humans have
fdgmjg/vgj produced such adverse circumstances, which are upon us, the very
circumstances typically productive of limitadon results.
In sum, the aadirapfc argument considers the environmentally invidious situadon of
present humans on the Earth. The argument can be carried through either in terms of sheer
population, gross numbers, or in terms of human resource grabbing, as esdmated for
instance through energy consumption. In fact all the other factors are anthropically tied, to
gross human numbers, via the environmental impact equation and because the levels are
human-use numbers.
Let us consider the prospects given addidonal information as to the present phase of
gross human population. C will be some such proposition as: the proportional
preponderance of humans who have ever lived alive now, or to personalize it: the chance that
you or your family, are alive now.
Diagram 6: (?ar praf^nf popidadon pred/camg/zf <?n die /wo jce/iarioj.
Humans have got themselves - to some extent pat themselves, though much may be
the result of muddling through - into an extremely dubious, environmentally insidious, and
One of the weaknesses in the argument may appear to be its dependence on an appropnate choice
of relative class. For, the high relative probabilities can fall away if different reference classes,
not exhibiting such growth patterns are taken, c.g. present wattle distribution, birds being thus
and so. On the other hand, probabilities can be elevated even more by selection of more unusual
reference classes, such as our being scientists, or being computer programmers, etc.. It is not so
remarkable that probabilities can be wound up - or down - perhaps quite dramatically, by
appropriate relativisation, by appropriate selection of a reference class.
�31
unsustainable position, on a range of critical parameters. Their numbers are excessive, their
high energy use is excessive, their waste and their polludon are both excessive - and all these
and other excesses are at the steep end of upward exponendal curves. Several relevant
graphs are distressingly exponendal, with the present in the near verdeal growth phase:
Digram 7 : GrowrA in
are drawn from Boyden).
envzronm^nfgZZy r^Z^vanr parg/neter-P (all graphs exhibited
�32
Many other similarly shaped graphs could be added, for instance for growth of
pollution, of waste products, of weapons (in terms of tonnes of explosive power), of other
greenhouse gases such as the chlorofluorocarbons (which accelerated from zero in the
nineteen thirties), and so on. The display typifies the accelerating human roller coaster (or
air bus).
Those curves are dghtly interconnected, in criss-crossing fashion. For example, the
productivity of contemporary agriculture which enables the feeding of huge urbanised
human populations depends on a very high energy use (in term of energy efficiency,
contemporary high-tech agriculture falls below that of much traditional agriculture). The
maintenance of high populations with supplies of cheap food depends in tum on fossil fuel
agriculture. Because of the intertwining of these phenomena, there is no easy way of getting
off the accelerating roller-coaster.
Nor, as observed, is there much real effort devoted to slowing the coaster. For
politicians it would be politically risky and inexpedient to try (for them the rhetoric about an
ecologically sustainable future must remain just that, more rhetoric). For many other power
holders and brokers such ideas are ideologically excluded: growth remains the gospel. So a
precarious position becomes ever more precarious. Humans are in a decidedly chancy
position, because of their population situation and other limitative factors; they are becoming
very disaster-prone. If humans want an acceptable future for themselves - they have
virtually ruled out an acceptable future for many other creatures, through their predominantly
selfish thoughtless greedy practices - then they will probably have to mend their collective
ways, very considerably and very soon. But, given the nature of the beast, that itself seems
improbable.
Humans, if they seek a more assured future, should make a concerted effort to put
themselves into a less precarious position. That could be achieved by proceeding to reduce
relative risks. These relative risks, sharply reducing prospects for a reliable future, fall into
two classes:-
* Manufactured risk factors, including weaponry such as mega-nuclear devices and
elements of biochemical warfare, and experimental equipment such as very high energy
particle accelerators (which could perhaps tunnel under a metastable state or induce a miniBig-Bang; see again Leslie).
* Accumulated risk factors, such as the huge relative size of human population, energy
consumption, greenhouse gas production, etc.30
30
As before, there are various different reasons why these induce risk, limitative and probabilistic
in particular.
�33
Despite the ideological obstacles - enormous political, religious and economic
obstacles blocking the way of requisite change - major efforts should be put into reducing
these types of risks. Philosophers, beyond other intellectuals, cozdd have a significant
role in breaking down the ideological barriers and in clarifying and developing the arguments
involved. Given the track-record of professional philosophers, don't expect very much.31
5. Further notes on human prospects and improved practices: What in
generai ought to be done about the Greenhouse problematique?
The general result already reached, that humans collectively should substantially
reduce their risk taking, and in particular reduce their gross numbers, extends to radonal
Greenhouse decision and action theory. But that large and difficult challenge - with all that
it entails by way of radical change upon present arrangements - is not all that there is to try,
all that should radonally be attempted.
While some increase in mean global temperatures, and what that implies, can no longer
be averted, the potentially most damaging effects can be: namely, by curtailing humaninduced output of Greenhouse gases. Moreover, there is an approximate upper bound of
importance, upon temperature, which can serve to supply a significant limit on output. That
bound - which conrrnns rfyZr raZd/zg by confining encountered situadons a? those where there
is some
ba-sds* - is given by esdmated temperatures during Aldthermal and
Eemian eras. Those temperatures are estimated to have been between about 1/2 a degree and
1 degree Centigrade above contemporary (pre-1980) temperatures; so the upper bound is
about PC.
31
There is much else for philosophers to contribute in these fields, especially on the expanding
issues of future redistributive justice, ecological equity, genuinely pluralistic arrangements, etc.
�34
gZo^zzZ
zznd^r Z&ree zn/^rcy/zzzg sc^zzzzrzoy.
AT
(°C )
Dnzgram # :
B^zckgroz/nd in/orw^hozz:
'Annual mean global surface air temperature computed for trace gas scenarios A, B, and C
.... Scenario A assumes continued growth rates of greenhouse gas emissions typical of the
past 20 years, i.e., about 1.5% per year emission growth; scenario B has emission rates
approximately fixed at current rates; scenario C drastically reduces trace gas emissions
between 1990 and 2000.... The shaded range is an estimate of global temperature during the
peak of the current and previous interglacial periods, about 6,000 and 120,000 years before
present, respectively. The zero point fbr observation is the 1951-1980 mean; the zero point
for the model is the control run mean' (Walsh p.14, from whom the diagram is drawn).
Not only will a continuation of current emission trends take global temperatures clean
through and way beyond that bound, so also will an alternative set-up where emission rates
are fixed more or less at current rates. The only apparent way to remain rationally within an
experiential domain is to curtail sharply trace gas emissions, beginning early in the 1990s.
That means shifting from the dominant growth ideology; it means expensive re- and de
industrialisation. Short of catastrophic nuclear war it seems unlikely.
�35
There are several reasons why requisite change looks unlikely. Firstly, requisite
changes are generally difficult, ideologically unwelcome, extensive and expensive.
Politicians will accordingly be extremely loath to undertake them, to offer more than
tokenism. Moreover, those states and corporations that avoid making hard changes will,
like free riders, be at a comparadve advantage in the short term as regards both profits and
power. Secondly, then, there are Tragedy-of-Commons reasons, i.e. those deriving from
general Prisoners' Dilemma situations. However the troughs induced by such dilemmas
could be climbed out of; they can be transcended given, for instance, some resolute players
committed to major change, despite heavy commercial and political disadvantages, and
prepared to pursue judicious tit-for-tat strategies. Thirdly, because main Greenhouse effects
are gradual, long-term by polidcal standards, and uncertain, the main pohdcal temptation will
undoubtedly again be to avoid the problems - to muddle incrementally along, and hope that
the problems will dissolve or that something (some magical technology perhaps) will turn up
or that adaptadon will occur or, at worst, that the problems will fall to some successors.
Meanwhile the problems will continue to be dismissed as "too hard", "too uncertain", and
their costs, polidcal and economic and ideological, as "too great". We have already
accumulated substantial experience of these inadequate evasive, dismissive and
postponement procedures.
What should of course be attempted involves extensive changes and restructuring
across virtually the entire face of industrialisation and urbanisation, and therewith extensive
alterations in the demands they impose upon new urban environments. The ultimate
objective as regards the Greenhouse problems - a reduction in the rate of increase of, and
then in the gross levels of, emissions of Greenhouse gases - direcdy implies, above all,
constraints on the combustion of fossil fuels, both decelerating use and improved use, but
also much better regulation, in one way or another, of production of other Greenhouse gases
and of interference with ecosystems storing or absorbing Greenhouse gases. The main
burden as regards requisite changes falls on the main users of fossil fuels and main
consumers of Greenhouse relevant products, namely the Earth's most affluent centres: North
America, Japan and Europe. In these centres especially, the work should be started on
reducing consumption of fossil fuel involved goods and services. (In a thoroughly
methodical approach a GG, Greenhouse gas, rating would be assigned to each sort of good
and service, the objective being to reduce these ratings, an effort that would no doubt
concentrate upon highly rated and easily altered items.) The general types of changes needed
or desirable are well enough known to environmental planners, and include: restructuring of
cides into network systems, so that reliance upon automobile commudng and truck transport
of goods is much reduced, improved building practices for energy efficiency cogeneration
and related technologies, increased reliance on solar energy technologies, and so on.
�36
Venturing much further into unknown territory are the types of political and economic
alterations required to implement the planning changes. It has already been insinuated that
conventional governmental and public policy practices, analyses and procedures are
inadequate to the tasks ahead. For these presuppose, for example, reladvely short-term and
quite bounded settings, in which most information (as to costs, benefits, beneficiaries, etc.)
is more or less certain, and where an ethical/ideological framework is taken for granted.
Indeed most of the favoured procedures - such as reliance on standard cost-benefit analyses,
on markets of orthodox economics, on muddling through, etc - not only depend on certainty
and are unfitted for situations of uncertainty, and assume at best a decidedly shallow
approach to environmental matters; but further they tend to exhibit, what is quite compatible
with short-term rationality, long-term irrationality. Much intellectual effort should be
invested, straightaway, in designing and developing improved political structures and
matching decision-making procedures. Such structures deserve to be better articulated and
understood - a large task - before the struggle is begun in earnest - perhaps in East
European style - to put some of them into place.
From the angle of radical change, then, impact of the Greenhouse problematique is far
from entirely negative. For it may encourage or even force many more of us into thinking
about and doing what should be done from a deep perspective anyway, such as rectifying
recent heavy human impact upon environments, and beginning at once to put in place more
environment-friendly arrangements and structures'^
Richard Sylvan
APPENDIX: As to the Doomsday Argument circulated by Leslie.
The anthropic argument of the penultimate section applies limitation results to escalate
probabilities. By contrast, the argument deployed by Leslie has comparatively little to do
with limitation features or the special risks of the present times (it does depend upon some
features of the temporal distribution of the total human population). As a consequence also,
32
This more positive conclusion contrasts with final pessimistic corollary which ended the
previous interim version of this essay. The corollary, which followed the gloomy (but
warranted) claim that requisite restructuring change seems unlikely, and was intended to underpin
it, was simply this: Humans collectively are not (particularly) rational. But we had already
been told as much by philosophers like Russell and surmised as much from the latest
perambulations in the long history of human wars.
Finally, a significant debt should be recorded at least to all the following: to John Leslie for
leading ideas and for comments, to David Bennett for comments and for research and production
assistance, to Pat Troy for an opportunity to read his unpublished paper on the topic, to
Malcolm Slade and Joseph Wayne Smith for encouragement to write on the topic, and to several
members of the audience at the Australasian Association of Philosophy Conference, held in
Christchurch, New Zealand, during August 1989, where parts of the essay were fruitfully
discussed and several worthwhile suggestions or objections made.
�37
it has no direct application to the special environmental problems of the present. It yields at
best a general admonition against human risk taking - and even the inference to that is shaky
the argument itself is unavoidable.
The central claim of Leslie's argument comes to this: unless the human race ends soon,
then any one of us present humans is not an ordinary one at all, but an exceptionally early
one. (Such statistical ordinariness is presumably supposed analytic upon total human
populadon distributions.) Thus (contraposing and distributing a reasonable expectation
functor), since it is reasonable to expect that such humans are ordinary (minor premiss), it is
reasonable to expect the human race will soon die out
of the weaknesses of Leslie's Doomsday Argument, especially in its quasiinductive guise (e.g. PQ p.2), is its background reliance upon an indifference principle
assumpdon, much as in faulty applicadons of Bayes' theorem, already noted. (The principle
is used in Leslie's um argument; see p.12.) The problemadc assumption shows up in c^rz.y
clauses in Leslie's deontic probability (typicality) principle, what he describes as
"the Argument's underlying principle' (in fact a minor premiss): one should. %ZZ eZ^ &^Zng
take one's position to be fairly typical rather than very untypical, or in different
formulation: whenever Zach'/zg gvz'^nce to r/zg ccnfra/y, one should prefer to think of one's
own position as fairly typical rather than highly untypical (both principles are stated, though
with different emphases in PQ p.2). Much the same principle, but in stronger form, operates
in what he calls 'the crux of the argument': dmZ^yj you /zav^ specially jfrong
to
believe that you are a very untypically early human, you ought not to believe it' (p.10,
rearranged, different emphasis).
Unfortunately for the Argument's principle, matters are not so indifferent, things are
not so equal, some sciendsts have reasons which they think are cogent, for believing that
present humans are fairly early members of the species. Consider Lovelock, whom, as we
have seen, used to think that the Earth and its life systems were virtually indestructible; it is
only necessary to add the familiar belief that humans themselves (like rats) are very
resourceful beings, virtually impossible to exterminate, to arrive at the result that there is
reason to believe that the human race is bound to persist for many more generations. That
is, of course, both the informed and not unreasoned popular view, guiding much practice.
As a result the principle is, at the very least, in doubt. Accordingly what Leslie presents as
the crux of the argument is not endorsed here.
The Argument is vulnerable in other ways as well. For one, the main premiss is, in
duly contraposed form, not quite so evident, as for instance the human race could just tail off
at low population levels on Earth. For another, the distribution of the functor 'it is
reasonable to expect that' across the conditional involved is not unproblematic: the
�38
distribution principle itself is contested in the literature, and here the result it is supposed to
yield looks unreasonable!
References
H. W. Bernard, T/za GraaK/zazz^a E)/acr, Ballinger, Cambridge Mass., 1980.
A. Block, Mzap/zy'.? Law. Boo/: Two, Magnum, Methuen Paperbacks, London, 1980.
S. Boyden, WasfarK Czvz'ZzzarzaK zn EzaZagzcaZ Parspacrzva, Clarendon, Oxford, 1987.
L.R. Brown and others, ^rara a/r/za WarZzZ 79^9, Norton/Worldwatch, New York, 1989;
referred to as Worldwatch.
R. Carnap, Eagz'caZ FazzK<7a?zaK.s' a/ PraZ?a/?zZzzy, Second edition, University of Chicago
Press, 1962.
C.R. Chapman and D. Morrison, Ca^mzc Cara^rrap/za^, Plenum, New York, 1989.
R.M. Cyert and M.H. DeGroot, 7?ayasz'aK AKaZy^z^ aK<7 (/zzcortoz/zzy ZK EcaKaKzzc T/zaary,
Rowman & LittEeld, New Jersey, 1987.
'Developing policies for responding to climatic change", Report of the Beijer Institute,
February 1988.
W.T. Keeton, BzaZagzcaZ -SczaKca, Third edition, Norton, New York, 1980.
I. Prigogine, Or^ar azTra/C/zaag , Batam, Toronto, 1984.
J. D. Hughes, 'Gaia: an ancient view of our planet", T/za EcaZagz^r 13(1983) 54-60.
R. Jeffrey, T/za Eagzc p/Dacz\YzaK 2ed., University Chicago Press, 1983.
A. Kaplan, 7K Pz/r^zzz'r p/Wz'-y&wz, Glencoe, Beverly Hills Ca., 1977.
J. Leslie, 'Risking and World's End", EzzZZazzK a/ r/za C<2K<2<7Z<2K Azzc/aar 5aczary 10(3)
(1989) 10-15; all references to Leslie are to this article unless otherwise indicated.
J. Leslie, 'Is the end of the world nigh?", T/za E/zzZa^ap/zzcaZ Czzarrar/y, to appear; referred to
as PQ.
J.E. Lovelock, Gaza. A Kaw Zaa/z ar Zz/a <9K Earr/z, Oxford University Press, 1979.
J. Lovelock, 'Are we destabilising world climate?", T/za Eaa/agz^r 15(1985) 52-55.
J.Lovelock, 'Man and Gaia", T/za Earr/z E apart. MaKz'zarzKg z/za Eazz/a/ar Czzr EKVz'raKKzaKZ
(ed. E. Goldsmith and N. Hilyard), Mitchell Beazley, London, 1988, 51-64.
A. Lovejoy, T/za Graaf C/zaz'K p/EazKg, Harvard University Press, Massuchusetts, 1950.
B. McKibben, 'Is the world getting hotter?" T/za Aaw Yar% Eavz'aw, 8 December 1988, 711.
G.I. Pearman (ed.), GraaK/zazz^a. P/aKKZKg /ar c/zKzaza c/zaKga, Division of Atmospheric
Research,CSIRO, 1988.
�39
B. Pittock, 'Climatic catastrophes: The international implications of the greenhouse effect
and nuclear winter', Peace Research Centre, Working Paper No. 20, RSPacS, Australian
National University, 1987.
B. Pittock, 'Forests beyond 2000 - effect of atmospheric change', AM.yfra/i(2M For^rry
50(1987a) 205-215.
R. and V. Routley, 'Nuclear energy and obligations to the future', 7E%zEry 21(1978) 133179.
R. Routley, 'Ultralogic as universal?' reprinted as an Appendix in Expiring
Jzz/tgZ^ RM^E^yafxZ, RSSS, Australian National University, 1979.
S. Schneider, 'Not to decide is to decide', in
'88: P/anm/ig/br OZ/ware C/zange
(ed. T. Dendy), Department of Environment and Planning, Adelaide, 1989, 5-10.
R. Sylvan, 'Modern myths concerning rationality: the imperatives of consistency and
(constrained) maximality', 1988, Rarzona/zzy antZ ZrrazfpfzaZzzy.* E^r <2HtZ
(ed. S.
Bidermann and B. Scharfstein), Brill, 1989.
R.P. Turco and others, 'Nuclear winter: Global consequences of multiple nuclear
explosions', 5cz^nce 222 (1983) 1283-1292.
K. Walsh, 'Greenhouse-induced climatic change in Australia' in Urgex/zazAfe '88., op.czf.,
10-19.
�
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GAEAN GREENHOUSE, NUCLEAR WINTER,
AND ANTHROPIC DOOMSDAY?
... climate change, like no other issue, calls the whole notion of human
progress into question. The [ever promised] benefits of newer technologies,
more efficient economics, and improved political systems could be
overwhelmed by uncontrolled global warming.
... the pace of climate change will soon overwhelm natural variability in the
earth's climate. Indeed, it can be compared with nuclear war for its potential to
disrupt a wide range of human and natural systems, [severely] complicating the
task of managing economies and coping with other problems. Irrigation
works, settlement patterns, and food production [among others] would be
tragically disrupted ... (Worldwatch 89, p.ll, p.10)
There are many approaches to the
the cluster of problems upon
which this philosophical investigation focuses. These approaches range from playing the
issue down entirely, dismissing it as not a problem, not something anyone should worry
about, at the one end of the range, to playing it up at the other. Those who play it up may
even foresee the demise of the human race, unless substantially new socio-economic
arrangements - with restructured cities, revitalized lands, rejuvenated oceans - soon
eventuate.
There is certainly plenty of room for different approaches (see Diagram 1), and for
some eclecticism. For what is being relied upon, in every case, comprises shaky and
contestable arguments, from flimsy forecasting models lacking many apparently relevant
details. No one of sound judgment, aware that weather reports for twelve hours ahead can
be wildly astray, would place a very high level of confidence on climatic forecasts for fifty
years ahead down a very hazardous track. Nonetheless there is enough information to act;
and there is information rationally requiring action.
For things in the future are not going to be the same. It is very doubtful that they are
going to be any better (though much important economic theorizing presupposes as much,
such as the monetary discounting of the future). They are not going to be similar even,
because so many parameters important to life are changing, several at exponential rates.
Significant in these changes are likely climatic changes. The Greenhouse effect is among
these, a result of the increases of "greenhouse" gases, especially carbon dioxide and
methane, in the Earth's atmosphere, which have followed exponential paths since the highenergy phase of industrial culture (see Diagram 7). The growth in gas concentration
produces, what it is lagged by, but is now apparent, a significant increase in mean global
temperatures. This has major implications for much of life on Earth.
Course of action
Reasons offered
Short response
No problem
Refutable
No certainty
Irrational
Adaptive capacity
Exaggerated
High-tech resolution
Wishful thinking
Severe dislocation
otherwise
Utopian
Individual
survival
Pointless
No action^
Moderate action
Considerable action
These very condensed responses will be expanded and explained as we proceed. In
accord with an esteemed philosophical tradition, a medical analogy is first deployed; it serves
to throw main points into high relief. Consider the possible illness of the Earth, for instance
as a result of brutalisation and poisoning. Look on the Earth then as a patient^, who exhibits
some symptoms of a possibly disabling illness; for instance the patient's system is
overloaded with troublesome trace elements and her temperature appears to be rising.
Compare rational medical practice where a human patient gives indications of possibly
disabling illness, for instance the patient shows signs of hypertension. Now consider some
of the spectrum of approaches. Suppose the advice is to take no action, to do nothing but
monitor the situation until further information comes in, until even (to take a worst case) it
becomes evident that the patient indeed has hypertension and suffers a severe consequence.
That would be regarded as irresponsible practice. To say that there is no problem when
symptoms are there, would be regarded as utterly irresponsible, and medically refutable. To
say that no action should be taken until certainty as to the complaint is established would be
seen as incompetent medical practice.
Taoist no-action would be different. It would not have undertaken excessive industrial action in
the first place.
This is precisely not the way less modest Gaean hypotheses regard the Earth. For there the Earth
is active, actively participating in co-evolutionary developments. But the health analogy does of
course go right back to ancient chthonic view, systematically presented in Plato, according to
which The Earth is a living being of whom humans are only a part. Right relationship with the
Earth means that the total organism is in good health; so environmental problems are seen as
illness, as a failure of one part of the organism to interact supportivcly with others' (Hughes,
p.60). For Gaean themes in other ancient philosophies, both before and after Plato, see Hughes
p.57.
a
?
3
A responsible practitioner begins recommending some remedial action straight away.
Naturally there are various options open as to what may be prescribed. These include, at the
one end, high-tech procedures, such as, what would be ridiculous simply for hypertension,
full medical engine-and-gearbox replacement (heart and kidney transplant), or, a little less
ludicrous but ridiculously commonplace, a whole-remaining-life course of pharmaceutical
products, e.g. tablets. At the other end, lifestyle changes are proposed, such as more
exercise, weight loss, stress reduction, and an improved diet with less sodium input.
Reasonable advice would not include pure adaptation, that the patient went on living as
before in the expectation that her system would adapt to the situation. Nor would it be
reasonably suggested, except in somewhat unusual circumstances, that the patient entirely
change her lifestyle, abandon her work, house and so on, and live somewhere else. Even so
unusual circumstances, which might include residence in a very polluted environment or
work in a nuclear plant, are no doubt on the increase.
Like all analogies, the medical analogy has limitations. One feature it does not capture
concerns the holistic aspects of the Earth's sickness, and why accordingly an individualistic
survival approach, egotistically rational enough for hypertension and perhaps even for a
localised nuclear war, cannot succeed. The reason is, of course, that holistic problems are
too extensive for individuals, or even small collectives, acting on their own to be effective
or to make much difference. Some are too big even for large collectives or states, but would
require whole regions of the Earth acting in concert. But of course some state players, such
as the superpowers as regards nuclear winter, can make a substantial difference, or even all
the difference.
The medical analogy also indicates the outcome of further investigation of approaches.
Briefly, as with a chronic illness, the conclusion is that there is no very easy path; future
humans should expect a hard landing.
1. Investigative philosophy, argument and rational decision as applied to
climatic probiematiques.
The role of philosophy in such a complex problematique as that of Greenhouse effects
is not difficult to state briefly. Philosophy, Anglo-American philosophy especially, is
concerned above all with
Investigative philosophy resembles
philosophy, except that it may upset the philosophy it applies; it investigates arguments, their
features - assumptions, reliability, etc. - and their generalisation to rational processes and
methods, but
normal philosophical topics. The generalisation to rational processes
comprehends a wider range of philosophical throughput than the orthodox narrow range of
argument typically addressed in logic courses; to probabilistic and plausibilistic reasoning, to
decision processing and making.
4
A main objective in this piece of investigative philosophy is to consider certain
argumcmj pointing to probabilities of severe dislocation as a result of Greenhouse effects,
and the resulting impact on rariana/
formation and action. There are certain
arguments of particular interest for radical decision and action: various neo-Malthusian
arguments, catastrophe arguments, and doomsday arguments.
A main run of arguments to considerable action are limitative in character. Such
ZimifafMm arguments are sometimes alternatively called *neo Malthusian', since Malthus
presented a very elementary, very controversial, argument of this general type. But such is
the hostility, especially in Marxist-influenced quarters, to Malthus's associated themes (some
of them admittedly repulsive) that merely to associate an argument terminologically with
Malthus is thereby likely to condemn it. To avoid such fallacious condemnation-byassociation, the graphic term 'neo-Malthusian' is largely avoided in what follows. The
general form of these limitation arguments is simply this: growth in some parameter over
time encounters limits, typically with severe, even catastrophic, effects; for seldom is the
transition to severely constrained behaviour smooth. A characteristic graphic representation
is as follows:
Diagram 2. GrowfA
ZimiM
growth
parameter
exponential growth
pattern
encountering
limits
subsequent
varying behaviour
The limits are often imposed just by finitude, for instance finiteness of a resource or a sink.
But other limits can be important, for instance where new phenomena or thresholds come
into play. General limitation arguments loom in the background in what follows, where we
shall be arguing on a double front:
*
*
5
A. Significant disequilibrium of the Earth's systems is a real possibility, and
accordingly must be reckoned with in decision procedures. Though the probability of such
an outcome may only be modest, the case has to be taken seriously because the result
(arrived at by a limitation argument typically) is so bad. Suppose, for instance, the outcome
is that the Earth ceases to be habitable in present terms, to be able to carry its present
demanding load. Such an outcome would have an extremely high negative value, so it
would tend to dominate other alternatives. (But it need not be an entirely worst case, where
perhaps the dominant terrestrial species becomes extinct, or the Earth becomes devoid of
"higher" life. Under the bad result contemplated some better-off humans in special
circumstance may subsist for a while.) Such sufficiently bad cases
be taken account
of in decision making; they have to be taken account of in rgrz'o/ia/ decision procedures.
A*. Significant disequilibrium not only has a non-negligible probability, but set in the
proper content has a sizeable probability; so it cannot be ignored or discounted as too low to
bother about. For such an argument
has to be established at the outset than for a rational
decision theory argument.
Such a different argument, of especial concern as regard climatic changes, is the
following
argument:-
* There is some probability that the Gaean "greenhouse effect", generated by human
activity, will get out of control, that Gaean control mechanisms will fail, and that the Earth
will, for example, overheat (Runaway Greenhouse, or
premiss).
* That result would be disastrous for human activities, and indeed for humans
Pr<9.sp(?cf).
* Because of the unusual, and unusually precarious, position of humans (of certain critical
anthropic parameters), such a probability of disaster is not in fact small but decidedly large.
As a consequence then, the human species will probably sharply decline, and even become
extinct (C^^^p/26
That is, by a rectified version of Murphy's law - that if something can go wrong then in
appropriate unusual conditions, it very probably will - an incrementally small probability is
inflated into a very large probability.
It would be a mistake to conclude that because the argument itself looks an unlikely
one, everyone can stop worrying. The argument is but ong of a substantial raft of
arguments, suggesting that we are already in deep trouble, that 5/23^ have everyone
worried; it is but a final intellectual sting, so to say, from the previously inconspicuous
cosmological tail.
6
Such a doomsday argument no doubt puts together, in one more exact form, some of
the sorts of considerations that are troubling many people, especially concerned youth, about
the Greenhouse business: that humans (including themselves) are on a decline or extinction
path. It is no doubt not the only consideration that should be troubling them or us. For
whether or not doomsday warnings are warranted, there are other matters that should be
sufficiently worrisome, to anyone of moral integrity:* Future times are likely to be exceedingly uncomfortable for very many creatures, as
habitats are destroyed, food producing regions are eliminated, and environments seriously
impoverished. (Many of these creatures are nonexistents, mere future existents, i.e.
creatures that do not yet exist or participate in market or voting rituals, but nonetheless they
wzZ/ exist and may participate. But, despite their presently unfavourable ontological status,
they are entitled to fair and decent treatment.)
* Given such future prospects, present practices which do nothing or vanishingly little to
ameliorate these prospects, are decidedly irrational. Indeed a main message that will emerge
from the present exercise is the mora/ Zrrtmpna/f/y of critical large-scale human practices.
The irrationality, morally-weighed-down irrationality, of present large-scale human
practices is already conspicuous from the wintry downside of climatic prospects of which
Greenhouse warming is the upside.
7
Diagram 3. Macro-c/wKmc jarring am?Observed global average temperatures,
1880-1987, with forward projections (historic data from Worldwatch p.10).
mean
global
temperature
(degrees C)
The apparatus for conducting a world-wide nuclear war is entirely in place and indeed
on alert The probability of such a war, even if small, is not zero. Among the many awful
effects of a large nuclear war is that of nuclear winter, which would probably bring about the
demise of present human civilisation, and would at the very least mean enormous dislocation
for most surviving humans and other creatures. A sufficiently diabolical chemico-nuclear
war, reaching into all inhabited parts of the globe, could indeed drive the human species
close to extinction.
The decidedly dubious rationality and morality of these general nuclear arrangements both through what they are in themselves for what purposes, and through their moral
8
opportunity costs - are widely appreciated. The thesis that the arrangements and practices
are immoral, irradonal, and ought to be dismantled - already much argued, and also
contested^ - is not the present concern. The thermonuclear downside is, by comparison, a
very easy case to examine philosophically, and argue, as compared with the greenhouse
upside.4 For there is, for instance, a case of sorts for much increased use of greenhouse
gases, such as CFCs in refrigerators, a case that hardly extends very plausibly to nuclear
weapons. It is a case heavily pressed by some "developing" nations, for polluting devices
already in widespread use in more affluent places, as necessary for local standards of living.
These nations want, or are heavily encouraged, to extend the war against Nature through the
habitats they have gained control over, in the name of economic progress.
War also joins Greenhouse summer and nuclear winter. For the barely-analogical
rapacious war against Nature is a major contributor to Greenhouse gas emissions, for
instance, in the domestication of wetlands for rice paddies, through the heavy pillaging of
forests, and the like, typically carried on with swords and bayonets reforged to jump
ploughs, chemical weapons turned to herbicide guns, and tanks converted to bulldozers.
The protracted war against Nature^, carried, it had been supposed, to a victorious conclusion
with the rise of science and technology and the ubiquitous advance of industralisation, seems
however to have backfired. For it is turning the Earth, Gaea herself, into a patient, with
crippled life support systems, thereby endangering the sustained future even of the
victorious. Yet another Pyrrhic victory.
Greenhouse and nuclear winter are more intricately connected than through war and as
the upside and downside of meteorological phenomena. One of the high-tech solutions
suggested for atmospheric overheating, involves the generation of wintering effects - to cool
things down - by flinging enough dust up into the atmosphere, a trick no doubt most easily
achieved on the requisite scale by nuclear explosives. Needless to say, like backbuming
against out-of-control fires, artificial winter would be a pretty desperate and, given present
expertise, dangerous expedient.
2. The Greenhouse debate, main policy responses, and irrational decision.
The Greenhouse debate, as to what to do, if anything, about forecast Greenhouse
effects on Earth, is intellectually disturbing. For it has revealed, as we shall soon see, that
many of those who have spoken, worse that /pta/ry q/ r/io-yg wAo
who have some role
For my very small contribution to this, see the War and Peace scries in
Papery
E/iwv/wig/mxZ
RSSS, Australian National University.
Global warming, by no means entirely certain, is assumed to be the outcome of increasing
greenhouse gas build up. Of course though some mean temperatures will rise, cooling will
probably occur also in some localized regions.
A war incited and applauded by illustrious philosophical forebears.
*
&
9
in decision making (including both experts and politicians),
mah'ng in con^'n'on^ p/nncorrainiy or possible riskA
a J7rm gra.%? on
The main canvassed policy approaches to the Greenhouse problematique lie firmly
within the dominant social outlook, the high-tech growth and development ideology.
Diagram 4 E?r<9<26? po/z'cy
fa rA^ Gr^g/i/z<9^^ /?ra^/^marz^a^.
Dominant paradigm options
Alternative ecological outlook
Procrastination (wait-and-see)
Soft energy paths and
alternative regulation
Adaptation (sink-or-swim)
Socio-economic
transformation
Regulation
Intervention (star wars)
We will briefly outline, and find wanting, a// the dominant approaches.
* Procra^rznaaon, the prevailing response.
In fact the main governmental and conservative response thus far has been procrastination,
or "wait-and-see" as it is more benignly known.*? The approach makes much of the
uncertainties, of the shortcomings, in even the most elaborate general circulation models for
future climatic change, of the high noise-to-signal levels. On such bases it contends that it is
too early to do anything, except staging some meetings, organising some review
committees, undertaking some monitoring, and funding a little more "research". It
obviously does nothing to rock the growth ideology boat.
Certainly a few scientists, outside main policy making reaches, do have a sound intuitive
appreciation of these problems, and of the deficiencies of prevailing practices, e.g. Pittock 87.
There is little excuse for prevailing ignorance of or ignoring of decision theory: for the elements
of the standard theory are readily accessible and very elementary. In the present essay a
modification of standard decision theory (as expounded e.g. in Jeffrey) is assumed as background;
for details see Sylvan.
Following Knight, many economists (try to) distinguish between uncertainty and risk. Risk is
said to obtain when some more or less objective numerical probabilities can be assigned to
outcomes, a situation not obtaining as regards global greenhouse effects. Bayesians, who can
always assign subjective probabilities tend to eschew the distinction, e.g. Cyert and DeGroot,
who say that 'decision making under uncertainty refers to situations in which the outcome of the
decision is not precisely predictable'(p.3). Either way, Greenhouse involves uncertainty - to
which rational procedures should be applied.
There is significant rhetorical art in the choice of classificatory labels, a rather philosophically
neglected art. A PR person must have been hired to produce the Greenhouse adaptation of
'adaptation*.
10
There is the pretence that we do not know enough to act.s But it is known that carbon
dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases are fast increasing. The main causes and
enough likely enough consequences are also known. Theoretical considerations have
already been partially confirmed by rising temperatures in the eighties. Outcomes of rising
temperatures are also known in broad outline: rising sea levels, and so forth. In addition,
there are partial small-scale models of Greenhouse effects in action. For example, a city
such as Mexico City, which is situated in the bowl-like valley, is placed in an environment
which traps heat as well as polludon. The ecological effects, like the human effects, are
pretty dramatic even at this small level, and hardly to be sought, or emulated elsewhere.
There is a pretence, fostered also by many sciendsts, that Greenhouse difficuldes have
only just been discovered; a date commonly set for that watershed event is the Villiers
conference and statement of 1985 (e.g. Pittock 87 pp.2-3). Actually there have been
Greenhouse warnings for more than a decade, and there has been a corresponding decade of
inacdon. Nor is any acdon of much significance presently seriously contemplated.
Back in 1979 Bernard wrote at length about and reported the substantial concern of
climatologists about Greenhouse effects. Even the magazine
not then noted for its
green sympathies, recorded that The release of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by the
burning of fossil fuels is, conceivably, the most important environmental issue in the world
today" (May 3 1979). Bernard quotes many other concerned scientists, several asserdng that
'the government must start dealing with this problem now". They meant the United States
government. "The"" government didn't take the hint. For more than a decade then, sciendsts
have been emphasizing that the Greenhouse threat is a major environmental problem, and
that action should be taken immediately. Over 10 years nothing of real significance to
counter the effects has happened. There has been more than a
q/TKacdo/t, during
which matters have got worse, and the time frame for evasive acdon disturbingly shorter. It
is already evident that requisite decision making under uncertainty is not taking place. On
straight inductive grounds, it would be reasonable to expect nothing will be done. While
there are theoretical grounds to back up such an assessment, still it is only just beginning to
get through to a much wider public (which can exercise a marginal influence on what
politicians say) that there is - or T/zay be, as some more reactionary modal-mongering
academics would have - a problem or two.
Part of the problem is that scientists have been caught out (e.g. crying wolf) and have become
ultra-cautious. With the advent of thermodymamics, for instance, scientists began 'threatening
mankind with a rather swift "heat death"' as the universe ran down. Thus M. Alier, on 'blatant
ideological use of science even by scientists themselves' (see Bernard p.9). More recently, many
rang alarm bells prematurely concerning an impending mini-ice-age.
The past predictive failures of scientists have been used as evidence for scepticism concerning
greenhouse effects; see Me Kibben p.8. It is an unsatisfactorily selective argument; interestingly
it is not used in a similar way against economists, whose predictive record is significantly worse.
11
Many scientists have joined the wait-and-see queue, with their begging bowls, hoping
for more hand-outs for research. They assume, rightly enough, that more information
would assist with rational decision-making, and also, quite wrongly, that "scientific
certainty" is required for action to be taken. Physical scientists are not alone in their
misapprehension of rational decision methods.
Although there is a good deal of practical experience available of statistical-type
decision making under uncertainty, for instance as regards insurance coverage and
engineering projects, decision theory, especially as regards unrepeatable situations, has not
penetrated very far into standard scientific methodology or much into mainstream parts of
social sciences. 'Economists in particular have shown a talent for bringing every problem
back to a world of certainty where all solutions are known or can be easily found/ Natural
scientists including climatologists are, for the most part, on the same erroneous reducdon-tounattainable-certainty trip.
'This is not to say that economists have not worked on
uncertainty. ... however ... uncertainty is introduced and then taken out by assumption'
(Cyert and DeGroot, continuing, p.l).
But there are several classes of problemadc
situations, where decision and action may be required, where uncertainty
be
removed or discarded by fiat, reducdon stratagems or otherwise, notably:* inherently probabilistic situations, such as those of indeterminacy in quantum theory;
* essentially unpredictable situadons (which may be determinisdc) such as those now under
invesdgadon in chaos theory;
* presently uncertain situations and outcomes, which may eventually resolve into certain
cases, or may tum into some of the above classes, where there is not time to wait for
resolution.
The Greenhouse problem is regularly put into the latter class, a standard assumpdon being
that with enough money and research effort thrown at it, it will resolve to decent certainty.
But it may well not. Climate is now a prime arena for applications of chaos theory (in any
case inidal conditions for application of meteorological equadons are seldom very accurate
and are now shifting with the accumulation of Greenhouse gases). There are grounds for
supposing that critical parts of climatology will fall into the essentially unpredictable class,
that the sought certainly is unattainable. If so the standard begging-bowl posture of too
many research scientists: Supply more funding so we can go on researching undl we obtain
certainty, is misguided.^
Or, less charitably, downright dishonest. Nor does it seem to have occurred to most research
scientists demanding more money that an important reason why they are not obtaining the
funding they expect, or even enough to run complex modellings on expensive computers, is
because their research results could, if unfavourable, act as a serious drag on the industrial
establishment. 77zey are Aar<^/y go//7g to /?e we// jrt/tt/et/ to ^e/eg/twuze woder/i /a^artr/a/
society.
12
There are thus some severe problems with this prevailing response. Firstly, it is
irrational. Certainty,
achieved, may be achieved too late. What was required for
rationality was decision making in advance of certainty. Secondly, certainty may be
unobtainable. The meteorological equations may be non-linear (nonadditive) and so
incapable of delivering firm results given slightly fluctuating initial data. Not only are many
experts and decision makers only comfortable about acting in circumstances of relative
certainty; almost as bad, where some uncertainty is involved, only what is considered Zz^/y
gets genuine consideration. Rational decision making has however to take account of what
may not be very likely at all, but may be quite disastrous should it occur (e.g. a nuclear
accident with full meltdown). In this respect too, the standard response is methodologically
unsound.
* AzZapzarz^n, learning to live with and love the Greenhouse.
The policy That tends to be favoured by most economists' is an adaptive strategy: '"Let
society adjust to environmental changes without attempting to mitigate or prevent the
changes in advance". We could adapt to climate change for example, by planting alternative
crop strains [themselves] ... more widely adapted... ' (Schneider p.8). Observe, however,
that it is a decidedly rayzrzcf&% "adaptation" that is being proposed, that humans adjust to the
results of present economic and industrial practices, rather than adjusting fAem. It is
zz^^zz/?z^6Z that economic growth comes first, that we do not change (e.g. through decent
regulation) high energy industrial practices. A fuller and smarter adaptation would adapt
r/z&yg practices. The policy is like a pernicious agriculture policy that says, "Let farmers
adjust to the results of soil erosion, salination and so on, without attempting to mitigate or
prevent these deleterious changes in advance." Such "adaptadve agriculture", the present
predominant practice in advanced agriculture, is anti-environmental, but is given a spurious
air of evolutionary inevitability and evolutionary redistributive justice; you can't buck natural
evolution, which is entirely natural, can you? Let us condense such far-from-inevitable and
highly artificial mal-adaptation in the neologism
Greenhouse adaptation, like
nuclear adaptation, is badaptation (some, less kind, would say wa^aptation).
There is a pragmatic, if cynical, political argument for badaptation, namely, that
zznzZat^raZ action to prevent a warming is unfeasible and requisite international cooperation is
unattainable. Both contentions are open to doubt. Unilateral action by the USA, by far the
Earth's heaviest resource and energy consumer (per capita and on several other relevant
dimensions), could make a major difference, especially when backed up by pressure
(familiar from other settings, such as the narcotics war) on other nations and through the
United Nations. Unfortunately the USA is also the world's largest supplier of influential
growth economists. In any case, international agreements such as those on whaling and
13
concerning Antarctica, are attainable, and sometimes effective. The ozone protocols,
limiting production of CFCs, show that results can be achieved to limit trace gas emissions.
The adaptadon proposal is presently compatible with wait-and-see; both mean little or
no hauling back on trace gas production. Indeed procrastination will force sociedes towards
badaptation. Typical of adaptation, like procrastination, is an (over-)emphasis on the
uncertainties of Greenhouse forecasts, and on the decision-theoretic paralysis such
uncertaindes are alleged to produce. Characterisdc of adaptadon too is a minimisadon of the
of Greenhouse modification. No doubt the impression that things won't be so very
different, or far removed from what has already been experienced, is important in getting
adaptationism more readily accepted, as a radonal course of acdon (instead of the seemingly
irradonal course it is). Thus badaptation tends to play with figures at the low end of
projected ranges of temperature increase, such as 1.5°C for 2050, when in fact present data
indicates something rather in the vicinity of 4° C - in a setting, furthermore, where fracdons
of a degree centigrade may well be linked to macro-physical and macro-biological change.
Recent modellings deliver, on average, an increase in 2°C attributable to carbon dioxide, and
it is widely thought that other trace gases will double the CO2 effect^, thus yielding a 4°C
temperature increase around 2050.
The colossal extent of future human dislocation has correspondingly been deliberately
underemphasized. The adaptive capacides of human arrangements, when humans are living
at the margin, to massive natural shifts, has been grossly exaggerated. Consider agriculture
alone - set aside flooded cides, sunken atoll islands, and all the rest. Some of the Earth's
major grain producing regions - upon which famine relief projects depend - could be pushed
substantially out of business. The conditions which prevailed during the American dust
bowl experience of the nineteen-thirties were benign indeed compared with those which
threaten with mid twenty-first century Greenhouse condidons. The mid-continental summer
temperatures were only 1-2° C warmer than the present average; under greenhouse
conditions they could well be more than 3-4° C warmer. In the dust-bowl rainfall only
slipped at critical growing times (e.g. July for northern corn) to 80% of the contemporary
norm; but under Greenhouse conditions it could be significantly less again (only winter
precipitation increasing). A super dust-bowl is not improbable (for much more detail, see
Bernard). Similarly for other similar latitude Northern grain producing regions. But the
high-energy industrial superstructure is crucially based upon sufficient cheap food (bread)
for the urban masses.
10
See e.g. Pearman p.18. Note that methane is beginning to rival carbon dioxide as a gas whose
atmospheric propordons really matter and whose present exponential increase is excessive.
14
* Tnfgrvenn'o?!, high-tech Earth engineering.
Interventionist proposals so far floated include
(D New oceans in parts of the Earth's land surface lying below, at, or near sea level. These
projects would make the mega-dams of recent times look like children's play.
@ Wintering effects. Production of sufficient dust in the atmosphere, achieved for instance
by nuclear detonations, to mitigate heating effects. Such enterprise would make
modification of the weather by cloud seeding look like childs' play.
Fortunately these and other expensive and grandiose proposals, which would call for
considerable international cooperation,
far down the planning track; with these schemes
procrastination is rational.
*
controlling free(-wheeling) enterprise.
Regulation itself is of course transparadigmatic; where it belongs depend on what measures
(what sorts of constraints, rights, etc.) are proposed and how they are imposed or enforced.
If it is, for example, some industrial law-and-order, smokestack scrubbing regulations or
Greenhouse polluting rights, within the status quo, that is one thing, but if a minimally-
constrained growth paradigm is questioned and alternative socio-economic arrangements
advocated, that is quite another, and falls outside the dominant paradigm. Such policies
involving regulations controlling fossil fuel emissions especially, are negatively labelled
in the predominantly American policy literature, though there is now no
preventing some Greenhouse effects; but the worse to follow could still be prevented. What
is usually covered under the label is however some regulation within prevailing political
arrangements. So energy efficiencies and savings for investment in growth elsewhere is
comprehensible, straight growth-curtailing non-consumption is not contemplated. But the
latter is just what alternatives do contemplate.
Democratic political arrangements do not exclude such alternatives; both the power
bases of political leaders and economic prescriptions do. Adequate regulation within
prevailing socio-economic arrangements is going to prove impossible, without adjustment of
power structures and economic imperatives - in effect without far-reaching systemic and
ideological adjustment. While such adjustment appears rational, it seems unlikely (see
further section 5). Power holders and the power structures into which they slot have too
much to lose. So it is hardly remarkable that regulation itself is not so bureaucratically
popular (at least under that mode of presentation) in these latter days of economic
irrationalism, and is strongly resented and resisted.
Some of the U.S. bureaucratic reaction to the Antarctic ozone hole, now regularly
attributed to extensive CFC usage, is instructive. A top Reagan official 'said that since
CFO's were useful to industry, people should use sunglasses and baseball caps as protection
against retina damage and skin cancer' - individualisdcally distributed adaptationism, terrific
€?
&
15
for creatures outside "sunglasses and baseball caps" economies. Other Reagan
administrators spoke for procrastination, one academic-turned-bureaucrat observing that 'so
far the ozone hole has had little effect on skin cancer rates in the United States'. The
prevailing bureaucratic procrastination stance that was applied to the much easier ozone
problem (which has belated obtained weak international responses), is now extended to
Greenhouse effects. It is typically, typically irrationally, stated by high administrators that
'significant gaps exist in our knowledge .... These scientific uncertainties must be reduced
before we commit the
economic future to drastic and potentially misplaced policy
responses' (preceding quotations from McKibben p.10, p.ll, italics added).
and the
of the Greenhouse
business is thereby also revealed. Like heart disease and cancer, Greenhouse effects are
gaining much discussion and some funding because they just may severely effect the
affluent, affluent humans and affluent nations, that have a good deal to lose, in United States
especially. The impact will, however, be at least as severe in some third world nations,
whose lands or much of them will be flooded, countries which cannot afford extensive
The extensive
expensive dyking (or where such effort would be in the longer term, as seas rise, be
pointless), countries such as Pacific coral atoll nations and delta states like Bangladesh. But
the really serious losers will no doubt be, not humans , rich or poor, but nonhumans.
Biological diversity, already being reduced by various human activities, may be
one of the chief casualties of global warming. Massive destruction of forests,
wetlands, and even the polar tundra could irrevocably destroy complex eco
systems that have existed for millennia. Indeed, various biological reserves
created in the past decade to protect species diversity could become virtual death
traps as wildlife attempt to survive in conditions for which they are poorly
suited. Accelerated species extinction is an inevitable consequence of a rapid
warming (Worldwatch p.10).
3. Arguments to dislocation and for a Lesser Venus Prospect.
There is at least a small probability that predicted increases in mean atmospheric
temperatures will seriously interfere with most remaining natural habitats and result in the
degeneration or destruction of many of them, especially forests, wetlands, and marine
environments. For example, most wetlands will either be flooded or else evaporate under
increasing temperatures. Again, the prospect is for the boreal forest to shrink from about
23% of the world's forest to something like 1% of a much diminished forest covering. Nor
will adaptationism help here; for natural evolution is much too slow for adaptationism to
succeed n.
11
Cf. Keeton pp.763-4, '... typical migration rates for forest boundaries are of the order of 502000m per annum ... [A requisite] shift of 500-1000km would, however, take hundreds of years.
... Pollen evidence... suggests that large changes occurred in forest composition during the
Holocene period some 8000-10000 years ago, even though the climate changes then were less
16
Natural ecosystems will not adapt effectively to rapid climatic change.... With
regard to forests, habitats for plants and animals cannot be re-created or
transplanted rapidly. Continuing climatic changes would strain the capabilities
of management practices even in commercial tree plantations (Beijer Institute
Report pp.21-3).
The decline or demise of these systems, vast reservoirs for greenhouse gases, will accelerate
the warming, and accordingly make matters substantially worse:
Trees are adapted to a narrow range of temperature and moisture levels, and
cannot cope with rapid climate change. A temperature increase of 1 degree
Celsius per decade in mid- to upper latitudes translates into a shift in vegetation
zones of 60-100 miles northward. Terrestrial ecosystems cannot migrate that
fast. Vast numbers of trees are likely to die, and new trees adapted to warmer
temperatures are unlikely to be able to replace them rapidly. During such a
disruption, huge areas of forest could die and, as they decay or bum, send large
quantities of additional CO2 into the atmosphere, accelerating the warming
(Worldwatch p.10).
Of course the immediate climatic patterns would be somewhat more complex. If enough
soot and ash from fires were flung into the atmosphere there would be a cooling effect, like
that of a small nuclear winter, before heating accelerated. The present pattern of ecosystemic
loss would also be sharply accelerated. For when natural ecosystems get reduced to about
30% of their initial size, they tend to collapse of themselves.
Moreover, there would be other significant positive feedback from ecosystems other
than the terrestrial forests, from the oceans especially. As the oceans warm, they lose their
capacity to serve as carbon dioxide reservoirs. So they too release additional gases,
including previously absorbed CO2, back into the atmosphere, further accelerating the
warming. A critical question arises as to how much danger such positive feedback poses?
As so often, informed opinions, and so probability estimates differ. However 'several
scientists working in the area consider that positive feedback effects will force a very bleak
picture to be drawn" (Worldwatch p.19).^
Unlike the interim effect of a small nuclear winter, where after a few years at most,
climatic behaviour (as distinct from radioactivity levels and, differently, from ecological
communities) would presumably return towards the previous norm, there will be /7<9 similar
under greenhouse impact. Technically then, stability would be lost under the
than those expected by 2030 [and forests were more extensive and less interfered with]' (Pittock
87a p.209, rearranged).
Second order probabilities, probabilities and uncertainties in the light of first order subjective
probabilities, enter importantly.
17
impact,^ disequilibrium induced. An eventual long-term return to some different but
sufficiently congenial equilibrium could well be excluded. Under new climatic regimes
plants themselves may be able to do little more than hang on for part of their own lives. In
many places conditions would be too severe for much of the "year" to permit normal plant
functioning, including what is crucial for Greenhouse amelioration, photosynthesis. In most
plants, photosynthesis only occurs across a narrow band of temperatures (e.g. 6 - 34°C);
outside that range the plants shut down operations.^ Even more important, many plants
would leave few or no successful successors. Even where plants set seed, seedlings would
not survive under the severe conditions expected; for instance, they would be killed by hot
dry summer conditions, or in other places by frosts to which they are not adapted, both
phenomena already familiar after clearfelling of forests. The situation at a famous place in
southern Sahara, where there is but one ancient tree hanging on in thousands of square
kilometres of desert, a tree with viable seeds which sets no seedlings, could be more or less
replicated in many other places where forests or woody plants once grew.
In fact we are already witnessing the demise of the trees in much of Australia. Already
dead and dying trees form a predominant feature of the Australian rural landscape. Virtually
whichever way ecologists travel in Australia where trees remain, they are confronted with
dead and dying trees
The reasons for the present decline of trees in rural Australia is, for
the most part, not to be attributed to early Greenhouse or even pollution effects. "6 It is
thought to be due to a complex of factors, including a range of insect predators whose
efforts are concentrated on isolated trees left after an excessive zeal for clearing (i.e. holistic
effects enter as regards healthy persistence of trees). Excessive disturbance of ecological
systems, though overclearing of trees, has seriously upset the systems. Types of systemic
stress and disturbance are likely to be much accelerated given the additional impact of
Greenhouse warming on plant functioning and reproduction.
f<9 some
q/
worth
disentangling. Firstly, a system may be disturbed by interfering with critical components
There are several
within the system structure, processing parts, such as botanical systems or their
interconnections. As with a computer, if a cridcal component is broken or a circuit cut, the
probability of serious malfunction increases. Secondly, a system normally operates within a
Stability is defined in physics in terms of immediate return to an initial (inertial) position after
small disturbance.
The upper bound may be difficult to appreciate in most of Aotearoa. But in much of Australia,
during the summer, many plants close down their operations for much of the day.
Other effects of increased heat on major food plants matter for human affairs. Severe heat
interferes with fertilization and reproduction in com, and apparently affects the ability of rice in
Asia to reproduce; so considerably reduced yields of staple foods may be anticipated.
Reported by Recher on EarfAworw.
Thus coastline vegctational destruction through detergents in sewerage waters.
18
certain range of condition. Take it outside these conditions or push it towards limits (let the
computer get too hot or too cold), and probability of breakdown is much increased.
Feedback loops, which are an important feature of cybernetic systems are particularly
vulnerable to normality disturbance. Cybernetic systems afford one example of more
holistic behaviour; dissipative systems, where perhaps strange new features may enter as
systemic loading is increased, another. Such new features may not be at all congenial to
dominant forms, or to maintenance of life support arrangements.
It should be evident from details already assembled that there is some probability the
Greenhouse efforts could seriously disturb the crucial carbon cycle. The carbon cycle loops,
in major fashion, through both the higher plant complexes and the oceans, both major
carbon dioxide reservoirs - but just how critically through them is uncertain. However,
with the serious disturbance of main components in the cycle, the real possibility of cycle
malfunction can hardly be excluded. Much the same holds with other crucial chemical
cycles, such as the sulphur cycle (though woody plants are perhaps less important here, the
oceans are highly significant, the oceans Costeau has already pronounced moribund). To a
lesser extent, several of the other well-known bio-chemical cycles, such as those for
nitrogen, sodium, and so forth, depend for their stability and maintenance on the adequate
operation of active ecological structures. Plainly if a cycle loops through a component, such
as a tropical forest, which is severely disturbed then the crucial cycle itself could be locally
disrupted.
There is some probability, furthermore, that the changes will disturb other physical
cycles crucial to the stability of systems. For some of the Earth's feedback systems are in
fact maintained in equilibrium through natural ecosystems. A striking example appears to be
the regulating of the Earth's temperature itself. Lovelock and collaborators have devised an
elementary daiyy wor/d m(9dg/ which reveals how a feedback system with two types of
daisies can, within limits, stabilize temperatures despite increasing solar energy input (see
the next diagram). The limits are important, for as these limits are approached the
maintenance systems break down. Thus again, instability could ensue under disturbance.
19
Diagram 5.77z^rm<9.s7anc r^ga/aizoa a/*rA^ Earr/z j ^zayac^ i^mp^ramrf rAraag/z p/a/zM (a
much simplified picture from Lovelock 88 p.58).
!n the "Datsyworid" mode), tife adjusts the pfanefs
temperature to suit ttseif. A basic assumption is that on
Daisyworid, as on Earth, the sun is getting progressive^
hotter. Biack daisies grow best when the surface temperature
is tow, because their petals absorb radiation. As the sun's
heat increases, the white daisies begin to nourish. Their
petais reflect radiation, thus heipingto iower surface
temperature. Between the time the seeds first germinate and
when the sun gets too hot, the piants maintain a steady
surface temperature by adjusting the pfanefs aibedo.
Without doubt these matters are bad enough. Demise of most of the Earth's richness^
is not a minor matter. Worse could follow.
Apart from direct ecological breakdown, there are several other major ways through
which the maintenance structures of the Earth can be not merely awkwardly disturbed, but
thrown right out of kilter - perhaps, given the d^/zcacy of several critical matters, never to
return present norms. Most obvious and immediately threatening is
* nuclear warfare, and therewith nuclear winter.
But there are of course other severe shocks that the planet could suffer than those chemonuclear warfare, some human induced, some a "chance" matter of the planets' posidon in
space; namely
* a mini Big Bang, or an undermining of metastability, brought about through very high
energy experimentadon (see Leslie);
* a collision with a large meteorite or asteroid.
Such uncertaindes, not germane to the main climatic arguments, are listed, not to achieve a
bogus completeness, but to emphasize that complete certainty is not to expected, not
radonally. Should we obtain it, should we obtain easy relatively unproblemadc lives, then
we have, by world standards, been rather lucky. Moreover, these latter uncertaindes do so
17
Natural richness is its main richness, much exceeding human arufice.
20
far appear negligible compared with those bound up with climate.is The Greenhouse
problemadque differs (as do nuclear winter and also high energy experimentation) from such
possibilities as destruction of the Earth's favourable climate or life-supports by collision with
an asteroid in two crucial respects:
the poor prognoses are largely a matter of human making (meaning the making of certain
among humans) and
the damaging situations could be substantially averted by positive or concerted human
activity.
According analogies with remote phenomena such as decline of the sun, asteroid collisions,
etc., sometimes applied to dismiss concerns with global environmental problems, do not
hold up, and should be resisted.
The human-induced climatic problems are primarily ascribable to:
* excess economic development. The practices involve a complex and sustained assault on
most of the Earth's major ecosystems, forests, seas, and so on, along with the alteration of
atmospheric composition by greenhouse gases. For example, the forests are cut down,
burnt, poisoned by herbicides and acid rain, or otherwise removed or destroyed. (Therewith
too a great deal more carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere and major sinks of
carbon dioxide are removed.) As a result of these concerted growth-and-development
activities such systems are driven to limits, and breakdown occurs. Once it occurs at some
weak point it can escalate elsewhere, like a conflagradon; thus again ecosystemic collapse for
example.
Quite apart from breakdown at or approaching limits, for instance because of systemic
overload, remarkable changes can occur in dissipative systems under stress or strain.
* excess energy or chemical loading. Though such striking examples as the chemical clock,
it has been demonstrated that dissipative systems can suddenly, and often rather
unpredictably, undergo extraordinary changes, as for instance energy flux is increased
(Prigogine and others).
Such non-additive or nonlinear effects, characteristic of more holistic dissipative
systems, seem bound to occur within the Earth's atmosphere and oceans as they undergo
compositional changes. Carbon dioxide itself provides a good example:
None of these assessments are strikingly objective, but are a matter of appearance. The risk of
catastrophic destruction of Earth civilization by an asteroid or comet is discussed, and compared
with either less exotic risks, in Chapman and Morrison, chapter 19. It has been guesstimated at
a 1 in 300,000 chance per year, a much smaller probability than that serious Greenhouse effect
will eventuate (often put at about 85%), but comparable with some rather more mundane risks
(see p.283). The risks from very high energy experimentation will no doubt rise sharply as
orders of attainable energy increase.
21
With small quantities its effect on the temperature of the air is proportional to
the amount added; there is a linear effect. However once the carbon dioxide
concentration in the air approaches 1%, new nonlinear effects come into play
and heating greatly increases. In the absence of a biosphere to fix carbon
dioxide, its concentration in the atmosphere would probably exceed the critical
figure of 1%. The Earth would then heat up rapidly to a temperature near to
that of boiling water. Increasing temperatures would speed up chemical
reacdons and accelerate their progress towards chemical equilibrium. ...
eventually ... the Earth would become permanently cocooned in a brilliant white
cloud - a second Venus, although not quite as hot (Lovelock pp.45-6).
Fortunately for Gaean prospects, the percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is now
nowhere near 1% nor likely to be pushed near 1% by projected increases in carbon dioxide
levels under economic activity over the next 50 years^. However eventual exponential
growth will lead towards accentuated levels, and the side effect of such growth, the release
of carbon dioxide from forests and oceans and the considerable reduction in fixadon of
carbon dioxide with the decline of forests, will lead in that disastrous direction rather more
rapidly. The 1% bound constitutes just one of the many serious limits (fortunately a fairly
remote one) to condnuation of present developmental pracdces.
Now there can be no radonal confidence with respect to complex dissipadve systems about the behaviour of which we presendy know comparadvely little - that other nonaddidve
effects will not be encountered at a much earlier stage. After all, the Gaean system, its
atmosphere, oceans and ecosystems, will be pushed into essendally unexperienced and
substandally unknown reaches. There is, for example, no experience from comparable past
times of such elevated temperatures as Greenhouse effects will lead to, to draw upon.
'There is no evidence that the land-bound glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica have ever
completely melted in the last two million years'. There is experience of much colder
periods. 'During ice ages, the earth's average temperature has been about 5°C colder than at
present, with glaciers covering major portions of continents' (Barth p.7). But there is no
similar experience of temperatures 4-5° C warmer than at present (in any warm interglacial
period), 'a global increase of more than 2°C above present is unprecedented in the era of
human civilization' (Schneider p.6).
It would accordingly be decidedly rash, rash decision making, to assign a zero or
negligible probability to the emergence of new or unknown effects of relevance, to assume
all will go smoothly and well. That would presuppose, in any event, a completeness in
present scientific knowledge, contrary to the information we actually have that present
investigation of holistic systems, among much else, is still in its infancy. The probability of
19
In the atmosphere of the very early Earth, CO? exceeded the critical 1% figure; but solar
luminosity was about 25% less than now. With increasing solar flux the Earth would have
overheated had the proportion of CO2 not been much reduced (e.g. see Lovelock 88 p.56).
22
something critical (e.g. perhaps radicals like hydroxyl) having been left out of estimations,
of room accordingly for something unexpected or for something to go wrong, may be small
(though experience implies it is not always so), but it certainly appears to be non-zero.
For the overconfident, with excess faith in the flimsy scientific edifice, there is a
salutary lesson to be drawn from the erratic and stumbling path of the main proponent of
Gaia hypotheses, Lovelock. Lovelock, coming from a working life as an industrial chemist,
part of that time for a giant chemical transnational, had, and retained for a considerable time
after he began his holistic hypothesizing, a strong antipathy for environmentalists.^ Even
Gaia was for industry and against the environmentalists; she was going to laughingly soak
up all the pollution, courtesy of the chemical companies especially, that we humans could
throw at her. In particular, we did not really need to worry much about ozone depletion or
greenhouse gas escalations^ 'Contrary to the forebodings of many environmentalists,
finding a suitable" destructive agent to bring about a 'doom scenario" 'turns out to be an
almost insoluble problem" (79 p.40). Lovelock makes it easier for himself by helping
himself to the assumption that a doomsday scenario involves the destruction of all "life"',
'down to the last spore of some deep-buried anaerobic bacteria" (p.40). But even for the
least chauvinistic of environmentalists, destruction of all humans but the select elect would
be quite enough for a decent doomsday. Lovelock's high redefinition of a environmental
'doomsday scenario" is unacceptable. Lovelock does not however stay within the bound of
his redefinition. He proceeds to pooh-pooh the idea that anything much that we humans
could accomplish would make any difference to Gaia (p.41) or even to most humans,
including use of nuclear devices.
Unfortunately for Lovelock's credibility, he was writing three years before the
seemingly obvious wintering effects of a major nuclear war were realised by the accredited
scientific community. Appealing in a common scienufic fashion to scientific authority, he
proceeds to minimalize the human and ecological effects of a major war. The report he relies
upon as authoritative was a 1975 (unreferenced) one of 'the US Nadonal Academy of
Sciences ... prepared by an eight-man committee of their own
assisted by forty-eight other
explosions and a//
chosen from those
members,
in the effects of nuclear
to them" (p.41, italics added). Lovelock draws from
the disdnguished expert report the findings that
Coupled with this, there was a certain schizophrenia in Lovelock's attitude to the natural
environment. There was also a matching schizophrenia as to the fragility of life on Earth. On
the one side, it required very delicate settings and fine tuning to arise; this is part of the argument
for a Gaia hypothesis. On the other side, life is 'tough, robust, and [highly] adaptable', virtually
indestructible (79 p.90). But though a flawed hero, Lovelock is a hero nonetheless.
See e.g. Lovelock 79, p.40ff; and also, on ozone, 88 p.63.
23
... if half of all the nuclear weapons in the world's arsenals, about 10,000
megatons, were used in a nuclear war the effects on most of the human and
man-made ecosystems of the world would be small at first and would become
negligible within thirty years. Both aggressor and victim nations would of
course suffer catastrophic local devastation, but areas remote from the battle
and, especially important in the biosphere, marine and coastal ecosystems
would be minimally disturbed (p.41).
Three years later Turco and others proceeded to detail a very different scenario, that of
widespread and ecologically damaging nuclear winter. Not for the only time, Lovelock had
been caught out badly.
As with pollution, Lovelock has more recently shifted ground,^ considerably, on the
vulnerability of the Earth to human-induced disturbance. When a system such as Gaea in
homeostatis
is stressed to near the limits of regulation even a small disturbance may cause it
to jump to a new stable state or even fail entirely....
It could be that the regulation of the Earth's climate is not far from one of these
limits. Thus if some part of climate regulation is connected with the natural
level of CO2 then clearly we are close to the limits of its regulation. This is
because CO2 cannot be reduced much below the level observed for the last
glaciation, about 180 ppm, without seriously limiting the rate of growth of the
more abundant C3 type plants. If we perturb the Earth's radiation balance by
adding more CO2 and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere or reduce its
capacity to regulate by decreasing the area of forests or both of these together
then we could be surprised by a sudden jump of both CO2 and temperature to a
new and much warmer steady state; or by the initiation of periodic fluctuations
between that state and our present climate.
The anomalously low abundance of CO2 on Earth when compared with the
other terrestrial planets and especially the fact that the mean temperature of the
Earth is on the cool side of the optimum for regulation, suggests strongly that
the biota is regulating the climate by pumping CO2 from the air. The common
feature of most of our pollutions and of our exploitation of the land surface
seems to be unintentionally to thwart this natural process (Lovelock 85 pp.5354).
The argument to the lesser
par/i, to significant disequilibrium with the Earth's
ecological support system destabilized, takes the following lines. The Earth appears to be a
dissipative (far-from-equilibrium) system held at its present
by a combinadon of an
(increasing) solar flux - a main energy input into the system - and its major ecological
arrangements, especially vegetational complexes and live oceans. The sheer extent to which
the resulting system differs from the stable dead system it could otherwise be is shown by
the following table for atmospheric and oceanic composidon.
Shifdng ground may be fine, especially when it is to an improved position. But it should be
done honesdy and openly, not stealthily or shiftily. Lovelock proceeds to attribute a cancature
of his <9WH previous position to cdtics of the Gaia hypothesis (as a clever Tabneation', which
also it was not): that it is 'an argument developed to allow industry to pollute at will, since
mother Gaia will clean up the mess '(85 p.53).
24
TABLE 1.
Substance
Funerary
Equilibrium
(principal components per cent).
Venus
Earth
Carbon dioxide
A
Nitrogen
1
R
Oxygen
Argon
0
C
E
A
N
S
Water
Lifeless
Mars
Earth
99
0
98
1.9
98
1.9
0
trace
trace
1
0.1
0.1
Earth
95
2.7
0.13
2
63
Salt
3.5
Sodium
nitrate
1.7
Present
0.03
79
21
1
96
n.a.
n.a.
3.5
traces
Surface
temperatures (°C)
n.a
477
Total pressure
(bars)
n.a.
90
290+50
60
-53
13
0064
1
The table is based upon tables 1 and 2 of Lovelock 79, p.37 and p.39.
The whole Earth system is accordingly far from equilibrium. Unpredictable behaviour
as loads increase is therefore almost to be expected. A likely moral is presumably: stress the
system, or destabilize ecosystem controls sufficiently, and the system may be in deep
trouble. It is relevant to inquire briefly into what evidence we so far have on this score.
To do so let us reconsider some of the array of arguments there are from some sort of
holistic organisation of the Earth (for a modest Gaea hypothesis, to the effect that the (outer)
Earth is a naturally regulated nonadditive cybernetic system, important attributes of which
are regulated by the biota).
/or the participation of the Earth's ecological support
systems, plant complexes especially, the Earth would not be blessed with its present life-
benign physical characteristics. The oceans would be much saltier and too salty for most
life, the air would not contain the present rich mixture of oxygen and carbon dioxide so
important for terrestrial life, and so on; perhaps most important the Earth would be
significantly hotter and too hot for most life, for most of what does the regulating and
stabilizing of present conditions. For the solar flux has increased in intensity about 30%
since life appeared on Earth, whereas the mean global temperatures have exhibited no
25
corresponding increase, but have remained relatively constant. Such an expected constancy
in the face of disturbing inputs is ascribed, under holistic approaches that do something to
explain it, to the concerted activity of plant life, as already indicated.
The general tenor of the argument is so far this:- By arguments from physical and
other models, and because of uncertainties, the probability that something could go badly
wrong is not merely nonzero^ but indeed far from negligible. Part of the argument can be
put as follows:- There is a decent probability that a modest Gaea hypothesis holds. But
then, there is a considerable probability that excessive Greenhouse build-up will lead to
damaging system destabilization. So combining probabilities, there at least a nonnegligible
probability of such destabilization.
An analogy should now emphasize both the dubiousness of what is being proposed
under adaptationism and the precariousness of the human predicament. The proposal is to
take this ancient craft, now overloaded with human passengers and their heavy baggage, a
cargo it was never organised to carry, out on new routes and run it faster and higher than it
has ever travelled before. Even for an experimental prototype, a now very fast (air-)bus say,
with a select test crew, such a procedure, of running over new uncharted routes at speeds
and heights never attained before, would be risky enterprise. With an ancient craft, with a
heavy non-elite cargo of baggage and passengers (some whom try to interfere with the
controls), the proposal is extremely rash. For the chances that the craft will break/down and
perhaps crash, with serious consequences to passengers and for the baggage, are greatly
elevated over the risks of proceeding as usual much more slowly. With the costs of crashing
so severe, rational operators and sensible pilots would not take them.^
Unfortunately the analogy is not at all far-fetched, but resembles what is in store for
spaceship Earth, already under significant stress with its excessive human passenger load
and their heavy ecological practices. Not only is the future itself pretty new territory, but it
is a future at terrestrial temperatures never before attained. As a result too of these enhanced
temperatures, important processes will proceed faster than ever before, in particular all
chemical processes. Simply to take the craft up there, as do-nothing and adaptation
approaches would have is to emulate the risks and hubris of Daedelus; such approaches are
From logical theories of probability such as Camap's non-zero probabilities are rather easily
reached (perhaps too easily, with the converse feature that natural laws never obtain high
probabilities. The difficulty can be averted, to some extent, by restriction to physical models.)
The analogy is an old one, which we exploited before in the nuclear case; for the "bus analogy",
see Routley and Routley. The analogy admits of much graphic variation. Instead of running the
craft at excess speed, an alternative or additional image is that of destroying the controls of the
craft. Lovelock deploys this apposite image (88 p.63), which corresponds to the demolition of
Gaean control systems. Others speak of a colossal experiment with the Earth; but strictly the
conditions for a controlled experiment are not met.
26
aptly named D<2^Zfa?i. Given anthropic terrestrial practices, a Daedelian future and fate
should not be excluded.
4. A Sting in the Cosmic Tail: the mini-Furphy theorem and on the iikeiy
decline of Homo sapiens spp. economicus.
The anthropic doomsday argument developed relies upon a modified Murphy's law.
The trouble with the initial formulation of Murphy's law:
^anyf/ung can go wrong, if wii/,
was that it was insufficiently qualified, much too absolutist, and apparently self-refuting.^
Certain crucial qualifications are required:* Replacement of the too certain conclusion by a somewhat weaker probabilistic one: for
instance, it pro&a&/y will.
* Correlative to weakening the conclusion, strengthening the premiss, by rendering it more
specific; namely, in place of "anything" or "something" put "some thing ... given a chancy
situation".
The modified formulation is accordingly the following mini-Furphy proposition^
r/HKg can ge/iMZMe/y go wrong, given o re/onvefy cAoncy Mfi/ohon,
zf pro/MZ&iy wi/i.
Here "chancy" means more or less what it means according to the dictionaries: doubtful,
decidedly risky, or as we shall construe it, having a comparadvely low probability vis-a-vis
its altemadves. The precise extent of relative chanciness will be explained as we go.
The proposidon is itself a corollary of a more general result, an ancient principle. The
generalisadon replaces "go wrong" by "happen'; the ancient principle is that of jy/^ndfM^,
sometimes stated, with quite insufficient reservations, as that all places are full, or ony
ggnfdn^/y
^fofg
&onn<% fo
rgo/fy^Z (when genuinely possible states are
compadble with all that is already transpiring). The principle, whose distinguished history is
traced in Lovejoy, has emerged in contemporary particle physics, in such forms as the
For this and other formulations of Murphy's law, and many loosely associated humorous
maxims with grains of truth encapsulated, see Block. As to the history of the "law", which
originated with J.M. Chase, editor of Aw'adPH
see the
A/nerzcgmi;
Chase's inidal formulation in a 1955 issue read 'If an aircraft part can be installed incorrectly,
someone will install it that way". Silberman's paradox, that if Murphy's Law can go wrong, it
will, is not a genuine paradox. For it can simply be asserted that where Murphy's Law is a real
law it will not go wrong. The connection of Murphy's Law with the pnnciple of plendtude
appears to have escaped much notice.
This little theorem was originally titled the Murphy-Leslie theorem. It is an adaptation,
suggested by Leslie's work, of Murphy's Law. While this secuon is overwhelmingly indebted to
Leslie, the arguments developed
from those Leslie advances. For Leslie's arguments and
also his debts, and so the transitive debts of this section, see Leslie himself, who deserves to be
read in defence his own legidmate doomsday apprehensions. The Appendix indicates the very
limited extent to which Leslie's arguments arc here endorsed.
27
following: if a thing (e.g. an elementary particle) is not forbidden, excluded by quantum
rules, then it is bound to occur (or be realised), even is "compulsory". For things and
events generally, such completeness (all nonexcluded particle niches are occupied) cannot
reasonably be expected.^ The main mini-plentitude proposition has, like its mini-Furphy
specialization to bad outcomes, to take the much more hedged form: if something can
genuinely happen, given a relatively chancy situation, it probably will.
To prove this proposition, let us first recast it in appropriate symbolic form. Let D be
some arbitrary (bad) situation, a suitable disaster in the intended application. Let the
possibility of D's happening - such as something's going wrong - be represented by a non
zero probability, and genuineness by non-negligible probability. It can be assumed that that
probability, P(D), is small; if it were large enough the requisite conclusion would follow in
any case. Let C represent the relativizing features, what is given that renders the situation
chancy. Then what we aim to show is that where P(D) is small positive, P(D { C) is
probable.
The proof applies a special case of Bayes' theorem, which takes the following form
where there are n alternative hvpotheses hi,...,hn including h:
P(h { i)
=
"
* Pd 1 M
I P(hr) X P(i { hr)
r = 1
Here h is the hypothesis, which in our application is D, i is the additional information (or, as
in Carnap, a new observation), which in our case is C.28 P(h j i) is the probability of h
given i, or of h on condition i (the backward arrow notation, { , symbolises the condition
There is a marvellous Greek term,
which could serve to cover items where the particle
physics "principle" is satisfied. 'We may call an event agathonic to convey that, though in itself
it was highly unlikely, we might have known that something of that sort was bound to happen.
... from the name of the tragic poet to whom Aristotle attributes the view that it is very probable
that the improbable should happen. (Kaplan p.9 rearranged). Is the chronic chthonic Greenhouse
escalation agathonic?
The formulation is a special case of that proved in Carnap, p.331; namely that (absolute) case
where the evidence e is elided, or e set = 1. A similar result follows, subject to slightly more
rigorous conditions, in relevant probability theory; see Routley 79 p.954.
In effect we shall look at the form
P(h ) ,) =
--------------- * PC < D
'
P(h) X P(i { h) + XP(hr) X P(i { hr)
n
with the sum excluding the product for h.
Though demonstrable given satisfiable exclusion and exhaustion conditions, Bayes' theorem is
not lacking critics, in part because of the surprises this bit of logic can deliver. Carnap meets
the objection that Bayes' theorem has sometimes 'been applied to cases where it led to strange or
even absurd results' thus: 'This was mostly due to an uncritical use of the principle of
indifference :... [The] theorem is provable ... on the basis of those weak assumptions which
practically all theories of probability seem to have in common' (p.331, sub 1 elided). Of course
the present applications could (just) be objected to on the grounds that the logical conditions for
the theorem to apply are not fully satisfied.
28
involved and shows its direction). For simplicity we shall suppose that all the alternatives to
D are concentrated (as far as symbolic exposure goes) in one, namely D*. Then the form we
seek to apply is simply:
P(D { C)
=
__________ { D)_______________ _
'
P(D) x P(C { D) + P(D*) x P(C { D*)
The arithmetic details needed can be tabulated in a revealing form as follows:
C<2.$ay
D
D*
Initial (or prior) probability
d
1-d
m, say 1/d
m/L,say 1/d!
of outcome
relative chance that C
As it is the
chance of C that matters, we can rescale to set m = 1/d. To make C
relatively chancy, L has some modest size; specifically let L exceed 1-d/d.
Then the probability to be estimated, P(D { C), is
d x 1/d
dxl/d + (l-d)/dL
_
"
__ 1
1+^
where k -
- That is, P(D { C) = y where k = 1,
andP(D { C)>
when
-when L >
.
Thus D is probable, at least in being more probable than not, given C, when L is of at least
modest size, i.e. given C is relatively chancy. In a merely apparently more general form of
the estimation, where we do not align m to d,
P(D { C)
______ d x m______
d x m + (1-d) x m/1
1
1
1 + k'
as before. That is, m drops out, only the relative chanciness really matters. The little
plendtude theorem follows as before.
Now to put some relevant flesh on these abstract statements and figures. Let D be
some future disaster such as the catastrophic decline, for instance, through summer or winter
phenomena, of the human species, from which the enormous present population never
recovers. At worst (from a chauvinistic angle) the population, like many catastrophically
effected by human activities, goes extinct. Suppose, for a bifurcating outcome, there is a
29
catastrophe stage, before halfway through next century, 2050. If humans do not get their act
together before then, they go into catastrophic decline, as already indicated. If however they
do get their ecopolitical act together then humans, while they hardly live happily ever after
(poverty, inequality, domination, and other evils not being removed), continue to persist or
even grow in numbers, perhaps fanning out through the solar system (in the way envisaged
by too many physicists). Suppose further we are optimists, imagining that the prior
probability of D, ecodisaster and human decline, is small, say 1%. That is d = .01, and the
inidal probability of D*, human "success", is .99. The figures are pretty notional. Supreme
optimists would want to set d much smaller, pessimists rather at a higher probability.
Table 2.
D human decline
D* human success
Initial probabilities
1%, i.e. .01
99%, i.e. .99
Relative chanciness,
1/100, i.e. .01
1/100 x 1/1
ofC
Then the probability of human decline given C,
.01 X .01
P(D { C)
.01 x .01 + .99 x .01/1
1/2
, when 1 > 99.
For example, when 1 is set, conservatively, at 1,000, then the probability of human decline
given present chanciness is approximately 90%. It remains to fill out C, thereby showing
that 1 is very likely much much larger than 99, and correspondingly human decline so much
the more probable in the light of additional information, i.e. 6!
usual jargon.
probable in the
There are several high risk factors, acting in a certain concert, factors emphasized more
than a decade ago in world systems modellings (such as, most famously, that of the Club of
Rome), Malthusian factors such as human population, economic product, pollution, energy
consumption, ... . (The list rolls on.) It is appropriate to estimate posterior probability
relative to any one of these, any of which can serve as C, in order to expose the riskiness of
present gross human practices. In brief, because there are several high risk factors, so there
are several appropriate relative or reference classes. Thus the posterior probability is
assessed relative to such matters as humans now being thus and so, our or my being alive
30
now (Leslie's first-person reference class), this being present energy use, present waste
output, present forest destruction and so forth. The upshot is not the triviality that
probability can be jacked up by placement in a suitably restricted context, though that
analyticity is established.^ The point is that, environmentally, more affluent humans have
fdgmjg/vgj produced such adverse circumstances, which are upon us, the very
circumstances typically productive of limitadon results.
In sum, the aadirapfc argument considers the environmentally invidious situadon of
present humans on the Earth. The argument can be carried through either in terms of sheer
population, gross numbers, or in terms of human resource grabbing, as esdmated for
instance through energy consumption. In fact all the other factors are anthropically tied, to
gross human numbers, via the environmental impact equation and because the levels are
human-use numbers.
Let us consider the prospects given addidonal information as to the present phase of
gross human population. C will be some such proposition as: the proportional
preponderance of humans who have ever lived alive now, or to personalize it: the chance that
you or your family, are alive now.
Diagram 6: (?ar praf^nf popidadon pred/camg/zf <?n die /wo jce/iarioj.
Humans have got themselves - to some extent pat themselves, though much may be
the result of muddling through - into an extremely dubious, environmentally insidious, and
One of the weaknesses in the argument may appear to be its dependence on an appropnate choice
of relative class. For, the high relative probabilities can fall away if different reference classes,
not exhibiting such growth patterns are taken, c.g. present wattle distribution, birds being thus
and so. On the other hand, probabilities can be elevated even more by selection of more unusual
reference classes, such as our being scientists, or being computer programmers, etc.. It is not so
remarkable that probabilities can be wound up - or down - perhaps quite dramatically, by
appropriate relativisation, by appropriate selection of a reference class.
31
unsustainable position, on a range of critical parameters. Their numbers are excessive, their
high energy use is excessive, their waste and their polludon are both excessive - and all these
and other excesses are at the steep end of upward exponendal curves. Several relevant
graphs are distressingly exponendal, with the present in the near verdeal growth phase:
Digram 7 : GrowrA in
are drawn from Boyden).
envzronm^nfgZZy r^Z^vanr parg/neter-P (all graphs exhibited
32
Many other similarly shaped graphs could be added, for instance for growth of
pollution, of waste products, of weapons (in terms of tonnes of explosive power), of other
greenhouse gases such as the chlorofluorocarbons (which accelerated from zero in the
nineteen thirties), and so on. The display typifies the accelerating human roller coaster (or
air bus).
Those curves are dghtly interconnected, in criss-crossing fashion. For example, the
productivity of contemporary agriculture which enables the feeding of huge urbanised
human populations depends on a very high energy use (in term of energy efficiency,
contemporary high-tech agriculture falls below that of much traditional agriculture). The
maintenance of high populations with supplies of cheap food depends in tum on fossil fuel
agriculture. Because of the intertwining of these phenomena, there is no easy way of getting
off the accelerating roller-coaster.
Nor, as observed, is there much real effort devoted to slowing the coaster. For
politicians it would be politically risky and inexpedient to try (for them the rhetoric about an
ecologically sustainable future must remain just that, more rhetoric). For many other power
holders and brokers such ideas are ideologically excluded: growth remains the gospel. So a
precarious position becomes ever more precarious. Humans are in a decidedly chancy
position, because of their population situation and other limitative factors; they are becoming
very disaster-prone. If humans want an acceptable future for themselves - they have
virtually ruled out an acceptable future for many other creatures, through their predominantly
selfish thoughtless greedy practices - then they will probably have to mend their collective
ways, very considerably and very soon. But, given the nature of the beast, that itself seems
improbable.
Humans, if they seek a more assured future, should make a concerted effort to put
themselves into a less precarious position. That could be achieved by proceeding to reduce
relative risks. These relative risks, sharply reducing prospects for a reliable future, fall into
two classes:-
* Manufactured risk factors, including weaponry such as mega-nuclear devices and
elements of biochemical warfare, and experimental equipment such as very high energy
particle accelerators (which could perhaps tunnel under a metastable state or induce a miniBig-Bang; see again Leslie).
* Accumulated risk factors, such as the huge relative size of human population, energy
consumption, greenhouse gas production, etc.30
30
As before, there are various different reasons why these induce risk, limitative and probabilistic
in particular.
33
Despite the ideological obstacles - enormous political, religious and economic
obstacles blocking the way of requisite change - major efforts should be put into reducing
these types of risks. Philosophers, beyond other intellectuals, cozdd have a significant
role in breaking down the ideological barriers and in clarifying and developing the arguments
involved. Given the track-record of professional philosophers, don't expect very much.31
5. Further notes on human prospects and improved practices: What in
generai ought to be done about the Greenhouse problematique?
The general result already reached, that humans collectively should substantially
reduce their risk taking, and in particular reduce their gross numbers, extends to radonal
Greenhouse decision and action theory. But that large and difficult challenge - with all that
it entails by way of radical change upon present arrangements - is not all that there is to try,
all that should radonally be attempted.
While some increase in mean global temperatures, and what that implies, can no longer
be averted, the potentially most damaging effects can be: namely, by curtailing humaninduced output of Greenhouse gases. Moreover, there is an approximate upper bound of
importance, upon temperature, which can serve to supply a significant limit on output. That
bound - which conrrnns rfyZr raZd/zg by confining encountered situadons a? those where there
is some
ba-sds* - is given by esdmated temperatures during Aldthermal and
Eemian eras. Those temperatures are estimated to have been between about 1/2 a degree and
1 degree Centigrade above contemporary (pre-1980) temperatures; so the upper bound is
about PC.
31
There is much else for philosophers to contribute in these fields, especially on the expanding
issues of future redistributive justice, ecological equity, genuinely pluralistic arrangements, etc.
34
gZo^zzZ
zznd^r Z&ree zn/^rcy/zzzg sc^zzzzrzoy.
AT
(°C )
Dnzgram # :
B^zckgroz/nd in/orw^hozz:
'Annual mean global surface air temperature computed for trace gas scenarios A, B, and C
.... Scenario A assumes continued growth rates of greenhouse gas emissions typical of the
past 20 years, i.e., about 1.5% per year emission growth; scenario B has emission rates
approximately fixed at current rates; scenario C drastically reduces trace gas emissions
between 1990 and 2000.... The shaded range is an estimate of global temperature during the
peak of the current and previous interglacial periods, about 6,000 and 120,000 years before
present, respectively. The zero point fbr observation is the 1951-1980 mean; the zero point
for the model is the control run mean' (Walsh p.14, from whom the diagram is drawn).
Not only will a continuation of current emission trends take global temperatures clean
through and way beyond that bound, so also will an alternative set-up where emission rates
are fixed more or less at current rates. The only apparent way to remain rationally within an
experiential domain is to curtail sharply trace gas emissions, beginning early in the 1990s.
That means shifting from the dominant growth ideology; it means expensive re- and de
industrialisation. Short of catastrophic nuclear war it seems unlikely.
35
There are several reasons why requisite change looks unlikely. Firstly, requisite
changes are generally difficult, ideologically unwelcome, extensive and expensive.
Politicians will accordingly be extremely loath to undertake them, to offer more than
tokenism. Moreover, those states and corporations that avoid making hard changes will,
like free riders, be at a comparadve advantage in the short term as regards both profits and
power. Secondly, then, there are Tragedy-of-Commons reasons, i.e. those deriving from
general Prisoners' Dilemma situations. However the troughs induced by such dilemmas
could be climbed out of; they can be transcended given, for instance, some resolute players
committed to major change, despite heavy commercial and political disadvantages, and
prepared to pursue judicious tit-for-tat strategies. Thirdly, because main Greenhouse effects
are gradual, long-term by polidcal standards, and uncertain, the main pohdcal temptation will
undoubtedly again be to avoid the problems - to muddle incrementally along, and hope that
the problems will dissolve or that something (some magical technology perhaps) will turn up
or that adaptadon will occur or, at worst, that the problems will fall to some successors.
Meanwhile the problems will continue to be dismissed as "too hard", "too uncertain", and
their costs, polidcal and economic and ideological, as "too great". We have already
accumulated substantial experience of these inadequate evasive, dismissive and
postponement procedures.
What should of course be attempted involves extensive changes and restructuring
across virtually the entire face of industrialisation and urbanisation, and therewith extensive
alterations in the demands they impose upon new urban environments. The ultimate
objective as regards the Greenhouse problems - a reduction in the rate of increase of, and
then in the gross levels of, emissions of Greenhouse gases - direcdy implies, above all,
constraints on the combustion of fossil fuels, both decelerating use and improved use, but
also much better regulation, in one way or another, of production of other Greenhouse gases
and of interference with ecosystems storing or absorbing Greenhouse gases. The main
burden as regards requisite changes falls on the main users of fossil fuels and main
consumers of Greenhouse relevant products, namely the Earth's most affluent centres: North
America, Japan and Europe. In these centres especially, the work should be started on
reducing consumption of fossil fuel involved goods and services. (In a thoroughly
methodical approach a GG, Greenhouse gas, rating would be assigned to each sort of good
and service, the objective being to reduce these ratings, an effort that would no doubt
concentrate upon highly rated and easily altered items.) The general types of changes needed
or desirable are well enough known to environmental planners, and include: restructuring of
cides into network systems, so that reliance upon automobile commudng and truck transport
of goods is much reduced, improved building practices for energy efficiency cogeneration
and related technologies, increased reliance on solar energy technologies, and so on.
36
Venturing much further into unknown territory are the types of political and economic
alterations required to implement the planning changes. It has already been insinuated that
conventional governmental and public policy practices, analyses and procedures are
inadequate to the tasks ahead. For these presuppose, for example, reladvely short-term and
quite bounded settings, in which most information (as to costs, benefits, beneficiaries, etc.)
is more or less certain, and where an ethical/ideological framework is taken for granted.
Indeed most of the favoured procedures - such as reliance on standard cost-benefit analyses,
on markets of orthodox economics, on muddling through, etc - not only depend on certainty
and are unfitted for situations of uncertainty, and assume at best a decidedly shallow
approach to environmental matters; but further they tend to exhibit, what is quite compatible
with short-term rationality, long-term irrationality. Much intellectual effort should be
invested, straightaway, in designing and developing improved political structures and
matching decision-making procedures. Such structures deserve to be better articulated and
understood - a large task - before the struggle is begun in earnest - perhaps in East
European style - to put some of them into place.
From the angle of radical change, then, impact of the Greenhouse problematique is far
from entirely negative. For it may encourage or even force many more of us into thinking
about and doing what should be done from a deep perspective anyway, such as rectifying
recent heavy human impact upon environments, and beginning at once to put in place more
environment-friendly arrangements and structures'^
Richard Sylvan
APPENDIX: As to the Doomsday Argument circulated by Leslie.
The anthropic argument of the penultimate section applies limitation results to escalate
probabilities. By contrast, the argument deployed by Leslie has comparatively little to do
with limitation features or the special risks of the present times (it does depend upon some
features of the temporal distribution of the total human population). As a consequence also,
32
This more positive conclusion contrasts with final pessimistic corollary which ended the
previous interim version of this essay. The corollary, which followed the gloomy (but
warranted) claim that requisite restructuring change seems unlikely, and was intended to underpin
it, was simply this: Humans collectively are not (particularly) rational. But we had already
been told as much by philosophers like Russell and surmised as much from the latest
perambulations in the long history of human wars.
Finally, a significant debt should be recorded at least to all the following: to John Leslie for
leading ideas and for comments, to David Bennett for comments and for research and production
assistance, to Pat Troy for an opportunity to read his unpublished paper on the topic, to
Malcolm Slade and Joseph Wayne Smith for encouragement to write on the topic, and to several
members of the audience at the Australasian Association of Philosophy Conference, held in
Christchurch, New Zealand, during August 1989, where parts of the essay were fruitfully
discussed and several worthwhile suggestions or objections made.
37
it has no direct application to the special environmental problems of the present. It yields at
best a general admonition against human risk taking - and even the inference to that is shaky
the argument itself is unavoidable.
The central claim of Leslie's argument comes to this: unless the human race ends soon,
then any one of us present humans is not an ordinary one at all, but an exceptionally early
one. (Such statistical ordinariness is presumably supposed analytic upon total human
populadon distributions.) Thus (contraposing and distributing a reasonable expectation
functor), since it is reasonable to expect that such humans are ordinary (minor premiss), it is
reasonable to expect the human race will soon die out
of the weaknesses of Leslie's Doomsday Argument, especially in its quasiinductive guise (e.g. PQ p.2), is its background reliance upon an indifference principle
assumpdon, much as in faulty applicadons of Bayes' theorem, already noted. (The principle
is used in Leslie's um argument; see p.12.) The problemadc assumption shows up in c^rz.y
clauses in Leslie's deontic probability (typicality) principle, what he describes as
"the Argument's underlying principle' (in fact a minor premiss): one should. %ZZ eZ^ &^Zng
take one's position to be fairly typical rather than very untypical, or in different
formulation: whenever Zach'/zg gvz'^nce to r/zg ccnfra/y, one should prefer to think of one's
own position as fairly typical rather than highly untypical (both principles are stated, though
with different emphases in PQ p.2). Much the same principle, but in stronger form, operates
in what he calls 'the crux of the argument': dmZ^yj you /zav^ specially jfrong
to
believe that you are a very untypically early human, you ought not to believe it' (p.10,
rearranged, different emphasis).
Unfortunately for the Argument's principle, matters are not so indifferent, things are
not so equal, some sciendsts have reasons which they think are cogent, for believing that
present humans are fairly early members of the species. Consider Lovelock, whom, as we
have seen, used to think that the Earth and its life systems were virtually indestructible; it is
only necessary to add the familiar belief that humans themselves (like rats) are very
resourceful beings, virtually impossible to exterminate, to arrive at the result that there is
reason to believe that the human race is bound to persist for many more generations. That
is, of course, both the informed and not unreasoned popular view, guiding much practice.
As a result the principle is, at the very least, in doubt. Accordingly what Leslie presents as
the crux of the argument is not endorsed here.
The Argument is vulnerable in other ways as well. For one, the main premiss is, in
duly contraposed form, not quite so evident, as for instance the human race could just tail off
at low population levels on Earth. For another, the distribution of the functor 'it is
reasonable to expect that' across the conditional involved is not unproblematic: the
38
distribution principle itself is contested in the literature, and here the result it is supposed to
yield looks unreasonable!
References
H. W. Bernard, T/za GraaK/zazz^a E)/acr, Ballinger, Cambridge Mass., 1980.
A. Block, Mzap/zy'.? Law. Boo/: Two, Magnum, Methuen Paperbacks, London, 1980.
S. Boyden, WasfarK Czvz'ZzzarzaK zn EzaZagzcaZ Parspacrzva, Clarendon, Oxford, 1987.
L.R. Brown and others, ^rara a/r/za WarZzZ 79^9, Norton/Worldwatch, New York, 1989;
referred to as Worldwatch.
R. Carnap, Eagz'caZ FazzK<7a?zaK.s' a/ PraZ?a/?zZzzy, Second edition, University of Chicago
Press, 1962.
C.R. Chapman and D. Morrison, Ca^mzc Cara^rrap/za^, Plenum, New York, 1989.
R.M. Cyert and M.H. DeGroot, 7?ayasz'aK AKaZy^z^ aK<7 (/zzcortoz/zzy ZK EcaKaKzzc T/zaary,
Rowman & LittEeld, New Jersey, 1987.
'Developing policies for responding to climatic change", Report of the Beijer Institute,
February 1988.
W.T. Keeton, BzaZagzcaZ -SczaKca, Third edition, Norton, New York, 1980.
I. Prigogine, Or^ar azTra/C/zaag , Batam, Toronto, 1984.
J. D. Hughes, 'Gaia: an ancient view of our planet", T/za EcaZagz^r 13(1983) 54-60.
R. Jeffrey, T/za Eagzc p/Dacz\YzaK 2ed., University Chicago Press, 1983.
A. Kaplan, 7K Pz/r^zzz'r p/Wz'-y&wz, Glencoe, Beverly Hills Ca., 1977.
J. Leslie, 'Risking and World's End", EzzZZazzK a/ r/za C<2K<2<7Z<2K Azzc/aar 5aczary 10(3)
(1989) 10-15; all references to Leslie are to this article unless otherwise indicated.
J. Leslie, 'Is the end of the world nigh?", T/za E/zzZa^ap/zzcaZ Czzarrar/y, to appear; referred to
as PQ.
J.E. Lovelock, Gaza. A Kaw Zaa/z ar Zz/a <9K Earr/z, Oxford University Press, 1979.
J. Lovelock, 'Are we destabilising world climate?", T/za Eaa/agz^r 15(1985) 52-55.
J.Lovelock, 'Man and Gaia", T/za Earr/z E apart. MaKz'zarzKg z/za Eazz/a/ar Czzr EKVz'raKKzaKZ
(ed. E. Goldsmith and N. Hilyard), Mitchell Beazley, London, 1988, 51-64.
A. Lovejoy, T/za Graaf C/zaz'K p/EazKg, Harvard University Press, Massuchusetts, 1950.
B. McKibben, 'Is the world getting hotter?" T/za Aaw Yar% Eavz'aw, 8 December 1988, 711.
G.I. Pearman (ed.), GraaK/zazz^a. P/aKKZKg /ar c/zKzaza c/zaKga, Division of Atmospheric
Research,CSIRO, 1988.
39
B. Pittock, 'Climatic catastrophes: The international implications of the greenhouse effect
and nuclear winter', Peace Research Centre, Working Paper No. 20, RSPacS, Australian
National University, 1987.
B. Pittock, 'Forests beyond 2000 - effect of atmospheric change', AM.yfra/i(2M For^rry
50(1987a) 205-215.
R. and V. Routley, 'Nuclear energy and obligations to the future', 7E%zEry 21(1978) 133179.
R. Routley, 'Ultralogic as universal?' reprinted as an Appendix in Expiring
Jzz/tgZ^ RM^E^yafxZ, RSSS, Australian National University, 1979.
S. Schneider, 'Not to decide is to decide', in
'88: P/anm/ig/br OZ/ware C/zange
(ed. T. Dendy), Department of Environment and Planning, Adelaide, 1989, 5-10.
R. Sylvan, 'Modern myths concerning rationality: the imperatives of consistency and
(constrained) maximality', 1988, Rarzona/zzy antZ ZrrazfpfzaZzzy.* E^r <2HtZ
(ed. S.
Bidermann and B. Scharfstein), Brill, 1989.
R.P. Turco and others, 'Nuclear winter: Global consequences of multiple nuclear
explosions', 5cz^nce 222 (1983) 1283-1292.
K. Walsh, 'Greenhouse-induced climatic change in Australia' in Urgex/zazAfe '88., op.czf.,
10-19.
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Typescript draft of paper published, Sylvan R (1990), 'Gaean greenhouse, nuclear winter, and anthropic doomsday', Research Series in Unfashionable Philosophy, 4. , Division of Philosophy and Law, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University.
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Box 148: Offprints of Publications (to Como)
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These areas were also among the most significant research programs in Australian
philosophy in the 80's (see my ‘Prospects for regional philosophy in Australasia’). To set out
very briefly why these programs did not flourish. Essentially the power-strati lure in philosophy
decided it did not care for the developments that appeared to be occuring in parts of Australian
philosophy, and in ANU philosophy in particular. Among other things, a small campaign was
run against my regional themes and research project ideas. I was blocked in advancement and
Australian philosophy has been
in any power acquisition and appropriate support
lately turning back to a subservient empiricism, concentrating again on such established topics
as philosophy of mind. In the main I d-repped-out of attempwg to organise philosophy and
other projects at or through ANU.
3. Chief past research accomplishments:My past research divides into two broad categories: logic and metaphysics, and other,
other comprising, to begin with, environmental philosophy and issues. In the 1960s my
research fell almost entirely into the first category, whence I (or Routley at any rate) have been
typed ever since as a logician. As the 1970s progressed my other research broadened from
environmental ethics and issues (initially mainly forestry and nuclear topics) to include relevant
social theory, environmental politics and economics, and naturally enough, the point of all the
activity involved, that is almost to say, ultimate questions.
A. Logic and metaphysics :• Object-theory: Development of the general theory of all items, with special emphasis upon
nonexistent objects and among them impossible items. From an interdisciplinary viewpoint,
important kinds of nonexistent items comprehended by the theory are fictional items generally
and theoretical objects; but there are many other kinds: historic objects, mental and perceptual
items, vague objects, variable items, processes, and so on. This work, which established the
general theory, sistology, as a viable logical enterprise, began in early 1960s; investigations up
to 1980 were collected in Exploring Meinong's Jungle and Beyond. Investigations continue; an
improved theory has been found, and further kinds of items better comprehended.
• Relevant logics: Advances in intensional logic, especially modal logics and relevant
logics, and their applications. Much of my work in the 1960s was devoted to studies of the
properties of non-normal modal logics and implicational variants thereof, and their applications.
This work was initiated independently of European and American work, which I only learnt
about while I progressed in a somewhat different direction. More significant results include
semantics and algebras for relevant logics, resolution of many open questions, as well as new
ranges of systems, and interesting results concerning them. Many of the results reached up to
1982 are recorded in Relevant Logics and Their Rivals.
In the 1980s more and more of my technical work went into syntheses of and applications
of sociative (i.e. broadly relevant) logics, systems that matter both for critical notions in
philosophy of science and for a satisfactory theory of reasoning.
�• Discovery of universal semantics, for all logical systems. Corollaries include general
theories of denotation and truth; applications include rehabilitation of several damaged or
defunct metaphysical theories.
• Paradoxes and dialethic logic: Investigation of paradoxes, and ensuing therefrom two
broad lines of work: first, significance and context theories and a study of incompleteness, and
second, paraconsistent and dialethic (i.e. explicitly inconsistent) theories and a study of
inconsistency. Both lines lead to much work determining the extent and character of such
theories, and establishing important results concerning them. Both lines of pursuit issued in
large books (one with Leonard Goddard, the other with Graham Priest); but in both lines much
unfinished business remains. My first research in Australia in the early 1960s focussed on
paradoxes; perhaps I am at last in a position to outline main details of the theory.
• Deep Plurallism: By the 1980s it had become difficult, in philosophy, to escape the
fashionable issue of realism and its main rivals, anti-realism and relativism. I soon realised that
I could (for object-theoretic reasons) be satisfied with none of the stock options, and so began
investigation of a radical pluralism, which in due course deepened into deep plurallism. On the
way I undertook investigations of limitations regarding realism, limits to knowledge, of
ontological and alethic relativity, and of idealism and coherence.
A* Other: from environmental ethics to ultimate questions.
• Environmental ethics, and removal of human chauvinism. None of the prevailing ethical
theories were satsifactory, all succumbed to environmental counter-examples (which is one
reason why environmental ethics is not applied ethics); all were unduly chauvinistic. New
theoretical investigation was required, and was undertaken through the 1970s (though the
resulting theory has never been assembled in one source). This foundational work centered on
value theory, was broadened in the 1980s to include, for instance, a new deontic theory
accommodating moral dilemmas, a critique of rational decision theory and development of a
satisizing alternative.
• Environmental philosophy and related social topics, including nuclear energy and
obligations to future generations, war and peace, population and immigration, predation and
cannibilism, animal intentionality, environmental interference and management. One topic
merits separate listing.
•
Studies concerning forests and forestry.
While much of this investigatory work
concentrated on plantation forestry and other intensive forestry such as clearfelling and
woodchipping, it also included studies on forest practices in neighbouring countries, alternative
forestry, forestry economics, forest typology, down to details of specific forests.
• Environmental and philosophical metatheory. Topics, encroaching on theoretical
sociology, included rival social paradigms, the bearings of culture on environmental attitudes,
cultural and regional impacts on ideology, regional philosophy. The last topic led naturally into
�
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These areas were also among the most significant research programs in Australian
philosophy in the 80's (see my ‘Prospects for regional philosophy in Australasia’). To set out
very briefly why these programs did not flourish. Essentially the power-strati lure in philosophy
decided it did not care for the developments that appeared to be occuring in parts of Australian
philosophy, and in ANU philosophy in particular. Among other things, a small campaign was
run against my regional themes and research project ideas. I was blocked in advancement and
Australian philosophy has been
in any power acquisition and appropriate support
lately turning back to a subservient empiricism, concentrating again on such established topics
as philosophy of mind. In the main I d-repped-out of attempwg to organise philosophy and
other projects at or through ANU.
3. Chief past research accomplishments:My past research divides into two broad categories: logic and metaphysics, and other,
other comprising, to begin with, environmental philosophy and issues. In the 1960s my
research fell almost entirely into the first category, whence I (or Routley at any rate) have been
typed ever since as a logician. As the 1970s progressed my other research broadened from
environmental ethics and issues (initially mainly forestry and nuclear topics) to include relevant
social theory, environmental politics and economics, and naturally enough, the point of all the
activity involved, that is almost to say, ultimate questions.
A. Logic and metaphysics :• Object-theory: Development of the general theory of all items, with special emphasis upon
nonexistent objects and among them impossible items. From an interdisciplinary viewpoint,
important kinds of nonexistent items comprehended by the theory are fictional items generally
and theoretical objects; but there are many other kinds: historic objects, mental and perceptual
items, vague objects, variable items, processes, and so on. This work, which established the
general theory, sistology, as a viable logical enterprise, began in early 1960s; investigations up
to 1980 were collected in Exploring Meinong's Jungle and Beyond. Investigations continue; an
improved theory has been found, and further kinds of items better comprehended.
• Relevant logics: Advances in intensional logic, especially modal logics and relevant
logics, and their applications. Much of my work in the 1960s was devoted to studies of the
properties of non-normal modal logics and implicational variants thereof, and their applications.
This work was initiated independently of European and American work, which I only learnt
about while I progressed in a somewhat different direction. More significant results include
semantics and algebras for relevant logics, resolution of many open questions, as well as new
ranges of systems, and interesting results concerning them. Many of the results reached up to
1982 are recorded in Relevant Logics and Their Rivals.
In the 1980s more and more of my technical work went into syntheses of and applications
of sociative (i.e. broadly relevant) logics, systems that matter both for critical notions in
philosophy of science and for a satisfactory theory of reasoning.
• Discovery of universal semantics, for all logical systems. Corollaries include general
theories of denotation and truth; applications include rehabilitation of several damaged or
defunct metaphysical theories.
• Paradoxes and dialethic logic: Investigation of paradoxes, and ensuing therefrom two
broad lines of work: first, significance and context theories and a study of incompleteness, and
second, paraconsistent and dialethic (i.e. explicitly inconsistent) theories and a study of
inconsistency. Both lines lead to much work determining the extent and character of such
theories, and establishing important results concerning them. Both lines of pursuit issued in
large books (one with Leonard Goddard, the other with Graham Priest); but in both lines much
unfinished business remains. My first research in Australia in the early 1960s focussed on
paradoxes; perhaps I am at last in a position to outline main details of the theory.
• Deep Plurallism: By the 1980s it had become difficult, in philosophy, to escape the
fashionable issue of realism and its main rivals, anti-realism and relativism. I soon realised that
I could (for object-theoretic reasons) be satisfied with none of the stock options, and so began
investigation of a radical pluralism, which in due course deepened into deep plurallism. On the
way I undertook investigations of limitations regarding realism, limits to knowledge, of
ontological and alethic relativity, and of idealism and coherence.
A* Other: from environmental ethics to ultimate questions.
• Environmental ethics, and removal of human chauvinism. None of the prevailing ethical
theories were satsifactory, all succumbed to environmental counter-examples (which is one
reason why environmental ethics is not applied ethics); all were unduly chauvinistic. New
theoretical investigation was required, and was undertaken through the 1970s (though the
resulting theory has never been assembled in one source). This foundational work centered on
value theory, was broadened in the 1980s to include, for instance, a new deontic theory
accommodating moral dilemmas, a critique of rational decision theory and development of a
satisizing alternative.
• Environmental philosophy and related social topics, including nuclear energy and
obligations to future generations, war and peace, population and immigration, predation and
cannibilism, animal intentionality, environmental interference and management. One topic
merits separate listing.
•
Studies concerning forests and forestry.
While much of this investigatory work
concentrated on plantation forestry and other intensive forestry such as clearfelling and
woodchipping, it also included studies on forest practices in neighbouring countries, alternative
forestry, forestry economics, forest typology, down to details of specific forests.
• Environmental and philosophical metatheory. Topics, encroaching on theoretical
sociology, included rival social paradigms, the bearings of culture on environmental attitudes,
cultural and regional impacts on ideology, regional philosophy. The last topic led naturally into
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<a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a>
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<span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a><span>.</span>
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Box 169: From Dr Ross Brady
Como House
Como House > Floor > Large Carton
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f87fd85c0b206ea04ae5fc89ea649fcb
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V
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Notes, Correspondences and Marginalia
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/' &*? /<^z^
V
<k/
---- ---------------------------------- ----- r>^^#
x
>
/■
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Box 6, Item 1768: Notes on environmental ethics
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Note, one item digitised from item 1768. Notes housed in folder of "papers on ecology, environmental ethics etc ".
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<a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=&type=&user=&tags=&public=&featured=&exhibit=&geolocation-mapped=&geolocation-address=&geolocation-latitude=&geolocation-longitude=&geolocation-radius=10&submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a>
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<a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a>
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<span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a><span>.</span>
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Australian National University - Second Bookcase - Bottom Shelf
Australian National University Office
Australian National University Office > Second Bookcase > Bottom Shelf
Box 6: Environmental Ethics
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DEEP-GREEN ETHICS
Contents
PARTS
CHAPTERS
0
I
II
III
IV
Prologue
DEEP, GREEN, ETHICS, and PHILOSOPHICAL BACKGROUND
1
Deep [and] green fundamentals
2
Ethics without humans; philosophy without humans
3
Philosophical setting: deep-green plurallisms
4
Inhibiting presumptions and myths
AXIOLOGY: value core
5
Value and its varieities: basic theory and its development
6
Alternative primitives and theoretical beginnings
DEONTOLOGY: necessary moral structure
7
Obligation and its deontic circle, and moral dilemmas
8
Rights, and justice
VIRTUE and INACTION
9
Environmental virtues: what they are and
something of their theory
10
V
Environmental ethical practice
NATURE of ETHICS
11
Ethics, its new character and revised foundations
12
Principal questions of reoriented ethics, and proposed answers
13
Epilogue
�17 .5.96
DEEP-GREEN ETHICS
PROLOGUE
Philosophy and its branches, ethics especially, are among the last places where prejudice
would be found, found alive and thriving, so it might be imagined. Wrong. In the first place,
prevailing ethics all exhibit heavy prejudice in favour of humans, human chauvinism. So they
are one and all defective, wrong in a deep way. An adequate ethic will remove the prejudices
involved. That means, in turn, a radical transformation of prevailing ethics, from the bottom
up. Such a transformation constitutes a main objective of this book. Deep-green ethics aims
not simply to reform present arrangements and systematizations, but to replace them. Abolition
of prejudice has early priority.
Prejudice in philosophy, privelege in prevailing ethics.
There are only about two and half millenia of recorded philosophy on Earth. To a
disconcerting extent, those millenia represent two and half thousand years of prejudice-partial
exceptions occurring and prejudice subsiding somewhat only when ideological empires were
fractured (e.g. fruitful periods of "warring states" in ancient China and Greece). Ethics is far
from alone within philosophy in exhibiting serious deficiencies, in incorporating prejudices that
should not figure so prominently in what is ideally an impartial subject. Much the same holds
for other branches: politics obviously (partly through its interdependence with ethics),
metaphysics and logic perhaps less obviously. Yet prevailing metaphysics display a deep
prejudice in favour of the actual, against what does not exist. In logic the prejudical situation
has in fact been accentuated through the rise of modern symbolic logic. Regrettably mainstream
symbolic logic is wrong. All its forms validate incorrect principles (such as implicational
paradoxes), these results flowing primarily from an underlying prejudice in favour of the
consistent, against the impossible. 1
Several of the systematic prejudices embedded elsewhere in philosophy impact upon
ethics. The prejudice in favour of the actual has served to distort, very seriously, the issue of
obligations to future creatures for example, in this fashion:- Remoter future creatures do not
exist, and therefore, according to prevailing prejudice, cannot have any relevant features, any
preferences or desires, self-traits or satisfactions, to be taken into ethical account. Therefore
All the themes are presented and defended in detail elsewhere. As regards metaphysics, see JB; as
regards logic, see e.g. BGB and generally in philosophy , see TM. There are several coupled
prejudices and prejudical drives, as will appear; for instance the drives to power and to maximization,
strongly manifested in logic, see e.g. RLR.
Prejudice in ethics was explicitly recognised by Bentham, almost two centuries ago; unfortunately
however he imported his own very influential prejudical framework.
�2
"they" can be discounted entirely. The same prejudice also enters in a very different way. All
the standard positions concerning universals, all of which reflect the metaphysical
presupposition that discourse concerns existent objects, show up in ethics. They appear in
vexing issues as to the ontological status of values, such as the good, and of deontic notions,
such as obligations and the right. These are not only difficult items to discover in the world, but
they do not seem adequately housed in conceptual or linguistic apparatus: where are they
located? Whence derives immediate pressure for many mostly bizarre reduction exercises; for
instance of values to human constructs, contructs from social preferences or from
sociobiological drives, and of obligations from veiled contracts. The initial question of location
makes, however, the defective metaphysical presupposition, and lapses therewith. Values,
though significant items, do not exist; so they are not located, anywhere.
Prejudice rooted in established logic has impacted differently, upon a variety of issues in
ethics. The absolute requirement of consistency upsets a straightforward treatment of
obligations, general sets of which are typically inconsistent, thereby leading for instance to
awkward theories of hierarchies of obligation or of merely prima facie obligations. Running
parallel with this, the requirement utterly distorted an initially straightforward theory of ethical
dilemmas, treatment of which is a significant part of any comprehensive ethical theory.
Established logic has also impacted heavily on such different issues as fact-value inferences
(e.g. the prescriptive fallacy) and regarding the extent of pluralism in ethics. The assumption
behind the rationalistic critique of relativism is that there is a single correct logic, governed by
requirements of consistency, namely standard logical theory, which (when combined with the
facts) will eliminate various ethical stances as incorrect, indeed which may, given sufficient
critical thought, lead to a single correct ethics. 2 But the assumption fails; for it too depends on
ancient prejudice.
Pluralism is one most important component in removing prejudice generally, certainly in
reducing it generally, by admitting alternatives, and allowing some to flourish. 3 Elaboration of
deep-green theory is another important direction in removing prejudice, in favour of humans,
persons, or like agents from ethics especially but not only. The main development that follows
will take both these directions, though focussed upon ethics: it will track and investigate
pluralistic deep-green ethics.
Human chauvinism is not the only major prejudice damaging ethics. An extraordinarily
privileged position given to egoistical considerations is another. Western ethics in particular has
2
3
The approach involved, that of traditional rationalistic ethics, is regularly deployed by Singer (e.g.
his Encyclopedia conclusion to Companion to Ethics); the strengthened version features in Regan.
Of course how it is supposed to proceed, the details of how reason works this miracle, is never
revealed.
See esp. TM, epilogue.
�3
recently been deformed through a substantially unquestioned axiom of self concern, that agents
are interested in and motivated by their own (self) concerns and only by them. (Of course an
agent's self, or extended self, may be grander than the agent's soul or person or body or
whatever; it may include the agent's family or even the agent's tribe, or differently it may
comprehend the agent's land or environment. But under such extensions the axiom is already
beginning to disintegrate.) Such an ubiquitous, but largely unquestioned, presumption has lain
behind reductionistic exercises that have distorted much of modem ethical (and political) theory.
The leading idea is simple enough: given that action is justified through human self-interest, and
only thus, if ethical theory (and likewise political superstructure) can be justified through some
construction or modelling on that basis (bringing in only indifference and like neutral
assumptions) , then justification will be transmitted, it too will be justified. Thus those
contractual and utilitarian exercises which have loomed so large in recent theory. 4 The same
dubious presumption also features large elsewhere, for instance in the acclaimed derivation of
Deep Ecology from the ultimate norm of Self-realization!
It is not just prejudice and allied presumption that have damaged and distorted ethics.
Narrow ethics, parading as universal or absolute in defiance of pluralism, ethics often
underwritten by religious or papal presumption, have severely disadvantage d ethics.
Furthermore, connected therewith, ethics has been destabilized, and cast in an unfavourable
light, by
•
a quest for absolute foundations, and in tum connected therewith
•
an invidious comparison with science, which is supposed to have such foundations.
The quest is quixote: there are no such foundations. Nor does science have such foundations,
so the comparison is misplaced. Not only is absoluteness for science increasingly disputed, but
it is becoming apparent that science is in the same sort of pluralistic situation-pre dicament
some, still questing for the old false certainties, would say-as ethics. 5
Through the assumption, or pretence, that it can deliver (whether from religious, rational
or other resources) certainties of a type that it cannot deliver, ethics has become discredited. But
that is only part among reasons why on the contemporary scene ethics is not the force that it has
mostly been in bygone times. At least as important as such intellectual reasons are matters like
removal of social and political pressures to conform, redirection of indoctrination practices (into
consumerism, etc.), and so on, some welcome and some definitely not.
4
5
Roughly, ethics, knocked down to what's in it for everyone (some aggregated base class), is justified
through what's in it for each me. Prima facie the grand construction is based on a simpler fallacy of
aggregation: an invalid each to all inference.
The theme is argued in detail in TM chapter 10.
The quixote quest is strikingly engaged in by Williams, for a entertaining criticism of which see
'Bernard Williams and the Absolute Conception of the World' in Putnam 92.
�4
Aspects of the discreditation have in turn been exaggerated. Ethics, it is said, makes no
difference, even can never make a difference; it never effects change. Such claims are seriously
astray, as examination of elementary examples like human slavery and treatment of animals
quickly reveals. Environmental ethics too can make a difference (perhaps, when coupled with
other practices, a major difference), and they are beginning to do so. But naturally they cannot
compel change; nor should they be capable of doing so, as that would exceed proper roles of
ethics (and other proper practices). 6
Rectification of ethics requires, then, not merely removal of now conspicuous prejudice
and presumptions, but deflation of pretensions. What results-hardly unique naturally, but one
selected for good reasons among many, hardly entirely exclusive but overlapping and admitting
others-is an ethics which differs from standard ethics in the following respects at least: Such
an ethics is:
• deep-green, removing prejudice in favour of humans, and in favour of certain (egoistic)
agents, in an affirmative fashion; and
• Pluralistic in a thorough-going way, accordingly not pretending to absolute or objective
status.
The run of prevailing ethics, including so-called "applied ethics" and "environmental ethics" are
chauvinistic; a satisfactory (environmental) ethic is not. The run of prevailing ethics are
absolutist, or otherwise relativist; a satisfactory ethic is neither.
However the conditions so far presented are but necessary conditions; they are not jointly
sufficient for adequacy. Even among theories that are nonchauvinistic and duly pluralistic,
reductionism may persist. Such reductionisms come in striking variety; thus, on just one
dimension, individualisms, sentientisms, vitalisms, (i.e. all that has value is alive, somehow),
and so on. To avoid such reductionisms, another blanket condition of adequacy is:
• non-reductionistic.
The main task consists in elaborating in detail an ethic, with other preferred features, that meets
these conditions of adequacy.
Regrettably, removal of prejudice cannot be accomplished in ethics alone, as a separate
pollution-free zone. Prejudice in ethics flows through from other regions, religion especially,
but also from psychology (which in the past made little gods of humans with sacred souls of
their own, justifying very differential treatment for them in the world), and from elsewhere.
Removal of these latter sorts of prejudices requires a severe erosion of belief, in regions strictly
outside ethics, but heavily exporting into it; of beliefs fostering intellectual prejudice.
Nonetheless ethics has a role in removal of prejudices elsewhere, because, very simply,
these prejudices ought to be removed. The basic principle, which can also be presented as one
6
These points are developed at some decent length in GE part IL
�5
of rationality, runs as follows: belief ought not to exceed warranting evidence, but should be
appropriate to it.
None of this is as clean and clear-cut as it may initially appear, because source waters
have become very muddied. Sources for instance take a range of forms (this is part of the
ancient issue of the criterion reput in more contemporary terms). Sources include not merely
empirical evidence, perception especially, the favoured, or even exclusive, source of
empiricism. They also include such sources as: emotional presentation, or emotion; postulation
or presumption; reason; authority; a range of psychic and extra sensory perception (ESP) forms;
and, differently, a range of intuitions. Some of these sources overlap; consider for instance
divine relevation. Plainly those sources are very different kinds, quality and calibre. Some
such as reason, which includes itself a disputed variety of forms, are more processing of
information kinds than sources (thought reason becomes a source, of sorts, in pure rationalism,
and a degenerate source of necessary truths in classical logical theory where theorems are
proved, by paradoxical means, from nothing so to say).
While some of these kind of sources are not important or at issue in ethics, for instance
controversial kinds of ESP giving information on remote (spatially distant or past or future)
items, several are. It is not going too far to say that ethics is severely vexed as regards sources,
and many distortions such as naturalism can be seen as coming about as ways of trying to
secure reliable sources (if some naturalistic reduction were correct then ethics would be brought
within the orbit of science and even empirical perceptual bases could be adopted, as in science).
But ethics does not resemble science; its sources are not (except incidentally) primarily
perceptual, thus breaking any very close analogy between epistemology and ethics.
A major source in ethics is emotion, by contrast with epistemology where the major
source is perception. From there already derives a major difference between the fields, as
perception tends to be less variable, more intersubjective, less culturally dependent across the
range of subjects usually taken into account. Accordingly, in any quest for a more objective
ethics, more has to be drawn out, out of the processing substructure, whence the emphasis on
coherence, good reasons, ethical on coherence, good reasons, ethical argumentation. Ethical
inputs, sources, and processing are assessed in detail in the text.
Although this work is focussed upon ethics, it does not, and evidently cannot, merely
concern ethics. Since the ethical theory is itself approached primarily (though not exclusively)
by way of value, it bears upon other areas, such as normative-infected social sciences, where
value theory features. For another example, it also impacts upon aesthetics, heavily. For,
according to the theory advanced, there is no sharp boundary, indeed really no division at all,
between what has been dubbed "aesthetic value" and "ethical value". Value is value, without
these artificial divides. Evidently too, as will appear, the work intrudes in normative reaches
�6
merging into ethics, in particular, wherever normative or deontic dilemmas are encountered,
such as reaches of social choice theory and legal theory. Differently, the work includes much,
though indirectly, upon philosophy of nature. For it is especially concerned to supersede an old
defective philosophy of nature, which included a heavy devaluation of nature, and aided and
abetted a manifestly chauvinistic ethics. The ethical theory to be elaborated fits with, and in
significant respects presupposes, a·different theory of nature. 7
Although investigations in this text are primarily theoretical, they have significant practical
implications. Putting the theory to work in various environmental fields is something that
happens elsewhere (see further in the Epilogue). Some of this has already occurred, in essays
in the Green Series, and some is reserved for other texts on field ethics. 8
Notes on terminology In this text several familiar terms, such as 'green' and 'deep', are
converted into quasi-technical terms. That is to say, special uses of the terms already in
currency, such as the use of 'green' to mean environmentally committed, are further refined.
The result could be signalled by deloyment of appropriate new terminology. Something like
that is assumed done, except that the familiar terms will be retained-onl y now they are to be
read in the quasi-technical way. To put the point differently. Let 'grene' (Olde English) or
'gre-een, (Newe English), for example, be the quasi-technical explication of 'green' in the
relevant sense. Then in the subsequent text, 'green' will normally signify gre-een, or
equivalently 'green' operates as (effectively abbreviates) 'gre-een. Why such a strategem? One
reason is that people are now rather conservative regarding terminology. Indeed they are often
turned off by new terminology (despite regular ruination of established terminology). As a
result, established terminology gets revised for all sorts of new purposes (witness the bizarre
high-school reuses in advanced physics), with a resultant overloading of senses. By contrast,
recycling of old terminology (words or spellings), that has fallen into disuse would be rather
more commendable. Here, rather than pressing our luck with explicit recyclings like diep and
chalowe, we resort to the fiction that the terms 'deep' and 'shallow' deployed throughout the
text stand in for the technical recyclings. As a result 'deep', as figuring in deep approaches,
deep green, deep theory and so on, has no connection with profundity, or 'shallow' with
superficiality.
As several have said, in several respects deep/shallow terminology is unsatisfactory,
execrable it is sometimes said. Founder N aess did a disservice introducing it, and subsequently
7
8
Such an appropriate underlying theory of nature is advanced in the companion work on metaphysics,
namely TM.
Green Series is a popular label for discussion papers in environmental philosophy, published from
Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. One of the other texts is
tentatively entitled Green Ethical Fields ..
�7
in explaining it, so slackly. While it is too late to easily change the terminology, some
undesirable associations may be shaken off by resorting to older or variant spellings, and
simultaneous ly refining senses intended. That we do. But then we concede to the general
intellectual will, by the substitution or "abbreviations" strategem.
Even so, we have risked a few neologisms, and we shall chance, just here, one or two
more. One we risk, is euthics, for universalizab le ethics, that is an ethics meeting
universalizability requirements (in some appropriate fashion). This bit of terminology helps in
resolving a significant ambiguity in philosophical usage of 'ethics', and making an improved
start on the vexed issue of why an agent should adhere to an ethics, or differently to an euthics?
One we chance is viridology (from Latin virides, green, and Greek logos, study of, in modern
palance) for: theory, principles and practices of deep-green; that is, a single classical word for
diep-grene theory. A purer alternative we contemplated, from among many, was prasinology
(or should it be prasinomics) from Greek (and Latin) prasinus, dark green, leek green.
Acknowledg ements and antecendents: personal development and conceit.
The production of this work owes much to other humans, with of whom I have little or no
acquaintance. The debts are both intellectual and practical. On the heavily practical side, I am
most grateful to Frances Redrup for the processing of reems of rough scribble. On the broad
practical front I am pleased to acknowledge the continuing support of my research endeavours
by the Australian National University. That academic support, while generous by often
niggardly world standards, has recently declined, through contraction of research support and
expansion of alleged accountability practices. In this little respect, there has regettably been
interference in my research, dur the earlier stages of work on this book, by no doubt wellintentioned academics occupying supervisary roles who have deemed by performance less than
satisfactory. It is with regret too that I record that, in part owing to biassed appointment
practices within the University, there has been negligible imput to the present work from any of
my academic colleagues there.
But outside imput there has been of course, of two main sorts: from recent activity in
environmental philosophy and from past exercises in value theory. While environmental issues
have operated as a main stimulus in my recent work in ethics, my own interest in and
investigations in ethics reach back to my graduate work in Wellington, New Zealand, where I
produced a characteristic ally initative work on ethics, entitled Moral Scepticism (I do not
suggest that anyone read that work, which it is far too late to suppress).
In New Zealand, I was educated in the 20th century British type and style of ethical
theory, primarily Oxbridge material, with not antipodean influence of any significance what
cover, except in the obscure background Prior' s quocit little book Logic and the Basis of Ethics
(although my professor at Wellington, George Styles, had ethics as a manfield, I learnt only a
�8
certain technigue from him; I do not recall one position, little theorem argument or there I must
attribute to him, for the very simple reason, (suspect, that he never advanced very much).
Among Oxbridge characters, Moore revoided the dominant influence though much of Hume and
his near contemporaries-N eurall-Smith Tomlesia and others-was scround up to a tiny circle
of ethical enthusiants and fellow academic travellers. Moore is still an influence in this book; in
my occasional more conceited moments, I like to envisage the book as an appropriately greenish
update of Principia Ethica. At least it may be as near as I ever come to producing such a work:
Principa Ethica Virida. What on excessively ambitious idea, sheer hubris! Yet, for all the fuss,
Principia Ethica is not really such a good book; rather it enjoys other advantageous features. A
few companions with Principa Ethica will be ventured.
But, by and large, other ethical theories will not be investigated in much detail. For one
reason, that has been done, to a sufficient extent elsewhere (in others' work more than my
own). For another, in the wake of accumulating evidence, notably from environmental
awakenings, revealing their narrowness and prejudice, they scarcely justify further post
mortems.
More than Moore and Priest, the present work is indebted to Meinong, and through him to
the tradition of Austrian value theory. The theory elaborated in fact fits, more or less, into what
has been called critical cognitivism ..
The evil of ingratitude, for example, ...
Here and there, the present text draws, heavily sometimes, on my own past work,
especially concerning environmental ethics. As much of the work, for example in the local
Green Series in Canberra, is rather inaccessible, such borrowing may not matter much. There
remains a small overlap-ideally vanishingly small as revision proceeds-betwee n this text and
better circulated complementary works, notably essays in Environmental Philosophy and parts
of The Greening of Ethics.
�INTRODU CING DEEP-GR EEN THEORY
Deep-green theory aims eventually to supply a comprehensive alternative environmental
philosophy. While it stands on its own, it is alternative because it stands in radical ideological
opposition to dominant ways, nowadays predominantly industrial. It offers a philosophy both
in the contemporary narrower sense, and in the older sense of an intellectually informed and
critical way of life. That philosophy is centred on an ethical theory (upon which this issue
concentrates), which is in form centred upon a value theory. But the ethic issues, in a fashion
broadly associated since Aristotle, in a politics and political economy. But the output of the
value theory in fact reaches much further, into practical decision making in a range of
environmentally impacting areas such as fishing, forestry and agriculture. The value theory is
also intertwined with philosophical issues which are often considered more fundamental, those
of astophyism and epistemology. Indeed there is no part of philosophy that remains untouched.
Therein lies part of the claim to comprehensiveness.
The particular form of deep-green theory elaborated is by no means independent of
(acclaimed) advances recently made elsewhere in philosophy (those in object-theory, and
relevant and paraconsistent logics especially). But though the theory given is influenced and
sometimes in fact shaped through these developments, deep-green theory more generally can
avoid them (The type of theory given could easily enough be recast in a more classical
Platonistic form - undoubtedly a much less plausible form. Nor will these background advances
intrude, it is hoped, in the given elaboration of deep-green theory; the background will remain,
fairly directly in the background, and not come to dominate proceedings or know proceedings
depend upon special new controversial features of it. Where more technical agreements are
required, they will be relegated to appendices.
1. As to deep theory.
Deep-green theory is the environmental branch of a much larger affair, deep theory. There
is a point, in fact a real expository need, to place deep-green theory in the larger setting of deep
theory. For deep theory influences several of the choices made in deciding upon the way deepgreen theory goes, the shape it takes. Although the influence will become evident, particularly
with the intertwining of truth and value that .... , it is worth giving an example. Too much of the
Anglo-American discussion of intrinsic value and of obligations to future generations is taken up
with - hung up upon - ontological questions, about universal items in the first case, and as how
there can be obligations regarding future items which do not (yet) exist in "suitable" determinate
�2
form in the second. Deep object-theo ry slices straight through these issues, removing the
problem generating ontological assumptions.
Deep-theor y is a grander theory lying in the background , which significantl y influences
the philosophic al approach taken in deep-green theory, as well as being influenced by it. There
is no reason why that grand backdrop should remain hidden; there is no hidden agenda. The
backgroun d theory, of which deep-green theory is a part, is called simply deep theory. For it
represents the confluence of several deep positions with deep-green theory: deep pluralism,
depth relevant theory, deep item-theory, and so on. As a theoretical endeavor, deep theory aims
to pull together, into a unified coherent theory these various deep positions. It thus draws
together and integrates as well, several other interrelated efforts (on dialethism, process theory,
anakyrie, etc. With deep theory I aim to supply eventually a fairly comprehen sive philosophical
package. I used to imagine that with moderate comprehen siveness as regards present
philosophic al problems would come a certain completene ss; but I've come to think that a total
philosophy is an illusion, like pots of gold at the ends of rainbows, and rainboweri a themselves.
Deep theory is no doubt a presumptu ous title (there are worse about, e.g. 'total
philosophy ', 'ecosophy' ), not it is altogether satisfactory given the problems and obscurities, to
be encountere d, lacking in the notion of depth. My main excuse is that I did no exactly choose
the title myself, but had it thrust upon me: problemati c, presumptuo us, it looks to good to
refuse. It emerged from a terminolog ical confluence of several areas in which I'd been
struggling to assemble ac. capirred theory - deep-green theory (itself a union of green thought,
or environmen tal philosophy with a revised deep ecology), deep relevant theory, deep pluralism
(which deepened radical pluralism), and deep item-theory (which deepens object-theory).
To give a picture of deep theory, it suffices for present purposes to indicate some main
features of deep positions, some of their integrating interrelatio ns, and some of their
revolutiona ry potential. Deep theory overturns or subverts very much of what has been
assumed or presuppos ed in Western philosophy , and particularl y in Enlightenm ented
contempora ry philosophy.
For example, it overturns the following widespread assumptions:• the Ontologica l Assumptio n, that truth, and also, meaning, are functions of reference, and
thereby presuppose existence. On the contrary according to (deep) item theory, we can perfectly
well talk and think truly about items that do not exist, and also about items that are not individual
but are complex but perhaps indetermin ate wholes, and finally what items are impossible .
Therewith repudiated also then is an occasionall y favoured full-back from onticalism, namely
possibilism , which assumes
�3
• the Possibilist Reduction, of everything that counts in discourse to possible individuals; there
are no other genuine subjects, all else can be analysed (or thrown) away.
Bound up with possibilism are
• the assumptions of modalism, of the correctness of classical logic, and of the absolute
requirement of consistency. Under more throughgoing transconsistency (or paraconsistency)
these connected assumptions are one and all repudiated. The transconsistent connection
assumes an important role in the straightforward treatment of moral and other dilemmas, in
showing for example how an agent may coherently operate under inconsistent obligations or
with incompatible needs.
Important special cases of modalism are such theories as that
• entailment is strict implication (or its metalinguistic analogical) and that conditionality amounts
to a modal function of material implication 1. The rejection of such themes and their courses is
part of what motivates deep relevant logic.
While the parts of deep theory are integrated and are intended to be materially reinforcing,
nothing prevents their fairly independent elaborations. The holism conceded does not exclude
separation or analysis. In particular, deep-green theory is amenable to independent development
and analysis.
Material implication is the implication defined in terms of truth-functions thus: A materially implies
B iff not last A and not B, or equivalently, iff either not A or B. Strict implication is the
necessitation of material obligatory i.e. A strictly implies B iff necessarily A materially implies B, or
equivalently, iff it is not possible that not A and not B.
�ON THE VALUE CORE OF DEEP-GR EEN THEORY
This essay aims to uncover the value theory of deep-green theory, exposing thereby a
central area of that theory. Though the value theory is (inevitably) abstract, it issues in what is
more concrete, such as an applicable system and practical ecological directives, potentially
destabilizing for prevailing policies and institutions.
Deep-green theory which stands in significant ideological opposition to dominant
industrial ways, is intended to supply a comprehensive alternative environmental philosophy.
At the core of deep-green theory lies a value theory. A fundamental theme thereof, part of what
makes the structure deep, is that a range of environmental items are valuable in themselves,
directly and irreducibly so, so that their value does not somehow reduce to or emerge from
something else, such as features of certain valuers or what matters for them. Thus value does
not answer back in some way to humans, or sentient creatures (or other value-responsive
classes), their interests, uses, preferences, or such like. Many natural items, such as forests
and rivers, mountains and seashores, are intrinsically valuable. They are valuable in their own
right - irrespective of whether they are interesting or useful (to any intentional operators,
themselves interesting or useful or not), indeed whether or not there exist any valuers. Value
spreads through and reaches across the natural domain; it is not bounded by mind, or linkages
with subjective states; nor does it stop with sentience, or associated pyschological features like
satisfaction; nor does it end at life; it observes no such compromising bounds. Although value
is distributed richly if irregularly throughout nature, it is not then encapsulated in some isolable
natural feature, such as life or sentience, or even in defeasible ecological values such as
richness, diversity and variety (and so open to a different, naturalistic, reduction). But of
course such ecologically important features afford criteria for value, and should be represented
in recipes (such as "objective functions") for assessing overall value.
From the presence of natural things of value, and accordingly of natural values, it is a
short, though controversial, step to the important conclusion that there can be values without
valuers. For valuers are sentient creatures with appropriate capacities, but things of value may
precede and succeed all such valuers; that is, these things can persist, their values intact,
without any valuers. As there can be shapes without any shape-perceivers, so there can be
values without valuers. (The theme, like others advanced, can be backed up by more detailed
argument and by formal proof, neither attempted here.) In valuational relations then, which
relate valuers as subjects with values as objects, both ends of relations have independent
standing; though interrelated, as the descriptions are deliberately chosen to suggest, either can
stand without the other. It is a fashionable mistake to try to collapse this relation - usually to
endeavour to soak up values into a modification of valuing subjects (e.g. as a predicate
�'relation-to-values', in which inconvenielt values are locked away). The mistaken procedure
is in fact just one important example of an archetypal modern reduction of relations to
functions; other examples, locking undesired objects away within functions, are those
rendering wholes (such as ecosystems and organised structures) functions of their parts, and,
under functionalism, minds and types of intentionality, including value-direction, as functions
of bodies or their parts such as brains. Values are not, and do not disappear into, functions of
valuers.
A connected corollary is that values are not apart from the actual world, something
"projected" or imposed on it by a favoured class of valuers, something colouring (and even
emotionall y clouding) the otherwise valueless physical world, in rather the way that
reductionistic materialism tries (erroneously) to construe colour itself as projected onto a
colourless physical world. Of course this projection effort, never adequately explicated, does
not succeed, on its own, in removing values. For they remain, left as some function of the
valuers. To try to bulldoze through this difficulty, a second reduction is invoked, of evaluative
features of valuers to "natural" features, commonly preferences, consumer desires or such like.
The second reduction runs into obstacles that halt even the naturalistic bulldozers (e.g.
naturalistic and related fallacies), but the first reduction is the critical one in removing key
environmental values, such as those of wilderness and wild things, which become valuable
only in the focus of certain sentient beholders, and not in and for themselves. This reduction
too is blocked by insuperable difficulties. On the one side, like the parallel proposed
phenomenalist reduction of material objects to sensations, the reduction never achieves
satisfactory support or even a satisfactory statement. On the other, it is counterexampled by
various modellings or thought-experiments revealing intuitively-assessed value in situations
devoid of valuers (as e.g. in the well-known Last Person argument). Values remain then part
of the still rich actual world; they are objects in the domain of actual and other worlds. But
they are not of course material objects; creatures will not fall over them any more than they will
trip over shadows or mere shapes.
Value, like shape, is an attribute, which things have or may lack, and which furthermore
creatures can recognise or may fail to discern. Thus value is, like shape and colour and their
determinate forms (round, red, etc), a universal , distributed across things, individuals and
wholes. The comparison of value with shape is decidedly more helpful than the regular, but
exhausted, comparison of value with colour, or of goodness with colour determinates such as
yellow. For example, shape is not bound by a set of determinates as colour is in the specific
colours, but comes in a spectacular variety of forms, not totally or linearly ordered (as in a
rainbow), or contracted to some primary set (as in colour triangles); shape which pertains to
wholes as well as particulars, links with gestalts better than colour; shape discrimination is
more culture dependent and sensitive; yet shape is, or was, a primary property, and thereby
�3
more immune to reductionist strategies than secondary properties such as colour. Again shapes
like values, can be vague, indeterminate; that does not prevent things, perhaps unique things,
exemplifying them. But naturally the analogy can only be extended so far. Shapes can be
approxima ted by polygons, values cannot; shapes are regularly perceived through sense
perception, by vision or touch especially, values are not, but are differently apprised. Value is
its own thing, not something else; it is what it is and does what is does; it is not something
else, like some quantitative mathematical or economic function. Nor does it contract into some
mark of value, or to what it comes down to in highly restricted settings; most important, it does
not disappear in the style of modern economics into (expected) utility, or into just two
economic forms, value-in-use monetarily and value-in-exchange (price), neither of which may
reflect worth. Value means what it means, and has meant: worth ; and it ties with general
assessments of merit and demerit, goodness or badness, not an economic or other truncation
thereof.
The powerful drive to reduce or deny values has several sources. Part of the motivation
for reduction of value springs from epistemological worries, concerning how values can be
ascertained and known, so far as they are (subjective translation proposals are then a direct
evaluative counterpart of phenomenalism). Part derives from supposedly problematic cultural
relativity (whence the attempt to impose values by identification of value with some favoured
assessible feature, and with it cultural or economic imperialism). Part of the motivation comes
from more sweeping ideological commitments, such as varieties of materialism or scientism,
which leave no space for immaterial values.
As already apparent, attempted reductions of value come in a dazzling variety of forms • subjective, which make use of psychological features, such as desires, interests, emotions,
and the like; or more objective aggregations of these, such as community preferences or utility;
or objectively naturalistic, which enrol single track value-making characteristics such as
richness or evolutionary development as value;
• consequential, which consider only outcomes; or purely motivational, which consider only
attitudes and ignore leads and outcomes;
• straightforward, as in translation proposals for translating value judgement s into reducing
statements; or oblique, as in supervenience propositions (no variations in value without
underwriting variations in reducing features); or obscure, as in unarticulated projection claims.
Values are not well accommodated within these reductionistic schemes, or accommodated at all.
Deep-green value theory, which is thoroughly nonreductive, repudiates all these reductionistic
options. They are not so difficult to avoid, as the options are neither exhaustive nor exclusive.
In particular, value reduces neither in subjective nor objective fashion; it does not reduce.
Evaluative judgements are nonjective, that is, neither subjective nor objective (in any absolutist
�4
fashion). Obversely, evaluation of an act does not reduce to assessing consequences; nor does
it come down to an assessment of motives; both may matter.
The virulent idea is abroad however that science can offer a reduction, can sweep up
value along with all other information, where philosophy has conspicuou sly failed.
Unfortunately for such optimistic ideas, fortunately perhaps for deeper thought, current basic
science does not have much to say at all, or of merit, about values, and if it did reductions
through it would be circular. But, to the contrary, there is a long-standing pretence that science
gets along "well" without values, in appropriate value-free fashion. Nowadays it is
increasingly realised that the positivistic assumption of such value-freedom is a myth, that
much of what passes as science is heavily value-penetrated. While the residual ideal of pure
engagement in pure science may offer the illusion of an escape from value, there is no escape.
For, in any case, reductions do not succeed, as a copious literature, littered with failed
attempts, meanderingly establishes. Nor are they generally desirable, since mostly shallow,
aiming at a reduction to features of some privileged class presented as ideal (i.e. core value is
covertly assumed, so there is no real reduction). Nor are they needed; explanation and
assessment do not require reduction. Evaluations may be arrived at, and value frameworks
expanded, by enhancement methods, which organise and expand emotional presentation by
coherence methods.
The enhancement methodology in fact resembles that sometimes proposed for further
acquisition of scientific information. As accumulated empirical information can be further
extended through presentational input and assessment for overall coherence, so further
evaluations may be arrived at and assessed through a combination of presentational and
coherence procedures. At the (marginal) stage where the next round of evaluations is
undertaken, the following active ingredients figure, in an idealised breakdown:- Firstly, a
background stock of judgements and value experience will have been accumulated or inherited;
in principle all of this is revisable, and some may be up for reassessment. Apart from the
background, which enters in assessing overall coherence of system, what is involved is,
secondly, emotional presentation, which corresponds to further perceptional and sense data
input, and, thirdly and not independe nt, coherence processing , which supplies the
interpretational and rationalisational components. At bottom, parallelling perception in the case
of empirical information, is emotional presentation, gut or visceral reaction in starker forms of
acceptance or rejection, but more generally comprehending a variety of sentiments, including
overall well-being, and also relational impressions, such as empathy, identification, and so on.
As a perceiver perceives shapes, so a valuer feels raw value and disvalue. The basis of
perception is sensation, the basis of valuation is emotion. Apprehension of value is seated in
emotional, and especially visceral, presentation; but what is apprehended is not to be confused
with its apprehension any more than what is perceived. All the warnings about sensation as an
�information source have to be repeat~d, with heavy emphasis, as regards emotional
presentation; for example, reliability cannot be guaranteed, interference with presentation
through drugs, alcohol, temporary excitement or other inputs may render it dubious or
unacceptable, conditioning may have occurred, including substantial cultural conditioning (so
that a person is terrified by harmless spiders but not sickened by bloody massacres of dolphins
or seals). As with perception, there are checks on emotional presentation, such as constancy
over time and after reflection.
Emotional presentation, supplying primarily inclusions and exclusions or prohibitions, is
but the basis of reflective evaluation and value apprehension. The further critical part,
coherence processing, builds on the basis taking account of other inputs or controls including
background (which supplies relevant components of already adopted judgements, assimilated
subculture and so forth) and constraints (such as moral substitutional requirements like
impartiality, e.g. whether considered judgements hold for substitute valuers, and uniformity,
e.g. whether similar acts are judged in similar ways). Essentially, the coherence procedure
consists in asking whether the next or a relevant judgement fits together with what has been
accepted, while meeting constraints, without leading to what has been rejected or excluded. If
it does fit it is added to the included side, otherwise it is sent to the excluded side. Because an
aim of this rationalisation procedure is achievement of some sort of equilibrium such coherence
procedures have gained currency under the rubric "reflective equilibrium". Observe, however,
that equilibrium reached at some stage may be lost as new types of problems arise and further
information enters. No doubt the whole methodology (like the parallel methodology of an
empirically-based coherence theory of truth) is highly idealised, and only practicably applicable
in rudimentary parts. It does however surmount a major theoretical obstacle for environmental
value theory; it reveals how in principle a nonreductionistic value theory can function, and
deliver a tenable value system. Whether what results is however an appropriate deep
environmental system will depend above all on the presentational input, the extent to which
environmental sensitivity enters and is not suppressed.
Enhancement methods reveal too that value systems are not uniquely determined, any
more than other comprehensive theoretical frameworks. There evidently are rival value
systems measuring up to rigorous rationality requirements, much as there are rival logics and
rival physical and biological systems. In particular chauvinistic systems, narrow or shallow
value systems, which are unresponsive to and take no account of environmental items and
values, cannot be excluded on rational or straight logical grounds. Unfortunately such systems
remain in ascendancy, and tend to dominate social and political practice; in recent times
economism, a narrow type of utilitarianism, has all too obviously dominated much terrestial
practice.
While such value frameworks are open to severe criticism, for instance as
chauvinistic, as violating universality requirements of morality in the case of economism, they
�do not succumb to definitive refutatiog (for the reason that requirements of morality,
universalizability of principle, impartiality and so on, can simply be repudiated; immoral or
amoral frameworks are still value systems). Even so, much can be done to shift or alter
values, though as usual effectiveness cannot be guaranteed. A range of argumentative,
educational and persuasive techniques, of varying quality, can be put to work to move valuers
indoctrinated in old damaging structures, often enough successfully. Important among these
are positive presentations of environments, their habitats and creatures, by way of new
information and experience.
The availability of rival value systems, while it implies a certain desirable (and also
troublesome) pluralism, does not mean relativism. From a deep-green viewpoint, rival
narrower and shallower systems are definitely inferior, and criticised accordingly, while
economism is an anathema which does not even make the moral grade (e.g. too many
principles stop at class or state boundaries). However a critical pluralism does acknowledge
and offer a place in the wider scheme of things for other systems, even if as less favoured or
satisfactory. One political upshot is evident; deep-green theory promotes, what matters in these
irrational times of numbers, alliances - in particular, a green alliance, organising green
positions, against prevailing forces of environmental degradation.
The systematic pluralism of deep-green value theory interpenetrates not only social and
political domains above, but also metaphysics traditionally placed below. In the underlying
metaphysical pluralism of deep-green theory, value runs very deep - so deep that even truth
depends in part upon it. For not merely selection of a correct comprehensive theory or worldview is a value dependent choice, but choice of associated actual world is also. That choice,
insofar as it is consciously made, of world structure and conceptualisation, is a constrained
choice, constrained by informational inputs, such as those of refined perception. But inasmuch
as it is rationally accomplished, that choice, like other choices of structure, proceeds according
to a standard value-information analysis (regularly oversimplified however to a preferenceinformation or even desire-belief modelling); that is, to extract the salient point, it involves
value essentially.
Truth and value are then intertwined; truth, though naturally different from value, is value
dependent. Both are plural, and differently so. So, unremarkably deep-green metaphysics
resembles the value theory in significant respects. For example, as the value theory is
nonreductionistic, so also is the metaphysics; in particular, there is a no-reduction theme that
neither parts nor wholes reduce eliminably to one another, as opposed to atomistic and holistic
views of environmental interrelations. As the value theory is pluralistic, so also is the
metaphysics; in place of established absolutism, a plurality of worlds, with associated truth
definitions is discerned. Indeed a main aim of deep-green theory is to dislodge dominant
�7
destructive ideologies, which (each of them)
assume an absolute truth, from their positions thereby providing intellectual living-space for natural environments.
Much of deep-green theory devolves then from the abstract value theory. As with the
metaphysical way sketched, so it is with the fuller ethical theory, which includes as well as a
specific axiological system, elaborating deep environmental values and virtues, a deontic
framework, supplying obligations, rights, taboos, and similar. For example, given that a
certain wild river is intrinsically valuable, as we can verify by on-site experience and
enhancement methods, and given that we duly respect that value, as deontic principles will tell
us we should, then we are not free to do as we like with that river, to dam it with concrete, to
channel it within concrete, stripping it of its riverine ecosystems. But that does not preclude
respectful use of the river, swimming or sailing quietly in its waters, and the like. Value thus
guides action, practice, and use; it is the ground also upon which principles are formulated,
principles that are assessed and validated by way of enhancement methods. Important among
these are non-interference principles, which exclude unwarranted interference with other
preference-havers and unwarranted damage, ill-treatment, or devaluation of items of value.
Such deontic principles circumscribe environmentally-limited freedom of action. Given noninterference principles, a major shift in onus of proof from homocentricethics takes place.
What is required now is that reasons be givenfor interfering with the environment, rather than
reasons for not doing so. Also direct responsibility for environmental interference or
modification falls upon those who would seriously interfere or significantly modify, who
would tread heavily on the land. Non-interference does not preclude use - only too much use
and use of too much. What it does lead to is the theme that, where use occurs, it should be
careful and respectful use.
An important respect thesis regarding environmental items is founded on such non-interference
principles and the no-reduction theme: namely,
• not to put others (other preference havers) into a dispreferred state for no good reason;
• not to jeopardise the well-being of natural objects or systems without good reason;
• not to damage or destroy items which, while they cannot literally be put into a dispreferred
state, can be damaged or destroyed or have their value eroded or impaired.
These apply to ecosystems, their surrounds, their parts, and so on. The mere making of
further excess profits, or similar economic excuses, are not good reasons. Such a respect
thesis forms part of the ecological outlook of deep-green theory.
Deep-green ethical theory amounts to much more than just another non-reductionist
ethical theory, which highlights ecological values and virtues, and so forth. It changes the
character and shape of ethical enterprise. Perhaps most strikingly, it removes humans as such
�from the centre of the ethical stage (or ~xclusive occupation of the stage). The biological
concept of being human ceases to be a significant ethical category. To elevate it to such is to
fall into human chauvinism, a type of class chauvinism which unwarrantedly discriminates in
favour of the human species. The prevailing chauvinism is not inevitable; it is very logically
avoided by directly connecting ethical characteristics with the categories of items that can have
them. Relevant categories include those marked out by features like: having well-being,
preference-having, rights-holding, contractual-capability, and so on, categories not necessarily
connected with any particular species. Hitherto virtually all Wes tern ethical theories, and the
institutional arrangements they help support, have not merely limited ethical matters to interhuman affairs, but have been blatantly chauvinistic, exhibiting substantial and unjustifiable
discrimination in favour of humans (or certain privileged humans).
Deep-green theory thus implies the inadequacy of prevailing social, political and
economic arrangements and institutions. These structures are the defective products of inferior
value frameworks which take quite insufficient account of environmental desiderata and values.
Richard Sylvan*
RMB 683
Bungendore NSW 2621
*
Thanks to David Bennett for comments on an earlier draft. For more on deep-green theory, see
essays in and work referred to in the Green Series, i.e. Discussion Papers in Environmental
Philosophy, RSSS, Australian National University, Canberra.
This compressed essay was solicited by and written for Island Magazine (Tasmania). Upon receiving
it however, the editors decided that it was too dense, and insufficiently journalistic and popular (not
features they had at any time requested), for their magazine.
�I
\. '1
11.10.95
CHAPTER 1
DEEP AND GREEN
AND PRESUPPOSED FUNDAMENTALS
It soon emerges from preliminary exploration that, under natural characterisations,
relevant notion of both ethics and green presuppose the notion of agency. So with something
on agency, enough to get started, we shall begin. In terms of agency and proclivities to
environments, green can be characterized, and in turn green approaches. Then, within green
approaches, three relevantly different types can be distinguished: shallow, intermediate, and
deep. It is the last, and really only the last, that matters for the ethical theory that follows.
1. Action, agency and agents: a summary . 1
Action theory is grounded in process theory. For actions are types of processes, agentascribed processes. processes are directed functions, ordinarily time-directed functions, 2 ?
framing of certain functional sorts. All the ordinary sorts of processes-ec lipses, transits,
removals, reflections, and so on and on-are processes (and ordinary processes can be
separated out logically, such as by applicability and inapplicability of certain predicates, e.g.
they take place, they are not facts, etc.)
Processes themselves in no way require agents. Actions, however, as distinguished
within goings-ons and taking-places, do require agency, and so agents. There is no reason at
all why these agents should be humans. Many agents are not humans, some humans are not
agents. But it is often quite erroneously assumed agents are humans, or persons. Excess
requirements on agency are partly to blame, the mistaken idea that agents have to be purposeful,
responsible, rational-feat ures that can be added to distinguish subtypes of agents. Rather,
actions can be roughly delineated through answers to questions like What is so and so (the
relevant agent) doing? How is so and so acting? The result reached following through this
route is this: process a is an action iff for some agent x, a is properly ascribed to x, it is x' s
doing. To break residual circularity, it remains to define agency. Agency is defined, such is the
proposal, in terms of exercising a causal role (which may be misdirected or similar), through the
following circuit. First, x is and agent as agents a iff, for some p directly partinent to a, x
causes Pbut x is not caused to cause p. In terms of agency-regarding, other notions can be
defined as follows: x is a sometime-agent, someties an agent, iff for some a, x is an agent as
2
As full an account of processes as so far worked up from notes appears in 'Process and actions',
which does provide detailed background for this section.
�'2
regards a. Agency is a characterizing attribute of sometime-agents. An agent is a sometimesagent that establishes a history of agency (a small reputation therefore).
2.
Explaining Green.
In characterizing green we start with agency. Such relevant features, of greens (or
environmentalists), as being positively concerned about nature of natural things, supporting
environmental causes and similar, are closely tied to practice and action; they are features of
agents. In an original central sense of 'green' so redeployed, an agent was green if that agent
firstly believed that some parts of the natural environment should be protected, and secondly
took some relevant action. 3 In short, a belief-action analysis emerges, which can be recast as a
standard belief-desire-resultant action account. For instance, the agent believes that some
natural environment is worth protection, desires that it should be, and acts (in some way,
perhaps feebly) accordingly. All the parts of this sort of account call, however, for some
elaboration. To remove a certain circularity, resulting from characterising "green" through
terms like "environmen t", 'natural environment' can be replaced by 'parts (surface
configurations) of the Earth substantially uninterfered with by humans'. To specify protection
satisfactorily, protection/ra m what should be indicated. And so on. But there is a little point
in elaborating this already weak characterisation, which can be satisfied by an agent interested in
saving a few square metres of the Earth's surface from exploitation. For the notion has been
further weakened, almost from its inception.
To characterise this laxer, but ubiquitous notion, let us insert the intermediary notion of an
environmental cause. Such causes include not merely protecting natural environments, but
limiting impacts on environments, which may not be pristine, for instance by pouring less
sewage or detergents, CFCS or Greenhouse gases, into them, or conserving items, which could
be exploited or consumed now for future use or for future human generations (to use or
conserve, etc.). The first of these further causes beyond protection, original green, is a largely
consumerist notion of green, the second, an economistic notion (it takes in such beloved
constraints as intergerational equity). There are other related causes of importance also, such as
restoration of something that has been over-exploited or damaged, such as agricultural lands,
waterways, urban air, soils (soil conservation), or even human artefacts such as monuments or
buildings. The shallow green cause of fighting pollution, for human health reasons, can fit in
here. Needless to add the restoration may not be to pristine conditions, but to quite low
3
Although we are explicating terms that are now in widespread usage, in a way substantially
faithful to that usage (but not some of its dilute or corrupt expansions), we shall regard the terms
as quasi-technical. We see these terms, as the discerning reader also may, as spelt not with a
double 'e' but a triple 'e', as 'greeen' and 'greeening' (insert hyphens as need be for appropriate
pronunciation, e.g. 'gre-een' _. The effect is to peel off dilution and corruption of 'green' (e.g. so
to include every politician, at least when any confronts concerned constituents) and to discard all
those unwanted and often undesirable senses the colour term green has accumulated.
�standards. In sum, causes include as well as protection, such matters as nondestruction,
conservation, maintenance, restoration, and so on.
Now substitute supporting an environmental cause for protecting a natural environment.
Then an agent is green in this expanded laxer sense if the agent believes in supporting an
environmental cause and takes some relevant action in that direction. Such an action component
is essential: green does imply some practical, if utterly token, involvement.
The lax account connects in the right ways with testable sociological criteria. For
instance, believing in supporting a cause can be cashed out in terms of joining an organisation
working for that cause, or even, reducing the slight action component still further, considering
joining such an organisation. 4 The appellation green applies not only to individual agents, but
also to groups, coalitions, institutions, even corporations and governments. As a green
government can, meet similar lax conditions, it is evident that there really are very few
requirements, even weak sponsorship may serve.
Many there are now trying to take advantage of green movements-adve rtisers, vendors,
politicians, professors, merchants, even generals (with "defence forces" retooling as
environmental defence forces). Cashing i in on the movement by producing a goods or services
presented as environmentally friendly does not thereby make parties doing so green, especially
if what is supplied adds to overall environmental impacts (as do "environmental markets"
delivering environmental junk, sometimes portrayed as "green goods"). The requirement of
serving environmental causes has been lost.
The excessive generosity of the account arrived at, which allows agents with only passing
or slight active beliefs in some cause to count as green, does not matter. For firstly, it
corresponds moderately well to current lax usage, which allows almost any sort of concern for
environments, coupled with an action component as slight as paying a token subscription, to
serve. Secondly, it still exercises quite enough exclusive power. Many agents are not green.
For instance all those exclusively tuned into possessive individualism, mainstream economics,
or similar creeds are not green (i.e. not even lax green). Thirdly, needed discriminations can be
made within the class of (lax) green. An important subclass of green comprises ecological
green, where the causes include maintenance and protection of natural ecosystems (including
wilderness) and these causes enjoy some primacy. "Ecological green" is by no means a
tautology.
4
In a study entitled 'GREEN PACKAGES IN AUSTRALIA', greens were picked out from the whole
sample of respondents to the Australian Election Study of 1990 in terms of answer to question:
How likely are you to join groups campaigning to protect the environment, or are you alrady a
member? Permitted answers: (1) I am a member, (2) I am not a member but I have considered
joining (3) I am not a member and I haven't considered joining, and (4) I certainly would not
consider joining. Those giving answer (2), perhaps token greens, were accounted green.
�4
To be green in more than a token fashion is to have some commitment to containing or
reducing the environmental impact of humans on the Earth or regions of it. By virtue of the
environmental impact equation (for a given region) that means commitment in the immediate
future term to either
•
human population reduction, or
•
less impacting lifestyles for many humans, or
•
improvements in technology to reduce overall impact.
Most humans in a region can do little to implement the third requirement, except to hope.
Accordingly they cannot satisfactorily demonstrate their commitment in this way. A genuine
green will meet both the other conditions. But since as big coalition as feasible is sought for a
green coalition, marginal greens who meet only one of the requirements, perhaps in weak form,
will not usually be excluded (from almost any green church). Issues of population afford a
simple test (a necessary condition) for a genuine green in Australia; for that agent fails who
suppoes that while efforts (including the agent's contribution) to effect human population
reduction should be invested elsewhere, as in parts of Asia or Africa, Australia can keep on
growmg.
From filling out the conditions delimiting green commitments, a green platform can be
derived. Specifically it will include, along with the action clause, derivative directives as
regards curtailing population, refining and limiting consumption, adjusting technologies, and
consequent thereupon altering administrative, political and economic arrangements and
institutions accordingly. What so results is a proper subplatform of the Deep Ecology platform.
A fair approximation to the full Deep Ecology platform can be derived by adjoining
requirements for depth to those for genine greenness of the action platform; so result themes
concerning intrinsic value in nature, and commitments deriving therefrom. In short, the wellknown Deep Ecology platform accounts (as a fair approximation) to a deep green platformwhich can accordingly supplant it.
As genuine green and green platform can be characterized given the initial notion of green,
that is lax green, so similarly can other green compounds and modified forms be explained (in a
preliminary way). For example, a green ideosystem is an ideosystem (an ideology, in the
unbiassed sense) that coheres with green commitments, and typically organizes and guides
them. As genuinely green, it is a system that includes a green platform, and it could be defined
in that way, as an ideo-system coherently extending a green platform. Similarly for green
ethics, and for green philosophy (and also for other green notions that could be defined but are
not presently needed, e.g. green goods, green consumers, green parties, green ideas and so
forth). A green ethical system is a green ideosystem which is an ethic. Green ethics comprises
�5
such green ethical systems and their theory. 5 Green ethics thus comprise a decidedly restricted
subset of environmental ethics. For an environmental ethic in the broad usage, an ethics that
addresses environmental issues, among others, may well contain themes that could not be
adopted by a green agent, that may even operate against environmental causes. In consequence,
a green ethics is an ethic that could be coherently adopted by a green agent, that does not run
counter to environmental causes.
3. Different approaches to the environment: shallower and deeper.
People can do more or less what they like with the environment, with the land and the sea,
and with what grows and lives there-such was and, in only slightly modified form, remains a
dominant theme of Wes tern cultural heritage. It was not the view of other cultures, such as
some of the American Indians or Australian Aborigines; nor was it the only view included in the
Western cultural package. But it has dominated, especially in colonial and imperial expansion.
It is only recently, for example, that some social or governmental restrictions with teeth have
been imposed upon what Australians can do with the land they occupy or claim, and these lag
far behind advanced green thinking as to what is required. For the most part there has been little
weakening in the Wes tern assumption that people own the land, that it is their possession, to
mould to their purposes and whims. 6
This unrestrained approach proved damaging enough while the land was wide and
humans comparatively few; now that human populations are expanding more rapidly, perhaps
to critical limits, now that much land is damaged and less fragile land is in increasingly short
supply, it is time to re-examine older attitudes and the accompanying practices. Any deeper
reassessment has to look at the presupposed land ethic, and more generally at the underlying
ethical and ideological assumptions.
A land ethic, according to Leopold, who introduced the term, is 'an ethic dealing with
man's relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it' .7 Thus a land ethic
amounts to a nature (or environmental) ethic, with land a symbol for the whole of nature (or the
more comprehensive environment), and man a symbol for all relevant agents. The unrestrained
position, which imposes few or no constraints upon treatment of the environment, affords a
land ethic of only a degenerate sort. The unrestrained position would, for example, have little
5
6
7
Although we are anticipating here-as ethics and ethical systems are explained essentially
reportively however, in the next chapter, there is no circularity. For ethics is separately and
independently characterised.
Indeed, with the renewed libertarian movement emanating from industrial north-eastern America,
this assumption has gained in strength. Foreign "resources" are not to be hoarded but should be
saleable to the highest bidders for "free" economic use. And sometimes it is broadly hinted: or
else!
A. Leopold, A Sand Country Almanac with other essays on Conversation, New York, 1966,
p.238.
�6
compunction about using up materials, forests, pristine environments and so on, immediately or
even destroying them.
In the end the unrestrained position can be excluded from properly ethical positions. 8 For
it fails to meet the basic universality requirement on moral principles, of independence of
person, place or time, a requirement which iplies that persons of different races, colours, sexes
or ages, or at different places or times are not treated unfairly or seriously disadvantaged.
Insofar as the unrestrained position would permit the exploitation, degradation and even
destruction, of all present resources and environments, it places future humans at a very serious
disadvantage. The position is thus one of expediency, not morality, typically yielding, like
economics, evaluative assessments based on short-term narrow local interets, rather than
appropriately based on long-range values.
Opposed to the unrestrained position are various conservation ethics; what Leopold saw
as the land ethic is just one of these. Conservation ethics can be classified, conveniently for
subsequent development, into three groups: shallow, intermediate and deep. 9 Unlike the
unrestrained position, all these politions would conserve and maintain certain things-materials,
creatures, forests, etc. The shallow conservation position differs from the unrestrained position
primarily in taking a longer-term view and taking account of future humans, their welfare and so
forth. It is more enlightened than the unrestrained position in taking a longer-term perspective:
hence its alternative description as resource conservation. Though this conservation position is
only a small step away from the unrestrained position, it does pass one test for morality proper
in that future people are not treated unfairly. Most of the big rush into fashionable
environmentalism does not get beyond shallowness.
The shallow and unrestricted positions are closely related by an important feature they
share-and which justifies lumping them together as shallower positions. They are both highly
anthropocentric; they do not move outside a human-centred framework, which construes nature
and the environment instrumentally, that is, simply as a means to human ends and values. Thus
they take account ultimately only of human interests and concerns; all environmental values
reduce to these or similar human on closed notions. It is in this respect especially that these
shallower positions differ from deeper, less resource and exploitation oriented, positions.
8
9
This is a substantial, and controversial claim, especially since it accounts much economic activity
unethical, as involving practices of expediency, not morality. For the fuller case for obligations
and commitments to future humans, see e.g. R. and V. Routley, 'Nuclear energy and obligations
to the future' in Responsibilities to Future Generations: Environmental ethics, (ed. E. Partridge),
Prometheus Books, Buffalo, 1981, and other essays in this book.
This classification refines Naess's non-exhaustive distinction of shallow and deep ecology, and
extends it to render it exhaustive. For the original distinction, see A. Naess, 'The shallow and the
deep, long-range ecology movement' Inquiry 16 (1973) 95-100. An elaboration on Aess's
position, to which this discussion has some debts, may be found in his 'Philosophical aspects of
the deep ecological momvement', Environmental Ethics, to appear.
�According to deeper positions humans are not the sole items of value or bestowing value
in the world, and not all things of value are valuable because they answer back in some way to
human concerns. But deeper positions differ in the weight or relative importance they assign to
human concerns. According to the intermediate position serious human concerns always come
first; and while other things, such as higher animals, have value or utility in their own right,
their value is outranked by that of humans. The deep position rejects this assumption, and
maintains that even serious human concerns should sometimes lose out to environmental values.
FIGURE 1. THE POSITIONS SEPARATED, AND SEPARATING PRINCIPLES
SHALLOWER
UNRESTRAINED
DEEPER
SHALLOW
INTERMEDIATE
I
I
I
I
J,
J,
J,
DEEP
MORALITY
SOLE VALUE
GREATER VALUE
REQUIREMENT
ASSUMPTION
ASSUMPTION
(of human apartheid)
(of human supremacy)
The watershed principle which divides the shallower from deeper positions is the sole
value assumption. According to this major assumption, which underlies prevailing Western
social theory, humans are the only things of irreducible (or intrinsic) value in the universe, the
value of all other things reducing to or answering back to that of humans in one way or another.
This assumption is built into most present political and economic arrangements; for example,
only aggregated preferences or interests of certain (present) humans are considered in
democratic political choice, and likewise in economic decision making; other creatures and
natural items are represented at best through the preferences or votes of interested humans.
Similar assumptions are made in mainstream ethical theories. Typical are reductive
theories which endeavour to derive ethical judgements from features of closed systems of
humans.
Examples are provided by presently fashionable ethical theories, such as
utilitarianism. 10 According to utilitarianism what ought to be done, as well as what is best, is
determined through what affords maximum satisfaction to the greatest number of individual
humans. In theories like utilitarianism, the outside world of nature does not enter through direct
inputs or outputs, but only insofar as it is reflected in the psychological states of individuals.
Such ethical theories are appropriately described as those of apartness or human apartheid. Man
10
But the same holds for other fashionable theories on the American-dominated ethical scene, namely
contractualism and libertarianism. These theories, along with utilitarianism, are explained in most
modern American introductions to ethical theories or moral problems.
�is, or is treated as, apart from Nature; there is virtually total segregation. Nature or the land
enters only as a remote experiential backdrop, and onstage is the drama of human affairs and
interests.
However, humans cannot be entirely insulated from their environment; for example,
volcanoes affect temperatures thus affecting climate thus affecting crop yield and food supplies.
At least limited intercourse with the environment has to be admitted as a result. So, in
economics, ethics, and political theory, secondary theories, dealing with linkages to the
environment, have been appended (thus, for example, extemality theory in economics, some
allowance for "side" constraints in more sophisticated utilitarianism, and so on). But the land
remains treated as an awkward or tiresome afterthought, when it is considered at all.
There is, however, another approach, also with historical standing, vying with (and
indeed often confused with) human apartheid which can accommodate secondary theories a little
more satisfactorily. That is the position of superiority or human supremacy, according to which
Man, though included in Nature, is above the rest of Nature, meaning ethically superior to it.
While human supremacist positions can incorporate the sole value assumption and thus remain
in the shallow ethical area, they have the option of rejecting it in favour of the less objectionable
greater value assumption:: other things being equal, the value of humans is greater than that of
other things; the value of humans surpasses that of all other things in the universe. This
assumption allows that other objects, such as some higher animals, may have irreducible value;
what it insists upon is that, at least for "normal" members of respective species, this value never
exceeds that of humans. What is generally presupposed is that other objects-animals, plants
and their communities-are never of much importance compared with humans. Though human
supremacy has appeared in versions of utilitarianism where animal pain is taken into
consideration along with human, Western ethics and associated social sciences such as
demography, economics and political theory, remain predominantly apartheid in form.
It is the repudiation of the greater value assumption that separates deep from intermediate
positions. Perhaps the most familiar example of an intermediate position is that of Animal
Liberation, in the form in which animals are taken to have value in their own right, though in
any playoff with humans, humans win. Under the deep position such an outcome is by no
means inevitable; in cases of conflict of animal or natural systems with humans, humans
sometimes lose. I I
There are various arguments designed to show that the deep assessment is right, that
humans should sometimes lose out. A typical one takes the following form:- Some humans
lead worthless or negative lives, lives without net value. The point, though not uncontroversial,
11
So too for some men and some sparrow. So we should reject the intermediate ...... : A man is
worth more than a sparrow! (Drungson/ Ralston etc.)
�9
can be argued even from a shallow utilitarianism.1 2 Take for instance a life of pain and
suffering and little or no happiness: it has a substantial net negative utility. But some small
natural systems do have net value; one example would be an uninhabited undisturbed island (a
live example might be a tropical island before Club Mediterranee depredation). Now consider
the situation where the considerable value of a small natural system is to be sacrificed (in a way
that shallowly affords no ethical impropriety) on behalf of a set of humans whose lives each
have no positive net value. For instance, the system is to be exploited, just for the continued
maintena nce of these humans, or for their addition (as new settlers) to an establish ed
population. Then in such circumstances, these humans lose out; the natural system takes
precedence. Similarly, trivial satisfactions of humans do not dominate over the integrity of rich
natural environments.13
Let us look ahead to glimpse paradimatic expansions of the positions indicated (in figure
1). For the positions soon expand, when applied to real life issues, to more comprehensive
positions; indeed they have expanded all the way to what are now called social paradigms, that
is to full social perspectives. For example, the deep position has expanded from the two core
theses-a s initially reformulated, values in nature, which is a positive counterpart of the sole
value assumption, and biospecies impartiality, which is a positive elaboration of greater value
assumption 14-to fuller deep ecological positions which involve as well many other themes.
12
13
The point is argued in detail in R. Routley and N. Griffin, 'Unravelling the meanings of life?'
Discussion Papers in Environme ntal Philosophy #3, Research School of social Sciences,
Australian National University, 1982.
There are significant cross-classifications of environmental positions. Some further dimensions
are included in the following diagram.
Environment not taken
I
Environments is taken
into account
I
into account
p
14
--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---
shallow
intermediate
I dogs
I //////
I
I
E
I
individual
I
I
H
I
holistic
I
I
Another dimension is the static/dynamic. But no one want to be just stauc, really.
According to the values in nature theme natural items other than humans and human artefacts have
intrinsic value; while according to biospecies impartiality members of one species, humans in
particular, are not favoured or valued over members of another simply on the basis of species. The
danger of favouring one species is encouraged by the species fallacy, commonly invoked in
favouring humans. This is the mistake of concluding that because a few members of the species
have accomplish ed something of (immense) value, all members of the species therefore are
(highly) valuable; all members of the species manage to free-load for the ride, obtained by a few
members, so to say. The assumption, once challenged, usually falls back on an argument that
goes by way of capacities: the remaining members of the species have the capacity to achieve these
sorts of things also. But, firstly, that isn't true: intelligence, skills, and the like, vary somewhat
within species, and from our narrow perspective, very considerably among humans, some of whom
have no capacity for advanced mathematics or music. Secondly, it requires more than capacity: it
requires circumstances, a favourable environment to exercise them, (hence, in part, the folly of
�lU
The expansion is not uniquely determined; there can be various different deeper paradigms.
However it characteristically includes a fuller statement of themes recognised as in the spirit of
"deep ecology", in particular ecological themes, but also interconnected economic and political
themes. In a similar way shallower positions are subsumed in shallower perspectives, and
principally in what is called the dominant social paradigm, some relevant themes of which are
indicated in figure 2.1s
FIGURE 2. RELEVANT COMPONENTS OF THE ENCOMPASSING PARADIGMS.
DOMINANT SOCIAL
PARADIGM
DEEP ECOLOGICAL
ALTERNATIVE
Dominance over nature
Natural environment a resource
Harmony with nature
Values in nature/biospecies
impartiality
Less material goals/less growth
orientation
Earth supplies limited
AJ?propriate technology/limits to
science
Doing with enough/recycling
Regional/decentralised/small-scale
Material/economic growth
Ample reserves/perfect substitutes
High technological progress/
scientific solutions
Consumerism
National/centralised/large-scale
SHALLOW
f----------------------------- ➔
DEEP
4.
Criticisms of these beginnings and other beginnings
A main challenge we shall have to meet is that there can be no deep ethics, ethics and
axiology are inevitably shallow, because they must answer back to human valuers. This
challenge we presently set aside (until the next chapter). But it should already be apparent how
we can start to upset the challenge (already taken up by deeper utilitarianism), namely by
displacing humans by relevant agents.
Other challenges grant that something might answer to deeper ethics, but contend that
nothing should-objectio ns of substance-or that making anything much out of it is
unwarranted, for example because preliminaries in making out the distinctions have not been
15
more humans in decidedly suboptimal cities), together with a will and drive actually to follow
through appropriately on capacities.
Much fuller accounts of the dominant social paradigm and environmental alternatives are given in
S. Cotgrove, Catastrophe or Cornucopia, Wiley, New York, 1982, and in R. Routley 'Roles and
limits of paradigms in environmental thought and action' in Environmental Philosophy (ed. R.
Elliot and A. Gare), University of Queensland Press, 1983. The linkage of the dominant paradigm
with maximizing, and the deep alternative with sufficing, is elaborated in R. Routley,
'Maximizing, satisficing, satisizing: the difference in real and rational behaviour under rival
paradigms', Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #10, Research School of Social
Sciences, Australian National University, 1984.
�11
properly accomplished-objections of form and from technicalities (cf. challenges to the
analytic/synthetic distinction). We consider examples of both sorts of challenge.
The misanthropy charge. Deep environmentalism has been criticised for what it does, so it is
alleged, to ethical treatment of other humans; it leads, it has been alleged, to neglectful,
negligent, or downright callous treatment of other humans, to inhumanity. The actual impact of
deep environmentalism affords but little ground for such allegations. Nor does the theory.
Deep environmentalism could leave intrahuman ethics, standard morality virtually entirely intact.
If it did so, deep environmental ethics would provide a conservative extension (in the familiar
technical sense) of standard intrahuman ethics. In this event the allegations would fall; for the
ethical treatment of humans would be in principle just the same as before.
But it is unlikely that any deeper environmentalism will leave standard morality entirely
intact in its own prime sphere of operations, that restricted to humans. For instance the
evolution of humans, and attributions of virtues or vices to them, is bound to be influenced by
how they act or respond towards nonhumans and the environment. A virtuous puritanical oldstyle industrialist who makes his affluent living through environmentally damaging practices
will no longer obtain the virtuous ranking that would have been accorded to him on the older
prevailing morality. (Of course that morality too is changing, but it hardly changes rapidly
enough to keep pace with a deeper ethic). The change in the evaluation of and moral standing
accorded to hard-working but environmentally exploitative business people, technologists and
engineers reflects a more far-reaching adjustment; that of removal of special privilege for
humans (or persons). Even in the more austere of standard ethical positions, such as duty
ethics in the Kantian mould, it is very easy to gain the impression of persons (usually males on
traditional ethics) as kings. There will be a club of kings, that was where more egalitarian
industrialism was proceeding also, to make us all kings - with the rest of nature as subjects.
While the unwarranted privilege accorded to humans under conventional ethical wisdom
will topple then, the treatment of humans by humans need not. To the contrary, if people
develop a more respectful and careful attitude to the environment, then they may well develop a
better, different and more careful, approach to other people as well. Here the awful Kantianstyle theme that decent treatment of animals will trickle down from a decent treatment of other
humans is partially reversed; a better treatment of other humans (a decent treatment is already
ethically required) will percolate up from a more gently and respectful treatment of natural
environments.
Nor finally then need a deeper environmentalism abandon the quest for social justice. 16
Deep-green theory certainly does not; the ethical-change agenda is much wider than social
16
There are two American groups where the quest for terrestial social justice appears to have been
abandoned or comprised: eco-fascists and nature greens, as they are sometimes called from outside.
�12
change alone, but social and human concerns do not thereby fall off the agenda. They remain,
but no longer in such isolations. What they do lose their unchallenged preeminence, and they
may also lose priority.
Problems with the Greater Value assumption (after Attfield).
A prime alternative to a shallow/deep distinction is (what is sometimes considered no
alternative, but a variant on it) the anthropocentric/ecologic distinction.
Notes: 1. Not the same distinction. While shallow positions are normally anthropocentr ic,
converse does not obtain.
2. Distinction never made out properly (really degree issues), and leads to typical 4-fold
outcome.
5.
Domination and chauvininism.
The greater or sole value accorded to humans, as compared with (other) valuations,
justify the domination of nature by humans. The main argument is simply that what has lesser
or no value should give away to what has greater value, the conventional assumption being that
what has greater value is better (analytic) than what has less, and should prevail over it
(substantive assumptions of conventional ethical themes such as utilitarianism).
Domination and associated class chauvinism are justified not only directly through
consideration s of greater or supreme value, but also less directly by pointing to highly valued
features possessed by the favoured class. Similar appeals to prized features are of course
likewise used to justify class chauvinism.
Appendices :
1.
Deep ethics are not automatically acceptable as satisfactory.
Consider e.g.whole chauvinism, where Wholes are intrinsically valuable, each and every
one, and their value much exceeds that of everything else, humans included. So wholes come
first. (This is a doctrical some superwholes may hold).
Two rough comparisions: cows in India, humans on earth.
Other unsatisfactory deep ethics, apart from those that aberate one species, are those that
focus exclusively on certain elements. Those e.g. individualisms, strong holisms, etc.
2.
Arguments to shallowness.
1. Simplistic (from one James O'Connor of Canada).
' ... the word "value" is a human word, with human meanings, in this case transposed to
non-human nature. Hence to say that nature is inherently valuable means that it is inherently
valuable to humans'.
Ecofascists, who follow a route pioneered by Hardin, call for a triage of nations on lifeboat earth
and abandonment of those nations, such as Bangladesh, seen without prospect of recovery. But the
position is not deep, it is certainly not a properly moral position; for due criticism see Griffin and
Bennett.
�u
2. Problem with shallow/deep terminology, e.g. acquired too many associations for comfort.
Intellectual offensiveness shallow, etc.
3. Shallowness involves a reductionist exercise. Making (trying to make) environmental issues
in all that matter environmentally-answer back to shallow concerns.
Series of arguments advanced to try to establish ..... .
Counter argument. These do not succeed and can be counter-evolelled.
3. Cross-classifications reformism/revolation is, like anthropocentrism, a poor
classification. It can be shallow without reformism and unethical economism with reformism.
DE itself is largely reformist in character (and excessively personal).: Anthropo-/ecocentric.
No doubt 'anthropocentricsm' meaning what its etymology implies 'centring in man'
(OED), is a useful term. Theories such as Coperican and Copenhagen quantum theory can be
criticised (or praised) as anthropocentric. What is in doubt is the new contrast of antropocentric
with ecocentric.
While the vague anthropocentric-ecocentric distinction is alright, so far as it goes, as a
starting stage, it is no place to stop. For there is a need for a value specific distinction,
antrhopocentr can be any sort of human centredness.
'Anthropocentric' is a poor choice of contrasting terminology, for several reasons. One,
which may be convenient to some, lies in its vagueness. There is no sharp cut-off in what is
human centred. Similarly for its supposed contrast term 'ecocentric', which presumably
expandents to 'ecologically centred'. Second, it becomes apparent that no proper contrast is
made in many cases. University textbooks on natural ecology, for instance are both ecocentric
because about ecology and anthropocentric because set and supplied for humans. Human
ecology, a subject increasingly encountered in universities, is directly both (not both under
different aspects). Were the classification satisfactory, it would provide a nice contradiction.
But the classification is far from satisfactory. It is not exclusive: nor is it exhaustive, but the
remainder obscure. But worse, any practical ethics, no matter how deep, is bound to be
anthropocentric, not ecocentric, even though duly concerned with ecology. The reason comes
to this: any adequate ethics is bound to be heavily concerned with agents, their obligations and
responsibilities, and for all practical purposes (on earth) these agents are generally certain
humans. This is, an adequate practical ethics is, as a contingent matter, anthropocentric. Of
course such an ethic, by contrast with main traditional ethics, may also be presented as an
ecocentric ethic, inasmuch as it may be focussed upon ethical agents' relations to ecological
items, human treatment of nature.
�14
Problems with the anthropocentric/ecocentric contrast do not mean that something like the
contrast cannot be made good. But it would involve redefinition of the critical terms, and could
accordingly be better accomplished with adjusted terminology.
Anthropocentrism is implausible, once a modern pict "of universe" becomes available.
(Scuh a sufficiently modern picture was already available to Descartes.)
The sun is a medium sized star of very common sort even within its galaxy. The
probability of planets like the Earth within this university is extraordinarly high. The probability
of other agents is also very high. Even the probability of other ..... ./competent agents is high.
But even if it were not, or even if there were other agents, the discourse to be embarked
upon would be significant. It is also pointful, for instance in disposeing of much philosophy.
If anthropocentrism is so implausible as regards "main place in nature", why is it not
implausible as regards intuitionality, value, etc.
Ironically, the swing away from anthropocentrism in the sciences in modern times (with
the advert of Copenhagen quantum theory and anthropic principles) was overpinged by
increasing anthropocentrism in what are misleadingly distinguished as the humanities. Above
all intentionality and value were emptied out of the wider universe and concentrated in the
exclusive focus of humanities, humans.
To adopt Freud:
Humanity has in the course of time had to endure from the hands of science two great
humiliations to its chauvinism .17 The first was when it was realised that our earth was not the
centre of the universe, but only a speck in the world system of a magnitude hardly
conceivible ... . The second was when his logical science robbed man of his particular privilege
of having been specially created and relegated him to a descent from the animal world' (puoted
in Unozco Ev ..... May 1982 p.3)
There are further shocks in store for humans-poor old humans!
3. Explaining depth [contrasts pale/pallid].
For a good sort of depth, what is needed a deep structure, extraction or format that lies
(partially) hidden from the surface. E.G. plate ponites in geology, strata in archasology, logical
form in grammar. Deep = penetrating to fundamentals in several ways and nonchauvinistic, not
shallow. [Mention also pluralism-so only a framework aimed for, on which grew various
detailled positions.]
Part of depth of Deep Green theory lies in its penetration below the surface of classrestricted or interested humanism to a genuine nonchauvinistic ethical structure: the (ill-named)
annular structure, which ties moral principles to nonhumanistic categorestion. Annular structure
17
Freud says: to great outrages upon it naive serif love.
�15
is a deep structure. A deep structure. Maybe can produce one for deep green theory (see Critiq
p.93, bottom halt) Start as above other measures of depth (pp.44-5) misconceived.
1'. Extent of searching of perception of value; depth of (value) perception.
1. Extent to which humanism (h.ch) abandoned for econvisonmental perspective.
2. Extent to which conventional moral and value judgements put op for reassessment.
(Naess's depth of questioning conventional wisdom) 2 is tied to 1; for abandoning heh
involves much reassessment.
Note differs from usual reflective equilibrium, which takes many generally accepted
judgements for granted.
More on what depth means (pragmetinally): Many environmental outcomes sought in deep
grounds can be supported in shallow ways (of course). But there are differences, as examples
show:
• pesticides (in forestry) should not be used, despite insect damage. For pesticides violate
natural succession and healing processes. Toxicity questions, though important, are secondary.
On shallow view: the main problem becomes not the use of pesticides, but whether they are
safe.
• natural world appears as a resource. Life forms which interfere with uses are pests.
2. Reformist/Transformist Variations upon Shallow/Deep Ecology
Unhappy with the derogatory implications of "shallow", Devall and Sessions tried to
convert shallow ecology in ecological reformism. While there was certainly a basis for this
conversion in Naess's original brief account of shallow ecology (which almost invited such
reconstrual), the result has been that something different has emerged, notably in green politics.
For what such conversions, along with associated imagery accompanying reformism,
achieve is not elucidation, but introduction of new contrasts, and therewith political crossclassification of the shallow-deep ecology contrasts. There are various contrasts with (mere)
reformist adjustment on political theory, for instance revolutionary change and radical change.
A revolutionary direction appears inappropriate as regards deep ecology (as revealed both by the
literature and political stances of leading members of the movement), but a politically radical
direction on environmental issues does emerge from later developments in N aess' s work.
Accordingly a rough contrast, which admits sharpening, can be made out between green
reformism and green radicalism. A machine image, which often operates not far from view in
such contrasts, is initially helpful in indicating the differences. Reformism does not interfere
with the main operation of the machine, its motor, though it may alter the adjustments, retune or
fine tune it, add filters or mufflers or converters, alter its appearance cosmetically, and so on.
By contrast radicalism would alter the machine, would interfere with its motor to some extent,
depending on the level of radicalism.
�16
In political terms reformism is exemplified in such measures as limiting pollution by
emission devices, further treatment of sewerage, small reserves and roadside veneers of trees
amid clear-cutting operations, tidying up of litter, and so on. The main motor of liberal
democratic market capitalism, the economic engine designed to deliver maximum economic
growth, and its main institutions, remain untouched and uncriticised; no change is proposed for
them. For radicals such measures and like reforms do not proceed far enough, towards the
sources of the problems. To tackle the range of environmental problems more radical change in
economic, social and perhaps political machinery is required. But evidently the extent of change
envisaged can vary, very considerably. For example, a frugal conservation program, directed at
limiting economic growth through removing conspicuous and excessive consumption, need
carry no accompanying program for radical social and political change. Again, deep ecology,
which offers no well worked out, or even well signposted, radical program or radical
restructuring, does not appear to be politically radical. Alternatives to liberal democratic
arrangements are not really advanced or investigated. By contrast some anarchist and marxist
influenced ecological positions are politically radical, for instance, social ecology. In short,
there is room for a classification of green radicalism, as shown by a preliminary grouping
according to whether the radicalism affects which of separate (though overlapping) economic,
social, or political matters.
The reformist-radical distinction is a vague one, without a sharp boundary. Reforms can
so accumulate that what was a difference in degree becomes a difference in kind, what was
extensive reformism turns out to be radicalism. In such an incremental fashion, positions which
were reformist can find themselves radical, without having undergone any conspicuus
radicalisation.
The contrast between reformism and radicalism can be sharpened somewhat within a (an
improved) theory of social paradigms. Then reformism is intra-paradigmatic, whereas
radicalism is not (but is extra-paradigmatic). That is a reformist works, like a normal scientist,
within the operational paradigm (the given political motor) and does not seek to change it,
whereas the radical does; success of radicalism resembles abnormal (even revolutionary)
periods in science. As there are many ways of deviating from a paradigm, which typically
involves a complex set of presumptions, so there are many sorts of radicalism.
The extent to which the political conversion of the shallow-deep contrast into green
reformism-radical contrast affords not a restatement, but a different classification, may now be
evident though perhaps not to its full extent. The most notable further feature is that green
radicalism may be utterly shallow, entirely anthropocentric. 18 Green Marxism affords a useful
18
In these terms Naess conflated two contrasts in his original 1973 article; shallow-deep and
reformist-radical. Different followers have latched onto different contrasts.
�l'/
example; it is socially and politically radical while shallow (of course it can be argued that it is
environmentally incoherent, though not in the mentioned features, but in its plan to supercharge
the economic motor and make it run even faster, with evident environmental fall-out). Social
ecology offers another example; for while more radical than deep ecology, it is certainy not
deep. Something of the rich variety we have come upon can be glimpsed from the following
table.
All the positions enumerated, except 9, are occupied, we suspect (though positions are often so
poorly or incompletely presented that is difficult to be sure ). 19 Positions 9 is practically
excluded for committed deep parties who duly care about the demise of what is of intrinsic value
under mere reformism. Position 5 is however occupied, by those who want (or believe they
have achieved) improved arrangements for and treatment of animals (e.g., no circuses, no
ordinary zoos, no cruel contests, etc.) but are not committed to a radical animal liberation
agenda. Green party territory is usually shallow, but some of the proposals presented may
extend to position 4, for instance in demands for participatory democratic restructuring. Of
course, many supporters of green parties may adhere to deeper positions.
19
It is worth noting that such positions will in principle supply their own forms of sustainability,
sustainable societies, and so on.
�24.10.95
Chapter 2
ETHICS WITHOUT HUMANS,
PHILOSOPHY WITHOUT HUMANS,
and COROLLARIES
It is a commonplace that ethics has proceeded not merely as if humans were on centre
stage, but as if humans really were all there is, all that mattered in ethics, as if nothing else
enters into morals and ethics, or does through only through them. That commonplace is
moreover commonly strengthened to a claim of necessity, that this must be so, that nothing
else can enter, except indirectly by way of humans. Ethics has to be thus anthropocentric.
Since environmental ethics began to shift humans, if ever so little, off centre stage, there has
been a heavy philosophical reaction, a sometimes bitter blacklash against greener ethics that
would background humans, or dare sometimes to remove humans, from the scene altogether.
Among many other things, it has been contended that by the very meaning of ethics and
morals, these subjects must be human-centred.
A crucial argument for necessary anthropocentricism of ethics makes human centrality
a matter of definition. This crucial argument will be broken, in the first of several stages,
through a detailed characterisation of morals and ethics in a way that is independent of
humans. The characterizations adopted depart in only minor and justified (though highly
consequential) ways from received dictionary definitions; that is the characterisations are
substantially reportive, as they have to be if they are to serve their iconoclastic purposes. The
matter of characterising ethics is in any case part of our business. Where would deep-green
ethics be left, as a subject of investigation, without an appropriate account of ethics?
1. On inadeqacies of what prevails: a sheaf of defective accounts.
It takes but little effort to discover severe shortcomings in most preceding investigations, and
that most accounts, many of them far too casual, are inappropriate for what they are intended
to cover, still less for environmental ends. There is no end to bad and defective definitions to
dissect and discard.
Even textbooks and guidebooks on ethics often make no attempt at a definition, and
often have little or nothing of due generality to offer on what ethics is about. 1 Unremarkably
then, many of those presenting or teaching ethics, perhaps well enough, have no adequate idea
of what ethics is about. This is revealed by the sorts of definitions they slop down and by
what they say ethics is about. The slop presented indicates they did not even bother to consult
their dictionaries with any care. It is an elementary exercise to show deficiencies in most
proposals.
A striking recent example is Singer (ed.) Companion to Ethics, supposedly an encyclopaedic work
on ethics.
�2
A few sample definitions recently encountered will help confirm our claims. Utterly
defective is the account of ethics as 'the relation between you and other people' .2 Such
connections as the spatial relations between people, for instance where they sit at a seminar,
do not belong to ethics. Narrowing relations to those of treatment, as in 'how you treat other
people' improves the account a bit, but not enough. Decent treatment of relevant kinds no
doubt comprises part of ethics, but a small part. Nor is such treatment confined, especially as
regards receivers, to people; animals, nature and more, all matter.
A more interesting account, presumably designed to encompass applied ethics, takes this
remarkable form: "'ethics" [is] defined as disciplined reflection by persons in all walks of life
on moral ideas and ideals'. 3 As a definition, this too fails entirely, appearing circular, and
converting ethics away from, what is essential, practice into head stuff, into something like
meditation, a kind of widely practiced theorizing, though practised on certain parts of ethics!
There are too some unfortunate side-effects of the insertion, aimed at making ethics applicable
to all walks of (human) life: namely, as there are walks of life which have no room for
disciplined reflection, so there is in fact no ethics. Back again to the drawing board.
Similarly for Russell's fuller attempt:
The study of Ethics is perhaps most commonly conceived as being
concerned with the questions "What sort of actions ought men to perform?"
and "What sort of actions ought men to avoid?" It is conceived, that is to
say[!], as dealing with human conduct, and as dividing what is virtuous and
what is vicious among the kinds of conduct between which, in practice,
people are called upon to choose. 4
Owing to feminist criticism of male chauvinism, many now wince at Russell's; piquant use of
term like 'men' (in fact throughout his numerous works). Environmental criticism of human
chauvinism has not been so (terminologically) successful, sad to report.
Back to the board.
It takes little effort to assemble a sheaf of inadequate definitions and accounts of ethics. Many
include too little, for example the popular account of ethics as "how we should live", which as
well as being too narrow is parochial. 5 Similarly, though fractionally better; a coherent set of
values to live by is enough for an ethic. For that appears to omit a deontic component,
obligations and permissions, and certainly leaves out ethical virtues. A major shortcoming,
even in fuller characterisations, concerns the concentration on humans and their parochial
affairs. For, as will soon appear, ethics does not essentially concern humans. An adequate
ethics says nothing about humans, members of species Homo sapiens, their obligations and
rights, values or virtues. It applies but contingently to humans; it applies similarly to
hominids, humanoids, and to persons generally, and functions in the absence of persons
altogether. As a result, the following familiar sorts of pronouncements on what ethics amount
2
3
4
5
John Langford, on ABC radio, 22 February 1993.
Engels, 6.
Russell p.1, F & S, from Elements of Ethics 1910.
For such an account see e.g. Single [Encyl. Brit.]
�3
to are seriously defective: 'An ethic may be thought of as an ideal of human behaviour, an
environmental ethics as ideal human behaviour with respect to the environment, natural and
built" _6 Not everyone got it quite so wrong. For instance, Brandt gets away to a nice neutral
start, even if he does not cover the spread of ethics. Consider his opening:
Moral philosophy has traditionally been a systematic attempt to answer
some questions of apparently universal interest [!] about: what is worth
wanting or working for (what is worthwhile, of worth); what is the best
thing for an agent to do from his own point of view; what is morally right,
and what is morally just). [Also what is rational in these regards.]7
The nice start does not last. Agents turn out to be humans; utilitarianism soon begins to effect
an ugly intrusion, and so on.
2. On how to define ethics and morals more satisfactorily.
It is not difficult to do noticeably better than ethics teachers and writers have managed,
simply by consulting better dictionaries. But it is also not so difficult to re-organize and
improve upon what dictionaries offer. It is significant that dictionary definitions of moral and
ethic contain no essential allusion to humans, nothing essential concerning humans, man, or
we, us and co. (andwhere 'human' does enter, as in 'principles of human duty', it can simply
be elided, it is inessential). But the dictionary accounts do harbour some problems.
For one thing, like some of the preceding definitions, the dictionaries seem mired in a
common and damaging circularity: ethics is defined in terms of morality (and its adjuncts,
decent treatment, and similar); but then morality is itself defined through ethics. Fortunately
the loop back to ethics can be broken.
A particularly satisfactory way to workable definitions of notions in the ethics orbitethic, ethical, ethics, to take direct cases-is through those in the presupposed moral orbitdirectly, moral, morality, morals. For all these ethical notions are regularly defined, in better
dictionaries, through moral notions. This approach reverses the difficult and so far
unsuccessful strategy, sometimes tried in ethical theory, of attempting to define morality (e.g.
through universalizability conditions) inside a somehow independently characterized ethics. 8
The bases, upon which moral notions are carried, lie in turn in the action orbit, in
features of actions and their agents. 9 As agents are entailed by actions-beca use actions just
6
7
8
9
See 'A universal environmental ethics' Connect, UNESCO-UNE P Environmental Education
Newsletter XVI(2)(June 1991). pl.
Brandt p.l.
Long ago I used to think this was now it had to be done, through some singling out of morals
within ethics by way of a combination features of humans and requirements of morality (such as,
variously, consideration of others, universalizability). Not recognising the virtues of agency, I too
erroneously supposed that morality had to pertain to humanity.
No doubt the main definitional enterprise can be carried out, more or less, the other way around,
beginning with ethics, then cutting down to morals within, through agency. Moreover, such an
alternative route (starting out easily enough from the notion of ethics as the theory and
systematization of the good and the right, valuable and permissible, the virtuous and responsible,
and so on) should arrive at the same place, at a similar end result.
These action basics can in turn be explained, as before, within process theory, see Sylvan 1993. A
classification of agents can be drawn from there. It is not claimed that this is how we have to start
or that action nexus affords unique starting point. But its features have to be included sooner or
�4
are agent-ascribed processe s-actions , more generally processes, form bedrock here. Neither
processes nor actions have any essential connection with humans. Relevant elements of
action nexus, upon which moral actions are carried, are now indicated: Single action
snapshot, capturing agent-acts -in-environment nexus:
AGENT
has
motives
emotions
volitions
objectives and goals
of
prior causes
ACTION
has
subsequent consequences
impacts upon (relevant items within) environment
The breakdown of actions, into types, will straightaway yield much that has long been taken
as central in moral theory, such as agonising (as Socrates did) over choices. Choice-making is
a morally critical type of action. Plural actions expose further relevant features, including
conduct, dispositions and character of agents, and suggest typologies (or moral relevance) of
actions and of impacts. Virtue ethics, but part of moral theory, fit here.
Whereas morality -the new ecologically sensitive morality that is-begin s from certain
features of an agent in its environment, ecology begins from investigation of an organism in
its environment. 'From the outset ecology was clearly understood to be the appreciation of
the organism (any organism, note) in and as part of its environment' . 10 'Something along the
lines of "the study of organisms in relation to their environment" is the basis of most ...
attempts ... [at] working definition of ecology ... over [which] there has been little dispute' . 11
Despite initial appearances, the upshot is not (the perhaps appealing one) that morality is a
branch of ecology. For the features investigated are very different (and a satisfactory
definition of 'ecology ' has to be sharpened to indicate what features of organism-inenvironments are studied). Whereas in morality there is much interest in the virtues and vices
of agents for instance, a parallel interest is outside the scope of ecology (and indeed not a
significant question for most organism or for many agents).
Interestingly, the ethical theory being advanced begins in precisely the way Deep
Ecology, in its pristine formulation, implies that no theory should operate, with an agent-inenvironment image. Under the total-field approach of Deep Ecology all such images dividing
up fields should be rejected, in particula r any man-in-e nvironme nt image, a special
chauvinistic case of what our theory operates with. Similarly no doubt for organism-inenvironment images of ecology. Unremarkably no arguments are offered for these rejections;
10
11
later, and it has virtues as a start, including familarity and naturalness.
R. Kitching [New Education], p.39
Ibid p.40 rearranged.
�5
cogent arguments would be hard to find, or articulate. In any case, Deep Ecology strictures do
not prevent preliminary or limited uses of field analysis. As it will soon turn out, for more
general purposes, what is needed is removal of agents, not dissolving the image.
These action-theoretic preliminaries admit of much elaboration and variation, both
expansion and contraction most of which however we can pick up as we proceed. For
example, an illuminating expansion would expose the setting, of constraints and incentives,
within which an agents acts; no doubt some of these features, incentives for instance, can be
absorbed into what is already depicted, such as motives, and the remainder could be included
in under a prior-influences category. Striking contractions are those afforded by prevailing
ethical theories, consequentialism and Kantianism, which would erase, respectively, all but
consequences or all but motives. The parable of the Blindman and the Elephant is not only a
clever analogy for a implausible perspectivism; it can serve as a telling indictment of much
analytic philosophical practice. Moral philosophical practice, especially that of analytic
philosophy, consists in only sensing part of a whole (constellation) and failing to see the
rest. 12 Moral and action theory afford good examples of such skimping; for instance,
consequentialism fails to see anything but consequences.
The term moral, generously construed, covers the assessment of agent-intricated
elements of the action nexus depicted, in all the following sorts of respects (as applicable):
excellent, good, indifferent, bad, evil; approved, disapproved;
valuable, of value, or not
axiological
right or wrong (or alright), fair or unfair, proper or improper
obligatory, forbidden, permissible
deontic
responsible, irresponsible;
it also covers principles concerning such assessments. Morality concerns both appreciation
and assessment of agents-acting-in-environments as regards those sorts of features and
resulting systematization. Parallels with ecology should be evident. X's conduct or the like is
moral, broadly so, iff it is a matter for moral appraisal. In short, what is moral is marked out
by classes of functors in an action nexus.
Plainly some of the features, which perform the distinguishin g work, are not
significantly applicable to all elements in the nexus; for instance, impacts of frogs are not
significantly responsible. Responsibility applies primarily to certain agents, their conduct and
character. The sorts of respects cited are, furthermore, more general forms. But many more
specific evaluations are thereby encompassed; for instance, honourable, dishonourable;
decent, indecent, again as applicable.
In terms of the sorts of respects, certain important subtypes can be distinguished. The
first group (given by the first two lines) covers axiological. The second group (given by the
next two lines) covers deontic. The third group (not usually distinguished in "the logic of
12
For a detailed treatment of skimping in philosophy, see DP, chapter 11.
�6
ethics") comprises accountability notions.
Such, formerly important, terms as virtuous and vicious-regu larly, but wrongly
included in dictionary listings of respects defining moral (e.g., "of or pertaining to character
or disposition considered as ... virtuous or vicious")-ar e axiological. They can be
characterized in terms of what is already available, thereby avoiding further circularity vexing
dictionary definitions (which define 'moral' using 'virtuous', and 'virtuous' deploying
'moral'). 13 For example, to adjust the dictionaries, virtuous [action] is [that] exhibiting moral
excellence or quality, vicious that distinguished as morally evil. Much the same supervenient
story gets told for duty in the deontic class. For while a duty just amounts to a certain sort, a
rigorous sort, of moral obligation, duty is not among the respects listed in defining the term
moral.
There are several, loosely consequential , attachments often made to what counts as
moral(s), notably: issues of punishments and rewards, with a view to altering proper conduct;
of freedom and determinism, as the latter may appear to place moral enterprise in jeopardy; of
justification of moral principles, which do not stand on its own without moral justification;
and so on, for other theoretical topics that consequently arise. While these further issues do
not form part of dictionary definitions of moral, they are stock textbook fare in moral
philosophy. But that, moral philosophy and moral theory, is where they can comfortably stay.
While the issues that result could be called moral, or distinguished as textbook moral, they
might as well simply be accommodate d more accurately, within philosophy of morality (metamorals).
Morality is, at base, the attribute of being moral. 14 Thus, basically, an item exhibits
morality if and only if that item is moral. In wider compass, morality comprehends a larger
package concerning what is moral; it consists in the theory and appreciation, practice and
principles of what is moral. It follows, from the account of moral given, that morality is all
about certain features of agency, features of theory and practice of agency, namely evaluative
and assessment features and principles concerning these, such as conduct and choice.
Several other significant corollaries also emerge. Firstly morality has nothing
essentially to do with humans. A similar but still more striking result will follow for ethics,
which is characterised, also in a human independent way, by way of morality. Ethics too has
nothing essentially to do with humans (or even with humanoids). Morality turns on features
of agency. Humans, some of them, simply happen to supply, presently, prime terrestrial
examples of full moral agents, those actors who do not merely conduct themselves well or
badly (a kangaroo can be a good or poor mother, a dog can behave badly and know it) but
who make promises, recognise obligations, accept responsibilities, and so forth.
Humans were almost certainly not the only full terrestrial agents; other humanoid
13
14
Thus too much of "virtue ethics" can be absorbed, see further, later chapters.
In logical terms it is defined through attribute abstraction.
�7
species that have become extinct (perhaps with human assistance) very likely were also.
Certain humans are probably not the only full moral agents even now in this universe. It is
unlikely that humans will exemplify the only moral agents, perhaps even terrestrially. 15 The
prominen t role of competen t humans in morality, and so as regards ethics, is utterly
contingent. It follows, now quite generally, that those familiar definitions of morality and
ethics in terms of humans and their features are one and all defective. For all the (green)
ethical theory to be developed, humans can drop out altogether. But competent humans are
useful for illustrative purposes; it helps to have some demonstrably actual examples.
Moreove r, in such practical terms as terrestrial ethical impact, they are now almost
unavoidable.
Before explaining how to escape damaging agent centredness, or actocentricity, in ethics
that would result from equating ethics with morals (i.e. morality in this sense), there are loose
ends to be tied up and certain advantages, worth recording, accruing from having actocentrism
as a staging post. One advantage is that unwanted senses of evaluative notions are peeled off
automatically, because they do not apply regards agency. For example, so removed are not
only merely "aesthetic" uses but all those quasi-descriptive uses of commendatory terms such
as good (e.g. 'good car' 'good sort', 'good sox', 'good ox'). Aesthetic uses of evaluative
terms, as in 'fine painting' or 'good book', do not concern, except in oblique ways, action or
conduct of agents. It may well be objected that even so not enough non-moral uses are peeled
off, as various uses like those of mere expediency or practicality are left standing. A countercase will be developed that these should be left standing. For a smarter strategy than
attempting exclusion, includes moralities of expedience, of practicality, egoism and the like
within the moral orbit-so enabling a straightforward answer to such otherwise vexing
questions as Why be moral?- whilst subsequently differentiating within morals a distinuished
subclass (to be called meurals) which does function exclusively through meeting more
exacting requirements of morality.
There is a subsense that should be picked up immediately. Though a vicious or evil
agent is certainly a matter for morality, and within its compass, such an agent would not
normally be accounted moral (as a naive reading of the dictionaries would suggest), but
immoral. What is moral, morality, concerns the span of moral, immoral and indifferent
procedures. Plainly moral in the narrower sense comprehends the definitely positive part of
the span, as good does of the wide value span. Generally, an item (such as an agent, practice,
conduct, or whatever) is strictly moral, moral in this stricter sense, if it is moral, a matter of
15
There are arguments to other moral agents, other full agents even, from evolusionary theory.
According to an expanded theory, every niche is eventually occupied. (In a way, this interesting
theme carries over from the earlier doctrine of a great chain of being, which similarly onto every
position in the chain as potentially occupied.) By a statistical argument (copying those for
intelligent life elswhere in this vast universe), there are, or will be, niches for agents, with requisite
capabilities, wlsewhere in the universe. Therefore, by the theory, these niches will eventually be
occupied.
�8
moral concern, and its appraisal is decidedly positive. Naturally for a full account, positive
within the moral span, has also to be defined. However here the strict sense is picked up only
to be set aside.
Focussing upon morality would be unduly limiting from the perspective of
environment al ethics. For although anthropocent ricism has been avoided, easily
circumvented through agency, though humans play no essential role, still morality is
undoubtedly agent-centred. Morality foregrounds agents and assessments of them and their
actions, and backgrounds environments of agents, and environments more generally (those
without agents in them do not even enter into consideration). The environment remains, so to
say, mere backdrop to actions of agents.
Escape is through an intermediary, which is substituted in place of morality in the
account proposed of ethics. That intermediary is an expanded morality, in convenient
shorthand ectomorality. 16 ('Ectomoralit y' is close enough for the present to 'ecomorality' ,
which is of course part of the main focus.) Expanded morality takes into account also
evaluative settings, perhaps devoid of agents; whatever of value that agents, or agent-like
subjects, agentoids, might in principle impact upon, interfere with, disturb, effect, change,
dislodge, or similar. That is, to say, it encompasses all items of relevant value, of worth,
significant items, including many wholes, such as habitats, ecosystems, the Earth itself; and so
also whatever applies morally with respect to these, for instance permission to disturb or to
improve, principles of letting be, and so on. Such ecosignificant items are also called, in the
literature, morally considerable items (a nicely ambiguous term, both sides of which have
unfortunate features, one because a considerable item may not have large significance, the
other because what it is supposed to respond to is some restricting class of considerers). In yet
other and more satisfactory terms, they have ethical standing. Naturally items of significance
other than agentoids may have other ethically relevant features (which they perhaps accrue
through their significance). For instance they may hold entitlements of various sorts, such as
to be left alone, to be represented, and so on.
In order to characterize core notions in the ethics orbit, the basic strategy consists in
plugging in "expanded morality" where the dictionaries give "morality"; similarly substitute
"ectomoral" for "moral". For the adjectival forms 'ethical' , and (equivalently) 'ethic', that is
all that is required. For the form concerned means: pertaining to ectomorality, or
(equivalently) treating of or relating to ectomorals. For the noun forms it is not so simple,
because there are problems with the dictionary accounts (for instance in 'the science of
morality' owing to misplaced definiteness, and dated uses of the term 'science'). Always
ethics(s) is an abstract, signifying features of being ethical; more exactly, always concerning
ectomoral theories or systems. More specifically, ethic( s) signifies
firstly, in both singular or plural though usually plural, the whole field of ectomoral theory
16
Greek ektos, outside. We include the inside with the expansion which incorporates the outside.
�9
(the "science" of ectomorals), or derivatively, the department of (philosophical) study
concerned therewith;
secondly, in the singular but pluralising, a system or schematization of ectomorality, that is, at
least rudiments of a system, or of a theory, comprising values, ectomoral principles, and rules
of proper conduct.17
Like stock textbook ethics, most environmental ethics so far are in fact truncated; they
are very rudimentar y schemes, leaving out much that would be expected in a fatter
systematization. Hence in part the vagueness of characterization. So far the vagueness
(which does not exceed that of dictionaries or of ordinary usage), is immaterial, as the
characterisation is workable. But further exactness could be obtained through a technical
upgrade of system and a more detailed specification of what such a proposition system
contains. 18
What are sometimes cited as further restricted senses of 'ethic' are not further senses.
Rather they are restrictions, or designations, of what is already presented. Thus for instance,
the 'moral principles of a particular leader or school of thought' as in Buddhist ethics or
Kantian ethics. Similarly for field indications or application restrictions, as in medical ethics
or bioethics. So much for "senses" of 'ethics'.
In order to reach an adequate definition of ethics, not merely for intended environmental
purposes, but for historical purposes as well (so as to include Stoic ethics, Taoist ethics,
romantic nature ethics and the like as ethics) we have been obliged to adjust (if in an
inconspicuous way) dictionary definitions of ethics. That adjustment was made through
"expanded morality", but could have been accomplished in other equivalent ways (Leopold's
expansion of 'community' is another, though less satisfactory, way of achieving the same sort
of thing). Granted that we have adjusted dictionary definitions, have we changed the very
notion of ethics, or did the dictionaries, not for the first item, get it wrong, getting caught with
chauvinistic definitions? We claim that we have not changed the notion. Rather we captured
what some meant, more or less, by ethics all along-fro m Stoics, Epicureans and others on. It
has never been a very precise notion. In this case (by contrast with terms like right) not too
much hangs on the term, and we could simply divide ethics up, for instance, into wide and
narrow. However, we intend to keep the nice term ethics but to give the dictionaries and
modem opposition the expressions, standard ethics, or conventional ethics.
Our inconspicuous but all important adjustment is both good and bad news. It is bad
news, insofar as it appears to assist the charge that [deeper] environmental philosophy is doing
something different from ethics, that it is guilty of changing the subject (i.e., effectively
committing ignoratio elenchi). However we can freely grant, without incurring damage, that
17
18
Thus ethics include what it has to include, as expanded environment ally: philosophy of
ecomorality, and therewith of morality.
A system is a relational structure of a certain sort. An ethic is a propositional system, since it has
to include principles and the like; thus it involves a theory of strict logical sort. For an illustration
of the use of systems formulations in ethics, see e.g. Routley 1973.
�10
standard ethics was, as a matter of definition, at least actocentric, and that, insofar as agents
were identified with humans, it was, therefore, anthropocentric. Even so ethics, as redefined,
includes standard ethics, so it is more satisfactorily seen not a different but a larger subject,
expanded through an expanded morality. It is good news, not merely because it facilitates
environmental ethics and accords with more satisfactory (greener) accounts of the subject, but
because it helps in getting around a snarl of objections to the effect that ethics has to be
homocentric, or at least actocentric. Removing these objections will recur throughout what
follows.
Among corollaries of note, a first one is that plurality of ethics falls out of the
characterisation. An ethic is not unique. Nor (through such a result does not follow as
environmental ethics form a subclass of ethics) are environmental ethics. Nor are military or
professional ethics. Failure of uniqueness is not a deficiency, but a virtue. For, one thing, it
gives places to go in cases of breakdown of an ethic, namely to other nearby ethics. Plurality
is tied up with nonuniqueness and other features of merit: noncomprehensiveness, openness,
flexibility, and so on.19
Secondly, there is more news on what an ethics is; and what an environmental one is. It
is widely claimed that an ethics requires a communit y, in an environme ntal ethic the
community (of concern etc.) is a wide environmental one. Ethics enlarges the community, a
scope of values. Ethics (partaking of ethos ~ the evaluative frame(or spirit) of a community.
While these ideas are popular they are astray.
Environmental ethics shifts the frame of reference for ethical consideration from purely
human concerns to ecological communities. 1-B Human beings as moral agents are not
ethically privileged.
An environmental ethic must be compatible with ecological principles and with life, i.e.
be livable.
3. Within ethics and morals, as so far generously constured: decent and dud distinctions.
Something like the division between the first and second specifics above has been
quasi-technicalized within ethics, and distorted through merger with a theory-metatheory
distinction borrowed from outside ethics. Engagement with the second (as in systematisation,
constructing and working within systems, etc.) has been dubbed normative ethics, or
sometimes to increase the confusion just ethics, or condescendingly, casuistry. Metaethics has
been taken however to be not what the logical analogy, and borrowing, would suggest metanormative ethics, the (positivistically correct) study of such systems, but instead a brand of
analytic philosophy, analysing the meanings and uses of key ethical terms. Taken as
exhaustive, there is much of importance, that the normative-metaethical distinction leaves out.
Nor is the distinction exhaustive. As well, the labels are misleading. In short, the distinction
is ill-made out and rather unsatisfactory, a handicap, not an asset; it can be abandoned without
19
See EEHC p.57.
�11
loss and to advantage. Let us do so (so forget this paragraph, if you prefer). Many other
distinctions from standard ethics are also defective, in one way or another. It will be advisable
to resurvey and rechart ethical terrain.
Among other standard, but often dud, distinctions from ethical theory that have to
reexamined after environmental impact, to be duly salvaged or scrapped, are all the following:
• objective/subjective. That the objective/subjective distinction provides a false dichotomy is
easily seen from usual explanations of the terms: 'either objective, standing for a real factor in
things, or subjective, simply standing for a human proposal' 20
• Cognitive/non-cognitive. 2 1
To be retained are some distinctions which certain forces have worked hard to eliminate, such
as that of
• Fact/value (and earlier demise).
• Expedient/moral.
There is an elasticity in the notion of ethics, and a neglected distinction, that it is
important to take into account.. In contemporary ethical theory there is a concerted attempt to
build a universalizability requirement or some sort of equivalent into the very notion of ethics.
The evident result is that selfish systems of evaluation and conduct, systematic egoisms for
instance, are refused the title of ethics, and as an important corollary questions like Why be
ethical? become vexed. 22 Given, in particular, that any such "universality" requirement is
problematic in its formulation, and typically limited, chauvinistically to persons, a superior
course proceeds to distinguish: between ethics as already characterised (reportively) and its
subclass, universalizable ethics. As impartial ethics do have much to recommend them, let us
coin a convenient portmanteau term condensing the clumsy "universalizable ethics", namely
euthics. (Conveniently then un-euthical suggests unethical, which is what from a properly
ethical stance it is!)
There is undoubtedly some pressure to have ethics and morality extend beyond a single
or isolated individual 23 ( even so, a Crusoe ethics is intelligible and feasible, as regrettably is
egoistic morality). But that pressure does not extend very far; and such notions as those of a
tribal morality and an upper-class ethics are not defective on significance or semantic grounds,
even if they are wide open to objections on substantive grounds.
Such restricted ethics are not however immediately ruled out, as ethics, by such
requirements as that like cases be assessed alike, and that differences of assessment be based
on relevant differences. 24 For a tribalist or racist can respond that a foreigner is not like a
20
21
22
23
24
Reese p.157.
See also Reese.
On both, narrowing and vexing, see Singer Impractical ethics (Singer equates moral with ethical).
Singer does not really have an answer to the question Why be moral? though he thinks it not a bad
idea; mainly he tries to put down shuffles that have been presented as decisive.
Pettit reworking a rough route hacked out by Wittgenstein, tries to expand this across into a
philosophical forest denominated "holism", no-dwelling place for an isolated individual.
These requirements are presented by Attfield as basic formal requirements of reason (p.6). No
�12
Greek, or that there are relevant differences between whites and blacks (intelligence has been
proposed as such a difference, when skin pigmentation appeared a merely superficial
difference). These sorts of responses, which were long accepted, are no longer acceptable,
because the differences put up are not considered ethically relevant differences (correctly
enough, though ethical relevance itself lacks an adequate explanation). Egoism, for instance,
exhibits rationality failure, as it does not treat likes alike. There are no relevant differences
justifying different treatment.
Singer's main argument for a much wider point of view,for universality, rests upon an
extensive appeal to authority (p.11). What else is offered is but an appeal to usage.
the notion of ethics carries with it the idea of something bigger than the
individual'. [It often does, but it may not.] 'If I am to defend my conduct
on ethical grounds, I cannot point only to the benefits it brings me. I must
address myself to a larger audience'(p.10).
That depends on the conduct concerned. More important, the audience does not need to be so
large, certainly not universal: my family or clan will suffice often enough. Nonetheless there
is this of use 'ethics', especially in such criticisms as 'unethical'.
• due consideration of others, all others;
Parallel to the distinction of euthics within ethics is a distinction of neurals within morals,
neurality within morality. Again the subclass, reflecting widespread philosophical usage of
the term morality, is separated through some requirement of morality, such as
• universalizability, which is a strong way of ensuring the first (do unto others etc.).
Insofar as these principles all allude to others, they often admit easy extension (to other
others). 25
4. Environmental and greener ethics.
As prevailing accounts of ethics are for the most part defective, so are what builds upon
them, recent accounts of environmental ethics. But there are also other grounds for
dissatisfaction with these.
Issues in the characterizat ion of ethics, especially removal of actocentrism and
homocentrism, naturally get transmitted to critical types, such as environmental ethics. But it
might be imagined, rashly, that disagreement ends there. After all, all decent environmental
ethics make the non-human world a proper object of concern, either directly or indirectly.
Differences between explications offered can be ascribed to ordinary philosophica l
incompleteness. "An environmental ethic, broadly, is a set of values to live by which takes
due account of the value of the non-human world". 26 Stated differently, the aim of
environmental ethics 'is to understand and act appropriately in relation of our ecological-i n
25
26
doubt they are, though they appear to figure in no logic of ethics yet formulated.
The distinctions can be filled out (and made to work-verify!) by a strategy like the earlier. Again
the list of moral predicates is deliberately wide. But once again we can later separate off certain
uses e.g. instrumenal, aesthetic uses of good.
Gunn 1987, 3.
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the broad sense-circum stances". 27 Differently again, " ... sets of principles, which would
guide our treatment of wild nature, constitute an environmental ethic in the most general
sense". 28 The first of these slack explanations leaves out what is essential for an ethics,
principles; the second is unduly actocentric, leaving out what is not, as well as main
paraphernalia of ethics; the third not only neglects values, but excessively narrows scope so
that such an ethics is inapplicable in places devoid of wild nature or to other issues. A better
explication, which avoids these obvious pitfalls runs: An environmental ethics is an ethics, as
defined, which, among other concerns, takes specific account, through its values and
principles, of (significant) environmental items, of parts of nonhuman nature.
But obviously it too leaves much to be explained. How the non-human world is made
the object of concern, how it is moral concern, to what degree it is made the object of moral
concern, what forms of moral concern are applicable to what elements of the environment,
and how to achieve the aim of acting appropriately - all are matters that make environmental
ethics one of the most controversial areas of philosophy and also one of the most exciting,
although many professional philosophers still regard it as a peripheral area. Yet there now is
broad agreement among most of those active in the area that some change is needed and that
environmental matters need much more attention and action.
An environmental ethics is an ethics concerned, usually among other ethical things, with
parts of the environment. Coal-face or factory-floor environmenta l ethics bears on
environmental issues, problems and causes, and can be expected to say something about
environment s or some of their nonhuman components. Academic or board-room
environmental ethics is frequently, however, a remove from direct ethical work, comprising
discussion of environmental ethics, its features, its methods, its variability, its presumed
merely derived and applied character, and so on. Much of this academic environmental ethics
is directed against coal-face environmental ethics, especially that of a genuinely committed
sort aimed at advancing environmental sources.
It is almost immediate that there is an important elasticity -ambiguity, in a slack sense
-in the notion of environmental ethics, between an ethics which considers environmental
matters, whether positively or negatively, and an ethics which is positive about some
environmental elements, which evinces concern about environmental items (as 18th century
sympathy ethics did about other humans). A superficial environmental ethics need not say
anything particularly positive or sympathetic about environments; indeed productions on the
topic may try to dismiss or defeat environmenta l causes and to defuse or dissolve
environmental problems, for instance as not worth bothering about. 29 It may be argued that
27
28
29
Drengson 1989, 15.
Elliot, in Singer, 284.
That is, fashionable contemporary practice with respect to philosophy is transferred to parts of
enviromental philosophy (e.g. by Eco Wittgenstein and AppliedQuine). Environmental philosophy
may in no way interfere with industry and business. To an astonishing extent American academic
environmental ethics tends to conform to such ridiculous strictures (often encouraged by a fawning
�14
natural environme nts should serve highest economic causes, which means in practice
becoming reserves for city folks, city corporations and consumers. Under such environmental
ethics ("environmental ethics" it is tempting to say, contravening usage) many an environme nt
should be razed, levelled, and paved over, to become a grand parking lot, shopping mall or
urban escarpmen t of a concrete jungle. What rural environment remains will, also serve those
"high" purposes, be tamed and managed, like much of Western Europe. Witness the
enthusiasm in productions on environmental ethics for landscapes like that of Tuscany, where
virtually everything is under tight human control and no bird moves (else it is shot).
Environm ental ethics and environme ntal philosophy may well prove to be
disappointm ents for enthusiastic environmentalists. For there may be little that is materially
green about them, no commitme nt to changes in old attitudes and practices, no offers of
improved standing and ethical treatment for environme ntal items. As an environme ntal
economics may be no green economics , but (very likely) some part or application of
mainstream economics , some sweep of resource or land economics , so an environme ntal
ethics or environme ntal ethic may not be particularly or at all green, but, for instance, simply
part of establishm ent ethics or an "application" of it to environmental items. Fortunately not
all environmental ethics is like this; beyond environmental is genuinely green ethics.
The elasticity in environmental ethics between superficial and material forms, parallels
that of the term concern (and rather similarly of matter), and can be substantially constricted
to that: an environme ntal ethics is one concerned with environmental items or matter. Thus,
on the one construal, such an ethics may be simply about such topics, it may be a standard
ethics "applied" to such topics, in which case environmental ethics does become just so-called
applied ethics. Alternatively, however, such an ethic may be one evincing concern, worry,
about the treatment of some environmental items on other, and directed at obtaining improved
treatment. Such an ethic is not negative or indifferent towards environme ntal matters, but is
advancing environme ntal causes. They matter. With such ethics, environme ntal ethics
cannot possibly be an applied ethics, for the framework of standard ethics and their
application s, is exceeded. (At best such ethics can be approxima ted by standard ethics by
assuming enlightened agents holding appropriate sorts of values. 30)
5. Human chauvinism and its detailed removal.
Deep-green theory is, unambiguously, a green ethical theory, of deep kind: that is, there
is intrinsic value in nature, natural items have intrinsic value, which may predomina te over
human-bas ed value. In short, the theory rejects both the 'Sole Value Assumptio n' and the
'Greater Value Assumptio n'. The theory finds all standard ethics mired in heavy prejudice, in
30
pragmatism).
Compare also Naess (in Engel 1990) on utilitarian approximation to Deep Ecology, made by
assuming availability of enough agents holding deep ecological values or, more or less
equivalently, having deep ecological consciousness.
�15
favour of things human and against things non-human. The distinctive, still pervasive,
prejudice concerned is that encapsulated as human chauvinism, which is itself a special case
of class chauvinism (for the class, human 31 ). Removal of human chauvinism dovetails with
displacement of humans.
Class chauvinism consists in substantia lly differentia l treatment, typically
discriminatory and inferior treatment, of items outside the class, by sufficiently many
members of the class concerned, for which there is no sufficient justification. Human
chauvinism is a feature, a cardinal weakness, of virtually all ethical systems hitherto, so deepgreen theory contends. The main argument takes the following form: there is no
characteristic, such as those tendered in ethical theories as justifying differential treatment in
favour of humans (characteristics such as rationality, language possession, tool making
abilities, needs, preferences, sentience, etc.) which first is held by all and only humans, as
distinct from not all humans and some non-humans, and which second does justify differential
treatment.3 2
Signs and manifestations of chauvinism are many and various, some conspicuous, some
subtle, and so on. For instance, a dead giveaway is any allusion to all outside certain human
concerns that may have a value as resources. For that assigns to the items so referred to mere
instrumental value. A little less obvious is the discriminative mode when individual humans
are counted, but only species of other living things (or a step down, individual sentients but
only species of others).
The thorough-going rejection of human chauvinism itself sets a program: that of
reworking ethics, and indeed much of philosophy, in a way free of chauvinism and humanism,
without any specially privileged place for humans. A first part of such a program has already
been outlined, that of suitably characterising ethics in a way that does not make essential
appeal to humans or their features, or to other favoured groups such as sentients. A further
important part of the program, formulation of ethical theory in a way which avoids entirely
group chauvinism. Such a desirable outcome can be achieved simply through formulation of
ethical theory in terms of ethically relevant categories, assembled in what is called an annular
theory. 33
31
32
33
Insofar as an account of human is required, it can be some improvement on the biological species
definitions, a reworking to remove past biasses (superioristic, rationalistic, masceulinist, etc.) and
to dislodge appeals to aspects of human nature. But, despite the preponderance of human agents
hereabouts, on planet Earth, such an account is not required for ethics, or for philosophy.
Theorizing in these and many other areas can proceed perfectly well without allusion to humans.
The detailed argument for this proposition is presented in Routley and Routley 1980a 97-108,
where chauvinism is spelled out a bit further. A truncated version of this argument appears in Fox
1990, 16-17.
Though the theory is so labelled in several publications, the label, which presumably should stay,
is misleading, because some ethical relevant categories may overlap one another. The concentric
theory (developed in Wenz 1988 and others, perhaps in steps of Leopold), which incorporates a
similar mistake, can be seen as a subversion of the annular model.
�16
The annular picture helps show how to redo ethics and philosophy with ideal types, or
with some equivalent thereof. No simple species or subspecies , such as humans or
superhumans, no single feature, such as sentience or life, serves as a reference benchmark, a
base class, for determinin g moral relevance and other ethical dimensions . 34 No ethical
irrelevant distinctions and classes, such as those of humans or base class, are required. What
is required instead is a major shift in perspective , a new focus upon morally relevant
categorical distinctions:
it is not possible to provide criteria which would justify distinguishing, in the
sharp way standard Western ethics do, between humans and certain
nonhuman creatures, and particularly those creatures which have preferences
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 arbitrarily -determine d and loaded
tests for membershi p of a privileged class (essentially an elitist view),
instead of upon, say, respect for the preference s of other creatures.
According ly the sharp moral distinction, commonly accepted in ethics by
philosophe rs and other alike, between all humans and all other animal
species, lacks a satisfactory coherent basis (Routley and Routley 80a, 103).
The categorical distinctions thereby proposed do not reject traditional ethical notions such as
rationality, self-awaren ess, having interests; but they do reject the automatic use of the
characteristics of one species, or some base class as the model upon which the characteristics
of all other species or classes are judged. They also reject as unjustified distinctions that are
not "categorical distinctions which tie analytically with ethical notions". 35 For instance, they
hold that the human/nonhuman distinction is not ethically significant. Humans enter only in a
contingent way into general ethical theory, as holders of these or those features, which
34
35
Another common mistake which annular theory helps dispel and avoid is that of trying to stretch
community (or moral commuity) to include webs, mountains, Earth, land etc.-a trend Leopold
started with his land ethic. An agent can have an obligation to care for earth, and soil without
there being part of community. (The Land ethic is misguided). What ethics covers diverges from
any moral community. (Contra Dobson's suggestion p.47).
Routley and Routley 1980a, 108.
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depending upon their respective capabilities and competence.
It is also desirable to have available some more positive principles corresponding to the
negative rejection of class chauvinism, principles so to say, of anti-chauvinism. Principles
like the biospherical egalitarianism of Deep Ecology represent an unsatisfactory attempt in
this direction. The deep-green improvement on this principle is the powerful principle of ecoimpartiality, according to which there should be no substantially differential treatment of
items outside any favoured class or species of discriminatory sort that lacks sufficient
justification. The appropriate impartial treatment is substantially independent of the
comparative value of the item treated. Most important, impartial treatment does not entail
equal treatment, or equal consideration, and does not require equal intrinsic or other value.
Other distinctive principles of deep-green theory will emerge as the ethical theory
accumulates.
One major conclusion is that human is not a significant ethical category. The outcome
is not anti-human; humans enter to the extent that they respectively deserve to enter. It is not
being claimed that humans lack value, that none of them have much or any value. Quite the
contrary, some humans have great value, some have established themselves as having great
propensity for evil, many lead quite indifferent lives. What is being rejected is the elevated,
often exaggerated, frequently exclusive, value assigned to humans, too often uniform value.
What are being contested are received distributions of values, and the heavy concentration of
value in humans and things and features human, the relative importance of which has been
grossly exaggerated. 36
Be in no doubt: many humans have positive value, some remarkable value. That is one
reason why it matters that humans should not vanish off the planet (for all that many of they
have sinned against it), to leave an impoverished earth, for instance a microbe planet. For that
would involve a huge reduction in value. Nor is it enough, adequate compensation, that
something like humans would evolve again at some remote future time. For, even if it
happened (in fact the probability of such replacement looks rather small), there would still be
a huge and extended dip in value. Similar points tell against a range of similar arguments to
the effect that it does not matter what happens to, or is done to, the Earth, because evolution
will eventually restore richness. 37 Even if richness were to return (much evidence indicates
36
37
Moral consideration and intrinsic value are not limited to humans; similarly these are not confined
to any other favoured or "improved" class closely overlapping humans, such as (it is supposed)
persons or rational creatures. Moral principles can be applied to all species and to the natural
environment in general. (A corollary concerns the characterisation of morality. ) Evolutionary
space is thereby afforded for other species, other systems other things.
An associated feature is stereotyping. Stereotyping is characteristic of speciesism/chauvinism as it
is in exploitation. To stereotype an item is to see it purely as a member of a class and as having
conventional feature of the class as a whole.
Recently there have been some attempts to have things ethical both ways: a special role for
humans without privilege or prejudice. There is a latent incoherence in Rachel's text, between his
initial and final proposals regarding ethics and morals-which are essentially human intricatedand regarding morals without hubris (MWH)-where human hubris is supposed to be removed.
Such an argument has been advanced by, among others, William Grey in 'Anthropocentrism and
�18
that extinction and destruction is for ever, permanent), there would still be serious loss of
value. So it does matter.
6. Philosophy without humans.
It is hard to move and operate philosophically without encountering humans and human
chauvinism. Chauvinism is written deep into all prevailing Western (and Eastern) ideological
forms, common to what, at a more superficial level, are rival positions. But while human
chauvinism transcends parochial differences, it is more conspicuous and brazen in some
philosophical locales than others, notably idealism and empiricism, existentialism and
phenomenology. In short, it is particularly prominent where matters answer back to subjects,
those who have the ideas, do the observing, assemble the phenomena, do the living, and so
on-back to subjects that are invariably assumed to be human. Thus it is human existence,
human Being, human ideas and impressions, that count, those and none others. Such
chauvinism, nauseatingly strong, pervades not only Continental philosophy (esp. French and
German varieties)-but also Anglo-American empiricism and pragmatism (esp. anti-realist
varieties). 38
Once the main strategies of ethics-without-humans have been grasped, it is easy to see
how analogous moves can be made the deanthropize other reaches of philosophy, notably
some of the more chauvinistic enterprises. In general there are two stages: Firstly, as with
morality, replacing humans and human subjects by agents and ideal subjects. And secondly,
as with ethics, delineating significant reaches-philosop hical wildernesses-wh ere agents are
removed, not just off-stage but altogether.
While a few examples of each stage only will be given, it will become evident that the
procedures are general. Consider as an example of the first stage, existentialism, a philosophy
celebrating humans, and their exclusive freedom, and shot through with human chauvinism.
Existentialism is (to quote a convenient caricature)
a philosophy which emphasises man's freedom to act independently of any
laws, natural or otherwise, and according to his own choice. It is a free will
philosophy which can be seen as 'a protest against views of the world and
policies ... in which humans are regarded as the helpless playthings of
historical forces, or as wholly determined by the regular operation of natural
38
Deep Ecology', Australasian Journal of Philosophy vol.71, No 4: December 1993.
There is a residual serious problem here, as to why existence is so important. Why do actual
humans and existent tigers matter, not merely virtual ones or possible ones. What is it about
existence? There are many items which it would be better did not exist, such as devils, helicopters
(for the most part), pollution, erosion and so on. Existence, of favoured sorts, makes for richness,
which is a high (if defeasible) virtue.
Sartre's philosophy is rendolent with human chauvinism: e.g. Critique of Dialectical Reason p.8.
as regards destruction and destroy, is an amazing piece of human chauvinism. While humans
may have a greater potentiality for production of value than most other animals, many humans
also have a far greater potentiality for evil than most other animals. Historically, the evil
producing capacity has dominated. Another example of Sartre's anthropocentism is his
"philosophy of the present".
Marx's philosophy is similarly rendolent. Productivity is human productivity... . For almost
random examples from anti-realism, see DP.
�19
processes' (Encyclopaedia Britannica 1978). This anti-determinist
perspective is, again, connected with the question of objectivity.
Existentialists hold that the only objective external fact independent of the
control of human beings is the fact of their being brought into existence, and
that death will one day come to terminate that existence. In all other
respects it is they who are in control. There are no outside independent
laws, of economics, history, nature or whatever, which they cannot deny or
shape for themselves. Thus we are all free to choose how we will behave
and develop and how we will shape society and nature. It follows that the
consequences of our actions are down to us, and therefore if they are
unpleasant that is our fault-not the fault of outside forces or external laws.
There are no excuses for our not thinking and acting for ourselves and we
are 'condemned' to be free because everything is theoretically permitted to
us and we therefore carry a heavy burden of responsibility for what we do.
As Sartre put it, 'Man is responsible for what he is. The first effect of
existentialism is that it puts every man in possession of himself as he is, and
places the entire responsibility for existence squarely on his shoulders' ....
We have a duty to face up to this, and not to base our actions thoughtlessly
on what is said to be prescribed/or us ('laws' of society, of economics, of
nature). That is abdicating responsibility.39
Note the heavy concentration throughout on humans, variously appearing as human beings,
we, us, they, and (in singular musculine form) man and he. But, as before 40 , on the one
boundary, many humans are incapable of what is presumed, the heavy burden of
responsibility and so forth; and, on the other, other agents are, in principle at least, capable of
achieving those relevant sorts of freedom that humans can obtain. It is already apparent that
once the synthetic setting of highly competent humans is exceeded, notions invoked by
existentialism begin to fall apart. For instance, some "wild" animals may enjoy considerable
levels of unreflective unagonised freedom while lacking capacity to bear much responsibility.
Conversely, there are fairly responsible agents, such as some trapped in determined or
deterministic situations, who have no opportunity to exercise freedom.
Accordingly too, though human should be replaced by agent of appropriate sort in
dechauvinized existentialism, it would hardly suffice to substitute for 'human' any of
'responsible agent', 'freedom exercising agent' or similar-though these substitutions effect
some of what was intended, such as exclusion of children, many animals, dementeds and so
on. What sort of agent is appropriate? That existentialism can be seen as trying to explain.
And for the present we can leave it at that, replacing human throughout by the dummy term,
existential agent. This is existentialism partly rectified.
At the same primary stage of dechauvinizing existentialism, connected improvements
could well be sought in existentialism, such as reducing the driven and elitist ethos. In part
this ethos is encouraged by the response of existentialism to what motivates and shapes it,
deterministic arguments; for it sees only such "strong" agents as evading deterministic forces.
The whole business is rather ironic, as the first driven feature is incompatible with full
39
40
Pepper (Roots) pp.118-9; itals in original. Pepper refers to Sartre 1943 and 1946.
As at the beginning of EE, where standard privileged treatment for humans is reviewed and found
wanting.
�20
freedom, while the second elitist feature is incompatible with the stress on things human, as
(like elitist religions) only exceptional agents escape. A promising alternative tries direct
confrontation with deterministic arguments, undercutting their scope and grip, and thereby
making room for free action in a range of situations (not everywhere between birth and
death!) for a wide variety of agents, including lesser, less elite, less stressed and sensitive
agents. For the arguments prove vulnerable to selective undermining by careful logical and
analytic procedures, 41 methods existentialism itself is loath to deploy (for all that its approach
rests upon past entrenched argumentation). Insofar as a main motivation for existentialism in
its prevailing ironic form is undiscriminating antideterminism, that motivation too is thereby
collapsed, and room is made for a less demanding more relaxed dechauvinized existentialism.
As for existentialism, so for a range of other subjects inclined to intrude humans as
central to world functioning or intelligibility, a range as apparently diverse as phenomenology
and quantum theory, empiricism and theology, pragmatism and cosmology. Quantum theory
fits into this range because of its received Copenhagen interpretation, cosmology because of
its return to anthropocentrism through adoption of anthropic principles. Both are however
readily freed of human shackles, first by replacing humans by "observers" (which for the most
part can simply be recording devices), and better, secondly to deagentize completely, by
amending interpretation s to dislodge both Copenhagen phenomenolo gy and anthropic
principles. 42 For a larger illustration, consider a popular mixture of versions of
phenomenology (a fuller elaboration again would disentangle versions, all of which however
require similar detoxification).
Phenomenol ogy to which existentialism is related .. .is summed up by
Nietzsche, who said, 'Objectivity is the main enemy of understanding. It
means the myth that there are hard observable facts ... but all the concepts we
employ in describing the world and predicting its behaviour are imposed on
it by ourselves. We have a choice about what view of the world we adopt.'
... Phenomenology is not just a philosophy which implies that we are not
subject to external laws, imposed by and through forces independent of
ourselves. It holds that there actually is no world external to and separate
from ourselves. There is no 'reality' in the sense of there being an external
'real world' divorced from our own consciousness and capable of existing if
we did not exist. Nature cannot exist without ourselves also existing-if we
ceased to be, so would it cease, and vice-versa. Therefore what 'the
environment' is, and is like, is a function of our own subjective construction
of it. The very use of such terms as 'ourselves' and 'human consciousness'
in opposition to terms like 'nature' and 'the environment' is inappropriate
and shows the extent to which we are immersed in positivist science as our
way of seeing the world. For the phenomenologists these terms are
meaningless because there is no separation between ourselves and a 'nature'
or a 'reality'. We and the world are one-a single united entity.
Phenomenology is thus anti-positivist science, opposing ... Cartesian dualism.
It does not deal in laws, or in cause-effect relationships consequent on the
dualism and neither can it be concerned with analysis-brea king the world
into parts ... If we want to know and understand nature we must, as Hume
41
42
For technical details, see Sylvan FWD.
On satisfactory ways of accomplishing this second stage see Sylvan (Cosm. Syn).
�21
{
said in his Treatise on Human Nature in 1737, come to full comprehension
of man. For if there is no nature except as structured through human
consciousness, knowledge and truth cannot exist independently of man. 43
As with existentialism, there is a similar enormous exorbitant emphases on humans and things
humans; humans carry everything. But insofar as humans can perform those feats, so better
can a class a appropriate agents, phenomenolo gical agents, who include no incompetents
(who might let this world flicker out of existence, or worse).
Phenomenolo gy is a full immersion human chauvinism. Fashionable contemporary
empiricisms, normally taken as rivals to phenomenolo gy, are incomplete immersion
analogues. While a few properties, primary properties of basic physics, are separated out as
human independent, the rest, the phenomenolo gical mass, are categorised as responsedependent, and treated phenomenologically. 44 Take, for example, aesthetic features, which
include certain ecological features. Nowadays humans can grow up with the assumption that
aesthetic qualities, indeed all "response dependent" qualities, are features of humans, not in
any way objective.
So it can be seriously, if ridiculously, hypothesized that what is
(considered) beautiful, for instance of depends on how the human gene-pool is composed. As
before, humans are readily displaced in favour of appropriate agents. But, for the most part,
these agents too are otiose.
While the first stage 1s the main stage with agentocentric philosophies like
extistentialism, there is a second stage, which comprises significantly more than pointing out
how much, how much of importance, such philosophies leave out by their narrow
concentration. What is left out includes, to begin, all those times and places where there are
no agents, rich worlds, devoid of relevant agents, and the like. But that is only the beginning
of the business. For agents have been infiltrated or inserted in all sorts of settings where they
have no business to be or to transact.
Against the ancient and formerly honorable practice of agent invocation, pushed
primarily for explanatory purposes, 45 agent detachment and agent elimination campaigns have
periodically been mounted (e.g. conspicuously , but not only, in classic Greece, when it
became clearly appreciated that there could be causes without agents, during the
Enlightenmen t, and in Frege' s propositional ization program). Deagentizatio n, typically
coupled with deanthropization, can be, and should be, pushed much further. Agents, often
evidence of immature, even primitive, philosophy, still lurk everywhere in philosophy.
Agent-detach ment themes, still struggling against an unenlightened opposition, include:
objects, including worlds, without perceivers or sensors, nonexistent items without
conceivers, propositions without proposers, assumptions without assumers, values without
43
44
45
Pepper p.199 (where references are supplied). We shall not stop off for expository adjustment or
for any critique of this material. For main elements of such a critique, see however DP chapter 11
and JB.
Thus thesis that all properties are response dependent merges empiricism with European
phenomenology.
Deluded explanatory purposes, for agents themselves have in turn to be explained.
�I
22
t
valuers, causation without causers (or intentional agents), organisation without organisers,
wilderness without wilderness managers, land (or property) without owners or stewards,
regulation without regulators, selection without selectors, and purposes without purposers. 46
But without humans who does philosophy? Well, in the old days, God of course, most
gods, the Devil, demiurges, gifted spirits and so on. At any time duly accomplished agents.
While it is easy to see how ethics and philosophy could in principle flourish given only
suitably accomplished agents, and no humans, namely the agents do something like what a
few humans hereabouts do, still it may be less easy for many to see how these subjects can
function without agents. But it is straightforward, is it not? A philosophy stands as a system
of propositions. And propositions do not need agents, proposers, or whatever. Nor do
systems.
It is here that blockage may occur, for two reasons: First, because of the idealistic idea
that there are no statements without staters. Second, because of the mistaken assumption that
a system of propositions standing on its own involves an obnoxious platonism. No such
assumption is made. Third, part of the struggle has been conducted before, in the tussle
between psychologism and its opposite in logic and associated regions (e.g. mathematics,
philosophy of mathematics etc.), in the tussle between Husserl and Frege (to name two
prominent parties). Although the issues have been rejoined more recently, it is still widely
supposed that anti-psychologism triumphed. Its success is, to some extent, mere appearance.
For all that, anti-psychologism is here extended much further, right across philosophy.
Appendix. 1. Examples showing divergence of utilitarianism from consequentialism.
Consider two different actions with some set of consequence s, one (A) done
deliberately, one (B) unintended. Then suppose, for one sort of case, the outcome is
disastrous. Not only is A normally regarded as much worse than B, e.g. arson than a naturally
occurring fire such as lightening strike, but further fuller utility assessments should give
analogous results, e.g. the satisfaction of the arsonist could be given a high negative rating.
Utilitarianism itself is but a well-tempered egoism: egoism extended to substituting
others. That cannot so plausibly be charged of consequentialism.
Utilitarianism has been associated with the "greed is good" ideology of the 1980s. The
association has point (so Singer tries, desperately, to disassociate utilitarianism). Suppose it is
said that the 80s, were a decade of greed (as so depicted in many movies) but the 90s is a
decade of ethics (despite counterevidence). But nothing has changed in underlying ideologies,
in ethics or economics!
Appendix 2. Inadequacy of standard ethics.
The inadequacy of standard ethics for green purposes has been recognised, if obliquely
and perversely, by many critics of the idea of (deep) green ethics (e.g. McCloskey). They
46
The very controversial tlast theme is argued in Sylvan 90 [purpose], where most of these various
detachment themes are assembled. Obviously there are many more such themes.
�23
l
have proceeded to argue that there couldn't be such an ethics because none of the standard
ethics would serve. But the argument fails because standard ethics does not exhaust ethics.
There are some prospects of a general proof of inadequacy from what has been
developed so far. Standard forms are restricted to proper subsets of agents, whereas ethics in
full flower applies to all agents. Standard ethics leaves out much of the subject, all the deep
part.
References
William Grey in 'Anthropocentrism and Deep Ecology', Australasian Journal of Philosophy
vol.71, No 4: December 1993.
�ON THE VALUE CORE OF DEEP-GREEN THEORY
Deep-green theory is a deep environmental theory, with much in common with deep
ecology. Like deep ecology, it stands in significant ideological opposition to the dominant
technocratic-industrial way. But, even more than deep ecology, deep-green theory aims to
supply a comprehensive alternative environmental philosophy (in the full senses of those
atrophied terms, esp philosophy ). It seeks to accomplish this, furthermore, without
accumulating the amount of philosophical rubbish deep ecology regularly attracts. For, to
insert a key difference between these ecocentric theories in a deliberately prejudical way: deepgreen theory resembles a deep ecology with the pseudo-scientific garbage removed,
reorganised into a tight, coherent and more comprehensive theory. Deep-green theory, which
has roots that stretch back about as far as its much publicized neighbour, accordingly merits
elaboration separate from deep ecology, which in any case lacks a well-thought-through
valuational and ethical basis. This essay aims to uncover the value theory of deep-green
theory, exposing thereby one central area of deep-green theory. Though the value theory is
(inevitably) abstract, it issues in what is more concrete, such as practical ecological directives,
potentially destabilizing prevailing policies and institutions.
At the core of deep-green theory, as of authentic deep ecology, lies a value theory. A
fundamental theme thereof, part of what makes these positions deep, is that a range of
environmental items are valuable in themselves, directly and irreducibly so, so that their value
does not somehow reduce to or emerge from something else, such as features of certain valuers
or what counts for them. Value then does not answer back in some way to humans, or sentient
creatures (or other value-responsive classes), their interests, uses, preferences, or such like.
Many natural items such as forests and rivers, mountains and seashores, are, as it is often put
(without however any commitment thereby to dubious essentialist or absolute objectivist
positions), intrinsically valuable. They are valuable in their own right - irrespective of whether
they are interesting or useful (to any intentional operators, themselves interesting or useful or
not), indeed whether or not there exist any valuers. Value spreads through and reaches across
the natural domain; it is not bounded by mind or linkages with subjective states; nor does it
stop with sentience, or associated pyschological features like satisfaction; nor (pace deep
ecology) does it end at life; it observes no such compromising bounds. Although value is
distributed richly if irregularly throughout nature, and accordingly may be found in nature, it is
not encapsulated in some isolable natural feature, such as life or sentience, or even in defeasible
ecological values such as richness, diversity and variety (and so subject to a different,
naturalistic, reduction). But of course such ecological features afford criteria for value, and
should be represented in recipes (such as "objective functions") for assessing total value.
From the presence of natural things of value, and accordingly of natural values, it is a
short, though controversial, step to the important conclusion that there can be values without
valuers. For valuers are sentient creatures with appropriate capacities, but things of value may
�precede and succeed all such valuers; tfiat is, these things can persist, their values intact,
without any valuers. As there can be shapes without any shape-perceivers, and concepts with
conceivers, so there can be values without valuers. (The theme, like others advanced, can be
backed up by more detailed argument and by formal proof, neither attempted here.) In
valuational relations then, relating valuers as subjects with values as objects, both ends of
relations have independent standing; though interrelated, as the descriptions deliberately chosen
suggest, either can stand without the other. It is a fashionable mistake, which cannot however
be got away with, to try to collapse this relation - usually to endeavour to soak up values into a
modification of valuing subjects (e.g. as a predicate 'relation-to-values', in which inconvenient
values are locked away), not to remove valuers, considered unproblematic, from view. The
mistaken procedure is in fact just one important example of an archetypal reduction of
mainstream modern philosophy, of relations to functions; other examples, locking undesired
objects away within functions, are those rendering wholes (such as ecosystems and organised
structures) functions of their parts, and, under functionalism, minds and types of intentionality,
including value direction, as functions of bodies or their parts such as brains. Values are not,
and do not disappear into, functions of valuers.
A connected corollary is that values are not apart from the actual world, something
"projected" or imposed on it by a favoured class of valuers, something colouring (and even
emotionall y clouding) the otherwise valueless physical world, in rather the way that
reductionistic materialism tries (erroneously) to construe colour itself as projected onto a
colourless physical world. Of course this projection effort, never adequately explicated, does
not succeed, on its own, in removing values. For they remain, left as some function of the
valuers. To try to bulldoze through this difficulty, a second reduction is invoked, of evaluative
features of valuers to "natural" features, commonly preferences, desires or such like. The
second reduction runs into obstacles that halt even the naturalistic bulldozers (e.g. naturalistic
and related fallacies), but the first reduction is the critical one in removing key environmental
values, such as those of wilderness and wild things, which become valuable only in the focus
of certain sentient beholders, and not in and for them self. This reduction too is blocked by
insuperable difficulties. On the one side, like the parallel proposed phenomonalist reduction of
material objects to sensations, the reduction never achievers satisfactory support or even a
satisfactory statement. On the other, it is counterexampled by various modellings or thoughtexperiments revealing intuitively-assessed value in situations devoid of valuers (as e.g. in the
well-known Last Person argument). Values are not apart from the actual world, then, merely
projected onto it by valuers, or else locked up in certain valuers (in the fashion of Carterian
intensions ). Values are part of the world; they are objects in the domain of actual and other
worlds. But they are not of course material objects; creatures will not fall over them any more
than they will trip over shadows or shapes.
�Value like the shape and taste, is an3attribute, which things have or may lack, and which
furthermore creatures can recognise or may fail to discern. Thus value is, like colour and taste
and their determinate forms (red, acidic, etc), a universa l , distributed across things,
individuals and wholes. Like shape and colour, value is a high-level universal. The
comparison of value with shape is decidedly more helpful than the standard, but exhausted,
comparison of value with colour, or of goodness with colour determinates such as redness or
yellow. For example, shape is not bound by a set of determinates as colour is in the specific
colours, but comes in a spectacular variety of forms, not totally or linearly ordered (as in a
rainbow), or contracted to some primary set (as in colour traingles); shapes like value pertain to
wholes as well as particulars, and links with gestalts rather better than colour; shape
discrimination is more culture dependent and sensitive; shape is, or was, a primary property,
and thereby more immune to reductionist strategies than secondary properties such as colour,
which is, under physicalism, prized off objects and allegedly relocated in creatures or in their
interrelation with colourless physical things. Shapes like values, can be vague, indeterminate;
that does not prevent things, perhaps unique things, exemplifying them. But naturally the
anology can only be extended so far. Shapes can be approximated by polygons, values cannot;
shapes are regularly perceived through sense perception, by vision or touch especially, values
are not, but are differently apprised. Value is its own thing, not something else; it is what it is
and does what is does, and not something else, like some specialised mathematical or economic
thing. It does not contract to some mark of value or to what it comes down to in highly
restricted settings; most important, it does not disappear in the style of modem economics into
(expected) utility or into just two economic forms, value-in-use monetarily and value-inexchange (price). Value means what it means, and has meant: worth; and it ties with general
assessments of merit and demerit, goodness or badness, not an economic or other cut-down
thereof. Price, for example, may fail entirely to reflect worth, it may have little to do with
goodness of product.
The powerful drive to reduce or deny values has several sources. part of the motivation
for reduction of value springs from epistemological worries, concerning how values can be
ascertained and known, so far as they are (subjective translation proposals are than a direct
evaluative counterpart of phenomenalism). Part derives from supposedly problematic cultural
and subcultural relativity (whence the attempt to impose values by identification of value with
some favoured feature, and cultural or economic imperialism). Part of the motivation comes
from more sweeping ideologic al commitments, such as the varieties of materiali sm
(physicalism esp.) or scientism.
As has become apparent, attempted reductions of value come too in a variety of forms subjective, which made use of psychological features, such as desires, interests, emotions, and
the like or subjective aggregations, such as community preferences or utility; or objectiviely
naturalistic, which enrol value-making characteristics such as richness or evolutionary
�development as value - consequential, w~ch consider only outcomes, or purely motivational,
which consider only attitudes and ignore leads and outcomes - straightforward, as in translation
proposals for translating value judgements into reducing statements; or oblique, as in
supervenience propositions (no variations in value without underwriting variations in reducing
features), or obscure, as in unarticulated projection claims. Values are not well accommodated
within theses schemes, or accommodated at all. The idea is abroad however that science can
offer a reduction, can sweep up value along with all other knowledge, where philosophy has
conspicuously failed. Unfortunately for such optimistic ideas, fortunately perhaps for deeper
thought, current science, physics especially, does not have much to say at all, or of merit,
about values, and if it did reductions through it would be circular. But, to the contrary, there is
a long-standing pretence that science gets along "well" without values, in appropriate value-free
fashion. Nowadays it is increasingly realised that such value-freedom is a myth, that much of
what passes as science is heavily value-penetrated. While those engaged purely in purer
science may have the illusion of an escape from value, there is no escape.
Though deep-green value theory is thoroughly nonreductive, it does not sacrifice
warranted claims to scientific and logical adequacy thereby. The reductionistic dichotomies are
avoided and repudiated. Value reduces neither in subjective nor objective fashion; it does not
reduce. Evaluative judgements are certainly not subjective; but nor are they objection in an
absolutist sense; they are nonjective, that is, neither. Somewhat similarly, evaluation of an act
does not reduce to assessing consequences; nor does it come down to an assessment of
motives; both may matter.
In any case, reductions do not succeed, as a copious literature, littered with failed
attempts, meanderingly establishes. Nor are they generally desirable, since mostly shallow,
aiming at a reduction to features of some privileged class presented as ideal (i.e. core value is
covertly assumed). Nor are they needed; explanation and assessment do not require reduction.
Evaluations may be arrived at, and value systems expanded, by enhancement methods, which
consists in emotional presentation (as under Meinong's phenomenological account) organised
by coherence methods. The methodology in fact resembles that sometimes proposed for
acquisition of scientific information. As with accumulated empirial information, which can be
extended through presentational input and assessment for overall coherence, so further
evaluations may be arrived at and assessed through a combination of presentational and
coherence procedures. At the (marginal) stage where the next round of evaluations is
undertaken, the following active ingredients figure, in an idealised breakdown:- Firstly, a
background stock of judgements and experience will have been accumulated or inherited; in
principle all of this is revisable, and some may be up for reassessment. Apart from the
background, which enters in assessing overall coherence of system, what is involved is,
secondly, emotional presentation, which corresponds to further perceptional and sense data
input, and, thirdly and not independent, coherence processing , which supplies the
�interpretational and rationalisational comp~nents. At bottom, parallelling perception in the case
of empirical information, is emotional presentation, gut or visceral reaction in starker forms of
acceptance or rejection, but more generally comprehending a variety of sentiments, including
overall well-being, and also relational impressions, such as empathy, identification, and so on.
As a perceiver perceives shapes and taster tastes and goodness, so a valuer feels value and
disvalue.
The basis of perceptio n is sensation , the basis of valuation is emotion.
Apprehension of value is seated in emotional, and especially visceral, presentation; but what is
apprehended is not to be confused with its apprehension any more than what is perceived. All
the warnings about sensation as an information source have to be repeated with heavy
emphasis as regards emotional presentation; for example, reliability cannot be guaranteed,
interference with presentation through drugs, alcohol, temporary excitement or other inputs
may render it dubious or unacceptable, conditioning may have occurred, including substantial
cultural conditioning (so that a person is terrified by huntsmen spiders but not sickened by
bloody massacres of dolphins or seals). As with perception, there are checks on emotional
presentation, such as constancy over time and after reflection.
Emotional presentation, supplying in particular inclusions and exclusions or prohibitions,
is but the basis of reflective evaluation and value apprehension. The further critical part,
coherence processing, builds on the basis taking account of other inputs or controls including
background (which supplies relevant components of already adopted judgements, assimilated
subculture and so forth) and constraints (such as substitutional requirements like impartiality,
e.g. whether considered judgements hold for substitute valuers, and uniformity, e.g. whether
similar acts are judged in similar ways). The coherence procedure consists, in essence, of
asking whether the next or a relevant judgemen t fits together with what has been accepted,
while meeting constraints, without leading to what has been rejected or excluded. If it does fit
it is added to the included side, otherwise it is sent to the excluded side. (The familiar ethical
practice of devising cases and comparing them with the cases in hand can be worked in under
this procedure.) Because an aim of this rationalisation procedure is achievement of some sort
of equilibrium - admitting what is included, while excluding what is unsupported, fails to gain
support, is emotionally spoken against - such coherence procedures have gained currency in
North America under the rubric "reflectiv e equilibrium". Observe, however, that any
equilibriu m gained at some stage may be quickly lost, as new types of problems arise and
further information enters. To be sure, the whole methodology (like the parallel methodology
of a coherence theory of truth) is highly idealised, and only practicably usable in rudimentary
parts. It does however surmount a major obstacle for value theory; it reveals how in principle a
nonreduc tionistic value theory can function. Whether that theory is an appropria te
environmental one or not will depend however above all on the presentational input, the extent
to which environmental sensitivity enters and is not dismissed.
�Enhancement methods reveal too tRat value systems are not uniquely determined, any
more than other comprehensive theoretical frameworks, such as those intended to reflect truth.
There can be, there evidently are, rival value systems, measuring up to rigorous rationality
requirements, much as there are rival logics, rival physical and biological theories, and rival
coherent religions. Chauvinistic systems, narrow or shallow value systems, which take no
requisite account of many environmental items, likewise cannot be excluded on rational or
straight logical grounds. Unfortunately such systems remain in ascendancy, and tend to
dominate social practices; in recent times economism, a narrow type of utilitarianism, has all
too obviously dominated much terrestial practice. While such value frameworks are open to
severe criticism, for instance as chauvinistic, as violating universality requirements of morality
in the case of economism, they do not succumb to definitive refutation (for the reason that
requirements of morality, of universalizability of principle, impartiality and so on, can be
repudiated; immoral or amoral frameworks are still value systems). Of course a range of
argumentative, educational and persuasive techniques, of varying equality, can be put to work
to move valuers who adhere to other structures, often enough successfully. Emotional
presentation of environmental items, by way of new experience and information, is important
among these. In short, much can be done to shift or alter values, though as usual effectiveness
cannot be guaranteed.
The availability of rival value systems and prospect of yet others, while it implies a
certain desirable (and also troublesome) pluralism, does not mean relativism. Neither deep
green theory nor authentic deep ecology espouse any superficially easy relativism. From their
viewpoint, rival narrower and shallower systems are definitely inferior , and marked down
accordingly, while economism is an onathema which does not even make the moral grade (e.g.
too many principles stop at state boundaries). However a critical pluralism does acknowledge,
and offer a place, in the wider scheme of things for other positions, even if as less favoured or
satisfactory. Politically then, deep positions can allow for, what makes good sense in these
times of numbers, alliances. Hence the point of a green alliance, combining green positions,
against still prevailing anti-environmentalism and economism.
The value system pluralism of deep-green theory interpenetrates not only social and
political domains above, but also metaphysics traditionally placed below. In the underlying
metaphysical pluralism of deep-green theory, value runs very deep - so deep that even truth
depends in part upon it. For not merely selection of a correct comprehensive theory or worldview, but choice of associated actual world, is a value dependent choice. That choice, insofar
as it is consciously made, of world conceptualisation and structure, is a constrained choice,
constrained by informational inputs, such as those of refined perception. But in as much as it
is rationally accomplished, that choice, like other choices of structure, proceeds according to a
standard value-information analysis (regularly oversimplified however to a preference-
�information or even desire-belief modellin1); that is, to get to the salient point, it involves value
essentially.
Truth and value are then intertwined. Their relation, not one of identity (for contrary to
idealism, there are many relations not identical with identity), can now be stated more
accurately than the poets have managed. Neither is one; both are plural, and differently so. In
certain significant respects the metaphysics resembles the value theory. For example, as the
value theory is nonreductionistic, so also is the metaphysics; in particular, there is a noreduction theme that neither parts nor wholes reduce eliminably to one another, as opposed to
atomistic and holistic views of environmental interrelations. As the value theory is pluralistic
so also is the metaphysics; what needs to be discerned, in place of absolutism, is a plurality of
worlds and of associated truth characterisations. A main aim of a thoroughgoing
environmental theory is to displace very destructive dominant ideasystems, regularly presented
as absolute, which incorporate both value and truth themes concerning the environment and its
organisation.
Much of deep-green theory devolves then from the abstract value theory, beginning (to
take a more accessible route than the metaphysical way) with a more comprehensive ethical
theory, which includes as well as a specific axiological theory, elaborating environmental
values and virtues, a deontic theory, supplying obligations, rights, taboos, and similar. For
example, given that a certain wild river is intrinsically valuable, as we can verify by on-site
experience and enhancement methods, and given that we duly respect that value, as deontic
principles will tell us we should, then we are not free to do as we like with that river, to dam it
with concrete, to channel it within concrete, stripping it of its riverine ecosystems. But that
does not preclude respectful use of the river, swimming or sailing quitely in its waters, and so
on. Value thus guides action, practice, and use; it is the ground also upon which principles are
formulated, principles that are assessed and validated by way of enhancement methods.
Important among these are non-interference principles, which exclude unwarranted interference
with other preference-havers and unwarranted damage, ill-treatment, or devaluation of items of
value. Such deontic principles circumscribe environmentally-limited freedom of action. Given
non-interference principles, a major shift in onus of proof from homocentricthics takes place.
What is required now is that reasons be givenfor interfering with the environment, rather than
reasons for not doing so.
Also direct responsibility for environmental interference or
modification falls upon those who would interfere or significantly modify, who would tread
heavily on the land. Non-interference does not preclude use, only too much use and use of too
much. What it does lead to is the theme that, where use occurs, it should be careful and
respectful use.
An important respect thesis regarding environmental items is founded on such
interference principles and the no-reduction theme: namely
�•
•
8
not to put others (other preference havers) into a dispreferred state for no good reason;
not to jeopardis e the well being of natural objects or systems without good reason;
•
not to damage or destroy items which, while they cannot literally be put into a
dispreferred state, can be damaged or destroyed or have their value eroded or impaired.
These apply to ecosystem s, their surrounds, their parts, and so on. The mere making of
further excess profits, or similar economic excuses, are not good reasons. Such a respect
thesis form part of the ecological outlook of deep-green theory.
As permissib ility, obligatio n and respect principles can be explained through the
valuations reached on the theory, so too can rights and other significant components of morality
be explained and justified through, but again not reduced to, values. For example, a creature
has a right to something if it has a valid title thereto established from correct moral principles.
Candidates for the parameter "something" provide a familiar list: freedom from unnecessary
suffering, respectful treatment, satisfaction of basic needs, and so on. Such rights accordingly
derive from and reinforce corresponding deontic principles.
Deep-gre en ethical theory is much more than just another non-redu ctionist ethical
theory, which highlights ecological values and virtues, and so forth. It changes the character
and shape of ethical enterprise. Perhaps most strikingly, it removes humans as such from the
centre of the ethical stage (or exclusive occupation of the stage). The biological concept of
being human is not, contrary to prevailing humanism, a highly significant ethical category. To
elevate it to such is to fall into human chauvinis m, a type of class chauvini sm which
unwarrantedly discriminates in favour of the human species. The prevailing chauvinis m is
avoided through a natural annular model, which connects ethical characteristics directly with the
categorie s of items that can have them. Relevant categories include those marked out by
features like: having well-being, preference-having, rights-holding, contractual-capability, and
so on, categories not necessarily connected with any particular species. Hitherto virtually all
Western ethical theories have not merely so limited ethical matters predominately to inter-human
affairs, but have been blantantly chauvinistic, exhibiting a substantial, discrimin ately and
unjustifiably bias in favour of humans (of certain privileged humans). These sorts of systems
should be superseded; it is not a matter of simple adjustments or extensions.
Deep-gre en value theory, as developed, implies the inadequacy of prevailing social,
political and economic arrangements and institutions, both those of a mixed capitalistic kind and
those of a more state socialistic cast. They are the (devious) product of inferior value
frameworks which take quite insufficient account of environmental considerations and values.
But explainin g their deficiencies, and indicating more satisfactory green alternatives and
replacements, is another chapter in the elaboration of deep-green theory.
�9
*
Richard Sylvan*
RMB 683
B ungendore NSW 2621
For more on deep-green theory and deep ecology, see for instance essays in and work referred to in the
Green Series, i.e. Discussion Papers in Environme ntal Philosophy, RSSS, Australian National
University, Canberra.
�Annex
1. Most people inherit their value framework along with their culture. Many never do any
substantial overhaul. Many indeed are not active or responsible valuers. But in these respects,
values are not so different from other things. Some people are poor judges of shape; many
never learn to distinguish plants, or to discriminate among wines.
Likewise for other choices, options, major changes, metaphysical and even political.
Mostly that a choice has been made or inherited and is incorporated in the subculture is not
noticed, along with its not been observed how arbitrary many of the choices and resulting
structures are (in Foucault has emphasized). Of course it is often not in the interests of the
power elite, who control media outlets, etc., that this sort of arbitrariness should be widely
known, and alternative structures considered and perhaps experimented with.
Choices occur where distinctive circumstance prevail. For instance, there is serious
scarcity; food supplies in particular are threatened (e.g. with being out of reach is price, with
pollution, etc.). Differently, circumstances lead to conversions, as when a new ideology
sweeps through, enthusiam generated by some charismatic figures.
�/
bits from chapter 2
There is another important elasticity. In contemporary ethical theory there is a concerted
attempt to build on universalizability requirement or the equivalent into the very motion of ethics.
The evident result is that selfish systems of induction and conduct, systematic egoisms for
instance are refused the title of ethics, and as an important corollary questions like Why be
ethical? become vexed. 1 Given, in particular, that any such "universality" requirement is
problematic in this formulation, and typically limited, chauvinistically to persons, a superior
course proceeds to distinguish: between ethics as already characterised (reportively) and its
subclass, universalizable ethics. As impartial ethical do have much to recommend them, let us
coin a convenient portmonteau term condensing the chancy "universalerable ethics", namely
euthics. (Conveniently then an euthical supports unethical, which is what from a properly
ethical stance it is!)
There is undoubtedly some pressure to have ethics and morality extend beyond a single or
isolated individual (even so, a Causal ethics is understood, as is egoisticmorality). But that
pressure does not extend very far; and such notions as those of a tribal morality and an
upperclass ethics are not defective on significance grounds, even if they are objectional on
substantive grounds.
Such restricted ethics are not however immediately ruled out by such requirements as that
like cases be assessed alike, and that differences of assessment be based on relevant
differences. 2 For a tribalist or racist can respond that a foreigner is not like a Greek, or that there
are relevant differences between whites and blacks (intelligence has been proposed as such a
difference, when skin pigmentation appeared a merely superficial difference). These sorts of
responses, which were longer accepted, are no longer acceptable, because the differences put up
are not considered ethically relevant differences (correctly enough, though ethical relevance itself
lacks an adequate explanation).
Singer's main argument for a much wider point of view, universality, commits in a
extensive appel to authority (p.11).
What is offered: an appeal to usage.
'the notion of ethics carries with it the idea of something bigger than the individual'. [It
often does, but it may not.] 'If I am to defend my conduct in ethical grounds, I cannot point
only to the benefits it brings me. I wont address myself to a larger audience' (p.10). That
On both, narrowing and vexing, see Singer lmpractual ethics (Singer aquates moral with
ethical). Singer does not really have an answer to Why be moral? though he thinks it not a bad idea; mainly he
tries to put down shuffles that have been presented or decisive.
2
These requirements are presented byu Attfield as basic formal requirements of reason (p.6). No
doubt they are, though they appear to figure in no logic of ethics yet formulated.
�depends on the conduct concerned. More important the audience does not need to be much
larger, certainly not universal: my family or law will suffice often enough.
�J.
From Chap 4
Evaluations may be arrived at, and value systems expanded, by enhancement methods,
which consists in emotional presentation (as under Meinong's phenomenological account)
organised by coherence methods. The methodology in fact resembles that sometimes proposed
for acquisition of scientific information. As with accumulated empirial information, which can
be extended through presentational input and assessment for overall coherence, so further
evaluations may be arrived at and assessed through a combination of presentational and
coherence procedures. At the (marginal) stage where the next round of evaluations is
undertaken, the following active ingredients figure, in an idealised breakdown:- Firstly, a
background stock of judgements and experience will have been accumulated or inherited; in
principle all of this is revisable, and some may be up for reassessment. Apart from the
background, which enters in assessing overall coherence of system, what is involved is,
secondly, emotional presentation, which corresponds to further perceptional and sense data
input, and, thirdly and not independent, coherence processing, which supplies the
interpretational and rationalisational components. At bottom, parallelling perception in the case
of empirical information, is emotional presentation, gut or visceral reaction in starker forms of
acceptance or rejection, but more generally comprehending a variety of sentiments, including
overall well-being, and also relational impressions, such as empathy, identification, and so on.
As a perceiver perceives shapes and taster tastes and goodness, so a valuer feels value and
disvalue. The basis of perception is sensation, the basis of valuation is emotion. Apprehension
of value is seated in emotional, and especially visceral, presentation; but what is apprehended is
not to be confused with its apprehension any more than what is perceived. All the warnings
about sensation as an information source have to be repeated with heavy emphasis as regards
emotional presentation; for example, reliability cannot be guaranteed, interference with
presentation through drugs, alcohol, temporary excitement or other inputs may render it
dubious or unacceptable, conditioning may have occurred, including substantial cultural
conditioning (so that a person is terrified by huntsmen spiders but not sickened by bloody
massacres of dolphins or seals). As with perception, there are checks on emotional
presentation, such as constancy over time and after reflection.
Emotional presentation, supplying in particular inclusions and exclusions or prohibitions,
is but the basis of reflective evaluation and value apprehension. The further critical part,
coherence processing, builds on the basis taking account of other inputs or controls including
background (which supplies relevant components of already adopted judgements, assimilated
subculture and so forth) and constraints (such as substitutional requirements like impartiality,
e.g. whether considered judgements hold for substitute valuers, and uniformity, e.g. whether
similar acts are judged in similar ways). The coherence procedure consists, in essence, of
asking whether the next or a relevant judgement fits together with what has been accepted, while
�meeting constraints, without leading to what has been rejected or excluded. If it does
fit it is
added to the included side, otherwise it is sent to the excluded side. (The familiar ethical
practice
of devising cases and compari ng them with the cases in hand can be worked in under
this
procedure.) Because an aim of this rationalisation procedure is achievement of some
sort of
equilibr ium - admitting what is included, while excluding what is unsupported, fails
to gain
support, is emotionally spoken against - such coherence procedures have gained currency
in
North Americ a under the rubric "reflect ive equilibr ium". Observe , howeve r, that
any
equilibr ium gained at some stage may be quickly lost, as new types of problem s arise
and
further information enters. To be sure, the whole methodology (like the parallel methodo
logy of
a coherence theory of truth) is highly idealised, and only practicably usable in rudimentary
parts.
It does howeve r surmou nt a major obstacle for value theory; it reveals how in principl
e a
nonredu ctionist ic value theory can function . Whethe r that theory is an appropr
iate
environmental one or not will depend however above all on the presentational input, the extent
to
which environmental sensitivity enters and is not dismissed.
end
The availability of rival value systems and prospect of yet others, while it implies a certain
desirabl e (and also troublesome) pluralism, does not mean relativism. Neither deep
green
theory nor authenti c deep ecology espouse any superficially easy relativism. From
their
viewpoint, rival narrowe r and shallow er systems are definitely inferior , and marked
down
accordingly, while econom ism is an onathema which does not even make the moral grade
(e.g.
too many principles stop at state bo':lndaries). However a critical pluralism does acknow
ledge,
and offer a place, in the wider scheme of things for other positions, even if as less favoured
or
satisfactory. Politically then, deep positions can allow for, what makes good sense in
these
times of numbers, alliances. Hence the point of a green alliance, combining green position
s,
against still prevailing anti-environmentalism and economism.
The value system pluralis m of deep-green theory interpenetrates not only social and
political domains above, but also metaphysics traditionally placed below. In the underly
ing
metaphysical pluralis m of deep-green theory, value runs very deep - so deep that even
truth
depends in part upon it. For not merely selection of a correct comprehensive theory or
worldview, but choice of associated actual world, is a value dependent choice. That choice,
insofar
as it is conscio usly made, of world conceptualisation and structure, is a constrai ned
choice,
constrained by informational inputs, such as those of refined perception. But in as much
as it is
rationally accomplished, that choice, like other choices of structure, proceeds accordin
g to a
standard value-in formati on analysis (regular ly oversim plified howeve r to a preferen
ceinformation or even desire-belief modelling); that is, to get to the salient point, it involves
value
essentially.
�Truth and value are then intertwined. Their relation, not one of identity (for contrary to
idealism, there are many relations not identical with identity), can now be stated more accurately
than the poets have managed. Neither is one; both are plural, and differently so. In certain
significant respects the metaphysics resembles the value theory. For example, as the value
theory is nonreductionistic, so also is the metaphysics; in particular, there is a no-reduction
theme that neither parts nor wholes reduce eliminably to one another, as opposed to atomistic
and holistic views of environmental interrelations. As the value theory is pluralistic so also is
the metaphysics; what needs to be discerned, in place of absolutism, is a plurality of worlds and
of associated truth characterisations. A main aim of a thoroughgoing environmental theory is to
displace very destructive dominant ideasystems, regularly presented as absolute, which
incorporate both value and truth themes concerning the environment and its organisation.
Much of deep-green theory devolves then from the abstract value theory, beginning (to
take a more accessible route than the metaphysical way) with a more comprehensive ethical
theory, which includes as well as a specific axiological theory, elaborating environmental values
and virtues, a deontic theory, supplying· obligations, rights, taboos, and similar. For example,
given that a certain wild river is intrinsically valuable, as we can verify by on-site experience and
enhancement methods, and given that we duly respect that value, as deontic principles will tell
us we should, then we are not free to do as we like with that river, to dam it with concrete, to
channel it within concrete, stripping it of its riverine ecosystems. But that does not preclude
respectful use of the river, swimming or sailing quitely in its waters, and so on. Value thus
guides action, practice, and use; it is the ground also upon which principles are formulated,
principles that are assessed and validated by way of enhancement methods. Important among
these are non-interference principles, which exclude unwarranted interference with other
preference-havers and unwarranted damage, ill-treatment, or devaluation of items of value.
Such deontic principles circumscribe environmentally-limited freedom of action. Given noninterference principles, a major shift in onus of proof from homocentricthics takes place. What
is required now is that reasons be given for interfering with the environment, rather than
reasons for not doing so. Also direct responsibility for environme ntal interferenc e or
modification falls upon those who would interfere or significantly modify, who would tread
heavily on the land. Non-interference does not preclude use, only too much use and use of too
much. What it does lead to is the theme that, where use occurs, it should be careful and
respectful use.
An important respect thesis regarding environme ntal items is founded on such
interference principles and the no-reduction theme: namely
•
not to put others (other preference havers) into a dis preferred state for no good reason;
•
not to jeopardise the well being of natural objects or systems without good reason;
�•
not to damage or destroy items which, while they cannot literally be put into a
dispreferred state, can be damaged or destroyed or have their value eroded or impaired.
These apply to ecosystems, their surrounds, their parts, and so on. The mere making of further
excess profits, or similar economic excuses, are not good reasons. Such a respect thesis form
part of the ecological outlook of deep-green theory.
As permissibility, obligation and respect principles can be explained through the
valuations reached on the theory, so too can rights and other significant components of morality
be explained and justified through, but again not reduced to, values. For example, a creature
has a right to something if it has a valid title thereto established from correct moral principles.
Candidates for the parameter "something" provide a familiar list: freedom from unnecessary
suffering, respectful treatment, satisfaction of basic needs, and so on. Such rights accordingly
derive from and reinforce corresponding deontic principles.
Deep-green ethical theory is much more than just another non-reductionist ethical theory,
which highlights ecological values and virtues, and so forth. It changes the character and shape
of ethical enterprise. Perhaps most strikingly, it removes humans as such from the centre of the
ethical stage (or exclusive occupation of the stage). The biological concept of being human is
not, contrary to prevailing humanism, a highly significant ethical category. To elevate it to such
is to fall into human chauvinism, a type of class chauvinism which unwarrantedly discriminates
in favour of the human species. The prevailing chauvinism is avoided through a natural annular
model, which connects ethical characteristics directly with the categories of items that can have
them. Relevant categories include those marked out by features like: having well-being,
preference-having, rights-holding, contractual-capability, and so on, categories not necessarily
connected with any particular species. Hitherto virtually all Wes tern ethical theories have not
merely so limited ethical matters predominately to inter-human affairs, but have been blantantly
chauvinistic, exhibiting a substantial, discriminately and unjustifiably bias in favour of humans
(of certain privileged humans). These sorts of systems should be superseded; it is not a matter
of simple adjustments or extensions.
Deep-green value theory, as developed, implies the inadequacy of prevailing social,
political and economic arrangements and institutions, both those of a mixed capitalistic kind and
those of a more state socialistic cast. They are the (devious) product of inferior value
frameworks which take quite insufficient account of environmental considerations and values.
But explaining their deficiencies, and indicating more satisfactory green alternatives and
replacements, is another chapter in the elaboration of deep-green theory.
Deep-green theory is a deep environmental theory, with much in common with deep
ecology. Like deep ecology, it stands in significant ideological opposition to the dominant
technocratic-industrial way. But, even more than deep ecology, deep-green theory aims to
supply a comprehensive alternative environmental philosophy (in the full senses of those
�atrophied terms, esp philosophy ). It seeks to accomplish this, furthermore, without
accumulating the amount of philosophical rubbish deep ecology regularly attracts. For, to insert
a key difference between these ecocentric theories in a deliberately prejudical way: deep-green
theory resembles a deep ecology with the pseudo-scientific garbage removed, reorganised into a
tight, coherent and more comprehensive theory. Deep-green theory, which has roots that stretch
back about as far as its much publicized neighbour, accordingly merits elaboration separate from
deep ecology, which in any case lacks a well-thought-through valuational and ethical basis.
This essay aims to uncover the value theory of deep-green theory, exposing thereby one central
area of deep-green theory. Though the value theory is (inevitably) abstract, it issues in what is
more concrete, such as practical ecological directives, potentially destabilizing prevailing policies
and institutions.
�ETHICS AND METAPHYSICS:
their relevance to one another
There is rich range of incompatible claims about the mutual interelations of the two
ancient subjects. Most of these claims appear mistaken. Sorting out something of what looks
right is a daunting task, a small beginning on which is attempted here.
Initial severe difficulties derive from the vagueness, in determinacy and problematicality
of the relata, both of which are ill-understood by philosophers metaphysics especially. Many
there are who think that metaphyscis coincides with ontology, the study (description,
explanation and understanding) of what exists. 1 The general study of what there is, sistology,
which includes ontology as a very proper part, is only one facet of metaphysics (unless it is
presumed that items somehow supply also all propositions concerning them). For sistology is
the totality of things side of metaphysics, there is also the totality of true propositions side
(propositionology, for a nice term). Metaphysics also comprises the study of the very general
attributes of this and other universe and of what accounts for these attributes (or propositional
functions). In technical terms, then, a metaphysics amount to a very general and
comprehensi ve constrained model; and metaphysics to the plural assembly of these
metaphysics. 2 Each metaphysics will be constrained (as will become clear through examples
given below) through modelling conditions or postulates (which delimit how "altimate reality"
is according to that system).
Metaphysics is sometimes construed more comprehencisvely to include some or all of
epistemology (knowledge of "ultimate reality" for instance), some of or all of other branches of
philosophy, perhaps all of philosophy. Plainly, if metaphysics, so expansively construed,
includes ethics, then their relation is straightforward, metaphysics includes ethics. But we shall
not adopt such construals.
Whereas metaphysics concerns features of universes, ethics is a study of moral values and
principles, and of rules and practices of conduct. A case can be made out that an ethic is
outlined through its distributions of values, in terms of which both deontic features (rights,
obligations, etc) and axiological features (goodness, etc) can be discerned. (Utilitarian can
afford a crude exemplar). So, without loss of generality, I can concentrate on the relation of
value theory to metaphysics.
Now a value theory does not derive from a purely naturalistic metaphysic, by virtue of a
rectified naturalistic fallacy. But, firstly even is a value theory may be influenced or even
construed by such a metaphysics. For example if the theory rules out all but primary qualities
2
What there is according to most Western philosophers, still labouring under the probleminducing Ontological Assumption. For such a confusion of ontology with metaphysics see
Forrest p.3.
For the bsis of this large (and estrageous) technical leap, see DP.
�2
as some sort of constructs, the value qualities will have to be explained as constructs,
projections or similar. Secondly, a metaphysics is unlikely to be purely naturalistic.
Metaphysics is not a value-free enterprise; a metaphysics typically presumes a range of
presumptions, including archivative ones (deeper examples include assumptions of primary,
e.g. of certain sorts of objects, of importance, e.g. of what exists, of implicit world selection,
e.g. the world is Newtonian, Copenhagen quantum, or obitives).
An ethics does not determine a meta-ethics or therefore a metaphysics. Nor does the
converse hold. A metaphysics does not in general determine an ethics, but is compatible with
many.
Against the stock determination and priority claims, I want to oppose interaction and no
priority themes. Determination claims are commonplace in philosophers who wish to wield the
big stock of dominant science to settle ethics (or mataethics). For instance Collicott asserts that
"intrinsic value in nature ... remains ... painfully inconsistent with the ... modern scientific
world-view' (Celbration of Robton p.14, similarly p.22, whence
CD 1. Modern scientific metaphysics entails there are no intrinsic values in nature.
This is not a lapse (though soon Collicott will weaken his determination claims) because almost
immediately Collicott goes on to assert
CD2. 'A value neutral nature is ... an immediate inference from the institutionalised
metaphysical foundations of modern science' (p.15).
Given some large assumptions, most conspiciously that the metaphysics involved is that of
British empiricism, the claim CD2 become incontestable. For under that empiricism, as
elaborated by Locke and Hurve, non primary qualities like value and colour are not part of or in
nature, but substantially subjective in character. However insitutionalized those foundations an important issue -
it has since become apparent that there are at least several parts of
operative sciences, such a classical and quantum; namely a core calculus or formalism;
operational rules for connecting the formalism with testable data and making in ..... applications;
and layers of interpretation. It is in these separable, and variable, larger of interpretation that
metaphysical and elaborative princi;es begin to enter conspicuously.
The "institutionalized" interpretation is but one among the interpretations that can be
fitted to classical formalism. It is an interpretation incorperating some major and controverisial
philosophical theories, such as the reference theory and verificationism. Rival interpretations
are feasible and were developed, for instance by the Scottish comon-sense school. Such rival
foundations do not yield a value-free value neutral nature. Collicott calls upon Rolston 'to
provide a persuasive alternative to the integral set of Carterian-Gohblein-Humean assumptions
that render the subjective provenance of value so fundamental to the modern scientific outlook'
(p.16). But Rolston hardly needs to do any such thing 3 : it has already been done, in various
3
Rolston makes giving an appropriate interpretation for more difficult than he need by conceeding
"seconddoary" qualities to the reductionistic opposition.
Thus, regressively: 'the greenness of the tree is in my hand, but it looks as though the tree is
�3
ways, and, in any case, as Collicott soon observes, 'the modern scientific worldview is
obsolete' (p.19). The property for a full value-in-nature theory are little better under postmodern quantum theory, Collicott however insinuates, then they were before. Under a
Copenhagen interpretations, which he adopts, prospects look worse.
Abruptly too Collicott switches from a determination thesis, such as CD, to a slacker and
more plausible if vaguer linkage. The linkage appears in different nonequivalent forms:
CL 1. A science, such as 'the new physics might play an architectonic role in our eventual
thinking about nature (and human society)' (p.23 itals added).
Subsequently, 'architectonic role' is replaced through the as vague 'inspired by' and more
specific 'mapped out'.
CL2. 'A value thoery [may be] inspired by, and mapped on, ... quantum physics (p.25, where
reduction and derviation are now explicitly repudiated!).
Such a value theory is, it is claimed, 'particularly congenial to an ecologically informed
environmental ethics' (p.25). Whether it is, or not, depends on other-things, such as the sort of
interpretation of quantum theory, the congeniality of that with ecology. No doubt values in
nature without values is excluded under the Copenhagen interpretation, so is much else that
makes good sense. Fortunately there are congenial alternatives.
REFERENCES
P.R.H. Forrest, Speculation and Experience the New Metaphysics, Inaugural Public Lecture,
University of New England, N.S.W., 1987.
J.B. Callicott, 'Ralston's Environmental Ethics: A critical celbration', critical response at APA,
Oakland, March 1989.
R. Sylvan, Deep Plurallism, Australian National University, Research School of Social Science,
1993.
green. OUt there are only ....... waves... . The greenness is projected, more factural in my head
and apparently hung on the tree'. What a ridiculous idea.
�'
,,.
ON THE VALUE CORE OF DEEP-GREEN THEORY
This essay aims to uncover the value theory of deep-green theory, exposing thereby a
central area of that theory. Though the value theory is (inevitably) abstract, it issues in what is
more concrete, such as an applicable system and practical ecological directives, potentially
destabilizing for prevailing policies and institutions.
Deep-green theory which stands in significant ideological opposition to dominant
industrial ways, is intended to supply a comprehensive alternative environmental philosophy.
At the core of deep-green theory lies a value theory. A fundamental theme thereof, part of what
makes the structure deep, is that a range of environmental items are valuable in themselves,
directly and irreducibly so, so that their value does not somehow reduce to or emerge from
something else, such as features of certain valuers or what matters for them. Thus value does
not answer back in some way to humans, or sentient creatures (or other value-responsive
classes), their interests, uses, preferences, or such like. Many natural items, such as forests
and rivers, mountains and seashores, are intrinsically valuable. They are valuable in their own
right - irrespective of whether they are interesting or useful (to any intentional operators,
themselves interesting or useful or not), indeed whether or not there exist any valuers. Value
spreads through and reaches across the natural domain; it is not bounded by mind, or linkages
with subjective states; nor does it stop with sentience, or associated pyschological features like
satisfaction; nor does it end at life; it observes no such compromising bounds. Although value
is distributed richly if irregularly throughout nature, it is not then encapsulated in some isolable
natural feature, such as life or sentience, or even in defeasible ecological values such as
richness, diversity and variety (and so open to a different, naturalistic, reduction). But of
course such ecologically important features afford criteria for value, and should be represented
in recipes (such as "objective functions") for assessing overall value.
From the presence of natural things of value, and accordingly of natural values, it is a
short, though controversial, step to the important conclusion that there can be values without
valuers. For valuers are sentient creatures with appropriate capacities, but things of value may
precede and succeed all such valuers; that is, these things can persist, their values intact,
without any valuers. As there can be shapes without any shape.:.perceivers, so there can be
values without valuers. (The theme, like others advanced, can be backed up by more detailed
argument and by formal proof, neither attempted here.) In valuational relations then, which
relate valuers as subjects with values as objects, both ends of relations have independent
standing; though interrelated, as the descriptions are deliberately chosen to suggest, either can
stand without the other. It is a fashionable mistake to try to collapse this relation - usually to
endeavour to soak up values into a modification of valuing subjects (e.g. as a predicate
�'relation-to-values', in which inconvenierZt values are locked away). The mistaken procedure
is in fact just one important example of an archetypal modern reduction of relations to
functions; other examples, locking undesired objects away within functions, are those
rendering wholes (such as ecosystems and organised structures) functions of their parts, and,
under functionalism, minds and types of intentionality, including value-direction, as functions
of bodies or their parts such as brains. Values are not, and do not disappear into, functions of
valuers.
A connected corollary is that values are not apart from the actual world, something
"projected" or imposed on it by a favoured class of valuers, something colouring (and even
emotionally clouding) the otherwise valueless physical world, in rather the way that
reductionistic materialism tries (erroneously) to construe colour itself as projected onto a
colourless physical world. Of course this projection effort, never adequately explicated, does
not succeed, on its own, in removing values. For they remain, left as some function of the
valuers. To try to bulldoze through this difficulty, a second reduction is invoked, of evaluative
features of valuers to "natural" features, commonly preferences, consumer desires or such like.
The second reduction runs into obstacles that halt even the naturalistic bulldozers (e.g.
naturalistic and related fallacies), but the first reduction is the critical one in removing key
environmental values, such as those of wilderness and wild things, which become valuable
only in the focus of certain sentient beholders, and not in and for themselves. This reduction
too is blocked by insuperable difficulties. On the one side, like the parallel proposed
phenomenalist reduction of material objects to sensations, the reduction never achieves
satisfactory support or even a satisfactory statement. On the other, it is counterexampled by
various modellings or thought-experiments revealing intuitively-assessed value in situations
devoid of valuers (as e.g. in the well-known Last Person argument). Values remain then part
of the still rich actual world; they are objects in the domain of actual and other worlds. But
they are not of course material objects; creatures will not fall over them any more than they will
trip over shadows or mere shapes.
Value, like shape, is an attribute, which things have or may lack, and which furthermore
creatures can recognise or may fail to discern. Thus value is, like shape and colour and their
determinate forms (round, red, etc), a universal , distributed across things, individuals and
wholes. The comparison of value with shape is decidedly more helpful than the regular, but
exhausted, comparison of value with colour, or of goodness with colour determinates such as
yellow. For example, shape is not bound by a set of determinates as colour is in the specific
colours, but comes in a spectacular variety of forms, not totally or linearly ordered (as in a
rainbow), or contracted to some primary set (as in colour triangles); shape which pertains to
wholes as well as particulars, links with gestalts better than colour; shape discrimination is
more culture dependent and sensitive; yet shape is, or was, a primary property, and thereby
�more immune to reductionist strategies thJn secondary properties such as colour. Again shapes
like values, can be vague, indeterminate; that does not prevent things, perhaps unique things,
exemplifying them. But naturally the analogy can only be extended so far. Shapes can be
approximated by polygons, values cannot; shapes are regularly perceived through sense
perception, by vision or touch especially, values are not, but are differently apprised. Value is
its own thing, not something else; it is what it is and does what is does; it is not something
else, like some quantitative mathematical or economic function. Nor does it contract into some
mark of value, or to what it comes down to in highly restricted settings; most important, it does
not disappear in the style of modern economics into (expected) utility, or into just two
economic forms, value-in-use monetarily and value-in-exchange (price), neither of which may
reflect worth. Value means what it means, and has meant: worth ; and it ties with general
assessments of merit and demerit, goodness or badness, not an economic or other truncation
thereof.
The powerful drive to reduce or deny values has several sources. Part of the motivation
for reduction of value springs from epistemological worries, concerning how values can be
ascertained and known, so far as they are (subjective translation proposals are then a direct
evaluative counterpart of phenomenalism). Part derives from supposedly problematic cultural
relativity (whence the attempt to impose values by identification of value with some favoured
assessible feature, and with it cultural or economic imperialism). Part of the motivation comes
from more sweeping ideological commitments, such as varieties of materialism or scientism,
which leave no space for immaterial values.
As already apparent, attempted reductions of value come in a dazzling variety of forms • subjective, which make use of psychological features, such as desires, interests, emotions,
and the like; or more objective aggregations of these, such as community preferences or utility;
or objectively naturalistic, which enrol single track value-making characteristics such as
richness or evolutionary development as value;
• consequential, which consider only outcomes; or purely motivational, which consider only
attitudes and ignore leads and outcomes;
• straightforward, as in translation proposals for translating value judgements into reducing
statements; or oblique, as in supervenience propositions (no variations in value without
underwriting variations in reducing features); or obscure, as in unarticulated projection claims.
Values are not well accommodated within these reductionistic schemes, or accommodated at all.
Deep-green value theory, which is thoroughly nonreductive, repudiates all these reductionistic
options. They are not so difficult to avoid, as the options are neither exhaustive nor exclusive.
In particular, value reduces neither in subjective nor objective fashion; it does not reduce.
Evaluative judgements are nonjective, that is, neither subjective nor objective (in any absolutist
�4
fashion). Obversely, evaluation of an act does not reduce to assessing consequences; nor does
it come down to an assessment of motives; both may matter.
The virulent idea is abroad however that science can offer a reduction, can sweep up
value along with all other information, where philosophy has conspicuously failed.
Unfortunately for such optimistic ideas, fortunately perhaps for deeper thought, current basic
science does not have much to say at all, or of merit, about values, and if it did reductions
through it would be circular. But, to the contrary, there is a long-standing pretence that science
gets along "well" without values, in appropriate value-free fashion. Nowadays it is
increasingly realised that the positivistic assumption of such value-freedom is a myth, that
much of what passes as science is heavily value-penetrated. While the residual ideal of pure
engagement in pure science may offer the illusion of an escape from value, there is no escape.
For, in any case, reductions do not succeed, as a copious literature, littered with failed
attempts, meanderingly establishes. Nor are they generally desirable, since mostly shallow,
aiming at a reduction to features of some privileged class presented as ideal (i.e. core value is
covertly assumed, so there is no real reduction). Nor are they needed; explanation and
assessment do not require reduction. Evaluations may be arrived at, and value frameworks
expanded, by enhancement methods, which organise and expand emotional presentation by
coherence methods.
The enhancement methodology in fact resembles that sometimes proposed for further
acquisition of scientific information. As accumulated empirical information can be further
extended through presentational input and assessment for overall coherence, so further
evaluations may be arrived at and assessed through a combination of presentational and
coherence procedures. At the (marginal) stage where the next round of evaluations is
undertaken, the following active ingredients figure, in an idealised breakdown:- Firstly, a
background stock of judgements and value experience will have been accumulated or inherited;
in principle all of this is revisable, and some may be up for reassessment. Apart from the
background, which enters in assessing overall coherence of system, what is involved is,
secondly, emotional presentation, which corresponds to further perceptional and sense data
input, and, thirdly and not independent, coherence processing, which supplies the
interpretational and rationalisational components. At bottom, parallelling perception in the case
of empirical information, is emotional presentation, gut or visceral reaction in starker forms of
acceptance or rejection, but more generally comprehending a variety of sentiments, including
overall well-being, and also relational impressions, such as empathy, identification, and so on.
As a perceiver perceives shapes, so a valuer feels raw value and disvalue. The basis of
perception is sensation, the basis of valuation is emotion. Apprehension of value is seated in
emotional, and especially visceral, presentation; but what is apprehended is not to be confused
with its apprehension any more than what is perceived. All the warnings about sensation as an
�information source have to be repeat~d, with heavy emphasis, as regards emotional
presentation; for example, reliability cannot be guaranteed, interference with presentation
through drugs, alcohol, temporary excitement or other inputs may render it dubious or
unacceptable, conditioning may have occurred, including substantial cultural conditioning (so
that a person is terrified by harmless spiders but not sickened by bloody massacres of dolphins
or seals). As with perception, there are checks on emotional presentation, such as constancy
over time and after reflection.
Emotional presentation, supplying primarily inclusions and exclusions or prohibitions, is
but the basis of reflective evaluation and value apprehension. The further critical part,
coherence processing, builds on the basis taking account of other inputs or controls including
background (which supplies relevant components of already adopted judgements, assimilated
subculture and so forth) and constraints (such as moral substitutional requirements like
impartiality, e.g. whether considered judgements hold for substitute valuers, and uniformity,
e.g. whether similar acts are judged in similar ways). Essentially, the coherence procedure
consists in asking whether the next or a relevant judgement fits together with what has been
accepted, while meeting constraints, without leading to what has been rejected or excluded. If
it does fit it is added to the included side, otherwise it is sent to the excluded side. Because an
aim of this rationalisation procedure is achievement of some sort of equilibrium such coherence
procedures have gained currency under the rubric "reflective equilibrium". Observe, however,
that equilibrium reached at some stage may be lost as new types of problems arise and further
information enters. No doubt the whole methodology (like the parallel methodology of an
empirically-based coherence theory of truth) is highly idealised, and only practicably applicable
in rudimentary parts. It does however surmount a major theoretical obstacle for environmental
value theory; it reveals how in principle a nonreductionistic value theory can function, and
deliver a tenable value system. Whether what results is however an appropriate deep
environmental system will depend above all on the presentational input, the extent to which
environmental sensitivity enters and is not suppressed.
Enhancement methods reveal too that value systems are not uniquely determined, any
more than other comprehensive theoretical frameworks. There evidently are rival value
systems measuring up to rigorous rationality requirements, much as there are rival logics and
rival physical and biological systems. In particular chauvinistic systems, narrow or shallow
value systems, which are unresponsive to and take no account of environmental items and
values, cannot be excluded on rational or straight logical grounds. Unfortunately such systems
remain in ascendancy, and tend to dominate social and political practice; in recent times
economism, a narrow type of utilitarianism, has all too obviously dominated much terrestial
practice. While such value frameworks are open to severe criticism, for instance as
chauvinistic, as violating universality requirements of morality in the case of economism, they
�do not succumb to definitive refutatiog (for the reason that requirements of morality,
universalizability of principle, impartiality and so on, can simply be repudiated; immoral or
amoral frameworks are still value systems). Even so, much can be done to shift or alter
values, though as usual effectiveness cannot be guaranteed. A range of argumentative,
educational and persuasive techniques, of varying quality, can be put to work to move valuers
indoctrinated in old damaging structures, often enough successfully. Important among these
are positive presentations of environments, their habitats and creatures, by way of new
information and experience.
The availability of rival value systems, while it implies a certain desirable (and also
troublesome) pluralism, does not mean relativism. From a deep-green viewpoint, rival
narrower and shallower systems are definitely inferior, and criticised accordingly, while
economism is an anathema which does not even make the moral grade (e.g. too many
principles stop at class or state boundaries). However a critical pluralism does acknowledge
and offer a place in the wider scheme of things for other systems, even if as less favoured or
satisfactory. One political upshot is evident; deep-green theory promotes, what matters in these
irrational times of numbers, alliances - in particular, a green alliance, organising green
positions, against prevailing forces of environmental degradation.
The systematic pluralism of deep-green value theory interpenetrates not only social and
political domains above, but also metaphysics traditionally placed below. In the underlying
metaphysical pluralism of deep-green theory, value runs very deep - so deep that even truth
depends in part upon it. For not merely selection of a correct comprehensive theory or worldview is a value dependent choice, but choice of associated actual world is also. That choice,
insofar as it is consciously made, of world structure and conceptualisation, is a constrained
choice, constrained by informational inputs, such as those of refined perception. But inasmuch
as it is rationally accomplished, that choice, like other choices of structure, proceeds according
to a standard value-information analysis (regularly oversimplified however to a preferenceinformation or even desire-belief modelling); that is, to extract the salient point, it involves
value essentially.
Truth and value are then intertwined; truth, though naturally different from value, is value
dependent. Both are plural, and differently so. So, unremarkably deep-green metaphysics
resembles the value theory in significant respects. For example, as the value theory is
nonreductionistic, so also is the metaphysics; in particular, there is a no-reduction theme that
neither parts nor wholes reduce eliminably to one another, as opposed to atomistic and holistic
views of environmental interrelations. As the value theory is pluralistic, so also is the
metaphysics; in place of established absolutism, a plurality of worlds, with associated truth
definitions is discerned. Indeed a main aim of deep-green theory is to dislodge dominant
�destructive ideologies, which (each of th]m) assume an absolute truth, from their positions thereby providing intellectual living-space for natural environments.
Much of deep-green theory devolves then from the abstract value theory. As with the
metaphysical way sketched, so it is with the fuller ethical theory, which includes as well as a
specific axiological system, elaborating deep environmental values and virtues, a deontic
framework, supplying obligations, rights, taboos, and similar. For example, given that a
certain wild river is intrinsically valuable, as we can verify by on-site experience and
enhancement methods, and given that we duly respect that value, as deontic principles will tell
us we should, then we are not free to do as we like with that river, to dam it with concrete, to
channel it within concrete, stripping it of its riverine ecosystems. But that does not preclude
respectful use of the river, swimming or sailing quietly in its waters, and the like. Value thus
guides action, practice, and use; it is the ground also upon which principles are formulated,
principles that are assessed and validated by way of enhancement methods. Important among
these are non-interference principles, which exclude unwarranted interference with other
preference-havers and unwarranted damage, ill-treatment, or devaluation of items of value.
Such deontic principles circumscribe environmentally-limited freedom of action. Given noninterference principles, a major shift in onus of proof from homocentricethics takes place.
What is required now is that reasons be givenfor interfering with the environment, rather than
reasons for not doing so. Also direct responsibility for environmental interference or
modification falls upon those who would seriously interfere or significantly modify, who
would tread heavily on the land. Non-interference does not preclude use - only too much use
and use of too much. What it does lead to is the theme that, where use occurs, it should be
careful and respectful use.
An important respect thesis regarding environmental items is founded on such non-interference
principles and the no-reduction theme: namely,
• not to put others (other preference havers) into a dispreferred state for no good reason;
• not to jeopardise the well-being of natural objects or systems without good reason;
• not to damage or destroy items which, while they cannot literally be put into a dispreferred
state, can be damaged or destroyed or have their value eroded or impaired.
These apply to ecosystems, their surrounds, their parts, and so on. The mere making of
further excess profits, or similar economic excuses, are not good reasons. Such a respect
thesis forms part of the ecological outlook of deep-green theory.
Deep-green ethical theory amounts to much more than just another non-reductionist
ethical theory, which highlights ecological values and virtues, and so forth. It changes the
character and shape of ethical enterprise. Perhaps most strikingly, it removes humans as such
�from the centre of the ethical stage (or :xclusive occupation of the stage). The biological
concept of being human ceases to be a significant ethical category. To elevate it to such is to
fall into human chauvinism, a type of class chauvinism which unwarrantedly discriminates in
favour of the human species. The prevailing chauvinism is not inevitable; it is very logically
avoided by directly connecting ethical characteristics with the categories of items that can have
them. Relevant categories include those marked out by features like: having well-being,
preference-having, rights-holding, contractual-capability, and so on, categories not necessarily
connected with any particular species. Hitherto virtually all Western ethical theories, and the
institutional arrangements they help support, have not merely limited ethical matters to interhuman affairs, but have been blatantly chauvinistic, exhibiting substantial and unjustifiable
discrimination in favour of humans (or certain privileged humans).
Deep-green theory thus implies the inadequacy of prevailing social, political and
economic arrangements and institutions. These structures are the defective products of inferior
value frameworks which take quite insufficient account of environmental desiderata and values.
Richard Sylvan*
RMB 683
Bungendore NSW 2621
*
Thanks to David Bennett for comments on an earlier draft. For more on deep-green theory, see
essays in and work referred to in the Green Series, i.e. Discussion Papers in Environmental
Philosophy, RSSS, Australian National University, Canberra.
This compressed essay was solicited by and written for Island Magazine (Tasmania). Upon receiving
it however, the editors decided that it was too dense, and insufficiently journalistic and popular (not
features they had at any time requested), for their magazine.
�
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DEEP-GREEN ETHICS
Contents
PARTS
CHAPTERS
0
I
II
III
IV
Prologue
DEEP, GREEN, ETHICS, and PHILOSOPHICAL BACKGROUND
1
Deep [and] green fundamentals
2
Ethics without humans; philosophy without humans
3
Philosophical setting: deep-green plurallisms
4
Inhibiting presumptions and myths
AXIOLOGY: value core
5
Value and its varieities: basic theory and its development
6
Alternative primitives and theoretical beginnings
DEONTOLOGY: necessary moral structure
7
Obligation and its deontic circle, and moral dilemmas
8
Rights, and justice
VIRTUE and INACTION
9
Environmental virtues: what they are and
something of their theory
10
V
Environmental ethical practice
NATURE of ETHICS
11
Ethics, its new character and revised foundations
12
Principal questions of reoriented ethics, and proposed answers
13
Epilogue
17 .5.96
DEEP-GREEN ETHICS
PROLOGUE
Philosophy and its branches, ethics especially, are among the last places where prejudice
would be found, found alive and thriving, so it might be imagined. Wrong. In the first place,
prevailing ethics all exhibit heavy prejudice in favour of humans, human chauvinism. So they
are one and all defective, wrong in a deep way. An adequate ethic will remove the prejudices
involved. That means, in turn, a radical transformation of prevailing ethics, from the bottom
up. Such a transformation constitutes a main objective of this book. Deep-green ethics aims
not simply to reform present arrangements and systematizations, but to replace them. Abolition
of prejudice has early priority.
Prejudice in philosophy, privelege in prevailing ethics.
There are only about two and half millenia of recorded philosophy on Earth. To a
disconcerting extent, those millenia represent two and half thousand years of prejudice-partial
exceptions occurring and prejudice subsiding somewhat only when ideological empires were
fractured (e.g. fruitful periods of "warring states" in ancient China and Greece). Ethics is far
from alone within philosophy in exhibiting serious deficiencies, in incorporating prejudices that
should not figure so prominently in what is ideally an impartial subject. Much the same holds
for other branches: politics obviously (partly through its interdependence with ethics),
metaphysics and logic perhaps less obviously. Yet prevailing metaphysics display a deep
prejudice in favour of the actual, against what does not exist. In logic the prejudical situation
has in fact been accentuated through the rise of modern symbolic logic. Regrettably mainstream
symbolic logic is wrong. All its forms validate incorrect principles (such as implicational
paradoxes), these results flowing primarily from an underlying prejudice in favour of the
consistent, against the impossible. 1
Several of the systematic prejudices embedded elsewhere in philosophy impact upon
ethics. The prejudice in favour of the actual has served to distort, very seriously, the issue of
obligations to future creatures for example, in this fashion:- Remoter future creatures do not
exist, and therefore, according to prevailing prejudice, cannot have any relevant features, any
preferences or desires, self-traits or satisfactions, to be taken into ethical account. Therefore
All the themes are presented and defended in detail elsewhere. As regards metaphysics, see JB; as
regards logic, see e.g. BGB and generally in philosophy , see TM. There are several coupled
prejudices and prejudical drives, as will appear; for instance the drives to power and to maximization,
strongly manifested in logic, see e.g. RLR.
Prejudice in ethics was explicitly recognised by Bentham, almost two centuries ago; unfortunately
however he imported his own very influential prejudical framework.
2
"they" can be discounted entirely. The same prejudice also enters in a very different way. All
the standard positions concerning universals, all of which reflect the metaphysical
presupposition that discourse concerns existent objects, show up in ethics. They appear in
vexing issues as to the ontological status of values, such as the good, and of deontic notions,
such as obligations and the right. These are not only difficult items to discover in the world, but
they do not seem adequately housed in conceptual or linguistic apparatus: where are they
located? Whence derives immediate pressure for many mostly bizarre reduction exercises; for
instance of values to human constructs, contructs from social preferences or from
sociobiological drives, and of obligations from veiled contracts. The initial question of location
makes, however, the defective metaphysical presupposition, and lapses therewith. Values,
though significant items, do not exist; so they are not located, anywhere.
Prejudice rooted in established logic has impacted differently, upon a variety of issues in
ethics. The absolute requirement of consistency upsets a straightforward treatment of
obligations, general sets of which are typically inconsistent, thereby leading for instance to
awkward theories of hierarchies of obligation or of merely prima facie obligations. Running
parallel with this, the requirement utterly distorted an initially straightforward theory of ethical
dilemmas, treatment of which is a significant part of any comprehensive ethical theory.
Established logic has also impacted heavily on such different issues as fact-value inferences
(e.g. the prescriptive fallacy) and regarding the extent of pluralism in ethics. The assumption
behind the rationalistic critique of relativism is that there is a single correct logic, governed by
requirements of consistency, namely standard logical theory, which (when combined with the
facts) will eliminate various ethical stances as incorrect, indeed which may, given sufficient
critical thought, lead to a single correct ethics. 2 But the assumption fails; for it too depends on
ancient prejudice.
Pluralism is one most important component in removing prejudice generally, certainly in
reducing it generally, by admitting alternatives, and allowing some to flourish. 3 Elaboration of
deep-green theory is another important direction in removing prejudice, in favour of humans,
persons, or like agents from ethics especially but not only. The main development that follows
will take both these directions, though focussed upon ethics: it will track and investigate
pluralistic deep-green ethics.
Human chauvinism is not the only major prejudice damaging ethics. An extraordinarily
privileged position given to egoistical considerations is another. Western ethics in particular has
2
3
The approach involved, that of traditional rationalistic ethics, is regularly deployed by Singer (e.g.
his Encyclopedia conclusion to Companion to Ethics); the strengthened version features in Regan.
Of course how it is supposed to proceed, the details of how reason works this miracle, is never
revealed.
See esp. TM, epilogue.
3
recently been deformed through a substantially unquestioned axiom of self concern, that agents
are interested in and motivated by their own (self) concerns and only by them. (Of course an
agent's self, or extended self, may be grander than the agent's soul or person or body or
whatever; it may include the agent's family or even the agent's tribe, or differently it may
comprehend the agent's land or environment. But under such extensions the axiom is already
beginning to disintegrate.) Such an ubiquitous, but largely unquestioned, presumption has lain
behind reductionistic exercises that have distorted much of modem ethical (and political) theory.
The leading idea is simple enough: given that action is justified through human self-interest, and
only thus, if ethical theory (and likewise political superstructure) can be justified through some
construction or modelling on that basis (bringing in only indifference and like neutral
assumptions) , then justification will be transmitted, it too will be justified. Thus those
contractual and utilitarian exercises which have loomed so large in recent theory. 4 The same
dubious presumption also features large elsewhere, for instance in the acclaimed derivation of
Deep Ecology from the ultimate norm of Self-realization!
It is not just prejudice and allied presumption that have damaged and distorted ethics.
Narrow ethics, parading as universal or absolute in defiance of pluralism, ethics often
underwritten by religious or papal presumption, have severely disadvantage d ethics.
Furthermore, connected therewith, ethics has been destabilized, and cast in an unfavourable
light, by
•
a quest for absolute foundations, and in tum connected therewith
•
an invidious comparison with science, which is supposed to have such foundations.
The quest is quixote: there are no such foundations. Nor does science have such foundations,
so the comparison is misplaced. Not only is absoluteness for science increasingly disputed, but
it is becoming apparent that science is in the same sort of pluralistic situation-pre dicament
some, still questing for the old false certainties, would say-as ethics. 5
Through the assumption, or pretence, that it can deliver (whether from religious, rational
or other resources) certainties of a type that it cannot deliver, ethics has become discredited. But
that is only part among reasons why on the contemporary scene ethics is not the force that it has
mostly been in bygone times. At least as important as such intellectual reasons are matters like
removal of social and political pressures to conform, redirection of indoctrination practices (into
consumerism, etc.), and so on, some welcome and some definitely not.
4
5
Roughly, ethics, knocked down to what's in it for everyone (some aggregated base class), is justified
through what's in it for each me. Prima facie the grand construction is based on a simpler fallacy of
aggregation: an invalid each to all inference.
The theme is argued in detail in TM chapter 10.
The quixote quest is strikingly engaged in by Williams, for a entertaining criticism of which see
'Bernard Williams and the Absolute Conception of the World' in Putnam 92.
4
Aspects of the discreditation have in turn been exaggerated. Ethics, it is said, makes no
difference, even can never make a difference; it never effects change. Such claims are seriously
astray, as examination of elementary examples like human slavery and treatment of animals
quickly reveals. Environmental ethics too can make a difference (perhaps, when coupled with
other practices, a major difference), and they are beginning to do so. But naturally they cannot
compel change; nor should they be capable of doing so, as that would exceed proper roles of
ethics (and other proper practices). 6
Rectification of ethics requires, then, not merely removal of now conspicuous prejudice
and presumptions, but deflation of pretensions. What results-hardly unique naturally, but one
selected for good reasons among many, hardly entirely exclusive but overlapping and admitting
others-is an ethics which differs from standard ethics in the following respects at least: Such
an ethics is:
• deep-green, removing prejudice in favour of humans, and in favour of certain (egoistic)
agents, in an affirmative fashion; and
• Pluralistic in a thorough-going way, accordingly not pretending to absolute or objective
status.
The run of prevailing ethics, including so-called "applied ethics" and "environmental ethics" are
chauvinistic; a satisfactory (environmental) ethic is not. The run of prevailing ethics are
absolutist, or otherwise relativist; a satisfactory ethic is neither.
However the conditions so far presented are but necessary conditions; they are not jointly
sufficient for adequacy. Even among theories that are nonchauvinistic and duly pluralistic,
reductionism may persist. Such reductionisms come in striking variety; thus, on just one
dimension, individualisms, sentientisms, vitalisms, (i.e. all that has value is alive, somehow),
and so on. To avoid such reductionisms, another blanket condition of adequacy is:
• non-reductionistic.
The main task consists in elaborating in detail an ethic, with other preferred features, that meets
these conditions of adequacy.
Regrettably, removal of prejudice cannot be accomplished in ethics alone, as a separate
pollution-free zone. Prejudice in ethics flows through from other regions, religion especially,
but also from psychology (which in the past made little gods of humans with sacred souls of
their own, justifying very differential treatment for them in the world), and from elsewhere.
Removal of these latter sorts of prejudices requires a severe erosion of belief, in regions strictly
outside ethics, but heavily exporting into it; of beliefs fostering intellectual prejudice.
Nonetheless ethics has a role in removal of prejudices elsewhere, because, very simply,
these prejudices ought to be removed. The basic principle, which can also be presented as one
6
These points are developed at some decent length in GE part IL
5
of rationality, runs as follows: belief ought not to exceed warranting evidence, but should be
appropriate to it.
None of this is as clean and clear-cut as it may initially appear, because source waters
have become very muddied. Sources for instance take a range of forms (this is part of the
ancient issue of the criterion reput in more contemporary terms). Sources include not merely
empirical evidence, perception especially, the favoured, or even exclusive, source of
empiricism. They also include such sources as: emotional presentation, or emotion; postulation
or presumption; reason; authority; a range of psychic and extra sensory perception (ESP) forms;
and, differently, a range of intuitions. Some of these sources overlap; consider for instance
divine relevation. Plainly those sources are very different kinds, quality and calibre. Some
such as reason, which includes itself a disputed variety of forms, are more processing of
information kinds than sources (thought reason becomes a source, of sorts, in pure rationalism,
and a degenerate source of necessary truths in classical logical theory where theorems are
proved, by paradoxical means, from nothing so to say).
While some of these kind of sources are not important or at issue in ethics, for instance
controversial kinds of ESP giving information on remote (spatially distant or past or future)
items, several are. It is not going too far to say that ethics is severely vexed as regards sources,
and many distortions such as naturalism can be seen as coming about as ways of trying to
secure reliable sources (if some naturalistic reduction were correct then ethics would be brought
within the orbit of science and even empirical perceptual bases could be adopted, as in science).
But ethics does not resemble science; its sources are not (except incidentally) primarily
perceptual, thus breaking any very close analogy between epistemology and ethics.
A major source in ethics is emotion, by contrast with epistemology where the major
source is perception. From there already derives a major difference between the fields, as
perception tends to be less variable, more intersubjective, less culturally dependent across the
range of subjects usually taken into account. Accordingly, in any quest for a more objective
ethics, more has to be drawn out, out of the processing substructure, whence the emphasis on
coherence, good reasons, ethical on coherence, good reasons, ethical argumentation. Ethical
inputs, sources, and processing are assessed in detail in the text.
Although this work is focussed upon ethics, it does not, and evidently cannot, merely
concern ethics. Since the ethical theory is itself approached primarily (though not exclusively)
by way of value, it bears upon other areas, such as normative-infected social sciences, where
value theory features. For another example, it also impacts upon aesthetics, heavily. For,
according to the theory advanced, there is no sharp boundary, indeed really no division at all,
between what has been dubbed "aesthetic value" and "ethical value". Value is value, without
these artificial divides. Evidently too, as will appear, the work intrudes in normative reaches
6
merging into ethics, in particular, wherever normative or deontic dilemmas are encountered,
such as reaches of social choice theory and legal theory. Differently, the work includes much,
though indirectly, upon philosophy of nature. For it is especially concerned to supersede an old
defective philosophy of nature, which included a heavy devaluation of nature, and aided and
abetted a manifestly chauvinistic ethics. The ethical theory to be elaborated fits with, and in
significant respects presupposes, a·different theory of nature. 7
Although investigations in this text are primarily theoretical, they have significant practical
implications. Putting the theory to work in various environmental fields is something that
happens elsewhere (see further in the Epilogue). Some of this has already occurred, in essays
in the Green Series, and some is reserved for other texts on field ethics. 8
Notes on terminology In this text several familiar terms, such as 'green' and 'deep', are
converted into quasi-technical terms. That is to say, special uses of the terms already in
currency, such as the use of 'green' to mean environmentally committed, are further refined.
The result could be signalled by deloyment of appropriate new terminology. Something like
that is assumed done, except that the familiar terms will be retained-onl y now they are to be
read in the quasi-technical way. To put the point differently. Let 'grene' (Olde English) or
'gre-een, (Newe English), for example, be the quasi-technical explication of 'green' in the
relevant sense. Then in the subsequent text, 'green' will normally signify gre-een, or
equivalently 'green' operates as (effectively abbreviates) 'gre-een. Why such a strategem? One
reason is that people are now rather conservative regarding terminology. Indeed they are often
turned off by new terminology (despite regular ruination of established terminology). As a
result, established terminology gets revised for all sorts of new purposes (witness the bizarre
high-school reuses in advanced physics), with a resultant overloading of senses. By contrast,
recycling of old terminology (words or spellings), that has fallen into disuse would be rather
more commendable. Here, rather than pressing our luck with explicit recyclings like diep and
chalowe, we resort to the fiction that the terms 'deep' and 'shallow' deployed throughout the
text stand in for the technical recyclings. As a result 'deep', as figuring in deep approaches,
deep green, deep theory and so on, has no connection with profundity, or 'shallow' with
superficiality.
As several have said, in several respects deep/shallow terminology is unsatisfactory,
execrable it is sometimes said. Founder N aess did a disservice introducing it, and subsequently
7
8
Such an appropriate underlying theory of nature is advanced in the companion work on metaphysics,
namely TM.
Green Series is a popular label for discussion papers in environmental philosophy, published from
Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. One of the other texts is
tentatively entitled Green Ethical Fields ..
7
in explaining it, so slackly. While it is too late to easily change the terminology, some
undesirable associations may be shaken off by resorting to older or variant spellings, and
simultaneous ly refining senses intended. That we do. But then we concede to the general
intellectual will, by the substitution or "abbreviations" strategem.
Even so, we have risked a few neologisms, and we shall chance, just here, one or two
more. One we risk, is euthics, for universalizab le ethics, that is an ethics meeting
universalizability requirements (in some appropriate fashion). This bit of terminology helps in
resolving a significant ambiguity in philosophical usage of 'ethics', and making an improved
start on the vexed issue of why an agent should adhere to an ethics, or differently to an euthics?
One we chance is viridology (from Latin virides, green, and Greek logos, study of, in modern
palance) for: theory, principles and practices of deep-green; that is, a single classical word for
diep-grene theory. A purer alternative we contemplated, from among many, was prasinology
(or should it be prasinomics) from Greek (and Latin) prasinus, dark green, leek green.
Acknowledg ements and antecendents: personal development and conceit.
The production of this work owes much to other humans, with of whom I have little or no
acquaintance. The debts are both intellectual and practical. On the heavily practical side, I am
most grateful to Frances Redrup for the processing of reems of rough scribble. On the broad
practical front I am pleased to acknowledge the continuing support of my research endeavours
by the Australian National University. That academic support, while generous by often
niggardly world standards, has recently declined, through contraction of research support and
expansion of alleged accountability practices. In this little respect, there has regettably been
interference in my research, dur the earlier stages of work on this book, by no doubt wellintentioned academics occupying supervisary roles who have deemed by performance less than
satisfactory. It is with regret too that I record that, in part owing to biassed appointment
practices within the University, there has been negligible imput to the present work from any of
my academic colleagues there.
But outside imput there has been of course, of two main sorts: from recent activity in
environmental philosophy and from past exercises in value theory. While environmental issues
have operated as a main stimulus in my recent work in ethics, my own interest in and
investigations in ethics reach back to my graduate work in Wellington, New Zealand, where I
produced a characteristic ally initative work on ethics, entitled Moral Scepticism (I do not
suggest that anyone read that work, which it is far too late to suppress).
In New Zealand, I was educated in the 20th century British type and style of ethical
theory, primarily Oxbridge material, with not antipodean influence of any significance what
cover, except in the obscure background Prior' s quocit little book Logic and the Basis of Ethics
(although my professor at Wellington, George Styles, had ethics as a manfield, I learnt only a
8
certain technigue from him; I do not recall one position, little theorem argument or there I must
attribute to him, for the very simple reason, (suspect, that he never advanced very much).
Among Oxbridge characters, Moore revoided the dominant influence though much of Hume and
his near contemporaries-N eurall-Smith Tomlesia and others-was scround up to a tiny circle
of ethical enthusiants and fellow academic travellers. Moore is still an influence in this book; in
my occasional more conceited moments, I like to envisage the book as an appropriately greenish
update of Principia Ethica. At least it may be as near as I ever come to producing such a work:
Principa Ethica Virida. What on excessively ambitious idea, sheer hubris! Yet, for all the fuss,
Principia Ethica is not really such a good book; rather it enjoys other advantageous features. A
few companions with Principa Ethica will be ventured.
But, by and large, other ethical theories will not be investigated in much detail. For one
reason, that has been done, to a sufficient extent elsewhere (in others' work more than my
own). For another, in the wake of accumulating evidence, notably from environmental
awakenings, revealing their narrowness and prejudice, they scarcely justify further post
mortems.
More than Moore and Priest, the present work is indebted to Meinong, and through him to
the tradition of Austrian value theory. The theory elaborated in fact fits, more or less, into what
has been called critical cognitivism ..
The evil of ingratitude, for example, ...
Here and there, the present text draws, heavily sometimes, on my own past work,
especially concerning environmental ethics. As much of the work, for example in the local
Green Series in Canberra, is rather inaccessible, such borrowing may not matter much. There
remains a small overlap-ideally vanishingly small as revision proceeds-betwee n this text and
better circulated complementary works, notably essays in Environmental Philosophy and parts
of The Greening of Ethics.
INTRODU CING DEEP-GR EEN THEORY
Deep-green theory aims eventually to supply a comprehensive alternative environmental
philosophy. While it stands on its own, it is alternative because it stands in radical ideological
opposition to dominant ways, nowadays predominantly industrial. It offers a philosophy both
in the contemporary narrower sense, and in the older sense of an intellectually informed and
critical way of life. That philosophy is centred on an ethical theory (upon which this issue
concentrates), which is in form centred upon a value theory. But the ethic issues, in a fashion
broadly associated since Aristotle, in a politics and political economy. But the output of the
value theory in fact reaches much further, into practical decision making in a range of
environmentally impacting areas such as fishing, forestry and agriculture. The value theory is
also intertwined with philosophical issues which are often considered more fundamental, those
of astophyism and epistemology. Indeed there is no part of philosophy that remains untouched.
Therein lies part of the claim to comprehensiveness.
The particular form of deep-green theory elaborated is by no means independent of
(acclaimed) advances recently made elsewhere in philosophy (those in object-theory, and
relevant and paraconsistent logics especially). But though the theory given is influenced and
sometimes in fact shaped through these developments, deep-green theory more generally can
avoid them (The type of theory given could easily enough be recast in a more classical
Platonistic form - undoubtedly a much less plausible form. Nor will these background advances
intrude, it is hoped, in the given elaboration of deep-green theory; the background will remain,
fairly directly in the background, and not come to dominate proceedings or know proceedings
depend upon special new controversial features of it. Where more technical agreements are
required, they will be relegated to appendices.
1. As to deep theory.
Deep-green theory is the environmental branch of a much larger affair, deep theory. There
is a point, in fact a real expository need, to place deep-green theory in the larger setting of deep
theory. For deep theory influences several of the choices made in deciding upon the way deepgreen theory goes, the shape it takes. Although the influence will become evident, particularly
with the intertwining of truth and value that .... , it is worth giving an example. Too much of the
Anglo-American discussion of intrinsic value and of obligations to future generations is taken up
with - hung up upon - ontological questions, about universal items in the first case, and as how
there can be obligations regarding future items which do not (yet) exist in "suitable" determinate
2
form in the second. Deep object-theo ry slices straight through these issues, removing the
problem generating ontological assumptions.
Deep-theor y is a grander theory lying in the background , which significantl y influences
the philosophic al approach taken in deep-green theory, as well as being influenced by it. There
is no reason why that grand backdrop should remain hidden; there is no hidden agenda. The
backgroun d theory, of which deep-green theory is a part, is called simply deep theory. For it
represents the confluence of several deep positions with deep-green theory: deep pluralism,
depth relevant theory, deep item-theory, and so on. As a theoretical endeavor, deep theory aims
to pull together, into a unified coherent theory these various deep positions. It thus draws
together and integrates as well, several other interrelated efforts (on dialethism, process theory,
anakyrie, etc. With deep theory I aim to supply eventually a fairly comprehen sive philosophical
package. I used to imagine that with moderate comprehen siveness as regards present
philosophic al problems would come a certain completene ss; but I've come to think that a total
philosophy is an illusion, like pots of gold at the ends of rainbows, and rainboweri a themselves.
Deep theory is no doubt a presumptu ous title (there are worse about, e.g. 'total
philosophy ', 'ecosophy' ), not it is altogether satisfactory given the problems and obscurities, to
be encountere d, lacking in the notion of depth. My main excuse is that I did no exactly choose
the title myself, but had it thrust upon me: problemati c, presumptuo us, it looks to good to
refuse. It emerged from a terminolog ical confluence of several areas in which I'd been
struggling to assemble ac. capirred theory - deep-green theory (itself a union of green thought,
or environmen tal philosophy with a revised deep ecology), deep relevant theory, deep pluralism
(which deepened radical pluralism), and deep item-theory (which deepens object-theory).
To give a picture of deep theory, it suffices for present purposes to indicate some main
features of deep positions, some of their integrating interrelatio ns, and some of their
revolutiona ry potential. Deep theory overturns or subverts very much of what has been
assumed or presuppos ed in Western philosophy , and particularl y in Enlightenm ented
contempora ry philosophy.
For example, it overturns the following widespread assumptions:• the Ontologica l Assumptio n, that truth, and also, meaning, are functions of reference, and
thereby presuppose existence. On the contrary according to (deep) item theory, we can perfectly
well talk and think truly about items that do not exist, and also about items that are not individual
but are complex but perhaps indetermin ate wholes, and finally what items are impossible .
Therewith repudiated also then is an occasionall y favoured full-back from onticalism, namely
possibilism , which assumes
3
• the Possibilist Reduction, of everything that counts in discourse to possible individuals; there
are no other genuine subjects, all else can be analysed (or thrown) away.
Bound up with possibilism are
• the assumptions of modalism, of the correctness of classical logic, and of the absolute
requirement of consistency. Under more throughgoing transconsistency (or paraconsistency)
these connected assumptions are one and all repudiated. The transconsistent connection
assumes an important role in the straightforward treatment of moral and other dilemmas, in
showing for example how an agent may coherently operate under inconsistent obligations or
with incompatible needs.
Important special cases of modalism are such theories as that
• entailment is strict implication (or its metalinguistic analogical) and that conditionality amounts
to a modal function of material implication 1. The rejection of such themes and their courses is
part of what motivates deep relevant logic.
While the parts of deep theory are integrated and are intended to be materially reinforcing,
nothing prevents their fairly independent elaborations. The holism conceded does not exclude
separation or analysis. In particular, deep-green theory is amenable to independent development
and analysis.
Material implication is the implication defined in terms of truth-functions thus: A materially implies
B iff not last A and not B, or equivalently, iff either not A or B. Strict implication is the
necessitation of material obligatory i.e. A strictly implies B iff necessarily A materially implies B, or
equivalently, iff it is not possible that not A and not B.
ON THE VALUE CORE OF DEEP-GR EEN THEORY
This essay aims to uncover the value theory of deep-green theory, exposing thereby a
central area of that theory. Though the value theory is (inevitably) abstract, it issues in what is
more concrete, such as an applicable system and practical ecological directives, potentially
destabilizing for prevailing policies and institutions.
Deep-green theory which stands in significant ideological opposition to dominant
industrial ways, is intended to supply a comprehensive alternative environmental philosophy.
At the core of deep-green theory lies a value theory. A fundamental theme thereof, part of what
makes the structure deep, is that a range of environmental items are valuable in themselves,
directly and irreducibly so, so that their value does not somehow reduce to or emerge from
something else, such as features of certain valuers or what matters for them. Thus value does
not answer back in some way to humans, or sentient creatures (or other value-responsive
classes), their interests, uses, preferences, or such like. Many natural items, such as forests
and rivers, mountains and seashores, are intrinsically valuable. They are valuable in their own
right - irrespective of whether they are interesting or useful (to any intentional operators,
themselves interesting or useful or not), indeed whether or not there exist any valuers. Value
spreads through and reaches across the natural domain; it is not bounded by mind, or linkages
with subjective states; nor does it stop with sentience, or associated pyschological features like
satisfaction; nor does it end at life; it observes no such compromising bounds. Although value
is distributed richly if irregularly throughout nature, it is not then encapsulated in some isolable
natural feature, such as life or sentience, or even in defeasible ecological values such as
richness, diversity and variety (and so open to a different, naturalistic, reduction). But of
course such ecologically important features afford criteria for value, and should be represented
in recipes (such as "objective functions") for assessing overall value.
From the presence of natural things of value, and accordingly of natural values, it is a
short, though controversial, step to the important conclusion that there can be values without
valuers. For valuers are sentient creatures with appropriate capacities, but things of value may
precede and succeed all such valuers; that is, these things can persist, their values intact,
without any valuers. As there can be shapes without any shape-perceivers, so there can be
values without valuers. (The theme, like others advanced, can be backed up by more detailed
argument and by formal proof, neither attempted here.) In valuational relations then, which
relate valuers as subjects with values as objects, both ends of relations have independent
standing; though interrelated, as the descriptions are deliberately chosen to suggest, either can
stand without the other. It is a fashionable mistake to try to collapse this relation - usually to
endeavour to soak up values into a modification of valuing subjects (e.g. as a predicate
'relation-to-values', in which inconvenielt values are locked away). The mistaken procedure
is in fact just one important example of an archetypal modern reduction of relations to
functions; other examples, locking undesired objects away within functions, are those
rendering wholes (such as ecosystems and organised structures) functions of their parts, and,
under functionalism, minds and types of intentionality, including value-direction, as functions
of bodies or their parts such as brains. Values are not, and do not disappear into, functions of
valuers.
A connected corollary is that values are not apart from the actual world, something
"projected" or imposed on it by a favoured class of valuers, something colouring (and even
emotionall y clouding) the otherwise valueless physical world, in rather the way that
reductionistic materialism tries (erroneously) to construe colour itself as projected onto a
colourless physical world. Of course this projection effort, never adequately explicated, does
not succeed, on its own, in removing values. For they remain, left as some function of the
valuers. To try to bulldoze through this difficulty, a second reduction is invoked, of evaluative
features of valuers to "natural" features, commonly preferences, consumer desires or such like.
The second reduction runs into obstacles that halt even the naturalistic bulldozers (e.g.
naturalistic and related fallacies), but the first reduction is the critical one in removing key
environmental values, such as those of wilderness and wild things, which become valuable
only in the focus of certain sentient beholders, and not in and for themselves. This reduction
too is blocked by insuperable difficulties. On the one side, like the parallel proposed
phenomenalist reduction of material objects to sensations, the reduction never achieves
satisfactory support or even a satisfactory statement. On the other, it is counterexampled by
various modellings or thought-experiments revealing intuitively-assessed value in situations
devoid of valuers (as e.g. in the well-known Last Person argument). Values remain then part
of the still rich actual world; they are objects in the domain of actual and other worlds. But
they are not of course material objects; creatures will not fall over them any more than they will
trip over shadows or mere shapes.
Value, like shape, is an attribute, which things have or may lack, and which furthermore
creatures can recognise or may fail to discern. Thus value is, like shape and colour and their
determinate forms (round, red, etc), a universal , distributed across things, individuals and
wholes. The comparison of value with shape is decidedly more helpful than the regular, but
exhausted, comparison of value with colour, or of goodness with colour determinates such as
yellow. For example, shape is not bound by a set of determinates as colour is in the specific
colours, but comes in a spectacular variety of forms, not totally or linearly ordered (as in a
rainbow), or contracted to some primary set (as in colour triangles); shape which pertains to
wholes as well as particulars, links with gestalts better than colour; shape discrimination is
more culture dependent and sensitive; yet shape is, or was, a primary property, and thereby
3
more immune to reductionist strategies than secondary properties such as colour. Again shapes
like values, can be vague, indeterminate; that does not prevent things, perhaps unique things,
exemplifying them. But naturally the analogy can only be extended so far. Shapes can be
approxima ted by polygons, values cannot; shapes are regularly perceived through sense
perception, by vision or touch especially, values are not, but are differently apprised. Value is
its own thing, not something else; it is what it is and does what is does; it is not something
else, like some quantitative mathematical or economic function. Nor does it contract into some
mark of value, or to what it comes down to in highly restricted settings; most important, it does
not disappear in the style of modern economics into (expected) utility, or into just two
economic forms, value-in-use monetarily and value-in-exchange (price), neither of which may
reflect worth. Value means what it means, and has meant: worth ; and it ties with general
assessments of merit and demerit, goodness or badness, not an economic or other truncation
thereof.
The powerful drive to reduce or deny values has several sources. Part of the motivation
for reduction of value springs from epistemological worries, concerning how values can be
ascertained and known, so far as they are (subjective translation proposals are then a direct
evaluative counterpart of phenomenalism). Part derives from supposedly problematic cultural
relativity (whence the attempt to impose values by identification of value with some favoured
assessible feature, and with it cultural or economic imperialism). Part of the motivation comes
from more sweeping ideological commitments, such as varieties of materialism or scientism,
which leave no space for immaterial values.
As already apparent, attempted reductions of value come in a dazzling variety of forms • subjective, which make use of psychological features, such as desires, interests, emotions,
and the like; or more objective aggregations of these, such as community preferences or utility;
or objectively naturalistic, which enrol single track value-making characteristics such as
richness or evolutionary development as value;
• consequential, which consider only outcomes; or purely motivational, which consider only
attitudes and ignore leads and outcomes;
• straightforward, as in translation proposals for translating value judgement s into reducing
statements; or oblique, as in supervenience propositions (no variations in value without
underwriting variations in reducing features); or obscure, as in unarticulated projection claims.
Values are not well accommodated within these reductionistic schemes, or accommodated at all.
Deep-green value theory, which is thoroughly nonreductive, repudiates all these reductionistic
options. They are not so difficult to avoid, as the options are neither exhaustive nor exclusive.
In particular, value reduces neither in subjective nor objective fashion; it does not reduce.
Evaluative judgements are nonjective, that is, neither subjective nor objective (in any absolutist
4
fashion). Obversely, evaluation of an act does not reduce to assessing consequences; nor does
it come down to an assessment of motives; both may matter.
The virulent idea is abroad however that science can offer a reduction, can sweep up
value along with all other information, where philosophy has conspicuou sly failed.
Unfortunately for such optimistic ideas, fortunately perhaps for deeper thought, current basic
science does not have much to say at all, or of merit, about values, and if it did reductions
through it would be circular. But, to the contrary, there is a long-standing pretence that science
gets along "well" without values, in appropriate value-free fashion. Nowadays it is
increasingly realised that the positivistic assumption of such value-freedom is a myth, that
much of what passes as science is heavily value-penetrated. While the residual ideal of pure
engagement in pure science may offer the illusion of an escape from value, there is no escape.
For, in any case, reductions do not succeed, as a copious literature, littered with failed
attempts, meanderingly establishes. Nor are they generally desirable, since mostly shallow,
aiming at a reduction to features of some privileged class presented as ideal (i.e. core value is
covertly assumed, so there is no real reduction). Nor are they needed; explanation and
assessment do not require reduction. Evaluations may be arrived at, and value frameworks
expanded, by enhancement methods, which organise and expand emotional presentation by
coherence methods.
The enhancement methodology in fact resembles that sometimes proposed for further
acquisition of scientific information. As accumulated empirical information can be further
extended through presentational input and assessment for overall coherence, so further
evaluations may be arrived at and assessed through a combination of presentational and
coherence procedures. At the (marginal) stage where the next round of evaluations is
undertaken, the following active ingredients figure, in an idealised breakdown:- Firstly, a
background stock of judgements and value experience will have been accumulated or inherited;
in principle all of this is revisable, and some may be up for reassessment. Apart from the
background, which enters in assessing overall coherence of system, what is involved is,
secondly, emotional presentation, which corresponds to further perceptional and sense data
input, and, thirdly and not independe nt, coherence processing , which supplies the
interpretational and rationalisational components. At bottom, parallelling perception in the case
of empirical information, is emotional presentation, gut or visceral reaction in starker forms of
acceptance or rejection, but more generally comprehending a variety of sentiments, including
overall well-being, and also relational impressions, such as empathy, identification, and so on.
As a perceiver perceives shapes, so a valuer feels raw value and disvalue. The basis of
perception is sensation, the basis of valuation is emotion. Apprehension of value is seated in
emotional, and especially visceral, presentation; but what is apprehended is not to be confused
with its apprehension any more than what is perceived. All the warnings about sensation as an
information source have to be repeat~d, with heavy emphasis, as regards emotional
presentation; for example, reliability cannot be guaranteed, interference with presentation
through drugs, alcohol, temporary excitement or other inputs may render it dubious or
unacceptable, conditioning may have occurred, including substantial cultural conditioning (so
that a person is terrified by harmless spiders but not sickened by bloody massacres of dolphins
or seals). As with perception, there are checks on emotional presentation, such as constancy
over time and after reflection.
Emotional presentation, supplying primarily inclusions and exclusions or prohibitions, is
but the basis of reflective evaluation and value apprehension. The further critical part,
coherence processing, builds on the basis taking account of other inputs or controls including
background (which supplies relevant components of already adopted judgements, assimilated
subculture and so forth) and constraints (such as moral substitutional requirements like
impartiality, e.g. whether considered judgements hold for substitute valuers, and uniformity,
e.g. whether similar acts are judged in similar ways). Essentially, the coherence procedure
consists in asking whether the next or a relevant judgement fits together with what has been
accepted, while meeting constraints, without leading to what has been rejected or excluded. If
it does fit it is added to the included side, otherwise it is sent to the excluded side. Because an
aim of this rationalisation procedure is achievement of some sort of equilibrium such coherence
procedures have gained currency under the rubric "reflective equilibrium". Observe, however,
that equilibrium reached at some stage may be lost as new types of problems arise and further
information enters. No doubt the whole methodology (like the parallel methodology of an
empirically-based coherence theory of truth) is highly idealised, and only practicably applicable
in rudimentary parts. It does however surmount a major theoretical obstacle for environmental
value theory; it reveals how in principle a nonreductionistic value theory can function, and
deliver a tenable value system. Whether what results is however an appropriate deep
environmental system will depend above all on the presentational input, the extent to which
environmental sensitivity enters and is not suppressed.
Enhancement methods reveal too that value systems are not uniquely determined, any
more than other comprehensive theoretical frameworks. There evidently are rival value
systems measuring up to rigorous rationality requirements, much as there are rival logics and
rival physical and biological systems. In particular chauvinistic systems, narrow or shallow
value systems, which are unresponsive to and take no account of environmental items and
values, cannot be excluded on rational or straight logical grounds. Unfortunately such systems
remain in ascendancy, and tend to dominate social and political practice; in recent times
economism, a narrow type of utilitarianism, has all too obviously dominated much terrestial
practice.
While such value frameworks are open to severe criticism, for instance as
chauvinistic, as violating universality requirements of morality in the case of economism, they
do not succumb to definitive refutatiog (for the reason that requirements of morality,
universalizability of principle, impartiality and so on, can simply be repudiated; immoral or
amoral frameworks are still value systems). Even so, much can be done to shift or alter
values, though as usual effectiveness cannot be guaranteed. A range of argumentative,
educational and persuasive techniques, of varying quality, can be put to work to move valuers
indoctrinated in old damaging structures, often enough successfully. Important among these
are positive presentations of environments, their habitats and creatures, by way of new
information and experience.
The availability of rival value systems, while it implies a certain desirable (and also
troublesome) pluralism, does not mean relativism. From a deep-green viewpoint, rival
narrower and shallower systems are definitely inferior, and criticised accordingly, while
economism is an anathema which does not even make the moral grade (e.g. too many
principles stop at class or state boundaries). However a critical pluralism does acknowledge
and offer a place in the wider scheme of things for other systems, even if as less favoured or
satisfactory. One political upshot is evident; deep-green theory promotes, what matters in these
irrational times of numbers, alliances - in particular, a green alliance, organising green
positions, against prevailing forces of environmental degradation.
The systematic pluralism of deep-green value theory interpenetrates not only social and
political domains above, but also metaphysics traditionally placed below. In the underlying
metaphysical pluralism of deep-green theory, value runs very deep - so deep that even truth
depends in part upon it. For not merely selection of a correct comprehensive theory or worldview is a value dependent choice, but choice of associated actual world is also. That choice,
insofar as it is consciously made, of world structure and conceptualisation, is a constrained
choice, constrained by informational inputs, such as those of refined perception. But inasmuch
as it is rationally accomplished, that choice, like other choices of structure, proceeds according
to a standard value-information analysis (regularly oversimplified however to a preferenceinformation or even desire-belief modelling); that is, to extract the salient point, it involves
value essentially.
Truth and value are then intertwined; truth, though naturally different from value, is value
dependent. Both are plural, and differently so. So, unremarkably deep-green metaphysics
resembles the value theory in significant respects. For example, as the value theory is
nonreductionistic, so also is the metaphysics; in particular, there is a no-reduction theme that
neither parts nor wholes reduce eliminably to one another, as opposed to atomistic and holistic
views of environmental interrelations. As the value theory is pluralistic, so also is the
metaphysics; in place of established absolutism, a plurality of worlds, with associated truth
definitions is discerned. Indeed a main aim of deep-green theory is to dislodge dominant
7
destructive ideologies, which (each of them)
assume an absolute truth, from their positions thereby providing intellectual living-space for natural environments.
Much of deep-green theory devolves then from the abstract value theory. As with the
metaphysical way sketched, so it is with the fuller ethical theory, which includes as well as a
specific axiological system, elaborating deep environmental values and virtues, a deontic
framework, supplying obligations, rights, taboos, and similar. For example, given that a
certain wild river is intrinsically valuable, as we can verify by on-site experience and
enhancement methods, and given that we duly respect that value, as deontic principles will tell
us we should, then we are not free to do as we like with that river, to dam it with concrete, to
channel it within concrete, stripping it of its riverine ecosystems. But that does not preclude
respectful use of the river, swimming or sailing quietly in its waters, and the like. Value thus
guides action, practice, and use; it is the ground also upon which principles are formulated,
principles that are assessed and validated by way of enhancement methods. Important among
these are non-interference principles, which exclude unwarranted interference with other
preference-havers and unwarranted damage, ill-treatment, or devaluation of items of value.
Such deontic principles circumscribe environmentally-limited freedom of action. Given noninterference principles, a major shift in onus of proof from homocentricethics takes place.
What is required now is that reasons be givenfor interfering with the environment, rather than
reasons for not doing so. Also direct responsibility for environmental interference or
modification falls upon those who would seriously interfere or significantly modify, who
would tread heavily on the land. Non-interference does not preclude use - only too much use
and use of too much. What it does lead to is the theme that, where use occurs, it should be
careful and respectful use.
An important respect thesis regarding environmental items is founded on such non-interference
principles and the no-reduction theme: namely,
• not to put others (other preference havers) into a dispreferred state for no good reason;
• not to jeopardise the well-being of natural objects or systems without good reason;
• not to damage or destroy items which, while they cannot literally be put into a dispreferred
state, can be damaged or destroyed or have their value eroded or impaired.
These apply to ecosystems, their surrounds, their parts, and so on. The mere making of
further excess profits, or similar economic excuses, are not good reasons. Such a respect
thesis forms part of the ecological outlook of deep-green theory.
Deep-green ethical theory amounts to much more than just another non-reductionist
ethical theory, which highlights ecological values and virtues, and so forth. It changes the
character and shape of ethical enterprise. Perhaps most strikingly, it removes humans as such
from the centre of the ethical stage (or ~xclusive occupation of the stage). The biological
concept of being human ceases to be a significant ethical category. To elevate it to such is to
fall into human chauvinism, a type of class chauvinism which unwarrantedly discriminates in
favour of the human species. The prevailing chauvinism is not inevitable; it is very logically
avoided by directly connecting ethical characteristics with the categories of items that can have
them. Relevant categories include those marked out by features like: having well-being,
preference-having, rights-holding, contractual-capability, and so on, categories not necessarily
connected with any particular species. Hitherto virtually all Wes tern ethical theories, and the
institutional arrangements they help support, have not merely limited ethical matters to interhuman affairs, but have been blatantly chauvinistic, exhibiting substantial and unjustifiable
discrimination in favour of humans (or certain privileged humans).
Deep-green theory thus implies the inadequacy of prevailing social, political and
economic arrangements and institutions. These structures are the defective products of inferior
value frameworks which take quite insufficient account of environmental desiderata and values.
Richard Sylvan*
RMB 683
Bungendore NSW 2621
*
Thanks to David Bennett for comments on an earlier draft. For more on deep-green theory, see
essays in and work referred to in the Green Series, i.e. Discussion Papers in Environmental
Philosophy, RSSS, Australian National University, Canberra.
This compressed essay was solicited by and written for Island Magazine (Tasmania). Upon receiving
it however, the editors decided that it was too dense, and insufficiently journalistic and popular (not
features they had at any time requested), for their magazine.
I
\. '1
11.10.95
CHAPTER 1
DEEP AND GREEN
AND PRESUPPOSED FUNDAMENTALS
It soon emerges from preliminary exploration that, under natural characterisations,
relevant notion of both ethics and green presuppose the notion of agency. So with something
on agency, enough to get started, we shall begin. In terms of agency and proclivities to
environments, green can be characterized, and in turn green approaches. Then, within green
approaches, three relevantly different types can be distinguished: shallow, intermediate, and
deep. It is the last, and really only the last, that matters for the ethical theory that follows.
1. Action, agency and agents: a summary . 1
Action theory is grounded in process theory. For actions are types of processes, agentascribed processes. processes are directed functions, ordinarily time-directed functions, 2 ?
framing of certain functional sorts. All the ordinary sorts of processes-ec lipses, transits,
removals, reflections, and so on and on-are processes (and ordinary processes can be
separated out logically, such as by applicability and inapplicability of certain predicates, e.g.
they take place, they are not facts, etc.)
Processes themselves in no way require agents. Actions, however, as distinguished
within goings-ons and taking-places, do require agency, and so agents. There is no reason at
all why these agents should be humans. Many agents are not humans, some humans are not
agents. But it is often quite erroneously assumed agents are humans, or persons. Excess
requirements on agency are partly to blame, the mistaken idea that agents have to be purposeful,
responsible, rational-feat ures that can be added to distinguish subtypes of agents. Rather,
actions can be roughly delineated through answers to questions like What is so and so (the
relevant agent) doing? How is so and so acting? The result reached following through this
route is this: process a is an action iff for some agent x, a is properly ascribed to x, it is x' s
doing. To break residual circularity, it remains to define agency. Agency is defined, such is the
proposal, in terms of exercising a causal role (which may be misdirected or similar), through the
following circuit. First, x is and agent as agents a iff, for some p directly partinent to a, x
causes Pbut x is not caused to cause p. In terms of agency-regarding, other notions can be
defined as follows: x is a sometime-agent, someties an agent, iff for some a, x is an agent as
2
As full an account of processes as so far worked up from notes appears in 'Process and actions',
which does provide detailed background for this section.
'2
regards a. Agency is a characterizing attribute of sometime-agents. An agent is a sometimesagent that establishes a history of agency (a small reputation therefore).
2.
Explaining Green.
In characterizing green we start with agency. Such relevant features, of greens (or
environmentalists), as being positively concerned about nature of natural things, supporting
environmental causes and similar, are closely tied to practice and action; they are features of
agents. In an original central sense of 'green' so redeployed, an agent was green if that agent
firstly believed that some parts of the natural environment should be protected, and secondly
took some relevant action. 3 In short, a belief-action analysis emerges, which can be recast as a
standard belief-desire-resultant action account. For instance, the agent believes that some
natural environment is worth protection, desires that it should be, and acts (in some way,
perhaps feebly) accordingly. All the parts of this sort of account call, however, for some
elaboration. To remove a certain circularity, resulting from characterising "green" through
terms like "environmen t", 'natural environment' can be replaced by 'parts (surface
configurations) of the Earth substantially uninterfered with by humans'. To specify protection
satisfactorily, protection/ra m what should be indicated. And so on. But there is a little point
in elaborating this already weak characterisation, which can be satisfied by an agent interested in
saving a few square metres of the Earth's surface from exploitation. For the notion has been
further weakened, almost from its inception.
To characterise this laxer, but ubiquitous notion, let us insert the intermediary notion of an
environmental cause. Such causes include not merely protecting natural environments, but
limiting impacts on environments, which may not be pristine, for instance by pouring less
sewage or detergents, CFCS or Greenhouse gases, into them, or conserving items, which could
be exploited or consumed now for future use or for future human generations (to use or
conserve, etc.). The first of these further causes beyond protection, original green, is a largely
consumerist notion of green, the second, an economistic notion (it takes in such beloved
constraints as intergerational equity). There are other related causes of importance also, such as
restoration of something that has been over-exploited or damaged, such as agricultural lands,
waterways, urban air, soils (soil conservation), or even human artefacts such as monuments or
buildings. The shallow green cause of fighting pollution, for human health reasons, can fit in
here. Needless to add the restoration may not be to pristine conditions, but to quite low
3
Although we are explicating terms that are now in widespread usage, in a way substantially
faithful to that usage (but not some of its dilute or corrupt expansions), we shall regard the terms
as quasi-technical. We see these terms, as the discerning reader also may, as spelt not with a
double 'e' but a triple 'e', as 'greeen' and 'greeening' (insert hyphens as need be for appropriate
pronunciation, e.g. 'gre-een' _. The effect is to peel off dilution and corruption of 'green' (e.g. so
to include every politician, at least when any confronts concerned constituents) and to discard all
those unwanted and often undesirable senses the colour term green has accumulated.
standards. In sum, causes include as well as protection, such matters as nondestruction,
conservation, maintenance, restoration, and so on.
Now substitute supporting an environmental cause for protecting a natural environment.
Then an agent is green in this expanded laxer sense if the agent believes in supporting an
environmental cause and takes some relevant action in that direction. Such an action component
is essential: green does imply some practical, if utterly token, involvement.
The lax account connects in the right ways with testable sociological criteria. For
instance, believing in supporting a cause can be cashed out in terms of joining an organisation
working for that cause, or even, reducing the slight action component still further, considering
joining such an organisation. 4 The appellation green applies not only to individual agents, but
also to groups, coalitions, institutions, even corporations and governments. As a green
government can, meet similar lax conditions, it is evident that there really are very few
requirements, even weak sponsorship may serve.
Many there are now trying to take advantage of green movements-adve rtisers, vendors,
politicians, professors, merchants, even generals (with "defence forces" retooling as
environmental defence forces). Cashing i in on the movement by producing a goods or services
presented as environmentally friendly does not thereby make parties doing so green, especially
if what is supplied adds to overall environmental impacts (as do "environmental markets"
delivering environmental junk, sometimes portrayed as "green goods"). The requirement of
serving environmental causes has been lost.
The excessive generosity of the account arrived at, which allows agents with only passing
or slight active beliefs in some cause to count as green, does not matter. For firstly, it
corresponds moderately well to current lax usage, which allows almost any sort of concern for
environments, coupled with an action component as slight as paying a token subscription, to
serve. Secondly, it still exercises quite enough exclusive power. Many agents are not green.
For instance all those exclusively tuned into possessive individualism, mainstream economics,
or similar creeds are not green (i.e. not even lax green). Thirdly, needed discriminations can be
made within the class of (lax) green. An important subclass of green comprises ecological
green, where the causes include maintenance and protection of natural ecosystems (including
wilderness) and these causes enjoy some primacy. "Ecological green" is by no means a
tautology.
4
In a study entitled 'GREEN PACKAGES IN AUSTRALIA', greens were picked out from the whole
sample of respondents to the Australian Election Study of 1990 in terms of answer to question:
How likely are you to join groups campaigning to protect the environment, or are you alrady a
member? Permitted answers: (1) I am a member, (2) I am not a member but I have considered
joining (3) I am not a member and I haven't considered joining, and (4) I certainly would not
consider joining. Those giving answer (2), perhaps token greens, were accounted green.
4
To be green in more than a token fashion is to have some commitment to containing or
reducing the environmental impact of humans on the Earth or regions of it. By virtue of the
environmental impact equation (for a given region) that means commitment in the immediate
future term to either
•
human population reduction, or
•
less impacting lifestyles for many humans, or
•
improvements in technology to reduce overall impact.
Most humans in a region can do little to implement the third requirement, except to hope.
Accordingly they cannot satisfactorily demonstrate their commitment in this way. A genuine
green will meet both the other conditions. But since as big coalition as feasible is sought for a
green coalition, marginal greens who meet only one of the requirements, perhaps in weak form,
will not usually be excluded (from almost any green church). Issues of population afford a
simple test (a necessary condition) for a genuine green in Australia; for that agent fails who
suppoes that while efforts (including the agent's contribution) to effect human population
reduction should be invested elsewhere, as in parts of Asia or Africa, Australia can keep on
growmg.
From filling out the conditions delimiting green commitments, a green platform can be
derived. Specifically it will include, along with the action clause, derivative directives as
regards curtailing population, refining and limiting consumption, adjusting technologies, and
consequent thereupon altering administrative, political and economic arrangements and
institutions accordingly. What so results is a proper subplatform of the Deep Ecology platform.
A fair approximation to the full Deep Ecology platform can be derived by adjoining
requirements for depth to those for genine greenness of the action platform; so result themes
concerning intrinsic value in nature, and commitments deriving therefrom. In short, the wellknown Deep Ecology platform accounts (as a fair approximation) to a deep green platformwhich can accordingly supplant it.
As genuine green and green platform can be characterized given the initial notion of green,
that is lax green, so similarly can other green compounds and modified forms be explained (in a
preliminary way). For example, a green ideosystem is an ideosystem (an ideology, in the
unbiassed sense) that coheres with green commitments, and typically organizes and guides
them. As genuinely green, it is a system that includes a green platform, and it could be defined
in that way, as an ideo-system coherently extending a green platform. Similarly for green
ethics, and for green philosophy (and also for other green notions that could be defined but are
not presently needed, e.g. green goods, green consumers, green parties, green ideas and so
forth). A green ethical system is a green ideosystem which is an ethic. Green ethics comprises
5
such green ethical systems and their theory. 5 Green ethics thus comprise a decidedly restricted
subset of environmental ethics. For an environmental ethic in the broad usage, an ethics that
addresses environmental issues, among others, may well contain themes that could not be
adopted by a green agent, that may even operate against environmental causes. In consequence,
a green ethics is an ethic that could be coherently adopted by a green agent, that does not run
counter to environmental causes.
3. Different approaches to the environment: shallower and deeper.
People can do more or less what they like with the environment, with the land and the sea,
and with what grows and lives there-such was and, in only slightly modified form, remains a
dominant theme of Wes tern cultural heritage. It was not the view of other cultures, such as
some of the American Indians or Australian Aborigines; nor was it the only view included in the
Western cultural package. But it has dominated, especially in colonial and imperial expansion.
It is only recently, for example, that some social or governmental restrictions with teeth have
been imposed upon what Australians can do with the land they occupy or claim, and these lag
far behind advanced green thinking as to what is required. For the most part there has been little
weakening in the Wes tern assumption that people own the land, that it is their possession, to
mould to their purposes and whims. 6
This unrestrained approach proved damaging enough while the land was wide and
humans comparatively few; now that human populations are expanding more rapidly, perhaps
to critical limits, now that much land is damaged and less fragile land is in increasingly short
supply, it is time to re-examine older attitudes and the accompanying practices. Any deeper
reassessment has to look at the presupposed land ethic, and more generally at the underlying
ethical and ideological assumptions.
A land ethic, according to Leopold, who introduced the term, is 'an ethic dealing with
man's relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it' .7 Thus a land ethic
amounts to a nature (or environmental) ethic, with land a symbol for the whole of nature (or the
more comprehensive environment), and man a symbol for all relevant agents. The unrestrained
position, which imposes few or no constraints upon treatment of the environment, affords a
land ethic of only a degenerate sort. The unrestrained position would, for example, have little
5
6
7
Although we are anticipating here-as ethics and ethical systems are explained essentially
reportively however, in the next chapter, there is no circularity. For ethics is separately and
independently characterised.
Indeed, with the renewed libertarian movement emanating from industrial north-eastern America,
this assumption has gained in strength. Foreign "resources" are not to be hoarded but should be
saleable to the highest bidders for "free" economic use. And sometimes it is broadly hinted: or
else!
A. Leopold, A Sand Country Almanac with other essays on Conversation, New York, 1966,
p.238.
6
compunction about using up materials, forests, pristine environments and so on, immediately or
even destroying them.
In the end the unrestrained position can be excluded from properly ethical positions. 8 For
it fails to meet the basic universality requirement on moral principles, of independence of
person, place or time, a requirement which iplies that persons of different races, colours, sexes
or ages, or at different places or times are not treated unfairly or seriously disadvantaged.
Insofar as the unrestrained position would permit the exploitation, degradation and even
destruction, of all present resources and environments, it places future humans at a very serious
disadvantage. The position is thus one of expediency, not morality, typically yielding, like
economics, evaluative assessments based on short-term narrow local interets, rather than
appropriately based on long-range values.
Opposed to the unrestrained position are various conservation ethics; what Leopold saw
as the land ethic is just one of these. Conservation ethics can be classified, conveniently for
subsequent development, into three groups: shallow, intermediate and deep. 9 Unlike the
unrestrained position, all these politions would conserve and maintain certain things-materials,
creatures, forests, etc. The shallow conservation position differs from the unrestrained position
primarily in taking a longer-term view and taking account of future humans, their welfare and so
forth. It is more enlightened than the unrestrained position in taking a longer-term perspective:
hence its alternative description as resource conservation. Though this conservation position is
only a small step away from the unrestrained position, it does pass one test for morality proper
in that future people are not treated unfairly. Most of the big rush into fashionable
environmentalism does not get beyond shallowness.
The shallow and unrestricted positions are closely related by an important feature they
share-and which justifies lumping them together as shallower positions. They are both highly
anthropocentric; they do not move outside a human-centred framework, which construes nature
and the environment instrumentally, that is, simply as a means to human ends and values. Thus
they take account ultimately only of human interests and concerns; all environmental values
reduce to these or similar human on closed notions. It is in this respect especially that these
shallower positions differ from deeper, less resource and exploitation oriented, positions.
8
9
This is a substantial, and controversial claim, especially since it accounts much economic activity
unethical, as involving practices of expediency, not morality. For the fuller case for obligations
and commitments to future humans, see e.g. R. and V. Routley, 'Nuclear energy and obligations
to the future' in Responsibilities to Future Generations: Environmental ethics, (ed. E. Partridge),
Prometheus Books, Buffalo, 1981, and other essays in this book.
This classification refines Naess's non-exhaustive distinction of shallow and deep ecology, and
extends it to render it exhaustive. For the original distinction, see A. Naess, 'The shallow and the
deep, long-range ecology movement' Inquiry 16 (1973) 95-100. An elaboration on Aess's
position, to which this discussion has some debts, may be found in his 'Philosophical aspects of
the deep ecological momvement', Environmental Ethics, to appear.
According to deeper positions humans are not the sole items of value or bestowing value
in the world, and not all things of value are valuable because they answer back in some way to
human concerns. But deeper positions differ in the weight or relative importance they assign to
human concerns. According to the intermediate position serious human concerns always come
first; and while other things, such as higher animals, have value or utility in their own right,
their value is outranked by that of humans. The deep position rejects this assumption, and
maintains that even serious human concerns should sometimes lose out to environmental values.
FIGURE 1. THE POSITIONS SEPARATED, AND SEPARATING PRINCIPLES
SHALLOWER
UNRESTRAINED
DEEPER
SHALLOW
INTERMEDIATE
I
I
I
I
J,
J,
J,
DEEP
MORALITY
SOLE VALUE
GREATER VALUE
REQUIREMENT
ASSUMPTION
ASSUMPTION
(of human apartheid)
(of human supremacy)
The watershed principle which divides the shallower from deeper positions is the sole
value assumption. According to this major assumption, which underlies prevailing Western
social theory, humans are the only things of irreducible (or intrinsic) value in the universe, the
value of all other things reducing to or answering back to that of humans in one way or another.
This assumption is built into most present political and economic arrangements; for example,
only aggregated preferences or interests of certain (present) humans are considered in
democratic political choice, and likewise in economic decision making; other creatures and
natural items are represented at best through the preferences or votes of interested humans.
Similar assumptions are made in mainstream ethical theories. Typical are reductive
theories which endeavour to derive ethical judgements from features of closed systems of
humans.
Examples are provided by presently fashionable ethical theories, such as
utilitarianism. 10 According to utilitarianism what ought to be done, as well as what is best, is
determined through what affords maximum satisfaction to the greatest number of individual
humans. In theories like utilitarianism, the outside world of nature does not enter through direct
inputs or outputs, but only insofar as it is reflected in the psychological states of individuals.
Such ethical theories are appropriately described as those of apartness or human apartheid. Man
10
But the same holds for other fashionable theories on the American-dominated ethical scene, namely
contractualism and libertarianism. These theories, along with utilitarianism, are explained in most
modern American introductions to ethical theories or moral problems.
is, or is treated as, apart from Nature; there is virtually total segregation. Nature or the land
enters only as a remote experiential backdrop, and onstage is the drama of human affairs and
interests.
However, humans cannot be entirely insulated from their environment; for example,
volcanoes affect temperatures thus affecting climate thus affecting crop yield and food supplies.
At least limited intercourse with the environment has to be admitted as a result. So, in
economics, ethics, and political theory, secondary theories, dealing with linkages to the
environment, have been appended (thus, for example, extemality theory in economics, some
allowance for "side" constraints in more sophisticated utilitarianism, and so on). But the land
remains treated as an awkward or tiresome afterthought, when it is considered at all.
There is, however, another approach, also with historical standing, vying with (and
indeed often confused with) human apartheid which can accommodate secondary theories a little
more satisfactorily. That is the position of superiority or human supremacy, according to which
Man, though included in Nature, is above the rest of Nature, meaning ethically superior to it.
While human supremacist positions can incorporate the sole value assumption and thus remain
in the shallow ethical area, they have the option of rejecting it in favour of the less objectionable
greater value assumption:: other things being equal, the value of humans is greater than that of
other things; the value of humans surpasses that of all other things in the universe. This
assumption allows that other objects, such as some higher animals, may have irreducible value;
what it insists upon is that, at least for "normal" members of respective species, this value never
exceeds that of humans. What is generally presupposed is that other objects-animals, plants
and their communities-are never of much importance compared with humans. Though human
supremacy has appeared in versions of utilitarianism where animal pain is taken into
consideration along with human, Western ethics and associated social sciences such as
demography, economics and political theory, remain predominantly apartheid in form.
It is the repudiation of the greater value assumption that separates deep from intermediate
positions. Perhaps the most familiar example of an intermediate position is that of Animal
Liberation, in the form in which animals are taken to have value in their own right, though in
any playoff with humans, humans win. Under the deep position such an outcome is by no
means inevitable; in cases of conflict of animal or natural systems with humans, humans
sometimes lose. I I
There are various arguments designed to show that the deep assessment is right, that
humans should sometimes lose out. A typical one takes the following form:- Some humans
lead worthless or negative lives, lives without net value. The point, though not uncontroversial,
11
So too for some men and some sparrow. So we should reject the intermediate ...... : A man is
worth more than a sparrow! (Drungson/ Ralston etc.)
9
can be argued even from a shallow utilitarianism.1 2 Take for instance a life of pain and
suffering and little or no happiness: it has a substantial net negative utility. But some small
natural systems do have net value; one example would be an uninhabited undisturbed island (a
live example might be a tropical island before Club Mediterranee depredation). Now consider
the situation where the considerable value of a small natural system is to be sacrificed (in a way
that shallowly affords no ethical impropriety) on behalf of a set of humans whose lives each
have no positive net value. For instance, the system is to be exploited, just for the continued
maintena nce of these humans, or for their addition (as new settlers) to an establish ed
population. Then in such circumstances, these humans lose out; the natural system takes
precedence. Similarly, trivial satisfactions of humans do not dominate over the integrity of rich
natural environments.13
Let us look ahead to glimpse paradimatic expansions of the positions indicated (in figure
1). For the positions soon expand, when applied to real life issues, to more comprehensive
positions; indeed they have expanded all the way to what are now called social paradigms, that
is to full social perspectives. For example, the deep position has expanded from the two core
theses-a s initially reformulated, values in nature, which is a positive counterpart of the sole
value assumption, and biospecies impartiality, which is a positive elaboration of greater value
assumption 14-to fuller deep ecological positions which involve as well many other themes.
12
13
The point is argued in detail in R. Routley and N. Griffin, 'Unravelling the meanings of life?'
Discussion Papers in Environme ntal Philosophy #3, Research School of social Sciences,
Australian National University, 1982.
There are significant cross-classifications of environmental positions. Some further dimensions
are included in the following diagram.
Environment not taken
I
Environments is taken
into account
I
into account
p
14
--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---
shallow
intermediate
I dogs
I //////
I
I
E
I
individual
I
I
H
I
holistic
I
I
Another dimension is the static/dynamic. But no one want to be just stauc, really.
According to the values in nature theme natural items other than humans and human artefacts have
intrinsic value; while according to biospecies impartiality members of one species, humans in
particular, are not favoured or valued over members of another simply on the basis of species. The
danger of favouring one species is encouraged by the species fallacy, commonly invoked in
favouring humans. This is the mistake of concluding that because a few members of the species
have accomplish ed something of (immense) value, all members of the species therefore are
(highly) valuable; all members of the species manage to free-load for the ride, obtained by a few
members, so to say. The assumption, once challenged, usually falls back on an argument that
goes by way of capacities: the remaining members of the species have the capacity to achieve these
sorts of things also. But, firstly, that isn't true: intelligence, skills, and the like, vary somewhat
within species, and from our narrow perspective, very considerably among humans, some of whom
have no capacity for advanced mathematics or music. Secondly, it requires more than capacity: it
requires circumstances, a favourable environment to exercise them, (hence, in part, the folly of
lU
The expansion is not uniquely determined; there can be various different deeper paradigms.
However it characteristically includes a fuller statement of themes recognised as in the spirit of
"deep ecology", in particular ecological themes, but also interconnected economic and political
themes. In a similar way shallower positions are subsumed in shallower perspectives, and
principally in what is called the dominant social paradigm, some relevant themes of which are
indicated in figure 2.1s
FIGURE 2. RELEVANT COMPONENTS OF THE ENCOMPASSING PARADIGMS.
DOMINANT SOCIAL
PARADIGM
DEEP ECOLOGICAL
ALTERNATIVE
Dominance over nature
Natural environment a resource
Harmony with nature
Values in nature/biospecies
impartiality
Less material goals/less growth
orientation
Earth supplies limited
AJ?propriate technology/limits to
science
Doing with enough/recycling
Regional/decentralised/small-scale
Material/economic growth
Ample reserves/perfect substitutes
High technological progress/
scientific solutions
Consumerism
National/centralised/large-scale
SHALLOW
f----------------------------- ➔
DEEP
4.
Criticisms of these beginnings and other beginnings
A main challenge we shall have to meet is that there can be no deep ethics, ethics and
axiology are inevitably shallow, because they must answer back to human valuers. This
challenge we presently set aside (until the next chapter). But it should already be apparent how
we can start to upset the challenge (already taken up by deeper utilitarianism), namely by
displacing humans by relevant agents.
Other challenges grant that something might answer to deeper ethics, but contend that
nothing should-objectio ns of substance-or that making anything much out of it is
unwarranted, for example because preliminaries in making out the distinctions have not been
15
more humans in decidedly suboptimal cities), together with a will and drive actually to follow
through appropriately on capacities.
Much fuller accounts of the dominant social paradigm and environmental alternatives are given in
S. Cotgrove, Catastrophe or Cornucopia, Wiley, New York, 1982, and in R. Routley 'Roles and
limits of paradigms in environmental thought and action' in Environmental Philosophy (ed. R.
Elliot and A. Gare), University of Queensland Press, 1983. The linkage of the dominant paradigm
with maximizing, and the deep alternative with sufficing, is elaborated in R. Routley,
'Maximizing, satisficing, satisizing: the difference in real and rational behaviour under rival
paradigms', Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #10, Research School of Social
Sciences, Australian National University, 1984.
11
properly accomplished-objections of form and from technicalities (cf. challenges to the
analytic/synthetic distinction). We consider examples of both sorts of challenge.
The misanthropy charge. Deep environmentalism has been criticised for what it does, so it is
alleged, to ethical treatment of other humans; it leads, it has been alleged, to neglectful,
negligent, or downright callous treatment of other humans, to inhumanity. The actual impact of
deep environmentalism affords but little ground for such allegations. Nor does the theory.
Deep environmentalism could leave intrahuman ethics, standard morality virtually entirely intact.
If it did so, deep environmental ethics would provide a conservative extension (in the familiar
technical sense) of standard intrahuman ethics. In this event the allegations would fall; for the
ethical treatment of humans would be in principle just the same as before.
But it is unlikely that any deeper environmentalism will leave standard morality entirely
intact in its own prime sphere of operations, that restricted to humans. For instance the
evolution of humans, and attributions of virtues or vices to them, is bound to be influenced by
how they act or respond towards nonhumans and the environment. A virtuous puritanical oldstyle industrialist who makes his affluent living through environmentally damaging practices
will no longer obtain the virtuous ranking that would have been accorded to him on the older
prevailing morality. (Of course that morality too is changing, but it hardly changes rapidly
enough to keep pace with a deeper ethic). The change in the evaluation of and moral standing
accorded to hard-working but environmentally exploitative business people, technologists and
engineers reflects a more far-reaching adjustment; that of removal of special privilege for
humans (or persons). Even in the more austere of standard ethical positions, such as duty
ethics in the Kantian mould, it is very easy to gain the impression of persons (usually males on
traditional ethics) as kings. There will be a club of kings, that was where more egalitarian
industrialism was proceeding also, to make us all kings - with the rest of nature as subjects.
While the unwarranted privilege accorded to humans under conventional ethical wisdom
will topple then, the treatment of humans by humans need not. To the contrary, if people
develop a more respectful and careful attitude to the environment, then they may well develop a
better, different and more careful, approach to other people as well. Here the awful Kantianstyle theme that decent treatment of animals will trickle down from a decent treatment of other
humans is partially reversed; a better treatment of other humans (a decent treatment is already
ethically required) will percolate up from a more gently and respectful treatment of natural
environments.
Nor finally then need a deeper environmentalism abandon the quest for social justice. 16
Deep-green theory certainly does not; the ethical-change agenda is much wider than social
16
There are two American groups where the quest for terrestial social justice appears to have been
abandoned or comprised: eco-fascists and nature greens, as they are sometimes called from outside.
12
change alone, but social and human concerns do not thereby fall off the agenda. They remain,
but no longer in such isolations. What they do lose their unchallenged preeminence, and they
may also lose priority.
Problems with the Greater Value assumption (after Attfield).
A prime alternative to a shallow/deep distinction is (what is sometimes considered no
alternative, but a variant on it) the anthropocentric/ecologic distinction.
Notes: 1. Not the same distinction. While shallow positions are normally anthropocentr ic,
converse does not obtain.
2. Distinction never made out properly (really degree issues), and leads to typical 4-fold
outcome.
5.
Domination and chauvininism.
The greater or sole value accorded to humans, as compared with (other) valuations,
justify the domination of nature by humans. The main argument is simply that what has lesser
or no value should give away to what has greater value, the conventional assumption being that
what has greater value is better (analytic) than what has less, and should prevail over it
(substantive assumptions of conventional ethical themes such as utilitarianism).
Domination and associated class chauvinism are justified not only directly through
consideration s of greater or supreme value, but also less directly by pointing to highly valued
features possessed by the favoured class. Similar appeals to prized features are of course
likewise used to justify class chauvinism.
Appendices :
1.
Deep ethics are not automatically acceptable as satisfactory.
Consider e.g.whole chauvinism, where Wholes are intrinsically valuable, each and every
one, and their value much exceeds that of everything else, humans included. So wholes come
first. (This is a doctrical some superwholes may hold).
Two rough comparisions: cows in India, humans on earth.
Other unsatisfactory deep ethics, apart from those that aberate one species, are those that
focus exclusively on certain elements. Those e.g. individualisms, strong holisms, etc.
2.
Arguments to shallowness.
1. Simplistic (from one James O'Connor of Canada).
' ... the word "value" is a human word, with human meanings, in this case transposed to
non-human nature. Hence to say that nature is inherently valuable means that it is inherently
valuable to humans'.
Ecofascists, who follow a route pioneered by Hardin, call for a triage of nations on lifeboat earth
and abandonment of those nations, such as Bangladesh, seen without prospect of recovery. But the
position is not deep, it is certainly not a properly moral position; for due criticism see Griffin and
Bennett.
u
2. Problem with shallow/deep terminology, e.g. acquired too many associations for comfort.
Intellectual offensiveness shallow, etc.
3. Shallowness involves a reductionist exercise. Making (trying to make) environmental issues
in all that matter environmentally-answer back to shallow concerns.
Series of arguments advanced to try to establish ..... .
Counter argument. These do not succeed and can be counter-evolelled.
3. Cross-classifications reformism/revolation is, like anthropocentrism, a poor
classification. It can be shallow without reformism and unethical economism with reformism.
DE itself is largely reformist in character (and excessively personal).: Anthropo-/ecocentric.
No doubt 'anthropocentricsm' meaning what its etymology implies 'centring in man'
(OED), is a useful term. Theories such as Coperican and Copenhagen quantum theory can be
criticised (or praised) as anthropocentric. What is in doubt is the new contrast of antropocentric
with ecocentric.
While the vague anthropocentric-ecocentric distinction is alright, so far as it goes, as a
starting stage, it is no place to stop. For there is a need for a value specific distinction,
antrhopocentr can be any sort of human centredness.
'Anthropocentric' is a poor choice of contrasting terminology, for several reasons. One,
which may be convenient to some, lies in its vagueness. There is no sharp cut-off in what is
human centred. Similarly for its supposed contrast term 'ecocentric', which presumably
expandents to 'ecologically centred'. Second, it becomes apparent that no proper contrast is
made in many cases. University textbooks on natural ecology, for instance are both ecocentric
because about ecology and anthropocentric because set and supplied for humans. Human
ecology, a subject increasingly encountered in universities, is directly both (not both under
different aspects). Were the classification satisfactory, it would provide a nice contradiction.
But the classification is far from satisfactory. It is not exclusive: nor is it exhaustive, but the
remainder obscure. But worse, any practical ethics, no matter how deep, is bound to be
anthropocentric, not ecocentric, even though duly concerned with ecology. The reason comes
to this: any adequate ethics is bound to be heavily concerned with agents, their obligations and
responsibilities, and for all practical purposes (on earth) these agents are generally certain
humans. This is, an adequate practical ethics is, as a contingent matter, anthropocentric. Of
course such an ethic, by contrast with main traditional ethics, may also be presented as an
ecocentric ethic, inasmuch as it may be focussed upon ethical agents' relations to ecological
items, human treatment of nature.
14
Problems with the anthropocentric/ecocentric contrast do not mean that something like the
contrast cannot be made good. But it would involve redefinition of the critical terms, and could
accordingly be better accomplished with adjusted terminology.
Anthropocentrism is implausible, once a modern pict "of universe" becomes available.
(Scuh a sufficiently modern picture was already available to Descartes.)
The sun is a medium sized star of very common sort even within its galaxy. The
probability of planets like the Earth within this university is extraordinarly high. The probability
of other agents is also very high. Even the probability of other ..... ./competent agents is high.
But even if it were not, or even if there were other agents, the discourse to be embarked
upon would be significant. It is also pointful, for instance in disposeing of much philosophy.
If anthropocentrism is so implausible as regards "main place in nature", why is it not
implausible as regards intuitionality, value, etc.
Ironically, the swing away from anthropocentrism in the sciences in modern times (with
the advert of Copenhagen quantum theory and anthropic principles) was overpinged by
increasing anthropocentrism in what are misleadingly distinguished as the humanities. Above
all intentionality and value were emptied out of the wider universe and concentrated in the
exclusive focus of humanities, humans.
To adopt Freud:
Humanity has in the course of time had to endure from the hands of science two great
humiliations to its chauvinism .17 The first was when it was realised that our earth was not the
centre of the universe, but only a speck in the world system of a magnitude hardly
conceivible ... . The second was when his logical science robbed man of his particular privilege
of having been specially created and relegated him to a descent from the animal world' (puoted
in Unozco Ev ..... May 1982 p.3)
There are further shocks in store for humans-poor old humans!
3. Explaining depth [contrasts pale/pallid].
For a good sort of depth, what is needed a deep structure, extraction or format that lies
(partially) hidden from the surface. E.G. plate ponites in geology, strata in archasology, logical
form in grammar. Deep = penetrating to fundamentals in several ways and nonchauvinistic, not
shallow. [Mention also pluralism-so only a framework aimed for, on which grew various
detailled positions.]
Part of depth of Deep Green theory lies in its penetration below the surface of classrestricted or interested humanism to a genuine nonchauvinistic ethical structure: the (ill-named)
annular structure, which ties moral principles to nonhumanistic categorestion. Annular structure
17
Freud says: to great outrages upon it naive serif love.
15
is a deep structure. A deep structure. Maybe can produce one for deep green theory (see Critiq
p.93, bottom halt) Start as above other measures of depth (pp.44-5) misconceived.
1'. Extent of searching of perception of value; depth of (value) perception.
1. Extent to which humanism (h.ch) abandoned for econvisonmental perspective.
2. Extent to which conventional moral and value judgements put op for reassessment.
(Naess's depth of questioning conventional wisdom) 2 is tied to 1; for abandoning heh
involves much reassessment.
Note differs from usual reflective equilibrium, which takes many generally accepted
judgements for granted.
More on what depth means (pragmetinally): Many environmental outcomes sought in deep
grounds can be supported in shallow ways (of course). But there are differences, as examples
show:
• pesticides (in forestry) should not be used, despite insect damage. For pesticides violate
natural succession and healing processes. Toxicity questions, though important, are secondary.
On shallow view: the main problem becomes not the use of pesticides, but whether they are
safe.
• natural world appears as a resource. Life forms which interfere with uses are pests.
2. Reformist/Transformist Variations upon Shallow/Deep Ecology
Unhappy with the derogatory implications of "shallow", Devall and Sessions tried to
convert shallow ecology in ecological reformism. While there was certainly a basis for this
conversion in Naess's original brief account of shallow ecology (which almost invited such
reconstrual), the result has been that something different has emerged, notably in green politics.
For what such conversions, along with associated imagery accompanying reformism,
achieve is not elucidation, but introduction of new contrasts, and therewith political crossclassification of the shallow-deep ecology contrasts. There are various contrasts with (mere)
reformist adjustment on political theory, for instance revolutionary change and radical change.
A revolutionary direction appears inappropriate as regards deep ecology (as revealed both by the
literature and political stances of leading members of the movement), but a politically radical
direction on environmental issues does emerge from later developments in N aess' s work.
Accordingly a rough contrast, which admits sharpening, can be made out between green
reformism and green radicalism. A machine image, which often operates not far from view in
such contrasts, is initially helpful in indicating the differences. Reformism does not interfere
with the main operation of the machine, its motor, though it may alter the adjustments, retune or
fine tune it, add filters or mufflers or converters, alter its appearance cosmetically, and so on.
By contrast radicalism would alter the machine, would interfere with its motor to some extent,
depending on the level of radicalism.
16
In political terms reformism is exemplified in such measures as limiting pollution by
emission devices, further treatment of sewerage, small reserves and roadside veneers of trees
amid clear-cutting operations, tidying up of litter, and so on. The main motor of liberal
democratic market capitalism, the economic engine designed to deliver maximum economic
growth, and its main institutions, remain untouched and uncriticised; no change is proposed for
them. For radicals such measures and like reforms do not proceed far enough, towards the
sources of the problems. To tackle the range of environmental problems more radical change in
economic, social and perhaps political machinery is required. But evidently the extent of change
envisaged can vary, very considerably. For example, a frugal conservation program, directed at
limiting economic growth through removing conspicuous and excessive consumption, need
carry no accompanying program for radical social and political change. Again, deep ecology,
which offers no well worked out, or even well signposted, radical program or radical
restructuring, does not appear to be politically radical. Alternatives to liberal democratic
arrangements are not really advanced or investigated. By contrast some anarchist and marxist
influenced ecological positions are politically radical, for instance, social ecology. In short,
there is room for a classification of green radicalism, as shown by a preliminary grouping
according to whether the radicalism affects which of separate (though overlapping) economic,
social, or political matters.
The reformist-radical distinction is a vague one, without a sharp boundary. Reforms can
so accumulate that what was a difference in degree becomes a difference in kind, what was
extensive reformism turns out to be radicalism. In such an incremental fashion, positions which
were reformist can find themselves radical, without having undergone any conspicuus
radicalisation.
The contrast between reformism and radicalism can be sharpened somewhat within a (an
improved) theory of social paradigms. Then reformism is intra-paradigmatic, whereas
radicalism is not (but is extra-paradigmatic). That is a reformist works, like a normal scientist,
within the operational paradigm (the given political motor) and does not seek to change it,
whereas the radical does; success of radicalism resembles abnormal (even revolutionary)
periods in science. As there are many ways of deviating from a paradigm, which typically
involves a complex set of presumptions, so there are many sorts of radicalism.
The extent to which the political conversion of the shallow-deep contrast into green
reformism-radical contrast affords not a restatement, but a different classification, may now be
evident though perhaps not to its full extent. The most notable further feature is that green
radicalism may be utterly shallow, entirely anthropocentric. 18 Green Marxism affords a useful
18
In these terms Naess conflated two contrasts in his original 1973 article; shallow-deep and
reformist-radical. Different followers have latched onto different contrasts.
l'/
example; it is socially and politically radical while shallow (of course it can be argued that it is
environmentally incoherent, though not in the mentioned features, but in its plan to supercharge
the economic motor and make it run even faster, with evident environmental fall-out). Social
ecology offers another example; for while more radical than deep ecology, it is certainy not
deep. Something of the rich variety we have come upon can be glimpsed from the following
table.
All the positions enumerated, except 9, are occupied, we suspect (though positions are often so
poorly or incompletely presented that is difficult to be sure ). 19 Positions 9 is practically
excluded for committed deep parties who duly care about the demise of what is of intrinsic value
under mere reformism. Position 5 is however occupied, by those who want (or believe they
have achieved) improved arrangements for and treatment of animals (e.g., no circuses, no
ordinary zoos, no cruel contests, etc.) but are not committed to a radical animal liberation
agenda. Green party territory is usually shallow, but some of the proposals presented may
extend to position 4, for instance in demands for participatory democratic restructuring. Of
course, many supporters of green parties may adhere to deeper positions.
19
It is worth noting that such positions will in principle supply their own forms of sustainability,
sustainable societies, and so on.
24.10.95
Chapter 2
ETHICS WITHOUT HUMANS,
PHILOSOPHY WITHOUT HUMANS,
and COROLLARIES
It is a commonplace that ethics has proceeded not merely as if humans were on centre
stage, but as if humans really were all there is, all that mattered in ethics, as if nothing else
enters into morals and ethics, or does through only through them. That commonplace is
moreover commonly strengthened to a claim of necessity, that this must be so, that nothing
else can enter, except indirectly by way of humans. Ethics has to be thus anthropocentric.
Since environmental ethics began to shift humans, if ever so little, off centre stage, there has
been a heavy philosophical reaction, a sometimes bitter blacklash against greener ethics that
would background humans, or dare sometimes to remove humans, from the scene altogether.
Among many other things, it has been contended that by the very meaning of ethics and
morals, these subjects must be human-centred.
A crucial argument for necessary anthropocentricism of ethics makes human centrality
a matter of definition. This crucial argument will be broken, in the first of several stages,
through a detailed characterisation of morals and ethics in a way that is independent of
humans. The characterizations adopted depart in only minor and justified (though highly
consequential) ways from received dictionary definitions; that is the characterisations are
substantially reportive, as they have to be if they are to serve their iconoclastic purposes. The
matter of characterising ethics is in any case part of our business. Where would deep-green
ethics be left, as a subject of investigation, without an appropriate account of ethics?
1. On inadeqacies of what prevails: a sheaf of defective accounts.
It takes but little effort to discover severe shortcomings in most preceding investigations, and
that most accounts, many of them far too casual, are inappropriate for what they are intended
to cover, still less for environmental ends. There is no end to bad and defective definitions to
dissect and discard.
Even textbooks and guidebooks on ethics often make no attempt at a definition, and
often have little or nothing of due generality to offer on what ethics is about. 1 Unremarkably
then, many of those presenting or teaching ethics, perhaps well enough, have no adequate idea
of what ethics is about. This is revealed by the sorts of definitions they slop down and by
what they say ethics is about. The slop presented indicates they did not even bother to consult
their dictionaries with any care. It is an elementary exercise to show deficiencies in most
proposals.
A striking recent example is Singer (ed.) Companion to Ethics, supposedly an encyclopaedic work
on ethics.
2
A few sample definitions recently encountered will help confirm our claims. Utterly
defective is the account of ethics as 'the relation between you and other people' .2 Such
connections as the spatial relations between people, for instance where they sit at a seminar,
do not belong to ethics. Narrowing relations to those of treatment, as in 'how you treat other
people' improves the account a bit, but not enough. Decent treatment of relevant kinds no
doubt comprises part of ethics, but a small part. Nor is such treatment confined, especially as
regards receivers, to people; animals, nature and more, all matter.
A more interesting account, presumably designed to encompass applied ethics, takes this
remarkable form: "'ethics" [is] defined as disciplined reflection by persons in all walks of life
on moral ideas and ideals'. 3 As a definition, this too fails entirely, appearing circular, and
converting ethics away from, what is essential, practice into head stuff, into something like
meditation, a kind of widely practiced theorizing, though practised on certain parts of ethics!
There are too some unfortunate side-effects of the insertion, aimed at making ethics applicable
to all walks of (human) life: namely, as there are walks of life which have no room for
disciplined reflection, so there is in fact no ethics. Back again to the drawing board.
Similarly for Russell's fuller attempt:
The study of Ethics is perhaps most commonly conceived as being
concerned with the questions "What sort of actions ought men to perform?"
and "What sort of actions ought men to avoid?" It is conceived, that is to
say[!], as dealing with human conduct, and as dividing what is virtuous and
what is vicious among the kinds of conduct between which, in practice,
people are called upon to choose. 4
Owing to feminist criticism of male chauvinism, many now wince at Russell's; piquant use of
term like 'men' (in fact throughout his numerous works). Environmental criticism of human
chauvinism has not been so (terminologically) successful, sad to report.
Back to the board.
It takes little effort to assemble a sheaf of inadequate definitions and accounts of ethics. Many
include too little, for example the popular account of ethics as "how we should live", which as
well as being too narrow is parochial. 5 Similarly, though fractionally better; a coherent set of
values to live by is enough for an ethic. For that appears to omit a deontic component,
obligations and permissions, and certainly leaves out ethical virtues. A major shortcoming,
even in fuller characterisations, concerns the concentration on humans and their parochial
affairs. For, as will soon appear, ethics does not essentially concern humans. An adequate
ethics says nothing about humans, members of species Homo sapiens, their obligations and
rights, values or virtues. It applies but contingently to humans; it applies similarly to
hominids, humanoids, and to persons generally, and functions in the absence of persons
altogether. As a result, the following familiar sorts of pronouncements on what ethics amount
2
3
4
5
John Langford, on ABC radio, 22 February 1993.
Engels, 6.
Russell p.1, F & S, from Elements of Ethics 1910.
For such an account see e.g. Single [Encyl. Brit.]
3
to are seriously defective: 'An ethic may be thought of as an ideal of human behaviour, an
environmental ethics as ideal human behaviour with respect to the environment, natural and
built" _6 Not everyone got it quite so wrong. For instance, Brandt gets away to a nice neutral
start, even if he does not cover the spread of ethics. Consider his opening:
Moral philosophy has traditionally been a systematic attempt to answer
some questions of apparently universal interest [!] about: what is worth
wanting or working for (what is worthwhile, of worth); what is the best
thing for an agent to do from his own point of view; what is morally right,
and what is morally just). [Also what is rational in these regards.]7
The nice start does not last. Agents turn out to be humans; utilitarianism soon begins to effect
an ugly intrusion, and so on.
2. On how to define ethics and morals more satisfactorily.
It is not difficult to do noticeably better than ethics teachers and writers have managed,
simply by consulting better dictionaries. But it is also not so difficult to re-organize and
improve upon what dictionaries offer. It is significant that dictionary definitions of moral and
ethic contain no essential allusion to humans, nothing essential concerning humans, man, or
we, us and co. (andwhere 'human' does enter, as in 'principles of human duty', it can simply
be elided, it is inessential). But the dictionary accounts do harbour some problems.
For one thing, like some of the preceding definitions, the dictionaries seem mired in a
common and damaging circularity: ethics is defined in terms of morality (and its adjuncts,
decent treatment, and similar); but then morality is itself defined through ethics. Fortunately
the loop back to ethics can be broken.
A particularly satisfactory way to workable definitions of notions in the ethics orbitethic, ethical, ethics, to take direct cases-is through those in the presupposed moral orbitdirectly, moral, morality, morals. For all these ethical notions are regularly defined, in better
dictionaries, through moral notions. This approach reverses the difficult and so far
unsuccessful strategy, sometimes tried in ethical theory, of attempting to define morality (e.g.
through universalizability conditions) inside a somehow independently characterized ethics. 8
The bases, upon which moral notions are carried, lie in turn in the action orbit, in
features of actions and their agents. 9 As agents are entailed by actions-beca use actions just
6
7
8
9
See 'A universal environmental ethics' Connect, UNESCO-UNE P Environmental Education
Newsletter XVI(2)(June 1991). pl.
Brandt p.l.
Long ago I used to think this was now it had to be done, through some singling out of morals
within ethics by way of a combination features of humans and requirements of morality (such as,
variously, consideration of others, universalizability). Not recognising the virtues of agency, I too
erroneously supposed that morality had to pertain to humanity.
No doubt the main definitional enterprise can be carried out, more or less, the other way around,
beginning with ethics, then cutting down to morals within, through agency. Moreover, such an
alternative route (starting out easily enough from the notion of ethics as the theory and
systematization of the good and the right, valuable and permissible, the virtuous and responsible,
and so on) should arrive at the same place, at a similar end result.
These action basics can in turn be explained, as before, within process theory, see Sylvan 1993. A
classification of agents can be drawn from there. It is not claimed that this is how we have to start
or that action nexus affords unique starting point. But its features have to be included sooner or
4
are agent-ascribed processe s-actions , more generally processes, form bedrock here. Neither
processes nor actions have any essential connection with humans. Relevant elements of
action nexus, upon which moral actions are carried, are now indicated: Single action
snapshot, capturing agent-acts -in-environment nexus:
AGENT
has
motives
emotions
volitions
objectives and goals
of
prior causes
ACTION
has
subsequent consequences
impacts upon (relevant items within) environment
The breakdown of actions, into types, will straightaway yield much that has long been taken
as central in moral theory, such as agonising (as Socrates did) over choices. Choice-making is
a morally critical type of action. Plural actions expose further relevant features, including
conduct, dispositions and character of agents, and suggest typologies (or moral relevance) of
actions and of impacts. Virtue ethics, but part of moral theory, fit here.
Whereas morality -the new ecologically sensitive morality that is-begin s from certain
features of an agent in its environment, ecology begins from investigation of an organism in
its environment. 'From the outset ecology was clearly understood to be the appreciation of
the organism (any organism, note) in and as part of its environment' . 10 'Something along the
lines of "the study of organisms in relation to their environment" is the basis of most ...
attempts ... [at] working definition of ecology ... over [which] there has been little dispute' . 11
Despite initial appearances, the upshot is not (the perhaps appealing one) that morality is a
branch of ecology. For the features investigated are very different (and a satisfactory
definition of 'ecology ' has to be sharpened to indicate what features of organism-inenvironments are studied). Whereas in morality there is much interest in the virtues and vices
of agents for instance, a parallel interest is outside the scope of ecology (and indeed not a
significant question for most organism or for many agents).
Interestingly, the ethical theory being advanced begins in precisely the way Deep
Ecology, in its pristine formulation, implies that no theory should operate, with an agent-inenvironment image. Under the total-field approach of Deep Ecology all such images dividing
up fields should be rejected, in particula r any man-in-e nvironme nt image, a special
chauvinistic case of what our theory operates with. Similarly no doubt for organism-inenvironment images of ecology. Unremarkably no arguments are offered for these rejections;
10
11
later, and it has virtues as a start, including familarity and naturalness.
R. Kitching [New Education], p.39
Ibid p.40 rearranged.
5
cogent arguments would be hard to find, or articulate. In any case, Deep Ecology strictures do
not prevent preliminary or limited uses of field analysis. As it will soon turn out, for more
general purposes, what is needed is removal of agents, not dissolving the image.
These action-theoretic preliminaries admit of much elaboration and variation, both
expansion and contraction most of which however we can pick up as we proceed. For
example, an illuminating expansion would expose the setting, of constraints and incentives,
within which an agents acts; no doubt some of these features, incentives for instance, can be
absorbed into what is already depicted, such as motives, and the remainder could be included
in under a prior-influences category. Striking contractions are those afforded by prevailing
ethical theories, consequentialism and Kantianism, which would erase, respectively, all but
consequences or all but motives. The parable of the Blindman and the Elephant is not only a
clever analogy for a implausible perspectivism; it can serve as a telling indictment of much
analytic philosophical practice. Moral philosophical practice, especially that of analytic
philosophy, consists in only sensing part of a whole (constellation) and failing to see the
rest. 12 Moral and action theory afford good examples of such skimping; for instance,
consequentialism fails to see anything but consequences.
The term moral, generously construed, covers the assessment of agent-intricated
elements of the action nexus depicted, in all the following sorts of respects (as applicable):
excellent, good, indifferent, bad, evil; approved, disapproved;
valuable, of value, or not
axiological
right or wrong (or alright), fair or unfair, proper or improper
obligatory, forbidden, permissible
deontic
responsible, irresponsible;
it also covers principles concerning such assessments. Morality concerns both appreciation
and assessment of agents-acting-in-environments as regards those sorts of features and
resulting systematization. Parallels with ecology should be evident. X's conduct or the like is
moral, broadly so, iff it is a matter for moral appraisal. In short, what is moral is marked out
by classes of functors in an action nexus.
Plainly some of the features, which perform the distinguishin g work, are not
significantly applicable to all elements in the nexus; for instance, impacts of frogs are not
significantly responsible. Responsibility applies primarily to certain agents, their conduct and
character. The sorts of respects cited are, furthermore, more general forms. But many more
specific evaluations are thereby encompassed; for instance, honourable, dishonourable;
decent, indecent, again as applicable.
In terms of the sorts of respects, certain important subtypes can be distinguished. The
first group (given by the first two lines) covers axiological. The second group (given by the
next two lines) covers deontic. The third group (not usually distinguished in "the logic of
12
For a detailed treatment of skimping in philosophy, see DP, chapter 11.
6
ethics") comprises accountability notions.
Such, formerly important, terms as virtuous and vicious-regu larly, but wrongly
included in dictionary listings of respects defining moral (e.g., "of or pertaining to character
or disposition considered as ... virtuous or vicious")-ar e axiological. They can be
characterized in terms of what is already available, thereby avoiding further circularity vexing
dictionary definitions (which define 'moral' using 'virtuous', and 'virtuous' deploying
'moral'). 13 For example, to adjust the dictionaries, virtuous [action] is [that] exhibiting moral
excellence or quality, vicious that distinguished as morally evil. Much the same supervenient
story gets told for duty in the deontic class. For while a duty just amounts to a certain sort, a
rigorous sort, of moral obligation, duty is not among the respects listed in defining the term
moral.
There are several, loosely consequential , attachments often made to what counts as
moral(s), notably: issues of punishments and rewards, with a view to altering proper conduct;
of freedom and determinism, as the latter may appear to place moral enterprise in jeopardy; of
justification of moral principles, which do not stand on its own without moral justification;
and so on, for other theoretical topics that consequently arise. While these further issues do
not form part of dictionary definitions of moral, they are stock textbook fare in moral
philosophy. But that, moral philosophy and moral theory, is where they can comfortably stay.
While the issues that result could be called moral, or distinguished as textbook moral, they
might as well simply be accommodate d more accurately, within philosophy of morality (metamorals).
Morality is, at base, the attribute of being moral. 14 Thus, basically, an item exhibits
morality if and only if that item is moral. In wider compass, morality comprehends a larger
package concerning what is moral; it consists in the theory and appreciation, practice and
principles of what is moral. It follows, from the account of moral given, that morality is all
about certain features of agency, features of theory and practice of agency, namely evaluative
and assessment features and principles concerning these, such as conduct and choice.
Several other significant corollaries also emerge. Firstly morality has nothing
essentially to do with humans. A similar but still more striking result will follow for ethics,
which is characterised, also in a human independent way, by way of morality. Ethics too has
nothing essentially to do with humans (or even with humanoids). Morality turns on features
of agency. Humans, some of them, simply happen to supply, presently, prime terrestrial
examples of full moral agents, those actors who do not merely conduct themselves well or
badly (a kangaroo can be a good or poor mother, a dog can behave badly and know it) but
who make promises, recognise obligations, accept responsibilities, and so forth.
Humans were almost certainly not the only full terrestrial agents; other humanoid
13
14
Thus too much of "virtue ethics" can be absorbed, see further, later chapters.
In logical terms it is defined through attribute abstraction.
7
species that have become extinct (perhaps with human assistance) very likely were also.
Certain humans are probably not the only full moral agents even now in this universe. It is
unlikely that humans will exemplify the only moral agents, perhaps even terrestrially. 15 The
prominen t role of competen t humans in morality, and so as regards ethics, is utterly
contingent. It follows, now quite generally, that those familiar definitions of morality and
ethics in terms of humans and their features are one and all defective. For all the (green)
ethical theory to be developed, humans can drop out altogether. But competent humans are
useful for illustrative purposes; it helps to have some demonstrably actual examples.
Moreove r, in such practical terms as terrestrial ethical impact, they are now almost
unavoidable.
Before explaining how to escape damaging agent centredness, or actocentricity, in ethics
that would result from equating ethics with morals (i.e. morality in this sense), there are loose
ends to be tied up and certain advantages, worth recording, accruing from having actocentrism
as a staging post. One advantage is that unwanted senses of evaluative notions are peeled off
automatically, because they do not apply regards agency. For example, so removed are not
only merely "aesthetic" uses but all those quasi-descriptive uses of commendatory terms such
as good (e.g. 'good car' 'good sort', 'good sox', 'good ox'). Aesthetic uses of evaluative
terms, as in 'fine painting' or 'good book', do not concern, except in oblique ways, action or
conduct of agents. It may well be objected that even so not enough non-moral uses are peeled
off, as various uses like those of mere expediency or practicality are left standing. A countercase will be developed that these should be left standing. For a smarter strategy than
attempting exclusion, includes moralities of expedience, of practicality, egoism and the like
within the moral orbit-so enabling a straightforward answer to such otherwise vexing
questions as Why be moral?- whilst subsequently differentiating within morals a distinuished
subclass (to be called meurals) which does function exclusively through meeting more
exacting requirements of morality.
There is a subsense that should be picked up immediately. Though a vicious or evil
agent is certainly a matter for morality, and within its compass, such an agent would not
normally be accounted moral (as a naive reading of the dictionaries would suggest), but
immoral. What is moral, morality, concerns the span of moral, immoral and indifferent
procedures. Plainly moral in the narrower sense comprehends the definitely positive part of
the span, as good does of the wide value span. Generally, an item (such as an agent, practice,
conduct, or whatever) is strictly moral, moral in this stricter sense, if it is moral, a matter of
15
There are arguments to other moral agents, other full agents even, from evolusionary theory.
According to an expanded theory, every niche is eventually occupied. (In a way, this interesting
theme carries over from the earlier doctrine of a great chain of being, which similarly onto every
position in the chain as potentially occupied.) By a statistical argument (copying those for
intelligent life elswhere in this vast universe), there are, or will be, niches for agents, with requisite
capabilities, wlsewhere in the universe. Therefore, by the theory, these niches will eventually be
occupied.
8
moral concern, and its appraisal is decidedly positive. Naturally for a full account, positive
within the moral span, has also to be defined. However here the strict sense is picked up only
to be set aside.
Focussing upon morality would be unduly limiting from the perspective of
environment al ethics. For although anthropocent ricism has been avoided, easily
circumvented through agency, though humans play no essential role, still morality is
undoubtedly agent-centred. Morality foregrounds agents and assessments of them and their
actions, and backgrounds environments of agents, and environments more generally (those
without agents in them do not even enter into consideration). The environment remains, so to
say, mere backdrop to actions of agents.
Escape is through an intermediary, which is substituted in place of morality in the
account proposed of ethics. That intermediary is an expanded morality, in convenient
shorthand ectomorality. 16 ('Ectomoralit y' is close enough for the present to 'ecomorality' ,
which is of course part of the main focus.) Expanded morality takes into account also
evaluative settings, perhaps devoid of agents; whatever of value that agents, or agent-like
subjects, agentoids, might in principle impact upon, interfere with, disturb, effect, change,
dislodge, or similar. That is, to say, it encompasses all items of relevant value, of worth,
significant items, including many wholes, such as habitats, ecosystems, the Earth itself; and so
also whatever applies morally with respect to these, for instance permission to disturb or to
improve, principles of letting be, and so on. Such ecosignificant items are also called, in the
literature, morally considerable items (a nicely ambiguous term, both sides of which have
unfortunate features, one because a considerable item may not have large significance, the
other because what it is supposed to respond to is some restricting class of considerers). In yet
other and more satisfactory terms, they have ethical standing. Naturally items of significance
other than agentoids may have other ethically relevant features (which they perhaps accrue
through their significance). For instance they may hold entitlements of various sorts, such as
to be left alone, to be represented, and so on.
In order to characterize core notions in the ethics orbit, the basic strategy consists in
plugging in "expanded morality" where the dictionaries give "morality"; similarly substitute
"ectomoral" for "moral". For the adjectival forms 'ethical' , and (equivalently) 'ethic', that is
all that is required. For the form concerned means: pertaining to ectomorality, or
(equivalently) treating of or relating to ectomorals. For the noun forms it is not so simple,
because there are problems with the dictionary accounts (for instance in 'the science of
morality' owing to misplaced definiteness, and dated uses of the term 'science'). Always
ethics(s) is an abstract, signifying features of being ethical; more exactly, always concerning
ectomoral theories or systems. More specifically, ethic( s) signifies
firstly, in both singular or plural though usually plural, the whole field of ectomoral theory
16
Greek ektos, outside. We include the inside with the expansion which incorporates the outside.
9
(the "science" of ectomorals), or derivatively, the department of (philosophical) study
concerned therewith;
secondly, in the singular but pluralising, a system or schematization of ectomorality, that is, at
least rudiments of a system, or of a theory, comprising values, ectomoral principles, and rules
of proper conduct.17
Like stock textbook ethics, most environmental ethics so far are in fact truncated; they
are very rudimentar y schemes, leaving out much that would be expected in a fatter
systematization. Hence in part the vagueness of characterization. So far the vagueness
(which does not exceed that of dictionaries or of ordinary usage), is immaterial, as the
characterisation is workable. But further exactness could be obtained through a technical
upgrade of system and a more detailed specification of what such a proposition system
contains. 18
What are sometimes cited as further restricted senses of 'ethic' are not further senses.
Rather they are restrictions, or designations, of what is already presented. Thus for instance,
the 'moral principles of a particular leader or school of thought' as in Buddhist ethics or
Kantian ethics. Similarly for field indications or application restrictions, as in medical ethics
or bioethics. So much for "senses" of 'ethics'.
In order to reach an adequate definition of ethics, not merely for intended environmental
purposes, but for historical purposes as well (so as to include Stoic ethics, Taoist ethics,
romantic nature ethics and the like as ethics) we have been obliged to adjust (if in an
inconspicuous way) dictionary definitions of ethics. That adjustment was made through
"expanded morality", but could have been accomplished in other equivalent ways (Leopold's
expansion of 'community' is another, though less satisfactory, way of achieving the same sort
of thing). Granted that we have adjusted dictionary definitions, have we changed the very
notion of ethics, or did the dictionaries, not for the first item, get it wrong, getting caught with
chauvinistic definitions? We claim that we have not changed the notion. Rather we captured
what some meant, more or less, by ethics all along-fro m Stoics, Epicureans and others on. It
has never been a very precise notion. In this case (by contrast with terms like right) not too
much hangs on the term, and we could simply divide ethics up, for instance, into wide and
narrow. However, we intend to keep the nice term ethics but to give the dictionaries and
modem opposition the expressions, standard ethics, or conventional ethics.
Our inconspicuous but all important adjustment is both good and bad news. It is bad
news, insofar as it appears to assist the charge that [deeper] environmental philosophy is doing
something different from ethics, that it is guilty of changing the subject (i.e., effectively
committing ignoratio elenchi). However we can freely grant, without incurring damage, that
17
18
Thus ethics include what it has to include, as expanded environment ally: philosophy of
ecomorality, and therewith of morality.
A system is a relational structure of a certain sort. An ethic is a propositional system, since it has
to include principles and the like; thus it involves a theory of strict logical sort. For an illustration
of the use of systems formulations in ethics, see e.g. Routley 1973.
10
standard ethics was, as a matter of definition, at least actocentric, and that, insofar as agents
were identified with humans, it was, therefore, anthropocentric. Even so ethics, as redefined,
includes standard ethics, so it is more satisfactorily seen not a different but a larger subject,
expanded through an expanded morality. It is good news, not merely because it facilitates
environmental ethics and accords with more satisfactory (greener) accounts of the subject, but
because it helps in getting around a snarl of objections to the effect that ethics has to be
homocentric, or at least actocentric. Removing these objections will recur throughout what
follows.
Among corollaries of note, a first one is that plurality of ethics falls out of the
characterisation. An ethic is not unique. Nor (through such a result does not follow as
environmental ethics form a subclass of ethics) are environmental ethics. Nor are military or
professional ethics. Failure of uniqueness is not a deficiency, but a virtue. For, one thing, it
gives places to go in cases of breakdown of an ethic, namely to other nearby ethics. Plurality
is tied up with nonuniqueness and other features of merit: noncomprehensiveness, openness,
flexibility, and so on.19
Secondly, there is more news on what an ethics is; and what an environmental one is. It
is widely claimed that an ethics requires a communit y, in an environme ntal ethic the
community (of concern etc.) is a wide environmental one. Ethics enlarges the community, a
scope of values. Ethics (partaking of ethos ~ the evaluative frame(or spirit) of a community.
While these ideas are popular they are astray.
Environmental ethics shifts the frame of reference for ethical consideration from purely
human concerns to ecological communities. 1-B Human beings as moral agents are not
ethically privileged.
An environmental ethic must be compatible with ecological principles and with life, i.e.
be livable.
3. Within ethics and morals, as so far generously constured: decent and dud distinctions.
Something like the division between the first and second specifics above has been
quasi-technicalized within ethics, and distorted through merger with a theory-metatheory
distinction borrowed from outside ethics. Engagement with the second (as in systematisation,
constructing and working within systems, etc.) has been dubbed normative ethics, or
sometimes to increase the confusion just ethics, or condescendingly, casuistry. Metaethics has
been taken however to be not what the logical analogy, and borrowing, would suggest metanormative ethics, the (positivistically correct) study of such systems, but instead a brand of
analytic philosophy, analysing the meanings and uses of key ethical terms. Taken as
exhaustive, there is much of importance, that the normative-metaethical distinction leaves out.
Nor is the distinction exhaustive. As well, the labels are misleading. In short, the distinction
is ill-made out and rather unsatisfactory, a handicap, not an asset; it can be abandoned without
19
See EEHC p.57.
11
loss and to advantage. Let us do so (so forget this paragraph, if you prefer). Many other
distinctions from standard ethics are also defective, in one way or another. It will be advisable
to resurvey and rechart ethical terrain.
Among other standard, but often dud, distinctions from ethical theory that have to
reexamined after environmental impact, to be duly salvaged or scrapped, are all the following:
• objective/subjective. That the objective/subjective distinction provides a false dichotomy is
easily seen from usual explanations of the terms: 'either objective, standing for a real factor in
things, or subjective, simply standing for a human proposal' 20
• Cognitive/non-cognitive. 2 1
To be retained are some distinctions which certain forces have worked hard to eliminate, such
as that of
• Fact/value (and earlier demise).
• Expedient/moral.
There is an elasticity in the notion of ethics, and a neglected distinction, that it is
important to take into account.. In contemporary ethical theory there is a concerted attempt to
build a universalizability requirement or some sort of equivalent into the very notion of ethics.
The evident result is that selfish systems of evaluation and conduct, systematic egoisms for
instance, are refused the title of ethics, and as an important corollary questions like Why be
ethical? become vexed. 22 Given, in particular, that any such "universality" requirement is
problematic in its formulation, and typically limited, chauvinistically to persons, a superior
course proceeds to distinguish: between ethics as already characterised (reportively) and its
subclass, universalizable ethics. As impartial ethics do have much to recommend them, let us
coin a convenient portmanteau term condensing the clumsy "universalizable ethics", namely
euthics. (Conveniently then un-euthical suggests unethical, which is what from a properly
ethical stance it is!)
There is undoubtedly some pressure to have ethics and morality extend beyond a single
or isolated individual 23 ( even so, a Crusoe ethics is intelligible and feasible, as regrettably is
egoistic morality). But that pressure does not extend very far; and such notions as those of a
tribal morality and an upper-class ethics are not defective on significance or semantic grounds,
even if they are wide open to objections on substantive grounds.
Such restricted ethics are not however immediately ruled out, as ethics, by such
requirements as that like cases be assessed alike, and that differences of assessment be based
on relevant differences. 24 For a tribalist or racist can respond that a foreigner is not like a
20
21
22
23
24
Reese p.157.
See also Reese.
On both, narrowing and vexing, see Singer Impractical ethics (Singer equates moral with ethical).
Singer does not really have an answer to the question Why be moral? though he thinks it not a bad
idea; mainly he tries to put down shuffles that have been presented as decisive.
Pettit reworking a rough route hacked out by Wittgenstein, tries to expand this across into a
philosophical forest denominated "holism", no-dwelling place for an isolated individual.
These requirements are presented by Attfield as basic formal requirements of reason (p.6). No
12
Greek, or that there are relevant differences between whites and blacks (intelligence has been
proposed as such a difference, when skin pigmentation appeared a merely superficial
difference). These sorts of responses, which were long accepted, are no longer acceptable,
because the differences put up are not considered ethically relevant differences (correctly
enough, though ethical relevance itself lacks an adequate explanation). Egoism, for instance,
exhibits rationality failure, as it does not treat likes alike. There are no relevant differences
justifying different treatment.
Singer's main argument for a much wider point of view,for universality, rests upon an
extensive appeal to authority (p.11). What else is offered is but an appeal to usage.
the notion of ethics carries with it the idea of something bigger than the
individual'. [It often does, but it may not.] 'If I am to defend my conduct
on ethical grounds, I cannot point only to the benefits it brings me. I must
address myself to a larger audience'(p.10).
That depends on the conduct concerned. More important, the audience does not need to be so
large, certainly not universal: my family or clan will suffice often enough. Nonetheless there
is this of use 'ethics', especially in such criticisms as 'unethical'.
• due consideration of others, all others;
Parallel to the distinction of euthics within ethics is a distinction of neurals within morals,
neurality within morality. Again the subclass, reflecting widespread philosophical usage of
the term morality, is separated through some requirement of morality, such as
• universalizability, which is a strong way of ensuring the first (do unto others etc.).
Insofar as these principles all allude to others, they often admit easy extension (to other
others). 25
4. Environmental and greener ethics.
As prevailing accounts of ethics are for the most part defective, so are what builds upon
them, recent accounts of environmental ethics. But there are also other grounds for
dissatisfaction with these.
Issues in the characterizat ion of ethics, especially removal of actocentrism and
homocentrism, naturally get transmitted to critical types, such as environmental ethics. But it
might be imagined, rashly, that disagreement ends there. After all, all decent environmental
ethics make the non-human world a proper object of concern, either directly or indirectly.
Differences between explications offered can be ascribed to ordinary philosophica l
incompleteness. "An environmental ethic, broadly, is a set of values to live by which takes
due account of the value of the non-human world". 26 Stated differently, the aim of
environmental ethics 'is to understand and act appropriately in relation of our ecological-i n
25
26
doubt they are, though they appear to figure in no logic of ethics yet formulated.
The distinctions can be filled out (and made to work-verify!) by a strategy like the earlier. Again
the list of moral predicates is deliberately wide. But once again we can later separate off certain
uses e.g. instrumenal, aesthetic uses of good.
Gunn 1987, 3.
13
the broad sense-circum stances". 27 Differently again, " ... sets of principles, which would
guide our treatment of wild nature, constitute an environmental ethic in the most general
sense". 28 The first of these slack explanations leaves out what is essential for an ethics,
principles; the second is unduly actocentric, leaving out what is not, as well as main
paraphernalia of ethics; the third not only neglects values, but excessively narrows scope so
that such an ethics is inapplicable in places devoid of wild nature or to other issues. A better
explication, which avoids these obvious pitfalls runs: An environmental ethics is an ethics, as
defined, which, among other concerns, takes specific account, through its values and
principles, of (significant) environmental items, of parts of nonhuman nature.
But obviously it too leaves much to be explained. How the non-human world is made
the object of concern, how it is moral concern, to what degree it is made the object of moral
concern, what forms of moral concern are applicable to what elements of the environment,
and how to achieve the aim of acting appropriately - all are matters that make environmental
ethics one of the most controversial areas of philosophy and also one of the most exciting,
although many professional philosophers still regard it as a peripheral area. Yet there now is
broad agreement among most of those active in the area that some change is needed and that
environmental matters need much more attention and action.
An environmental ethics is an ethics concerned, usually among other ethical things, with
parts of the environment. Coal-face or factory-floor environmenta l ethics bears on
environmental issues, problems and causes, and can be expected to say something about
environment s or some of their nonhuman components. Academic or board-room
environmental ethics is frequently, however, a remove from direct ethical work, comprising
discussion of environmental ethics, its features, its methods, its variability, its presumed
merely derived and applied character, and so on. Much of this academic environmental ethics
is directed against coal-face environmental ethics, especially that of a genuinely committed
sort aimed at advancing environmental sources.
It is almost immediate that there is an important elasticity -ambiguity, in a slack sense
-in the notion of environmental ethics, between an ethics which considers environmental
matters, whether positively or negatively, and an ethics which is positive about some
environmental elements, which evinces concern about environmental items (as 18th century
sympathy ethics did about other humans). A superficial environmental ethics need not say
anything particularly positive or sympathetic about environments; indeed productions on the
topic may try to dismiss or defeat environmenta l causes and to defuse or dissolve
environmental problems, for instance as not worth bothering about. 29 It may be argued that
27
28
29
Drengson 1989, 15.
Elliot, in Singer, 284.
That is, fashionable contemporary practice with respect to philosophy is transferred to parts of
enviromental philosophy (e.g. by Eco Wittgenstein and AppliedQuine). Environmental philosophy
may in no way interfere with industry and business. To an astonishing extent American academic
environmental ethics tends to conform to such ridiculous strictures (often encouraged by a fawning
14
natural environme nts should serve highest economic causes, which means in practice
becoming reserves for city folks, city corporations and consumers. Under such environmental
ethics ("environmental ethics" it is tempting to say, contravening usage) many an environme nt
should be razed, levelled, and paved over, to become a grand parking lot, shopping mall or
urban escarpmen t of a concrete jungle. What rural environment remains will, also serve those
"high" purposes, be tamed and managed, like much of Western Europe. Witness the
enthusiasm in productions on environmental ethics for landscapes like that of Tuscany, where
virtually everything is under tight human control and no bird moves (else it is shot).
Environm ental ethics and environme ntal philosophy may well prove to be
disappointm ents for enthusiastic environmentalists. For there may be little that is materially
green about them, no commitme nt to changes in old attitudes and practices, no offers of
improved standing and ethical treatment for environme ntal items. As an environme ntal
economics may be no green economics , but (very likely) some part or application of
mainstream economics , some sweep of resource or land economics , so an environme ntal
ethics or environme ntal ethic may not be particularly or at all green, but, for instance, simply
part of establishm ent ethics or an "application" of it to environmental items. Fortunately not
all environmental ethics is like this; beyond environmental is genuinely green ethics.
The elasticity in environmental ethics between superficial and material forms, parallels
that of the term concern (and rather similarly of matter), and can be substantially constricted
to that: an environme ntal ethics is one concerned with environmental items or matter. Thus,
on the one construal, such an ethics may be simply about such topics, it may be a standard
ethics "applied" to such topics, in which case environmental ethics does become just so-called
applied ethics. Alternatively, however, such an ethic may be one evincing concern, worry,
about the treatment of some environmental items on other, and directed at obtaining improved
treatment. Such an ethic is not negative or indifferent towards environme ntal matters, but is
advancing environme ntal causes. They matter. With such ethics, environme ntal ethics
cannot possibly be an applied ethics, for the framework of standard ethics and their
application s, is exceeded. (At best such ethics can be approxima ted by standard ethics by
assuming enlightened agents holding appropriate sorts of values. 30)
5. Human chauvinism and its detailed removal.
Deep-green theory is, unambiguously, a green ethical theory, of deep kind: that is, there
is intrinsic value in nature, natural items have intrinsic value, which may predomina te over
human-bas ed value. In short, the theory rejects both the 'Sole Value Assumptio n' and the
'Greater Value Assumptio n'. The theory finds all standard ethics mired in heavy prejudice, in
30
pragmatism).
Compare also Naess (in Engel 1990) on utilitarian approximation to Deep Ecology, made by
assuming availability of enough agents holding deep ecological values or, more or less
equivalently, having deep ecological consciousness.
15
favour of things human and against things non-human. The distinctive, still pervasive,
prejudice concerned is that encapsulated as human chauvinism, which is itself a special case
of class chauvinism (for the class, human 31 ). Removal of human chauvinism dovetails with
displacement of humans.
Class chauvinism consists in substantia lly differentia l treatment, typically
discriminatory and inferior treatment, of items outside the class, by sufficiently many
members of the class concerned, for which there is no sufficient justification. Human
chauvinism is a feature, a cardinal weakness, of virtually all ethical systems hitherto, so deepgreen theory contends. The main argument takes the following form: there is no
characteristic, such as those tendered in ethical theories as justifying differential treatment in
favour of humans (characteristics such as rationality, language possession, tool making
abilities, needs, preferences, sentience, etc.) which first is held by all and only humans, as
distinct from not all humans and some non-humans, and which second does justify differential
treatment.3 2
Signs and manifestations of chauvinism are many and various, some conspicuous, some
subtle, and so on. For instance, a dead giveaway is any allusion to all outside certain human
concerns that may have a value as resources. For that assigns to the items so referred to mere
instrumental value. A little less obvious is the discriminative mode when individual humans
are counted, but only species of other living things (or a step down, individual sentients but
only species of others).
The thorough-going rejection of human chauvinism itself sets a program: that of
reworking ethics, and indeed much of philosophy, in a way free of chauvinism and humanism,
without any specially privileged place for humans. A first part of such a program has already
been outlined, that of suitably characterising ethics in a way that does not make essential
appeal to humans or their features, or to other favoured groups such as sentients. A further
important part of the program, formulation of ethical theory in a way which avoids entirely
group chauvinism. Such a desirable outcome can be achieved simply through formulation of
ethical theory in terms of ethically relevant categories, assembled in what is called an annular
theory. 33
31
32
33
Insofar as an account of human is required, it can be some improvement on the biological species
definitions, a reworking to remove past biasses (superioristic, rationalistic, masceulinist, etc.) and
to dislodge appeals to aspects of human nature. But, despite the preponderance of human agents
hereabouts, on planet Earth, such an account is not required for ethics, or for philosophy.
Theorizing in these and many other areas can proceed perfectly well without allusion to humans.
The detailed argument for this proposition is presented in Routley and Routley 1980a 97-108,
where chauvinism is spelled out a bit further. A truncated version of this argument appears in Fox
1990, 16-17.
Though the theory is so labelled in several publications, the label, which presumably should stay,
is misleading, because some ethical relevant categories may overlap one another. The concentric
theory (developed in Wenz 1988 and others, perhaps in steps of Leopold), which incorporates a
similar mistake, can be seen as a subversion of the annular model.
16
The annular picture helps show how to redo ethics and philosophy with ideal types, or
with some equivalent thereof. No simple species or subspecies , such as humans or
superhumans, no single feature, such as sentience or life, serves as a reference benchmark, a
base class, for determinin g moral relevance and other ethical dimensions . 34 No ethical
irrelevant distinctions and classes, such as those of humans or base class, are required. What
is required instead is a major shift in perspective , a new focus upon morally relevant
categorical distinctions:
it is not possible to provide criteria which would justify distinguishing, in the
sharp way standard Western ethics do, between humans and certain
nonhuman creatures, and particularly those creatures which have preferences
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 arbitrarily -determine d and loaded
tests for membershi p of a privileged class (essentially an elitist view),
instead of upon, say, respect for the preference s of other creatures.
According ly the sharp moral distinction, commonly accepted in ethics by
philosophe rs and other alike, between all humans and all other animal
species, lacks a satisfactory coherent basis (Routley and Routley 80a, 103).
The categorical distinctions thereby proposed do not reject traditional ethical notions such as
rationality, self-awaren ess, having interests; but they do reject the automatic use of the
characteristics of one species, or some base class as the model upon which the characteristics
of all other species or classes are judged. They also reject as unjustified distinctions that are
not "categorical distinctions which tie analytically with ethical notions". 35 For instance, they
hold that the human/nonhuman distinction is not ethically significant. Humans enter only in a
contingent way into general ethical theory, as holders of these or those features, which
34
35
Another common mistake which annular theory helps dispel and avoid is that of trying to stretch
community (or moral commuity) to include webs, mountains, Earth, land etc.-a trend Leopold
started with his land ethic. An agent can have an obligation to care for earth, and soil without
there being part of community. (The Land ethic is misguided). What ethics covers diverges from
any moral community. (Contra Dobson's suggestion p.47).
Routley and Routley 1980a, 108.
17
depending upon their respective capabilities and competence.
It is also desirable to have available some more positive principles corresponding to the
negative rejection of class chauvinism, principles so to say, of anti-chauvinism. Principles
like the biospherical egalitarianism of Deep Ecology represent an unsatisfactory attempt in
this direction. The deep-green improvement on this principle is the powerful principle of ecoimpartiality, according to which there should be no substantially differential treatment of
items outside any favoured class or species of discriminatory sort that lacks sufficient
justification. The appropriate impartial treatment is substantially independent of the
comparative value of the item treated. Most important, impartial treatment does not entail
equal treatment, or equal consideration, and does not require equal intrinsic or other value.
Other distinctive principles of deep-green theory will emerge as the ethical theory
accumulates.
One major conclusion is that human is not a significant ethical category. The outcome
is not anti-human; humans enter to the extent that they respectively deserve to enter. It is not
being claimed that humans lack value, that none of them have much or any value. Quite the
contrary, some humans have great value, some have established themselves as having great
propensity for evil, many lead quite indifferent lives. What is being rejected is the elevated,
often exaggerated, frequently exclusive, value assigned to humans, too often uniform value.
What are being contested are received distributions of values, and the heavy concentration of
value in humans and things and features human, the relative importance of which has been
grossly exaggerated. 36
Be in no doubt: many humans have positive value, some remarkable value. That is one
reason why it matters that humans should not vanish off the planet (for all that many of they
have sinned against it), to leave an impoverished earth, for instance a microbe planet. For that
would involve a huge reduction in value. Nor is it enough, adequate compensation, that
something like humans would evolve again at some remote future time. For, even if it
happened (in fact the probability of such replacement looks rather small), there would still be
a huge and extended dip in value. Similar points tell against a range of similar arguments to
the effect that it does not matter what happens to, or is done to, the Earth, because evolution
will eventually restore richness. 37 Even if richness were to return (much evidence indicates
36
37
Moral consideration and intrinsic value are not limited to humans; similarly these are not confined
to any other favoured or "improved" class closely overlapping humans, such as (it is supposed)
persons or rational creatures. Moral principles can be applied to all species and to the natural
environment in general. (A corollary concerns the characterisation of morality. ) Evolutionary
space is thereby afforded for other species, other systems other things.
An associated feature is stereotyping. Stereotyping is characteristic of speciesism/chauvinism as it
is in exploitation. To stereotype an item is to see it purely as a member of a class and as having
conventional feature of the class as a whole.
Recently there have been some attempts to have things ethical both ways: a special role for
humans without privilege or prejudice. There is a latent incoherence in Rachel's text, between his
initial and final proposals regarding ethics and morals-which are essentially human intricatedand regarding morals without hubris (MWH)-where human hubris is supposed to be removed.
Such an argument has been advanced by, among others, William Grey in 'Anthropocentrism and
18
that extinction and destruction is for ever, permanent), there would still be serious loss of
value. So it does matter.
6. Philosophy without humans.
It is hard to move and operate philosophically without encountering humans and human
chauvinism. Chauvinism is written deep into all prevailing Western (and Eastern) ideological
forms, common to what, at a more superficial level, are rival positions. But while human
chauvinism transcends parochial differences, it is more conspicuous and brazen in some
philosophical locales than others, notably idealism and empiricism, existentialism and
phenomenology. In short, it is particularly prominent where matters answer back to subjects,
those who have the ideas, do the observing, assemble the phenomena, do the living, and so
on-back to subjects that are invariably assumed to be human. Thus it is human existence,
human Being, human ideas and impressions, that count, those and none others. Such
chauvinism, nauseatingly strong, pervades not only Continental philosophy (esp. French and
German varieties)-but also Anglo-American empiricism and pragmatism (esp. anti-realist
varieties). 38
Once the main strategies of ethics-without-humans have been grasped, it is easy to see
how analogous moves can be made the deanthropize other reaches of philosophy, notably
some of the more chauvinistic enterprises. In general there are two stages: Firstly, as with
morality, replacing humans and human subjects by agents and ideal subjects. And secondly,
as with ethics, delineating significant reaches-philosop hical wildernesses-wh ere agents are
removed, not just off-stage but altogether.
While a few examples of each stage only will be given, it will become evident that the
procedures are general. Consider as an example of the first stage, existentialism, a philosophy
celebrating humans, and their exclusive freedom, and shot through with human chauvinism.
Existentialism is (to quote a convenient caricature)
a philosophy which emphasises man's freedom to act independently of any
laws, natural or otherwise, and according to his own choice. It is a free will
philosophy which can be seen as 'a protest against views of the world and
policies ... in which humans are regarded as the helpless playthings of
historical forces, or as wholly determined by the regular operation of natural
38
Deep Ecology', Australasian Journal of Philosophy vol.71, No 4: December 1993.
There is a residual serious problem here, as to why existence is so important. Why do actual
humans and existent tigers matter, not merely virtual ones or possible ones. What is it about
existence? There are many items which it would be better did not exist, such as devils, helicopters
(for the most part), pollution, erosion and so on. Existence, of favoured sorts, makes for richness,
which is a high (if defeasible) virtue.
Sartre's philosophy is rendolent with human chauvinism: e.g. Critique of Dialectical Reason p.8.
as regards destruction and destroy, is an amazing piece of human chauvinism. While humans
may have a greater potentiality for production of value than most other animals, many humans
also have a far greater potentiality for evil than most other animals. Historically, the evil
producing capacity has dominated. Another example of Sartre's anthropocentism is his
"philosophy of the present".
Marx's philosophy is similarly rendolent. Productivity is human productivity... . For almost
random examples from anti-realism, see DP.
19
processes' (Encyclopaedia Britannica 1978). This anti-determinist
perspective is, again, connected with the question of objectivity.
Existentialists hold that the only objective external fact independent of the
control of human beings is the fact of their being brought into existence, and
that death will one day come to terminate that existence. In all other
respects it is they who are in control. There are no outside independent
laws, of economics, history, nature or whatever, which they cannot deny or
shape for themselves. Thus we are all free to choose how we will behave
and develop and how we will shape society and nature. It follows that the
consequences of our actions are down to us, and therefore if they are
unpleasant that is our fault-not the fault of outside forces or external laws.
There are no excuses for our not thinking and acting for ourselves and we
are 'condemned' to be free because everything is theoretically permitted to
us and we therefore carry a heavy burden of responsibility for what we do.
As Sartre put it, 'Man is responsible for what he is. The first effect of
existentialism is that it puts every man in possession of himself as he is, and
places the entire responsibility for existence squarely on his shoulders' ....
We have a duty to face up to this, and not to base our actions thoughtlessly
on what is said to be prescribed/or us ('laws' of society, of economics, of
nature). That is abdicating responsibility.39
Note the heavy concentration throughout on humans, variously appearing as human beings,
we, us, they, and (in singular musculine form) man and he. But, as before 40 , on the one
boundary, many humans are incapable of what is presumed, the heavy burden of
responsibility and so forth; and, on the other, other agents are, in principle at least, capable of
achieving those relevant sorts of freedom that humans can obtain. It is already apparent that
once the synthetic setting of highly competent humans is exceeded, notions invoked by
existentialism begin to fall apart. For instance, some "wild" animals may enjoy considerable
levels of unreflective unagonised freedom while lacking capacity to bear much responsibility.
Conversely, there are fairly responsible agents, such as some trapped in determined or
deterministic situations, who have no opportunity to exercise freedom.
Accordingly too, though human should be replaced by agent of appropriate sort in
dechauvinized existentialism, it would hardly suffice to substitute for 'human' any of
'responsible agent', 'freedom exercising agent' or similar-though these substitutions effect
some of what was intended, such as exclusion of children, many animals, dementeds and so
on. What sort of agent is appropriate? That existentialism can be seen as trying to explain.
And for the present we can leave it at that, replacing human throughout by the dummy term,
existential agent. This is existentialism partly rectified.
At the same primary stage of dechauvinizing existentialism, connected improvements
could well be sought in existentialism, such as reducing the driven and elitist ethos. In part
this ethos is encouraged by the response of existentialism to what motivates and shapes it,
deterministic arguments; for it sees only such "strong" agents as evading deterministic forces.
The whole business is rather ironic, as the first driven feature is incompatible with full
39
40
Pepper (Roots) pp.118-9; itals in original. Pepper refers to Sartre 1943 and 1946.
As at the beginning of EE, where standard privileged treatment for humans is reviewed and found
wanting.
20
freedom, while the second elitist feature is incompatible with the stress on things human, as
(like elitist religions) only exceptional agents escape. A promising alternative tries direct
confrontation with deterministic arguments, undercutting their scope and grip, and thereby
making room for free action in a range of situations (not everywhere between birth and
death!) for a wide variety of agents, including lesser, less elite, less stressed and sensitive
agents. For the arguments prove vulnerable to selective undermining by careful logical and
analytic procedures, 41 methods existentialism itself is loath to deploy (for all that its approach
rests upon past entrenched argumentation). Insofar as a main motivation for existentialism in
its prevailing ironic form is undiscriminating antideterminism, that motivation too is thereby
collapsed, and room is made for a less demanding more relaxed dechauvinized existentialism.
As for existentialism, so for a range of other subjects inclined to intrude humans as
central to world functioning or intelligibility, a range as apparently diverse as phenomenology
and quantum theory, empiricism and theology, pragmatism and cosmology. Quantum theory
fits into this range because of its received Copenhagen interpretation, cosmology because of
its return to anthropocentrism through adoption of anthropic principles. Both are however
readily freed of human shackles, first by replacing humans by "observers" (which for the most
part can simply be recording devices), and better, secondly to deagentize completely, by
amending interpretation s to dislodge both Copenhagen phenomenolo gy and anthropic
principles. 42 For a larger illustration, consider a popular mixture of versions of
phenomenology (a fuller elaboration again would disentangle versions, all of which however
require similar detoxification).
Phenomenol ogy to which existentialism is related .. .is summed up by
Nietzsche, who said, 'Objectivity is the main enemy of understanding. It
means the myth that there are hard observable facts ... but all the concepts we
employ in describing the world and predicting its behaviour are imposed on
it by ourselves. We have a choice about what view of the world we adopt.'
... Phenomenology is not just a philosophy which implies that we are not
subject to external laws, imposed by and through forces independent of
ourselves. It holds that there actually is no world external to and separate
from ourselves. There is no 'reality' in the sense of there being an external
'real world' divorced from our own consciousness and capable of existing if
we did not exist. Nature cannot exist without ourselves also existing-if we
ceased to be, so would it cease, and vice-versa. Therefore what 'the
environment' is, and is like, is a function of our own subjective construction
of it. The very use of such terms as 'ourselves' and 'human consciousness'
in opposition to terms like 'nature' and 'the environment' is inappropriate
and shows the extent to which we are immersed in positivist science as our
way of seeing the world. For the phenomenologists these terms are
meaningless because there is no separation between ourselves and a 'nature'
or a 'reality'. We and the world are one-a single united entity.
Phenomenology is thus anti-positivist science, opposing ... Cartesian dualism.
It does not deal in laws, or in cause-effect relationships consequent on the
dualism and neither can it be concerned with analysis-brea king the world
into parts ... If we want to know and understand nature we must, as Hume
41
42
For technical details, see Sylvan FWD.
On satisfactory ways of accomplishing this second stage see Sylvan (Cosm. Syn).
21
{
said in his Treatise on Human Nature in 1737, come to full comprehension
of man. For if there is no nature except as structured through human
consciousness, knowledge and truth cannot exist independently of man. 43
As with existentialism, there is a similar enormous exorbitant emphases on humans and things
humans; humans carry everything. But insofar as humans can perform those feats, so better
can a class a appropriate agents, phenomenolo gical agents, who include no incompetents
(who might let this world flicker out of existence, or worse).
Phenomenolo gy is a full immersion human chauvinism. Fashionable contemporary
empiricisms, normally taken as rivals to phenomenolo gy, are incomplete immersion
analogues. While a few properties, primary properties of basic physics, are separated out as
human independent, the rest, the phenomenolo gical mass, are categorised as responsedependent, and treated phenomenologically. 44 Take, for example, aesthetic features, which
include certain ecological features. Nowadays humans can grow up with the assumption that
aesthetic qualities, indeed all "response dependent" qualities, are features of humans, not in
any way objective.
So it can be seriously, if ridiculously, hypothesized that what is
(considered) beautiful, for instance of depends on how the human gene-pool is composed. As
before, humans are readily displaced in favour of appropriate agents. But, for the most part,
these agents too are otiose.
While the first stage 1s the main stage with agentocentric philosophies like
extistentialism, there is a second stage, which comprises significantly more than pointing out
how much, how much of importance, such philosophies leave out by their narrow
concentration. What is left out includes, to begin, all those times and places where there are
no agents, rich worlds, devoid of relevant agents, and the like. But that is only the beginning
of the business. For agents have been infiltrated or inserted in all sorts of settings where they
have no business to be or to transact.
Against the ancient and formerly honorable practice of agent invocation, pushed
primarily for explanatory purposes, 45 agent detachment and agent elimination campaigns have
periodically been mounted (e.g. conspicuously , but not only, in classic Greece, when it
became clearly appreciated that there could be causes without agents, during the
Enlightenmen t, and in Frege' s propositional ization program). Deagentizatio n, typically
coupled with deanthropization, can be, and should be, pushed much further. Agents, often
evidence of immature, even primitive, philosophy, still lurk everywhere in philosophy.
Agent-detach ment themes, still struggling against an unenlightened opposition, include:
objects, including worlds, without perceivers or sensors, nonexistent items without
conceivers, propositions without proposers, assumptions without assumers, values without
43
44
45
Pepper p.199 (where references are supplied). We shall not stop off for expository adjustment or
for any critique of this material. For main elements of such a critique, see however DP chapter 11
and JB.
Thus thesis that all properties are response dependent merges empiricism with European
phenomenology.
Deluded explanatory purposes, for agents themselves have in turn to be explained.
I
22
t
valuers, causation without causers (or intentional agents), organisation without organisers,
wilderness without wilderness managers, land (or property) without owners or stewards,
regulation without regulators, selection without selectors, and purposes without purposers. 46
But without humans who does philosophy? Well, in the old days, God of course, most
gods, the Devil, demiurges, gifted spirits and so on. At any time duly accomplished agents.
While it is easy to see how ethics and philosophy could in principle flourish given only
suitably accomplished agents, and no humans, namely the agents do something like what a
few humans hereabouts do, still it may be less easy for many to see how these subjects can
function without agents. But it is straightforward, is it not? A philosophy stands as a system
of propositions. And propositions do not need agents, proposers, or whatever. Nor do
systems.
It is here that blockage may occur, for two reasons: First, because of the idealistic idea
that there are no statements without staters. Second, because of the mistaken assumption that
a system of propositions standing on its own involves an obnoxious platonism. No such
assumption is made. Third, part of the struggle has been conducted before, in the tussle
between psychologism and its opposite in logic and associated regions (e.g. mathematics,
philosophy of mathematics etc.), in the tussle between Husserl and Frege (to name two
prominent parties). Although the issues have been rejoined more recently, it is still widely
supposed that anti-psychologism triumphed. Its success is, to some extent, mere appearance.
For all that, anti-psychologism is here extended much further, right across philosophy.
Appendix. 1. Examples showing divergence of utilitarianism from consequentialism.
Consider two different actions with some set of consequence s, one (A) done
deliberately, one (B) unintended. Then suppose, for one sort of case, the outcome is
disastrous. Not only is A normally regarded as much worse than B, e.g. arson than a naturally
occurring fire such as lightening strike, but further fuller utility assessments should give
analogous results, e.g. the satisfaction of the arsonist could be given a high negative rating.
Utilitarianism itself is but a well-tempered egoism: egoism extended to substituting
others. That cannot so plausibly be charged of consequentialism.
Utilitarianism has been associated with the "greed is good" ideology of the 1980s. The
association has point (so Singer tries, desperately, to disassociate utilitarianism). Suppose it is
said that the 80s, were a decade of greed (as so depicted in many movies) but the 90s is a
decade of ethics (despite counterevidence). But nothing has changed in underlying ideologies,
in ethics or economics!
Appendix 2. Inadequacy of standard ethics.
The inadequacy of standard ethics for green purposes has been recognised, if obliquely
and perversely, by many critics of the idea of (deep) green ethics (e.g. McCloskey). They
46
The very controversial tlast theme is argued in Sylvan 90 [purpose], where most of these various
detachment themes are assembled. Obviously there are many more such themes.
23
l
have proceeded to argue that there couldn't be such an ethics because none of the standard
ethics would serve. But the argument fails because standard ethics does not exhaust ethics.
There are some prospects of a general proof of inadequacy from what has been
developed so far. Standard forms are restricted to proper subsets of agents, whereas ethics in
full flower applies to all agents. Standard ethics leaves out much of the subject, all the deep
part.
References
William Grey in 'Anthropocentrism and Deep Ecology', Australasian Journal of Philosophy
vol.71, No 4: December 1993.
ON THE VALUE CORE OF DEEP-GREEN THEORY
Deep-green theory is a deep environmental theory, with much in common with deep
ecology. Like deep ecology, it stands in significant ideological opposition to the dominant
technocratic-industrial way. But, even more than deep ecology, deep-green theory aims to
supply a comprehensive alternative environmental philosophy (in the full senses of those
atrophied terms, esp philosophy ). It seeks to accomplish this, furthermore, without
accumulating the amount of philosophical rubbish deep ecology regularly attracts. For, to
insert a key difference between these ecocentric theories in a deliberately prejudical way: deepgreen theory resembles a deep ecology with the pseudo-scientific garbage removed,
reorganised into a tight, coherent and more comprehensive theory. Deep-green theory, which
has roots that stretch back about as far as its much publicized neighbour, accordingly merits
elaboration separate from deep ecology, which in any case lacks a well-thought-through
valuational and ethical basis. This essay aims to uncover the value theory of deep-green
theory, exposing thereby one central area of deep-green theory. Though the value theory is
(inevitably) abstract, it issues in what is more concrete, such as practical ecological directives,
potentially destabilizing prevailing policies and institutions.
At the core of deep-green theory, as of authentic deep ecology, lies a value theory. A
fundamental theme thereof, part of what makes these positions deep, is that a range of
environmental items are valuable in themselves, directly and irreducibly so, so that their value
does not somehow reduce to or emerge from something else, such as features of certain valuers
or what counts for them. Value then does not answer back in some way to humans, or sentient
creatures (or other value-responsive classes), their interests, uses, preferences, or such like.
Many natural items such as forests and rivers, mountains and seashores, are, as it is often put
(without however any commitment thereby to dubious essentialist or absolute objectivist
positions), intrinsically valuable. They are valuable in their own right - irrespective of whether
they are interesting or useful (to any intentional operators, themselves interesting or useful or
not), indeed whether or not there exist any valuers. Value spreads through and reaches across
the natural domain; it is not bounded by mind or linkages with subjective states; nor does it
stop with sentience, or associated pyschological features like satisfaction; nor (pace deep
ecology) does it end at life; it observes no such compromising bounds. Although value is
distributed richly if irregularly throughout nature, and accordingly may be found in nature, it is
not encapsulated in some isolable natural feature, such as life or sentience, or even in defeasible
ecological values such as richness, diversity and variety (and so subject to a different,
naturalistic, reduction). But of course such ecological features afford criteria for value, and
should be represented in recipes (such as "objective functions") for assessing total value.
From the presence of natural things of value, and accordingly of natural values, it is a
short, though controversial, step to the important conclusion that there can be values without
valuers. For valuers are sentient creatures with appropriate capacities, but things of value may
precede and succeed all such valuers; tfiat is, these things can persist, their values intact,
without any valuers. As there can be shapes without any shape-perceivers, and concepts with
conceivers, so there can be values without valuers. (The theme, like others advanced, can be
backed up by more detailed argument and by formal proof, neither attempted here.) In
valuational relations then, relating valuers as subjects with values as objects, both ends of
relations have independent standing; though interrelated, as the descriptions deliberately chosen
suggest, either can stand without the other. It is a fashionable mistake, which cannot however
be got away with, to try to collapse this relation - usually to endeavour to soak up values into a
modification of valuing subjects (e.g. as a predicate 'relation-to-values', in which inconvenient
values are locked away), not to remove valuers, considered unproblematic, from view. The
mistaken procedure is in fact just one important example of an archetypal reduction of
mainstream modern philosophy, of relations to functions; other examples, locking undesired
objects away within functions, are those rendering wholes (such as ecosystems and organised
structures) functions of their parts, and, under functionalism, minds and types of intentionality,
including value direction, as functions of bodies or their parts such as brains. Values are not,
and do not disappear into, functions of valuers.
A connected corollary is that values are not apart from the actual world, something
"projected" or imposed on it by a favoured class of valuers, something colouring (and even
emotionall y clouding) the otherwise valueless physical world, in rather the way that
reductionistic materialism tries (erroneously) to construe colour itself as projected onto a
colourless physical world. Of course this projection effort, never adequately explicated, does
not succeed, on its own, in removing values. For they remain, left as some function of the
valuers. To try to bulldoze through this difficulty, a second reduction is invoked, of evaluative
features of valuers to "natural" features, commonly preferences, desires or such like. The
second reduction runs into obstacles that halt even the naturalistic bulldozers (e.g. naturalistic
and related fallacies), but the first reduction is the critical one in removing key environmental
values, such as those of wilderness and wild things, which become valuable only in the focus
of certain sentient beholders, and not in and for them self. This reduction too is blocked by
insuperable difficulties. On the one side, like the parallel proposed phenomonalist reduction of
material objects to sensations, the reduction never achievers satisfactory support or even a
satisfactory statement. On the other, it is counterexampled by various modellings or thoughtexperiments revealing intuitively-assessed value in situations devoid of valuers (as e.g. in the
well-known Last Person argument). Values are not apart from the actual world, then, merely
projected onto it by valuers, or else locked up in certain valuers (in the fashion of Carterian
intensions ). Values are part of the world; they are objects in the domain of actual and other
worlds. But they are not of course material objects; creatures will not fall over them any more
than they will trip over shadows or shapes.
Value like the shape and taste, is an3attribute, which things have or may lack, and which
furthermore creatures can recognise or may fail to discern. Thus value is, like colour and taste
and their determinate forms (red, acidic, etc), a universa l , distributed across things,
individuals and wholes. Like shape and colour, value is a high-level universal. The
comparison of value with shape is decidedly more helpful than the standard, but exhausted,
comparison of value with colour, or of goodness with colour determinates such as redness or
yellow. For example, shape is not bound by a set of determinates as colour is in the specific
colours, but comes in a spectacular variety of forms, not totally or linearly ordered (as in a
rainbow), or contracted to some primary set (as in colour traingles); shapes like value pertain to
wholes as well as particulars, and links with gestalts rather better than colour; shape
discrimination is more culture dependent and sensitive; shape is, or was, a primary property,
and thereby more immune to reductionist strategies than secondary properties such as colour,
which is, under physicalism, prized off objects and allegedly relocated in creatures or in their
interrelation with colourless physical things. Shapes like values, can be vague, indeterminate;
that does not prevent things, perhaps unique things, exemplifying them. But naturally the
anology can only be extended so far. Shapes can be approximated by polygons, values cannot;
shapes are regularly perceived through sense perception, by vision or touch especially, values
are not, but are differently apprised. Value is its own thing, not something else; it is what it is
and does what is does, and not something else, like some specialised mathematical or economic
thing. It does not contract to some mark of value or to what it comes down to in highly
restricted settings; most important, it does not disappear in the style of modem economics into
(expected) utility or into just two economic forms, value-in-use monetarily and value-inexchange (price). Value means what it means, and has meant: worth; and it ties with general
assessments of merit and demerit, goodness or badness, not an economic or other cut-down
thereof. Price, for example, may fail entirely to reflect worth, it may have little to do with
goodness of product.
The powerful drive to reduce or deny values has several sources. part of the motivation
for reduction of value springs from epistemological worries, concerning how values can be
ascertained and known, so far as they are (subjective translation proposals are than a direct
evaluative counterpart of phenomenalism). Part derives from supposedly problematic cultural
and subcultural relativity (whence the attempt to impose values by identification of value with
some favoured feature, and cultural or economic imperialism). Part of the motivation comes
from more sweeping ideologic al commitments, such as the varieties of materiali sm
(physicalism esp.) or scientism.
As has become apparent, attempted reductions of value come too in a variety of forms subjective, which made use of psychological features, such as desires, interests, emotions, and
the like or subjective aggregations, such as community preferences or utility; or objectiviely
naturalistic, which enrol value-making characteristics such as richness or evolutionary
development as value - consequential, w~ch consider only outcomes, or purely motivational,
which consider only attitudes and ignore leads and outcomes - straightforward, as in translation
proposals for translating value judgements into reducing statements; or oblique, as in
supervenience propositions (no variations in value without underwriting variations in reducing
features), or obscure, as in unarticulated projection claims. Values are not well accommodated
within theses schemes, or accommodated at all. The idea is abroad however that science can
offer a reduction, can sweep up value along with all other knowledge, where philosophy has
conspicuously failed. Unfortunately for such optimistic ideas, fortunately perhaps for deeper
thought, current science, physics especially, does not have much to say at all, or of merit,
about values, and if it did reductions through it would be circular. But, to the contrary, there is
a long-standing pretence that science gets along "well" without values, in appropriate value-free
fashion. Nowadays it is increasingly realised that such value-freedom is a myth, that much of
what passes as science is heavily value-penetrated. While those engaged purely in purer
science may have the illusion of an escape from value, there is no escape.
Though deep-green value theory is thoroughly nonreductive, it does not sacrifice
warranted claims to scientific and logical adequacy thereby. The reductionistic dichotomies are
avoided and repudiated. Value reduces neither in subjective nor objective fashion; it does not
reduce. Evaluative judgements are certainly not subjective; but nor are they objection in an
absolutist sense; they are nonjective, that is, neither. Somewhat similarly, evaluation of an act
does not reduce to assessing consequences; nor does it come down to an assessment of
motives; both may matter.
In any case, reductions do not succeed, as a copious literature, littered with failed
attempts, meanderingly establishes. Nor are they generally desirable, since mostly shallow,
aiming at a reduction to features of some privileged class presented as ideal (i.e. core value is
covertly assumed). Nor are they needed; explanation and assessment do not require reduction.
Evaluations may be arrived at, and value systems expanded, by enhancement methods, which
consists in emotional presentation (as under Meinong's phenomenological account) organised
by coherence methods. The methodology in fact resembles that sometimes proposed for
acquisition of scientific information. As with accumulated empirial information, which can be
extended through presentational input and assessment for overall coherence, so further
evaluations may be arrived at and assessed through a combination of presentational and
coherence procedures. At the (marginal) stage where the next round of evaluations is
undertaken, the following active ingredients figure, in an idealised breakdown:- Firstly, a
background stock of judgements and experience will have been accumulated or inherited; in
principle all of this is revisable, and some may be up for reassessment. Apart from the
background, which enters in assessing overall coherence of system, what is involved is,
secondly, emotional presentation, which corresponds to further perceptional and sense data
input, and, thirdly and not independent, coherence processing , which supplies the
interpretational and rationalisational comp~nents. At bottom, parallelling perception in the case
of empirical information, is emotional presentation, gut or visceral reaction in starker forms of
acceptance or rejection, but more generally comprehending a variety of sentiments, including
overall well-being, and also relational impressions, such as empathy, identification, and so on.
As a perceiver perceives shapes and taster tastes and goodness, so a valuer feels value and
disvalue.
The basis of perceptio n is sensation , the basis of valuation is emotion.
Apprehension of value is seated in emotional, and especially visceral, presentation; but what is
apprehended is not to be confused with its apprehension any more than what is perceived. All
the warnings about sensation as an information source have to be repeated with heavy
emphasis as regards emotional presentation; for example, reliability cannot be guaranteed,
interference with presentation through drugs, alcohol, temporary excitement or other inputs
may render it dubious or unacceptable, conditioning may have occurred, including substantial
cultural conditioning (so that a person is terrified by huntsmen spiders but not sickened by
bloody massacres of dolphins or seals). As with perception, there are checks on emotional
presentation, such as constancy over time and after reflection.
Emotional presentation, supplying in particular inclusions and exclusions or prohibitions,
is but the basis of reflective evaluation and value apprehension. The further critical part,
coherence processing, builds on the basis taking account of other inputs or controls including
background (which supplies relevant components of already adopted judgements, assimilated
subculture and so forth) and constraints (such as substitutional requirements like impartiality,
e.g. whether considered judgements hold for substitute valuers, and uniformity, e.g. whether
similar acts are judged in similar ways). The coherence procedure consists, in essence, of
asking whether the next or a relevant judgemen t fits together with what has been accepted,
while meeting constraints, without leading to what has been rejected or excluded. If it does fit
it is added to the included side, otherwise it is sent to the excluded side. (The familiar ethical
practice of devising cases and comparing them with the cases in hand can be worked in under
this procedure.) Because an aim of this rationalisation procedure is achievement of some sort
of equilibrium - admitting what is included, while excluding what is unsupported, fails to gain
support, is emotionally spoken against - such coherence procedures have gained currency in
North America under the rubric "reflectiv e equilibrium". Observe, however, that any
equilibriu m gained at some stage may be quickly lost, as new types of problems arise and
further information enters. To be sure, the whole methodology (like the parallel methodology
of a coherence theory of truth) is highly idealised, and only practicably usable in rudimentary
parts. It does however surmount a major obstacle for value theory; it reveals how in principle a
nonreduc tionistic value theory can function. Whether that theory is an appropria te
environmental one or not will depend however above all on the presentational input, the extent
to which environmental sensitivity enters and is not dismissed.
Enhancement methods reveal too tRat value systems are not uniquely determined, any
more than other comprehensive theoretical frameworks, such as those intended to reflect truth.
There can be, there evidently are, rival value systems, measuring up to rigorous rationality
requirements, much as there are rival logics, rival physical and biological theories, and rival
coherent religions. Chauvinistic systems, narrow or shallow value systems, which take no
requisite account of many environmental items, likewise cannot be excluded on rational or
straight logical grounds. Unfortunately such systems remain in ascendancy, and tend to
dominate social practices; in recent times economism, a narrow type of utilitarianism, has all
too obviously dominated much terrestial practice. While such value frameworks are open to
severe criticism, for instance as chauvinistic, as violating universality requirements of morality
in the case of economism, they do not succumb to definitive refutation (for the reason that
requirements of morality, of universalizability of principle, impartiality and so on, can be
repudiated; immoral or amoral frameworks are still value systems). Of course a range of
argumentative, educational and persuasive techniques, of varying equality, can be put to work
to move valuers who adhere to other structures, often enough successfully. Emotional
presentation of environmental items, by way of new experience and information, is important
among these. In short, much can be done to shift or alter values, though as usual effectiveness
cannot be guaranteed.
The availability of rival value systems and prospect of yet others, while it implies a
certain desirable (and also troublesome) pluralism, does not mean relativism. Neither deep
green theory nor authentic deep ecology espouse any superficially easy relativism. From their
viewpoint, rival narrower and shallower systems are definitely inferior , and marked down
accordingly, while economism is an onathema which does not even make the moral grade (e.g.
too many principles stop at state boundaries). However a critical pluralism does acknowledge,
and offer a place, in the wider scheme of things for other positions, even if as less favoured or
satisfactory. Politically then, deep positions can allow for, what makes good sense in these
times of numbers, alliances. Hence the point of a green alliance, combining green positions,
against still prevailing anti-environmentalism and economism.
The value system pluralism of deep-green theory interpenetrates not only social and
political domains above, but also metaphysics traditionally placed below. In the underlying
metaphysical pluralism of deep-green theory, value runs very deep - so deep that even truth
depends in part upon it. For not merely selection of a correct comprehensive theory or worldview, but choice of associated actual world, is a value dependent choice. That choice, insofar
as it is consciously made, of world conceptualisation and structure, is a constrained choice,
constrained by informational inputs, such as those of refined perception. But in as much as it
is rationally accomplished, that choice, like other choices of structure, proceeds according to a
standard value-information analysis (regularly oversimplified however to a preference-
information or even desire-belief modellin1); that is, to get to the salient point, it involves value
essentially.
Truth and value are then intertwined. Their relation, not one of identity (for contrary to
idealism, there are many relations not identical with identity), can now be stated more
accurately than the poets have managed. Neither is one; both are plural, and differently so. In
certain significant respects the metaphysics resembles the value theory. For example, as the
value theory is nonreductionistic, so also is the metaphysics; in particular, there is a noreduction theme that neither parts nor wholes reduce eliminably to one another, as opposed to
atomistic and holistic views of environmental interrelations. As the value theory is pluralistic
so also is the metaphysics; what needs to be discerned, in place of absolutism, is a plurality of
worlds and of associated truth characterisations. A main aim of a thoroughgoing
environmental theory is to displace very destructive dominant ideasystems, regularly presented
as absolute, which incorporate both value and truth themes concerning the environment and its
organisation.
Much of deep-green theory devolves then from the abstract value theory, beginning (to
take a more accessible route than the metaphysical way) with a more comprehensive ethical
theory, which includes as well as a specific axiological theory, elaborating environmental
values and virtues, a deontic theory, supplying obligations, rights, taboos, and similar. For
example, given that a certain wild river is intrinsically valuable, as we can verify by on-site
experience and enhancement methods, and given that we duly respect that value, as deontic
principles will tell us we should, then we are not free to do as we like with that river, to dam it
with concrete, to channel it within concrete, stripping it of its riverine ecosystems. But that
does not preclude respectful use of the river, swimming or sailing quitely in its waters, and so
on. Value thus guides action, practice, and use; it is the ground also upon which principles are
formulated, principles that are assessed and validated by way of enhancement methods.
Important among these are non-interference principles, which exclude unwarranted interference
with other preference-havers and unwarranted damage, ill-treatment, or devaluation of items of
value. Such deontic principles circumscribe environmentally-limited freedom of action. Given
non-interference principles, a major shift in onus of proof from homocentricthics takes place.
What is required now is that reasons be givenfor interfering with the environment, rather than
reasons for not doing so.
Also direct responsibility for environmental interference or
modification falls upon those who would interfere or significantly modify, who would tread
heavily on the land. Non-interference does not preclude use, only too much use and use of too
much. What it does lead to is the theme that, where use occurs, it should be careful and
respectful use.
An important respect thesis regarding environmental items is founded on such
interference principles and the no-reduction theme: namely
•
•
8
not to put others (other preference havers) into a dispreferred state for no good reason;
not to jeopardis e the well being of natural objects or systems without good reason;
•
not to damage or destroy items which, while they cannot literally be put into a
dispreferred state, can be damaged or destroyed or have their value eroded or impaired.
These apply to ecosystem s, their surrounds, their parts, and so on. The mere making of
further excess profits, or similar economic excuses, are not good reasons. Such a respect
thesis form part of the ecological outlook of deep-green theory.
As permissib ility, obligatio n and respect principles can be explained through the
valuations reached on the theory, so too can rights and other significant components of morality
be explained and justified through, but again not reduced to, values. For example, a creature
has a right to something if it has a valid title thereto established from correct moral principles.
Candidates for the parameter "something" provide a familiar list: freedom from unnecessary
suffering, respectful treatment, satisfaction of basic needs, and so on. Such rights accordingly
derive from and reinforce corresponding deontic principles.
Deep-gre en ethical theory is much more than just another non-redu ctionist ethical
theory, which highlights ecological values and virtues, and so forth. It changes the character
and shape of ethical enterprise. Perhaps most strikingly, it removes humans as such from the
centre of the ethical stage (or exclusive occupation of the stage). The biological concept of
being human is not, contrary to prevailing humanism, a highly significant ethical category. To
elevate it to such is to fall into human chauvinis m, a type of class chauvini sm which
unwarrantedly discriminates in favour of the human species. The prevailing chauvinis m is
avoided through a natural annular model, which connects ethical characteristics directly with the
categorie s of items that can have them. Relevant categories include those marked out by
features like: having well-being, preference-having, rights-holding, contractual-capability, and
so on, categories not necessarily connected with any particular species. Hitherto virtually all
Western ethical theories have not merely so limited ethical matters predominately to inter-human
affairs, but have been blantantly chauvinistic, exhibiting a substantial, discrimin ately and
unjustifiably bias in favour of humans (of certain privileged humans). These sorts of systems
should be superseded; it is not a matter of simple adjustments or extensions.
Deep-gre en value theory, as developed, implies the inadequacy of prevailing social,
political and economic arrangements and institutions, both those of a mixed capitalistic kind and
those of a more state socialistic cast. They are the (devious) product of inferior value
frameworks which take quite insufficient account of environmental considerations and values.
But explainin g their deficiencies, and indicating more satisfactory green alternatives and
replacements, is another chapter in the elaboration of deep-green theory.
9
*
Richard Sylvan*
RMB 683
B ungendore NSW 2621
For more on deep-green theory and deep ecology, see for instance essays in and work referred to in the
Green Series, i.e. Discussion Papers in Environme ntal Philosophy, RSSS, Australian National
University, Canberra.
Annex
1. Most people inherit their value framework along with their culture. Many never do any
substantial overhaul. Many indeed are not active or responsible valuers. But in these respects,
values are not so different from other things. Some people are poor judges of shape; many
never learn to distinguish plants, or to discriminate among wines.
Likewise for other choices, options, major changes, metaphysical and even political.
Mostly that a choice has been made or inherited and is incorporated in the subculture is not
noticed, along with its not been observed how arbitrary many of the choices and resulting
structures are (in Foucault has emphasized). Of course it is often not in the interests of the
power elite, who control media outlets, etc., that this sort of arbitrariness should be widely
known, and alternative structures considered and perhaps experimented with.
Choices occur where distinctive circumstance prevail. For instance, there is serious
scarcity; food supplies in particular are threatened (e.g. with being out of reach is price, with
pollution, etc.). Differently, circumstances lead to conversions, as when a new ideology
sweeps through, enthusiam generated by some charismatic figures.
/
bits from chapter 2
There is another important elasticity. In contemporary ethical theory there is a concerted
attempt to build on universalizability requirement or the equivalent into the very motion of ethics.
The evident result is that selfish systems of induction and conduct, systematic egoisms for
instance are refused the title of ethics, and as an important corollary questions like Why be
ethical? become vexed. 1 Given, in particular, that any such "universality" requirement is
problematic in this formulation, and typically limited, chauvinistically to persons, a superior
course proceeds to distinguish: between ethics as already characterised (reportively) and its
subclass, universalizable ethics. As impartial ethical do have much to recommend them, let us
coin a convenient portmonteau term condensing the chancy "universalerable ethics", namely
euthics. (Conveniently then an euthical supports unethical, which is what from a properly
ethical stance it is!)
There is undoubtedly some pressure to have ethics and morality extend beyond a single or
isolated individual (even so, a Causal ethics is understood, as is egoisticmorality). But that
pressure does not extend very far; and such notions as those of a tribal morality and an
upperclass ethics are not defective on significance grounds, even if they are objectional on
substantive grounds.
Such restricted ethics are not however immediately ruled out by such requirements as that
like cases be assessed alike, and that differences of assessment be based on relevant
differences. 2 For a tribalist or racist can respond that a foreigner is not like a Greek, or that there
are relevant differences between whites and blacks (intelligence has been proposed as such a
difference, when skin pigmentation appeared a merely superficial difference). These sorts of
responses, which were longer accepted, are no longer acceptable, because the differences put up
are not considered ethically relevant differences (correctly enough, though ethical relevance itself
lacks an adequate explanation).
Singer's main argument for a much wider point of view, universality, commits in a
extensive appel to authority (p.11).
What is offered: an appeal to usage.
'the notion of ethics carries with it the idea of something bigger than the individual'. [It
often does, but it may not.] 'If I am to defend my conduct in ethical grounds, I cannot point
only to the benefits it brings me. I wont address myself to a larger audience' (p.10). That
On both, narrowing and vexing, see Singer lmpractual ethics (Singer aquates moral with
ethical). Singer does not really have an answer to Why be moral? though he thinks it not a bad idea; mainly he
tries to put down shuffles that have been presented or decisive.
2
These requirements are presented byu Attfield as basic formal requirements of reason (p.6). No
doubt they are, though they appear to figure in no logic of ethics yet formulated.
depends on the conduct concerned. More important the audience does not need to be much
larger, certainly not universal: my family or law will suffice often enough.
J.
From Chap 4
Evaluations may be arrived at, and value systems expanded, by enhancement methods,
which consists in emotional presentation (as under Meinong's phenomenological account)
organised by coherence methods. The methodology in fact resembles that sometimes proposed
for acquisition of scientific information. As with accumulated empirial information, which can
be extended through presentational input and assessment for overall coherence, so further
evaluations may be arrived at and assessed through a combination of presentational and
coherence procedures. At the (marginal) stage where the next round of evaluations is
undertaken, the following active ingredients figure, in an idealised breakdown:- Firstly, a
background stock of judgements and experience will have been accumulated or inherited; in
principle all of this is revisable, and some may be up for reassessment. Apart from the
background, which enters in assessing overall coherence of system, what is involved is,
secondly, emotional presentation, which corresponds to further perceptional and sense data
input, and, thirdly and not independent, coherence processing, which supplies the
interpretational and rationalisational components. At bottom, parallelling perception in the case
of empirical information, is emotional presentation, gut or visceral reaction in starker forms of
acceptance or rejection, but more generally comprehending a variety of sentiments, including
overall well-being, and also relational impressions, such as empathy, identification, and so on.
As a perceiver perceives shapes and taster tastes and goodness, so a valuer feels value and
disvalue. The basis of perception is sensation, the basis of valuation is emotion. Apprehension
of value is seated in emotional, and especially visceral, presentation; but what is apprehended is
not to be confused with its apprehension any more than what is perceived. All the warnings
about sensation as an information source have to be repeated with heavy emphasis as regards
emotional presentation; for example, reliability cannot be guaranteed, interference with
presentation through drugs, alcohol, temporary excitement or other inputs may render it
dubious or unacceptable, conditioning may have occurred, including substantial cultural
conditioning (so that a person is terrified by huntsmen spiders but not sickened by bloody
massacres of dolphins or seals). As with perception, there are checks on emotional
presentation, such as constancy over time and after reflection.
Emotional presentation, supplying in particular inclusions and exclusions or prohibitions,
is but the basis of reflective evaluation and value apprehension. The further critical part,
coherence processing, builds on the basis taking account of other inputs or controls including
background (which supplies relevant components of already adopted judgements, assimilated
subculture and so forth) and constraints (such as substitutional requirements like impartiality,
e.g. whether considered judgements hold for substitute valuers, and uniformity, e.g. whether
similar acts are judged in similar ways). The coherence procedure consists, in essence, of
asking whether the next or a relevant judgement fits together with what has been accepted, while
meeting constraints, without leading to what has been rejected or excluded. If it does
fit it is
added to the included side, otherwise it is sent to the excluded side. (The familiar ethical
practice
of devising cases and compari ng them with the cases in hand can be worked in under
this
procedure.) Because an aim of this rationalisation procedure is achievement of some
sort of
equilibr ium - admitting what is included, while excluding what is unsupported, fails
to gain
support, is emotionally spoken against - such coherence procedures have gained currency
in
North Americ a under the rubric "reflect ive equilibr ium". Observe , howeve r, that
any
equilibr ium gained at some stage may be quickly lost, as new types of problem s arise
and
further information enters. To be sure, the whole methodology (like the parallel methodo
logy of
a coherence theory of truth) is highly idealised, and only practicably usable in rudimentary
parts.
It does howeve r surmou nt a major obstacle for value theory; it reveals how in principl
e a
nonredu ctionist ic value theory can function . Whethe r that theory is an appropr
iate
environmental one or not will depend however above all on the presentational input, the extent
to
which environmental sensitivity enters and is not dismissed.
end
The availability of rival value systems and prospect of yet others, while it implies a certain
desirabl e (and also troublesome) pluralism, does not mean relativism. Neither deep
green
theory nor authenti c deep ecology espouse any superficially easy relativism. From
their
viewpoint, rival narrowe r and shallow er systems are definitely inferior , and marked
down
accordingly, while econom ism is an onathema which does not even make the moral grade
(e.g.
too many principles stop at state bo':lndaries). However a critical pluralism does acknow
ledge,
and offer a place, in the wider scheme of things for other positions, even if as less favoured
or
satisfactory. Politically then, deep positions can allow for, what makes good sense in
these
times of numbers, alliances. Hence the point of a green alliance, combining green position
s,
against still prevailing anti-environmentalism and economism.
The value system pluralis m of deep-green theory interpenetrates not only social and
political domains above, but also metaphysics traditionally placed below. In the underly
ing
metaphysical pluralis m of deep-green theory, value runs very deep - so deep that even
truth
depends in part upon it. For not merely selection of a correct comprehensive theory or
worldview, but choice of associated actual world, is a value dependent choice. That choice,
insofar
as it is conscio usly made, of world conceptualisation and structure, is a constrai ned
choice,
constrained by informational inputs, such as those of refined perception. But in as much
as it is
rationally accomplished, that choice, like other choices of structure, proceeds accordin
g to a
standard value-in formati on analysis (regular ly oversim plified howeve r to a preferen
ceinformation or even desire-belief modelling); that is, to get to the salient point, it involves
value
essentially.
Truth and value are then intertwined. Their relation, not one of identity (for contrary to
idealism, there are many relations not identical with identity), can now be stated more accurately
than the poets have managed. Neither is one; both are plural, and differently so. In certain
significant respects the metaphysics resembles the value theory. For example, as the value
theory is nonreductionistic, so also is the metaphysics; in particular, there is a no-reduction
theme that neither parts nor wholes reduce eliminably to one another, as opposed to atomistic
and holistic views of environmental interrelations. As the value theory is pluralistic so also is
the metaphysics; what needs to be discerned, in place of absolutism, is a plurality of worlds and
of associated truth characterisations. A main aim of a thoroughgoing environmental theory is to
displace very destructive dominant ideasystems, regularly presented as absolute, which
incorporate both value and truth themes concerning the environment and its organisation.
Much of deep-green theory devolves then from the abstract value theory, beginning (to
take a more accessible route than the metaphysical way) with a more comprehensive ethical
theory, which includes as well as a specific axiological theory, elaborating environmental values
and virtues, a deontic theory, supplying· obligations, rights, taboos, and similar. For example,
given that a certain wild river is intrinsically valuable, as we can verify by on-site experience and
enhancement methods, and given that we duly respect that value, as deontic principles will tell
us we should, then we are not free to do as we like with that river, to dam it with concrete, to
channel it within concrete, stripping it of its riverine ecosystems. But that does not preclude
respectful use of the river, swimming or sailing quitely in its waters, and so on. Value thus
guides action, practice, and use; it is the ground also upon which principles are formulated,
principles that are assessed and validated by way of enhancement methods. Important among
these are non-interference principles, which exclude unwarranted interference with other
preference-havers and unwarranted damage, ill-treatment, or devaluation of items of value.
Such deontic principles circumscribe environmentally-limited freedom of action. Given noninterference principles, a major shift in onus of proof from homocentricthics takes place. What
is required now is that reasons be given for interfering with the environment, rather than
reasons for not doing so. Also direct responsibility for environme ntal interferenc e or
modification falls upon those who would interfere or significantly modify, who would tread
heavily on the land. Non-interference does not preclude use, only too much use and use of too
much. What it does lead to is the theme that, where use occurs, it should be careful and
respectful use.
An important respect thesis regarding environme ntal items is founded on such
interference principles and the no-reduction theme: namely
•
not to put others (other preference havers) into a dis preferred state for no good reason;
•
not to jeopardise the well being of natural objects or systems without good reason;
•
not to damage or destroy items which, while they cannot literally be put into a
dispreferred state, can be damaged or destroyed or have their value eroded or impaired.
These apply to ecosystems, their surrounds, their parts, and so on. The mere making of further
excess profits, or similar economic excuses, are not good reasons. Such a respect thesis form
part of the ecological outlook of deep-green theory.
As permissibility, obligation and respect principles can be explained through the
valuations reached on the theory, so too can rights and other significant components of morality
be explained and justified through, but again not reduced to, values. For example, a creature
has a right to something if it has a valid title thereto established from correct moral principles.
Candidates for the parameter "something" provide a familiar list: freedom from unnecessary
suffering, respectful treatment, satisfaction of basic needs, and so on. Such rights accordingly
derive from and reinforce corresponding deontic principles.
Deep-green ethical theory is much more than just another non-reductionist ethical theory,
which highlights ecological values and virtues, and so forth. It changes the character and shape
of ethical enterprise. Perhaps most strikingly, it removes humans as such from the centre of the
ethical stage (or exclusive occupation of the stage). The biological concept of being human is
not, contrary to prevailing humanism, a highly significant ethical category. To elevate it to such
is to fall into human chauvinism, a type of class chauvinism which unwarrantedly discriminates
in favour of the human species. The prevailing chauvinism is avoided through a natural annular
model, which connects ethical characteristics directly with the categories of items that can have
them. Relevant categories include those marked out by features like: having well-being,
preference-having, rights-holding, contractual-capability, and so on, categories not necessarily
connected with any particular species. Hitherto virtually all Wes tern ethical theories have not
merely so limited ethical matters predominately to inter-human affairs, but have been blantantly
chauvinistic, exhibiting a substantial, discriminately and unjustifiably bias in favour of humans
(of certain privileged humans). These sorts of systems should be superseded; it is not a matter
of simple adjustments or extensions.
Deep-green value theory, as developed, implies the inadequacy of prevailing social,
political and economic arrangements and institutions, both those of a mixed capitalistic kind and
those of a more state socialistic cast. They are the (devious) product of inferior value
frameworks which take quite insufficient account of environmental considerations and values.
But explaining their deficiencies, and indicating more satisfactory green alternatives and
replacements, is another chapter in the elaboration of deep-green theory.
Deep-green theory is a deep environmental theory, with much in common with deep
ecology. Like deep ecology, it stands in significant ideological opposition to the dominant
technocratic-industrial way. But, even more than deep ecology, deep-green theory aims to
supply a comprehensive alternative environmental philosophy (in the full senses of those
atrophied terms, esp philosophy ). It seeks to accomplish this, furthermore, without
accumulating the amount of philosophical rubbish deep ecology regularly attracts. For, to insert
a key difference between these ecocentric theories in a deliberately prejudical way: deep-green
theory resembles a deep ecology with the pseudo-scientific garbage removed, reorganised into a
tight, coherent and more comprehensive theory. Deep-green theory, which has roots that stretch
back about as far as its much publicized neighbour, accordingly merits elaboration separate from
deep ecology, which in any case lacks a well-thought-through valuational and ethical basis.
This essay aims to uncover the value theory of deep-green theory, exposing thereby one central
area of deep-green theory. Though the value theory is (inevitably) abstract, it issues in what is
more concrete, such as practical ecological directives, potentially destabilizing prevailing policies
and institutions.
ETHICS AND METAPHYSICS:
their relevance to one another
There is rich range of incompatible claims about the mutual interelations of the two
ancient subjects. Most of these claims appear mistaken. Sorting out something of what looks
right is a daunting task, a small beginning on which is attempted here.
Initial severe difficulties derive from the vagueness, in determinacy and problematicality
of the relata, both of which are ill-understood by philosophers metaphysics especially. Many
there are who think that metaphyscis coincides with ontology, the study (description,
explanation and understanding) of what exists. 1 The general study of what there is, sistology,
which includes ontology as a very proper part, is only one facet of metaphysics (unless it is
presumed that items somehow supply also all propositions concerning them). For sistology is
the totality of things side of metaphysics, there is also the totality of true propositions side
(propositionology, for a nice term). Metaphysics also comprises the study of the very general
attributes of this and other universe and of what accounts for these attributes (or propositional
functions). In technical terms, then, a metaphysics amount to a very general and
comprehensi ve constrained model; and metaphysics to the plural assembly of these
metaphysics. 2 Each metaphysics will be constrained (as will become clear through examples
given below) through modelling conditions or postulates (which delimit how "altimate reality"
is according to that system).
Metaphysics is sometimes construed more comprehencisvely to include some or all of
epistemology (knowledge of "ultimate reality" for instance), some of or all of other branches of
philosophy, perhaps all of philosophy. Plainly, if metaphysics, so expansively construed,
includes ethics, then their relation is straightforward, metaphysics includes ethics. But we shall
not adopt such construals.
Whereas metaphysics concerns features of universes, ethics is a study of moral values and
principles, and of rules and practices of conduct. A case can be made out that an ethic is
outlined through its distributions of values, in terms of which both deontic features (rights,
obligations, etc) and axiological features (goodness, etc) can be discerned. (Utilitarian can
afford a crude exemplar). So, without loss of generality, I can concentrate on the relation of
value theory to metaphysics.
Now a value theory does not derive from a purely naturalistic metaphysic, by virtue of a
rectified naturalistic fallacy. But, firstly even is a value theory may be influenced or even
construed by such a metaphysics. For example if the theory rules out all but primary qualities
2
What there is according to most Western philosophers, still labouring under the probleminducing Ontological Assumption. For such a confusion of ontology with metaphysics see
Forrest p.3.
For the bsis of this large (and estrageous) technical leap, see DP.
2
as some sort of constructs, the value qualities will have to be explained as constructs,
projections or similar. Secondly, a metaphysics is unlikely to be purely naturalistic.
Metaphysics is not a value-free enterprise; a metaphysics typically presumes a range of
presumptions, including archivative ones (deeper examples include assumptions of primary,
e.g. of certain sorts of objects, of importance, e.g. of what exists, of implicit world selection,
e.g. the world is Newtonian, Copenhagen quantum, or obitives).
An ethics does not determine a meta-ethics or therefore a metaphysics. Nor does the
converse hold. A metaphysics does not in general determine an ethics, but is compatible with
many.
Against the stock determination and priority claims, I want to oppose interaction and no
priority themes. Determination claims are commonplace in philosophers who wish to wield the
big stock of dominant science to settle ethics (or mataethics). For instance Collicott asserts that
"intrinsic value in nature ... remains ... painfully inconsistent with the ... modern scientific
world-view' (Celbration of Robton p.14, similarly p.22, whence
CD 1. Modern scientific metaphysics entails there are no intrinsic values in nature.
This is not a lapse (though soon Collicott will weaken his determination claims) because almost
immediately Collicott goes on to assert
CD2. 'A value neutral nature is ... an immediate inference from the institutionalised
metaphysical foundations of modern science' (p.15).
Given some large assumptions, most conspiciously that the metaphysics involved is that of
British empiricism, the claim CD2 become incontestable. For under that empiricism, as
elaborated by Locke and Hurve, non primary qualities like value and colour are not part of or in
nature, but substantially subjective in character. However insitutionalized those foundations an important issue -
it has since become apparent that there are at least several parts of
operative sciences, such a classical and quantum; namely a core calculus or formalism;
operational rules for connecting the formalism with testable data and making in ..... applications;
and layers of interpretation. It is in these separable, and variable, larger of interpretation that
metaphysical and elaborative princi;es begin to enter conspicuously.
The "institutionalized" interpretation is but one among the interpretations that can be
fitted to classical formalism. It is an interpretation incorperating some major and controverisial
philosophical theories, such as the reference theory and verificationism. Rival interpretations
are feasible and were developed, for instance by the Scottish comon-sense school. Such rival
foundations do not yield a value-free value neutral nature. Collicott calls upon Rolston 'to
provide a persuasive alternative to the integral set of Carterian-Gohblein-Humean assumptions
that render the subjective provenance of value so fundamental to the modern scientific outlook'
(p.16). But Rolston hardly needs to do any such thing 3 : it has already been done, in various
3
Rolston makes giving an appropriate interpretation for more difficult than he need by conceeding
"seconddoary" qualities to the reductionistic opposition.
Thus, regressively: 'the greenness of the tree is in my hand, but it looks as though the tree is
3
ways, and, in any case, as Collicott soon observes, 'the modern scientific worldview is
obsolete' (p.19). The property for a full value-in-nature theory are little better under postmodern quantum theory, Collicott however insinuates, then they were before. Under a
Copenhagen interpretations, which he adopts, prospects look worse.
Abruptly too Collicott switches from a determination thesis, such as CD, to a slacker and
more plausible if vaguer linkage. The linkage appears in different nonequivalent forms:
CL 1. A science, such as 'the new physics might play an architectonic role in our eventual
thinking about nature (and human society)' (p.23 itals added).
Subsequently, 'architectonic role' is replaced through the as vague 'inspired by' and more
specific 'mapped out'.
CL2. 'A value thoery [may be] inspired by, and mapped on, ... quantum physics (p.25, where
reduction and derviation are now explicitly repudiated!).
Such a value theory is, it is claimed, 'particularly congenial to an ecologically informed
environmental ethics' (p.25). Whether it is, or not, depends on other-things, such as the sort of
interpretation of quantum theory, the congeniality of that with ecology. No doubt values in
nature without values is excluded under the Copenhagen interpretation, so is much else that
makes good sense. Fortunately there are congenial alternatives.
REFERENCES
P.R.H. Forrest, Speculation and Experience the New Metaphysics, Inaugural Public Lecture,
University of New England, N.S.W., 1987.
J.B. Callicott, 'Ralston's Environmental Ethics: A critical celbration', critical response at APA,
Oakland, March 1989.
R. Sylvan, Deep Plurallism, Australian National University, Research School of Social Science,
1993.
green. OUt there are only ....... waves... . The greenness is projected, more factural in my head
and apparently hung on the tree'. What a ridiculous idea.
'
,,.
ON THE VALUE CORE OF DEEP-GREEN THEORY
This essay aims to uncover the value theory of deep-green theory, exposing thereby a
central area of that theory. Though the value theory is (inevitably) abstract, it issues in what is
more concrete, such as an applicable system and practical ecological directives, potentially
destabilizing for prevailing policies and institutions.
Deep-green theory which stands in significant ideological opposition to dominant
industrial ways, is intended to supply a comprehensive alternative environmental philosophy.
At the core of deep-green theory lies a value theory. A fundamental theme thereof, part of what
makes the structure deep, is that a range of environmental items are valuable in themselves,
directly and irreducibly so, so that their value does not somehow reduce to or emerge from
something else, such as features of certain valuers or what matters for them. Thus value does
not answer back in some way to humans, or sentient creatures (or other value-responsive
classes), their interests, uses, preferences, or such like. Many natural items, such as forests
and rivers, mountains and seashores, are intrinsically valuable. They are valuable in their own
right - irrespective of whether they are interesting or useful (to any intentional operators,
themselves interesting or useful or not), indeed whether or not there exist any valuers. Value
spreads through and reaches across the natural domain; it is not bounded by mind, or linkages
with subjective states; nor does it stop with sentience, or associated pyschological features like
satisfaction; nor does it end at life; it observes no such compromising bounds. Although value
is distributed richly if irregularly throughout nature, it is not then encapsulated in some isolable
natural feature, such as life or sentience, or even in defeasible ecological values such as
richness, diversity and variety (and so open to a different, naturalistic, reduction). But of
course such ecologically important features afford criteria for value, and should be represented
in recipes (such as "objective functions") for assessing overall value.
From the presence of natural things of value, and accordingly of natural values, it is a
short, though controversial, step to the important conclusion that there can be values without
valuers. For valuers are sentient creatures with appropriate capacities, but things of value may
precede and succeed all such valuers; that is, these things can persist, their values intact,
without any valuers. As there can be shapes without any shape.:.perceivers, so there can be
values without valuers. (The theme, like others advanced, can be backed up by more detailed
argument and by formal proof, neither attempted here.) In valuational relations then, which
relate valuers as subjects with values as objects, both ends of relations have independent
standing; though interrelated, as the descriptions are deliberately chosen to suggest, either can
stand without the other. It is a fashionable mistake to try to collapse this relation - usually to
endeavour to soak up values into a modification of valuing subjects (e.g. as a predicate
'relation-to-values', in which inconvenierZt values are locked away). The mistaken procedure
is in fact just one important example of an archetypal modern reduction of relations to
functions; other examples, locking undesired objects away within functions, are those
rendering wholes (such as ecosystems and organised structures) functions of their parts, and,
under functionalism, minds and types of intentionality, including value-direction, as functions
of bodies or their parts such as brains. Values are not, and do not disappear into, functions of
valuers.
A connected corollary is that values are not apart from the actual world, something
"projected" or imposed on it by a favoured class of valuers, something colouring (and even
emotionally clouding) the otherwise valueless physical world, in rather the way that
reductionistic materialism tries (erroneously) to construe colour itself as projected onto a
colourless physical world. Of course this projection effort, never adequately explicated, does
not succeed, on its own, in removing values. For they remain, left as some function of the
valuers. To try to bulldoze through this difficulty, a second reduction is invoked, of evaluative
features of valuers to "natural" features, commonly preferences, consumer desires or such like.
The second reduction runs into obstacles that halt even the naturalistic bulldozers (e.g.
naturalistic and related fallacies), but the first reduction is the critical one in removing key
environmental values, such as those of wilderness and wild things, which become valuable
only in the focus of certain sentient beholders, and not in and for themselves. This reduction
too is blocked by insuperable difficulties. On the one side, like the parallel proposed
phenomenalist reduction of material objects to sensations, the reduction never achieves
satisfactory support or even a satisfactory statement. On the other, it is counterexampled by
various modellings or thought-experiments revealing intuitively-assessed value in situations
devoid of valuers (as e.g. in the well-known Last Person argument). Values remain then part
of the still rich actual world; they are objects in the domain of actual and other worlds. But
they are not of course material objects; creatures will not fall over them any more than they will
trip over shadows or mere shapes.
Value, like shape, is an attribute, which things have or may lack, and which furthermore
creatures can recognise or may fail to discern. Thus value is, like shape and colour and their
determinate forms (round, red, etc), a universal , distributed across things, individuals and
wholes. The comparison of value with shape is decidedly more helpful than the regular, but
exhausted, comparison of value with colour, or of goodness with colour determinates such as
yellow. For example, shape is not bound by a set of determinates as colour is in the specific
colours, but comes in a spectacular variety of forms, not totally or linearly ordered (as in a
rainbow), or contracted to some primary set (as in colour triangles); shape which pertains to
wholes as well as particulars, links with gestalts better than colour; shape discrimination is
more culture dependent and sensitive; yet shape is, or was, a primary property, and thereby
more immune to reductionist strategies thJn secondary properties such as colour. Again shapes
like values, can be vague, indeterminate; that does not prevent things, perhaps unique things,
exemplifying them. But naturally the analogy can only be extended so far. Shapes can be
approximated by polygons, values cannot; shapes are regularly perceived through sense
perception, by vision or touch especially, values are not, but are differently apprised. Value is
its own thing, not something else; it is what it is and does what is does; it is not something
else, like some quantitative mathematical or economic function. Nor does it contract into some
mark of value, or to what it comes down to in highly restricted settings; most important, it does
not disappear in the style of modern economics into (expected) utility, or into just two
economic forms, value-in-use monetarily and value-in-exchange (price), neither of which may
reflect worth. Value means what it means, and has meant: worth ; and it ties with general
assessments of merit and demerit, goodness or badness, not an economic or other truncation
thereof.
The powerful drive to reduce or deny values has several sources. Part of the motivation
for reduction of value springs from epistemological worries, concerning how values can be
ascertained and known, so far as they are (subjective translation proposals are then a direct
evaluative counterpart of phenomenalism). Part derives from supposedly problematic cultural
relativity (whence the attempt to impose values by identification of value with some favoured
assessible feature, and with it cultural or economic imperialism). Part of the motivation comes
from more sweeping ideological commitments, such as varieties of materialism or scientism,
which leave no space for immaterial values.
As already apparent, attempted reductions of value come in a dazzling variety of forms • subjective, which make use of psychological features, such as desires, interests, emotions,
and the like; or more objective aggregations of these, such as community preferences or utility;
or objectively naturalistic, which enrol single track value-making characteristics such as
richness or evolutionary development as value;
• consequential, which consider only outcomes; or purely motivational, which consider only
attitudes and ignore leads and outcomes;
• straightforward, as in translation proposals for translating value judgements into reducing
statements; or oblique, as in supervenience propositions (no variations in value without
underwriting variations in reducing features); or obscure, as in unarticulated projection claims.
Values are not well accommodated within these reductionistic schemes, or accommodated at all.
Deep-green value theory, which is thoroughly nonreductive, repudiates all these reductionistic
options. They are not so difficult to avoid, as the options are neither exhaustive nor exclusive.
In particular, value reduces neither in subjective nor objective fashion; it does not reduce.
Evaluative judgements are nonjective, that is, neither subjective nor objective (in any absolutist
4
fashion). Obversely, evaluation of an act does not reduce to assessing consequences; nor does
it come down to an assessment of motives; both may matter.
The virulent idea is abroad however that science can offer a reduction, can sweep up
value along with all other information, where philosophy has conspicuously failed.
Unfortunately for such optimistic ideas, fortunately perhaps for deeper thought, current basic
science does not have much to say at all, or of merit, about values, and if it did reductions
through it would be circular. But, to the contrary, there is a long-standing pretence that science
gets along "well" without values, in appropriate value-free fashion. Nowadays it is
increasingly realised that the positivistic assumption of such value-freedom is a myth, that
much of what passes as science is heavily value-penetrated. While the residual ideal of pure
engagement in pure science may offer the illusion of an escape from value, there is no escape.
For, in any case, reductions do not succeed, as a copious literature, littered with failed
attempts, meanderingly establishes. Nor are they generally desirable, since mostly shallow,
aiming at a reduction to features of some privileged class presented as ideal (i.e. core value is
covertly assumed, so there is no real reduction). Nor are they needed; explanation and
assessment do not require reduction. Evaluations may be arrived at, and value frameworks
expanded, by enhancement methods, which organise and expand emotional presentation by
coherence methods.
The enhancement methodology in fact resembles that sometimes proposed for further
acquisition of scientific information. As accumulated empirical information can be further
extended through presentational input and assessment for overall coherence, so further
evaluations may be arrived at and assessed through a combination of presentational and
coherence procedures. At the (marginal) stage where the next round of evaluations is
undertaken, the following active ingredients figure, in an idealised breakdown:- Firstly, a
background stock of judgements and value experience will have been accumulated or inherited;
in principle all of this is revisable, and some may be up for reassessment. Apart from the
background, which enters in assessing overall coherence of system, what is involved is,
secondly, emotional presentation, which corresponds to further perceptional and sense data
input, and, thirdly and not independent, coherence processing, which supplies the
interpretational and rationalisational components. At bottom, parallelling perception in the case
of empirical information, is emotional presentation, gut or visceral reaction in starker forms of
acceptance or rejection, but more generally comprehending a variety of sentiments, including
overall well-being, and also relational impressions, such as empathy, identification, and so on.
As a perceiver perceives shapes, so a valuer feels raw value and disvalue. The basis of
perception is sensation, the basis of valuation is emotion. Apprehension of value is seated in
emotional, and especially visceral, presentation; but what is apprehended is not to be confused
with its apprehension any more than what is perceived. All the warnings about sensation as an
information source have to be repeat~d, with heavy emphasis, as regards emotional
presentation; for example, reliability cannot be guaranteed, interference with presentation
through drugs, alcohol, temporary excitement or other inputs may render it dubious or
unacceptable, conditioning may have occurred, including substantial cultural conditioning (so
that a person is terrified by harmless spiders but not sickened by bloody massacres of dolphins
or seals). As with perception, there are checks on emotional presentation, such as constancy
over time and after reflection.
Emotional presentation, supplying primarily inclusions and exclusions or prohibitions, is
but the basis of reflective evaluation and value apprehension. The further critical part,
coherence processing, builds on the basis taking account of other inputs or controls including
background (which supplies relevant components of already adopted judgements, assimilated
subculture and so forth) and constraints (such as moral substitutional requirements like
impartiality, e.g. whether considered judgements hold for substitute valuers, and uniformity,
e.g. whether similar acts are judged in similar ways). Essentially, the coherence procedure
consists in asking whether the next or a relevant judgement fits together with what has been
accepted, while meeting constraints, without leading to what has been rejected or excluded. If
it does fit it is added to the included side, otherwise it is sent to the excluded side. Because an
aim of this rationalisation procedure is achievement of some sort of equilibrium such coherence
procedures have gained currency under the rubric "reflective equilibrium". Observe, however,
that equilibrium reached at some stage may be lost as new types of problems arise and further
information enters. No doubt the whole methodology (like the parallel methodology of an
empirically-based coherence theory of truth) is highly idealised, and only practicably applicable
in rudimentary parts. It does however surmount a major theoretical obstacle for environmental
value theory; it reveals how in principle a nonreductionistic value theory can function, and
deliver a tenable value system. Whether what results is however an appropriate deep
environmental system will depend above all on the presentational input, the extent to which
environmental sensitivity enters and is not suppressed.
Enhancement methods reveal too that value systems are not uniquely determined, any
more than other comprehensive theoretical frameworks. There evidently are rival value
systems measuring up to rigorous rationality requirements, much as there are rival logics and
rival physical and biological systems. In particular chauvinistic systems, narrow or shallow
value systems, which are unresponsive to and take no account of environmental items and
values, cannot be excluded on rational or straight logical grounds. Unfortunately such systems
remain in ascendancy, and tend to dominate social and political practice; in recent times
economism, a narrow type of utilitarianism, has all too obviously dominated much terrestial
practice. While such value frameworks are open to severe criticism, for instance as
chauvinistic, as violating universality requirements of morality in the case of economism, they
do not succumb to definitive refutatiog (for the reason that requirements of morality,
universalizability of principle, impartiality and so on, can simply be repudiated; immoral or
amoral frameworks are still value systems). Even so, much can be done to shift or alter
values, though as usual effectiveness cannot be guaranteed. A range of argumentative,
educational and persuasive techniques, of varying quality, can be put to work to move valuers
indoctrinated in old damaging structures, often enough successfully. Important among these
are positive presentations of environments, their habitats and creatures, by way of new
information and experience.
The availability of rival value systems, while it implies a certain desirable (and also
troublesome) pluralism, does not mean relativism. From a deep-green viewpoint, rival
narrower and shallower systems are definitely inferior, and criticised accordingly, while
economism is an anathema which does not even make the moral grade (e.g. too many
principles stop at class or state boundaries). However a critical pluralism does acknowledge
and offer a place in the wider scheme of things for other systems, even if as less favoured or
satisfactory. One political upshot is evident; deep-green theory promotes, what matters in these
irrational times of numbers, alliances - in particular, a green alliance, organising green
positions, against prevailing forces of environmental degradation.
The systematic pluralism of deep-green value theory interpenetrates not only social and
political domains above, but also metaphysics traditionally placed below. In the underlying
metaphysical pluralism of deep-green theory, value runs very deep - so deep that even truth
depends in part upon it. For not merely selection of a correct comprehensive theory or worldview is a value dependent choice, but choice of associated actual world is also. That choice,
insofar as it is consciously made, of world structure and conceptualisation, is a constrained
choice, constrained by informational inputs, such as those of refined perception. But inasmuch
as it is rationally accomplished, that choice, like other choices of structure, proceeds according
to a standard value-information analysis (regularly oversimplified however to a preferenceinformation or even desire-belief modelling); that is, to extract the salient point, it involves
value essentially.
Truth and value are then intertwined; truth, though naturally different from value, is value
dependent. Both are plural, and differently so. So, unremarkably deep-green metaphysics
resembles the value theory in significant respects. For example, as the value theory is
nonreductionistic, so also is the metaphysics; in particular, there is a no-reduction theme that
neither parts nor wholes reduce eliminably to one another, as opposed to atomistic and holistic
views of environmental interrelations. As the value theory is pluralistic, so also is the
metaphysics; in place of established absolutism, a plurality of worlds, with associated truth
definitions is discerned. Indeed a main aim of deep-green theory is to dislodge dominant
destructive ideologies, which (each of th]m) assume an absolute truth, from their positions thereby providing intellectual living-space for natural environments.
Much of deep-green theory devolves then from the abstract value theory. As with the
metaphysical way sketched, so it is with the fuller ethical theory, which includes as well as a
specific axiological system, elaborating deep environmental values and virtues, a deontic
framework, supplying obligations, rights, taboos, and similar. For example, given that a
certain wild river is intrinsically valuable, as we can verify by on-site experience and
enhancement methods, and given that we duly respect that value, as deontic principles will tell
us we should, then we are not free to do as we like with that river, to dam it with concrete, to
channel it within concrete, stripping it of its riverine ecosystems. But that does not preclude
respectful use of the river, swimming or sailing quietly in its waters, and the like. Value thus
guides action, practice, and use; it is the ground also upon which principles are formulated,
principles that are assessed and validated by way of enhancement methods. Important among
these are non-interference principles, which exclude unwarranted interference with other
preference-havers and unwarranted damage, ill-treatment, or devaluation of items of value.
Such deontic principles circumscribe environmentally-limited freedom of action. Given noninterference principles, a major shift in onus of proof from homocentricethics takes place.
What is required now is that reasons be givenfor interfering with the environment, rather than
reasons for not doing so. Also direct responsibility for environmental interference or
modification falls upon those who would seriously interfere or significantly modify, who
would tread heavily on the land. Non-interference does not preclude use - only too much use
and use of too much. What it does lead to is the theme that, where use occurs, it should be
careful and respectful use.
An important respect thesis regarding environmental items is founded on such non-interference
principles and the no-reduction theme: namely,
• not to put others (other preference havers) into a dispreferred state for no good reason;
• not to jeopardise the well-being of natural objects or systems without good reason;
• not to damage or destroy items which, while they cannot literally be put into a dispreferred
state, can be damaged or destroyed or have their value eroded or impaired.
These apply to ecosystems, their surrounds, their parts, and so on. The mere making of
further excess profits, or similar economic excuses, are not good reasons. Such a respect
thesis forms part of the ecological outlook of deep-green theory.
Deep-green ethical theory amounts to much more than just another non-reductionist
ethical theory, which highlights ecological values and virtues, and so forth. It changes the
character and shape of ethical enterprise. Perhaps most strikingly, it removes humans as such
from the centre of the ethical stage (or :xclusive occupation of the stage). The biological
concept of being human ceases to be a significant ethical category. To elevate it to such is to
fall into human chauvinism, a type of class chauvinism which unwarrantedly discriminates in
favour of the human species. The prevailing chauvinism is not inevitable; it is very logically
avoided by directly connecting ethical characteristics with the categories of items that can have
them. Relevant categories include those marked out by features like: having well-being,
preference-having, rights-holding, contractual-capability, and so on, categories not necessarily
connected with any particular species. Hitherto virtually all Western ethical theories, and the
institutional arrangements they help support, have not merely limited ethical matters to interhuman affairs, but have been blatantly chauvinistic, exhibiting substantial and unjustifiable
discrimination in favour of humans (or certain privileged humans).
Deep-green theory thus implies the inadequacy of prevailing social, political and
economic arrangements and institutions. These structures are the defective products of inferior
value frameworks which take quite insufficient account of environmental desiderata and values.
Richard Sylvan*
RMB 683
Bungendore NSW 2621
*
Thanks to David Bennett for comments on an earlier draft. For more on deep-green theory, see
essays in and work referred to in the Green Series, i.e. Discussion Papers in Environmental
Philosophy, RSSS, Australian National University, Canberra.
This compressed essay was solicited by and written for Island Magazine (Tasmania). Upon receiving
it however, the editors decided that it was too dense, and insufficiently journalistic and popular (not
features they had at any time requested), for their magazine.
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Box 16: Green Projects in Progress
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PREFACE
Part 1
ill
ECOLOGICA L ETHICS & ECOLOGICA L POLITICS:
TURNING JOHN MCCLOSKE Y'S CHALLENGE
i
Conservative, reformative and radical responses to the impacts
of ecology on ethics
1
ii
A confused and confusing response: supplemented intuitionism
3
iii
On the supposedly dim prospects for new environmental ethics
especially that deep-green upstart
8
iv
Extending ecological ethics, inadequately, to ecological politics
12
V
Structuring ecological ethics and politics: towards an improved
classification of environmental problems
19
vi
Population impact: the fact of human consumption
21
vii
On limiting human populations: some neglected considerations
24
viii On animal rights and supposed political implications thereof
ix
Part 2
Two other critical features of dominant political ways:
the shibboleths of extensive private property and high technology
26
31
A CRITIQUE OF (WILD) WEST DEEP ECOLOGY: A RESPONSE TO
w ARWICK
Fox's RESPONSE TO AN EARLIER CRITIQUE.
i
Approaching deep ecology and understanding plurallism
39
ii
Value in deep ecology
42
iii
The extent of values-in-nature
46
iv
A biocentric ethic?
49
V
Biospheric egalitarianism revisted
51
vi
The uneasy position of value theory, or axiology within deep ecology
and the condemned environmental axiological route
53
vii
The 'case' against environmental axiology: 'the inadequacies or
repugnant conclusions that attend the environmental axiological
approach
viii Fox's 'Deep Ecological Territory': transpersonal identification
ix
Problems of Self and Self-realisation: the intrusion of value and the
issue of evil
57
62
65
�11
X
Deconstruction and reselection of self
68
xi
More troubles with Self as foundation
73
xii
Liquidating Fox's 'deep ecological territory
75
xiii
Justifying 'extreme interpretations' of and 'extreme reactions' to
wild West deep ecology
77
xiv
Transpersonal logic and methodology
82
xv
More rubbish removal, especially that borrowed from pop science
86
Part 3
ANOTHER 'REFUTATION' OF ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS:
JANNA THOMPSON'S CRITICISMS
i
The newer destructive phase: overtaxing requirements for
(environmental) ethics
94
ii
Satisfying duly modified requirements, environmentally
98
iii
The former constructive phase: a new anthropocentric
environmental ethic?
105
�PART 1.
CRITICAL EXPOSITION
Chapter 1. AT THE PYRAMIDS' JUNCTION.
THE BASICS AND CREED OF DEEP ECOLOGY
Deep ecology in both a movement and an ideological position. Thus in significant respects it
resembles a new religion, which has a creed as well as an organisational structure, practices and so
on; a political party, which has a platform as well as organisation, objective and so forth; and an
intellectual school, which aim to propagate a philosophy, gain converts and adherents, etc. Like a
religion in a literate society, there is a set of texts, DE texts as we shall call them, which present
elements of the faith: doctrine, themes, parables, heroic figures, warnings, and so on. The DE texts
have not so far been arranged into any authoritative form.
Although the movement may have come first, and the theory been but gradually extracted (the
historical and pseudo-sociological impression given by the DE texts), it makes for neater
characterisation and easier exposition to consider the theoretical structure J first. The very looselyknit movement, subsequently considered, essentially the genuine environment movement (excluding
those just in it for human ends), is in any case clustered around this structure - as older cities are
around their centre. The theoretical structure is itself conveniently organised in the following
(double) pyramidal diagram (now called by Naess, who devised it, "the Apron"):-
�Diagram 1.
Basic Double Pyramid
LEVELS
UPPER (INVERTED) PYRAMID
C
B
p
1. Sources, or
ultimate bases
2.Core
Principles
DE PLATFORM
R
E
E
D
REGULAR PRACTICE
PARTICULAR PRACTICES
POLICIES
LIFESTYLES
3. General
themes & norms
4. Particular
norms and
concrete
decisions
LOWER (COMPLEX) PYRAMID
The theoretical centre of DE is to be found at level 2, where the upper and lower pyramid join.
The various sources of the central part, such doctrines as those of Buddhism (B) and Christianity (C)
and of philosophic cast (P) at level 1, are not usually a part of DE at all. But there is a preferred
philosophical source, ecosophy - another theory elaborated by N aess, who again coined the term which does enjoy a closer connection with DE, and is sometimes considered almost part of it. Levels
3 and 4, which are supposed to derive from the central creed, and in turn inductively inform it, are
parts of DE, but less central parts, parts of the varying practice. It is level 2 then that is crucial for
�understanding DE. While the upper pyramid givgs the theoretical or intellectual content and sources
of DE, the lower pyramid supplies working DE, and core principles and the practice.
1. The Central level, level 2, and the standard DE platforms
Deep Ecology is structured around level 2, the central operational level. The main distinctive
principles of DE are set on level 2, the platform level. These principles may be grouped as shown in
the following diagram:CREED
LEVEL2
BASIC CREED
wider
platform
8 point
platform
further
and
more
peripheral
principles
The reason for distinguishing the 8-point platform from the wider platform is simple this:- The 8point platform, as variously presented in DE texts, omits some of the standard articles of the core DE
position, and fails to develop others. 1 There is accordingly a real point in distinguishing "the"
platform from the more comprehensive and better rounded core or creed.
DE is a decidedly vague object, with vague parts. Perhaps the most definite things about it are
its 8-point platform and its diametric opposition to features of the mainstream Western ideology, and
dominant social paradigm as it otherwise known.
The core position is something discerned from the DE texts, in much the way the platform is. But
whereas the 8 point platform is explicitly presented, though in different and incompatible terms, the
core has to be winnowed and from an array of more peripheral material (as is shown in part II).
�Box 1 The 8-point platform, in capsule form. 2
I. Both non-human and human life have intrinsic value:
The well-being and flourishing of
human and non-human life on earth
have intrinsic value, inherent value,
etc. These value are independent of
the usefulness of the non-human
world for human purposes.
2. Richness and diversity intrinsic virtues:
Richness and diversity of lifeforms contribute to a realisation
themselves
these values and are also values in
of
3. Humans unjustified in reducing such natural virtues:
Humans have no right to reduce this
richness and diversity except to
satisfy vital needs.
4. Human interference with natural world excessive:
Present human interference with
the
and the situation is rapidly worsening.
non-human world is excessive
5. Policies and basic structures must be changed:
Policies must therefore be changed.
These policies will affect our basic
economic, technological and
ideological structures.
6. Human (values compatible with) population decrease:
The flourishing of human life and
culture is compatible with a substantial
population. Flourishing of nonhuman life requires such a decrease.
decrease of the human
7. Quality of life should supplant economic standard of living:
The change in our attitudes will
bring an appreciation of the quality of
life rather than adhering to an
increasingly higher standard of living.
There will be a profound awareness
of the difference between big and
great. We will have a great society
with no bigness.
8. Obligation to attempt implementation:
Those who subscribe to the
foregoing points have an obligation
directly or indirectly to try to
implement necessary changes.
2
The 8-point platform is perhaps the most repeated exhibit in the DE texts. The present formulation
adopts the presentation of Naess in Resorg ; the brief formulation on the left does not occur in Naess.
A slightly different formulation of the platform under heading 'Basic Principles' is given in DS p.70.
�The principles have been rendered, and grJuped, to make their structure and interconnections a
little clearer. Principles / and 2 concern intrinsic values; principles 3-7 concern human practices and
policies. Principle 5 elaborates in principle 3; principle 6 draws the policy consequence of this. The
most important of the general policy changes is listed in principle 4; but another crucial policy change
is indicated in principle 7: decreased production and consumption. The prime terrestrial policy
objectives (that should have obtained separate listing) can in fact be derived from the impact formula:
roughly,
human environmental impact = human population x personal consumption x available technology.
Reducing excessive interference thus requires at least some of, and no doubt all of, human
population reduction, consumption reduction, and appropriate technology improvements. Finally,
principle 8 supplies a commitment principle. Observe that some of the principles of this 8-point
platform, 8-point principles as we may conveniently call them, provide linkages with other levels of
the DE pyramid. For example most of the principles, principles 3-7 especially, have implication for
policy at level 3, and thence for day-to-day practice at level 4. 8-point principle 8 has direct
application to level 4, individual lifestyles.
Before the incomplete 8-point platform was devised (as part of a political conciliation and
unification attempt), DE was rather differently characterised: primarily through listing of principles
countering assumptions of the conventional socioeconomic wisdom, resistance principles. Indeed,
in many respects DE is marked out through reaction and resistance: by its opposition the prevailing
ideology of industrial society, especially by those elements of it that have lead to the assault on the
natural environment, but also by elements that have led to breakdown of connected features of the
social fabric. It gives a clearer picture of what DE is about if we tabulate are principles in opposition
to those of the dominant Western ideology (or social paradigm), and as compared with those of
shallow or reform environmentalism:
�TABLE 2 DE PRINCIPLES AS CONTRASTED, ON THE ONE SIDE, WITH THOSE OF THE
DOMINANT PARADIGM AND SHALLOW ECOLOGY, ON OTHER, WITH ONE OF ITS
SOURCES, TAOISM.
DOMINANT
SHALLOW
(WESTERN)
ECOLOGY
DEEP ECOLOGY
TAOISM
(DE)
PARADIGM (DE)
Domination over
nature
Stewardship of
Nature
Nature an exploitable
resource: intrinsic
value confined to
As for, but
with nature a
manager resource
Natural environment
valued for itself
Human
supremacy
Human
ascendency
Biocentric
egalitarianism
Harmony with
Nature
Elaboration of
DE
Much as for DE;
''humanism''
rejected
Differs from
DE; wide
impartiality
Ample resources
substitutes
Some resource
limitations
Earth supplies
limited
Supplies
Material economic
growth a predominant
goal
Sustainable
development
Non-material goods
especially
self-realization
Following
Tao-te
Consumerism
Optimised
consumerism
Doing with enough/
recycling
Doing with
enough
(recycling
inappropriate)
Competitive
lifestyle
As for DP
Cooperative
lifeway
Much as for DE:
voluntary
simplicity
Centralised/urbancentred/national focus
As for DP
Decentralized/
bioregional/
neighborhood focus
As for DE
Largely as for
DP
Non-hierarchical/
Grassroots democracy
Hierarchy
without
structure
More careful
high technology
Appropriate
technology
Limited
technology
Power structure
hierarchical
High technology
ample
Power
�7
Shallow ecology, or reform environmentalism as it can to be called3 , differs from the
dominant paradigm primarily in its emphasis on stewardship, on long-term management, on
sustainable development. DE, while it reacts against the dominant paradigm primarily on
environmental grounds, stands opposed to shallow ecology, which it correctly sees as not going
nearly far enough, in particular to satisfy genuine environmental values. Of course the dominant
paradigm resisted is not itself a uniform or static position; some of the in determining of DE
flows from this very feature. For example, until very recently DP used to support dominance as
a throughgoing feature: not just over Nature, but of the male, white, Western, Protestant, rich,
powerful, free, adult, etc., over their opposites. Domination of the latter sorts, within the
human species, is, for the most part, no longer a part of the progressive ideology, having been
gradually shed over the last century; but such domination still remains part of much practice (as
well as of cultural ideologies).
Some of the most distinctive, and most controversial, principles of DE, are omitted from
the 8-point platform, as is evident from the opposition/resistance principles. These include the
principles regularly, and pontifically, claimed to distinguish deep ecology. Moreover without
these further principles, DE amount to nothing more than a slightly less shallow environmental
position (indeed apart from principle 1 and perhaps 2, all the principles of the 8-point platform
can be adopted by reform environmentalism and in fact often are enough espoused therefor).
These additional principles, part of the wider platform (and the creed) include these:9. Biospheric egalitarianism [in principle]: 'all things in the biosphere have an equal right to live
and blossom'. The principle is presented in this unqualified form (in DS) as one of the two
ultimate norms, the other being self-realisation. Fir fact Devall and Sessions proceed to tack on
a self-realisation component to this principle, of biocentric equality as they call it: namely 'and
to reach their own individual forms of unfolding and self-realisation with the larger Selfrealisation' (DS p.67). But, they immediately add, the 'basic intuition is that all organisms and
entities in the ecosphere, as parts of the interrelated whole, are equal in intrinsic worth' (p.67,
continuing, italics added). This italicised value-formulation is straightforward, and has the
advantage of moving rights out of the formulation (No doubt, if equal intrinsic value
guarantees an equal right to live and blossom, it yields the "equal rights to" formulation.) But it
encounters immediate difficulties, because in the process of continuing to live and blossom some
organisms interfere with others, for instance through basic demands for food and shelter, most
conspicuously in predation. To try to escape these difficulties, Naess at least regularly adds the
rider: in principle . 'Naess suggests that biocentric equality as an intuition is true in principle,
3
For example in D & S. The alternative, shallow ecology, was set aside because of the negative
conditions of the word 'shallow'.
�8
although in the process of living, all species use each other as food, shelter, etc.' (DS p.67).
10. Self-realisation . This involves the realisation - growth, development and maturity - of the
self, becoming a whole and full person, but not merely in isolation or in a social setting as in
older models of self-realisation, but within a biospheric setting, taking due account of other
forms of life. It 'can be summarised symbolically as the realisation of "self-in-Self' where
"Self' stands for organic wholeness' (DS p.67).
Intimately linked with self-realisation in this wider ecological sense is the next principle.
11 Biospheric identification . The procedure, again a personal one, consists in suitably
identifying with parts or wholes of the larger surrounding biosphere. The underlying notion
here is one of partial identity, sharing certain salient features with, which permits a qualified
substitutivity of an imaginative person into the position of another creature, ecoobject or
ecosystem. Such "identification" is a significant method of heightening
12. Ecological consciousness . Less grandiosely this covers environmental awareness,
appreciation, and concern, and thus responsiveness to environmental depredation. Engendering
ecological consciousness is regarded as a crucial part of spreading the deep ecological message.
13. Holism. On DE precepts, this amounts to more than the modem holism according to which
there are nonadditive wholes, wholes or objects which amount to more than the sums of their
parts. But as to what else holism demands, there is some disagreement within deep ecological
circles.
2. Further principles of the DE creed and important optional extras
Beyond the standard platform there are further principles, not enunciated at all, or until
very recently, or else more peripheral. Some of the further themes help in deciding what clarity
DE had; that is one reason why they presumably do not feature in the 8-point platform.
Among the principles not enunciated are these:•
Non violence.
The new themes, several of them periphical to the main concerns of DE include the
following:• Deep ecology offers a green synthesis. It 'combines the "Social Greens" with the "Natural
Greens" avoiding the extremes of both' (Naess R p.6). This is a surprising theme for a position
that has itself been regularly castigated as extreme. What N aess means, above all, is that DE
does not neglect humans, and their legalerate social concerns and aspirations, in the way that the
�9
Natural-greens have been (generally erroneously) accused of doing; nor does it neglect or
devalue nature and its features in the way that many social-greens are inclined to do.
Among the important optional extras that may be coupled with DE are principles of a more
through-going animal liberation, such as:• a severe reduction oforend to the enclavement, confinement and slaughter of animals.
• vegetarianism (of some form).
Some deep ecologists are vegetarians (e.g. Bennett), some are not (e.g. Drengson), and some
are in between (e.g. Naess). Unless they undergo a conversion, Northerness brought up in the
hunting-fishing-shooting tradition eschew these optimal principles. But evidently there is a
tension here; there is pressure coming from other principles, especially nonviolence, to limit
sharply slaughter of other creatures.
3. The creed, the basic creed, and the movement.
Like many a religious creed, the DE creed is an elaborate concoction (as well as a dubious
and rather arbitrary one). Adoption of it, knowledge of it even, cannot be expected of all
adherents, especially given its features: its vagueness, its inaccessibility, and so on. It is not
surprising that, again like many another creed or ideology, many of the faithful do not know too
well what it comprises, still less do many of the fellow-travellers (and DE has many). The most
that can perhaps be expected of adherents is adoption of some simpler creed, a basic creed more
or less in the vicinity of the 8-point platform. But it is apparent from DE texts that not even all
of that platform is demanded: enough will do, especially if other DE principles are adopted. The
platform represents 'what most supporters have in common at a deep level' 4 No doubt
supporters who eschew part of the platform compensate by adherence instead of other DE
principles or practice. Hence the depiction of the basic creed in diagram 2. A basic creed
comprises enough of the 8-point platform plus enough other principles at least to compensate for
omissions.
But not even a basic creed is always demanded. At its most generous and laxest, the DE
movement includes everyone who professes a concern for some part of the natural environment
and does not demolish a manifestation of concern or interest by blatantly anti-environmental
activity or involvement therewith. Inclusion in the movement does not even require strict
adoption of, or adherence to the DE platform, though it involves some vague recognition of
parts of it. Talk of membership of the movement would be somewhat inapposite; there is no
paid-up or recorded membership (or even rewarding as would be done in a voting system).
4
Naess R p.3, italics added.
�10
It is sometimes said that the DE movement was born in Europe and adopted elsewhere,
US and Australia especially. But such a claim confuses the movement with quasi-sociological
extraction of the principles involved and the platform assembling them. The movement itself
emerged as a late 1960's affair, substantially under way before it was reported upon and labelled
(as usual, academics, like politicians, reacted to, rather than led, more popular movements).
Such a movement involves some "mass" of people; it must therefore be anticipated by some
smaller groups and likely some initiating individuals. So it was with the DE movement. There
were prominent individuals in several countries where environmental groups with deep leanings
formed or operated, in the 60s and before; and before that there were many isolated individuals.
In USA, where the DE movement no doubt grew to substance first, before that in Europe or
Australia, there is a significant chain of deep ecologists, or rather deep ecological thinkers,
reaching back to the beginning of the century and perhaps into the previous century; for
instance, in reverse temporal order, Carson, Leopold, Muir, perhaps Thoreau. 5 Muir is
regularly alluded to as an early deep ecologist by Americans. 6
There are deeper-seated motives for vagueness about the basic creed and uncertainty about
the basic requirements to be deep ecologist and who makes the hororific status. One is a dislike
of criticism, and resulting vacillation among the high bishops of DE as to what extent critics, and
those who declare themselves not to be deep ecologists, should be included in the fold, and
consequently as to who exactly is a deep ecologist. (From outside the issue can look rather
trivial, but gangs are gangs whether ecological or more generally not..) A main reason for the
omission of central doctrines of DE from the 8-point platform is of course related: the desire to
increase the flock, to turn away no-one who might be decently admitted. 7 Another motive,
linked also with trying to enlist support, in order to mobilize democratic forces and like people
power, concerns the pluralistic drive that is an important aspect of authentric DE. It concerns the
insertion of pluralistic elements within level 2 itself (rather than confining these elements to other
levels, where there are conspicuous, as later exposition will show). As Naess explains the idea
5
6
7
In Australia there were, in reverse order, Dunply, Griffin, Stead; there were of course many others
with very considerable environmental concerns (e.g. Ratcliffe), who apparently lacked however the
requisite feature of depth, and world count only as reform environmentalistser conservationists. But,
quite evidently, there are serious problems in discerning whether some environmentalist or other is
deep (there is generally only indirect evidence, as the category was not clearly recognised). The issue
as to whether some deep environmentalist is a (prota)-deep ecologist is even more vexed because of
the muddiness of DE. It is important to observe that little reliance can be placed, in such issues, on
standard and applauded histories, such as Nash's Wilderness and the America Mind, because these are
written from a shallow perspective and fail to realise the significance of depth; See further Devall's
report on Nash's third edition, Ecorotes, pp23-9.
See, for instance, Devall Ecorates. Devall also suggests that St. Francis is a deep ecologist, but
given what is now known about St. Francis there is room for considerable doubt.
Or othersie admitted. But may be excluded by ignored or incompetance, or deterred by qualms about
significent propositions (human populations restraint esp.).
�11
is avoid the 'devastating' 'tendency to dogmatism': 'there is not one, definite, deep ecology
philosophy, not one definite one kind of green society'. Likewise there is no definite or
definitive basic creed. For many purposes this does not matter; we can still normally assert such
and such, so and so, definitely deep ecological, such and such, so and so, is definitely not.
In an attempt to evade criticism, DE is nowadays sometimes represented as a grass-roots
movement, one but loosely associated with philosophical views 8 But such movements have
intellectually-shaped objectives, offer at least a set of slogans and elementary principles. And
DE is this and more; it verges on the dishonest to try to portray DE as such a movement, when
in large measure it is the work of intellectuals, initiated by reporting, rather inaccurately it seems,
on the supposed attitudes of field ecologists and like workers - hardly typical grass-roots people.
8
In a different respect, in term of moral of ideas and change of themes, DE is no doubt a movement. It
has moved (and with Fox shedding critical principles, it continues moving). Such movement is not
good for the types of virtues that stable positions may acquire, such a replenity, reliability,
assessibility etc; but it does make life difficult for critics.
�PART II
CRITIQUE OF DEEP ECOLOGY
Chapter 5.
THE INITIAL PROBLEM: WHAT ON EARTH IS DEEP ECOLOGY?
WHO IS AND ISN'T A DEEP ECOLOGIST?
Deep ecology appears , on a preliminary reading, to be some elaboration of the position
that natural things other than humans have value in themselves, value sometimes exceeding that of
or had by humans. So much appears to follow from the first part of the 8-point platform. But
even this much is denied by some of the never philosophers (e.g. Fox). Moreover which
elaboration is quite another matter, and decidedly controversial. Indeed DE has not just been
rapidly converted (in part through overuse) into a conceptual bog, but is well on the way to
becoming all things to all interested parties. This is undoubtedly a drawback; it makes
communication, and theoretical and persuasive use of the notion, that much more difficult though it does not condemn an afflicted notion, such as deep ecology undoubtedly is, out of
hand. For several important and fruitful notions, which have survived, have encountered very
much of this sort of problem - force, mind, energy, differential, infinitesimal, to take some older
examples, paradigm and culture to take relevant recent examples.O On the other hand, many
notions no more afflicted than deep ecology, such as societism, timocracy and ungrund, have
been assigned to the historical scrap-heap. These include the sort of neo-Hegelian panpsychism
which deep ecology of the American texts will tum out to resemble.
What is evidence of conceptual murkiness and degeneration? The trouble begins with the
very introduction of the terminology. Naess, - when first setting down in one preliminary
codification what was already in the air,* wrote only of the 'Deep Ecology movement' and set
down what he has subsequently described as a 'Deep Ecology platform'. The suggested notion
of deep ecology, the underlying notion that informed the loosely-knit and open-ended movement
and platform, was not extracted; that subtraction task fell primarily to West Coast American
intellectuals, and it was done differently by different proponents of deep ecology. The trouble
was accentuated through rapid evolution of the notion. Thus Naess's account of the movement in
0
*
In case it is supposed this sort of conceptual muddiness is limited to less exact science, consider such
recent notions as anthropic principle, from physics, and nonmonotonic logic, from computer science.
See Naess 73, p.98ff. While slogans and preliminary formulations are fine, particularly in campaigns,
philosophy cannot rest at the level of slogans or platforms, as too much of DE continues to do.
�2
1983 is significantly different from the account he outlined in 1973; seven principles are replaced
by six different themes, only two or so of which have much in common with the original
principles. t
Although DE is introduced in the 8-point platform as a value theory, basically concerned
with environmental values 1 , it has been presented as a metaphysics, as a consciousness
movement (and as primarily psychological), and even as a sort of (pantheistic) religion. Popular
Australian sources will begin to indicate some of the spread. The Deep Ecologist , a network
newsletter, sees deep ecology as metaphysical at base, as part of a natural philosophy of humans'
place in nature (though many of its correspondents see it as a matter of deep experiences , often
of a religious cast, too often decidedly anthropocentric, obtained in or through Nature).
According to its manifesto, carried in each issue on its title page,
Deep ecology is the search for a sustaining metaphysics of the environment; it
represents "a deep understanding of our unity with other beings and livings
processes" (Drengson); it is biocentric, not anthropocentric.
Though we shall come to modify or reject this manifesto phrase by phrase (deep ecology is not a
search, but on one level a position or theory, on another a movement; sustaining should concern
the environment, not the metaphysics; depth lies elsewhere than understanding; unity too is a
metaphor for integration; biocentric is misleadingly restrictive), the present enterprise, illustrating
the degenerative spread of deep ecology, is different. Let us hasten on to the strikingly different
explanation John Seed prefers in introducing and advertising his anthology Deep Ecology 2 , a
person - and consciousness-oriented souffle (drawn from Devall):
"What I call deep ecology ... is premised on a gestalt of person-in-nature [an image
Naess had rejected at the very outset of the enterprise 3]. The person is not above or
outside of nature. The person is part of creation on-going. The person cares for and
about nature, shows reverence towards and respect for nonhuman nature, loves, and
lives with nonhuman nature, is a person in the "earth household" and "lets beings
be", lets nonhuman nature follow separate evolutionary destinies. Deep ecology,
unlike reform environmentalism, is not just a pragmatic, short-term social movement
with a goal like stopping nuclear power or cleaning up the waterways. Deep ecology
first attempts to question and present alternatives to conventional ways of thinking in
the modern West. Deep ecology understands that some of the "solutions" of reform
environmentalism are counter-productive. Deep ecology seeks transformation of
values and social organisation.
t
2
3
The claim is documented in the Appendix to this chapter.
Thus according to Naess (73, p.99), ' ... the significant tenets of the Deep Ecology movement are
clearly and forcefully normative . They express a value priority system ... '. But even this core claim
is now challenged, by Fox, who sees the primary focus of deep ecology as ontological and not
evaluative.
This is one of three different collections with this title which have been circulated or announced
recently: see references.
See Naess 73, p.95; but Naess's rejection is rejected below.
�•
3
Deep ecology is liberating ecological consciousness ... Consciousness is knowing.
From the perspective of deep ecology, ecological resistance will naturally flow from
and with a developing ecological consciousness (Devall, 'The Deep Ecology
Movement').
Again, while informative, much of this will have to be rejected or rectified (for example, the
gesalt theme is problematic, and the deep person need do part only of what is specified; shallow
or reform ecology need not be short-term, insofar as it may take account of many future
generations of humans; it may well not be pragmatic; shallow ecology is better pluralistically
combined with deep ecology, as in Naess's original platform, than denigrated; etc.) It is to Bill
Devall, more than anyone, that we are indebted for a confusing myriad of formulations of the
driving notion, several of them however extending Naess; for instance, deep ecology is first of all
deep questioning, deep ecology is ultimately self-realisation and biocentrism, in deep ecology the
most important ideas are 'the wholeness and integrity of person/planet together with biological
egalitarianism'; it is also however much else - that again we shall come to modify or reject including a new psychology and new philosophical anthropology. 4 But Devall has been much
encouraged by George Sessions, and it is Sessions especially who has tried to convert deep
ecology into a new religion, with main texts drawn from pantheism, Spinoza and Buddhism.
Thus according to Sessions,
If the promise of American pantheism and nature mysticism is to be fulfilled, it will
occur in the deep ecology social paradigm which is based upon pantheism and the
idea of ecological egalitarianism in principle (Ecophilosophy ill).
But although Sessions refers immediately to Naess, there is nothing in Naess about American
pantheism and nature mysticism. At most Naess would allow that pantheism, along with other
comprehensive positions, like Christianity or ecosophy, can be an underlying base for the deep
ecology platform.
Small wonder that John Passmore (hardly one to be philosophically baffled given his
immense experience in comprehending Continental philosophy) goes astray in yet another
account, in which he conveniently pushes the shallow-deep contrast into the unsatisfactory
conservation/preservation boxes (of his 74):
Deep ecophilosophers ... are mainly interested in the preservation of species and
wilderness even when preserving them is not immediately and advantageous to
human interest. In order to provide intellectual support for such preservation they
are prepared to break with traditional Western ethical principles and metaphysical
beliefs (Passmore 83).
4
Devall 79, 83; for a synopsis, see Appendix 1, figure 7B.
�4
Again, most of this will have to be rectified, since the presentation is decidedly misleading, not to
say biassed. As initial explanations of the deep ecological movement straightaway show, and
applications reveal, deep ecology has always concerned, and deep ecophilosophers have always
been interested in, much else as well, especially in human population levels and human
interference, and in quality of life and technological and organisational structures. While this of
course requires breaking with some Western traditions - which are in no way sacrosanct Wes tern tradition is far from uniform, and there are other tradition: deep ecology can remain, and
is, rooted in tradition, though much about it is as new and fresh as anything of this sort can be.
As a broad label for something rather environmentally different, and no doubt better, than
most vague ideologies that preceded it, 'deep ecology' is no doubt rather fine. That is broad
vague way is how the label often functions, honorific ally. That is, for instance how it functions
in the collection under that label edited by Tobias, which gives deep ecology none but a nebulous
content, and which indeed contains many articles (such as the interview with Soleri) in diametrical
opposition to the more detailed platform promulgated by the intellectual "leaders" of the deep
ecology movements. In fact, a good deal of the more popular appeal of deep ecology has been
obtained by vacillation between the more discerning authentic forms and the slack or nebulous
forms. The nebulous use of the label has also given cover to some of those who calls themselves
'deep ecologists', enabling them to shed awkward but crucial themes from the more detailed
platform (thus e.g. Fox, as explained below).
Many are those who are now pleased to march under the rather fashionable nebulous
banner. 5 Many are not deep, in theory or practice, deeply committed, or deeply changed by the
march. Attending a consciousness - raising weekend, purchasing or growing organic vegetables,
having spiritual experiences in a special natural place, or practising some oriental art or exercise
routine, does not ensure a deepened environmental position, though it can be a step on the way.
While nebulous deep ecology is compatible with much that is neither deep nor even
significantly ecologically oriented, such as minor lifestyle adjustments within the industrial
paradigm, authentic deep ecology, which is not so slack, remains a defective doctrine, itself
oscillating between an overpermissive environmental assembly point, fast growing its radical
potential, on the one side, and an impermissive, unduly narrow doctrine, dubious or defective in
5
I too am happy to march under the nebulous banner, though since my first critique I am no longer
particularly welcome. Initially I was cut by about half those individuals and institutions loosely
associated with deep ecology, since my critique began circulating. While I am become accustomed to
this sort of phenomenon in intellectual areas (criticism induces cool and long at least, even in logic), I
didn't expect so much of this given the Christian character of DE.; and such isolation does seriously
reduce information sources.
�5
several of its leading themes, on the other side. Some of the worst of these themes, such as
biological egalitarianism, have already been subject to much criticism, deserved criticism as will
soon appear. But other features of authentic deep ecology have hitherto been left largely
untouched, and new features have emerged. So an ongoing critique is needed.
Recently 6 , it has been become more difficult, if anything, to grasp what DE is all about.
New themes are introduced, older ones withdrawn or whittled away. Even Naess, the finder of
the movement, who now tends to adhere much more closely to the (nonetheless adjustible)
platform than other self-proclaimed deep ecologists, is inclined to make apparently large
concessions to opposition charges, which however he subsequently more surreptitiously
withdraws (of course this is familiar philosophical practice). At other times, he withdraws with
one hand what he is offering, some sort of olive branch, with the other. The oscillation can be
partly ascribed to conflicting motivation. On the one side, there is the desire, stronger in the
finder-founder, Naess, than in his American and Australian prophets, to create a wide
constituency, to tum no one away if doing so can in any way be avoided. But, on the other, there
is an evident desire, among the prophers, to make deep ecology a very select position, a place for
a chosen few, a place to be achieved only after a journey crossing some arduous terrain and
involving some difficult life adjustments i.e. after an appropriate testing pilgrimage. Deep
ecology, however, lacks the other-worldly and after-life resources which, in some of its religious
sources, appear to make for an easy resolution of this type of conflict.
There is a considerable lack of discrimination among the pace-setters of the movement over,
and marked differences between them as to, who and what is accounted within deep ecology, and
some unwarranted discrimination from this exclusive club (e.g. of Rodman). Many of the people
classed as within or associated with deep ecology are shallow. And some who are excluded are
not. For example, Naess (in 75) presents a long list of people he associates with the movement,
many of whom are rather or even entirely shallow in their environmental orientation. Elsewhere
(in 83) Naess proceeds to identify with deep ecology several other positions or movements which
only overlap it, and which may be substantially shallow (such as green politics and new natural
philosophies). Some of the predominantly American lists Devall and Sessions assemble are not
so artless. To some extent, this combined discrimination and lack of discrimination again reflects
the conceptual murkiness of deep ecology; to some extent it is symptomatic of other oldconsciousness malignancies, both within the notion and as regards its use.
6
Since the first critique was produced
�6
Still more damaging to the movement is that several of the advertised prophets of deep
ecology verge on the shallow, and some of these have denied DE.7 A striking example is
Bookchin who has recently denounced DE, and written ranging declamations much of
Bookchin's main, windy, bringin-it-together book, The Ecology of Freedom, said to be a "book
of deep ecology" is very far from that; it is yet another, is a celebration of humans in very much
the old (enlightenment) style. Insofar as it gets to grips with deeper environmental issues,
Bookchin's material amounts to an extension of shallow ecology. 8 Ecologically Bookchin, like
other of the prophets, buys into vitalism by way of extended consciousness. Ecological ethics is
said to render nature self-conscious; the mechanistic alternative is presented as deadness, thus
making an entirely false contrast. Indeed, part of the problem with the selection of prophets, is
that mechanism is seen as the main bogy - when it is only one of the forms metaphysically
underpinning shallower positions, Cartesian dualism being another - with the result that work that
simply attacks mechanism and its variants and also advocates some sort of environmental way,
gets accounted deep.
N aess has cast the net of deep ecology too wide, catching therewith not only many remote
"supporters", but a number of hostile critics as well, such as latterly the antagonistic Bockchin
(RS p.6). Naess now considers the 8-point platform, formulated by himself and Sessions and
published in several slightly different forms, as tentatively setting down the 'basic principles of
Deep Ecology' - though it leaves out what Devall and Sessions assert are the two essential
features of DE, biospheric egalitorionism and self-realisation, and though it does not require
depth (immediate positions conforming to the platform). Even so Naess 'look[s] upon the
formulations as tentatively expressing the most general and basic views which almost all
supporters of the movement have in common ' (letter 23.6.88). Thus the 8-point platform
provides, in a still vague and tentative sort of way, the distinguishing platform, of DE. To get
around a small obstacle, let us call those who would adhere to an approved minimum of the
principles of the distinguished platform (in some approved formulation) adherents of DE. They
are adherents in (simply and literally) holding to that much of the platform. They may not be
members of the movement in any ordinary sense, in any but the set-theoretical sense, because
appropriate intentionality is lacking, for instance they may never have heard of the movement, let
alone made any effort to join. Nor need adherents be supporters in the usual sense; support is
neither necessary nor sufficient for adherence. A critic such as Bockchin, or Routley, can be an
7
8
See, e.g., B. Devall and G. Sessions, 'The books of deep ecology', Earth First! 4(8) (1984). Several
of these books do not penetrate very deep ecologically or otherwise.
See especially p.344, with remarks like 'and wherever possible the wildlife they may support on their
fringes'. The paragraph portrays a very human-centered (and conquered-land) picture. See also p.342,
middle.
�7
adherent without being a supporter, without being supportive. Conversely, a supporter may not
be an adherent. The Salvation Army has many supporters, including atheists, who are not
adherents. The DE movement has many supporters, some of whom call themselves 'deep
ecologists', who do not adhere to the platform, even "more or less". Many of these supporters
are shallow environmentalists, who do not accept the key first point, of intrinsic value outside
humans, or else try to evade it (e.g. by redefinition, or by wrapping up value inextricably in
relations to valuers). Since there are, in my experience, many supporters and indeed enthusiasts
who tum out to be of this shallow sort, Naess's view is a little puzzling: what does he mean here
'almost all supporters'? Also which isolated exceptions does he have in view?
With the rise of environmentism, most of the distinguishing platform is no longer
demanding; indeed it is deliberately lax with a view to increasing the following. Moreover, none
of it, except for the last point, specifying an obligation to attempted implementation, requires any
commitment in the past of adherents. Plainly adherence to DE, as well as support for DE, could
be very considerably increased were this requirement evaded. A neat strategy, common to
ecomonical practice and sociological research, readily presents itself. Let us speak of silent
adherents as those who adhere to the platform, more or less, except that they make no requisite
effort to implement it (they may of course have some vague feeling of obligation, should they
ever reflect on the matter). Even without the benefit of scholarly survey work, it is evident that
DE would now have a large number of silent adherents, many of whom are not however
adherents, being either oblimovish, situated in repressive regions or social situations, or simply
uninformed (like indigenous peoples who think here are excessively many excessively
interferring humans of Caucasian stock).
The core platform represents a surprisingly incomplete and rather ill-organised collocation
of principles. The incompleteness is most conspicuous in point 6, which advances no details as
to envisaged structural changes. In extenuation N aess pleads that he has 'not has courage to go
into detail and define what these different structures will be, because we are going to have a lot of
different Green varieties. We shouldn't have one set of structures imposed' 9 • The reasoning
does not hold up. A range of structures, rather than a unique structure, can easily be defined by
constraints well-known ones as it happens. Naess should certainly be encouraged to go on and
delimit the structural and policy changes. It is easy to give him a start, drawing upon DE and
neighbouring environmental positions. For instance,
6a. The policy objective of maximizing state economic growth should be abandoned in favour of
9
RS p.7. But elsewhere. Naess did go into some detail (e.g. Book). Furthermore, if Naess - old,
famous, unorthodox, courageous enough on difficult mountains - doesn't get down to requisite details
of structural change, who will? Well, even some rather shallow theorists do.
�8
a highly selective approach to such growth. Evidently, there are many different ways such a
change in policy can be implemented. Some such change may be suggested by, but is not
implied by, point 7.
6b. Technology selection should be reoriented to appropriate technology, and away from risky
and polluting technology.
6c. Population policies should be directed at decreasing human populations in overpopulated
regions.
Principle 6c complements point 4, which does not actually enjoin any decrease in human
population. And so on, through a well-known list of constraints, with several of them regularly
included in principles of alternative social paradigms. Point 5 requires similar elaboration.
Another surprising feature is how mild most of these elaborations are, like the lax
distinguishing platform itself, which is pretty wishy-washy when contrasted with what is
happening out there environmentally. Many environmentalists now wish to proceed much
further, and to witness some real curtailment of heavy broad-acre assaults upon environments,
such as extensive clear-cutting of forests, over-fishing of shelves, and over-grazing of rangelands, extensive strip and beach mining, broad-acre pollution, and so on. Even
deindustrialization is not explicitly part of the DE creed, though some of the text enjoin it (e.g.
DS); but the issue is (no doubt wisely) avoided by leading prophets of DE familiar with the
demands of socialism. Yet deindustrialization - a considerable reduction in the levels of industrial
activity, particularly the undesirable dangerous destructive polluting types of industry that
conspicuously contributed to the first industrial revolution - would emerge from all the alternative
futures deep ecologists prefer to imagine, along with a much smaller, less consumption-oriented,
terrestrial human population. In any case, deindustrialization is an important environmental
objective, for both shallower and deeper ecology. It would assist, most materially, in obtaining
some better control on major environmental risks and problems, notably such matters as
greenhouse effects, atmospheric ozone destruction, and acid rain and its fall-out.
The idea of progress is, like that of more industrialisation, also under a cloud. It is now
naive to assume that progress per se is automatically to be applauded, and that a telling criticism
of something is that it would block progress. People are these days a little more discriminating
(in some respects); there is progress and progress, growth and growth, coke and coke. Much
that was progress, and still is in many quarters, is no longer universally regarded as such, as, for
instance, elimination of wetlands, pollution growth, assimilation of indigenous peoples. The
'previously ... dominant [assumption], that non-industrial society would and should progress
towards the industrial state and the scientific world view' was challenged, and is increasingly
rejected (cf. Naess, on the "status of mythology").
�9
So wishy-washy is the core characterisation of deep ecology that it lets in as deep ecologists
all sorts of environmental philosophers who would not previously have made that select band,
philosophers whom main disciples of deep ecology previously did or would have excluded,
philosophers whose positions are not deep. If DE is to be more exclusive, it will require more
careful, tighter formulation. Only clearly ruled out among environmental philosophers, i.e. those
who philosophize about environments and environmental problems, are hard-line human
chauvinists, led in the textbook stakes by Australians, Passmore (in his main conservative
persona) and McCloskey, but recently joined by some Americans Many of these excluded
philosophers would, moreover, subscribe to most of the points in the core platform, as weakly
interpreted. It is nowadays a rare thinking person who does not consider that there are severe
environmental problems, local and global, about which something, fairly far-reaching by
conservative political standards, should be done. It is a rare philosopher, who becomes
immersed in some spread of these problems (though it is still a rather rare professional
philosopher that does), and who does not develop some environmental commitments - even if a
liberalish social agenda still continues to dominate an environmental one (even so it is fast
becoming hard to avoid observing the interprenetration of social with broadly environmental
problems). While environmental philosophy has, by contrast with economics 10 , tended to
become progressively more accommodating to what was only a short time ago radical
environmental throught, as the magnitude of environmental problems is revealed, deep ecology
has moved in the opposite direction, has tried be excessively conciliatory, confusing pluralism
with broad consensualism, and has lost much of its radical flare. A wide environmental pluralism
is just fine; but it does not have to be achieved through consensus, or at the cost of a deep or an
ecological platform. A pluralism can be achieved by the linking of different positions, not their
mergence.
Among the diverse and motley groups of philosophers who now gain entry as adherents of
deep ecology, too generously construed, are apparently included those examples:Example 1. Moral extensionists, both utilitarians and rationalists 11 . Among utilitarians are
Singer, and perhaps even Smart on some days. Most turns on how point 1 is construed.
Utilitarians in the Benthamite tradition assign intrinsic value to all creatures with preferences,
sentience or the like, and are concerned with the well-being and flourishing of such creatures.
Accordingly they satisfy point 1 if it is read, as it may well be, 'much human and much nonhuman life'. It all depends upon how the terms 'human' and 'non-human' are quantified. If both
are quantified with 'all', the theses becomes implausible (admitting e.g. lab-manufactured
10
11
Now benchmark of reaction rareness, but itself beginning to exhibit some restlessness and unpass and
signs of change.
The useful category of moral extensionism derives from Rodman. It is critically examined also in EE.
�10
abominations as intrinsically valuable), and would exclude some acknowledged deep ecologists.
If the terms are more weakly quantified, then environmentally aware and active Benthamites are
admitted. An evident dividing line, provided by particular quantification, with 'some', is enough
to exclude shallow philosophers. But no quantification will serve to exclude either intermediate
positions which do not adopt a deep value theory, or individualism, such as moral extension
positions, almost invariably a spouse. Extensionists more patently included are those of
rationalistic persuasion, grouped loosely around Regan in the American South, who have
gradually move away from utilitarian prescriptions, to the view that ethical principles, including
those of vegetarianism, can be reached by rational means, by clear, consistent and coherent
thinking (thus, the broad position is really a coherence theory of morality).
Example 2. More far-reaching intermediate positions, which do assign intrinsic value less
stingily throughout nature, to some non-preference-havers, such as trees, and to some nonindividuals, such as forests, but which still adopt a greater value assumption, according to which
human values always take precedence over non-human assignments. Positions of this sort are
delineated (so far in insufficient theoretical detail) by Rolston and Attfield. In fact the positions so
far elaborated of this type typically, but hardly inevitably, draw on an enlightened Christian
backdrop heavily laced with science (a religious American naturalism, so to say, in Ralston's
case). They amount to nonsecular moral extensionisms, by contrast with the secular moral
extensionisms of example 1 (to try to squeeze these positions into Rodman's nonexhaustive
classification of positions).
Example 3. Deep-green theorists reject the biocentric restriction sometimes built into point 1,
though not in big formulation given above. This formulation certainly admits Sylvan as an
adherent of DE, despite what some deep ecologists have said. According to strict biocentrism
however, only what has life (in some sense) can have value. Deep-green theorist see this
restriction as very like that imposed by utilitarians, to sentience as unwarranted, unnecessary,
unenforceable and arbitrary.
Deep-green theorists, like environmental resisters, ecodefenders and Earth-Firsters, now
see the DE platform as much too moderate and quite insufficiently radical. The earlier radicalism
of DE has been excessively pruned back, on a mix of dubious grounds: the drive for an
environmental consensus (in place of a genuine pluralism), the religio-political quest for a large
support base (which could however be environmentalism broadly, with DE in the vanguard), and
the input of conservatizing academic thought and the aim of intellectual respectability. In fact DE
which has not gained much ground or good grades academically, as compared with its success
outside academia, especially with book-reading environmentalists, would better forget academic
success, where it has made progress only among outsiders, not power-players, and return to its
�11
more radical mission. Academics, after all, form only a tiny minority, though one dangerously
and influentially supportive, on the whole, of most past environmental excesses and assaults.
We have proceeded to cut through the problem of what DE is or may be by formulating a
specific version, authentic deep ecology, and by taking explicit account of main alternatives
proposed. Authentic deep ecology follows, for the most part, Naess's account of deep ecology.
But insistence on authentic deep ecology leaves several casualties, nebulous deep ecologists who
prove not to be authentically deep. An important test is offorded through the greater value
assumption, and the associated special place reserved for humans in the scheme of things, assent
to which serves to expose the inadequate depth of more nebulous 'followers of deep ecology'.
For (after proper preparation) they make the wrong responses on the crucial tests of depth. A
conspicuous casualty who fails to negotiate 'these tricky slopes' is Drengson, behind whose
genuine ecological sensibility lies a human supremacist position with humans occupying 'a
unique position ... in the scheme of things', at the summit of that old-consciousness hierarchy,
"the great chain of being" .12 According to Drengson, circumstances
Might force us, sometimes, to choose between the life of a fish or a cow and that of
a human child. We do not hesitate to choose the child. Our priorities are a result of
our position in the scheme of things, with a spectrum of species (p.7).
Not even followers of medium-depth ecology need respond in this reflex fashion, for instance
where the child is seriously defective. Certainly, faced with a range of duly-elaborated imagined
circumstances of difficult or forced choice, deeper thinkers would hesitate - since such situations
tend to pose moral dilemmas. And sometimes at least their priorities would be different from
Drengson's; for example, the fish is rare and the child ordinary, the cow occupies a unique place
in an important ecosystem.13
Even Naess himself, who vacillates considerably in what he has to say and occasionally
lapses badly from the authentic way. 14 It is worth examining some of Naess's logics, not for
nonphilosophical reasons (or even to reveal N aess as a further flaws doyen, typical of the heroes
12
13
14
See The Trumpeter 1(4) (1984), 6-7. Drengson is not the only casualty; Berry, whose criticism
Drengson is trying to meet, is another.
Differently, the child is Hitler or the President who chooses to press the nuclear button. Such cases,
which in some settings permit of a traditional treatment, were considered from a deeper perspective in
Routley 2 79.
A most striking example is Naess's Rescequence article, 'The basis of deep ecology', which departs
considerably from the spirit and themes of DE. Even Naess, who is not significantly hang-up in
doctrinal purity and doctrinal divergence, felt obliged to circulate a note correcting, "reformulating",
what he had said and written (the article was originally a Sub ...... lecture). 'Some ... may find some of
its sentences not quite in forming with what I usually tend to say. Therefore I offer some
reformulations ... I still stick to my views recently expressed in various articles and books' (Nute,
italics added).
�12
of DE), but because these show committing about DE, they are indicative of its doctrical
instability, lack of clarity, and scope for improvement.
• Any society worthy of the name Green is a deep ecological one. 15 Given that there are a range
of ........... societies that are green but not deep green, such a claim must fail. Even if 'deep
green' were substituted for 'green' it could not be contained, because DE policies exclude some
deep green alternatives. Accordingly, it is false that explication of DE is 'articulation of the
fundamental positions that are presupposed in Green societies' (p.4); DE societies are but part of
that rich and variety plurality.
What does Naess say by way of rectification? Frankly, not nearly enough. He proceeds to assert
that in his opinion, a 'society that does not operate in harmony with [the 8-point platform of DE
... is not] worthy of being called Green! But a genuinely Green society may well reject or violate
several of the points emanciated, e.g. the wide intrinsic value assumption (of point 1), the
obligation to action (of point 8).
•
'We should never engage in any discussion on technicalities without asking, "What do we
basically need in life?" Always ask the basic question. This is what I mean by the term Deep
Ecology Movement' (p.5). Naess does nothing whatever to complenish for presentation of the
basic technical question in this (biospherically) chauvinistic way. Do we need a DE which tells us
that the bottom line is "What's in it for us?"! Doesn't part of deep environmentalism consist in
seeing through and explaining what is wrong with this pernicious bottom line. As regard the
'This is what I mean by ... ' blunder, Naess tries to exonerate himself by use of the well-worn
criterion/definition distinction.1 6 But on its own it hardly helps; such bottom line inquiry is not a
criterion for DE either. Nor is following inquiry through to ultimate ends a distinctive feature of
DE; the shallowest sorts of hedonism, for example, may adopt similar procedures. In fact N aess
lands himself in further trouble in trying to extricate himself. To try to make the criterion offer
look tempting (a comprehensive test for depth), he claims that 'when supporters of the shallow
ecology movement are seriously asked about ultimate ends they tend to affirm the same ones as
supporters of the deep movement'. Not only would this be a most unlikely outcome of a
satisfactory questionaire; but worse, if it were the outcome, it would render shallow ecology
supporters deep; so the criterion would eliminate a fundamental contrast for, and for making out,
DE. In any event, too many humans, especially powerholders, remain outside the orbit of
15
16
This follows from what Naess asserts given on that a society that adapts 'policies characteristic of
Deep Ecology' is a deep ecological one.
There is at least a touch of arrogance (or is it part Naess's disdain for conceptual nicety?) in Naess's
introduction of this shabby exoneration attempt: The damaging sentences, - those quoted - 'might be
reformulated (in honor of my conceptually interested friends) in the follow way:'. Maybe Naess was
serious in his (otherwise ab sure) opening remarks in the R ......... article about looking forward to
hobnobbing with the aristocracy.
�13
shallow ecology, often attached to the pernicious bottom line (it is doubtful that 'most people
dwell in shallow ecology', p.5 heading).
•
Articulation of DE principles gives a total view. (An amazing contrast with the ....... .
juxtaposed doctrine of ignorance which suggest we can never obtain a total view.) By contrast
with 'shallow ecology which (avoids) the basic questions ... the Deep Ecology Movement
concerns itself with basic beliefs and assumptions about the universe. If you articulate the
principles of the Deep Ecology Movement you get a total view . The term "total view" is
essential. The Deep Ecology Movement is a total view. It covers our basic assumptions, our life
philosophy and our decisions in everyday life' (Res ,p.6.italics added). In first place, the alleged
contrast with shallow ecology do not stand up to much examination. A dedicated shallow
Christian or capitalist may practice the same depth of questioning and reflection or a deep
ecologist, or rather more; such a person may have a well-integrated lifestyle, with a fairly
comprehensive philosophy (as these thing go) covering it. Secondly, N aess takes what seems to
be asserted back in commentary. 'If we articulate the principles of the deep ecology movement, -- you do not get a total view' (p.3); but that apparently directly contradicts the above italicized
passage. There is an escape from contradiction offered - distinguish the principles, by filling in
the dashes by "in the sense of principles of the DE platform" - but it leads a severe problem - what
are the principles of DE? What is DE? Naess's commentary implies that the principles of DE
required for a total view are those of all levels of the double pyramid. Such an idea lands the
articulation of DE in hopeless difficulties. Firstly, we do not, and cannot, know what the
principles are, because they now include principles applied and decisions taken at the bottom level
which refers to particular situations, including 'particular direct actions at a particular date'; but
these will vary, in ......... ways, over-future times. Secondly, since there are various different,
and compating, principles at the top level, DE will either be damagingly inconsistently
characterised, or else it will be far from uniquely characterised. For DE will include Christianity
of this and that sect, Buddinism of this and that form, and so on. In fact Naess accepts such an
outcome (but in his misdirect attempt to avoid dogmatism): 'There is not one, definite, deep
ecology philosophy, not one definite "ecosophy", no definite set of green policies' (p.3) and, he
should have added on this line of thinking no definite deep ecology or set of DE principles.
But there is a set of central principles, those at level 2. They do not present a total view.
But nor in general do those of all four levels of deep ecology. There is much, a mass of opinion
(for instance, concerning scientific speculation) which would form part of a more comprehensive
(world) view that is not reflected at any of the four levels. It is indeed entirely unclear what
would present a total view? Spiniza's philosophy perhaps? But it is easy to ...... of topics it
does not cover, such as city architecture and factory farming, on which a total view could have an
angle. It is certainly doubtful that lesser mentals than Spinaza, such as typical supporters of DE,
�14
operate in a total view. N aess claims that they do, but adduces no evidence; testing is much more
likely to reveal how pragmentory the ecological view of most deep ecologists are. Not only is the
noton of a "total view", drawn from Naess's earlier philosophizing muddy; the desirability of the
notion is open to (damaging) questioning. "Total view" comprehends too much, fixes too much
that perhaps should be left open; it sails too close to "totaliterian view" for real pluralistic comfort.
There is, then, quite evidently, a serious problem with deep ecology, and in finding out
exactly what it is, that even the clearer accounts offered differ in significant subjects face similar
difficulties, philosophy for one. With movements, which is what deep ecology is often presented
as, the situation is normally much worse. Consider the difficulties in saying, with much
precision, what some political movement (such as green politics) represents, what some party
stands for and against. And despite the accelerating diversity of accounts there appears to be
substance to the deep ecology notion. Several important interconnected distinctions, which look
to be worth disentangling, are marked out, and an important group of ideas is assembled. Rather
than being simply junked (something my conservative inclinations rise against with notions, as
with the premature discarding of material "goods"), the notions involved should at least be
disentangled and, if feasible, renovated or recycled.
More generally, it is not merely valuabe, but quite essential in senous intellectul
assignments, to indicate what deep ecology is and isn't - for lots of purposes, including
explaining it, arguing from it, and applying it. What can be done? One resolution can be
obtained along the lines of critical rationalism. The fuller formulations of deep ecology, after
reorganisation into more tractable form, are subject to severe criticism, with a view to obtaining
thereby an improved, more satisfactory, thinner and fitter formulation, which at the same time
meets other desirable criteria. Among these is a desideratum often lost sight of in the ferment of
environmental action, the need for environmental pluralism.
A start on this rather analytic approach involves separating out the different components of
the deep ecology messages, and isolating core themes of deep and shallow ecology from wider
positions and paradigms which they inform. The core is (as Naess indicated) essentially
normative. Fortunately the core themes have already been isolated, in a previous application of
deep ecology to population theory 17 , and this work can be taken over largely intact. For the
extensive remainder, the following pretty complicated sort of picture starts to emerge (upon
organising themes and claims of several supporters of deep ecology, in a way explained in the
Appendix to this chapter):-
17
In Routley 84.
�Figure 5.1.
SHALLOWER AND DEEPER POSITIONS, AND THEIR ACCLAIMED ASSUMPTIONS, PARTLY
SCHEMATIZED.
SHALLOW
VALUE
CORE
ENVIRONMENT AL
SUBJECT
SOLE
(INTRINSIC)
K,' ALUE ASSUMPTION
VALUES-IN-NATURE
GREATER VALUE ASSUMPTION BIOSPECIES IMPARTIALITY
FURTHER PHILOSOPHICAL BASES
GROUNDOF
VALUE
DEEP
(separable theoretical underpinning)
FEATURES OF
HUMANS
DIVERSITY, RICHNESS OF
NATURAL(LIFE)FORMS
ii. METAPHYSICAL
INDIVIDUAL
REDUCTION. NATURE
AS BACKDROP
IRREDUCIBLE SYSTEMS.
NATUREAS
IN1EGRAL
m EPISTEMIC
REDUCTIONIST/ANALYTIC
SUBJECT-OBJECT ACCOUNT
HOLISTIC/GESTALT /FIELD
ACCOUNT
LARGER
ENCOMPASSING
AND INFORMING
THEORY
EMPIRICISM,IDEALISM,
ECOSOPHY, PANTHEISM,
POSITIVISM
AMERICAN NATURALISM
+- DIFFERENT FACETS ➔
OF CHRISTIANITY, BUDDHISM, ...
VALUE (DEONTIC
AND ACTION)
COLLARIES
EXTENSIVE
INTERFERENCE
FOR HUMAN INTERESTS
AND PURPOSES
1.
ACTION
(META-) PRINCIPLE
APPLICATIONS
(AS COROLLARIES)
LIMITED INTERFERENCE
AND RIGHTS THEREfO
ETHICS
ASETHETICS
METAPHYSICS
EPISTEMOLOGY
IDEOLOGY/
RELIGION
LIFESTYLE
+-OBLIGATION TO IMPLEMENT COMMITMENTS➔
To population, (individual) consumption,
(individual) impact, resources, technology, pollution,
economic growth and quality-of-life, culture, organisation,
science, education; and to the variety of natural (and
some artifical) forms, such as land, oceans, atmosphere,
arctic regions, swamps, forests, soils, ...
POLICY
ECONOMICS
POLITICS
Given the picture some major and serious sets of problems with deep ecology begin to
appear at once. First, the value core arrived at already substantially transforms that suggested by
the literature, with, for instance, biospecies impartiality improving on biospheric egalitarianism.
Secondly, both the bases and the encompassing theories usually indicated (those diagrammed) are
not just highly problematic but are detachable from the core and can be avoided. For example, the
various, rather different, epistemic and metaphysical theories that have been proposed as
�16
supporting, or even essential to, deeper positions are, to say the least, very dubious. So it is
fortunate that the deeper value core is independent of them all - though that is not to say that it is
independent of every account, since some (plausible) story of value qualities in the natural world,
and our perception and knowledge of them, has to be told, sooner or later.
But one weaker parts of the larger deep ecological story as usually told concerns the
embedding of deep ecology in a broader philosophical theory, such as Naess's system ecosophy
T, or Buddhism, or nature mysticism, or whatever. This much is true: as it is with shallow
positions, which can be supported by most of the mainstream, more comprehensive,
philosophical theories (for what they are worth), so it is with deeper positions, which can be
supported by very different, though unorthodox, philosophical theories, for instance, by (a
modification of) Whitehead's process theory or by (an adaption of) Meinong's object theory.
But, for reasons we shall come to, such theoretical frameworks as ecosophy, pantheism,
Christianity and Buddhism do not include thorough-going deep positions, but sustain only
shallower positions, and a properly deep picture is not derivable from them. This suggests that
the proposed derivation of deep ecology from ecosophy is substantially astray (and that so, more
sweepingly, is the whole derivational pyramid regularly presented by Naess in his four-level
picture). So it will prove to be: the success of these derivations would depend upon importing
analogues of shallowness into deep ecology.
APPENDIX
1. Survey methods as a way of pinning down deep ecology. How does the sort of
picture shown in figure 5.1 - which is worth persevering with, elaborating and applying - fit in
with the burgeoning deep ecological literature? It is surely not just tangential to that, so that we
should look elsewhere to grasp the deeper features of deep ecology?
In fact the core themes, and philosophical basis, and extension themes, were assembled in a
quite impressionistic fashion, namely working through much of the literature, and all the more
basic work, and setting down the themes which on reflection seemed to be presented or emerge.
Something like this is still a main method of research in the humanities, e.g. in history, history of
ideas, and philosophy.
�Figure 7a Schematic picture of elementary procedures
Source 1
T
H
Source 2
Source n
i
INTERSECTION
(COMMON
CORE)
E
M
E
s
UNION
t
DISCOUNTED
But here, with deep ecology, there were prospects of doing better than such impressionistic
methods, or so one might have thought. Empirical, or at least quasi-empirical, methods (of the
sort favoured by Naess in his earlier days) could be employed. The main idea is that the set of
relevant sources is assembled, and then some statistical and set-theoretic work is done on the
themes extracted from these sources; so the method is an elaboration of the sort of technique
larger dictionaries such as the Oxford adopt in pinning down the standard senses of a term. The
hope was that analysis of the serious philosophical literature (pretty rough selection criteria these,
to be sure) on deep ecology would lead, not to despair, but in particular in two directions:Firstly, to what is more or less common to the positions presented - the intersection of theories,
giving the substantial core or basic theory. And secondly, to what results when all the theories
are put together - the union of themes, giving an approximation, after some sifting, to a deep
ecological paradigm.
As you might have anticipated by now, this thematic method hardly worked to perfection.
Still it is worth explaining the method in a little more detail since, despite its limited success, it
�18
reveals much. First a set of sources is assembled. Here there is scope for sampling and statistical
methods, so beloved of social scientists; but in the case of deep ecology it seemed feasible, back
in 1984, to gather for winnowing all more serious texts accessible in Australia. That latter
limitation (all too familiar in environmental research) imposes a perhaps unfortunate parochial
geographical constraint; but it induces no violation of such adequacy requirements as that sources
introducing the notion be included in the bundle, as are all sources referred back to in several
other sources. With the rise of networking magazines concerned with deep ecology, there are
many references to deep ecological thinking and experience which get discounted, as not
appropriately serious. Increasingly often, any sort of deeper experience or thought gets assigned
under the "deep" heading, no matter how anthropocentric. This is one of the many problems
with the depth notion and deep terminology, rather counteracting the valuable idea of penetrating
below the conventional surface of received environmental assumptions, that it is important to
think deeper than the assumption of Environment Z-land, for instance, that the environment
should be managed for present and future generations of humans - a typical governmental surface
assumption, often announced, but much less often put into practice.
Once the sources are assembled, a beginning can be made on unscrambling themes,
something that calls for a good deal of judgement also, especially in such matters as deciding
whether themes from different sources come to the same or not. Here and elsewhere care is
required not to penetrate too deeply, to expose only so much of surface themes as is necessary (a
well-known principle in logical analysis). When the themes are duly marked out, there is some
smoothing of the thematic data; for instance, evidently remote and irrelevant themes in one source
may be deleted. (It is like the judging of a diving contest or the massaging of statistics, where
isolated wild elements are removed from the sample used for assessment.) Then the elementary
set operations of union and intersection are applied, again subject to some qualification. In
particular, if a very prominent theme in some formulations is omitted from, or only approximated
in, one formulation, then that theme will be put, initially at least, in the intersection. (Logicians
and mathematicians, for example, sometimes omit intended or assumed axioms; e.g. Parry in
analytic implication, Maclean in category theory.) A striking example concerns the very
introduction of the notion of deep ecology into the philosophical literature (Naess 73), which fails
to present the fundamental value thesis, that intrinsic value is not confined solely to humans or
human features. While it can be argued that rejection of the sole and greater value assumptions is
implied by what is said concerning biospheric egalitarianism (the equal right to live and
blossom), the argument is not decisive, since value is only involved indirectly and perhaps only
instrumentally (as Naess's appeal to effects on the 'life quality of humans' and to our ecological
dependence might suggest).
�19
The results are tabulated, as follows:
Figure 7b. Actual results, in not form, of a survey of some main sources.
Naess 73
Naess 83
Naess-Sessions 84
Intrinsic value
Intrinsic value of
life (1)
(1)
Biological
egalitarianism (2)
Diversity/richness(3)
Complexity not
complication (6)
Diversity/
richness (2)
Diversity/
richness ( 1)
Total field holism (1)
No negative
interference
rights, excepting
vital needs (3)
No negative
interference,
etc. (3)
Devall 79
ROUGH
CLASSIFICATIONS
VALUE
CORE
Diversity (10
GROUNDSAND
BASES
New person/planet
metaphysics (1)
Objective approach to
nature 2
Earth wisdom,
VALUEAND
limited interference ACTION
COROLLARIES
More leisure (13)
Action obligation
6
Present interference
excessive (4)
Policy adjustments
to economic and
ideological structures
(5)
Anti-pollution/
resource depletion
(5)
Local autonomy/
decentralisation (7)
Anti-class posture
4
Action obligation
8
Present human
interference
excessive (5)
Policy adjustments,
etc. [Also to
technological
structures (6)
Objective life
quality rather than
higher living
standard (7)
World population
reduction (4)
POLICY AND
LIFESTYLE
APPLICATIONS
Interim policy
steady state (15),(18)
Soft Technology ( 11)
Life quality
rather than quantity
of products (6)
Reduction of population
to optimum (7)
Emphasis on pollution
and like topics
counterproductive (8)
Local autonomy/
decentralisation (11),(14)
New psychology (3)
DISCOUNTED AREAS:
with rejection of
NEW
SUBJECTS
dualisms: man/nature,
subject/object, etc
New philosophical
anthropology (9)
New objective
�20
Embedding in
ecosophy
NOTES:
science (4)
New education (12)
? Embedding in
updated Spinoza (2)
EMBEDDJNG
PHrr,OSOPHY/RELIGION
1. Bracketed numerals indicate theses numbers in the sources.
2. The disappointing absence of core themes can to some extent be compensated for
by appeal to statements of them or implying them elsewhere in accompanying texts
and commentaries.
3. Naess-Sessions 84, also Naess 84, became the 8-point platform, now widely
reintensted.
Naturally one does not attempt this sort of analysis entirely in the dark, but in the partial
expectation that certain kinds of results will emerge, these three especially:
•
The substantial core represents a significant deviation from mainstream assumptions, a
deviation which has been encountered before.
•
The total theory, or union, is not simply a jumble of theses, but has some reasonable
coherence.
• There are ways of getting from the substantial core toward the total theory.
In the case of deep ecology it would have been pleasant to report triumphantly that these
expectations, and more, are fulfilled; indeed the theory is so well integrated it represents a
(sub)cultural paradigm. Unfortunately it did not work out that way, as is evident. What is more,
the situation has become markedly worse, as presentations of deep ecology have burgeoned since
1984.
Partly the thematic enterprise did not succeed because of the poor calibre of the leading
presentations of "the" deep ecology intuition, and because exponents had and have different
intuitions, messages and objectives. Partly, however it did not work because the idea of
obtaining a substantial core and a coherent union was misconceived. Taking the union, in
particular, assumed that there was much wider common ground - something that could be called
the deeper ecological paradigm which could be approached in this sort of way - rather than as a
plurality of positions. Pluralism is fine and feasible, and worth encouraging much more widely;
but taking the union of themes of some pluralistic system of positions is likely to lead only to
intractable inconsistent sets, and perhaps to trouble. Consider, to illustrate, the United Religion,
about to sweep California, a pluralist grouping made up of representations of the World's great
religions. While the refined common core of these positions is likely to be interesting, the union
is not: it will contain, for example, all of the following inconsistent triad: Many gods exist (from
e.g. Hinduism); Exactly one god exists (e.g. Islam); no gods exist (from e.g. Buddhism). There
is analogous trouble in combining deep ecological sources with such results as that stones and
mountains both do and do not have inherent value; there both are and are not detachable intrinsic
values; and so on. The picture is then as shown:-
�21
putative
substantial core
inconsistent
elements of putative union
What all this emphicizes once again is that deep ecology has to be treated differently, not as
a coherent position but as a loose pluralistic grouping of position. To obtain a clearer authentic
starting position, we shall have to discount since of what paradox as deep ecology. It is for this
sort of reason of course that we chose to follow Naess before other prophets. Once an authentic
position has been made out other prositions can be clustered around it. Such a pluralistic outcome
does not show that the notion of a deeper ecological paradigm is illusory. It only reveals some of
the pluralistic features, mostly not duly recognised at the deeper ends of ecological movements.
And it only indicates that a different route should be taken in getting to a deeper paradigm. For
the alternative environmental, and deep ecological, paradigm covers a spread of positions, much
as the contrasting dominant social paradigm does.
�A CRITIQUE OF (WILD) WESTERN DEEP ECOLOGY:
a response to Warwick Fox's Response to an earlier Critique.
Western deep ecology differs in important respects from the deep ecology originated
and pursued by Naess, what I now call authentic deep ecology, at which my Critique of
Deep Ecology was mainly, but by no means entirely, directed. Western deep ecology, also
known as transpersonal ecology (though the ecology has largely dropped out), is very
roughly a doctrine of the west of those new world continents where environmental
philosophy functions; it has been advanced primarily by West Coast Americans (Devall,
Drengson, Sessions and others) and associated West Australians (Fox, now of Tasmania,
also Hallem and others). Unlike authentic deep ecology, Western deep ecology is hostile to
environmental ethics, which it tends to dismiss as mere axiology; and it is excessively
enthusiastic about trans personal experience, spiritual "paths" and "ways", and unitarian
metaphysics - in which there are no ontological divides, no dualisms (of subject/object,
subjective/objective), and no separation of things.
Consider what Drengson 'take[s] to be at the heart of deep ecology as Devall and
Sessions present it', and which he enthusiastically endorses:
What deep ecology directs us towards ... is neither an environmental
axiology or a theory of environmental ethics nor a minor reform of
existing practices. It directs us to develop our own sense of self until it
becomes Self, that is, until we realise through deepening ecological
sensibilities that each of us forms a union with the natural world, and
that protection of the natural world is the protection of ourselves ....
reality lies not in the imaginative, subjective dualism of the dominant
outlook, with its self-destructive exploitation of nature and overkill
nuclear weapons. Reality is to be found in a quite different way: by a
path that is nonaggressive, humble, compassionate, and knows itself as
ultimately embedded in the Self of nature. The sacred is immanent in
the profane, the spirit pervades and is the world, the cosmos. It is the
formed and formless as a unity. This ecosophy is at hand for each of us
[ecosophical salvation]. Its realisation is always personal, firsthand
experiential understanding. It is an I-Thou, not an I-it relationship
(Review pp.87-8).
Fox's Response to my Critique develops similar themes, in considerably more detail, so
they become rather more open to assessment. That is why my further critique will
concentrate on his Responses. (On its own, I doubt that his Response would have
sufficient intrinsic interest to warrant an extensive reply.)
In Western deep ecology, the focus is upon, or even (as in Fox 89) contracts to, that
of self and Self (or what it might almost as well be, soul and Soul/Anima sive Natura, or
spirit and World Spirit). For example, Drengson pontificates upon
�•
38
the crux of the issues raised by deep ecology [as follows]. We are
challenged to move to genuinely ecological modes of perception,
conception, and practice. If we do this, we will do it to the degree that
we realise that our self is part of a larger Self for which we must care.
This is part of the ecology of self-Self in the cosmology of deep
ecology' (p.89).
Fox goes further, making this type of stuff coextensive with "deep ecology":
Stated rather formally ... the deep ecological framework ... proceed[s]
from two basic hypotheses and one ultimate norm [all concerning self
and Self]. The hypotheses are (i) that "the self is as comprehensive as
the totality of our identifications. Or, more succinctly: Our Self is that
with which we identify" ... ; and (ii) that the self can and does
grow/develop/mature (i.e. widen its sphere and intensity of
identification over time). The norm is that the ideal state of being is one
that sustains the widest (and deepest) possible identification and, hence,
sense of Self.... this ideal state of being is referred to as "Selfrealisation" by N aess and as "ecological consciousness" by Devall and
Sessions" and its cultivation - effective a spiritual discipline - is
considered to be the "real work" of deep ecology (pp. 86-7).
This self-Self cultivation of Western deep ecology, which will be severely criticised, is far
removed from the deep ecology platform upon which authentic deep ecology is centred, a
mundane, secular platform concerned with real environmental issues, which is not a
predominantly human psychological exercise and which does not mention 'self' or 'Self'.
On the strength of the variant presentation of "deep ecology", of this elaboration of
Western deep ecology, Fox feels entitled to assert that 'Sylvan has seriously misunderstood
what deep ecology is about. ... Sylvan's criticisms miss their mark ... Sylvan's critique
leaves deep ecology ... largely untouched' (p.5). Drengson feels entitled to enlarge this
unfounded assertion: 'the critiques of deep ecology that have appeared so far have been
based on misconceptions of what deep ecology is all about, and they have therefore been off
the mark, or at best superficial' (p.89). The critiques that are substantial, not substantially
tirades or shallow, have been substantially directed at authentic deep ecology, not at its
different Western analogue. There has been no misconception or misunderstanding by such
critics; they have aimed at a different target in the same broad field.
On a personal level, I am quite attracted by authentic deep ecology; but I am
substantially repelled by Western deep ecology. I subscribe, more or less, to the 8-point
platform of deep ecology, and accordingly should be accounted a supporter of deep ecology
(for all that critics are not very welcome). Though I do not care for some features of
Naess's system Ecosophy T, which does provide a rickety bridge ·to Western deep ecology,
N aess has always insisted that this was but one of several optional background ideological
frameworks. Western deep ecology is another matter. Too much of it strikes me as like an
evangelic cult, much too incidentally coupled to deep environmentalism; too much is a
�39
celebration of self, human self, an expanded egoism; too much is essentially a good oldfashioned celebration of things human, a comparatively shallow celebration disguised in
new environmental and avant-gard attire.
Drengson has the ability to lay on these
obnoxious, chauvinistic features disagreeably thick. Consider a bit of his poetic outpouring
on that jumbled text, Deep Ecology:
Sessions and Devall see humans as beings who are an expression of a
nature deeper, more mysterious, and creative than any of our abstract
theories appreciate .... it is hoped that [our] experiential encounter with
the otherness of Nature transformed as Self will help us to live in such a
harmonious way as to continually discover ever new wonders and value
inherent in wild nature and in the natural human self. ... The book,
thus is dedicated to ... presenting a philosophy of life that resolves
some of our most fundamental questions, the central one of this is: how
can we live truly in authentic, harmonious relationships with all beings
so as to realise a maximum of intrinsic goodness? This is a question,
ultimately, of what it means to become a complete, mature, fully Selfrealised human being (pp.94-5 rearranged).
The statement could almost have come straight out of modem romanticism; all the same
elements are there down to the maximization of human self-realisation. So presented, the
new environmental paradigm of Western deep ecology is the old anti-Enlightenment
movement in contemporary gear.
Though I am substantially turned off by some of Western deep ecology, though I am
disappointed by its apparent shallowness, by its reversion to human chauvinism, though I
try to take cover when its heavy evangelism blows through, I am far from suggesting that
more than critical intellectual action be taken against it. It is, after all, generally for the right
sorts of things environmentally, even if it has invested too heavily in dominant notions,
such as the exalted human self that a radical environmentalism should be escaping; and it is
no worse intellectually than predominant creeds that are far less kind to natural
environments, such as Vatican christianity and American pragmatism. Live and let live.
1. Approaching deep ecology and understanding plurallism.
Well is Fox's response to Sylvan's critique of deep ecology entitled 'Approaching
Deep Ecology'; for it does no more than approach deep ecology, it does not reach the
authentic article. Instead Fox converts deep ecology into a related concoction, largely of his
own (now called transpersonal ecology*). Having thus commandeered deep ecology for
*
Transpersonal ecology is an extreme variant of Western deep ecology, which tries, for
instance, to jettison what Drengson and others retain: intrinsic goodness, intrinsic value, and
the like.
�40
his own purposes, it is easy for Fox to feel confident in his charge that 'Sylvan has
seriously understood what deep ecology is about' (p.5).
Fox's main accusation is indeed that I have seriously misunderstood what deep
ecology is about, that my criticism is misdirected, and that deep ecology emerges largely
unscathed. We shall see about that. But first, I want to lodge a counter-charge: Fox
appears to have misunderstood a good deal of what I was about. My critique was not
concerned with his position, except - in so far as it purported to be deep ecology - in
passing; it was addressed to the mainstream of deep ecology. Fox's own transpersonal
ecology does not belong to the mainstream of deep ecology; indeed it is doubtful that it is
deep ecology at all. It tries to throw away central parts of deep ecology, the value theory in
particular, and to revert to what appears, to all intents and purposes, to be a rather shallow
position. But, most remarkable, it has very little to do with the natural environment; much
of it is but expanded self adulation.
Both Fox and N aess, in their responses to my critique, try to make some easy initial
capital by pointing to the different ending of a working draft of the critique from the pluralist
ending of the published version. 1 Naess uses the different endings to ground his allegation
that Sylvan is uncertain what he is about, an ad hominem strategy which he presumably
hopes will help to defuse substantial criticisms of deep ecology which he does not address
(see his 84 and 85). Fox makes much of the different endings (almost 5 pages worth) in
order to reveal an uncharitable interpretation: that already indicated, of misunderstanding,
and that my 'critique leaves deep ecology .... largely untouched' (p.5).
Naess and Fox seem to think that it counts against a critique that it may enjoy more
than one ending, that it can leave room for doubt as to whether something should be
restored or abandoned. Yet these are very much the sort of outcome a more tolerant and
careful assessment may yield. Consider an old building seriously defective in main
structural detail, yet with many worthwhile period features. It may be a hard question,
over which there is room for uncertainty, whether it should be restored or demolished. So
it is often with intellectual systems, such as deep ecology and ecosophy. By and large I am
in favour of rehabilitation (see e.g. Routley 74), though from a favoured nonpluralistic
1
Though I feel a bit used, I'm not going to make anything of incomplete working drafts
I naively handed out not being a fair target for commentary (it is obvious that one can
be even more stupid and so forth in drafts than in more considered final versions).
Much of the interesting work in and around deep ecology appears only in working draft
form or in what academic snobs describe as semi-published form.
�41
stance such systems as ecosophy include material destined for the intellectual scrap heap.
But, in any event, I am in favour of recycling of rubbish wherever this is feasible.
For anyone who adheres to a select position within an also conceded pluralistic
setting, there is always more than one presentation, and more than one ending: a monistic,
or singular, ending deriving from the select position, and a pluralistic ending from the
setting. There is nothing particularly remarkable about this, for all that it baffles Fox. On
the singular ending (of the limited edition "penultimate version" of my critique) many major
themes of deep ecology go down, not because they are ' insubstantial or vacuous' (what
Fox finds it convenient to infer p.2ff.), but because they are all defective, all substantially
astray. So much had already been argued in the main body of the work; for instance, one
sustained development aimed to demonstrate the substantial falsity of the principle of
biospheric egalitarianism and its inconsistency with other principles of deep ecology. What
of the last words, drawn from Eliot's Four Quartets, 'there is no one to bury'? By this, I
meant: no correct doctrine, not: nothing substantial. It is true that from the singular position
I did look upon several main 'ideas of deep ecology ... not even as if they were once useful
... but rather that upon closer scrutiny there is ... nothing ... [correct in] them in the first
place' (p.3); from that stance I still look upon them in that way.
On the final pluralistic ending what remains 2 are not the trumpeted major themes,
which still go down, but a good many of the less heralded points and themes, such as
departure principles in the 8-point platform of deep ecology. What can be added,
furthermore, are significant variations upon some of the major themes; for instance
ecospheric impartiality in place of biospheric egalitarianism. Now both Naess and Fox
assume that a pluralistic ending diminishes, or ought to weaken, the force of the criticism.
Not so. Naess ends his response to the critique with a relativistic complaint: 'if you have
your own philosophy from which you generate the [core] position of deep ecology, ... why
object to ecosophy T?' (Naess pp.3-4 reordered, also quoted in Fox). The short answer is
because system T is seriously intellectually flawed. A pluralist may let such material stand,
but, unlike a relativist, doesn't have to let it alone; its weaknesses can be exposed, its
inferiority exhibited. Fox goes on to claim that under pluralism, which he also confuses
with relativism, my 'critique loses much of its original sting and no longer constitutes the
challenge to deep ecology that was formerly intended' (p.5). Again, not so; the challenge
and sting remain as before. But now deep ecology is regarded more benignly; and more
future work will be directed at restoration, etc. As you might now anticipate, Fox finds 'a
2
Fox's surprise about this (p.3) can be attributed to his failure to appreciate the force of
'acclaimed major themes' in the theories to be put to rest.
�42
strong tension between such a pluralistic position' and the singular position which he
regards as 'essentially argumentative' (p.5). But there is no tension; the singular position
slots neatly into the pluralistic array. Further, both are argumentative, though neither
essentially so. 3
2. Value in deep ecology
Fox's 'most fundamental objection to [my] critique' is that it offers, is based upon, an
'environmental axiological interpretation of deep ecology' (p.29, p.53). Given what Fox
intends by 'environmental axiological interpretation' (his never properly explained
terminology, not mine), which involves axiological reductionism and a certain axiological
priority and hegemony throughout environmental philosophy (p.52) 4 , I deny this. My
critique neither offers nor is based upon such an interpretation; and, as inspection will
confirm, my other work will not bear such an interpretation 5 , I do not 'pursue
environmental philosophical discussion almost entirely at the level of environmental
axiology'. What I do ascribe to deep ecology is "a value core", features of which I explain
in some detail (and to which we shall have to return). But a large transformer (or similar
item) does not reduce to its cores, there is much to such an item besides the core; nor do the
cores pervade, dominate or guide all the rest. The core, which was introduced primarily as
part of an organising structure, does not support what Fox tries to read out of it, namely an
axiological reduction (back in 84, Naess thought 'core' was a 'good expression' for a quite
proper part of deep ecology). In fact, I am not hooked on the term 'core'; substitution of
'value part' for 'value core' would make very little difference to the substance of my critique
of deep ecology, but it would quite adversely effect Fox's response.
An early example of the feebleness of Fox's reconstruction is his attempt to make my
treatment of deep ecological theory outside the value core look as if it too was part of an
axiological interpretation. He proceeds to argue from a title of a later section, 'Beyond the
value core: metaphysical and epistemological "intuitions" of deep ecology', thus: 'as this
title suggests, it is Sylvan's environmental axiological interpretation of deep ecology that
underpins his criticisms there (as elsewhere)' (p.29). The title was not intended to suggest,
and would not normally suggest, such an interpretation; it indicated a separation of parts and
3
For much more detail on all these pluralistic matters, see my Deep Plurallism.
4
For fuller illustration of such undesirable phenomena at work in philosophy, see
Edwards, Ethics without Philosophy.
5
For one example, see the jointly authored The Fight for the Forests.
�43
the upcoming contents. As an argument (to be slack with this term), Fox's move is a nonsequitur. 6
Now to get down to the real adjudicational business (of this section), I claim to have
been verballed by Fox.7 While I am becoming pretty accustomed to serious
misrepresentation, I see Fox as ascending to new heights in this regard. For he proceeds to
attribute to me major derivative theses which I nowhere presented, which do not derive
from what I did present, and to which I should not, in any case, accede. Let's look straight
away at some of what Fox proceeds to foist upon me. 'Sylvan assumes from the outset and
proceeds upon the basis that deep ecology is ... primarily a value-in-nature position' (p.30),
that is the 'primary claim' (p.31). I do not assume that deep ecology is primarily that, but
that it is that among other things; 8 I do not proceed on that basis, and I never did suppose
that deep ecology was primarily or only a values-in-nature position. As I say, in a clause
Fox left out in the selective quotation of his indictment, deep ecology 'has been presented as
a metaphysics, as a consciousness movement (and a primarily psychological), and even as a
sort of (Pantheist) religion' (and in an accompanying note I mention Fox's alternative
ontological focus). I am not committed to such a primacy claim (what Fox refers to as
6
As the text reveals, Fox is rather fond of making passages suggest not what they were
intended to suggest or prima facie do suggest, but what he would have them "suggest"
conveniently for his own unscrupulous purposes (we might even label this the
suggestive fallacy). He is not averse either to considerable distortion. For example
(also on p.29) he makes it look, by a clever use of sectional divisions, as if the bulk
of my critique was concerned with the value part of deep ecology, when in fact I get
beyond that part on p.26 in a critique of 60 pages. Of course it would not show that
much even if I had devoted virtually the whole critique to the value part rather than less
than a third; it could just mean that that was the part of deep ecology that interested me
most, or that I ran out of energy and patience thereabouts, etc.
In the present critique I ran out of these commodities and time before I had finalized a
section on fallacious methodological practices in deep ecology, perhaps to be called
'fallacies of transpersonal ecology'. Next edition, perhaps.
7
Verbal is an Australian verb, alluding to fabricated evidence made up by police or
official prosecutioners. Verballing was a common practice in Queensland, and is
certainly used by police gangs in some other states.
8
I do begin the first "problem" section of the critique 'Deep ecology appears to be some
elaboration of the position that natural things other than humans have value in
themselves .. .' (Cp.1 ). But that says nothing more offensive than what can be inferred
from point 1 of the 8-point platform of deep ecology, and nothing about primacy.
Moreover I go on to say that the elaboration is extensive (e.g. Cp.4), a claim well
illustrated by Figure 1 (Cp.5), where the "value core" comprises but a small part of the
deep position.
�44
'Sylvan's primary claim', p.31, p.33, p.34, p.47, p.48, p.57, p.70 and many other pages,
sometimes obliquely as 'Sylvan's claims' and the like, e.g. 'Sylvan says', p.86).
'Moreover', Fox continues (p.30), 'for Sylvan, it is an objective position since its
"core theme" of "values-in-nature suggests ... that natural items have value qualities
independently of perceivers"'. Firstly there is a misquotation; I refer to 'core themes',
which furthermore extend beyond the value part. 9 Secondly, no objectivist claim is made or
follows for Sylvan. 10 On the basis of the primacy claim, in conjunction with the objectivist
claim (in the case of D2 at least), Fox proceeds to foist upon me 'two derivative claims':
Dl. 'deep ecology does not proceed from a general vision of reality or "underlying
perception of the way things are" ' 11 , and
D2. 'deep ecology is not at all concerned with the way in which we experience the world'
(p.31, Fox's italics).
Firstly, I do not present such claims; indeed I present a substantial amount of material
incompatible with such claims, for instance in the discussion of the theme of extreme holism
as regards D 1, and of cosmic identity as regards D2. Secondly, I did not and do not adhere
to such claims; indeed I have put a good deal of effort into exposing the metaphysical and
epistemological parts of deep ecology. Thirdly, as should be thus evident, they do not
derive from what I did present in the critique. Fourthly, in particular, they do not derive
from the primacy and objectivist claims. Indeed readily available counter-models will show
as much. Consider a values-in-nature objectivist position such as that of Holmes Rolston,
which we can conveniently call 'R(olston)'s deep ecology' (there is not even any cheating
here, as Ralston's position has a better claim to be accounted deep ecology than some of the
positions admitted to the club). Now simply substitute 'R's deep ecology' for 'deep
ecology' throughout the "derivation" of the claims. The premiss or grounds hold, as R's
deep ecology satisfies both primacy and objectivist claims; but the claims supposed to be
derived do not hold, both RD 1 and RD2 fail. For example, Ralston's deep ecology is very
9
It seems to be on the basis of efforts like this misquotation that Fox feels himself
justified in writing of 'Sylvan's "core claim" that deep ecology is primarily a valuesin-nature position ' (p.34). That is remote from what I do. For example, I am in
trouble for dismissing a sizeable chunk of core deep ecology as rubbish; but a valuesin-nature position is not rubbish.
10
The point was explained in considerable detail in EE p.154ff, where the ugly term
nonjective was deliberately introduced to remove illusions as to objectivity or
subjectivity.
11
The context makes it look as if the internal quotation is drawn from me, but it is not
as perusal of fn.44 will show. DI gains no support from anything I assert.
�45
much concerned with the way we experience the world, as a reading of Rolston quickly
discloses. Or if a clearer deep example than Rolston is demanded, there is N aess himself.
Finally, unsurprisingly now, Fox has made elementary mistakes in his alleged
derivations. Consider D2 first. 'This follows', Fox says, 'since value-in-nature are held to
exist "out there" independently of perceivers' (p.31). But again it just does not follow, as a
topic can be deeply concerned with something that enjoys some independence. You might
almost as well try to say that epistemology is not at all concerned with the way in which we
experience the world since primary properties are "out there" independent of perceivers.
Consider next D1, where there is considerably more distortion to be exposed. Fox's
"derivation" really consists of two separable parts. In the first part, Fox's thoroughly
fallacious strategy is to replace 'concerned with' by 'only concerned with' and 'because' by
'simply because', as textual comparisons, of my text with what Fox draws from it, make
plain. His strategy certainly makes for terrific derivations. For example, from "the Prime
Minister is concerned with his sex life" we obtain the startling result that the Prime Minister
is only concerned with his sex life. From the premiss that a man likes his wife because of
her body we obtain without any further ado the familiar worry that he likes her simply
because of her body. 'Beyond this', in a second part, there is an argument based on
independence (apparently involving some misunderstanding of the notion). The argument
appears to be of the form: A is independent of B, therefore A does not proceed from B. The
defectiveness of such an argument is obvious enough once its form is exposed. And the
defectiveness of the case in hand should have been evident to Fox. For Naess has
explained many times how a person can be a deep ecologist (e.g. can adhere to the platform)
without adopting (or even being aware of) the general metaphysical vision from which it
proceeds.
The felling of Fox's derivations brings down, like trees felled in a rainforest, a good
part of the rest of the structure. For instance, there cease to be the problems Fox supposes
he has found (p.32 ff.), such as difficulties of consistency in accounting for the
metaphysical 'sources that supporters of deep ecology draws upon' (p.33).
With that small exercise in logic, the remainder of Fox's "response" to my critique
(pages 31-89 of text and miles of footnotes) is disposed of in main essentials. For pages
53-84 constitute a largely separate essay on wider identification, an essay which only bears
obliquely on my critique; and most of the rest turns upon lumbering me with the claims just
off loaded, the claims which 'constitute [my] very poor understanding of deep ecology'
(p.31). Thus, for example, Fox expends a good deal of space upon citing authorities from
deep ecology (who too often supply extremely dubious statements) directed at contradicting
D 1 and D2. Obviously that is beside the point. But while my main work on Fox's dismal
response is done, and I could stop here, I don't intend to, as there is a lot more heavily
�46
polluting rubbish to be despatched, or recycled. One's rubbish may be another's input
(therein for Moore lay the whole challenge of philosophy).
3 The extent of values-in-nature.
Even a casual reader of Fox's Response will have observed the following: that Fox is
very quick off the mark with (largely unsubstantiated) accusations like 'so and so has failed
to grasp', 'has misunderstood', 'has ignored', 'has missed the point'; that the evidence for
these ad hominem claims is often quite insubstantial; and that that 'so and so' often happens
to be Sylvan. One of the many things Sylvan allegedly 'fails to grasp' is 'that (a position)
deep ecology can be normative (i.e. offer prescriptive proposals) without that necessarily
meaning that it is prescriptive [of this or that,] of a values-in-nature position'. Well, I
thought I had a reasonable grasp upon, and had made use in print of, the distinction
between prescription and evaluation (likewise deontology and axiology), and had in the
critique sufficiently emphasized that shallow positions were normative but decidedly not
prescriptive of values-in-nature. So what evidence does Fox present for his charge? Well,
none really. True he begins his next sentence with a 'Thus', but he then rambles on with
quotations of material (he has previously tried to flog to death) concerning deep ecology and
value theory. But, as nearly everyone appreciates, a position may include a value theory
without that theory being a values-in-nature position; shallow positions are such.
Now 'Sylvan takes Naess's statement that deep ecology is normative as direct
support ... the only support that Sylvan provides ... for his own ... "claim" that deep
ecology is ... a value-in-nature position' (p.36 rearranged, prejudicial terms deleted). Well,
he didn't take that as direct support; what he did take as support is Naess's oft-repeated
assertion (quoted by Fox on the very page) that 'the significant tenets of ... Deep Ecology
... express a value priority system' (many places, e.g. 73 p.99, my italics). So it includes a
value framework. Furthermore further evidence is adduced or alluded to both for the claim
that deep ecology involves a value framework and that it includes a values-in-nature tenet
(e.g. 'deep ecology seeks a transformation of values' Cp.29, quoting Devall; an 'egalitarian
principle of equal value of all life, is "an intuitively clear and obvious value axiom"' Cp.13
quoting N aess; the restriction of this axiom to cases 'when genuine conflicts of value are
absent 'Cp.14 quoting Fox; etc).
Fox issues the challenge: 'where is the (objectivist) values-in-nature "core claim"?'
(p.36). Of course it is right there in the platform, in the very first point which duly
�47
distributes intrinsic value much more widely than humans and human features; it is also
implied by the biocentric egalitarian principle; and so on. 12
What is more, although I have at long last (late 1989) read Fox's tactless Response, I
am sticking to my claim that deep ecology has a value core. As it happens, I think as much
is evident from Naess's recent publications (esp. 89 chapters 2 and 3). But the claim can be
argued, for example as follows:- Firstly, Deep ecology has a value part. Secondly, that part
is a core part. As to the first, I should begin by appealing to the value themes of the deep
ecology platform, particularly points 1 and 2 which amounts values-in-nature points.
Curiously, when several of the points in the platform are value themes, Fox proceeds to
assert that 'biocentric ... egalitarianism ... is the deep ecological notion that most lends itself
to interpretation as a value-in-nature position' (pp.31-33). Perhaps this is a diversionary
tactic. It seems that it would be most convenient for Fox's anti-axiology and unauthentic
view of deep ecology if critics forgot about the platform of deep ecology.
The value part of deep ecology is reasonably taken as a core, i.e. as a central or inner
part (to use dictionary accounts of 'core'). A number of arguments can be advanced for
adopting it as a core, of which I'll indicate one 13 . The 8-point platform is a central part of
deep ecology, what more or less distinguishes deep ecologists; value themes comprise a
central part of this platform (the first three points as well as others such as point 7); what is
a central part of a central part is indeed central.
It is no doubt 'somewhat unfortunate that the 8-principles start with ethical terms ... '
(quoting Sessions p.49). Fox tries to wriggle out of that unfortunate predicament, that the
8-point platform of deep ecology - one of the few hitherto stable parts of the whole jerrybuilt structure - begins with value themes and a values-in-nature claim, by an expansion of
the same shabby tactic he has already tried to use to defuse biological egalitarianism and
displace apparently ethical principles of deep ecology (such as the important obligation to
implement environmental commitments): Namely, the formal-axiological waste-disposal is
replaced by an even grander formal-philosophical disposal - down which goes my
criticism. 'Sylvan ... takes the "neutral"' (i.e. variously: literal, nontechnical,
12
It is only anomalous that the intrinsic value theme is missing Naess's early paper
because it features so prominently in the platform and in parts of Naess's later work,
both characterising deep ecology. Fox tries to twist the anomaly into a contradiction
in my evidence (pp.36-7), but it is a shabby effort, entirely neglecting the evidence I
assemble in Appendix 1 (which he quotes from however) for Figure 1 of the Critique
which indicates the value core.
13
Thereby doing in, by example, another of Fox's unpleasant shotgun accusations, p.6.
�48
understandable to most persons) 'formulation of basic principles as a formal philosophical
position .... Thus, even such limited support for his "core claim" as Sylvan is able to find
turns out to be due to mistaking an everyday language 8-point list for an ultimate expression
of deep ecology in formal philosophical terms' (p.51) That I find, I confess, a ridiculous
accusation and defence. I wasn't taking the basic principles at other than face value, as
other than principles in a "neutral" formulation; I was, and am, 'using the word "value" in a
metaphorical or everyday sense' (p.49), namely in the literal everyday non-metaphorical
sense where it signifies worth. I frankly don't really know what it would be like to take
deep ecology in the way Fox alleges I do, as a 'formal philosophical position' (p.49, p.51).
It is not just that we are far removed from 'the ultimate expression of deep ecology in formal
philosophical terms'; deep ecology is not, in the hands of Fox and friends, the sort of
position that looks at all likely to obtain such formulation ever.
Until it is properly made out, then, Fox's "defence" lapses. He owes us an account
of what a 'formal philosophical expression' would be, by contrast with what we have, and
to provide requisite evidence that Sylvan (whatever his actual intentions) was "taking" the
platform in that "mistaken" way. I'm not surprised that Fox has not attempted the requisite
philosophical work; I am surprised he got Session to go along with him in the intellectually
disreputable ploy.
I freely confess, then, my astonishment that Sessions states that he and N aess would
not agree philosophically to the principles of the deep ecology platform (p.50,p.51 ). What
on earth does he mean? In his own book (with Devall), these principles are presented as
'basic principles of deep ecology' (in boldface capitals, p.69), they are supplemented by a
detailed commentary of a type appropriate for serious philosophical principles, and they are
introduced as having 'summarized fifteen years of thinking on the principles of deep
ecology' (p.69). If that doesn't make them philosophical, what in the deep ecological
scheme of things would? In any case, Sessions has elsewhere been prepared, in highly
philosophical contexts to ascribe intrinsic values to parts of nonhuman Nature (e.g. p.236).
For Naess too there is no easy escape. Firstly, the platform is said to derive from his
Ecosophy T; secondly Ecosophy T itself assigns 'intrinsic value to every life form' (89
p.164ff).
But I should make an admission; deep ecology is bound to be a values-in-nature
position, at least as I characterised those things. It follows from the way I explained depth
and what is meant by 'values-in-nature'.
That is one reason why I claim Fox's
�49
transpersonal ecology is not deep ecology, because it is explicitly not a values-in-nature
position. 14
Fox himself has tried various ways of avoiding values-in-nature; but, needless to say,
value expressions of "in-nature" cast creep into much of his discourse. For example, the
shallow/deep distinction is now "explained" (in 89 p.33), not directly in terms of value, but,
to begin with, through an anthropocentric/ecocentric distinction. The trouble is that, in
explaining the intended senses of contrasting terms, value slips back again (as in 'use value
for humans (e.g. its scientific, recreational, or aesthetic value)'). But Fox's main chance is
the "value constellation" idea, which tries to lock values away in a complex involving a
valuer and a valuing relation. But nothing stops analyses of this complex, examination of
components of the constellation; and for many logical purposes (such as quantification of
the value end of the complex) some separation is required.
4 A biocentric ethic?
It has been widely thought that deep ecology supplies 'a biocentric ethic as opposed to
an anthropocentric one' 15 , that it includes at least rudiments of a value theory and leading
features of an environmental ethics. But now whether deep ecology is, among other things,
an environmental ethic is in increasing doubt. There are now many, not merely on the
margins of deep ecology, who would question the role or significance of ethics or even
dispense with it altogether. On these issues, as on others, deep ecology speaks not just
with many tongues, but forked tongues as well. Fox does something to assemble the
diverse voices from the deep ecology multitude (p.42ff.). Let us classify - in a preliminary
way:
A. Getting rid of ethics altogether. This appears to be a position taken by Livingston and
by Shepard, at least in the quotes Fox supplies. There is nothing new and exciting, still less
of new paradigmatic cast, about this. It is as old as ethical nihilism and scepticism, which is
to say, very old, reaching back to classical Greek thought. 16 Nor are the entirely dubious
supporting considerations adduced in any way new: 'ethics and morals were ... invented by
one species to meet the needs of that species' p.42, or, more cynically, for the advantage of
certain classes or pressure groups within that species; ethics are at best mischievous, more
14
See e.g. p.85. The matter is further discussed below.
15
Thus Bradford 89,p.10. The authentic deep ecology (of. Naess, on reliable days)
certainly does.
16
For preliminary notes on the history of moral nihilism, see Hinckfuss p.17.
�50
likely damaging; ethics are unsuccessful and even counterproductive in their effects (p.43);
'ethics and morals are unknown in nature' (p.42); and similar.
A*. Retaining ethics, hardly intellectually revolutionary either, but
B. Downgrading the whole enterprise. Such appears to be one of Naess's newer
tactics, where ethics, now of minor importance, becomes an experiential epiphenomenon.
'I'm not much interested in ethics or morals. I'm interested in how we experience the
world .... Ethic follows from how we experience the world' (p.46, also Naess 89 p.20 and
elsewhere). Naess is doing more in this much quoted passage (which involves clear
commission of the prescriptive fallacy 17 ) than expressing personal idiosyncracies; he is
saying, he is taken as saying, by those who quote him, how things now stand for deep
ecology (of which he is still, though losing ground, the chief guru).
B*. While ethical enterprise is perhaps not downgraded,
C. Ethics as usually conceived is displaced or superseded. According to Fox,
"conventional ethics", which combines a code of conduct with a set of values, is displaced
by an 'experientially grounded state of being' (p.41). 18 That state of being is none other
than ecological consciousness, which 'precedes and preempts the search for an
"environmental ethic"' (Devall quoted p.45, similarly Sessions, who also goes further,
suggesting we should abandon the search for an environmental ethics' p.44). But surely it
is foolish to discard useful tools (if admittedly due for repair) because something that may
look brighter and shinier and does something for some agents, attracts attention; in these
critical times everything that works at all is needed. A bit differently, Rodman suggests
superfessions of conventional ethics (though perhaps not of a more expansive ethics),
because it is an integral part of the former moral/legal stage of consciousness, conventional
ethics - if not actually in the process of being superseded (in the dominant culture it is not)
by a later and higher stage, of appropriate new experience - ought to be superseded, since
the moral/legal stage is 'now more part of the problem than its solution' (p.43). Again all
17
Elsewhere however (e.g. Naess 89 p.24) explains how values go beyond "facts".
18
Later Fox proceeds differently, with 'deep ecology ... described as ... a position within
... "foundational ethics'" (p.86). "Foundational ethics", another exceedingly illexplained notion, is ethics as 'concerned with "understanding ourselves"' (p.86, p.113),
and so part of the egocentric self nexus; it is also said to be ethics as 'concerned with
development of a state of being' (p.113), the being of selves no doubt. Does
"foundational ethics" supply principles and some values? If not, how does it manage
to be an ethic? If so, how does it escape Fox's objections to environmental ethics? In
any case, "foundational ethics" which we are supposed to search for (along with
"understanding ourselves"), is intended to be an environmental ethic!
�51
decidedly questionable, both historically and systematically, particularly given the prospect
of a plurality of integrated techniques.
C*. Instead, a radically new ethic is designed. This is of course part of what deepgreen and other radical, not merely reformist, alternatives to prevailing ethics and nature
philosophies are about. It was, once upon a time, an objective of deep ecology also; it
apparently no longer invariably is. But just as there is no definite position offered by deep
ecology on several critical issues (esp. in ecological politics), so there is now no definite
position on the place of ethics (pace p.41), as the tentative classification serves to reveal.
No doubt Fox had a particular message that he wanted to be drawn from the quotations and
needed for his arguments - explicit rejection of an ethical approach in favour of experience
in the shape of ecological consciousness (p.47) - but what he has supplied is an entertaining
pot pourri of positions, countering or jamming the message.
It is ironic that Western deep ecology should have tried to opt out of ethics, at exactly
the time that ethics is making a major come back, when ethics are becoming again a
significant force in business and the world. Or in terms of a different image, at the very
time when the ship of ethics is returning to harbour after a long period on high rough seas,
Fox and friends decide to jump overboard; we hope they are strong swimmers. With ethics
returned, a renewed force, what we need is not no ethics but new ethics, not to concede the
power of renewed ethics over to conservative power-holders or restrictive do-gooders, but
to put ethics to expansive tolerant good environmental and social works.
5. Biospheric egalitarianism revisited.
The notion is terminally ill, but I fear we shall keep revisiting it until it is buried under
heavy concrete. So far, for all its problems, it lives on (with apologists, Fox included,
shifting ground accordingly; similarly N aess, e.g. 85 p.6). It just keeps reappearing in
strong unqualified form, for instance in Sessions (recently): 'one of the first clear
statements' of ecosophy 'that all individuals, species (including humans), and ecosystems
have EQUAL inherent value (the ecocentric position) was made by Arne Naess when he
proposed the principle of BIOSPHERICAL (ECOLOGICAL) EGALITARIANISM ... ' (89, p.11).
So represented it simply succumbs to all the previous criticism (in my Critique and
indirectly in EE p.139 ff.). Interestingly then both Fox and Naess appeal to 'Sessions'
interpretation of biocentric egalitarianism as "a statement of non-anthropocent ricism"'
(p.39), to which Fox adds, in all seriousness, 'rather than as a formal environmental
axiological position'. In a revealing passage, Sessions puts it rather differently, 'Biocentric
egalitarianism is essentially a rejection of human chauvinistic ethical theory and the criteria
�52
used to ascribe rights and value; it is a reductio ad absurdum of conventional ethics.
Biocentric egalitarianism is essentially a statement of non-anthropocentricism' 19 . This
statement does not hang together. For instance, non-anthropocentricism is weaker than
rejection of human chauvinism, which on its own is not a reductio ad absurdum of all
conventional ethics (because, first off, not an argument, and because, second, of the
character of some "conventional" ethics such as intuitionism). Without the logically
inadmissible loop through anti-human chauvinism (the deep-green position) the situation is
worse still; for, on the contrary, rather conventional British utilitarianisms such as Smart's
and Singer's are robustly nonanthropocentric. By so excessively eroding its egalitarian
principles, deep ecology loses much depth.
In a passage which Fox says 'greatly clarifies the confusion that has surrounded
Naess's notion', Naess too, again over-influenced by his minders, takes a similar pathetic
course. The principle had previously 'suggest[ed] a positive doctrine, and that is too
much'!
'The importance of the intuition' contracts to 'its capacity to counteract' certain
chauvinistic hubris. What Fox manages to draw out of these counteracting principles are,
however, not principles at all, but an orientation to or general attitude of non-interference,
"Letting be", etc. This is not just considerably removed from what N aess offers; it is pretty
remote from egalitarianisms. For one can let inferiors, and what is of no inherent value, be,
spare and preserve them, perhaps for later exploitation. But what Fox is really concerned to
draw from his authorities is the concession (they do not make, nor did he himself formerly)
that the principle of biospherical egalitarianism is not a principle, not a position at all (a
curious thing to think it was), but something much less definite, less positive, less specific,
less open to criticism, a more general attitude, no doubt underlying ethical practice, but
definitely not part of an environmental axiology. Poor deluded critics like Sylvan who
supposed that a principle is a principle have 'missed' 'the extremely important point' that for
supporters of deep ecology a "principle" is but a general attitude. These supporters indeed
feel that treating a principle as a principle can do more harm than good, 'and so have
deliberately chosen not to take the environmental axiological route' (p.41). There ends
Fox's diversion on biospheric egalitarianism. What it comes to is this:- Had the principle
been a principle, within environmental axiology, the criticism made of the principle would at
19
Quoted by Fox in a quote that never ends (p.39). In this mismash, Session proceeds
to draw upon our material against human chauvinism and conventional ethics, having
first dismissed us, referring to EE p.139, as 'mistak[ing] what Naess is up to. Naess's
position is not ... "an extension of conventional Western ethics"'. As it happens, we
don't mention Naess at all either on p.139 or in our discussion of extensionalism: how
do we mistake what Naess is up there to when we don't consider what he is up to?
Back in the 70s deep ecology was, after all, not a significant position.
�53
the very least constitute a powerful challenge (p.38); but fortunately it is not, "positive
doctrines" are too open to criticism! It is only a general attitude concerning reluctance to
harm other living beings (p.40). 20 Egalitarianism, of value as well as principle, has
dropped out in this rather shallow evasion.
6. The uneasy position of value theory, or axiology within deep ecology
and the condemned "environmental axiological route".
Fox wants to distance deep ecology from value theory but is also aware, from time to
time, that this is not really possible. As a result his position on the relation of deep ecology
to value theory is decidedly ambiguous at best, and at worst inconsistent. The tensions
appear within the space of a single page (e.g. p.85). We are told both that 'deep ecology is
not [a] position within environmental axiology' and that 'it could be quite mistaken to think'
that deep ecology 'stands outside ... value theory'. Whence inconsistency results, given
that axiology has its normal technical sense. 21 But there is evidence that Fox intends
significantly more by 'axiology' than normal - as well as adopting the normal sense: so that
behind the initial inconsistency stands another inconsistency. What precisely Fox does
intend remains however obscure, scandalously obscure.
For one of Fox's main accusations against critics of deep ecology 22 , is that critics are
committed to 'environmental axiological reductionism', they 'pursue environmental
philosophical discussion almost entirely at the level of environmental axiology', so they are
blind to what 'deep ecology thinkers are really on about', which (negatively) consists in
'rejection of the "environmental axiological route"' (pp.51-53). Among these critics, mired
in "ethical reductionism", blind to the new paradigmatic character of deep ecology which
20
Or presumably otherwise negatively interfere with other natural things - otherwise the
reformulation, though apparently platitudinous, is too narrow, discriminating against
some parts of nature. The harm reformulation is borrowed from Devall and Session,
who try to make biospherical egalitarian and Self-realisation interpenetrate: 'Biocentric
equality is intimately related to the all inclusive Self-realisation in the sense that if we
harm the rest of Nature then we are harming ourselves' (p.56). Unfortunately in the
ordinary sense of 'harm' the latter claim is entirely false; as I previously remarked, it is
all too easy to harm parts of Nature without harming ourselves, with but negligible
impact on ourselves.
21
The word 'axiology' does not appear in the Oxford English Dictionary. But no doubt
it means the investigation, study and theory of value or worth, and is thus tantamount
to value theory, as contrasted however with deontology. What it means will soon
become an issue: see below.
22
Yes, it remains an unduly adversial intellectual game, part of the long Britishscholastic history of philosophy.
�54
has taken as a guiding star precisely avoidance of the "axiological route", is the hapless
Sylvan; the tenacity with which he sticks to his indefensible account of deep ecology is
largely explained through these features (p.52).
For explanation of some of the operative abusive terminology we are referred
elsewhere, to other writings of Fox. But the source is scarcely more informative, and
indeed relevant parts of it have, in any case, been lifted for Fox's Response. 23 The promise
of explanation is not fulfilled. 'Ethical reductionism' is, like its successor 'environmental
axiological reductionism', explained by Fox on the run, which is to say it is not explained.
Nor is the reductionist charge sustained. For what is offered, what 'the vast majority of
environmental philosophers' are alleged to do, the pursuit of 'environmental philosophical
discussion almost entirely at the level of environmental ethics/axiology', may well reflect
undue concentration, but it is not reductionism. Fox is decidedly adept in the fallacious
business of sliding terms around (otherwise known as Humpty Dumptyism).
'Reductionism' and 'axiology' are not the only terms that suffer at his hands; so, relevant to
our purposes, does 'ontology'. At least in the context of his "guiding stars" paper, parts of
which are shunted into his Response, Fox uses 'ontology' to mean, not what it does mean,
roughly 'the general study of what exists', but very differently, the 'underlying perception
of the way things are', which, among other things, epistemologizes what was part of
metaphysics.
In those terms, 'deep ecology's guiding star ... [which] is (and should be) ... this
attempt to shift the primary focus of environmental philosophical concern from ethics to
ontology' becomes an epistemological diversion: a regressive attempt to move
environmental philosophy to anthropic experiential concerns (Fox 84 p.204 rearranged). It
is evident, by the way, who is attempting to do this shifting. If epistemologists focus their
efforts on a tiny number of tiny epistemological problems, if logicians discuss only
quantificational logic, they cannot be significantly accused of reductionism; they would have
23
While many sorts of recycling are of course commendable, reservations should be held
about academic recycling of earlier papers, especially when no improvements are
attempted. Fox does at least attempt some "improvements" to get around the obvious
objection that deep ecology is itself a normative and hence ethical route; but the
adjustments he infiltrates actually make other matters worse. For they consist of the
replacement of 'ethical' by 'axiological' or 'environmental axiological' or similar. So
now, for instance, the journal Environmental Ethics is charged with reflecting
environmental axiological reductionism (p.106); but as examination quickly shows the
journal carries much ethical material which is not axiological (e.g. on rights and
obligations) - evidently it also carries much that is not reductionistic and even some
that concerns philosophy of nature rather than ethics. Fox's charges are without proper
foundation.
�55
also to claim that is all there is to their enterprise, and to make some attempt to show how
the apparent remainder comes down to that. These further necessary conditions are not
fulfilled in the case of 'the vast majority of environmental philosophers'; apart from a small
minority of philosophers associated with the "ethics without philosophy" idea here is
nothing approaching a requisite reduction framework. No doubt there is an axiological
reduction program, pursued by consequentalists of various brands, but that is
predominantly a program within ethics. As well the long-running naturalistic reduction
program grinds on unsuccessfully. But there is no recognisable environmental philosophy
reduction program; nor could such a program hope to succeed.
There are suitably many counter-instances to Fox's large accusations; among them,
conveniently, is that main target, Sylvan, who does not take an "environmental axiological
route". In print I have come out against reduction of deontic notions and normative
discourse generally to axiological terms; and have, in any case, made it perfectly plain that
environmental philosophy comprises much more than ethics, certainly including parts of
politics, philosophy of nature, metaphysics and so on. 24 Thus Sylvan, so far from
'criticis[ing] deep ecology on the erroneous basis of it being a position or approach within
environmental axiology' (p.101), does not himself take the alleged "environmental
axiological route", as the record shows. Rather than rely on my record (a political expedient
that should engender but little philosophical enthusiasm), I'm tempted to issue a countercharge: insofar as Sylvan is committed to an "environmental axiological route" so also is
(authentic) deep ecology, as elaborated by Naess. Consider, for instance, Naess's
elaboration of the deep ecological platform. But in sustaining this counter-charge (the
detailed support involves a comparison, made in Bennett and Sylvan, of deep-green theory
with authentic deep ecology), we come up once again against the problem of what is meant
here by 'axiology'.
Unremarkably Fox deploys the fallacious method of redefinition. By 'axiology' and
its compounds, Fox both means what is normally meant and also means significantly more.
Hardly necessary by now to add, he manages to slide from one to the other. In the normal
way, axiology, or value theory, is the philosophical study of virtue and values, 'their
meaning, characteristics, origins, types, criteria and epistemological status (p.100, quoting
Angeles).
24
So far so good.
But now for the first twist and slide.
'In the area of
See EP, e.g . p.188, p.222, and several works in the Green series. In the early 70s
when there was briefly some glimmer of hope that the Australian National University
might interest itself in environmental philosophy, I sketched out a perspective of what
it might comprise, which I reproduce as an Appendix (if I can find it!).
�56
environmental ethics, the axiological concept of intrinsic value plays a fundamental role. 25
. . . On this understanding, environmental ethics is more accurately described as
environmental axiology ... ' (p.100). This is a major non-sequitur. It would almost as well
be said that because induction plays a fundamental role in philosophy of science,
philosophy of science is more accurately described as induction-theory, and even amounts
to induction-theory! Plainly it is quite inaccurately described as induction-theory, since
there is much else to philosophy of science; what makes matters still worse is that there are
schools which contend that induction drops out as a method and so as a problem. Rather
similarly environmental ethics is much more inaccurately redescribed as environmental
axiology because, but not only because, there is much more to ethics than axiology, the
whole matter of proper conduct for example. For value only impacts on action and proper
conduct by way of further principles which are not themselves part of value theory. It is
obvious that value theory does not in general exclude what is not (without further ado) a
part of it, such as deontic theory, moral epistemology, and so on; but the obvious gets lost
sight of, as when Fox assumes that environmental axiology rules out experiential and
empathetic procedures.
Fox attempts rather more than adjustment and exclusion in his "redescription" of
normal environmental ethics as environmental axiology; he has to if his charges against
environmental axiology (on the face of it a harmless enough study), and the importance of
avoiding it, are to begin to stand up.
25
Fox backs up this claim with themes drawn from Callicott and Regan, with which it
is said 'most environmental philosophers would agree', (p.100). Maybe others do; but
I doubt that they should, not without significant qualification. Regan states that 'the
development of what can properly be called an environmental ethic requires that we
postulate inherent value in nature'. Firstly, that is only one way to try to develop an
environmental ethic (which may not be deep). There are other feasible starting points
and primitives: rights, justice, respects, fairness, empathy, identification, utility,
vandalism, evil, and so on, in terms of which value may (or may not) be subsequently
be defined (e.g. along lines that tempted former philosophers: what it is fitting/right,
for any rational being to prefer/desire). Secondly, the term 'postulate' at best grates, at
worst gets the picture seriously wrong: value may not be self-evident, assumed
without proof, imposed as a demand, ... . Callicott describes 'the problem of intrinsic
value in nature ... as the most critical and most recalitrant theoretical problem of
environmental ethics'. That already presupposes that an ethics starts out in Regan's
sort of way. Even if a deep ethics does take value as primitive, that is but one
problem among several, a problem blown up to critical exaggerated size, primarily by
opponents of environmental ethics and infiltrators of the ranks. For other major
problems for any ethics, and a more balanced view, see Broad's final chapter.
�57
We can glean further information as to what is loaded into the terminology from what
Fox tries to do. An environmental axiology is the same as a (formal) environmental
axiological position, and that as a formal value theory (pp.40-41; the word 'formal' can be
inserted or left out, in Fox it appears to function primarily as a con-term). Such theories,
which are "theoretical" and "definite", contain as well as
• a value theory, and perhaps also a rights theory (e.g. p.35), both
• exact principles, offering specific positional guidance, which are
• positively formulated
• which apply to all situations, and
• a code of conduct, no doubt made up from the principles. 26
Some of Fox's criticisms of environmental axiology turn on these further, and
excessively exacting, features he has tried illegitimately to incorporate into axiology. At this
stage, there are two main confusions:- first, as to the extent of ethics and moral theory that
axiology comprehends, and secondly as to the character of the principles axiology (and, for
that matter, deontology and praxis) is supposed to include. A value theory on it own yields
neither a rights' theory nor a code of conduct. Even a highly and objectionably reductive
theory such as consequentialism requires principles drawn from outside value theory, such
as that one ought to act so as to maximize value or utility, in order to arrive at principles of
conduct and actionable rights. A value theory may include principles but these are
principles concerning value. Like other principles, like those of deontology, they may well
not measure up to the excessive standards Fox tries to impose. In particular, the principles
may be defeasible, may include or presuppose unspecified and unlistable exceptions; they
may include ceteris paribus clauses; and so they may well not apply in all situations. They
may fall far short of supplying necessary and/or sufficient conditions; they may not be
positively formulated (prohibitions in such forms as 'Don't ... ' are commonplace in ethics);
and so on.
26
As well, it seems to be assumed that an axiology, and indeed an Anglo-American
ethics, must be atomistic and individualistic; they are but 'means of structuring the
interactions of atomistic individuals' (p.112). Not so. It is worth remarking that
deep-green theory assumes neither atomism nor individualism (see EP). Nor does it
pursue or assume any of the following reductive practices: deontic to axiological, or
vice versa; environmental philosophy to environmental ethics, or vice versa;
axiological notions to a unique set of primitives, or the single primitive value. As
there are several ways to disable a bulldozer, so there are many ways to enable an
environmental philosophy: value is but one starting point.
�58
7. The "case" against environmental axiology: 'the inadequacies or
repugnant conclusions that attend the environmental axiological approach'
(p.82).
Among the 'serious problems' encountered are said to be those, now hoary, issues
concerning intrinsic value, which Fox tosses up in a substantially shallow way.
For most environmental ethicists, it is difficult to see how something
can have value in itself (i.e. intrinsic value) if it isn't valuable to itself,
and to be valuable to itself it must be able to matter to itself or, in other
words, be sentient, by which is meant that it must possess the capacity
to suffer (p.73)27_
This contention is at least dubious clause by clause, and overall profoundly mistaken. The
critical transformation, for deep environmentalism, is centred on that of value in to valuable
to (or of value to). It is difficult to see why any environmental thinker would accede to such
a transformation, in itself and to itself being so very different in meaning (e.g. consider
them coupled respectively with such terms as conspicuous, unusual, etc.) But, in any
event, there are several sorts of evident counter-examples to such transformations. Firstly,
there are examples from outside environmental territory such as works of art, intellectual
theories, and transcendental metaphysical gems. A beautiful theory or a resplendent form
can be intrinsically valuable without being of value to itself, without being able to matter to
itself, etc. Secondly, there are examples like rare seed, embryonic valuables, and the like.
Thirdly, there are sentient or conscious items of intrinsic value that are not valuable to
themselves, and do not matter to themselves, such as great but utterly modest people. There
is much else wrong in the connections Fox delivers up 28 , but we can bypass most of them
(e.g. sentience does not mean a capacity to suffer, as shown by perceptually aware creatures
who do not suffer because they have no pain receptors and the like; nor is sentience
required, as consciousness will serve for mattering; and so on).
27
It is hard to credit that someone fronting up as a deep environmental thinker could
present such stuff, but of course various reasons can be found. While the argument is
very bad, there is no doubt, what is no excuse, that worse can be found. For instance,
what is intrinsically valuable is valuable in itself, so it must have a self, so it must be
sentient, etc.
28
Fox subsequently announces the 'link between something not mattering to itself ...
and the conclusion that we can do as we will with it ... sacred in the Environmental
Axiological Orthodox Church of Intrinsic Value' (p.80). It is a Church of his own
fabrication, at which no respectable deep environmentalist would worship or even be
found.
�59
Fox runs straight on to an old paradigm assertion by Frankena, from whom he
borrowed the argument, which he again proceeds to ascribe (without any evidence offered
or, I suspect, any research basis)to most environmental ethicists 29 : 'I do not see, however,
how anything can have intrinsic value except the activities, experiences, and lives of
conscious sentient beings (persons, etc.)' (Frankena, quoted p.73). Frankena's assertion,
as it stands utterly unsupported, 'is a powerful one', according to Fox, again displaying his
shallow proclivities: 'What difference does it make how I treat something if it cannot matter
to itself?' (p.78) Big differences, not merely to those in a region for whom it may matter,
but in the region, if Fox dams the last wild river in the region, cuts down the last lowland
rainforest. Fox tops his astounding move by dignifying this shallow rubbish by the title
'powerful argument'. Its power 'is evidenced by the fact that those who want to say rocks
or trees have intrinsic value often do so by pure assertion rather than providing an argument
for their view (140)' (p.78). That's no evidence, it's irrelevant; and I wouldn't pursue it,
were not such a familiar utterly shallow complaint built into the alleged evidence, and were
Sylvan not roped in again in a footnote as 'another case in point' (p.112 note 140). It may
come as news to Fox (who seems to have read little of what I have written before he rushed
out his Response), but I do provide arguments, including those built on examples like the
Last Person and the Last Sentient Creatures, examples which have obtained a fair bit of
exposure (for some of these, see e.g. EP pp.121-132; and in fact a general argument can be
developed from the semantical analysis of value).
The certainties of Frankena's dogmatic assertion can be whittled away, first by
separating conscious from sentient (after all many people can now see that animals that are
not conscious persons can have intrinsic value), second by assembling marginal cases and
analogies in a now familiar way, then by counter-arguments, and so on. But, in any case,
insofar as environmental ethicists (as distinct from conventional ethicists) continue to side
with Frankena that reveals them as a rather reactionary lot, significantly lagging popular
thinking. 30 As Naess and others report, many non-philosophers have no difficulty in
recognising value-in-itself outside persons, in living creatures and natural objects.
29
There is evidence that these ascriptions are mere desk-chair speculation, in fact of little
value; e.g. at the bottom of p.78 where Fox says, of Frankena's position, 'I think it
represents the dominant position within ... environmental axiology'. I suspect that,
once again, Fox is not duly separating environmental axiology from conventional
axiology.
30
The chauvinism of traditional ethical systems is enough to explain the comparative
lack of intellectual interest in such moribund systems, and the resulting much wider
search for roots, ideas, etc. There is accordingly no serious puzzle as to the sources of
deep environmentalism (pace Fox p.74).
�60
In the course of trying to get his attack on the environmental axiological framework
airborne Fox resorts to some extraordinary distortion and falsification. The looseleaf insert
(page 79), where some disenchanted thinkers make an abrupt unexplained entry, affords a
good illustration. First we are told that what those in the business (except no doubt some
enlightened deep ecologists) 'typically fail to realise is that the environmental axiological
framework of discourse so dominates the discussion of our relationship with the natural
world that it is mistakenly taken to be the only possible approach' (p.79). This claim is, it
seems to me, roundly refuted by the history of the discussion and some of the literature it
encompasses. Among other approaches there are, for instance, extended rights (e.g.
Stone), environmental justice (e.g. Wenz), extended interests (e.g. Johnson), and
negatively ethical nihilism (e.g. Hinckfuss).
Fox continues unabashed: 'In other words [!], the hegemony of the environmental
axiological framework is such that it has led almost everybody involved in the
ecophilosophical debate to think that we have an obligation to care for something if and only
if it "has" intrinsic value' (p.79). There's some prime rubbish for you. The charge is
manifestly false, seriously flawed, plucked from thin air, and unnecessary except for Fox's
misguided mission. Even if an axiological approach were the only approach, no such
obligation-to-care principles would follow, and certainly not principles as dubious or
refutable as those given. The if -half of the unabashed claim is at, the very, least dubious
and would be rejected on some popular positions: suppose, for instance that the intrinsic
value of the thing is small, or that it is overridden by the intrinsic value of some competitor
for our attention. The only-if-half (which wins Fox's italics, he is going to make much of
it) would be rejected by almost everyone who thought about the matter, because of course
obligations apply to what has merely instrumental value. If I have borrowed a friend's tools
then I have an obligation to care for them though these tools have no intrinsic value.
Differently, I am under obligations to behave generally in certain sorts of ways whether the
things encountered have intrinsic value or not; accordingly I'm not entitled to treat them any
old way (e.g. to vandalise them) or even as I will or, more ambiguously, as I 'see fit'.
Combining the pernicious principles Fox has unearthed yields the following
ridiculous result: if a thing has no value to itself, for instance has ceased to be of value to
itself, then we have no obligation to care for it, we can do what we like with it. The
applications of this result are remarkable. There is no doubt that Fox has thereby provided a
simple - if appalling - solutions to such major social problems as those of drug and alcohol
abuse; victims who are so far down the track that they have ceased to be of value to
themselves, can simply be vanished, or dealt with in whatever other way we find
convenient. Then too human slavery and sacrifice, never entirely vanquished, could be
widely reinstated: Oh brave new world that Fox has lead us into!
�61
Fox tries to make a lot out of these odious obligation-to-care principles he has
attempted to foist upon environmental axiology. He suggests they indicate the need to
abandon rather than broaden the notion of intrinsic value; he suggests they may 'reflect the
inherent limitations of the environmental axiological approach' (p.79); he suggests that we
need to find instead 'another framework of discourse that can articulate' our feelings about
what we ought to care about. This alternative framework - from the many and various that
might have been selected - is none other than the wider self identification framework. The
obvious course, which should be pursued anyway, of seeking an obligation-to-care
principle that does measure up better to our emotional presentations, does not seem to have
occurred to Fox, so preoccupied is he with attacking what he sees as "the environmental
axiological route" and getting to self immersion.
Finally, Fox runs out some examples which are supposed to show the repugnant
conclusions to which the axiological approach leads. Unfortunately for Fox's case, the
arguments involved do not succeed without further assumptions beyond those Fox
enumerates, assumptions smarter adherents of an axiological approach do not make. The
examples involve comparisons of groups of individuals, which, it is alleged, exponents of
intrinsic value cannot discriminate, though the group situations are very different. One
example runs as follows: ' ... the loss, by human interference at least, of the last members of
a species ... is somehow "worse" than the loss by human interference of an equivalent
number from an abundant species ... . Yet, in terms of intrinsic value, those losses are
equivalent since the same "amount" is lost in both cases' (p.80). Fox then argues against
more holistic assignments of value on the basis of another dogmatic pronouncement from
'Frankena that communities (such as species ... ) do not "have intrinsic value over and
above that contained in ... [their] members"' .31 But he goes on to assert that, irrespective
of Frankena's position, 'the point ... applies generally to any atomistic environmental
axiological position i.e. to any position that sees intrinsic value as exclusively adhering in or
attaching to individual entities' (p.81). Fox is dead wrong. The case assumes, without
warrant or mention, equality of the value adhering or assigned to individuals. Plainly the
loss of the last members of the species is worse (where it is, e.g. the species is not a
diabolical laboratory concoction) because the members of the species are individually more
valuable than those of the abundant species. Consider, for comparison, the razing by fire of
31
Fox's second example actually contains the elements of an interesting argument
(perhaps, to be uncharitable, the only example in his whole Response). This example,
of monoculture vs diversity (p.81), does introduce, if not much of holism, at least
relational features of the individuals assembled. There is no reason, of course, why
axiology should not take account of those features. Contrary to Fox, there is no need
to 'separately posit' that the principle of diversity is 'valuable in and of itself' (p.82).
�62
two art galleries containing the same numbers of individual art works, one containing rare
art works, the other containing selections from the abundant works of relatively indifferent
crafters. The amount, assessed in monetary value even, lost in the first fire is much greater,
and so the loss much worse, than in the second fire.
Fox not only proceeds to state what his examples would show without due
qualification. But he goes on, quite inadmissibly, to general claims which leave off even
the qualifications he had earlier introduced (thus later on, p.82, he drops the essential
restriction to atomistic positions). Environmental axiology accordingly emerges
substantially unscathed; it does not need to be replaced by something else, such as wider
identification, only rendered smarter, and supplemented or merged into a fuller
environmental philosophy.
8.
Fox's 'Deep Ecological Territory': transpersonal identification.
But Wes tern deep ecology is now bent upon replacement. Devall, for example, now
maintains that 'the unique contribution that deep ecology makes to ecophilosophy is its
emphasis on ecological self and affirmation.
Subscribing to similar ideas Fox has
suggested changing the label "deep ecology" to "transpersonal ecology".' Devall (in 89
again) has deep ecology as, above all, discovering 'an aspect of our self' which has been
culturally neglected.
Such a reorientation is significantly at variance with Naess's
introduction and initial elaboration of deep ecology; for his original summary (in 73) of deep
ecology, which is ecologically focussed, contains no allusion to self, ecological or other. It
is also at variance with Devall and Sessions of but three years earlier, where nature, ecology
and biological systems still appeared fundamental to deep ecology, these entering through
the other ultimate norm (besides Self-realisation) of deep ecology, that of biocentric equality
(see their p.66). As it happens, Devall, by contrast with Fox, vacillates between a more
authentic deep ecology in the style ofNaess (chapter 1 of Devall 89) and the Western variant
of transparent ecology (e.g. pp.39-57), which would displace the original theory.
There is much speaking with many tongues, much inconsistency, in deep ecology.
We have already witnessed such deep ecology doubletalk in the matter of value and the
status of ethics. We see it again with transpersonal or expanded-self identification. We
only enter 'the real territory of deep ecology' according to Fox (p.53ff.) with such
expanded identification. Yet one can be a deep ecologist, much literature explains, without
any identification efforts at all (for example by adopting the platform which does not
mention identification). So one can be a deep ecologist without ever 'entering deep
ecological territory'. Deep ecology without deep ecology - another wonder, or just more
double talk? Like Fox's parting flourish: there are sketch maps for deep ecological territory
(p.89), yet it is 'ultimately mapless' (see Devall 89 p.39).
�63
Fox tries to explain "the search" of deep ecology 'for such things as "ecological
consciousness" (Devall and Sessions) and "Self-realisation" (Naess)' through expanded
identification. Most conveniently he can take ready-made from Devall and Sessions
reductive explications:- 'Ecological consciousness is the result of a psychological expansion
of the narrowly encapsulated sense of self as isolated ego, through identification with all
humans (species chauvinism), to finally an awareness of the identification and
interpenetration of self with ecosystem and biosphere' (Sessions, quoted pp.53-4). 'The
essence of ecological consciousness ... [is] to overcome this illusory dichotomy [between
Humans and N ature 32 ]' for which 'the important task is ... the psychological development
from narrow egotistical "self' to identification with the whole' (Devall as quoted p.53).
But, once again, it is one thing to have on authority such explication; it is quite another thing
whether such reductions work. I submit that they do not, for the simple reason that
ecological consciousness may be had or attained without any such self expansion
developments.
Consider, first, Professor Flatpan who is a devoted but unimaginative ecological field
worker. All his practice, behaviour and so on, shows him as utterly committed to
ecological causes, preservation of wilderness and so on, and fully conscious of its
importance. But he makes no identification of himself with what he works with or for. It
may be that he is some sort of empirical separatist; or it may not. Perhaps he even rejects
identification suggestions when they are put to him, e.g. on grounds of hubris, nonsense,
... , or he simply doesn't identify, etc. In Professor Flatpan and his variants we seem to
have a tribe of people with strong ecological consciousness and affiliations but without
identification. Consider next, the interesting Wombat tribe, superb in their tribal treatment
of their environment, who have not developed the notion of self or, for that matter, that of
identification. The tribe exhibits a high ecological consciousness (in our ordinary
understanding of that non-technical notion, in terms of a strong perception or awareness of
environmental matters) but lacks even the conceptual apparatus for self expansion
developments.
Expanded identity or self developments may serve as useful or powerful tactics for
raising ecological consciousness in people raised and hooked on a narrow self-interested
self, but they are neither necessary nor sufficient for explaining or understanding ecological
consc10usness. Analogous points apply against the attempt to drag Self-realisation into the
picture.
32
Naess, in a regressive move, now asserts that humans are unique (e.g. in 89), whence
the dichotomy ceases to be illusory. More inconsistency.
�64
There are in fact at least three separable notions which deep ecology has tended to
fuse: ecological consciousness, widened identification and wider Self-realisation. Confusion is made so much the easier because those notions are, for the most part, not decently
introduced. The whole deep ecological theory of expanded identification and Self remains
exceedingly poorly explained (thus e.g. identification in Fox, esp. p.60; dimensions of
Self, p.83). As ecological consciousness has already been distinguished, it remains to
begin on unscrambling identification and self-realisation, and therewith the many senses of
self
In the first place, identification is independent of self, its manifestation or
"realisation", at least to this extent: that discourse concerning identification can be explained
and can proceed satisfactorily without any introduction of or notion of selves. A theory
may well include identification, and even expanded identification with remote items, without
selves or expanded selves. Early Taoism appears to illustrate the point well. Differently, an
ontologically modest account of acting can afford a good example of how identification can
operate without persona or selves. In fact, a case can be argued that such theories proceed
better in this fashion, because they avoid problematic commitments to selves.
It may look as if Fox, following Naess and Wilber, can escape these problems, and
separation, simply by defining 'self' through identification (and perhaps conversely):
'succinctly: Our Self is that with which we identify' (p.54). There are serious obstacles to
such a stratagem.
d
Elsewhere Fox makes quite a fuss about ontological commitments; on the matter of
cluttering up the universe with Selves he is strangely silent. Yet there are rather a lot of
these strange selves. Assuming selves do not reproduce themselves, in a universe where
there are n objects, and so 2n -1 complexes, and m individuals with selves (with m << n),
there are, at first estimate, m x (2n -1) larger selves. Of course some of these larger selves
may be the same, nonetheless the number of selves is huge where n is large. Moreover, if a
person can identify with nonexistent, with Sherlock Holmes or Pegasus or Satan if not with
the form of the Good and the set of all sets, then the numbers shoot right up, into the big
infinities. Yet nothing is more common in this arena than for people to identify with
fictional objects, of books, TV and so on. Indeed the art of acting depends heavily upon it.
A character actor works to identify with the character being portrayed; a good actor enjoys
more success in this identification enterprise.
d
It does not in any case evade ontic issues, because the definition requires that which
abstraction which a modest theory would not have generally available.
d
There are questions as to the adequacy of such an explicative definition of self:
whether, for example, it answers duly to prevailing senses of 'self'. The proposal does not.
Consider, to bring out just one deficiency, two different but closely integrated creatures,
�65
Arthur and Martha say, who identify with the same class of items including themselves and
each other. Then on the Naess-Fox definition, it follows, counter-intuitively, that Arthur's
Self = Martha's Self, though Arthur @ Martha. Part of what has gone wrong is evident
from recent philosophical investigations, namely that the first person point of view, crucial
to such items as a self or a spirit or a soul or an ego, has got omitted; a widened self
involves some sort of (concentric) expansion from, or focused upon, a first-person self. 33
Normally in religious settings, it is furthermore expansion outwards from an inner personal
locus by restrictive identification or selective identification (as Wilber has it), not arbitrary
identification.
9. Problems of Self and Self-realisation: the intrusion of value and the
issue of evil.
Restrictive practices can remove a serious problem for identification theory, the
problem of evil identifications, but they raise an equally serious problem, how the
re intrusion of value is to be avoided. Fox is vaguely aware that 'the concept of intrinsic
worth' may intrude in discussions of Self-realisation. But he assumes, much too facilely,
that it can be simply removed (p.56). Devall's later writings should have alerted him to the
problems of those who identify with anti-environmental objects or causes, such as beach
buggies, symbols of power like bulldozers or tanks , or sand mining opportunities.
Identification is not always with the good, with good guys or good causes, as selective deep
ecology examples invariably suggest (e.g. p.60, with sea turtles, tigers and gibbons).
Spinoza, one of the progenitors of the theory, avoided the problem of evil attachments and
causes by envisaging primarily identification with Nature or God, assumed ipso facto to be
good. But Naess and Sessions allow for a much wider range of identifications, with the
whole human race, which may overall be evil (for all that conventional ethics assert), or
with undoubtedly evil human groups or organisations (e.g. the German S.S. or the Mafia).
Such expanded identification is hardly to be recommended or encouraged.
33
The person touch is too narrow, unless animals are persons. For there appear to be no
serious difficulties in ascribing selves to animals. Of course, if consciousness (or
circularly self-consciousness) is written into the notion of self, as with some of the
dictionary senses, then selves will be restricted to those animals that enjoy
consciousness, a quite extensive class overlapping humans. In a different sense, tied to
an original meaning of 'self as same, or one and the same used esp. prepositionally in
referring back, there is no difficulty in ascribing selves much more widely. Thus we
naturally say of a forest, 'It looks after itself', of an automata or even boomerang, 'It
came back itself'. The broad philosophical sense (first part of sense 3 in OED) in
terms of individual essences, what a thing really and intrinsically is, haecceity,
certainly admits selves for forests!
�66
There are criticisms, yet to be answered (though initiated in my Critique), that the
"widened identification route" introduces virtually as many problems as it would resolve,
and that it cannot proceed independently of what it is supposed to offer an alternative to
(p.53), the pernicious "environmental axiological route". In a passage quoted from Seed
part of the problem is glimpsed, though Fox who emphasizes the relevant passage fails to
observe it: 'It is only by identification with the whole process that correct values will
emerge' (p.63). Why? Because, as in Spinoza, "the whole process" is assumed Good,
while anything less may not be; a distribution of value is presupposed. How furthermore
does a disciple ensure that a proper totalising identification is made? By confirming that
correct values do emerge. In brief, then, identification theory is no substitute for valuation
theory, but an addition to it. Moreover, it is not an entirely essential addition, however
psychologically useful. With the reintrusion of value or the like, the acclaimed superiority
of the wider identification approach over the environmental axiological approach lapses.
The claim, for which Fox offers initial but unpersuasive defence (p.77 on), is based on
another mistake: the mistake, already observed, of thinking that value theory excludes
identification. But it need not: selective identification can complement intrinsic value.
Very selective identification reveals as well how a theory of heightened Self can be
substantially independent of widened (unrestrictive) identification. In showing
independence Hinduism, as sometimes presented (e.g. by Smith), affords an admirable
example. Hinduism supposes a diminution or deepening of the self to the underlying Self,
a route of self-abnegation; but that is taken to be equivalent, by inversion, to a unique
expansion of self to approximate a God's eye viewpoint (of things sub specie aeternitas ). 34
34
Whereas Western approaches aim to enlarge the self - as with stock aggrandizement, or
Western deep ecology expansion - Indian approaches are concerned primarily with
contracting upon the self, to reduce individual expectations, aspirations, wants (to
nothing on some accounts). For a resolution of life with disappointments, the
(negative) suggestion is: 'if the ego were to have no expectations, there would then be
nothing to disappoint' (Smith p.26). But interestingly, there is supposed to be a
positive inversion of self abnegation which turns it into self expansion. Expand 'the
interests of the self ... to the point of approximating a God's-eye view .. . . Seeing,
thus, all things "under the aspect of eternity", would not one become completely
objective towards oneself, accepting failure as being as natural an occurrence as success
... . How can defeat disappoint if one feels the joy of the victor as if it were one's
own?' (p.26). 'Detachment from the finite self or attachment to reality as a whole ... positive or negative ... ' (p.27).
One path to God, to oneness with the Godhead (Brahman), that through knowledge,
jnana yoga, strikingly resembles Western deep ecology in some of its features and
terminology. The 'Yoga of knowledge is said to be the shortest path to divine
realisation (to God). It is also the steepest' (p.35). For intellectuals, introverts and
the like 'Hinduism proposes a series of meditations and logical demonstrations
�67
While Hinduism does also make room for expansions of selves through time, so as to 'rise
above the present and even above present lifespans' (p.28) these expansions are tied to lifelines of single creatures (perhaps as reincarnated). There is no technical provision for
unlimited wider identification, for instance identification with inanimate items, with a
motorcycle or nuclear reactor. Thus Hinduism can serve to show the independence of
unrestrictive expanded identification from self-Self theories. Evidently, too, variations on
self-Self (e.g. with more ascetic theories of big Self) can strengthen this result.
designed to convince the thinker that there is more to him than his finite self; ... [to]
shift his central concern to the deeper reaches of his being ... the larger self that lies
behind ... ' (p.33).
One 'must pierce and dissolve the innumerable layers of manifest personality until all
strata of the mask [all roles of the persona] are at length cut through, [to] arrive finally
at the anonymous and strangely unconcerned actor [Atman] who stands beneath. The
distinction between self and Self can come through another image' (p.34) however than
that of the removal of roles and personae; thus there is the image of the game of life
upon a chess-board and the image of the charioteer. Through exercise with such
images and such practices it is claimed that a practitioner can 'build up a lively sense
of an abiding Self that underlies his phenomenal personality' (p.34). The further 'step
consists in shifting his self-identification from the passing to the eternal part of his
being. The most direct way of doing this ... is simply to [contemplate] one's identity
with the Eternal Spirit ... ' (p.35).
Of course analogous self-improvement, self-abnegation and self-expansive elements
feature in other religions than Indian, where they were especially early and
conspicuous. In Zen, for instance, 'the dualisms of self and object, of self and other,
are transcended' (p.134). In Christianity too, the circle of self can be broken, and
release experienced from the cramping confines of ego (Smith again, p.280).
Analogous elements made their way into Western philosophies, such as that of
Spinoza, early romanticism (e.g. Schegel), German idealism and T.H. Green, and
directly or indirectly into Western deep ecology (Fox, p.57). As Marxism is
sometimes seen, crudely, as obtained by upending Hegelianism and replacing God by
Man, so transpersonal ecology can be regarded as similarly varying elements of
Hinduism, replacing God by Nature (rather than identifying them as in Spinoza).
Ideological tradition does not however point uniformly in one direction, with self
elevation as invariant. According to Buddhism, here too more enlightened than
alternatives, that is a wrong direction. 'Strong emotions, however lofty [including
those of ecological consciousness], tend to emphasize and strengthen the fatal illusion
of the ego, which it is the whole aim and purpose of religion to transcend'. For the
'idea of a Self is at the root of every evil passion (and through its action Salvation
becomes impossible)' (both quoted in Perrett, p.72). Instead Buddhism offers the
tantalizing doctrine of "no self', which at least denies the existence of a substantial
self. Further there is allusion to "'the two kinds of non-self': that means there is no
ego in humans and no Self in Nature'.
�68
Features of Hinduism also show up deficiencies in the Western Enlightenmentsponsored objective of Self-realisation. These include the already remarked problem of
evil, which afflicts unrestricted Self-realisation in much the way it plagues closely related
hedonism (often a main goal of Self-realisation, and out of an adjacent intellectual stable).
To avoid promotion of evil and the like, ethical or similar controls need to be inserted. It
should be realisation of an ethical Self, just as elsewhere it should be ethical happiness and
ethical profit, not happiness and profit at the expense of other creatures or the Earth. There
is worse to come. For there is a scurrilous bigger-is-better element to big Self expansion
and realisation, and to often announced, but thoroughly dubious, goals of maximization.
Without ethical constraints, the supreme goal of ecosophy, of maximizing Self-realisation,
can be decidedly anti-environmental, as too many maximizers proceed to aggrandize
themselves, maximize their consumption, or their identification with false chauvinistic
Gods, or their dominance, and so on. Such maximal Self-realisation is evidently antithetical
to deep environmentalism, which like high-path Hinduism and Taoism, is opposed to selfelevation and self-aggrandizement, especially in material consumption, and favours some
self-restraint, self-effacement, self-domination, even selflessness and self-abnegation. But
such unconstrained maximization is also in conflict with other features of ecosophy, such as
simplicity of, and restraint in, material means, implying a certain Self-contraction. In brief,
unrefined ecosophy is liable to be inconsistent.
10.
Deconstruction and reselection of self.
The problems run deeper however. The theory of expanded self and Self-realisation
has ecologically defective starting points: it takes as given what should be investigated and
rejected. For instance, Naess simply assumes that the process of heightened Self-realisation
starts with the 'development of the narrow ego of the small [Western] child into the
comprehensive structure of a Self which comprises all human beings' (quoted p.55; egoism
is also assumed p.64 ). Of course deep ecology aims to induce a further development,
beyond the anthropic limitations of standard trans personal psychology, 'a deep
identification of individuals with all of life' (p.55 again). 35
While it is plain enough that ego is a theoretical notion, elaborated especially by
Freud, it is less plain that self too is a folk-theoretic term of certain folk cultures, and it is
quite insufficiently appreciated that narrow egos and individual selves are not culturally
independent items (artifacts some would now say), but are acquired concepts,
35
Both developments parallel ascents in Hinduism, of upward path of "renunciation", to
third (service to human communities) and fourth life-objectives.
�69
chauvinistically learnt early in civilised life. Perhaps because individual selves are so
deeply entrenched, especially in Westerners' impressions of themselves, a clever practical
and ideological course is no doubt the encouragement of expanded egoism, self stretching
exercises and empathy.
But a deeper philosophical approach would investigate the notions of ego and selftheir history, development, entrenchment, arbitrariness, and dispensibility - rather than take
them substantially for granted. In dissolving egoism, it is wise not to concede it at the
outset. It, and the intertwined notions of self-interest, and self-ish-ness, should be taken
apart to begin with, both analytically and historically. There are of course two parts to the
unmasking and dethroning of self-interest: dealing with interest and dealing with self A
historical investigation of the rise of the modern theory of self, done in the style of
Foucault, might serve to show how arbitrary in crucial respects the notion now rigorously
adhered to in social theory happens to be, and how developments could have been different.
But even if such an investigation should run aground (e.g. because the notion, although not
present in all tribal peoples, reaches back to prehistory), a systematic investigation need not
get stuck. The notion of self-interest, and also expanded self interest in the form of group
or class interest, has already been taken apart, from the angle of interest, and found wanting
as an ethical starting point (see esp. our 79). A complementary investigation of self,
standard theories of which should certainly not be conceded, is now required. 36 Some
realisation of the problematic character of the notion of self is in fact disclosed in Naess's
much earlier investigations, but he does not apply it to the familiar Enlightenment ideal of
self-realisation which he takes over as foundation of his own ecosophy, and so of deep
ecology as he conceives it.
Instead of requisite critical and de( con)structive investigation of the notion of self,
resulting in its demotion, what we are witnessing in too much deeper environmental
philosophy, is an elevation of the notion and an attempt to focus and found much theory
upon it (as esp. in Fox). It is reminiscent of, and related to, the earlier failed attempt to
found much theory, including ethics (or a replacement for it), on the notion of person.3 7
36
My impression is that several such investigations are now under way. For discussion
and elaboration of earlier investigations, which glimpse some of the requisite points,
see Perrett. Our own previous investigations, particularly of the interests and needs of
oneself and their interrelations and overlap with those of others (and accordingly the
falseness of the egoism-altruism contrast) in 79 and EP, go some small way along the
requisite path.
37
Thus, for instance, Strawson in metaphysics, and Benn in moral sciences, both
elaborating on Kantian illusions.
�70
Indeed those routes are significantly interlinked and offer similar beginnings; for instance, a
personality comprises certain roles into which a self, oneself, is cast. In important respects,
self amounts to person somewhat deanthropocized. It also suffers similar defects. Neither
is sufficiently explained (e.g. what are the existence conditions, the identity conditions, the
distinctive properties); neither is up to carrying the heavy theoretical load aficionados have
attempted to impose upon them. In particular, neither enables an independent
characterisation of central axiologic or deontic notions or other notions bound up with the
regulation of conduct which they would somehow displace and to some extent provide new
foundations for. Furthermore it appears that the notion of self is not, and cannot be,
sufficiently deanthropicized, short of distributing selves around in woods, springs and
mountains in the way pagan religions did with spirits (and then letting them be good and
evil, and so forth). Undue concentration upon selves has the unfortunate and retrograde
effect of swinging environmental philosophy away from deepened ecology and back to
agents and actors, the live active subcomponents within ecologies.
unacknowledged return to shallower waters.
It signals an
Because self, however dispensible in environmental philosophy, is integral to
Wes tern deep ecology, it behoves us to say something about it, something more than deep
ecology has said. Self is a folk-theoretic object of philosophical cast, though no doubt an
item with experiential linkage, for instance as a permanent substratum of a certain range of
successive (internal) states and experiences, or, without a substance, as a bundle or
stringing together of a succession of 'personal' experiences. 38 It is an item, almost an
objectification, whose features (which may vary with underlying theory) are primarily
supplied through a culturally-dependent theory or the like (e.g. a religious or cult theory).
In this regard it is like other typically psychological items of philosophical importance, such
as soul (with which it is sometimes identified), spirit, mental substance, mind, psyche,
person, personal essence, ego, life force, conatus, etc. In due course a now standard range
of philosophical theories gets invoked to account for, or discount, such items: realisms,
constructivisms, nominalisms, etc., with dominant scientific ideology committed to a
dismissive nominalism. A fashionable humanist opposition has, by contrast, become
enamoured of a flamboyant constructivism: selves are made, fabricated, and the like. By
contrast again Western deep ecology appears committed to realism, and therewith an
38
While the experiences, such as surges of desire or apprehension, are subjectively
empirical enough, the substratum or self-substance may not be. To put it in Humean
terms, when I look within I don't find a self just like that (how a sceptical Hume
managed to still eludes me). Self itself, like cause, though empirically grounded, is
not an "empirical" concept.
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incredible ontology of selves (already castigated). None of these standard mass-produced
positions impresses as at all satisfactory (for reasons elaborated in JB ). For example,
scientific nominalism inexcusably leaves out lots of experience, life-forms, and much
richness (whereas for its own "legitimate" theoretical purposes it is prepared to introduce all
sorts of strange objects). For constructivism there are so far unsurmounted difficulties in
getting beyond the analogy: exhibiting the materials and explaining just how they are
assembled. While not averse to phrases like 'the fabrication of self', it needs to be
remembered that the fabrications are more like those of fiction. Insensitive realism is
different; there is sound reason to remain entirely sceptical about an intuitive ontology of
selves, especially when a good empathesizer may have numerous different existent selves.
I can see little excuse for (being taken in by) such ontological blow outs.
Item-theory offers an appealing alternative to these standard positions generally, and
therewith very different prospects for self. An item-theoretic account of self will resemble
that already offered for mind (in MX); analogous item-theoretic accounts can no doubt be
given for spirit, psyche and ego (and also spook, shade, spectre, ghost, etc.). Minds are
fairly satisfactory folk-theoretic items which do not exist; ghosts, whether in machines or
not, are decidedly less satisfactory inexistential items. Selves are different inexistential
items again, with different features; many subjects which do not have minds may have
selves. The difficult part of the business consists in explaining whic~ items selves are, a
business that is complicated because there are several somewhat different but interconnected
notions of self in circulation. Fortunately these can all be accounted for as restrictions in
one way or another- temporal, cultural, subject-discipline - of a total self. The total self of
a subject abstracts from the total set of features which contribute to the self or personality of
that subject, from everything that makes it selfwise what it is (whether supplied by local
cultures or not, both supplied internally and not), over the life-span of the subject. For
some subjects with richer psychic lives, these features will include states of consciousness
(and then the total self will properly include ego, the conscious self). Thus a total self is, if
you like, what distinguishes a subject, makes it what it is and so gives its abiding essence
(and id-entity), and so resolves issues of personal identity over times. 39
What the relevant features are will become clearer as we come to the usual restrictions.
A first set of restrictions are temporal restrictions, a second set aspect restrictions. These
are combined in the OED sense
39
This account sharpens and much elaborates the senses which the dictionaries list as
philosophical, e.g. OED sense 3. The inexistential account offered shares common
ground with the Buddhist "no self' theory when presented as denying the real existence
of a self.
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'4.a. What one is at a particular time or in a particular aspect or relation;
one's nature, character, or (sometimes) physical constitution or
appearance, considered as different at different times. Chiefly with
qualifying adj.'
So, for example, Dobbin's total self restricted to time period t1 differs from his total self
restricted to t2 at which period he is old and mentally decrepit. A main aspect restriction,
very commonly imposed, is to psychically-relevant features, excluding merely bodily
features. Differently, a total self, especially a total psychic self, of a subject may be
partitioned into such selves, whence sense 4 b of OED.
'4. b. An assemblage of characteristics and dispositions which may be
conceived as constituting one of various conflicting personalities within
a human being. Better self: the better part of one's nature.'
Among the topic, or subject-discipline, restricted selves those of economics and social
sciences are nowadays particularly prominent. A broad economic self, for instance, is a
psychic self confined to an individual and restricted to its locus of wants, preferences,
desires, interests, needs, aspirations, goals, etc. (Of course some of the volitional features
can be explained in terms of others; in older faculty discourse, it coincides with the
individual will.) With a narrow economic self, that of mainstream economics, the broad
economic self is narrowed considerably to remove all volitional features stretching beyond
those of a present human. Thus interests, for instance, are restricted to selfish interests,
those of the human concerned, to exclude both altruistic interests (those of relevance to
other items and typically against a creature's own selfish interests) and, more important,
other-directed and higher-order interests (such as a's interest is that Ws interest be fulfilled,
a's concern for~' etc.) 40 This narrow self tightens up a further dictionary sense, namely
OED
'5. One's personal welfare and interests as an object of concern; chiefly
in a bad sense, selfish or self-interested motives ... '.
The tightened-up restrictive notion lies at the base of most modern social science. It is
characteristically coupled with the Hobbesian theme, according to which all motivation
reduces to that of narrow economic selves, effectively self-interest. Such psychological
egoism, that nothing can move a creature to action or decision except interests and like
experiences of its own self, was assumed by Spinoza, who proposed absorbing this
40
These points are much further explained in 79 and EP. Other selves, such as altruistic
selves and self-effacing selves, deploy quite different obverse restrictions, eliminating
local selfish interests.
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excessively narrow self in a generous Nature (p.57). Deep ecology has attempted to expand
this sorry route (p.54), which starts out from a dominant paradigm mistake. 41
11.
More troubles with Self as foundation.
The big trouble is that an expanded Hobbesian picture, with expanded-self interest as
the only fundamental motive, presupposes the essential correctness of Hobbes' crude theme
- all that Hobbes really got wrong was the 'size' of one's self - but that is a fundamental
mistake. It is a mistake as fundamental as the conflicting crude motivational theme that the
only basic motive of business enterpreneurs is [self-]profit. It is a mistake of the same cast
as the pervasive idea that conventional ethics can be rendered environmentally adequate just
by expansion of those it applies to (expansion of the "community", or of a suitable base
class of parties with interests, sentience, etc.) - what is often now called 'moral
extensionism' 42 .
As empirical evidence tells, prima facie decisively, against intertwined Hobbesian and
entrepreneurial economic motivational theory - an extraordinarily convenient, and not
"rationally" abandoned, theory for contemporary power elites - two substantially successful
theory-saving strategies swing into action:
• a sustained propaganda campaign to align people's motives with the theory, conducted
through advertising, education and other mass channels of persuasion;
• a sustained reduction campaign by subservient intellectuals to show that all apparently
exceptional motives actually conform to the motivational theory. At the same time,
minorities (such as pre-industrial peoples) whose motives do not conform to the
established/ment theory are of course discounted. This seriously flawed anti-environmental
theory should be resisted and replaced, not just extended. For the only basic and legitimate
motives and interests are not merely those of self (whether expanded in a futile attempt to
encapture other or not). One distinct motive is, to put it in old-fashioned Kantian terms
though the example is not Kantian, that of duty, duty for instance to this Earth, duty which
is neither self-regarding or necessarily Self-regarding or, in any ordinary sense, otherregarding.
41
The chauvinistic expansion of self and person is sometimes carried to remarkable
lengths, as revealed by Shepard: 'we must affirm that the world is being a part of our
own body'.
42
For further explanation and criticism of this expansion, see EP. At least Fox does
Sylvan the "favour" of distancing him from the most famous exponent of such
extensionism, Leopold, whom he tries to push into the wider identification and wider
Self fold (p.64).
�74
A third complementary strategy renders the theory normative: while agents may act, or
appear to act, on non-self-interested motives, it is only rational to act according to one's ongoing self-interest. (While we shall focus upon a strong version of the normative egoistic
theme, that it is only rational to act in one's own self-interest, including one's future self,
much of what is said counts against weaker forms of the theme according to which it is in
some way preeminently reasonable to act in one's own on-going self-interest.) This
normative assumption depends crucially however upon a specially-tailored theory of self- a
substantial underlying self that suitably integrates all one's interests and concerns, past,
present and future. Without such an account the peculiar self-evidence normative egoism is
presented as enjoying, and upon which it depends as an unargued rest position, begins to
fall away. Suppose instead a self or person is represented as a sequence of causally
connected experiential moments (e.g. momentary selves, of a person). Unfortunately then,
for normative egoism, it ceases to be evident to many presently placed selves that there are
special specially-valid reasons for only being concerned with future elements of one
particular sequence rather than another, to which one's present self may not belong; for
promoting the interests of this future momentary self rather than some other more congenial
one, perhaps in another sequence. 43 Indeed it is evident that reasons for action are not
confined to those intermalised to the interests of one future self rather than another, one my
or thou or it (say) rather than another; that reasons can and do operate beyond interests, as
when directed at the futures of forests or fens, and beyond selves and their extensions and
variants such as I's and Thou's and You's, as when arguing for deep environmental action.
Nor is there cogent reason for trying to curtail reasons to what answers to a bad, if deeply
incalcated, theory, a pernicious and damaging, if widely promoted, theory and sense of self
joined to chauvinistic bodily consumption and advancement. A more generous itemtheoretic theory of total self can expose this theoretical fraud, allowing for a full flowering
of reasons for action; it thus diffuses the narrow greedy self of Hobbesian theory.
Expanded Hobbesian is assumed in deep ecological Ego-tripping (pp. 65-66) and in
'the theme of ecological resistance as Self-defence', that resisting ecological depredation is
defending oneSelf, because the whales or forests are me; it is me that is being injured
(p.61). Such expanded Hobbesian is even less plausible than Hobbesianism itself - among
other things because you can go on, to become other You's even after You as the forest has
been destroyed. Be sure I do not deplore, but welcome worthwhile ecological resistance
43
On all these points see further Perrett, esp. p.72. Perrett explains how the regularly
assumed opposition between egoism and altruism depends on particular assumptions
about the nature of self, and breaks down when, as in buddhist ethics with its doctrine
of no-self, these assumptions get removed.
�75
whether conducted as Self-defence, or not; good works, even if undertaken for self-ish or
distorted or ridiculous motives, are not to be disparaged. Nor similarly should the help of
campaigners whose motives have been distorted by propaganda systems be disparaged
because those campaigners are engaged on dubious or bizarre bases, such as that they are
defending themselves rather than something else that deserves their care, concern and
respect. What should be resisted are the twin ideas that these are the wholesome motives or
the only [rational] motives, and that quality of motivation does not affect goodness of act.
The main trouble then with the wild Western approach so advanced under Self-interest is
that, like Hobbesianism but on an expanded scale, it would reduce or suppress all other
motivation. In many ways, it has not really got beyond bad "old paradigm" thinking, but
merely bizarrely extended it.
12. Liquidating Fox's "deep ecological territory".
The success Fox imagines expanded-Self is going to have in the environmental
struggle arena, a success far surpassing that environmental ethics is likely to have (p.84), is
premissed on this faulty expanded Hobbesianism theory. It is not based on monitored field
experience. In the action field, where some Western deep ecologists are seldom seen,
identification techniques, far from admirably shifting the onus of proof (a dubious claim
also advanced on p.84 ), are likely to be greeted with amazement and disbelief: what is this
crap? It is not very long ago that people who thought they were tigers or trees were locked
away, or else regarded, like the man who identified his wife as a hat, as figures of fun not
to be taken seriously. Such motivation is likely to be taken, and presented, by a hostile and
backwards opposition as crazy. Furthermore, such defences can back-fire. Identification
with a rainforest, for instance, because symmetrical, does not guarantee defence of its needs
as one's own, as against one's own needs as its. A powerful bunch of developers and
bureaucrats who identify with the forest may take their needs, for timber profits and tourist
revenues, as its, and interfere with it accordingly. Identification, on its own, admits
disastrous reversal. Expanded Selves can be dubious allies in environmental struggles. It
is fortunate then that for almost all environmental purposes, including those of deep
environmental philosophy, the notion of self can drop out; selves are inessential. While
�76
decent theories of self and self-Self can presumably be worked out44 , and Self tried out as
sole primitive, the theory so far, and with it (Western) deep ecological theory in present
form remains both a shambles and an embarrassment.
It is bad news then, given the abysmal shape of the deep ecological theory of self, that
deep ecology should contract, at least on Fox's continuing vision, to a theory of self (see
also 89). On this presentation much of authentic deep ecology is thrown away. The deep
ecological framework comes down to 'two basic hypotheses and on ultimate norm', all of
which revolve around Self (pp.86-7): it is Self, Self and Self, nothing but Self. And it has
nothing essentially to do with the environment. For Self does not provide the great new (or
shabby old) starting point to environmental philosophy that Fox imagines. To elaborate:One "hypothesis", already criticised, is that 'Our Self is that with which we identify' (p.86,
the pluralisation is interesting, e.g. a vintage car club has a group Self which includes their
cars and perhaps others they covet); the other, not previously encountered, is that 'the self
can and does grow/develop/mature ... over time' (p.17). That hypothesis is presumably
false; for selves, like plants, may decline, wither or die. Or don't ecological selves wither
and die? 'The norm is that the ideal state of being is one that sustains the evident (and
deepest) possible identification and, hence, sense of Self'. It seems to be assumed that the
ideal state, identified in the "norm", ought to be striven for (though it is hard to see why: it
involves much unpleasant, embarrassing or boring identification work, etc.). There are
accordingly covert principles of conduct, such as striving towards the norm and undertaking
the "real spiritual work" of deep ecology, and covert values, such as that of the (so-called)
ideal state, lurking at the bottom of Wes tern deep ecology; it too hides, even in its reduced
form, a condemned "axiology" and ethics. But not environmental ones; the norm could
have issued from a deviant Hinduism, without environmental commitments, concerned
above all with introverted cultivation of self.
Although Fox says the 'ideal state of being is referred to ... as "ecological
consciousness" by Devall and Sessions' (p.87), such reference does not make it so;
ecological consciousness involves rather awareness of and commitment to certain things and
matters ecological, not widest identification, which involves much that is unecological, such
44
Perhaps following through suggestions sketched earlier, perhaps elaborating, in less
anthropocentric style, T.H. Green, whose theory appears to anticipate much of wild
Western deep ecology. Green took self-awareness as a guide to the nature of things and
self-realisation as each person's goal. He held that the developed self is the end which
defines the good, and that all ethical terms may be formed, so far as required, to that
end. Of course he also spoke against atomism and individualism, and in favour of
holism and organicism.
�77
as traffic with occult and transfinite, or antiecological, such as identification with developers
ripping down rainforest and heritage works. While Fox does claim that consequences for
the natural (not the built) environment do follow from his framework, the claim is mistaken.
According to him, 'it follows ... that when we harm or limit the flow of nature then we are
harming or limiting that with which we ... identify and so diminishing our ... Self' (p.87).
No such consequence follows as regards widest possible identification; all that destruction
of an ecosystem does is to put the ecosystem in a possible world, with which identification
is sustained, and bring up a different and perhaps humanly improved world (e.g. a wild
river is dammed to save villages). The remote Self is unperturbed by such commerce of
actuality. Even if Fox should try to save the show by again restricting awkward or
uncomfortable identification feats, his intended consequences do not follow. For we may
well increase that with which we identify by "limiting the flow of nature", for instance by
varying or enriching parts of extensive monotonous natural systems. 45 Fox's deep
ecological-framew ork, Self-indulgence of a deep spiritual cast, is no framework for an
environmental anything. Luckily it is not needed, but can be despatched with other deep
ecological rubbish.
13. Justifying "extreme interpretations" of and "extreme reactions" to wild
West deep ecology.
Fox exhibits full dominant paradigm outrage at what he refers to as my 'extreme
interpretations' and 'extreme reactions' (boldface headings for sections 3 and 4, p.13 and
p.19). While I am quite accustomed to being called or accounted an extremist, it is
generally done by those far on the shallow side of the environmental divide. I trust such
terms as 'extreme' carry no more weight with readers than they do with me. It is a
fashionable, but methodologically quite unsound, ploy to try to dismiss those who depart
far from some lately received position as extremists. Nowadays even 'Thomas Aquinas,
for example, is depicted as an 'extremist' (by Hart) and dismissed because the views he
expressed do not accord with what "all lawyers think" (Dworkin)' ;46 one is in good
company. The Earth will in the longer term be helped by deep environmental extremists
45
That Fox's theory (already epicycling, into dimensions) admits such cases is evident
from "the extinction example" (pp. 82-3). Because they are sufficiently evident, I have
not recorded difficulties regarding this example, which attempts to discriminate
different sorts of environmental losses by their differential effects on Selves (if there
are any ecological ones left that is: Last Self arguments retain their bite and smile).
46
According to H. Miles in a curious letter to the ANU Reporter 1989.
�78
who serve to shift various balances in environmental directions - the balances to be
achieved, for example, in discussions, in time allowed in decision making, and so on.
But what Fox also says he means, under the emotive overlay, is that 'Sylvan's
arguments show a tendency to push the claims of those he criticises to extremes' through
application of the following reduction-of-relations principles:
S 1. 'if two concepts/ideas are linked, then they must be completely similar (equivalent
[identical])';
S2. 'if they are contrasted then they must be completely different (i.e. non-intersecting) as
well as completely exhaustive (i.e. covering all cases/examples of the set in question)' (p.13
and earlier).
All these principles (S2 breaks down into a pair straightaway) are evidently fallacious, and
only hold in very special cases. Now I claim to be well aware of this, and to have
illustrated this awareness sufficiently in my work (esp. investigation of the history of the
attempt to remove or suppress relations, investigation of very special cases, such as
"classical relevant logics", where a connections of the form, "where Rab then a = b" does
hold; see JB and RLR respectively). Indeed I discuss an example of this 'crude fallacy' in
one of the sectors that particularly excites Fox (Cp.27). But in any case, the principles are
substantially irrelevant to Fox's discussion of 'extreme interpretations' and 'extreme
reactions' (in his sections 3 and 4)! For, as we shall see, what really bothers Fox, and also
N aess, has little that is not superficial (merely terminological) to do with extremes; what
troubles them rather is that I take their claims seriously, and not as forever 'preliminary', or
at 'a superficial level', or 'metaphorical' or the like (see e.g. p.13, p.49). 47
Firstly, I introduced the quasi-technical term 'extreme holism' ('extreme' was
italicised to indicate its introduction and quasi-technical character, not to emphasize my
extremism) as contrasted with 'moderate holism' .48 That is obviously not an extreme
claim, it is not pressing a claim to extremes; it is simply using a piece of terminology, and
does nothing for Fox's cause.
I take seriously Naess's holistic claim, repeated by
incautious deep ecologists, that his conception 'dissolves ... the very notion of the world as
composed of discrete, compact, separate "things"', which I describe as 'extreme holism'.
47
One day I should really like some non-preliminary formulations from Naess. Quite
separately from that standing request, I do regard it as pretty ridiculous to insist that
ordinary discourse about chairs and desks, fems and wombats is 'talking at a superficial
or preliminary level of communication'. Perhaps we have to expect this sort of
twaddle from hard-wired physicalists, not from deep thinkers.
48
It is a contrast previously discussed, in more detail but in different terms, in EP,
p.222ff.
�79
Fox's response to my reporting of Naess's claim, in the style of Dr. Johnson (no separate
things, so no wildernesses!, no forests!), his only response it seems, is '(Does Sylvan)
sincerely think that anybody could be that silly?' (p.14). The answer is of course: Yes,
damned right he does; for example, too many influenced by Hegelianism. It 1s
unremarkable that Fox and Naess are trying to backtrack without appearing to do so. 49
Where, then, is the (non-quotational) extreme interpretation? Fox makes two
connected moves, neither of which duly involve principles Sl and S2. Firstly, he
introduces a distinction, not previously in the ballpark, between relative and absolute
autonomy of "things in the world" (p.14). As commonplace in Fox's practice, the apparent
distinction is introduced and put to work without proper explanation. Then Fox announces
that 'it is clear from his interpretation that he [Sylvan] takes Naess and myself to be denying
even relative autonomy ... whereas it should be clear ... that what is being denied is
absolute autonomy'; and he has the audacity to go on, ' ... there is really no excuse for
Sylvan's extreme interpretation' (p.14). Well, you can take my word for it that Sylvan did
not take N aess and Fox that way; the distinction in question had not been introduced in the
literature under discussion. For similar reasons, that there is no basis for it, there is no
extreme interpretation, and nothing to underwrite Fox's captious moralising.
Secondly, Fox proceeds quite scurrilously to make it look as if I am attributing certain
themes I nowhere allude to him and Naess (but in fact attacked in Wilber's book). ' ...
Sylvan's extreme interpretation ... would have Naess and myself reduce all diversity and
multiplicity to something like "uniform, homogeneous, and unchanging mush" or to
"uniform, all-prevading, featureless but divine goo"'. The quotations, which may well look
as if they were drawn from my criticism, bear no resemblance to anything I attributed to
Naess or Fox; they are in fact drawn from Wilber's fashionable Eye to Eye. Similarly that
'extreme interpretation' is not to be found in Sylvan; it is a fabrication on the part of Fox.
Nothing I made critical use of tells against Naess's total-field exhibiting various features,
such as some internal differentiation. The Flux of late nineteenth century philosophy was
both non-uniform and non-homogeneous, with 'eddies, ripples and whirlpools in a stream
("unity in process")' (p.15), without being composed of separate individuals.
The other example Fox includes in his section in extreme interpretations, the matter of
internal relations, will also require, to begin with, some grimy textual exegesis, including
further inspection of Fox's practice of tactical misquotation (or quotation out of context),
49
Their behaviour is reminiscent of Parmenides and Zeno at the races, as delightfully
related by Bouwsma.
�80
rather than real philosophical work. 50 But here no attempt is made to exhibit an 'extreme
interpretation' (nor again do principles Sl and S2 enter). Fox's first (and final) point is that
subscription to a doctrine of internal relations 'does not necessarily render one an idealist'
(p.17). Whereupon, by way of counterexample, Fox trots out his own admirable
philosophical pedigree, and reveals a doctrine of internal relations inherited from the neutral
monism of Spinoza and the process philosophy of Whitehead, both well known for their
doctrines of internal relations. N aess does at least make it evident that he is adopting or
adapting the received theory of internal relations. As it happens, I did not commit myself to
the proposition that a doctrine of internal relations (however characteristic of idealism)
entails idealism; naturally there appears to be more to idealism than that (such as a total-field
doctrine). Only by a misreading or misquotation does Fox obtain his necessarily linkage to
idealism. Firstly he represents me as ascribing to him 'this "idealist theory of internal
relations"' (p.15), when what I actually wrote was that a certain 'form of argument ...
commandeers elements of the idealist theory of internal relations' (p.27 emphasis added).
Later he congratulates himself upon 'discrediting Sylvan's claims that deep ecology
subscribes ... to his characterisation of the theory of internal relations, which he describes
(p.28) as "a terminal form of idealism newly warmed up"' (p.18). To credit to me 'a
characterisation of the theory of internal relations' is certainly a gross overstatement, though
it may be convenient in trying to exonerate the doctrine of deep ecology from evident
criticism. But the immediate salient point is that what I say 'looks like a terminal form of
idealism ... ' (C p.28 emphasis added) is not the theory of internal relations but 'what Fox
describes as "the central intuition of deep ecology"'.
The second, of Fox's three points as to my comments on the deep ecological doctrine
of internal relations, is a bit more philosophically substantive, and concerns the character of
the necessity ascribed to connections. But textual exegesis is again unavoidable. Fox
contends that 'Naess's definition of internal relations ... flatly contradicts Sylvan's claim
that this view point renders "all connections necessary" in the ... sense Sy Ivan intends'
(p.16; Fox has the term 'strong' where dots are inserted; we'll look at what Fox is trying to
hang on me shortly). 51 On Naess's explanation, an internal 'relation between two things A
and B is such that the relation belongs to the definitions or basic constituents of A and B, so
that without the relation, A and Bare no longer the same things' (see p.15). Consider any
50
By and large, deep ecology involves disturbingly little real philosophical work. So
much of it is name dropping, rank pulling, unacknowledged borrowing - all the old
stuff some of us hoped to be rid of with a "new environmental paradigm".
51
In fact I had been arguing from Fox's theme that "all entities are constituted by their
relations" (see C pp.27-8), but Fox diverts the issue to Naess.
�81
internal connection R between A and B (indeed on the standard theory where all relations of
objects are internal, any connection). Then ARB holds by virtue of definitional or
constitutional features of A and B. But what so holds, holds as a matter of necessity (is
'necessarily constitutive' in Fox's lingo, Fox trying again for a resolving distinction);
whence the connection holds of necessity. A flat contradiction? Now to the 'strong sense'
Fox has located and is spreading abroad that I intend (once again he did not consult me as to
what I intended). 'Sylvan is claiming', according to him (though I have never advanced
such a claim, and am still not clear what it means, 'exact nature of' being Fox's
terminology), 'that the exact nature of all those relationships is also necessary' (p.16).
Now in trying to show that Naess's story conflicts with this claim he has hung on me, Fox
proceeds to run Naess into deep trouble (though Naess is blithely oblivious; see note (22)).
For, so Fox says,5 2 'Naess explicitly acknowledges that A and B can exist "without" the
relation"', meaning "'in a different relationship" or "in the absence of that specific relation"'
(p.16). Suppose such a different relation is S (at worst S is the absence of R). So
apparently ASB and not-ARB; whence A, for instance, has inconsistent properties, namely
both ... RB which is constitutive and not- ... RB by acknowledgement . To be sure, the
difficulty can be avoided, by insisting (as N aess did and as Fox also has him say) that
'without the relationship, A and B are no longer the same things', so what we have is
A'SB' and not- A'RB' for some counterparts A' and B' of A and B. Some such line is
taken by the standard theory. But Fox seeks a connection between A and B for Naess
which is in some respects contingent. Certainly that is possible, but it goes beyond the
bounds of the standard theory by admitting external relations, for which it is not required
that A and B are no longer the same without the relation. And, in a straightforward sense, it
fails the constituting claim: entities have relations, external ones, which are not constituting
(to deal with Fox-past), or alternatively (to refute Fox-present, p.17) it is false that 'all
relationships are necessarily constitutive' because some, external ones, are not.
My wombat example, to come to Fox's third point, was designed to indicate just that,
that a wombat stands in various relationships which are not (necessarily) constitutive and
which are merely contingent. Suppose wombat A passed by hollow stringbark B on its
foraging route (say once only, and accidentally, because it had wandered out of its
territory). Then "A passed by B" is a relation between A and B, a true relation, which
furthermore is merely contingent, because it might not have transpired. Moreover, the
relation is not constitutive, for instance of A, because it makes no difference to the nature or
52
The claim attributed to Naess does not appear in his original 1973 paper where the
relational total field image was presented, and from which the other Naess' quotes were
drawn.
�82
constitution of wombat A. What I mean by term 'constitute' (and likewise 'constitutive') Fox professes unclarity about this (p.17) - is what is ordinarily meant by the term in such
contexts, namely what makes a thing what it is, what determines it (see OED), what gives a
definite nature or character to (see Concise English). 53 Wombat A, one and the same A, a
creature with exactly the same make-up as A, not some counterpart or surrogate A', might
not have passed by B. So "passed by B" is not constitutive of A; and again not all relations
are constitutive.
Despite the general paucity and poorness of argument in much revealed deep ecology
literature, the general downgrading of rational and analytic methods 54 , and the emphasis on
experiential and empathetic approaches, the status of argument turns out to be a sensitive
issue too. Fox beats up an issue on this topic, on route to the grander issue of intellectual
rubbish, by his standard practice of misattribution. He proceeds stealthily to amend my
aside, '(argument often not being considered in the proper style of such a nonanalytical
enterprise as deep ecology)', which I believe I can sustain, to the assertion 'that argument is
not in the "proper style" of deep ecology' (p.20), which I did not make (for all Fox's kind
attribution) and would not want to defend. I wish decent argument and careful reasoning
were more often considered in the proper sty le of deep ecology, and more often practised.
Then I should be more enthusiastic about it, writing much less critical of it, and castigating
less as rubbish. Fox, I am afraid, has done little to convince me that 'closely measured
intellectual argument is thoroughly in keeping with the style of deep ecology' (p.20) or that
it is much of a priority. He offers but two examples: he stands on his own record as
attested in his Response (how can I say anything unfavourable about that), and he appeals,
forgetting I said 'often ... considered', to an exceedingly loose talk by Devall on the
Stone/Sky path, which mentions 'logical analyses of ideas, premises, systems of thought'
and 'formal statements of definitions of key terms, explication of relationships', but
deliberately avoids any such work, preferring instead, in characteristic deep ecological style,
'a steeper ... path that requires ... the "real work"', consciousness elevation, jnana yoga or
psychedelic drugs maybe (pp.21-2).
14. Transpersonal logic and methodology.
53
It is proponents of the dubious doctrine of internal relations - a doctrine quite
inessential to and external to deep environmentalism - who are forced into assigning an
extraordinary meaning to constitute.
54
The Counter-Enlightenment antipathy to analytic and rational methods resurfaces in
Western deep ecology. For an example in Fox's Response, consider his remarks on
the 'blunt tools of logical analysis' when applied to the 'real world of communication'
(p.11), which could almost have come from the late eighteenth century.
�83
The quaint relation-reduc tion principles, S 1 and S2, do show up with the first
premisses of what Fox dignifies with the misleading titles of "false equivalence argument"
and "false contrast argument". The second title is particularly misleading, because there is a
recognised traditional fallacy of "false contrast" or "false dichotomy" (arising as regards
classifications), which differs from Fox's defective "false contrast argument". Fox has
proceeded to latch onto my legitimate use of traditional logic, as when I say (rightly or
wrongly) that Devall and Sessions are operating with a false contrast (p.11), in order to
saddle me with a defective argument of his own concoction which I do not apply. But to
show that these defective arguments, which Fox accuses me of heavily and repeatedly
applying (p.6, p.11 ), are not deployed by me in the way Fox alleges, we shall need to look
at the arguments.
To avoid further confusion with tradition, let us relabel the arguments, replacing
'false' by 'foxy'. Let A and B be terms (Fox has 'concept/idea'); let a be a person or group
whose views are under criticism. Then the foxy equivalence argument, set down pretty
much in Fox's way, runs as follows
Key Premiss. When a links A with B (i.e. maintains that ARB for some relation R),
claim a holds that A=B.
Subargument. Show there are cases where A without B or B without A, whence A;;:: B.
Conclusion according to Fox: ' the "argument" (i.e. the claim that A = B) is "false" or
that it "fails"' (p.6).
An immediate observation is that Fox has not succeeded in setting down what he is after
with much success. The conclusion, which does not make use of the key premiss, is a
mess. As he hasn't located an argument, in 'the claim that A = B', he has perhaps felt
obliged to put critical terms in italics, or perhaps he imagines he is quoting me - what is
going on is unclear. He might have concluded, though a level up, that the "false
equivalence argument" itself fails, a conclusion he doesn't explicitly draw, but then he
would be left without a conclusion at all for the foxy equivalence argument.
There is a valid traditional argument, filling out the subargument that is buried in the
foxy argument as intended. In a standard logical format, with A( c) symbolising that c is or
has A or that A applies to c, it runs as follows:!. A= B
hypothesized claim (imposed on a)
2. A( c) iff B(c) for every case c
3. A(c) & ~B(c) for some case c
standard case expansion of 1
further data
4. ~2
from 3
5. ~(A= B)
from 4
6. ~(A= B)
reductio, discharging the hypothetical argument
�84
Thus the claim, that A= B, is indeed false, as its negation is categorically established, given
the data. But again the argument, now valid, makes no use of the key premiss. A proper
fuller version of the argument would replace 3 by the disjunction, A(ci) & -B(ci) V.
-A(c2) & B(c2) for some cases ci and c2, and consider each disjunct. But the result would
be the same, namely 6 categorically.
The preceding represents the valid core of the foxy equivalence argument. What of
the key premiss however? That part also can be rendered correct, but upon assumption of
the quite defective S 1. To convert this part of the argument into available logical form, let
us replace holding or maintaining functors by a correspondin g asserting or (more
satisfactorily) commitment to asserting functor. (Should you imagine a fast one is being
pulled just read 't-a' as 'a holds that'). Then the key dubious premiss becomes, at first
approximation.
KP. from a is committed to asserting A is related to B, i.e. ARB, infer that a is committed
to asserting that A= B (or A= B).
Expressed in symbols in implicational form it looks as follows:
KP➔ .
.,_a ARB ➔ . t-a A= B.
This form makes it easy to see how the key premiss derives from relation-reduction S 1, i.e.
ARB ➔ A = B, namely by a standard distribution of the committed-to -asserting functor,
.,_a, or specifically by the rule x
➔
y / t-a x
➔
t-a y. S1 is the way to arrive at KP.
Moreover without S 1, there is little basis for KP.
Now the arguments can be put together. We argue to KP➔, e.g. from Sl. We run
out the subargument to ~(A= B), from which we conclude a is wrong or mistaken in
asserting A = B. Then we proceed back across KP➔ (using what results from it by
distribution of the mistake functor W, namely W t-a A= B ➔. W t-a ARB), to conclude
that our friends a were wrong in maintaining, as they did, that A is linked to B.
Exposure of that part of the argument involving KP➔ is enough to at least suggest that
I am unlikely to rely on it heavily, since it is manifestly defective when so exposed, relying
upon the already jettisoned S 1. Fox, for all his assertions, does nothing to show that I do
rely on it heavily; indeed he does not show that I rely upon it at all. For all his effort in
eliciting these arguments (shoddy though his work may be), he fails entirely to follow
through and show how they apply.
Consider his "example" of the foxy argument at work, and supposedly scrutinized,
where the terms involved are life and value (p.7). Fox's conclusion does not appear, no
conclusion is reached. Moreover the key premiss is not instantiated, nor is any evidence of
its use advanced; it is knocked down to the claim, deriving from certain deeper positions,
that life= value. Whence the sort of argument that I am alleged to be employing 'in a totally
�85
fallacious manner' comes down to the valid traditional subargument. Fox's complaint is not
about an argument at all, it is about the premiss. As Fox concedes 'this argument is fine,
it's just that the original claim is false' (p.7)!
Let's take time out from the argument to consider the original claim. What Fox
reports that 'Sylvan ... claims, [namely] that (U.S.) "West Coast deep ecology" equates life
(A) and value (B)', differs significantly from what Sylvan did write, namely 'the
impression comes through from much West Coast deep ecology (from certain insufficiently
penetrating intermediate positions) that what is important is ... life and nothing but life'
(Cp.16). No universal claim, no equation, no falsehood. Naturally there are some
commitments, but Fox hasn't taken much care with those, or got them right either. For
example, Sylvan does not offer a definition (of his own or of any sort) of 'biospherical'
(which does not mean 'earth-centered') or of 'biocentric', but relies on standard meanings
(accordingly, too, he cannot 'refute his own ... definition').
The position with the foxy contrast argument is very similar to that already dealt with,
a similar shambles. The argument is exactly the same except that equality or (strong)
equivalence,= , is replaced throughout by a dual notion, exclusive disjunction, symbolised
V. But Fox does not dualise properly; instead of the dual conclusion, "the argument (i.e.
the claim that A V B) is "false" or that it fails", he misleadingly introduces the traditional
fallacy terms, as if they were new terms without a predetermined sense. He has it that we
'conclude that the contrast in question is a "false contrast" or a "false dichotomy'" (p.8).
Once again, a properly developed illustration of the argument is not offered, and in the very
sketchy "example" given the argument drops out. It turns into a question - an interesting
question - of the use, point, and merit of the shallow/deep distinction.
Let's take time out to consider the issues raised, as some are important. But first
some trivia. Fox, in effect, charges me with presenting a straw-person, as no one (but me)
takes the shallow/deep distinction as exhaustive of environmental positions. Well, he has
led a sheltered life; I've met too many activists who do. Fox implies that I 'want to assign
the shallow/deep terminology to the "historical scrap-heap"' (p.9). Here, and elsewhere,
Fox apparently joins the activists who conflate the shallow/deep distinction with the shallow
ecology/deep ecology distinction. It is only deep ecology that I have contemplated for the
scrap heap, not the shallow/deep distinction. More important is the status of such illdefined items as deep ecology. Fox now assumes that shallow and deep ecology, however
imperfect, are "ideal types", the merit of which is to be assessed pragmatically, through
their usefulness, heuristic roles, etc. Some scepticism is warranted. Ideal types such as
protestant and middle class might be defensible in sociological investigations where there
are plenty of protestants or middle class people to survey, but what is supposed to
correspond with deep ecology? The comparison has serious problems. Western deep
�86
ecologists have yet to get their theoretical slum in order, to rectify their classifications, clean
up the objects of these, and so forth.
15. More rubbish removal, especially that borrowed from pop science.
Along with a substantial upgrading of the calibre of argumentation in deep ecology
should go extensive removal of rubbish, such as the unnecessary doctrine of internal
relations. The image of philosophers removing the rubbish, which comes from Locke, is
much favoured in Australia, and has been deployed by both Armstrong and Passmore. 55 It
tends to accompany the picture of real philosophy 'as tough, practical, rational and secular',
which Sessions deplores, in the case of environmental ethics, as 'neither desirable nor
necessary, and perhaps not possible'. 56 While such an approach is hardly necessary it is
certainly possible: it is a divisive issue whether it is desirable.
As is increasingly appreciated these days, there are various sorts of rubbish, which
can be separated; so too in philosophy there is more than one sort of rubbish. Not all of it is
nonsense or quite unintelligible (pace p.23). Considerable parts of prevailing religions have
been dismissed as rubbish (see OED examples); but while some parts, such as the doctrine
of Trinity, may be accounted unintelligible, most parts would not. They are regarded rather
as substantially false as well as seriously flawed in important respects, and perhaps also as
pernicious or largely worthless (and likely as unnecessary). Evidently, then, there are
several distinguishable components to rubbish; and, as dictionary senses reveal (e.g. OED:
'worthless, ridiculous, nonsensical ideas, discourse, or writing'), there may be quite a
variety of ideological and intellectual rubbish.
Rubbish, of all sorts, is hard to escape these days; unfortunately it is easily
encountered in both deep ecology and popular science. Many environmental philosophers,
Fox is one, do seem to be highly attracted by a very fashionable cutting edge, along with a
semi-respectable crank end, of recent diverting popular science. It is almost enough to look
at the cast of witnesses Fox pulls in for defence of his unstated theme that there is no
55
According to Locke, 'it is ambition enough to be employed as an under-labourer in
clearing the ground a little and removing some of the rubbish that lies in the way of
knowledge'. Contrary to the impression Fox tries to convey, here and elsewhere, it
wasn't so much a matter of 'following Passmore' (except in a dilute temporal sense, in
which I always follow Aquinas when I agree with him), as of following a larger
tradition.
56
This part of Session's essay is quoted approvingly in Fox's Response, p.44. Sessions
should be rapped over the knuckles for his sexist citations (which Fox too does little
to rectify).
�87
rubbish in deep or transpersonal ecology (the theme is enthymematically Self-refuting, so to
say). The cast includes Capra, Davies, Bohm, Wilber, Gribbin, Pegals, Zukav, Prigogine,
d'Espagnat, Sheldrake, Pribram, Comfort and Walsh.
There is ample rubbish littering the works of some of these authors, some of which
finds its way into Western deep ecology (e.g. Fox's Section 4, and also e.g. pp. 58-9). It
is instructive to look at a couple of examples of prime rubbish early in the work of Gribbin
cited:- First 'Isaac Newton invented physics, and all of science depends on physics' (p.7).
Observe that this conjoint claim, which luckily does not drift into deep ecology, is
intelligible, but it is ridiculous 57 ; and observe, furthermore, that there is no straightforward
way of recycling such intellectual rubbish. Second, 'what quantum mechanics says is that
nothing is real and that we cannot say anything about what things are doing when we are
not looking at them' (p.2). As Gribbin presents quantum mechanics as true, we can detach
to achieve his shocking headlines and like assertions; so for instance, 'Nothing is real
unless it is observed' (p.3), naive phenomenalism. Remarkably, Gribbin is hardly obliged
to generate the amount of striking rubbish he does (but then he is a scientific journalist),
because of his later proclivity towards a "many worlds" interpretation of quantum
mechanics, which affords one neat way of halting production of this type of idealist
rubbish. Fox, eager to retain an idealistic Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics
for his nefarious metaphysical purposes, fails to take account of Gribbin's later turnabout
which effectively repeals the earlier headlines, and actually appeals to Gribbin's "authority"
(in note 41) in trying to dispose of the many worlds interpretation!
Fortunately we do not have to put up philosophically with the rubbish produced by
popular elaborations of the Copenhagen interpretation, which Fox and other avant-garde
thinkers would foist upon us. One reason is that micro-features of quantum behaviour very
rarely impinge upon macro-phenomena. They thus make little or no real difference to issues
of environmental philosophy (only problems tangential to it, such as determinism). Another
and major reason is that there are significant alternatives to the Copenhagen interpretation,
which at least shed most of the rubbish. And the 'range of choice' is far more extensive
than Fox would allow 'if Sylvan did follow his appeal through' (p.27) - yet another
example of "false choice". It happens that Sylvan had followed through on some of the
further options Fox does not consider, namely
57
If physics and science are the sorts of things that can significantly be invented, then
there are plenty of candidates for the claims both before and after Newton, e.g. Einstein
if we wish to be really extravagant. As for the extravagant reduction claim, well it is
refuted along with physicalism and associated Australian primitivism; see e.g. J.W.
Smith and JB .
�88
• alternative logic approaches. There are many interesting possibilities here, but few of
which physicists have had time or inclination to investigate. My own, rather preliminary,
investigations have concerned a uniform relevant logic approach (see uu § 13, on ultramodal
quantum logic) and, differently, paraconsistent approaches (see OP p.157ff.)
• a neutral worlds interpretation (see my 85). What this amounts to is an ontic
neutralisation of many-worlds interpretation. Because of the neutralisation, the
'metaphysical baggage' and unparsimoniousness that Fox complains about are removed.
Of course too, since the interpretation corresponds, through the mathematical formalism
deployed, to other standard interpretations, it as just as falsifiable (pace note 41 ), and
accordingly hardly 'desperate', a mere "just-so" story. These observations, duly elaborated
(as attempted, in part, in work alluded to), indicate 'how Sylvan would describe the
ontological implications of the "new (ie. post-1920s) physics?"' (p.23 reordered). Briefly,
there are many hitherto unknown physical objects at the sub-atomic level whose behaviour
is classically anomalous, being partly wavelike and partly particlelike, for which a new and
interpretationally difficult theory has been devised. But the positivism and related idealism
of early interpretations can be removed by a warranted change of interpretation. And then
the ontic implications for ecology and most of environmental philosophy are much less
remarkable than Wes tern deep ecology has imagined.
Given apparently viable options as to interpretation, all the rubbish Walsh and Fox
add to the already problematic Copenhagen interpretation can be packed off (if you can find
a way to recycle it, good luck to you). For those who like picking through rubbish (I
occasionally collect stuff from the local dump myself), Fox's page 26 is particularly
rewarding. But two examples only :- 'What can be known is ... never the independent
properties of the observed alone'. So it cannot be known that the wounded wombat
(somehow) observed is female, pregnant, and so on. Such astonishing epistemological
results are not delivered by the Copenhagen interpretation, which only tells us that
knowledge as to quantum happenings is limited by exclusion principles. Similarly for 'the
known universe is inextricably linked with consciousness rather than being separable into
consciousness and objects of consciousness'. The standard formalism of quantum theory
discloses nothing about observers; and while observers do feature in the Copenhagen
interpretation these can be simply more measuring or witnessing devices: consciousness
does not figure. Even if it did, that would only apply to quantum objects, and would
scarcely warrant the grand extrapolations Fox and Walsh wish to make. Furthermore, the
Copenhagen interpretation as elaborated is obliged to set quantum domains within wider
classical settings always (by contrast with multiple-world interpretations there is no wave
function for the universe, etc.); so in the larger setting classical assumptions concerning
independence, separability, and so on, are not overthrown, but confirmed.
�89
In fact my passing reference to rubbish in Fox's presentations was directed not at
Walsh, who was not pretending to tell us what deep ecology is about, but at Fox's
reproduction of this material 'in advancing the "unity of process" metaphysics of deep
ecology' (p.19). Fox's presentation of the issues (in section 4), with himself as some sort
of interested third party in a dispute between Sylvan and Walsh, is substantially misleading;
I was not attempting (what is overdue) a critique of transpersonal psychology.
What is taken to be known, furthermore, affords little comfort or support for the list
of 'ontological implications' that Fox and Walsh wish to draw from the "new physics".
Consider some representative exhibits, mostly compressed one-worders, from 'the
fundamental ontology now being revealed', with which Fox tells us deep ecology is not
merely 'in accord with' but 'throws its full weight behind' (see p.18):- Impermanen t?
Some of the newly discovered sub-atomic objects are extraordinarily durable and have
experimentally assessed lifetimes of millions of years. Fluid? This attribute of macrosystems does not extend significantly even down to the molecular level; it makes no sense to
say that wavicles (or even atoms) flow, they are the wrong sorts of things. Whereas the
attribution of impermanence makes straightforward sense (but is substantially false), that of
fluidity does not. Empty? Some of the newly located astrophysical objects are
extraordinarily dense, packed with matter. Infinitely over-determined? How does this sit
with quantum indeterminacy and under-determination? Or with another speculative exhibit
from the list: Self-consistent? At least questions of the consistency of the "new physics"
and its parts are proper and reasonable. But we are far from being in a position to assert
that the theory is consistent. On the contrary, inconsistencies keep emerging in the
developing theory, to which often ad hoc repairs are proposed (e.g. with the Dirac o
function, renormalization etc.; cf OP). Given the inadequate ramshackle character of the
present quantum theory, it is a fair bet that it remains inconsistent. It is a widespread
opinion among researchers that the present theory is something of a mess and in much need
of improvement. Even so practicing scientists are not hoping for foundations, which tend
to be frowned upon these days. However, foundations, such as an extension of von
Neumann's axiomatisatio n of part of quantum theory, would help in effecting
improvements, and something of the sort is a prerequisite for establishing consistency, if it
can be done. Foundationless? What is meant is, apparently, not foundations for the theory,
such as axiomatic foundations, nor really basic (atomic) components for what the theory is
about. In this sense, Newtonian physics had as foundational elements corpuscles, or
particles of certain sorts. It is sometimes said that quantum physics afford no such ultimate
building blocks, each apparent stopping point fragmenting into new substructures, most
recently quarks. But this idea, which so far appears to lack a satisfactory physical
modelling, diverges from the still entrenched paradigm of particle physics which, for all the
talk about "new paradigms" in physics, still consists in analytical reduction to ultimates.
�90
Such objectual foundations leave open, of course, the question as to whether, and to what
extent, new phenomena may emerge, at "higher levels", as the building blocks are variously
put together and structured. As with elements, so with microphysical particles, while the
zoo of known items has expanded apace, the hope remains that there is a simple underlying
explanation in terms of very small ultimates, such as contemporary quarks. Those who
looked forward to a quite new outlook emerging from particle physics are bound - if they
look at what really goes on nowadays (esp. all the hightech dominant social paradigm
aspects) as distinct from what some popular science entrepreneurs say - to be very
disappointed.
Walsh's "explanation" of what 'foundationle ss' means is something else: 'the
universe appears to be ... foundationless and self-consistent in that, since all components
and mechanisms are interconnected and interdependent, none are ultimately more
fundamental than any other- hence the universe is inexplicable in terms of a limited number
of fundamental mechanisms' (p.23, quoting Walsh p.180). This is Fox's example of how
'Walsh provides clear and intelligible meanings to each and every one of the items on the
list'! The truth is that Walsh offers nothing of substance on some terms in his list (e.g.
'self-consistent'), and much of what he does offer is like that quoted, garbage. Granted we
can make something of some of it, something extravagantly false. Even on Newtonian
physics everything is connected, through forces such as gravitation 58 , but some objects are
fundamental building blocks. So it is too on the 'new physics', protons for instance are
more fundamental than molecules, quarks (if recent theory succeeds and proves consistent)
than protons. Some objects are certainly more fundamental than others. And in the "new
physics" it is widely assumed that the universe is explicable in terms of a very few
principles of mechanist character (e.g. the rashly promised single equation T-shirt). But
Walsh's hence clause would not follow, as simple models indicate, even if his premiss had
requisite physical cogency.
It does deep ecology no credit to include conspicuous rubbish. Nor is there any good
reason why it should; the rubbish is not essential to deep ecology. It is not part of the
platform for instance, and it is relatively easily removed from (authentic) deep ecology. So
much should be evident from my original Critique (as published), and the accompanying
58
Such forces as gravitation offer, of course, nonlocal connections, and delineate fields what are said to be at 'the nub of what these emerging ideas ... of cross-disciplinary
parallels ... have in common' (p.23, insert from p.23 and p.21). This confirms the
impression that Fox lacks a solid grasp on what is new in the "new physics" and other
"new sciences" such as they are, and thereby contributes towards answers to further of
Fox's questions (p.23), by undermining their presuppositions.
�I
91
sketch of deep green theory, intended to function as a relatively rubbish-free relative of deep
ecology. It is some measure of the intellectual sloppiness of some of these engaged in
presenting and promoting deep ecology that in a recent major text from Naess (Naess 89),
the editor and translator, Rothenberg, asserts that my 'critique of deep ecological
philosophy ... labels all of deep ecology literature "inconsistent rubbish"' (p.19), somehow
achieving a fallacious transition from some to all. But apparently Rothenberg's
acquaintance with my Critique was extraordinarily casual, since I didn't use the label
'inconsistent rubbish' (and wouldn't as anyone who had read much of my work, esp. OP,
would realise), and since I certainly did not make a universal claim (and wouldn't for
reasons already given, which should have been evident). 'The interpretation of the whole
thing as rubbish', Rothenberg continues (p.19), 'comes only if you concentrate too much
on rereading some of the sketchy formulations of deep ecology philosophies ... '. While
endorsing the point about sketchy formulations, no rereading of many deep ecological
productions is required to produce rubbish, no projection; several offerings - such as items
lifted from trans personal psychology, idealist physics and other esoteric deep ecological
sources, and such as Fox's 'sketch map of deep ecological territory' (p.89) - contain
notable rubbish of themselves.
Unfortunately Rothenberg proceeds, without even a pause, to repeat Fox's regressive
conclusion, which would return deep ecology to human psychology, the very fate of earlier
establishment-cha llenging ethics, such as (group) egoism and utilitarianism. 'One should
steer clear of "environmental axiology" - that is, looking for values in nature', indeed one
almost feels, from looking directly at nature at all.
Instead, one should seek to change one's whole way of sensing oneself
and the world in the direction of identification and Self-realisation ....
Fox summarises [this debacle]: The appropriate framework of discourse
for describing and presenting deep ecology is not one that is
fundamentally to do with the value of the non-human world, but rather
one that is fundamentally to do with the nature and possibilities of the
Self, or, we might say, the question of who we are, can become, and
should become in the larger scheme of things (Rothenberg p.19,
quoting Fox p.85).
It is a sad fate for a promising philosophy of nature; degeneration into human psychology.
While that can no doubt be edifying enough, in the style of uplifting anthropocentric
religions, it is hardly the sought new ecological paradigm (p. 71) and only a warped
fragment of the sort of philosophy the whole Earth needs.
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�f
I
92
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Perrett, R.W., 'Egoism, altruism and intentionalism in Buddhist Ethics', Journal of Indian
Philosophy 15(1987) 71-85.
Priest, G. and Routley, R., On Paraconsistency, Research Series in logic and Metaphysics
#1, RSSS, Australian National University, 1984; referred to as OP.
Rolston, H. R. IV, Philosophy Gone Wild: Essays in Environmental Ethics, Prometheus
Books, Buffalo, 1986.
�93
Routley, R., 'The semantical metamorphosis of metaphysics', Australasian Journal of
Philosophy, 1974.
Routley, Rand V., The Fight for the Forests, Third edition, RSSS, Australian National
University, 1975.
Routley, R. and V., 'Against the inevitability of human chauvinism', Ethics and Problems
of the 21 st Century , (ed. K.E. Goodpaster and K.M. Sayre), University of Notre
Dame Press, 1979, 36-59.
Routley, Rand V., 'Human chauvinism and environmental ethics' in EP; referred to EE.
Routley, R., 'Ultralogic as universal?', represented in JB; referred to as uu.
Routley, R, Exploring Meinong's Jungle and Beyond, RSSS, Australian National
University, 1980; referred to as JB.
Routley, R. and Others, Relevant Logics and Their Rivals, Ridgeview, California, 1982.
Session, G., 'Ecocentrism, wilderness, and global ecosystem protection', in The
Wilderness Condition (ed. M. Oelschlaeger), 1989; to appear.
Shepard, P., 'Introduction - ecology and man - a viewpoint' in The Subversive Science
(ed. P. Shepard & D McKinley), Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1969, 1-10.
Smith, H., The Religions of Man, Harper, New York, 1958.
Smith, J.W., Reductionism and Cultural Being, Nijhoff, The Hague, 1984.
Stone, C.D., Should Trees Have Standing? - Towards Legal Rights for Natural Objects,
revised edition, Avon Books, New York, 1975.
Sylvan, R., 'Windows on Science III, Towards a cosmo-logical synthesis', Research
Series in Unfashionable Philosophy, #2, RSSS Australian National University, 1985.
Sylvan, R., A Critique of Deep Ecology, Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy
#12, RSSS 1985; referred to as c.
Sylvan, R., 'Mind and its misplacement in nature', typescript, Canberra, 1988; referred to
asMX.
Sylvan, R., Deep Plurallism, completed typescript 1990.
Walsh, R.N., 'Emerging cross-disciplinary parallels: suggestions from the neurosciences',
Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 11(1979) 175-184.
Wenz, P.W., Environmental Justice, State University of New York Press, Albany N.Y.,
1988.
Wilber, K., Eye to Eye: The quest for the new paradigm, Anchor Press/Doubleday, Garden
City N.Y., 1983.
�ECOLOGICAL ETHICS and ECOLOGICAL POLITICS:
turning John MCCioskey's challenge
This essay comes first because it offers an advanced introduction to parts of
environmental ethics, and to certain significant issues in environmental politics. It is
hung, not altogether incidentally, on MCCloskey's little text on the topics, because that is
a convenient vehicle for organising the material (it is also a text, written in haste, that
deserves more criticism than it has received). Fortunately no one need attempt the
onerous business of reading MCCioskey in order to follow the essay, should it succeed.
Rather, for the purposes of this essay, MCCioskey and likewise his little work can both
be regarded as characters in this piece of intellectual fiction; neither need ever have
existed.
1. Conservative, reformative, and radical responses to the impacts of
ecology on ethics.
There are three broad kinds of responses to the impact of ecology on ethics
according to MCCloskey's account, which adapts a standard political classification:
radical or revolutionary, reformist, and conservative. Of course there are responses
which lie outside this classification, not by disputing the impacts of escalating
environmental problems (or the new awareness of nature and its fragility), but by
questioning the relevance of the other end of the relation: ethics. Those responses target
ethics, its role in evaluating and regulating conduct, or differently, its place in
environmental philosophy (see other essays herein). As we too aspire to MCCloskey's
elevated view of the importance, potential power, and effective ineliminability of ethics
in rational evaluation and conduct, we set aside these gutter responses (which we have
argued against elsewhere). Otherwise, the responses are these:
Radical. A fundamentally new ethic is required, a non-human-centred nature-centred
(or nonanthropocentric ecocentric) ethic and morality, a deeper environmental ethic, what
MCCioskey and others call an ecological ethic. According to MCCioskey - who adopts
the usual double standard, requiring conspicuously higher standards for new challenging
theories than entrenched ones - no one 'has yet succeeded in stating or defending [an
ecological ethic] in a systematic way' (p.29). Nonetheless it will turn out, quite
remarkably, that MCCioskey himself, if he is at all successful, does, given but a small
twist to what he does.
�2
There are two standard components to any such ethic: meta-ethical and normative.
According to Mccloskey, both components are 'more commonly alluded to than set out
and defended in a developed, worked-out form' (p.29). There are, accordingly, two
broad problems for an ecological ethics: devising a new meta-ethic, and furnishing a new
normative ethic (p.30). Meta-ethics, as well as comprising the study of ethics or ethical
systems, includes the logic and analysis of key ethical terms. For the new ethics a
critical meta-ethical task is to 'explain valuation, and hence values, without reference to
human beings, their preferences, pro-attitudes, and the like' (p.30). Normative ethics
involves the organisation, design and structure of systems themselves, their values,
principles, constraints and the like. For the new ethics critical normative tasks include
explaining and justifying the assignments of value made, especially to natural items
independently of species Homo sapiens, and the principles adopted, especially
concerning treatment of more natural environments, wilderness, and endangered species
of plants and animals.
Since all these requirements have been met, to some considerable extent (e.g. in
works such as EE), the issue becomes one of adequacy. How adequately have these
things been done, in particular in what is now called deep-green theory, and what of
significance has been left undone? These are central questions in the on-going dialogue
with MCCioskey; they will direct the questions discussed when shortly we get down to
the real business of MCCloskey's more substantive objections.
Reformist. Instead of a "new" ethic, standard ethical theories are reformed, modifying
them or adjusting them at the periphery, 'so as to acknowledge new, specifically
ecological values and duties' (p.30). Characteristically the adjustment is to the margins
of normative theory, with standard meta-ethics left substantially intact. Animal rights
theories which simply adjust utilitarianism to take account of the suffering of other
sentient creatures than humanoids, afford a stock example of significant reformism. By
contrast, differently designed and defended theories of animal rights may be radical in
character.
The classification is thus pretty rough and ready; given the comparative vagueness
of "newness" and "standardness" as regards ethical theories, the divisions between
responses is likewise blunt. Evidently too, the classification only overlaps other
classifications of ethics with some vogue, for instance that into shallow, intermediate,
and deep (used elsewhere e.g. TE). Thus while reformist utilitarianisms are typically
intermediate, a reformist ethic (or even a revolutionary one, such as Nietzsche's has been
taken to be) may be substantially shallow. The converse linkages are tighter: only an
ethic which merely purports to be conservative can really be intermediate, as
MCCloskey's intuitionism is, or deep, as "supplementation" of such intuitionism could
�3
be.
Conservative. No input from ecology warrants even so much as reform, let alone
revolution, in standard ethical theory; all that is required is 'a more informed, more
accurate thinking out of our moral obligations and moral rights' (p.29). MCCioskey
claims to defend the stock conservative view that ecological considerations and 'findings
... do not necessitate a basic revolution in ethics but supply a more informed, more
accurate thinking out, of our moral obligations and moral rights' (p.29, similarly p.31).
Rather than looking hard at the conspicuous difficulties and inadequacies of
prevailing ethics, unresolved after thousands of years of investigation, MCCioskey
proceeds immediately to try to shift the onus of proof: ' ... no moral philosopher has yet
succeeded in either stating or defending it ... a new ecological ethic ... in a systemic
way' (p.29, insertion from same page). He alleges, to elaborate on a previous charge,
that 'the problem of [a radical] ecological ethics is that of devising
a a new meta-ethics, one that explains valuation, and hence values, without
reference to human beings, their preferences, pro-attitudes, and the like, and
a a new normative ethics that explains both
• the value of natural phenomena prior to man's existence and after the
extinction of the species Homo sapiens and
• why it is morally wrong for man to damage wilderness and endanger or
render extinct natural species of plants and animals' (p.30, display inserted).
As it happens, all these things have been attempted, as was said and as will become
evident - though perhaps in too sketchy and too technical a way so far (it is still early
days). For example, why it is wrong to damage pristine wilderness is, at bottom,
because such wilderness possesses high intrinsic value - something MCCioskey does not
really dispute. How then does he sustain his allegations? For the most part, despite the
repeated rhetoric about "arguing" this and that, he doesn't. He simply assumes that
'concern for human well-being' must dominate, that it always has, well almost always
has, priority (e.g. p.52).
2. A confused and confusing response: supplemented intuitionism.
Furthermore, MCCioskey, although he claims to be defending this conservative
'third view', does not state matters as clearly as he should: he only rules out the 'need for
a specifically ecological ethic', not reformism. This constitutes one part of what amounts
�4
to substantial cheating in MCCloskey's "conservatism" . 1 A further part consists in
adopting an extremely unfashionable ethical theory, an intuitionism supplementing a now
little known theory of the kind developed by Ross, as his "standard" ethical theory. Like
the rare "ideal utilitarianism", such intuitionism can be much closer to proposed new
ecological ethics, given appropriate ideals and intuitions, than standard "standard" ethics
(indeed, given a deep tum, they can be tantamount to ecological ethics). But the most
important dodge is incorporated in the "supplementation" MCCioskey makes of his
"standard" ethic, which far exceeds what it is said to be: Ross 'supplemented by an
account of the moral rights of persons' (p.31). For he also concedes himself such
objectives as an open-ended 'promotion of good' and coupled 'prima facie obligations to
... promote good' (p.33 and p.31). Moreover, such promotion of good elsewhere
expands to a promotion of good, beauty and knowledge (p.36), and to include
promotion and preservation of what is intrinsically valuable (p.36); among 'recognised
ethical values' is 'the securing of the intrinsically valuable' (p.8). Moreover, among
what is intrinsically valuable are some (but not all) natural species, some wilderness
(p.36), and other valuable natural items such as 'forests, lakes, rivers, seas' (p.31).
Such critical "supplementations" mean that MCCioskey can proceed to argue for the
preservation of wilderness or natural species in just the ways that most deep
environmentalists do; for example, along the lines that an area of wilderness has not
merely instrumental value, but evident intrinsic value, which can be felt or intuited (e.g.
p.61 bottom). Such supplementations thus lift MCCioskey right out of the normal
conservative camp in which he has misleadingly located himself: for that shallow camp
does not recognise irreducible values in nature. What he is covertly assuming, in his
considerable supplementation of an unusual noncognitive ethic, is at least a significant
reform of standard ethics. MCCloskey's ethic is not 'perfectly familiar' historically;
more, his insistence (ascribable not to modesty but to political purposes) that it is not
1
There is analogous, if less outrageous, covert cheating in another leading Australian
conservative, with whom McCloskey aligns himself: Passmore. For example,
Passmore helps himself to a notion of vandalism (deep vandalism involving
depreciation or destruction of what has intrinsic value) to which his theory does not
entitle him. It has not been much appreciated that Passmore, too, for all his
apparently tough conservatism (early on) on ethics, also (characteristically) hedges his
claims. A much-quoted passage, endorsed by McCloskey (p.37 italics added), begins:
'what it [the West] needs,for the most part, is not so much a "new ethic" as a more
general adherence to a perfectly familiar ethic'. What that familiar ethic is, and how it
is to be reformed, Passmore never really tells us. In any case the main conservative
theme looks less and less plausible. It is increasingly dubious that better adherence to
established ethical and political forms will prove adequate, especially to environmental
problems unforeseen by these chauvinistic theories.
�5
new is nowhere demonstrated, simply asserted. (In fact the claim is somewhat empty in
the absence of sharpened criteria for newness.)
How far removed MCCloskey's supplemented intuitionism is from its 'perfectly
familiar' source is readily shown by a comparison of MCCioskey with Ross on intrinsic
goodness. Ross contends (on the basis of reflection and using an interesting little
argument from a then 'widely accepted classification of elements in the life of the soul')
that four things, and basically only four things, 'seem to be intrinsically good', all of
which are 'ideal states of the mind' (p.140). How far things ethical have moved since
the nineteen thirties is also shown by the little argument Ross runs out, as if it was quite
decisive, to refute people like MCCioskey who imagine they find intrinsic value beyond
states of mind - in wilderness, forests and other material items. 'It might of course be
objected that there are or may be intrinsic goods that are not states of mind or relations
between states of mind at all, but in this suggestion I find no plausibility. Contemplate
any imaginary universe from which you suppose mind entirely absent, and you will fail
to find anything in it that you can call good in itself' (p.140). Ross no doubt reflects the
conventional ethical wisdom, a narrow wisdom, of his time and place (essentially British
ethics of the first half of the twentieth century). But many before Ross, and many more
since, have not so failed in finding items of intrinsic worth in the absence of states of
mind, in the Earth itself and its natural features for example. Such comparatively
successful arguments as those concerning the Last Sentient (in EE), and the world before
the rise of mental life, were designed to expose and reinforce such common findings.
So much Mccloskey is sufficiently clear about (thereby shortening subsequent
argument for a new ethics): 'The negative part of the Routley's argument, that traditional
[Western] ethics and contemporary morality are human-centered, is substantially well
based. The ecological moral intuitions they seek to explain and justify find no
justification in terms of such ethics' (p.58). But in MCCloskey's ethics they do find
some confirmation, or rather conformation, in the intrinsic ecological values discerned.
Moreover, with but a turn in the intuitions admitted that intuitionistic ethics itself
becomes properly deep - just allow the (over-malleable) intuitions to coincide with those
of deep ecological consciousness: then deepened MCCioskey is deep ecology.
MCCioskey even puts effort into explaining how conventional theories are 'heavily
human centered', without appreciating how far it removes him from the 'perfectly
familiar' ethic of Ross, and from his own professed conservatism.
As a result too, those making too superficial a survey of MCCloskey's complex
ethical position, especially if they came at it with preconceptions of what it amounted to,
have been seriously misled. Goodin is one reviewer who is undone. By quoting
MCCloskey's effort on conventional ethics right out of context, Goodin manages to
�6
attribute to Mccloskey the very negation of what he advances, namely 'that all talk of
intrinsic value must nevertheless be human-centered' (Goodin p.345). The same applies
to what Goodin takes to be 'the punchline' of MCCloskey's position, 'that the
environment per se has no independent moral claims upon it. All our duties to protect it
must be derived from human-centered concerns' (p.344). Nor does such a punch line
emerge from the admittedly convoluted passage quoted in support; for the passage makes
the promotion of goodness, which includes promotion of intrinsic value independent of
humans, a prima f acie obligation.
But Goodin does have excuses. For not merely is MCCloskey's position hard to
fathom, but it exhibits confusion and is internally inconsistent. For example, Mccloskey
typically presents himself as having, and frequently operates as if he had, an entirely
conservative position, when his position is in important respects at least reformist,
making allowance for intrinsic values of natural items including wilderness, plants and
animals (pp. 52-3); his position is both different, with new elements, and not different,
with no new elements. Part of the problem can be traced back to a confusion about
intrinsic value (likewise intrinsic goodness), which is both intrinsic, valuable in itself,
and not intrinsic, because valuable for something else, typically beauty or human
knowledge in the case of natural items. The confusion is manifest in the many intuitive
judgements of intrinsic value of natural items advanced simply on the strength of
judgements of beauty or ugliness, and appears in such themes as that 'a moral duty to
preserve species and wilderness ... is ... based on ... the securing of the intrinsically
valuable objects of knowledge and the beautiful' (p.110). It is no longer just 'the
securing of the intrinsically valuable' as is earlier said (e.g. p.8); those "intrinsic values"
somehow now reduce or answer instrumentally to supposedly human evaluations, i.e.
are not "intrinsic" after all, whereupon MCCloskey's seriously damaged position reverts
to the shallow conservative position it is often been taken to be.
The main features brought out make MCCloskey's ethic, confusions apart, at least a
reformist one, not a conservative one. Briefly, MCCloskey's "supplementation " of
Ross's theory is so great as to make for a difference of kind. The features also render it
what is called an intermediate position. For it admits values in nature, it assigns intrinsic
value to some natural objects, while not however allowing values of natural things to
sometimes override those of humans. The point is fundamental. 'However, as the
theory developed here implies, ultimately, when there is a clear clash between human
welfare and human rights on the one hand and the preservation of wilderness and of
plant and animal species on the other, human welfare and respect for human rights must
prevail ... ' (p.36). Why so? Why preserve this ancient ethical prejudice? Despite the
assertion the theory sketched out, the supplemented Ross ethic, does not imply human
�7
ethical supremacy. But even if the theory did imply this greater value assumption, the
appeal to it in defence of the assumption would be indecently circular. It is no proper
defence of proposition p that Shifty's theory implies p, unless Shifty's theory is shown
to have independent merit, such as correctness, robustness (i.e. continuing to yield p
under reasonable variations), etc. None of the requisite demonstration is attempted. The
radically reformed Ross ethic is just assumed.
In fact MCCioskey has adduced no decent case for this crucial assumption, which
colours much of his text. For it is his repeated insistence on the supreme importance of
things human, of Man over the rest of nature, that gives his work its undoubted antienvironmental appearance, which is obnoxiously exhibited at many places in the text.
One revolting example concerns venomous snakes: 'today they are a nuisance and a
danger to human life and health, concern for which dictates that individuals be accorded
the freedom to kill such snakes, to rid their properties of these pests even at the risk of
rendering them endangered species. (Sufficient specimens could be retained in zoos
throughout the world, where they survive well ... )', perhaps along with dangerous
subspecies of humans (p.116). MCCioskey is particularly concerned to put down
arguments 'for the preservation of species and wilderness at the cost of human interests,
human concerns .. ', even though these arguments 'appear to be correct about the
intuitive insights of those who live in different countries in affluence. 2 Nonetheless it
will be my concern in this work to reject this approach and the moral intuitions on which
it rests' (p.36, italics added). Unfortunately the strongly proclaimed rejection is not
backed up with requisite argument. MCCioskey, in a familiar intuitionistic predicament,
is stranded without argument. Nor, in this case, could the rejection be so easily
supported. For one thing MCCioskey feels obliged, almost immediately, to qualify his
human supremacy claim: human interest 'must prevail, unless what it is proposed to
preserve has great intrinsic value' (p.36 italics added). For another reason, the human
interests involved often cannot justify preeminence; they are too often trivial, or
unworthy, or just plain ordinary. So the ancient (unethical) prejudice in favour of
humans can, and should be relinquished (as argued in much more detail in other places,
e.g. EE).
But then there is nothing to stop MCCloskey's intuitionism sliding to real depth, the
ethic moving from reformist to radical. Call the resulting theory, MCCloskey's stripped
2
But the impression of McCloskey as a fighter for the under-privileged among humans,
one who of course along with developers and colonizers makes human interests
paramount, is deceptive.
�8
of anthropic prejudice so to say, deepened intuitionism, intuitionism informed, again if
you like, by deep ecological consciousness. The beauty of deepened intuitionism is that
it answers, in MCCloskey's own terms, MCCloskey's challenge to radically new
ecological ethics. A now evident "adjustment" to MCCloskey's own theory will serve.
The trouble, of course, with this answer is the trouble with intuitionism in ethics
generally; that, for instance, it is built on the shifting sands of intuition. That is why a
direct response to Mccloskey will be offered, in terms of deep-green theory.
3. On the supposedly dim prospects for new environmental ethics, esp.
that deep-green upstart.
Part of MCCloskey's complaint is that the new environmental ethics demanded back
in the early seventies, have not been presented sufficiently 'clearly and fully' as to admit
proper examination and assessment (p.60). It is easy to level such charges at new
proposals; and such charges did carry some force, and still do, though less as the new
theories develop, among other things, to meet criticism. But MCCioskey would like to
make a much grander charge, the sort of charge (discussed below) that Thompson
recently did level: that such 'a new ethic ... is logically impossible to set out' (p.59
reordered). But Mccloskey, by contrast with Thompson who can slip into still
fashionable noncognitivism, is poorly placed to press such a charge. For he considers
that noncognitivism, which would logically tie all valuation to aspects of human (or
creature) cognition and so would be bad news for deep environmentalism, is bound to
fail. MCCioskey tries instead to push through an eliminative argument, relying upon the
limited range of cognitivist (meta-)ethics 'developed to date'. He claims to eliminate all
but intuitionism: 'Of the known, plausible, meta-ethical theories, the only one available
to such ecologist ethicists is the ethical realism of intuitionism' (p.59), which regrettably
they decline. But the elimination argument is radically defective, as MCCioskey is very
far from exhausting the initially plausible options open to environmentalism. In addition,
more satisfactory options will aim to discard not merely intuitionism but also both the
ethical realism and objectivism that regularly (and to its intellectual cost) accompany it,
but need not.
While it would hardly be surprising should the quite limited range of ethical
theories that have achieved much development to date prove inadequate to new
environmental objectives, the situation is by no means as desperate as MCCioskey
implies. Firstly, the options MCCioskey does offer, deviously pruned down (not 'ideal
observer ethic' but 'Humean ideal observer ethic', not 'natural law ethic' but 'Thomistic
natural law ethic'), are not all restricted in the way portrayed: 'All make human nature or
personhood or features thereof basic to ethics' (p.59). Not so; the contention certainly
does not hold for all the types of theory listed, e.g. naturalism or relativism, and insofar
�9
as it does, it is sometimes easily avoided, as with natural law (e.g. set within pantheism).
Secondly, there is a range of recognised ethical types, such as those distinguished by
Broad, which affords scope for the elaboration of ecological ethics. Obvious candidates
within naturalism include biological and evolutionary naturalism - typical examples of
which 'are the following: "To be virtuous means to perform the specific activities of the
species to which you belong efficiently" (Spinoza). "Better conduct means conduct that
comes later in the course of evolution and is more complex than earlier conduct of the
same kind" (Herbert Spencer)' (Broad p.259). No doubt such proposals exhibit
deficiencies, but not per se of a human chauvinistic sort; and they admit of improvement,
which they are beginning to obtain within the tradition of American naturalism (thus e.g.
Rolston's work).
More promising, however, are "non-naturalistic" theories, of which objectivistic
realistic intuitionism such as Mccloskey is keen to offer and promote is but one kind.
For there are other less demanding types of intuitionism (see, e.g. Broad p.270),
including various "deep intuitionisms", which may be neither objectivistic nor realistic
(in the sense of labouring under heavy ontological commitments). In particular, as Elliot
explains (p.502), what entirely escapes MCCloskey is the feasibility of a meta-ethic
which is nonjective, that is, not objective, like transcendental intuitionism, but not
implausibly subjective either. Then there are moral sense theories and their more
plausible variations including mixtures with rationalism. Further, there are analogous
mixtures coherently building upon emotional presentation. Such a rational reconstuction,
varying the Austrian theory of values as elaborated empirically and logically by Meinong,
is in fact the ethical way taken by deep-green theory (for detail see TE and DG). And so
on. There is logical scope, then, for quite a variety of ecological meta-ethics, and
definitely scope for significant improvements upon those 'developed to date'.
As much to the point, there have already been significant developments of some
forms of ecological meta-ethics, notably of that theory in effect under criticism, deepgreen theory, which is already better articulated than most conventional ethics. There are
several connected parts to this elaboration because it brings into meta-ethics new logical
technology, especially world-semantics. The parts, furthermore, have not been duly
separated because of a pervasive verificationism living on in Anglo-American ethical
theory, which proceeds to equate semantic with epistemic, meaning with method of
coming to know, and the like. A first step then in meta-ethical analysis is some proper
separation of the parts, such as meaning, epistemic confirmation, and rational
justification. Naturally the parts fit together into a larger whole, into the meta-ethical
edifice, but simplistic positivistic equations do not satisfactorily explain the integration.
�10
As to meaning, deep-green theory can already stand on its record of proferred
semantical analyses. 3 Semantics both for axiological terms such as value and bettemess
and for deontic terms such as obligation and wrongness have been provided through
world semantics (see sv, MD). The deontic theory developed in the process (in MD)
offers a considerable improvement over Ross's theory (which supplies no semantics),
because it enables the theory-saving artifice of prima facie obligations to be removed and
natural language discourse concerning obligations to be recovered. While such
semantical advances do not pretend to offer a full account of meaning, as much more
remains to be done within pragmatics, they do offer straightforward resolutions both of
long-standing ethical puzzles and paradoxes and of several complaints about
environmentally deep ethics. A major early problem for a genuinely nonchauvinistic
ethics was to give a satisfactory account of ethical terms without reference to favoured
biological species, above all to humans. On deep-green theory this was accomplished
by a combination of an "annular theory", offering an ethically relevant typology of doers
and receivers, with the semantical analyses (see EE and AP for details). By these means,
deep-green theory proceeded to remove humans from an essential role in ethics.
Humans enter importantly, of course, but only contingently, as certain sorts of valuers
and agents, which sorts depending upon their relevant capacities. For example, humans
do not inevitably enter, as too many had previously supposed, into every ethical picture,
because there were no value judgements without valuers, and all valuers were humans.
Both parts of this linkage fail. Most important, values are not tied to valuers or actual
valuing. But possible valuers and therewith their valuing can always be dummied in
logically. The reason is at bottom that any coherent distribution of values can be
regarded as the values of certain possible valuers. Furthermore, contrary to
MCCloskey's unsupported charge against such semantical analyses, this does not expose
the theory 'to difficulties parallel to those encountered by phenomenalism ... ' (p.60).
For phenomenalism attempts a reduction; the semantical theory makes no such attempt.
The meta-ethic is non-reductionist; nor is it obliged to rely upon tricks like
supervenience.
Deep-green theory already had more up on the meta-ethical scoreboard in the early
eighties than Ross's theory upon which MCCioskey purportedly proposed to reply.
MCCloskey's criticism of ecological ethics as meta-ethically inadequate lapses. As to
normative theory, the other prong of his attack, his demands are excessive. Few ethical
theories have been stated 'fully and clearly' and 'developed in a systematic, detailed
3
Standing on records is hardly a practice I embrace with much enthusiasm, but
sometimes it is inevitable if excess repetition is to be avoided.
�11
form' such as Mccloskey appears to expect (e.g. p.60). To take some grand
comparisons: Those that are detailed such as Confusianism are not particular systematic,
those that are detailed and systematic such as Spinoza's ethic are hardly clear and are
likely inconsistent, those that are fairly full and moderately clear such as Sidgwick's
utilitarianism are also rather clearly defective; and in the twentieth century, nothing much,
ecological or not, matches these grand examples. But to indicate a few details of what is
accomplished normatively in deep-green theory:- Non-interference and like principles are
defended (cf EE p.174); these afford a basis for integrating standard social justice
principles (including obligations to the future), duly amended, with environmental
principles. In this way, making use of the annular theory, much of prevailing social
ethics, of a radical kind, can be subsumed.
In an attempt to be helpful, Mccloskey quite erroneously suggests that 'the
normative ethic appears to be base[d] on ... intuitive insights into what is intrinsically
valuable and what is intrinsically obligatory, where what is intrinsically obligatory need
not be tied to intrinsic value' (p.60, rearranged). What is obligatory, like what is right,
does answer back to what is intrinsically valuable, though in more complex fashion than
elementary ethical courses care to contemplate (see TE and MD). But what is intrinsically
valuable is often not discerned through intuitive insights. The idea that is is part of what
lies at the back of the expectation that instant answers can and should be given to any
question as to what is intrinsically valuable or the like. Rather what is intrinsically
valuable is arrived at through a process of reasoning and coherence-assessment, based at
bottom on emotional presentation (for more detail see TE). We offered, furthermore,
many examples of items - not only individuals, but species, such as the blue whale,
complexes, and ecosystems - that are intrinsically valuable, valuable in and for
themselves and not on other counts (such as some of MCCloskey's "intrinsic values"
which vanish into economic or aesthetic values). Accordingly, the charge (p.60), 'Nor
are the relevant values or principles explained or discussed', loses its force.
As to the specific difficulties for an ecological ethic of deep-green kind that
MCCioskey alleges, many of these are only encountered upon importing assumptions that
the ethics do not include and should not supply. So it is with the assumption that an
ecological ethic should assign intrinsic value to all species, even equally to each species,
given that it does to some. MCCloskey's own intermediate ethic does not do this, why
should an ecological ethic? Some-to-all arguments do not suddenly become valid in deep
space. Deep-green theory, in particular, unlike deep ecology, makes no assumptions as
to biospecies equality; rather it requires a certain interspecies impartiality. The extent of
intrinsic value of a species is assessed in principle, through a multiple factor procedure
incorporating value-making features of the species (cf. EE p.168). Mccloskey wheels
�12
out the already exhausted examples of disease organisms and parasites, and offers his
intuition, a strong human prejudice, that 'there seems to be no intrinsic value in the
existence of such species and organisms' (p.61). No doubt such species and organisms
do not exhibit intrinsic value in the way or to the extent that conspicuous species near the
tops of food chains do. Their biological role and value is different. Their importance,
consists, in part, in control, in regulation of the character and the numbers of more
valuable species; their biological value is, to stretch a term, primarily facilitative, but
often nonetheless, under present ecological arrangements, apparently essential.
One reason why MCCioskey fails to observe how easy it is to shift the difficulties
he finds so pressing is, of course, that he is trying to make a case against deep positions.
Another reason is that he is operating with far too coarse a mesh, both ecologically and
socially. Intrinsic value does not come in big indiscriminable unsieved lumps: all species
if any, all pleasure if any, all knowledge if any. The need for discrimination becomes
evident if added to MCCloskey's list of intrinsic valuables (e.g. p.108) are such standard
goals as wealth and power (itself often linked to knowledge). Like wealth and power,
human pleasure and knowledge4, for example, are far from invariable goods. Often, like
much entrepreneurial information transmitted through expensive systems, they are trivial;
sometimes they are positively evil, as pleasure in extensive torture, or practical
knowledge of the means of excruciating torture. 5 A finer mesh is needed, and available,
a mesh that can be usefully applied in the ecological domain to remove standard
"difficulties", as it was applied by Mill, though in a failed attempt to repair utilitarianism.
4. Extending ecological ethics, inadequately, to ecological politics.
Ecological politics is a structure grafted onto ecological ethics, in much the way
that political theory more generally is supposedly built upon (or alongside) ethics.
Politics is essentially concerned with groups, societies and certain social institutions;
ethics, so it is said, with individuals. But the distinction is not quite so simple; ethics too
concerns groups and interrelations of individuals, normatively. In fact, the exact
4
For these often shoddy goals McCloskey indecently contemplates destruction of the
Rottnest quokka, a species McCloskey provocatively presents as 'useless' and 'ugly'
(p.61). Judgements of aesthetic and utility are notoriously ideological systemdependent, and here McCloskey flouts his commitment to an old, damaging, and
fortunately disappearing, ideology.
5
In any event, Western ethics and ideology much overrate knowledge and information;
largely defunct Eastern theories, such as Taoism, have a better appreciation of the
importance, and nonimportance, of different kinds of knowledge (cf. Sylvan and
Bennett on Taoism).
�13
interrelation of politics with ethics, though an issue under investigation since Aristotle
sought to settle the matter, remains unclear. Judicious borrowing from logic can help a
bit in clarification, in both the general and the ecologically restricted cases. With ethics
and politics, or ecological ethics and ecological politics (of given sorts, e.g. utilitarian,
deep-green), both considered as theories, the relation is that of extension: the latter
extends the former, in fact extends it substantially. For comparison, logical examples of
extensions are afforded by the relation of quantification logic to sentential logic, or set
theory to quantification logic, or, a little nearer the mark in terms of complexity, classical
mathematics to set theory. Ecological politics is not merely - or as regards the pure
theory at all - an application of ecological ethics. It requires a considerable amount of
further apparatus (typically primitives and defined terms in the extended theory) that does
not enter into ethics proper, such as states, leaders, corporations, unions, organisers,
and moreover (what correspond to axiomatic constraints) the manifold interconnections
of these political items.
What kind of extension politics is, or ought to be, of ethics is a more vexed
question. In particular (depending on the matching of the politics to the presumed ethics
it extends) the extension may not be conservative. For example, theoretical allowance
has to be made for the Machiavellian idea that certain political components may be
exempt from given ethical constraints, an idea that has proved unacceptable to most
philosophers from Aristotle through Mccloskey. The prevailing conservative extension
theme is forcefully presented, if in too shallow and individualistic form, by Nozick:
Moral philosophy sets the background for, and the boundaries of,
political philosophy. What persons may and may not do to one another
limits what they may do [politically] through the apparatus of a state, or
do to establish such an apparatus. The moral prohibitions it is
permissible to enforce are the source of whatever legitimacy the state's
fundamental coercive power has (Nagel p.199, endorsing Nozick).
In short, should conservative extension be abandoned, rational justification
becomes a serious, indeed insuperable, problem.
As it happens, the way in which ecological politics proceeds to extend ecological
politics (when done conservatively) is admirably illustrated by MCCloskey's practice and
development of issues. In virtually every case, the approach adopted as regards the
politics of the issue builds directly upon the results reached in the ethical investigation of
that issue.
However, in the political theory advanced, Mccloskey does not take full and
proper advantage of his supplemented ethics, but lapses back into an old-fashioned
chauvinism. (He thus resembles a logician, actual exemplars shall go unnamed, who
�14
with all the underlying logical technology available to avoid the paradoxes and anomalies
of classical set theory, lapses back into these when he makes the extension to set theory.)
Once again this abysmal outcome is primarily a result of his tenacious adherence to that
ancient greater value prejudice, which vastly overrates humans, their attitudes, freedoms
and products, and undervalues natural things, even to the extent of undercutting
previously granted intrinsic value (cf. p.111). Mccloskey proceeds to play humans off
against environments, assuming of course that humans ought to win hands-down. The
resulting theory is ecological only in addressing - in a decidedly unsympathetical way
ecologically - ecological problems. Ecologically then, the proferred ecological politics
proves exceedingly disappointing; politically, things are little better.
A political theory is bound to add to an ethical theory further organisational
structure, comprising further structural units (corporations, states, etc.), institutional
arrangements (property, markets, etc.), and so on. There are a great many, still illclassified and largely untried, types of options here: options as to what gets added, and
how it is adjoined. Among the enormous range of choice McCloskey opts, without
much argument, for unimaginative arrangements like those prevailing in the West and
North, for a statist and developmental status quo (for which he serves very much as an
apologist). He opts for what he is pleased to call 'liberal democratic states' - though the
veneer of democracy is thin (control typically being vested with a ruling minority) and
liberality is sharply hedged (true-blue liberalism conflicting with statism, in ways
thorough-going libertarianism has exposed). Practically, as we know from experience, it
is a jerry-built structure; theoretically, as is insufficiently realised, it remains a house of
cards.
The status quo choice of "liberal democracy" gets confirmed, so Mccloskey
imagines, by disposing of but two sorts of alternatives: primitivism, which he regards as
substantially self-refuting in presently highly civilized highly warlike times; and
totalitarianism, which he regards as the main and menacing alternative. It is a simplistic
scheme, leaving out significant alternatives; but such a picture is remarkably widespread,
even among academics. While, like most urbanised intellectuals, Mccloskey cannot
resist sounding off about any proposed 'return to primitivism', to 'rural communities of
the political imagination' (p.109), he does in fact confine his consideration of alternative
political arrangements to totalitarian alternatives which would sharply increase the
restrictiveness of present statist arrangements. Against totalitarian alternatives, even
present inadequate arrangements no doubt look good; but against certain other political
alternatives (e.g. decentralised organisation using advanced technology as appropriate),
these arrangements look more like a recipe for on-going ecological trouble. Such other
alternatives, Mccloskey does not really consider. He has sighted the far ecological right,
�15
ecofascism as it is sometimes dubbed, and fires almost all his guns at it. However there
is an ecological left, with a longer tradition than the right, which passes unnoticed; yet it
offers a vision of new ecological communities in which liberal principles, on the face of
it MCCloskey's main concern, are maintained or even enhanced. But, for all its
shortcomings, MCCloskey's attempt to get to grips with ecological politics deserves a
somewhat fuller discussion than indicated by Goodin's cavalier dismissal: 'The politics
discussion just amounts to a bash at the authoritarianism of some of the more rabid
ecological doomsayers, propositions which are quite sufficient reductios in and of
themselves' (p.344).
For one thing, that was how much of the field looked when MCCioskey was
helping to put ecological politics on the philosophical agenda. Ecological politics still
remained an unfashionable, and in some places dangerous, field at the time MCCioskey
was writing. Liberal philosophers with respectable academic positions in North America
tended to keep out of the field, which accordingly got left to practical environmentalists,
over-enthusiastic in their appeals to the state for tough control and regulation, and to
authoritarian academics keen to strengthen totalitarian and isolationist tendencies of
states. As MCCioskey emphasizes,
Much ecological political writing exhibits two disturbing features that
undermine its value. The one feature relates to the readiness of many
political theorists on the basis of the flimsiest evidence to waive lightly
man's claim to recognition of his human rights on the ground that the
ecological crisis is so grave and critical that only the most drastic,
desperate measures will succeed. The other feature is the very great
confidence in the capacity of states to take whatever action is necessary
to avoid the ecological crisis. In fact, the states of the world today
greatly contribute to various of the ecologically based problems that
confront mankind. They are unworthy of the great faith and trust that
many ecological reformers appear to have in them or in the state in the
abstract.(p.108).
Bravo! But rather than considering carefully dismantling states, in favour of alternative
organisational arrangements, MCCioskey leaps immediately in the opposite direction, to
the orthodox position that 'a major part of the ecological political problem is that of
ensuring that states carry out their ecological responsibilities' - whatever those may be
(states do not regard themselves as morally bound, and typically their constitutions are
incredibly weak and unspecific, and sometimes evasive on such matters). Indeed he
goes further: 'The nation-state needs to be not superseded but complimented by a world
political authority' (p .107). Again there is little argument, and no due concern that such
an Authority would be yet a further developmental agency operating with tanks and
bulldozers.
�16
For another, MCCioskey tried to open up or advance several issues in ecological
politics (and would have, if his book had existentially impacted and had not been largely
bypassed or dismissed). These issues include not merely the standard issues of
overpopulation, pollution and unethical technology; more notably, they also include the
issue, which has recently received much airing, as to whether environmental demands
and regulations interfere damagingly with individual freedoms and other aspects of
liberal principles. There are other facets to this that deserve further examination (do it
decently, someone!): the extent to which liberal states do and can deliver on
environmental matters, as well as the extent of interference with liberties (much turns
then on how it is all done).
MCCioskey has overestimated the abilities of states to deliver liberal ideals and
guarantee liberal principles, such as individual freedom (in fact, to note some lesser
infringements, they characteristically coerce citizens in many respects, forcing them into
a money economy, to pay taxes and obtain licences, even to serve on juries, to vote, to
fight, etc.). If the state promises liberties with one hand, it is busy actually taking
liberties away with the other. While we may be stuck with states for the present, as an
unpleasant political reality, it is not too difficult to see that there are better unrealised
alternatives even from a traditional liberal angle, alternatives that pass unconsidered.
And MCCioskey has grossly underestimated the severity of ecological problems states
should be trying to solve.
In some of his findings, MCCioskey is so wildly astray that his judgement on
factual issues and his credibility has to fall under real suspicion. For example: ' ... it is
evident that over the whole period of his existence man has only been one relatively
minor factor bearing on species survival rates' (p.47)! ' ... man is simply adding more
hazards to those created by nature itself for some species' (p.47 continuing). For the
next example, by contrast with the previous, MCCioskey might seek refuge in the fact
that he was writing back in 1982: 'Few suggest that man can or will destroy the
ecosystem of the earth' (p.49). Even so, the news on nuclear winter had broken, and the
Greenhouse effect was already worrying some scientists. "Man" appears able to do little
that is very wrong; MCCioskey can only bring himself to engage in the mildest of
censure: ' ... man could have used DDT to better effect' (p.50). No doubt he could have
refrained from using it to significantly better effect. A due adaptation of that Old
Testament idea that humans are characteristically radically flawed, regularly and perhaps
inevitably sinning in their treatment of the Earth, does not break through in MCCloskey's
approach. In fact anti-ecological themes strongly pushed by MCCioskey will break
through again and again in what follows.
�17
Nor did Mccloskey anticipate the rapid march of ecological history at all well.
With his operational assumption that ecological reforms 'would not be popular' (e.g.
p.156), he appears to have been swiftly refuted by history. There has been much
popular movement in favour of ecological causes. The main resistance to far-reaching
reforms has not been popular, but establishment resistance, together with that from
business, wealth and privilege, and their hired economic men and thugs. Similarly with
his assumptions that reform, or change, would not occur unless the ecological problems
were believed 'to be real problems' (p.157) - which of course MCCloskey himself
believed they were not by and large, something he deluded himself that he had shown.
But popular beliefs have changed rapidly, taking MCCloskey's assumptions under along
with old beliefs.
In any case, MCCloskey's argument to unpopularity lacks cogency. It is that
ecological measures 'may necessitate less convenient, changed lifestyles, many controls
and restrictions, increased costs, additional taxes, basic interference with what now are
seen as being matters of basic rights .... democratic legislators [cannot] hope to bring
about the reforms ... and still retain office' (p.157). Whence, again ecological reformers
may look to totalitarian political solutions. So far as I am aware, there have been no such
proposals by ecological groups in Australasia. In small measure too, Mccloskey begins
to meet his own argument. For measures of the type Mccloskey rightly finds distasteful,
have already been run through in contemporary representative democracies; consider
security and surveillance, foreign control and surveillance, nuclear power and
surveillance, urban restructuring and surveillance opportunities, and so on. Secondly,
there are important trade-offs; if these often minor inconveniences are not experienced
now, much more drastic and dislocating changes will probably have to be undertaken
subsequently. Thirdly, of course, if they are not undertaken now much of immense
value will be lost. More direct democracies than we have today, where peoplegovernance and control of established elites is tenuous, would stand a better chance of
limiting these losses; properly pluralistic systems would presumably manage better still.
But Mccloskey does not address such issues as ecologically improved democracies.
Instead he assumes, quite wrongly, that solutions to ecological difficulties will require
strong and authoritarian central governments (perhaps both of states and of the world),
but that such institutions run directly counter to liberal concerns: 'the enjoyments of
many rights and liberties and opportunities to rectify grave injustices' (p.25). So he
tears off to address the difficulties of ecological totalitarianism (pp.158-9), well-known
difficulties (as Goodin observed) confronting Antipodean non-starters among political
alternatives.
�18
Without examining other alternatives than certain totalitarian ones, Mccloskey
manages to conclude (to his own satisfaction) that 'the only realistic, feasible avenue to
ecological political reform is through the political institutions of an open society that
respects human rights', what he appears to think is offered by contemporary 'liberal
democratic states' (p.159). Naturally deep environmentalists seek open societies that
respect rights, including decently discerned human rights. The big trouble is that on
these matters, as with environmental matters, contemporary liberal democratic states have
performed decidedly sublimenally, i.e. well below adequacy threshold. 6 It is not
unreasonable to contemplate alternative political arrangements that perform more
satisfactorily. But it is perhaps unrealistic to expect such improved organisational
structure to be got into place at all easily or at all. For liberal democratic states retain
regional monopolies on violence and other critical control, which, for all the palavering
about respecting rights, they do not hesitate to deploy when their power and security are
threatened.
Nor is Mccloskey, by contrast with libertarians, at all averse to regulations and
restrictions and limitations on liberty - except when these put environmental things ahead
of humans. For humans, if not animals, things material are supposed to be pretty good
in MCCloskey's liberal democratic mixed capitalistic setting. Environmental constraints
are not to impose upon or reduce human living 'standards or levels of enjoyment'
(p.134) - unless that enjoyment should be profligate, for instance involving conspicuous
consumption and waste. Certainly such constraints are not to interfere with morally
acceptable human freedoms: such is one side of the proferred dilute liberalism. But
unnecessary waste is another thing, and should be curbed, through state guidance and
regulation; liberalism here parts company with libertarianism. 'The switch from a
resource-profligate society to a resource-liberal one would involve an acceptance of much
more state action, more state interference by way of incentives, disincentives,
regulations, restrictive laws, and over all planning than now prevails. However, it
would not require the loss of basic freedom ... ' (p.134)! Such double-talk certainly
makes the heavy liberal case MCCloskey tries to mount against decent environmental
concerns - as against decent human concerns - look thin and flawed. Because such
regulation does make serious inroads upon capitalistic freedoms, much hangs on the term
'basic', which is not however explained in this context. If, being freedom-loving
Europeans, we burn down an empty freeway at speeds in excess of wasteful
consumption limitations and we are accordingly locked away for months, then the effect
6
Sublimenal is a satisizing analogue of the maximization ideology's suboptimal.
�19
on our basic freedom to life at large is serious. The paternalistic states MCCioskey
offers, in significant respects more paternal than those we already have in the West, do
not sit so easily with liberalism; patently they are incompatible with libertarianism, which
does not brook such restrictive regulation. The critical point is however this: what is
permissible in rectifying a resource-profligate society is similarly permissible in
reorganising an environmentally-profligate society. Again there need be no loss of basic
freedom, where basic is now characterised in terms of whats ethically acceptable. Only the ethics is now a deep environmental ethics.
5. Structuring ecological ethics and politics: towards an improved
classification of environmental problems.
Environmental ethics and politics are regularly said to be engendered by
environmental problems, increasingly severe and encroaching problems.
Yet in
MCCloskey's text, as in that of his main model, Passmore's establishment text, there is
no well-organised classification of environmental problems, only a rather ramshackle
list.
We can however reach towards an improved classification by considering
environmental impact in a dynamic setting (cf. the beginning of section 1). An impact of
something is something which comes from somewhere, sources, into something, sinks,
parts of environments. In a process diagram, it looks like this:
impacts
processes
sources
sinks
types of environments
participants
distinguished
agents of
impacts
recipients of
impacts
Expanding upon the elements of this process diagram will deliver the sought after
improved classification. Firstly, given distinguished background experience, especially
with environmental impact equations, a further two-way classification is suggested: in
terms of
• sorts of impacts, and
• types of environments.
The latter framework is wide enough (in obvious respects too wide for a tight
classification) to include both special concentrated sources such as mines, power
stations, factories, and the like, and special sinks such as rubbish dumps, sewerage
outflows, and the like. But the framework is not quite wide enough; it is important to
factor into types of environments, expected inhabitants of those environments, which are
the recipients of impacts (impactees). These will include not only present inhabitants of
�20
environments: animals, plants, native humans, for land-surface environments, but also
expected future inhabitants, whose likelihood or very existence may be impaired. There
are two ways of incorporating these sorts of elements in the general scheme: either
expanding environmental components, by having zones and habitats with kinds of
expected inhabitants; or distinguishing participants in the impacts, givers and receivers.
Here the latter course is preferred; we distinguish also then
• kinds of recipients, and as well of course
• kinds of impactors.
While the kinds of impactors is diverse, including such superagents and nonagents as
Nature, Chance, God (as in "acts of God"), and so forth, as well as animals, the main
impactors of interest are, presently, humans.
Accordingly let us run out the standard environmental impact equation for humans
in a region, though it applies to any class of impactors through any kind of impact:
EI.
Environmental
impact
(of ...
through ... )
=
Population
size
(of ... )
X
Resource
use
per member
(of ... )
x
Impact
(through ... )
per unit of
resource use
e.g. of humans in USA through atmospheric pollution.
Such an impact breakdown leads directly to three major categories of environmental
problems, namely
a Population
a Consumption and use
a Technology and waste.
Those components act in concert, and, despite well-publicized attempts to load problems
onto just one component, evidently all are sometimes important.
A more sophisticated environmental impact equation would reduce the aggregation
of the equation, EI = P x C x T (in brief, and functional, form), by introducing
distributional features, which indicated where and when impact really mattered.
Suppose, for example, there are n sufficiently independent regions, as in the following
regionalized impact equation:
n
EI
=
Pi X Ci X Ti
i=l
Suppose, for instance, we are investigating the environmental impact of present humans
l
through industrialization, i.e. EI (present humans through industrialization). Then, on
an obvious regional breakdown, the impact is overwhelmingly dominated by three
regions: North America, Europe, and North Asia (primarily Japan). If it were not that
the rest of the world were locked into this system (and its humans encouraged to applaud
�21
and emulate it), supplying much of the raw materials, taking too much of the expensive
products and waste, and suffering the pollution effects that spill outside the offending
regions, main problems of industrialisation could be isolated in the high latitude N orthem
hemisphere.
The regionalized environmental impact equation will also serve to better organise
widespread assumptions as to how those impacts that are taken seriously can be eroded.
Not only is there the illusory prospect of reducing impact to "acceptable levels" by
variation of just one parameter - Ci is that invariably favoured by socially-oriented
shallower environmentalists; Ti, in the shape of wizard technology, by economists and
technocrats (but such technology is likely to have its own impact and thereby to add to
environmental problems). There is also the possibility of moving further afield to new
regions, where impacts are lower. There are familiar frontier practices ( and a
corresponding frontier ethics), which can be seen as reapplied to elements such as
industrialisation and its components, pollution and waste. Of course such frontier
practices are impoverishing, and too often destructive of further environments and many
of their inhabitants; but in any case they are now seriously limited by biospheric
limitations of the whole Earth.
Many significant types of environment obtain little or no consideration in
MCCloskey's survey; e.g. deserts (too many the product of past human activity), urban
regions, polar regions, atmospheric zones, and so on. To stay within reasonable
bounds, however, not even all the areas of concern that Mccloskey does look at will be
examined in what follows. For to try to track Mccloskey in all the areas he does delve
into would require an extensive treatise, as he raises many fundamental issues in political
theory: to mention two remarkable examples, a brief discussion of 'the right to private
property' is tucked away under 'Family Rights and Rights to Reproduce', and of the
'right for education' under 'The Right to Respect as a Person' (p.75ff.) Instead a more
detailed treatment of a few of the areas he addresses will be offered (in fact some of the
other areas have been investigated elsewhere, in Green Series discussions, or will be).
6. Population impact: the fact of human overpopulation.
A major and very conspicuous impact of humans upon the Earth comes through
their sheer numbers, which, though already huge, are still growing rapidly, and are
overwhelming environmental and social bases for reasonable support in many parts of
the globe. MCCloskey's first thesis, which sets the agenda for his entire population
discussion, is this (pp 146-7,p.97): that there is no world population crisis, indeed
further,
NP. The world is not threatened by a population crisis in the foreseeable future.
�22
But instead of coming out directly and cleanly with this preposterous thesis, MCCioskey
approaches the business in a typical oblique way, designed to shift the onus of proof,
claiming that he has 'argued that a tenable, plausible case had not been made out for
believing that the world is threatened by a population crisis in the foreseeable future'
(p.146). It is fair to wonder about his experiential basis, whether, for instance, he has
travelled through India or visited the vast urban slums of many third-world countries. It
is fair to wonder what would make a "tenable plausible case" - proper theoretical
business for philosophers, which philosophers have generally steadfastly avoided - or,
of immediate relevance, what would constitute a "population crisis", and what counts as
"overpopulation".
On the last at least we do have a proposal from MCCioskey, 'to use overpopulation
to refer to population sizes that exceed a country's or the world's capacity to feed
adequately and to make it possible for all to enjoy their basic rights' (p.97). While the
proposal is no doubt very convenient for the argumentative route MCCioskey will try to
take, a route it already signposts, it is a decidedly chauvinistic and exceedingly shallow
suggestion, which is ecologically entirely unacceptable. First, it takes no due account of
future humans, or other creatures. But present capacity is achieved, so far as it is, too
often through running down present biological and other systems, thereby jeopardising
future capacity; decent sustainability is required even by shallow ecological positions.
Secondly, the proposal is indecently chauvinistic; it takes account of naught but humans,
their basic rights and their feeding. It thus violates the framework MCCioskey elsewhere
professes to have adopted. For instance, high populations, which are not MCCioskey
overpopulations, may lead, and are leading, to promotion of evil and to gross reductions
in intrinsic value, including types of value MCCioskey earlier (somewhat reluctantly)
acknowledged. But like all the political applications of the potentially generous ethical
basis, that on population takes an ugly anti-ecological tum. It is all humans and humans,
humans first, last and only, though humans at brute food subsistence levels or less as it
turns out, and is turning out in many regions.
Now really the proposal should be relativised, to 'overpopulation of a region', as
the awkward disjunction, between country or world, makes evident. Many regions and
countries are already seriously overpopulated (even by MCCloskey's slack standards), as
he goes on to say. However, so he immediately asserts, 'the world as a whole is not
overpopulated' (p.97). Whatever the case for this claim - a defective and disreputable
case as will soon appear - plainly some large assumptions go into the proposition that a
whole or summation can enjoy certain distribution properties when many of its parts do
not: assumptions about the role of international trade, regionalism and self-sustainability
on the one side and about summative features on the other. If clothes, for example, are
�23
dirty or shabby in many parts, so are they as a whole. Suppose some parts are
overpopulated because of constant infringements of basic human rights, infringements
presumably traceable back to excess population sizes (though the connection is not made
clear enough). Then the whole can hardly but be overpopulated, as it stands, whatever
the future prospects for redistribution, reorganisation, and so forth.
To evade such problems and to scramble to his conclusion Mccloskey firstly
weakens 'basic rights' to 'basic needs' (but rights normally demand more than need
satisfaction), and then drops 'basic needs' out altogether. Thus what he finally gets
down to is the bare food issue, all else set aside: of whether 'if the food actually
produced were distributed and used to the best advantage of all persons in the world'
every human could be fed. But, so he claims, 'it is widely accepted' that all can be
amply fed (pp 97-8). It is evident that, even if what is so "widely accepted" were true,
the outcome would be insufficient to show no Mccloskey overpopulation. Suppose the
world has the capacity (and will) to redistribute food to the most advantage. Still, basic
food is no assurance of basic rights. Further argument, not supplied, is essential;
argument to showing that regional overpopulation, stayed however by bread (but not
circuses), does not lead to basic rights infringement, through such media as
unemployment, poverty, inequity and so on. Furthermore it is very doubtful that this
can be established, for the simple reason that there are connections between these human
conditions (however difficult they may be to push into quantifiable or law-like form).
Humans do not survive or depend upon food alone. To keep many of them even
partly contented, so inflated have their wants and needs become under ideological
pressures, will require a very large and very environmentally destructive pie. Humans
are now an extraordinarily greedy and destructive species. Though one animal species
among thousands, and one biological species among tens of millions, they have taken
over most of the Earth and most of its products, so far as they can, for their own uses
and purposes. More than 80% of the fruits of photosynthesis, for example, now flow to
this one species. Yet perhaps 10% of the world's human population are malnourished,
and many millions at least lack other subsistence needs.
Even the bare food claim, upon which MCCloskey's whole case depends at
bottom, is no longer so widely accepted, since the shock of the North American and
other droughts; it was being questioned as MCCloskey wrote. Now however we have
available the Brown University study of world food supply in relation to human
�24
population. 7 The study is based on the 1986 harvest, which was a world record. The
findings were that, with this supply, assuming perfect and equal redistribution, 6 billion
humans would be fed a vegetarian diet. Thus by the end of the century, present record
supplies will not be able to sustain the world's human population even at vegetarian
levels. If the somewhat better South American style diet, with 15% meat, is considered,
then only 4 billion humans can be fed; that is, less than the present world population.
While if a rather better Australian style diet is contemplated, the number that can be fed
declines to 2.5 billion, that is half the present world population. So much for ample
feeding.
It might reasonably be anticipated that the rest of the argument to NP, no
foreseeable population crisis, is hopeless. And it is. All we are offered are, firstly,
some reasons, of very variable quality, 'to suspect the most confident, brash predictions'
(p.99) - suspicions which seem to include NP within their scope, along with
MCCloskey's next speculative thesis. Secondly we are offered the speculative thesis that
world food production will grow at least sufficiently to match world population growth.
It is a thesis floated largely on technological optimism, a thesis that should be regarded
with heavy suspicion given recent serious declines in biological capital: fisheries, soils,
forests, and so on, and given apparently increasing climatic instability.
To give him his small due, MCCioskey does assert, repeatedly, that there is little
ground 'for complacency and inaction in respect of the world's population growth' (e.g.
p.99 ); and as well as firing moral shots at 'alarmist predictions ... based on the flimsiest
premisses' countering NP (for no problem), he makes heavy moral noises about morally
assessing the situation. In any case, he needs to say something like this in order to pull
off convincingly his big discussion of the ins and outs of, ethics and politics of, human
sexuality and population control.
7. On limiting human populations: some neglected considerations.
Hitherto received opinion, in modem Wes tern civilization, has taken the line that
culling animal species is perfectly alright, but that culling humans is not, because
humans have an unalienable right to life (a right regularly neglected however in times of
war, in regressive criminal justice systems, and now questioned as regards poachers of
significant animals). Received opinion, which MCCioskey tries to shore up, is now
being challenged. Alternative methods of controlling populations of wild animals, to
7
The study is regularly cited by Ehrlich in his talks, lectures and works: see reference.
�25
previous technologically primitive ones, are being seriously considered. Another gulf
between humans and other sizeable intelligent animals is beginning to close.
Unlike some dangerous Christian thinkers, Mccloskey does not cede to humans an
unlimited right to procreation. As he says, 'there is no recognised moral, social or legal
right for consenting parties to reproduce at will', but 'few philosophers today would
seek philosophically to justify prevailing recognised ... restrictions on procreation'
(p.150). Mccloskey wishes to impose a restriction as regards adequate provision for
offspring; there is no right to reproduction where a requirement of reasonable prospects
of adequate provision is not met. This bears heavily, as he realises, and perhaps also
inequitably, on impoverished parents in poor communities; the issue is not really
resolved (see p.101). But otherwise, in richer countries, the duties of those who would
undertake human parenthood are presented as slight. Individuals, acting on their own,
have otherwise no duties to restrict the size of their families (for the unMCCloskeyian
consequentialist reason that it will have limited practical significance and achieve little).
Where overpopulation is an issue, political, not individual, action is what is required.
Where overpopulation threatens, individuals 'adequately fulfil their duty if they have
only that number of children for which they can adequately care and [very differently,
and with major political implications] if they foster and support world action to stabilize
the world population and [confirming a right previously hedged] to ensure that all
persons enjoy the right, equally with themselves, to have offspring if they so choose'
(p.104 ). Otherwise the issue is dumped in the (too hard) political basket, for states and
world organisations to try to handle. All this is decidedly unsatisfactory.
Most important, there is no right to production of children without limit, even
given that they can be "provided for". One reason is that new children produce impacts,
and children in quantity seriously interfere with others; so result in significant violations
of liberal principles regarding noninterference with others. In rough analogical terms, as
the Macs' new building interferes with their neighbours' views, so their new children
interfere with the neighbours' freedom and lifestyles and environments, beginning with
local noise and crowding and continuing, much further, through taxes for family
allowances, for schools and so on, through crowded and polluted parks and beaches and
so on. Those assuming (conditional) rights, to reproduce for instance, tend to forget that
rights require justifications (they cannot just be pulled out of thin air). But here any
straightforward justificatory pattern is upset, because of a very familiar neglect of
relations: namely, impacts of new people on environments, and interference of new
people with in-place people. A change in attitudes and practices is accordingly
warranted. Parties producing larger numbers of children should be regarded as socially
and ecologically irresponsible; they should no longer gain special financial support, but
�26
perhaps should, on the contrary, be duly penalized. These themes run counter to the
main thrust of MCCloskey's discourse on population control, an extensive discussion
premised on what he takes to be the improbable hypothesis that a world population crisis
eventuates (pp.147-155). It ought to be enough to pull the plug on that discussion,
sending intellectual babies with soiled bath water.
That voluntary methods of limiting human births 'will not succeed' is MCCloskey's
prime thesis (p.147). The support offered for it is characteristic and characteristically
inadequate. First the thesis is weakened, and then some restricted and contestable
empirical evidence is advanced as suggestive. 'That voluntary methods of checking birth
rates are unlikely to be adequate is suggested by the relatively limited success of family
planning projects even where [well] backed ... ' (p.147). On the contrary, voluntary
methods of checking birth rates, mostly independent of family planning projects, have
been substantially successful in many better educated, less impoverished communities.
Some of these might even count as spectacularly successful, and more would be if they
achieved some real, and sensitive, state support. But there are many powerful interests,
especially those emanating from organised religions, operating against delivery of
support designed for success.
There is a conspicuous difference, again connected with ancient prejudices,
between the attitude shown to human populations and the approach MCCloskeyians take
to animal populations. Humans have the right, but socially constrained, to continue on
their expansive and environmentally degrading course; animals have no such right,
because, among other things, they have no rights.
8. On animal rights and supposed political implications thereof.
The argument to the conservative result, that animals cannot enjoy (moral) rights,
attempts to trade off an argument on which great emphasis is put, that 'there is a vast gap
between rights and interests' (p.66). But that attempt depends on a confusion between
what rights are - certainly not interests - and what can hold rights significantly - perhaps
only items with interests. With that confusion out of the way, MCCioskey still has two
main arguments to his shrill conclusion, that 'animals do not, cannot possess moral
rights' (p.66 and several other places): a tight redefinition argument, and an
environmental chaos otherwise argument.
The tight redefinition argument proceeds, by appealing to special features of rights,
to tighten up the notion of right so that unwanted (if commonly recognised) classes of
right-holders are excluded. Such an argument, widely deployed against animal
liberation, takes two main forms: less plausibly, that rights require interests, which
�27
animals are alleged to lack, and, more plausibly, that rights have to be suitably
exercisable and claimable, feats beyond animals abilities and capacities to perform.
Though formerly among the ageing afficiandos of the less plausible Cartesian nointerests approach, MCCioskey now pursues the more plausible form. He appeals first to
typical features of rights (though really some combination of these must form an
invariant cluster for a decisive argument), such as their being 'foregone, insisted upon,
exercised in or contrary to one's interests. For possession of a moral right to be
meaningful, the possessor or his/her representative must be able to claim it, exercise it,
or the like' (p.66, italics added). Unfortunately for his argument, MCCioskey proceeds,
at crucial points, to leave out the representative alternative. Thus while an animal may
not be able to claim its rights, a representative can; whereupon talk of claiming a right is
not empty (pace p.66). Thus the argument so far is broken-backed.
Having recanted on his earlier contention that animals cannot have interests (see
p.65), MCCioskey is no longer in a position to preclude the attribution of rights on that
ground, that interests are a necessary condition. 8 'We can plausibly claim to have some
idea of what is in the interests of an animal. We can have no knowledge concerning how
it would exercise its moral rights, if it had any' (p.66). Surely we can. A wombat can
exercise its right to proceed along a way in the same way that a human can, namely by
proceeding along it, setting aside obstructions, and so on. But MCCioskey proceeds, in
a way characteristic of high redefinition strategies, to heighten the requirements. He
appeals to features of what he takes to be 'paradigm cases of the possessors of rights,
persons, rational, morally autonomous beings' which he couples with the characteristic
exercise of rights (p.66). There are, however, other paradigm examples of right
holders, such as small children, senile humans, imbeciles, etc. Despite the suggestions,
rationality and a high level of autonomy are not required for the possession or exercise of
rights. MCCioskey asserts that 'it is capacity for moral autonomy, for moral selfdirection and self-determination, that is basic to the possibility of possessing a right'
(p.66). That is a high redefinition, substantially exceeding the requirements normally
expected, especially where guardians or representatives are appointed or envisaged.
MCCioskey-rights are a quite proper subclass of rights as ordinarily conceived. Even so
it may well be that animals can hold them; it all depends upon how much gets pumped
into the elusive term 'moral'. Wombats, for example, are not human, do not read and
write, are not much given to calculus, do not enter into contracts, and so on; nor do
8
Elliot is quite mistaken in saying that McCloskey's views have not changed since
those espoused in 1979 (p.503). Admitting animal interests represents a major
change. That animals do, of course, have interests is argued in detail in my 81.
�28
many primitive peoples, though humans, engage in any of these activities (though some
of them perhaps could with education). But wombats are, by and large, decidedly
autonomous, self-determining and self-directed; they exhibit much more independence
than most modern humans. Similarly with whales. Despite such familiar findings,
MCCioskey takes the following proposition as decisive: 'Consider how we should
respond if it were to be determined that a whale or dolphin possessed moral autonomy'
(p.66). He does not address the issues raised in this queer pronouncement, but
immediately leaps to his sought conclusion against animal rights. Given that moral
autonomy is not to the point, except for MCCioskey-rights, the proposition is irrelevant
to and not supportive of the conclusion. Without the elusive term 'moral', the
proposition is, furthermore, decidedly not a discussion stopper. Most dolphins exhibit a
high degree of autonomy, the exceptions being primarily those (improperly) held in
captivity, injured in fishing activities, sickened by pollution, and so on. The trouble
with the infiltration of morality is that it normally (if wrongly) suggests human activities
and human communities - whence what small force MCCloskey's proposition enjoys, as
whales as agents fall outside that setting.
The argument to environmental chaos, to entirely untoward environmental
implications, if rights were ceded to animals, comprises several facets. They are facets
that have been seen before, with every legitimate struggle for extensions of rights, such
as, most memorably, allocation of rights to enslaved humans. That latter certainly
brought some desirable dislocation to social arrangements; so will legitimating animal
rights. But it need bring nothing like the complication and aggravations of social and
environmental problems that MCCioskey fearfully envisages (p.69, p.122).
A first facet concerns conflict of rights. There are of course conflicts of rights
between humans and groups of humans, but MCCioskey fears the situation with animals
would not merely be more complicated (as it would with much greater numbers) but that
'the difficulty and complexity of this rights calculus' would make it unworkable (p.67).
But again he fails to show anything like this. Indeed he immediately weakens his
position of apparent strength by looking to an 'easier calculus' where 'man simply
protects animals from human violations of animal rights' (p.67). That would be a fine
start, though politically virtually all nations and peoples would have to advance a long
way to achieve it (Sweden less than most others).
While the "easier calculus" does not mean that animals have lesser rights than
humans, as MCCioskey implies, what is suggested is important in escaping from
difficulties MCCioskey tries to amass. For not all right-holders are on a par, much as not
all types of creatures are equal in abilities or capacities. In particular, to get to critical and
divisive issues straightaway: it does not follow then from the fact that animals have
�29
rights that some of them, domestic ones, cannot be kept, or used - any more than it
follows from the fact that humans have rights that some cannot be kept, or employed, for
instance as servants. Nor does it follow that dead animals (or humans) cannot be eaten.
Nor, most controversially, is it incompatible with animals having rights, that some are
killed. For not all rights stand or fall together; a right for continued existence is very
different from a right to a decent life or treatment while alive. Furthermore,
MCCloskey's invalid arguments to ecological chaos succeed in turning animal liberation
into animal libertinism. They do this by familiar slide strategies from some to more to
all, from some rights, to many other rights, to the same rights as fully-competent
persons. The strategy is coupled with that of assigning to humans more rights than they
have, or should hold. Examples include the right to be absolutely where they like or to
breed at will. But one human does not have the right to be in any other human's house
or bed or space.9 No more do animals, like feral animals or 'disease-carrying pests such
as rats and mice'. So, for example, the major conflict MCCioskey alleges with human
rights to health dissolves; it depends upon granting excessive rights to rats and mice.
With a sensible calculus of rights humans need not be overwhelmed by either animals or
other humans; given due constraints on human populations (more than any other animal
populations), interference by others could be stabilized at a low level.
A further large facet of MCCloskey's argument to chaos doggedly pursues practical
and ecological costs of vegetarianism, costs which he considerably exaggerates. But
whether he is right about these costs, or not, is a separate issue - irrelevant to the main
issue of animal rights. For admitting or stressing animal rights most emphatically does
not 'dictate acceptance of vegetarianism as a moral position or practice' (p.68). There is
no valid route from rights for animals to vegetarianism, for reasons that have already
been very briefly indicated above. 10 MCCioskey has linked the question of animal rights
much too closely with positions like that of Singer (an evident target on pp.68-9 of the
text). But many more ordinary people and even some philosophers, 11 both before and
after Singer, have assigned rights to animals, without commitment thereby to
vegetarianism, and without evident (or any) fallacy. As a result or this flawed linkage,
9
While writing this I heard a local airforce contingent claiming its right-to the freedom
of Canberra. Plainly it only has a right-to the freedom of only certain cities, and to
quite limited things within those cities.
10
A much more detailed case, along with counter-models, can be extracted from my
previous work, esp. the Green Series, number 13, i.e.TE (essay 3), and number 2.
11
A neglected early philosopher is Maclver; see esp. his remarks on p.69.
�30
MCCioskey makes another interesting mistake: namely 'that the two movements, animal
rights on the one hand (the view that some animals possess moral rights) and
conservation and preservation on the other', so far from being 'complementary, mutually
supportive positions', 'in fact are fundamentally opposed and are such as to be calculated
to lead to many major clashes' (p.69, rearranged). While there are major clashes, for
example, between moral extensionisms, such as the expanded utilitarianisms of
Bentham, Sidgwick and Singer on the one side, and deep environmentalism on the
other, there are no clashes of an animal rights position with deep environmentalism .
For, very simply, such deep positions accord animals rights.
As elsewhere, so with animal rights, errors in the ethical treatment intrude into the
supposed political implications. Unremarkably then MCCioskey sees 'the ecological
state' as committed to ecological chaos, all of which 'would very seriously curtail human
liberty in many ways' and 'create massive theoretical and practical political problems'
(p.122). No doubt decent treatment for animals, codified in rights, would restrict human
liberty somewhat, as abolition of public spectacles such as hangings, floggings or
throwing Christians to hungry lions, curtailed spectator opportunities and freedoms. But
the desirable elimination of factory-farmed fast foods and animal-tested cosmetics, or the
curtailment of circuses and reformation of zoos, are hardly very serious restrictions on
human liberty, or what MCCioskey is thinking of really. He is again thinking of his
house full of rats and his garden full of copulating animals, of vegetarianism and
protection of rabbits made legally obligatory, and so on (for many such fantasies see
p.122). But no such consequences, ensue, without repetition of the errors already
exposed in the ethical treatment: inferences from some rights to excessive rights, and so
on.
Because side-tracked by his own production, by this pantomime of absolutely
unconstrained, rampaging, warring and rapidly-multiplyin g animals (i.e. like some
humans when ideological controls are lifted, not like most animals), MCCioskey does not
address at all the very serious abuses in prevailing present treatment of animals, abuses
on farms and in laboratories, at home and in the wild, abuses that should be politically
addressed from ethical bases, issues well addressed through rights.
An
institutionalisation of animal rights would not produce the big problems MCCioskey
envisages; after all most people are now represented by professionals in many of their
dealings concerning legal rights, a professional paternalism increasingly operates, which
�31
subsumes many professionals themselves. On the contrary, such institutionalisation of
animal rights, properly done could make for very desirable changes. 12
9. Two other critical features of dominant political ways: the shibboleths
of extensive private property and high technology.
The orthodox assumption, which McCloskey makes, is that a liberal democratic
state will have a mixed (or marginally socially constrained) market capitalist economy.
Under the simplistic equations that tend to distort much modem political discussion, even
the inadequate qualifications occasionally inserted are forgotten: a liberal democratic state
is often equated with institution of market capitalism, indeed too often market
arrangements get equated with capitalism. Evidently, however, these equations fall apart
under but slight disturbance. Logically they come apart entirely.
There are severe logical problems with the very idea of a liberal democracy, which
is a dialectical union of individual liberal with social welfare and democratic ideals. For a
democratic state, especially should it take popular majoritarian form, can seriously curtail
the freedom of minorities (the well-known "tyranny of the majority"). Liberal ends may
be better served by a benign dictatorship than by democratic arrangements. Liberality
and democracy part company. Similarly individual liberty and statist social welfare.
And so on. Certainly liberality, which is the most free ranging of the five big political
league players being disentangled, 13 does imply some significant limitations on
arrangements, but they may not favour democracy, or capitalism. Fully liberal
arrangements should enable a community to opt for democratic organisation, should it
wish; but similarly these arrangements should allow the community to choose otherwise,
should it want. Also liberal arrangements of a social cast (with decent freedom of the
servants) would mean winding back of capitalism. Despite the immense damage illregulated capitalism and market structures can, and do, separately inflict upon ecological
and social systems, there is practically no discussion of such matters in MCCloskey, and
again little investigation of improved structures or regulation. 14
12
For one thing, it challenges factory farming, as infringing animal rights, in an
obvious way. McCloskey avoids the issue when it arises (p.140).
13
In fact four of the five substantially independent players we are reflecting upon market, social welfare, capitalistic, democratic, and liberal arrangements - do not
receive an index listing in Mccloskey, while the fifth, liberal, collects many citations
and much discussion.
14
A major contemporary myth is that markets and capitalism can flourish without
regulation, indeed that they flourish best in a fully deregulated setting. Both
�32
As with liberal democracy, so with market capitalism, the components separate.
Markets can flourish without capitalism, where for instance agents have sharply limited
and bounded budgets and capitalistic accumulation cannot operate. Markets require no
liberty in other parts of social life than those involving exchange of certain material
goods; they certainly do not require a democratic framework. Capitalism can function
without a vibrant free market system; indeed in advanced capitalist states it increasingly
does so, with oligopolistic arrangements in place of competitive output markets, vertical
integration and contract delivery replacing former input markets, and so on. Capitalism
too requires neither democracy nor liberty, indeed too much of either could seriously
undermine it. It does however depend upon property, for control and as a store for
capital accumulated. In principle, of course, a very limited capitalism could work
without private ownership of land and resources, so long as some exchangeable stable
form of wealth, such as a sound currency or gold, was available for accumulation and
payment of labour. But smart capitalists would rightly feel excessively vulnerable under
such arrangements; for they could be wiped out by an outside devaluation of the currency
or outside increases in rents on resources and land. In any case, many capitalists
(virtually all people of substantial wealth in Australia), and a large array of parasitic
middle parties, agents and hangers-on, would be duly despatched along with free-for-all
property markets.
Having glimpsed MCCloskey's unquestioned commitment to mixed capitalism, it is
piquant to behold him begining upon undermining an institution fundamental to historic
capitalism, namely private property. Most of MCCloskey's brief discussion of rights to
private property (pp. 78-80) focusses upon the labour theory of property, descended
from Locke and others, upon which he effects a full demolition job. In fact he severely
weakens the case for a substantially unfettered ("free") institution of private property,
upon which however the type of liberalism he advances depends. For strong property
rights and guarantees are basic to present liberal democratic arrangements, as they are to
proposed libertarian alternatives. MCCioskey even tries to close off discussion of the
'political desirability of allowing property rights by way of patent rights to discoveries'
in plant and animal breeding, particularly through genetic engineering, on the pretext that
these 'cannot reasonably be objected to without the whole private-property system of
institutions depend for their operation and for their very survival on regulation, on an
appropriate enforceable legal setting. Otherwise, in communities where a certain
egalitarianism counted for something for instance, a capitalist would be rash to bank
upon holding onto substantial surplus wealth for long.
�33
liberal democratic states being questioned' (p.139). Now peripheral cases do not
generally threaten the centre, unless, perchance, it is already in some doubt.
The extent and character of property is a quite critical, indeed a watershed, issue
for environmental politics. For excessive propertarian rights and powers constitute a
very serious impediment to sound environmental practice. The reason is simple: the
proprietor may be less than well disposed to the environment, and may well permit or
enact unsound practices. Yet propertarians often now appeal to a purported need to
strengthen and expand the institution of private property - rather that to let it naturally
contract - in order to combat environmental problems. Thus such dubious proposals as
saleable rights to pollute environments, dump wastes, etc. - licences which look even to
the uninitiated like ways of extending, not contracting, pollution and like environmental
problems, and which look to the more cynical as ways of circumventing costs and limits
environmental constraints impose upon economic activity. 15
The liberal democratic structure to which MCCioskey commits himself to, with its
uncritical approach to population and consumption - like market capitalism, with its
commitments to expanding populations to ensure growth and profit, expanding markets,
enhanced consumption, and cheap labour resources - forces an unduly heavy
dependence on technological wizardry. In particular, it requires a technology that will
facilitate greatly increased cheap food supplies, without however too rapidly depleting
"biological capital". Given recent experience it demands a faith in technology, and the
smart science that underwrites it, that is increasingly difficult to justify. Like all too
many academics, MCCioskey has that faith. Science should be given entirely free reign,
and technology pushed to the hilt.
There is a naive optimism in MCCloskey's attitude to science. 'It is not improbable
that ultimately, through the investigations of the sciences, we will come ... to have a full
understanding of the earth's weather and climatic patterns. Man will be able to use this
15
Such saleable rights also appear to get another foot-in-the-door for bargaining
utilitarians, who claim to want no absolute prohibitions, but want to put the whole
environment up for negotiation - and ultimately for sale. What are not up for
negotiation are the underlying propertarian and utility maximization principles, the
insufficiently examined sources of many of the problems.
In any case, the evidence now coming in shows that market approaches to pollution,
such as saleable rights and pricing controls (like company fines), do not work at all
well. Making directors of polluting firms directly responsible, and putting offenders in
jail, apparently does.
�34
knowledge for his and the earth's best advantage' (p.137). We, the total managers, will
know what is "best" for the earth! Despite the 'dangers of misuse', major disasters,
global warfare, climatic destablisation, and so on, 'this fact constitutes no reason for
holding back the pursuit of knowledge ... ' (p.137). Maximum speed ahead in the
glorious pursuit of science, with full anarchistic enthusiasm there. There is, as well, 'no
reason ... for entrusting rulers with the control of science' (p.137); science at least is
utterly free in MCCloskey's liberal democracy.
While Mccloskey wants the state kept out of science (except as a money pump
presumably), he wants it actively intervening in technology, not to limit it, but 'acting to
ensure that new technologies be developed and used and their benefits widely enjoyed'
(p.138). The liberal state is to be actively and heavily involved in technology promotion
and delivery - which puts into serious question its presumed neutral regulatory function.
Also espoused is a quite insufficiently discriminating attitude to technology. Like most
apologists, Mccloskey emphasizes the possible - but generally unrealised - benefits of
technology, that technology 'can release persons from much mindless, degrading work.
Hence some, even many persons may never need to work' (p.138). For all the talk
about the possible benefits of technology, many alleged benefits seldom or never accrue,
for instance to shorten substantially people's working hours and give them more
worthwhile leisure; and benefits that do accrue are often not well used. Rather
technology is primarily funded to maintain or increase market share and profits (which
too often end up in conspicuous consumption and waste), thereby inducing cycles of
production and waste, more technology to help control the waste, and so on and up.
Technology itself is merely of instrumental worth, with many of its instruments
and techniques defective, destructive or dangerous, either directly or through eventual
side-effects. While some technology is no doubt instrumentally good, much is not. And
the balance of good over bad has been systematically exaggerated in Wes tern culture,
where more technology is now looked to or required to rectify gross economic and social
mismanagement in liberal democratic states. Technology is however no universal
panancea. Both on its record, and in terms of its theoretical prospects, the faith being put
in it, to "deliver us from evil", is misplaced But, as remarked, MCCloskey has the faith
(such episodes as the Green Revolution are seen as unmitigated successes), and
enthusiastically expects great things from technology ('genetic engineering ... constitutes
a dramatic, exciting breakthrough of major proportions, one that opens up vastly wider
possibilities for developing new plant and animal organisms', p.139). Naturally he
concentrates on the sunny side of technology, scarcely touching upon the darker aspects.
We merely glimpse one darker side of genetic engineering (for which perhaps no further
engineering is needed), the edifying spectacle of mass-production of human drones for
�35
industrial slavery (p. 139). As to the big problems with this engineering, we are fobbed
off with an evasive throw-away, of the kind more typical of politicians, as to 'the need
for relevant controls and checks', and no doubt balances, presumably determined by
state masters behind closed doors. Instead Mccloskey tries to divert attention by yet
another attack on the hypothetical totalitarian ecological state, and the threat of its
coercive methods, not those of your normal corrupt intimidatory democratic state, to
human liberties. But the smokescreen quickly subsides, our factional text degenerates
into notes: 'Relevant point here include ... ' (p.139).
Mccloskey would have us locked into state systems that are delivering increasingly
negative results for increasing numbers of humans and disastrous outputs for nonhumans and natural environments. By changing political directions significantly,
environmental and human affairs could again have an opportunity to flourish. But for
much of the environment at least, there is not a lot of time left.
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�36
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R. Sylvan and D. Bennett, 'Tao and deep ecology', The Ecologist 18(4/5) (1988) 148159.
R. Sylvan, Three essayes upon deeper environmental ethics, Discussion Papers in
Environmental Philosophy, (Green Series) #13, Australian National University
1987; referred to as TE.
R. Sylvan, 'On the value core of deep-green theory', typescript, Canberra, 1988;
referred to as DG.
�DEEP ECOLOGY AND DEEP-GREEN THEORY.
Deep-green theory is a deep pluralistic environmental position, underwritten by a deep
metaphysical theory. It is intended as an alternative, less fraught with problems, to deep ecology.
Deep-green theory has developed, in significant part, through fruitful interreaction with deep
ecology. Many of its leading ideas can thus be more rapidly introduced by contructing and
comparing them with ideas of deep ecology which are already widely diffused (if often in a
muddy or muddled way). As a spin-off then, this outline will offer a simple exposition of central
ideas of deep ecology, and further criticism of many of them. In any practical showdown,
however, deep ecology and deep-green theory are not antagenistic positions but close allies, both
deep positions within a wider environmental alliance.
Though the rudiments of deep-green theory go back about as far as deep ecology (to around
1973), it remained unnamed until the early 80's (and only achieved initial investigation in Bennett
86). Moreover, it has not hitherto attained in any fuller platform and slogan formulation, such as
deep ecology has benefitted (and suffered) from almost since its inception.
The term 'deep ecology' was coined by the Norwegian intellectual, Ame Naess, to label an
emerging environmental movement. But, despite Naess's commitment to pluralism, it was from
the outset constrained to a certain style of environmental position. The notion has since been
elaborated and further delimited not only by Naess but, in the first place, by several Northamericans, particularly Bill Devall and George Sessions, who have on occasion collaborated with
Naess (their main work on deep ecology is cited in the reference list at the end). The notion has
caught on outside narrow academic circles, especially in North America and Australia, where, in
contrast to Wes tern Europe, significant areas of natural environment remain and are becoming of
increasing public concern.
Deep ecology is a radical environmenta l position, which goes far beyond resource
conservation positions (which are typically concerned with the management and stewardship of
resources in long-term human interests); and it offers a much deeper challenge to prevailing
attitudes and practices (of the dominent social paradigm), especially those which concern more or
less natural environments. (Leading features of Resource Conservation are explained in several
sources; e.g. Rodman.)
�2
Deep ecology takes off from value theory themes which stand in diametrical opposition to
mainstream Western ethical and social theory.1 The first of these themes, the wide values theme,
is that what is valuable in or for itself is not confined to human beings or their features (such as
their interests, concerns, pleasures, consciousness, etc.), but extends much more widely to other
beings. The value of these other systems or creatures of their features is not merely instrumental,
aluable as a means to human objectives, but is independent of human concerns; it is in brief
nonanthropic.
Indeed deep ecology goes further, rejecting the greater value assumption, according to
which anthropic values always take precedence over such natural values. How then is value
distributed, in particular across the things of the world? It is here that deep ecology and deepgreen theory part company. Deep ecology takes value to be restricted to things that are alive (in
some attentuated sense, so it turns out); this is the theme of biocentrism, life-centredness. And it
assumes that these things with life are all of equal value; this is the controversial theme of
biospheric egalitarianism. A unique assignment of value results. Deep-green theory rejects both
these themes. For reason to be given, Deep-green theory is much less specific as to how value is
distributed. But it is spread on to things - wholes, collectives, systems as well as individuals which are not alive, and it does not cover all things that are living. Nor is it distributed onto those
things that have the quality in an equal fashion, except in the trivial sense that all have or partake
of value. Some things that have value are much more valuable than others; there is some weak
(and partial) ordering of things with value. It is these things that are worth conserving,
preserving, and so on, the more the more valuable they are. Thus Deep-green theory is
axiocentric, value-centered.
Value in nature is regular coupled with some mix of value-making characteristics,
including such defeasible ecological universals as richness, rarity stability, resilience, diversity,
and so forth. But there are considerable constraints on how values are derived from any such
"objective function". One over or thing constraint, that of impartiality, substitutes for that of
egalitarianism. According to the requirement of biospecies impartiality, which excludes certain
types of class chauvinism, a thing cannot be ranked as valuable or ahead or another simply in
virtue of belonging to some species (e.g. being human); such features are not in themselves
value-making characteristics.
1 There are some who account
themselves deep ecologists who would repudiate such an approach through
value theory, most notably Warrick Fox.
�3
Figure 1. A compariso n of Deep Ecology and Deep-gree n theory, in capsule
form. 2
Deep ecology
biospheric egalitarianism
Shared themes or goals I
I
I
I
I
Deep-gree n. theory
wider value theme rejection
of greater value assumption,
+through
➔
biocentrism
ecological universals as
defeasible value-making
biospecies impartiality , and
rejection of class chauvinism
axiocentrism
characteristics
extreme holism
natural systems as
integral, irreducible
cosmic identity
moderate holism
ultraperson al identificati on
maximal
satisizing on value
self-realisation
determinates
limited interference only
with natural systems;
restricted rights thereto
commitment to implement
principles applications to
economics, politics and
policy, especially in
bioregional ism
➔
environmen tal areas; e.g.
regionalism and federalism +-
ecoregionalism
human population reduction
A major difference between the theories lies in the distribution of value (from which much
else of ethical consequenc e arises: rights, obligations , and so forth). Deep ecology, like simpler
utilitarianism, proposes a unique initial distribution (over a given atomistic base class): each living
individual is assigned equal intrinsic value, and nothing else has intrinsic value. Values of other
things, complexes, systems and so on, are then in principle open to determinate s by a calculation.
It is a type of recipe to which intellectual s bent on numeration and calculation are regularly
attracted; pseudo-obj ective variations are to be found not only in utilitarianis m but in economics
and in democtrati c political theory, and also in probability theory, where elements of suitable
2 Most of the capsule theses of
deep ecology are explained in detail in the critique, CD; many of those of
Deep-green theory are explained in FE.
�4
initial esembles are assigned equal probability, through a principle of indifference. The practice is
also as problematic as indifference principles (cf. CD on deep ecological egalitarianism).
Deep-green theory rejects the assumptions upon which the deep ecological distribution
depends. It rejects the latent atomism, the idea of ultimates upon which value devolves. More
dangerously these days, it rejects the equality assumption. Much as some humans are more
valuable than others (on most moral and other counts), so some creatures, some systems, are
more valuable than others. DG theory is, quite deliberately, much less specific as to how value is
distributed. Often enough, especially in difficult cases, assessment of value is a complex matter
which may call for much reflection (for some details see TE, first essay). But certainly value is an
unevenly distributed feature of a variety of things, not just at bottom altimates. It is a quality of
many items - wholes, collectives, systems as well as individuals - which are not alive; and it does
not extend to all things that are living, e.g. malignant virases engineered in biochemical
laboratories. Nor is it distributed onto those things that have the quality in an equal fashion,
except in the trivial sense that all have or partake of value. Some things that have value are much
more valuable than others; there is some weak (and partial) ordering of things with value. It is
these things that are worth conserving, preserving, and so on, the more the more valuable they
are. Thus the theory is at least weakly axiocentric, value-centered. In fact it is more strongly
axiocentric, in two important respects. Firstly, deontic notions such as those of obligation, rights
and duties, answer back to axiologic ones (see TE, essay 3). Secondly, more difficult to explain,
value penetrates the metaphysics, including what is accounted fact; most strikingly, the choice of
actual world itself depends upon value (see DP).
�AUTHENTIC DEEP ECOLOGY:
expositio n, critique, alternati ves
PREFAC E
No longer is there so much need to chronicle and document the major and serious environmental
problems confonting the Earth and its ecosystems. Much of the relevant information - details of the
damage, difficulties, devastation, disasters, and dire threats of more - now appears in later chapters of
biology and geography textbooks, often in striking pictorial or diagramatic form; and the information
is regularly updated by articles, too often environmental horror stories, in popular perodicals or
newspapers. While many of the problems are abundantly and glaringly evident, others are more
subtle, sometimes more insidious, hidden from view, but bound to emerge in not so long term. So
we can take the problems, and further problems, "for granted", though with little comfort or ease.
Many were, and are, foreseeable; many were, or could be, avoided or mitigated.
Serious though these problems are they are still not being taken with full or due seriousness by
those who exercise some control over how relevant things happen. 1 Most states are busy attempting
more of what has landed us in some of the worst of these problems: more growth, of economic
products, of people, of consumption2 , of energy; more or "better" militarisation; more productivity,
of agriculture, with environmental cost-cutting and short-cutting, more development and more
consumption thereby of biological capital. Growth remains at the top of most national agendas; it is
seen as a panacea for all other problems, economic and security problems of course. Serious
environmental problems are still mostly treated as economic "externalities", peripheral but growing
nuisances, that we shall have to learn to live with3, but not the "real" problems.
We have lived under this dominant destructive ideology for much too long already. It has
already led to the devastation of much of the planet Earth, to the loss of much of value, many species,
While there is a power structure, and a power elite, in all states (virtually as a corollary of features of the
state, such as its monopolies on coercion, currency, etc), it cannot be pretended that there are any impressive
control systems. So some of the problems are unintended. Given the propensity for human-developed
control systems to function in undesirable ways, e.g. to tend towards militarism and totilitarianism, the lack
of satisfactory system is no doubt to the good.
2
So, for example, the USA is pressuring Japan to consume more, internally, to ease American balance-ofpayments problems, and soak up excessive production; there is no pressure to produce less.
3
So, for example, prestigious scientific organisations are preparing to teach us how to live with and love the
Greenhouse effect. Many communities have learned to live with damaging and noxious pollution; no doubt
they would miss it if it were gone.
�2
much irreplaceable wilderness, and has left us with an immense, and sometimes hopeless, clean-up
and restoration task. Moreover things will rapidly get worse environmentally if we are not rid of it
and its variants. Plainly we need several strategies: a strategy for fundamental change, a strategy
(needed first) for what comes after the change, and so on.
Deep ecology offers a strategy and an initial structure for addressing these environmental
problems, along with proposals for addressing the menacing array of other problems confronting
modern industrial societies. It is a strategy which goes much deeper than the pathetic patch-up the
damage after it's largely done (pollute, then cleanup or pay a bit) approaches that prevail. For this
reason alone, deep ecology deserves to be much more widely known. But there is still no satisfactory
text on the topic. This book, while hardly an easy introduction to the subject4 , aims to fill a part of
the gap. Perhaps too, it can help serve as a basis for that introductory text that still needs to be
written.
This text tries to do what the title promises. It begins with a sympathetic exposition of deep
ecology. That is necessary. It remains hard to find out what deep ecology (DE) is, as it means so
many different things to different expositors and exponents. The matter of different visions and
elaborations of DE is taken up in the second part, which provides a detailed critique of DE in its main
versions. In the final part, other criticisms of DE, from its rival social ecology in particular, are
(negatively) assessed; an alternative to DE, deep-green theory is outlined; and some of the political
connections of deeper environmentalism are investigated, including strategies for appropriate
revolutionary change.
Deep ecology is the most exciting deep environmentalism on the present intellectual market; for
all its sortcomings, it is still the most thoroughly worked out widely accessible position. That is one
reason why its worth a fair bit of time, my time, in struggling with it and trying to improve it, and
your time, in getting to know it.
This text grew from a critique of DE along with an unpublished expansion of that critique
(called 'Continuin g the critique of deep ecology') and sundry associated articles on deep
environmentalism. As an expanded version of critique5 remains the centre of the text, some of what I
wrote in prefacing the critique should be repeated. I think, I hope, it merits repetition, as amended.
4
There is a need also, as will be explained in subsequent chapters, for a text that measures up to recognised
academic standards, sufficiently complex and full of (bad) argument, in order to put deep ecology firmly on
academic agenda, to try to ensure that it is not merely a crude popular movement that can be intellectually
ignored.
5
'A critique of deep ecology' Radical Philosophy.
�3
It was with considerable ambivalence and some serious misgiving that I first undertook a
critique of DE, as it risked offending many friends in the deep ecology movement. It succeeded. The
trouble was that when I got down to trying to explain what deep ecology was all about (for a seminar,
at which N aess and Devell were present, some years ago), I found myself confronted by the
following predicament :- While I applauded much about the deep ecology movement, and what it
stood for, I could not find my way to accept deep ecology as formulated by any of its main
proponents. The reason was not merely that deep ecology is less than a fully coherent body of
doctrine, with, furthermore, many problematic sub-themes, but worse, that much of it departed from
the ideals I felt it should be expressing, and that some of it was rubbish. Yet I had no doubt that deep
ecology was a worthwhile enterprise (carried on by dedicated and good people), and that something
along the lines of a replacement for deep ecology - revamped deep ecology if it is simply a matter of
repairs, deep-green theory for more - was very much on the right track. Or to put it slightly
differently, while rejecting every formulation of deep ecology, I agreed with the general drift of much
of deeper ecology, and with virtually all the careful applications of deep ecology.
My attempted resolution went along the lines of critical rationalism (for which I have been
criticised). The method was to subject deep ecology to severe criticism, with a view to obtaining
thereby an improved, more acceptable formulation, which at the same time met other desirable criteria.
However to resort to such critical methods was already to type oneself, as old consciousness and old
paradigm still, and to risk alienating part of the deep movement. The risks have been taken: but there
are some concessions. In the end, when it comes to applications, to lifestyles and policies, the
rational ladder has to be enlarged and also supplemented; for it offers only one distinctive way among
many.
Though the applications of deep ecology to real-world problems are very important, as already
indicated, we shall only reach them and not attempt to develop them very far. However a detailed
listing of various important applications that have been made will be given.6
Naess and others have complained, with some justification, that I have not gone out my way to
find generous interpretation s of deep ecology, which remove apparent rubbish from it (see Naess RS
p.3). It is true that, following the prevailing philosophical mode (by no means always to be
applauded), I have not been very charatable (here or in other philosophical critiques). I have treated
DE as a find it, hopefully in an expositionally straightforwar d and honest way. I do, however, try to
6
The final part of the background paper on population (Routley 84) provides one application in detail, an
application expanding on some remarks of Naess (in 83). And several other examples which Naess has
outlined (also in 83) can be similarly elaborated. Gare has attempted a major elaboration applying to science.
�4
offer alternatives to DE and improvements upon it when I discover them. Deep-greep theory can be
seen as a fairly comprehensive alternative.
�/
ON SOCIAL ECOLOGY
A heavy attack on DE, a tirade really, was launched recently by Bookchin. It caught
leading deep ecologists - who had rather foolistly seen Bookchim as one of them, though it
was obvious enough that he wasn't - off-guard, entirely stunning some of them 1 .
Bookchin furthermore went about his frontal attack in a most ungentlemanly and less than
American way, using practices and methods that Americans do not use as regards decent
fellow countrymen, but reserve for communism and its representatives and others engaged
in un-American activities. 2 Intellectual exchanges are supposed, otherwise, to proceed in a
nice, collegial way (the knives come out in the back rooms, not on the front pages).
Bookchin broke American cultural conventions (which is a main reason why several people,
e.g. Sale, failed to comprehend what was going on). There is heaps of straight
mudslinging in Bookchin, name-calling, attributions of guilt by very thin associations, ad
hominen moves. We shall bypass this unworthy material, much of what there is in the
attack, because anyone with decent basic training in logic can document it for themselves, if
they can obtain copies of the work (not at all easy in the peripheral world). We shall try to
isolate the much slimmer intellectual content of Bookchin's criticism.
Should we dig under all the dirt, we find there are some core criticisms of DE, which
are for the most part defective, but as well some interesting suggestions, which are worth
fossicking out and displaying. There are two key issues. In both Bookchin's criticism
repacts, but focusses upon DE, the old-fashioned erroneous socialist condemnation of
environmentalism of all types - as not only getting priorities wrong in not putting human
societies absolutely first, but worse failing to appreciate that environmental problems are the
product of social problems and removed with them.
• Ecological problems are at bottom nothing but social problems. This rival reduction
theme, which is what justfies the social ecology terminology and approach, also gets stated
in various, often weaker or slacker forms: For instance, ecological problems have their
1
The phrase 'off-guard' is from Naess. As to the extent of Bookchin's depth see the
Critique.
2
This nasty face of American intellectual activity is well exposed in Chomsky's
political writings. For the most part American philosophical periodicals permit only
the nice face to be exhibited. For my part I enjoyed some of this outrageous stuff of
Bookchin's, which was livily and refreshing after the flatness and dullness of much in
Naess's notes, and also by contrast with Bookchin's earlier papers, which are mostly
repetitive and often rather vacuous diatribes.
�2
roots in social problems, ecological problems have their ultimate roots in society and social
problems, etc. But DE, 'despite all its social rhetoric, has virtually no real sense of' this;
that is a major (disgusting) trouble with it.
The correctness and tellingness of social reduction themes vary more or less
inversely, depending in particular upon how far the operative term 'social' is stretched. If
all problems concerning "groups" (including single member groups) of "individuals" of any
sort (including volcanoes, hurricanes, seiges, etc.) are "social" problems, then evidently all
ecological problems become social problems, as these are all concerned in some way with
individuals and their relations with their surroundings. But such a misleading adjustment to
the theme, rendered near-tautologous by a low redefinition of 'social', is not what Bookchin
and other socialists have intended. They characteristically intend by 'social' 'human social',
and what they intend to convey by 'the social roots of the ecological crisis' is that it is 'the
gross inequities in [human] society' - which should be attended to first- 'that underpin the
disequilibrium between [human] society and nature'. 3
Now this strong social bias thesis is interestingly false. Consider counterexamples of
the following sort:Imagine mixed capitalistic and welfare socio-economic arrangements had worked and
succeeded in eliminating the gross inequities in society, at least in some relatively
independent regions of the world, and perhaps even globally. There were, it still seems,
real prospects that this could have happened in the 60s, had energy and funds been
redirected from military-industrial enterprise to social-industrial activity. A welfare safety
net is stretched right across the regions concerned so that no longer is any human homeless
or without sufficient nourishment or basic eductional opportunities and so on, so that
poverty and all other grosser inequities are eliminated. 4 It is sufficiently evident that even if
all this is achieved, many ecological problems will not be addressed, but may be aggravated
by the increased industrialisation and economic development involved. The lot of factory
farmed animals or of threatened wild species would not be removed, but, if touched at all,
3
Bookchin 87 p.10 where the thesis is inaccurately associated with Kropotkin.
4
Naturally, finer inequities, such as unsatisfactory job relativities, race relativities, etc.,
will not thereby be eliminated and are perhaps part of "the human condition", some of
which many societies will be prepared to live with or ignore.
The relatively easy opportunities of the 60s for societies free of grosser inequities (for
good or even great societies) may have passed, as certain new social problems have
much complicated matters.
�3
likely worsened. There is no guarantee that the position of wild and natural regions would
thereby be improved, that these regions would be freed from constant inroads by human
developmental activity, that the Antartcic would not be citified, and so on. In general, no
environmental damage and degradation that did not rebound upon the relevant human social
situation would be halted or resolved. Furthermore, not only is the strong social bias thesis
false, as well human social concerns do not always come first where ecological depth is
attained.
Bookchin suggests an historical basis for the strong social bias thesis, that the notion
of the domination of nature arose in the first place out of social domination of people by
people, women by men, and so on. But that is pseudo-history; for the domination of nature
and some appreciation of its operation, reaches as far back, so far as we can see, so far as
our records go, as other forms of domination. What is more, even if a real history were like
Bookchin's it would offer little support for strong social bias thesis. All it would reveal is
that some ecological problems were glimpsed by anology with social problems, not that
ecological problems are at bottom social problems and so resolved with them.
• • "Second nature", constituted by human society, is uniquely different from first nature,
and so naturally and justifiably interferes substantially with the processes of first nature.
The unexploited play on "second nature" does nothing to support such intervention; or the
contrary, second nature follows nature rather effortlessly without specific reflection.
However, the two "natures" distinction, inadequately introduced and incapable of bearing
much weight, is applied, in social ecology, to support much human interferenc e and
substantial separateness. 'Natural evolution has not only provided humans with ability but
also the necessity to be purposive interveners into "first nature", to conscously change "first
nature" by means of highly institutionalized forms of community we call "society".' 5 Given
the highly artificial and rather accidental social forms now in place, that many humans now
suffer or swear under, this is very far from obvious.
This second nature vs. first nature division would re-erect the old division and
separation , Man vs. Nature, in old-fashio ned football-m ilitary terms, that deeper
environmentalism has been concerned to remove. It is human chauvinistic; it ignores the
continuity between humans and other creatures, the overlap in incapacities and skills
(remembering all the capable animals able to live skilfully off the land and all the incapable
humans). As regards relevant skills and capabilities, there is no uniqueness, or singularity,
of humans as a whole. It would chauvinistically try to convert being human into a
5
Bockchin 87 p.21.
�4
significant moral category, when it is not. 6 It would induce an inverse, obnoxious ranking
among biological kinds; first class, matching second nature, and second class, matching
first or primitive nature. The division would accordingly offer a springboard to a range of
further interference of the sorts of which we have already witnessed much too much.
The main thrust of Bookchin's attack is thus an old-fashioned socialist criticism,
which fails any longer to impress because of its excess anthropocentrism. Social problems,
which are of course often but not always intertangled with environmental problems, are no
longer top of action, political, or other agendas; nor are their standard modern rivals,
similarly entangled with environmental problems, namely economic problems. There is a
third set of problems, neither exactly left nor right, neither exactly social nor economic nor
reducing in approved fashion to those would-be universal categories, nor yet forming an
entirely independent dimension: namely, environmental problems.
Bookchin faithfully rolls out other elements of routine socialist criticism, against deep
ecology. Some of these are telling enough, but mostly not new. They include:• a seriously flawed pantheon of heroic figures. Bookchin gets stuck into DEs favourable
mention of Heidegger, of course, but he also tries to convey quite by association with
Woody Guthrie (p.6), Malthus (p.15) Ehrlich (p.17) and others. Problems with the heroic
figures and historical pedigree of DE had already been observed by others, e.g.
Sholomowski.
• a thin and inadequate historical genesis and setting. In this regard Naess's work is, of
course, primarily in the perfectly admissible tradition and company of systematic
philosophy and of most science. Deep environmental has, no more than science, to supply
at the outset a full historical context in which its ideas are placed (pace. p.5 bottom).
6
So it is argued at length in EP.
�INTRODUCTION
Deep ecology is a major environmental position and movement, one of the most important of
contemporary times. In name and in assemblage of themes it is a recently elaborated position,
dating back only to about 1973; but most of the themes are older, some of them much older. It is
the assemblage, package and the way that has been put to environmental work that is newer and
different. The initial assemblage and the name are due to Naess, a principal character (in all senses)
in what follows 1.
1. On the deep ecology movement and ideology: their intellectual standing.
The expression 'deep long-range ecological movement', of which 'deep ecology' 1s a
subsequent abbreviation, was minted by N aess to label an emerging environmental movement .
Naess was then (sociological) finder ather than founder of this emerging movement, a movement
concerned primarily with the natural environment. In explaining ideological features of the
movement Naess set down a number of what he took to be characteristic themes. It is from these
themes, with much elaboration and considerable variation, that deep ecology, as a doctrine, has
grown. It is with the evolving body of doctrine, the position, that we shall primarily be concerned.
Control such as it was, of the doctrine did not long remain with Naess. Like many good promising
ideas it was quickly imported into California, where it was modified, and to some extent converted
into a further individual consciousness-elevating exercise. Thus the doctrine has been elaborated
and further delimited not only by Naess but, in the first place, by several North-Americans,
particularly Devall and Sessions, who have on occasion collaborated with N aess, and more recently
by various Australians, most notably Fox and Seed.NI Deep ecology has caught on largely outside
No attempt will be made to give an account of Naess's philosophy, except insofar as it bears directly on
deep ecology, though such an attempt would be worth making. We commend the work (which could
simply be entitled Naess ) to others; a smell beginning is made in Naess and Rothenberg.
Naess was already a significant, influential, but maverick, figure on the European intellectual scene well
before deep ecology was discerned. Naess had been professor of philosophy at Oslo since 1939, a chair he
obtained when 27. In early days he was a Norwegian Ayer, likwise basking in reflected glory of a
disinfecting logical positivism; but how much Naess subsequently diverged from empiricism can be
gauged from his 1971 debate with Ayer (recorded in Reflexive Water). In fact Naess had already began to
move out of an empiricist set as a result of his early interesting attempt to carry it towards its logical
conclusion, and to do philosophy itself empirically, recorded in Truth as Conceived by those who are not
Professional Philosophers. Subsequently Naess traversed a wide and unusual range of philosophical
enterprise: scepticism naturally; many of the then fashionable areas, such as communication, semantics
and interpretation; and several others that were much less philosophically fashionable, but politically
significant, such as Gandhi and pacifism, ideology and failure of objectivity, and of course pluralism.
These investigations form the complex backdrop to deep ecology. Unfortunately, despite Naess's longstanding commitment to pluralism, deep ecology was from the outset constrained to a certain unduly
narrow style of environmentalismm as will appear.
�5
narrower academic circles, especially in North America and Australia, where, in contrast to Western
Europe, significant areas of natural environment still remain; these are rapidly becoming of
increasing public concern.
Deep ecology is a radical environmental pos1t10n, which goes far beyond resource
conservation positions (which are typically concerned at best with the management, husbandry and
stewardship of resources in long-term human interests); and it offers a much deeper challenge to
prevailing attitudes and practices (of the dominant social paradigm), especially those which concern
more or less natural environments.N 2 Deep ecology (hereafter is an ideology in the respectible
older sense, a system of belief and ideas. It is not an ideology in the post Marxion sense, of such a
system characterised by an inflexibility and an unwillingness to listen to other points of view. Quite
the contrary.
Radical DE may still be, though its radicalness is in decline as it ages and as informed opinion
on environmental issues advances; respectable, it is not. In particularly DE is not a respectable
academic subject. Though it is arguably the most important movement in environmental philosophy
in recent times, it is fl:Ot even mentioned in several recent texts on the topic. There are several
reasons for this, ranging from the conservation and close-mindedness, snobbery and bigotry
almost, of much contemporary philosophy, to evident presentational deficiencies in DE, its
mouldeness, its lack of discriptive and argument, its popular appeal. DE is particularly weak weaker than environmental ethics, which do poorly on these academic indicators - on a run of
things that are taken to matter in contemporary ethics; analyses of meanings of key ethical terms,
reductions of ethical terms to few primitives, smart arguments, utilitarian-style justifications, etc.
That is one reason why it is not part of Anglo-American analytic philosophy; another is that it
challenges so much of what analytic philosophy represents and (politically) presupposes.
DE scarcely represents, then, many of you will be relieved to learn analytic philosophers'
philosophy. N aess believes has been through and seen through that sort of philosophy early in life;
and seen that it does not contribute very much to the real features of life and living that philosophy
should make significant contributions towards, but mostly does not. As a result you will find very
little analysis in DE. Also there is remarkedly little argument, though argument is often taken to be
what is distinctive in philosophy. (But that is an Anglo American idea of what philosophy is all
about; you find comparatively little argument in much Continental European philosophy - what you
do find, even in authors like Kant and Hegel who look superficially as if they are arguing, is mostly
patently bad argument, poor at best. DE is much more like European philosophy in tone and style,
which helps explain why it is neglected and denigrated in American schools; by contrast, in British
philosophy curricula the environment is only just beginning to win any satisfactory attention at all.)
�6
These are some of the reasons why, despite its importance, DE goes largely unmentioned in
most texts on environmental philosophy and ethics. This says a good deal about the texts, which
are mostly not offering satisfactory coverage of their fields (see further chapter 2). But it indicates
something too about DE, which is not as intellectually accessible as it could or should be.
Moreover, presentation of DE often go out of their way to violate (questionable) academic
standards, expecially those for clarity of statement, extent of analysis, and level of argumentation.
Deep ecology is an amophous doctrine, as anyone who tries to set down from its sources in a
clear and crisp way what its themes are, will readily enough discover. Of course compared with
much French philosophy, it is clarity itself; but French philosophy does not provide an acceptable
benchmark. A good deal of the obscurity concerning DE results from its varying and different
presentations by different expositors. To avoid this problem, we shall, for the most part, follow
Naess's elaboration of DE, taking that as fairly authoritative. But the problem is not thereby
resolved. Naess's views on deep ecology, its place and importance, and its themes, have changed
over the years. Nor are the themes always, sufficiently clear though many of them are succinctly
stated. Some of them are said, by disciples or by N aess himself, to be metaphorical. Furthermore,
as some important matters go largely unelaborated, for instance the issues of satisfactory methods
for achieving ecopolitical change.
To surmount these kinds of difficulties, we shall (somewhat presumptuously no doubt) offer
our own exposition and elaboration of DE, what we call authentic deep ecology. At least under
Naess's conception of DE we are entitled to do this. In part II however, which offers a critique of
DE as it has been variously presented, we shall look at the genuine article in its various
formulations.
Rather than becoming easier with the passage of time, DE has become more and more
difficult, and less intellectually tractable as it picks up or toys with environmental fashions, often
zanier environmental fads. It is complicated by New themes, often muddy themes, and its solidity
is removed by modification or erosion of old themes. Among the new themes picked up, several to
be examined critically (in part II), are the Gaia hypothesis, according to which the Earth itself some
sort of organic living system.
DE is thus an irremedially vague object. Its vagueness has increased with its popularity with
its becoming on the green fringe a fashionable, not to say vogue, item (a Foucaultian object).
Vague and vogue, a common concotenation.
2. Types of environmental positions: deep environmentalism.
�7
What distinguishes an environmental position is a certain level of constraint with respect to
the environment, the natural environment especially: not anything goes with respect to nature. In
this regard environmental positions contrast with a dominant theme of Western cultural heritage;
namely, provided it does not interfere with acknowledged people such as property holders, that
people can do more or less what they like with the land, and with what grows and lives there. It is
even therefor humans to exploit or manage.
This unrestrained position imposes few or no constraints upon treatment of the environment
itself. Under it there would, for example, be little compunction about using up material resources,
forests, fisheries and so on, immediately or even destroying them. But, because it grants such
entitlements to exploitation, the unrestrained position can be excluded from properly moral
positions. 2 For it fails to meet the basic universality requirement on moral principles, of
independence of person, place or time, a requirement which implies that persons of different races,
colours, sexes or ages, or at different places or times are not treated unfairly or seriously
disadvantaged. Insofar as the unrestrained position would permit the exploitation, degradation and
even destruction, of all present resources and environments, it places future humans at a very
serious disadvantage. The position is thus one of expediency, not morality, typically yielding, like
economics, evaluative assessments based on short-term narrow local (or national) interests, rather
than assessments appropriately based on long-range transnational values.
Opposed to the unrestrained position are various environmental positions (what Leopold saw
as the land ethic is just one of these). Such positions can be classified - conveniently for
subsequent development but in a way that already refines and extends Naess's classification - into
three groups: shallow, intermediate and deep. Unlike the unrestrained position, all these positions
would conserve and maintain things - materials, creatures, forests, etc. The shallow
(conservation) position differs from the unrestrained position primarily in taking a longer-term view
and taking account of future humans, their welfare and so forth. It is more enlightened than the
unrestrained position in taking a longer-term perspective: hence its alternative description in the
literture as resource conservation (thus, e.g., soil conservation organisations). Though this
conservation position is only a step away from the unrestrained position, it does pass the test of
morality in that future people are not treated unfairly; so it is a very significant step.
2
This is a substantial and controversial claim, especially since it accounts much economic activity
unethical in the narrow or semse, as involving practices of expediency, not morality. For the fuller case
for obligations and commitment to future humans, see e.g. Routley 81, and other essays collected with it
in Partridge 81. This section is drawn from my People vs the Land (84).
�8
The shallow and unrestricted positions are closely related by an important feature they share and which justifies lumping them together as shallower positions. They are both highly
anthropocentric; they do not move outside a human-centred framework, which construes nature and
the environment instrumentally, that is, simply as a means to human ends and values. Thus they
take account ultimately only of human interests and concerns; all environmental values reduce to
these. It is in this respect especially that these shallower positions differ from deeper, less resource
and management and exploitation oriented, positions.
According to deeper positions, humans are not the sole items of value or bestowing value in
the world, and not all things of value are valuable because they answer back in some way to human
concerns. But deeper positions differ in the weight or relative importance they assign to human
concerns. According to an intermediate position serious human concerns always come first; and
while other things, such as higher animals, have value or utility in their own right, their value is
outranked by that of humans. The deep position rejects this assumption, and maintains that even
serious human concerns should sometimes lose out to environmental values.
Figure 1. The positions separated, and separating principles
SHALLOWER
UNRESTRAINED
DEEPER
SHALLOW
IMMEDIAIB
DEEP
MORALITY
SOLE VALUE
GREATER VALUE
REQUIREMENT
ASSUMPTION
ASSUMPTION
(of human apartheid)
(of human supremacy)
The watershed principle which divides the shallow from the deeper positions is the sole value
assumption . According to this major assumption, which underlies prevailing Western social
theory, humans are the only things of irreducible (or intrinsic) value in the universe, the value of all
other things reducing to or answering back to that of humans in one way or another. This
assumption is build into most present political and economic arrangements; for example, only
aggregated preferences or interests of certain (present) humans are considered in democratic
political choice, and likewise in economic decision making; other creatures and natural items are
presented at best through the preference or votes of interested humans. 3
3
The points are explained in more detail in EP, where too, account is taken of the shift from humans to
persons (which would be important were it taken seriously and adhered to) and also of the inclusion of
�9
Similar assumptions are made in mainstream ethical theories. Typical are reductive theories
which endeavour to derive ethical judgements from features of closed systems of humans.
Examples are provided by presently fashionable ethical theories, such as standard utilitarianism. 4
According to utilitarianism what ought to be done, as well as what is best, is determined through
what affords maximum satisfaction (preference-fulfilment, pleasure, absence of pain, and so on,
for other satisfaction determinates) to the greatest number of individual humans. In theories like
utilitarianism, the outside world of nature does not enter through direct inputs or outputs, but only
insofar as it is reflected in the psychological states of individuals. Such ethical theories are
appropriately described as those of apartness or human apartheid. Man is, or is treated as, apart
from Nature; there is virtually total segregation. Nature or the land enters only as a remote
experiential backdrop, and onstage is the drama of human affairs and interests.
However, humans cannot be entirely insulated from their environment; for example,
volcanoes affect temperatures thus affecting climate thus affecting crop yield and food supplies. At
least limited intercourse with the environment has to be admitted as a result. So, in economics,
ethics, and political theory, secondary theories, dealing with linkages to the environment, have been
appended (thus, for example, externality theory in economics, some allowances for "side"
constraints in more sophisticated utilitarianism, and so on). But the environment remains treated as
an awkward or tiresome afterthought or backdrop, a (re-)source and sink, when it is considered at
all.
There is, however, another approach also with historical standing, vying with (and indeed
often confused with) human apartheid, which can accommodate secondary theories a little more
satisfactorily. That is the position of superiority or human supremacy, according to which Man,
though included in Nature, is above the rest of Nature, meaning ethically superior to it.N While
human supremacist positions can incorporate the sole value assumption and thus remain in the
shallow ethical area, they have the option of rejecting it in favour of the less objectionable greater
value assumption; other things being equal, the value of humans is greater than other things; the
value of humans surpasses that of all other things in the universe. This assumption allows that
other objects, such as some higher animals, may have irreducible value; what it insists upon is that,
at least for "normal" members of respective species, this value never exceeds that of humans. What
super-humans. With value for natural items goes, of course, concern, respect, and sensitivity, towards
them; but the reverie connection may exhibit occasional failures.
4
But the same holds for other fashionable theories on the American-dominated ethical scene, namely
contractualism and libertarianism. More broadly based historical utilitarianisms, which allow for some
input from other sentient creatures, are considered below.
�10
is generally presupposed is that other objects - animals, plants and their communities - are never of
very much importance compared with humans. Though human supremacy has appeared in variants
upon utilitarianism (from Hutcheson and Bentham on) where animal pain is taken into consideration
along with human, Wes tern ethics and associated social sciences such as demography, economics
and political theory, remain predominantly apartheid in form. So in practice does most
utilitarianism. 5
It is the repudiation of the greater value assumption that separates deep from intermediate
positions. Perhaps the most familiar example of an intermediate position 6 is that of Animal
Liberation, in the form in which individual animals (but not plants, forests, ecosystems, etc.) are
taken to have value in their own right, though in any play-off with humans, humans win. Under
the deep position such an outcome is by no means inevitable and not alway assured; in cases of
conflict of animals with humans or natural systems with humans, humans sometimes lose.
There are various arguments designed to show that the deep assessment is right, that humans
do not always matter7 and, more pertinently, that humans should sometimes lose out. A typical one
takes the following form:- Some humans voluntarily lead worthless or negative lives, lives without
net value. The point, though not uncontroversial, 8 can be argued even from a shallow
utilitarianism. Take for instance a life of pain and suffering and little or no happiness: it has a
substantial net negative utility. However, some small natural systems do have net value; one
example would be an uninhabited undisturbed island (a live example might be a tropical island
before Club Mediterranee depradation). Now consider the situation where the considerable value of
a small natural system is to be sacrificed (in a way that shallowly affords no ethical impropriety) on
behalf of a set of humans whose lives each have no positive net value. For instance, the system is
to be exploited, just for the continued maintenance of these humans, or for their addition (as new
settlers) to an established population. Then in such circumstances, these humans lose out; the
natural system takes precedence. Similarly, trivial satisfactions of humans do not dominate over the
5
There practice contrasts with what the theory allows or requires. Utilitarianism is like much pollution
control, where regulations are on the books or are part of the law, but are or never only very occasionally
applied. Utilitarian double standards are further discussed and referenced in DEP #7.
6
Other examples are considered below. Two of the four form of ecological consciousness considered by
Rodman fit here (as Rodman has remarked). For instance, falling into the intermediate range are the types
of environmental positions adopted by Birch and Cobb, and by Attfield and by many other
consequentialists.
7
See the argument of EP, beginning the Last Man argument, p .... ff. See also the initial example of
Routley 2 79 ..
8
The point is argued in detail in DEP #3.
�11
integrity of rich natural environments. This simple result cuts deeply into (standard shallow)
consumer theory, to take just one example of the impact of deep environmentalism.
Authentic deep ecology is a type of deep environmentalism. A genuinely ecospheric
egalitarianism, such as deep ecology offers, is bound to reject the Greater Value assumption. For
under egalitarianism, larger collarations of significant eco-objects outweight smaller groupings of
undistinguished humans.
Notes
1. All their main work on deep ecology is cited in the reference list at the end.
2. Leading features of Resource Conservation are explained in several sources; e.g. Rodman.
3. Here authenticity is important. As will become evident in part II, certain proclaimed deep
ecologists are not prepared to scuttle the Greater Value assumption. As will also become evident,
the egalitarian arguments upsetting the Greater Value assumption are build on defective
foundations.
�CONTINUING THE CRITIQUE OF DEEP ECOLOGY
As a broad label for something rather environmentally different, and no doubt better, than
most ideologies that preceded it, 'deep ecology' is no doubt rather fine. That is how the label
often functions, honorifically, for instance in the collection under that label edited by Tobias, which
gives deep ecology none but a nebulous content, and which indeed contains many articles (such as
the interview with Soleri) in diametrical opposition to the more detailed platform promulgated by
the intellectual "leaders" of the deep ecology movements. In fact, a good deal of the more popular
appeal of deep ecology has been obtained by vacillation between the more discerning authentic
forms and the slack or nebulous forms. The nebulous use of the label has also given cover to some
of those who calls themselves 'deep ecologists', enabling them to shed awkward but crucial themes
from the more detailed platform (thus e.g. Fox).
Many are those who are now pleased to march under the rather fashionable nebulous
banner. 1 Many are not deep, in theory or practice, deeply committed, or deeply changed by the
march. Purchasing or growing organic vegetables, having spiritual experiences in a special natural
place, or practising some oriental art or exercise routine, does not ensure a deepened environmental
position, though it can be a step on the way.
While nebulous deep ecology is compatible with much that is neither deep nor even
significantly ecologically oriented, such as minor lifestyle adjustments within the industrial
paradigm, authentic deep ecology, which is not so slack, remains a defective doctrine, itself
oscillating between an overpermissive environmental assembly point, fast growing its radical
potential, on the one side, and an impermissive, unduly narrow doctrine, dubious or defective in
several of its leading themes, on the other side. Some of the worst of these themes, such as
biological egalitarianism, have already been criticised in sufficient detail in the original critique.
But other features of authentic deep ecology (hereafter mainly DE) were left largely untouched in
the original critique, and new features have emerged. The critique thus needs continuing.
Since the critique was produced, it has been become more difficult, if anything, to grasp
what DE is all about. Even Naess, the founder of the movement, who now tends to adhere much
more closely to the platform than other self-proclaimed deep ecologists, is inclined to make
I too am happy to march under the nebulous banner, though since my first critique I am no longer
particularly welcome. Initially I was cut by about half those individuals and institutions loosely
associated with deep ecology, since my critique began circulating. While I am become accustomed to this
sort of phenomenon in intellectual areas (criticism induces cool and long at least, even in logic), I didn't
expect so much of this given the Christian character of DE.; and such isolation does seriously reduce
information sources.
�2
apparently large concessions to opposition changes, which however he subsequently more
surreptitiously withdraws (of course this is familiar philosophical practice). At other times, he
withdraws with one hand what he is offering, some sort of olive branch, with the other.
The oscillation can be partly ascribed to conflicting motivation. On the one side, there is the
desire, stronger in the founder of DE, Naess, than in his American and Australian prophels, to
create a wide constituency, to tum no one away if it can in any way be avoided. But, on the other
there is an evident desire to make deep ecology a very select position, for a chosen few, a place to
be achieved only after a journey crossing some arduous terrain and involving some difficult life
adjustments. Deep ecology lacks the other-worldly and after-life resources which, in some of its
religious sources, appear to make for an easy resolution of this type of conflict.
I.Further problems with the platform and core platform of deep ecology.
It is the platform (at level 2 of the organising "double pyramid" of DE depicted below) that
constrains, delimits and defines deep ecology, so far as it is well-characterised. For even this level
is not very precisely characterised to put it mildly. Some exponents or practitioners of deep
ecology (some of them self-nominated or self-proclaimed) appear to repudiate even the core themes
at level 2 (e.g. Fox on axiocentrism). In the face of criticism, Naess himself backtracks as far as
he plausibly can, and sometime further. Not only does he considerably muddy the clear waters of
doctrine of occasional prosentations, but the doctrine itself begins to disappear, to be qualified
away (see e.g. Naess's performance in Resurgance , discussed below). The response to
intellectual criticism, which DE has been increasingly encountering as it spreads, has not been an
appropriate one of clarifying, and where requisite expounding, the core theory; it has rather been
one of retreat and digging in, of trying to hold the temple under seige, through diversionary activity
(or by broken-record techniques: simply reiterating parts of the messge not under heavy criticism
over and over again). When the critical raid has passed, the priests (and very occassional priestess)
of deep ecology reemerge, bearing the original doctrine essentially unchanged. The practice
resembles christianity (and too much of the practice of dominant science, the rival Western church).
Dealing with deep ecologists is very like dealing with devout christians; some of them one feels
sure have only recently changed positional hats, from evangelism to deep ecology
(correspondingly, my own position has become that of a black sheep).
A good deal of the argumentative practice of deep ecology appears to be explained by its
evangelical, and even messianic, character. There is genuine effort to tum no-one, except the most
incorrigible moneylenders, away from the temple. Everyone else (except perhaps philosophic
critics) is welcome, and encouraged to join in worship. Much like the churches, the founder of the
�3
De movement seeks as large a flock as possible. In these democratic days, numbers count (at least
under the "right" polling conditions); earlier numbers overted for taxing or tithing purposes. Other
high priests are not so sure: there are some critics of the movement, who may be beyond the poles;
and surely it should be a little more exclusive. But, in any event, DE is a much more liberal
doctrine than one of its sources, christianity, has ever been; it admits coupling not just (so it is
said) with all the great religions, but with all the more benign positions and practices that achieve
fashionability in California. All not ill-disposed to the natural world and duly acknowledging its
value can march under the banner of deep ecology, whose main citadel is Nature.
N aess casts the net of deep ecology wide, catching therewith not only many remote
supporters, but a number of hostile critics as well, such as latterly Bockshim (p.6). Naess now
considers the 8 point platform, formulated by himself and Susians and published in several slightly
different forms, as tentatively setting down the 'basic principles of Deep Ecology'. Naess 'look[s]
upon the formulations as tentatively expressing the most general and basic views which almost all
supporters of the movement have in common' (23.6.88). Thus the 8 point platform (condensed in
box 1) provides, in a still vague and tentative sort of way, the core, the core platform, of DE. To
get around a small obstacle, let us call those who would adhere to the principles of the core (in
some approved formulation) adherents of DE. They are adherents in (simply and literally)
holding to the core, the common (intersection of the) platform. They may not be members of the
movement in any ordinary sense, in any but the set-theoretical sense, because appropriate
intentionality is lacking, for instance they may never have heard of the movement, let alone made
any effort to join. Nor need adherents be supporters in the usual sense; support is neither
necessary nor sufficient for adherence. A critic such as Bockshim, or myself, can be an adherent
without being a supporter, without being supportive. Conversely, a supporter may not be an
adherent. The Salvation Army has many supporters, including atheists, who are not adherents.
The De movement has many supporters, some of whom call themselves 'deep ecologists', who do
not adhere to the core, even more or less. Many of these supporters are shallow environmentalists,
who do not accept the key first point, of intrinsic value outside humans, or try to evade it (e.g. by
redefinition, or by wrapping up value inextrically in relations to valuers). Since there are, in my
experience, many supporters and indeed enthusiasts who turn out to be of this shallow sort,
Naess's view is a little puzzling: what does he mean here 'almost all supporters'? Which isolated
exceptions does he have in view?
Box 1. The core
8 point plat/orm, in capsule form.
l. Non-human and human life have intrinsic value:
The well-being and flourishing of
human and non-human life on
earth have intinsic value, inherent
�4
value, etc. These values are
independent of the usefulness of
the non-human world for human
purposes.
2. Richness and diversity intrinsic virtues :
Richness and diversity of lifeforms contribute to a realisation
of these values and are also
values in themselves.
3.Humans unjustified in reducing such natural virtues:
Humans have no right to reduce
this richness and diversity except
to satisfy vital needs.
4.Human (values compatible with) population decrease:
The flourishing of human life and
culture is compatible with a
substantial decrease of the human
population. Flourishing of nonhuman life requires such a
decrease.
5. Human inte,ference with natural world excessive:
Present human interference with
the non-human world is
excessive and the situation is
rapidly worsening.
6. Policies and basic structures must be changed:
Policies must therefore be
changed. These policies will
affect our basic economic,
technological and ideological
structures.
7.Quality of life should supplant economic standard of living:
The change in our attitudes will
bring an appreciation of the
quality of life rather than
adhering to an increasingly
higher standard of living. There
will be a profound awareness of
the difference between big and
great. We will have a great
society with no bigness.
8. Obligation to attempted implementation:
Those who subscribe to the
foregoing points have an
obligation directly or indirectly to
try to implement necessary
changes.
Most of the core platform is no longer demanding; none of it, except for the last point,
specifying an obligation to attempted implementation, requires any commitment in the past of
adherents. Mainly adherence to DE, and support of DE, would be very considerably increased
were this requirement evaded. A strategy common to econonical practice and sociological research
�5
readily presents itself. Let us speak of silent adherents as those who adhere to the core platform,
more or less, except that they make no requisite effort to implement it (they may of course have
some vague failing of obligation, should they ever reflect on the matter). Even without the benefit
of scholarly survey work, it is evident that De would now have a large number of silent adherents,
many of whom are not however adherents, being either oblimovish, situated in repressive regions
or social situations, or simply uninformed (like indigenous peoples who think here are excessively
many excessively interferring humans of Caucasian stock).
The core platform represents a surprisingly incomplete and rather ill-organised collocation
of principles. The incompleteness is most conspicuous in point 6, which advances no details as to
envisaged structural changes. In extenuation N aess pleads that he has 'not has courage to go into
detail and define what these different structures will be, because we are going to have a lot of
different Green varieties. We shouldn't have one set of structures imposed' (R p.7). The
reasoning does not hold up; a range of structures, rather than a unique structure, can easily be
defined by constraints well-known ones as it happened. Naess should be encouraged to go on and
delimit the structural and policy changes. It is easy to give him a start, drawing upon DE and
neighbouring environmental positions. For instance,
6a. The policy objective of maximizing state economic growth should be abandoned in favour of a
highly selective approach to such growth. Evidently, there are many different ways such a change
in policy can be implemented. Some such change may be suggested by, but is not implied by point
7.
6b. Technology selection should be reoriented to appropriate technology, and away from risky
and polluting technology.
6c. Population policies should be directed at decreasing human populations in overpopulated
regions.
Principle 6c complements point 4, which does not actually enjoin any decrease in human
population. And so on, through a well-known list of constraints, with several of them regularly
included in principle of alternative social paradigms. Point 5 requires similar elaboration.
Another surprising feature is how mild most of these elaborations are, like the core platform
itself, which is pretty wishy-wasy when contrasted with what is happening out there
environmentally. Many environmentalists now wish to proceed much further, and to witness
some real curtailment of heavy broad-acre assaults upon environments, such as extensive clearcutting of forests, over-fishing of shelves, and over-grazing of range-lands, extensive strip and
beach mining, broad-acre pollution, and so on.
�6
Deindustrialization is not explicitly part of the DE program, and the issue is (perhaps
wisely) avoided by some leading proponents of DE. But deindustrialization - a considerable
reduction in the levels of industrial activity, particularly the undesirable dangerous destructive
prolluting types of industry that conspiciuosly contributed to the first industrial revolution - would
emerge from the alternative futures deep ecologists prefer to imagine, with a much smaller, less
consumption-oriented,terrestial human population. In any case, deindustrialization is an important
environmental objective, for both shallower and deeper ecology. It would assist, most materially,
in obtaining some better control on major environmental risks and problems, notably such matters
as the greenhouse affect, atmospheric ozone destruction, and acid rain and its fall-out.
The idea of progress is, like industry, also under a cloud. It is now naive to assume that
progress per se is automatically to be applauded, and that a telling criticism of something is that it
would block progress. People are these days a little more discriminating (in some respects); there
is progress and progress, growth and growth, coke and coke. Much that was progress, and still is
in many quarters, is no longer universally regarded as such, as, for instance, elimination of
wetlands, pollution growth, assimilation of indigenous peoples. The 'previously ... dominant
[assumption], that non-industrial society would and should progress towards the industrial state
and the scientific world view' was challenged, and is increasingly rejected (cf. Naess, on the
"status of mythology").
So wishy-washy is the core characterisation of deep ecology that it lets in as deep ecologists
all sorts of environmental philosophers who would not previously have made that select hand,
philosophers whom main disciples of deep ecology previously did or would have excluded,
philosophers whose positions are not deep. If DE is to be more exclusive, it will require more
careful, tighter formulation. Only clearly ruled out among environmental philosophers, i.e. those
who philosophize about environments and environmental problems, are hard-line human
chauvinists, led by Australians, Passmore (in his main conservative persona) and McCloskey.
Many of these excluded philosophers would, moreover, subscribe to most of the points in the core
platform, as weakly interpreted. It is nowadays a rare thinking person who does not consider that
there are severe environmental problems, local and global, about which something, fairly farreaching by conservative political standards, should be done. It is a rare philosopher, who
becomes inmersed in a spread of these problems, and who does not develop some environmental
commitments, even if a liberalish social agenda continues to dominate an environmental one (and it
is fast becoming hard to avoid observing the interpretation of social with broadly environmental
problems). While environmental philosophy has, by contrast with economics (now ......... of
reaction crises), tended to become progressively more accomodating to what was only a short time
ago radical environmental drought, as the magnitude of environmental problems is revealed, deep
�7
ecology has moved in the opposite direction, has tried be excessively conciliatory, confusing
pluralism with broad consensualism, and lost much of its radical flare. A wide environmental
pluralism is just fine; but it does not have to be achieved through consensus, or at the cost of a deep
or an ecological platform. A pluralism can be achieved by the joining of different positions.
Among the diverse and motley groups of philosophers who now gain entry as adherents of
deep ecology, too generously construed, are apparently included those examples:-
Example 1. Among extensionists, both utilitarians and ratonalists. Among utilitarians are Singer,
and perhaps even Smart on some days. Most turns on how point 1 is construed. Utilitarians in the
Benthamite tradition assign intrinsic value to all creatures with preferences, sometimes a or the like,
and are concerned with the well-being and flourishing of such creatures. Accordingly they satisfy
point 1 if it is read, as it may well be, 'much human and much non-human life'. It all depends
upon how the terms 'human' and 'non-human' are quantified. If both are quantified with 'all', the
theses becomes implausible (admitting e.g. lab-manufactured abominations as intrinsically
valuable), and would exclude some acknowledged deep ecologists. If the terms are more weakly
quantified, then environmentally aware and active Benthamites are admitted. An evident dividing
line, provided by particular quantification, with 'some', is enough to exclude shallow
philosophers. But no quantification will serve to exclude either intermediate positions, which do
not adopt a deep value theory, or individualism, such as moral extension positions, almost
invariably a spouse. Extensionists more patently included are those of rationalistic persuasion,
grouped loosely around Regan in the American South, who have gradually move away from a
utilitarian prescriptions, to the view that ethical principles, including those of vegetarianism, can be
reached by rational means, by clear, consistent and coherent thinking (thus, it is really a coherence
theory of morality).
Example 2. More far-reaching informediate positions, which do assign intrinic value less stingily
throughout nature, to some non-preference-havers, such as trees, and to some non-individuals,
such as forests, but which still adopt a greater value assumption, according to which human values
always take precedence over non-human assignments. Examples of this sort the postions
deliminated (so far in insufficient theoretical details) by Rolston and Attfield. In fact the positions
so far elaborated of this type typically, but hardly inevitably, draw on an enlightened Christian
backdrop heavily laced with science (a religious American naturalism, so to say, in Rolston's
case). They amount to nonsecular moral extensionisms, by contrast with the secular moral
extenionisms of example 1 (to try to squeeze these positions into Rodman's nonexhaustive
classificaton of positions).
Example 3. Deep-green theorists reject the biocentric restriction sometimes built into point 1,
though not in this formulation. This formulation certainly admits Sylvan as an adherent of DE,
�8
despite what some deep ecologists have said. According to strict biocentrism however, only what
has life (in some sense) can have value. Deep-green theorist see this restriction as very like that
imposed by ulitarians, to sentience, or unwarranted, unnecessary and arbitrary. Deep-green
theorists, like enviromental resisters, ecodefenders and Earth-Facters, now see the DE platform as
much too moderate and quite insufficiently radical. The earlier radicalism of DE has been
excessively pruned back, on a mix of dubious grounds: the drive for an environmental consensus
(in place of a genuine pluralism), the religo-political quest for a large support Base (which could
however be environmentalism broadly, with DE in the vanguard), and the input of conservatizing
academic thought and aim of intellectual respectability. In fact DE which does not make much
ground academically, as compared with its success outside academia, especially with book-reading
environmentalists, would better forget academic success, where it has made progress only among
outsiders, not power-players and return to its more radical mission (academics form only a small
minority, though one dangerously and influentially supportive, one the whole, of most past
environmental excesses and assaults).
2. Variability, antiquity or dubiquity of main themes of deep ecology omitted
from the core platform.
Some themes have been retained by letting them undergo extensive change. Nowhere is this
more conspicuous than with the difficult principle of "biospherical egalitarianism in principle",
central to earle DE, which has taken on some remarkable new guises. In Naess, it becomes a
curiously qualified principle of rights: that every being has a right to live - unless the basic needs
of other beings overrides its rights. In Devall, who prefers to avoid the term 'rights' (the use of
which he asserts is metaphorical in Naess, not at all what Naess, who appeals to childrens" usage,
asserts), the principle is emptied of main egalitarian content: 'Properly understood, the principle of
biocentric equality means that humans are members of the biotic community, not its masters'
(p.58). So understood, the principle can be accepted by many shallow thinkers; it is not
incompatible with chauvinism, nor with conciderable inequality, nor with greater value invariably
assigned to humans, only with a certain domination. It is a sell-out.
Few of the supporters of deep ecology (DE) appear to realise how old-fashionedly defective
and sometimes inappropriate some of the elements, and most of the methodology, of deep ecology
really is. 2 The organic and organistic image, for instance - heavily deployed by one of the heroes
of deep ecology, Whitehead - is as old as Aristotle (for some of the history see Berlin). Despite
much valiant effort, no one has so far got the image (now redeployed in the extravagent Gaia
2
Recently, Sholomowski has re-emphasized some of these features.
�9
hypothesis) - valuable as it may be, chauvinistic as it characteristically is -to work in a very fruitful
way. Likewise the drive for self-realisation, is both old-fashioned - it was fostered by the
Enlightenment and had its heyday in the 19thC, was decidedly human chauvinistic in its emphases.
But perhaps the heaviest residue of old-fashioned inappropriate material is to be found in the
methodology of deep ecology, which is mainly transferred from positivism with little alteration.
The hypothetico-deductive methodology, for example, appears essentially intact in the double
pyramidal diagram (now called 'the apron' by Naess), which one is supposed to shuffle around
and descend by deduction. Having descended so, the way back to the top is by intuition of
hypotheses, by the hypothetical part of the method. First principles at the top admit of no proof or
derivation - because of the character of the one inferential relation admitted, deduction.
In other respects, the double pyramid strait-jacket, which is Naess's way of trying to infuse a
certain pluralism (a pluralism of fundamental positions at first principles) into deep ecology, is
insufficiently specific. It does not explain, for example, how at a practical lower level, either an
environmental directive or environmental action is forthcoming. Indeed given restriction to
deduction, it cannot explain how these things come about. DE lacks any requisite theory of
environmental action. 3
The double pyramid gets stylized in the way on the left; an alternative representation is that on
the right (and Naess now has a representation awkwardly superimposed on a mandala):Needless to say, there are problems lacking within DE's easy pluralism. Noone has ever
explained how to get the unretracted DE platform derivationally out of - what looks incompatible Christianity. For that matter no-one has shown how to deduce the platform from any of the other,
sometimes more congenial, great religions or philosophies. The nearest we seem to get is Naess's
sketch of how we derive parts of the platform from his own specially concocted ecosophy.
3. Further flowing of the DE gospel: its heroes, its arguments, ....
Deep ecology is a seriously flawed gospel, not only as regards its doctrines and their
coherence, but in other surrounding evangelic respects as well. Virtually all the patron saints of
DE, the past philosophical heroes (all male) are deeply flawed. Spinoza's views on the place and
treatment of animals, for instance, should be entirely disowned by any deeper environmentalist.
Even the later "reformed" Heidegger is conspicuously human chauvinistic, too complacent in a
human-dominated and tamed landscape, and, (apart from some new-fangled technology and
3
Various old-fashioned, and again defective, models are available to DE, and could be tacked onto the
theory, e.g. the belief (or information) and desire (or value) account of intention and action conventionally
attributed to Hume.
�10
industrialisation) with the established rural way of things in Germany, including significantly racist
and sexist ways. The pervasive background four-fold, fitting the cosmological scheme of things
in, includes only divinities and humans; wilderness and its creatures are not part of the
fundamentals. Whitehead, despite the apparent bounteousness of his philosophical scheme, was a
practising christian, committed to a great chain of being with humans at the top of the chain (and
thus to a greater value assumption antithetical to DE); he took no significant interest in nature or
nonhuman creatures at all, and was very comfortable in the ways of a socio-political order which
directly produced present environmental impasses. 4
No doubt the heroes should be differently viewed. Not as patrons, not even as forerunners;
but as deep thinkers, from whom certain elements can be drawn in elaborating an environmental
philosophy (e.g. parts of a theory of nature, features of process theory, elements of a critique of
technology), while much else is discarded. Most of this theoretical work remains to be done.
Regrettably the calibre of the arguments for proceeding to a DE position has not improved.
N aess has now resorted to making his case in a very conventionalistic populist fashion. People are
inclined to respond in such and such a way (favourable to environmental concerns) to so and so
questions. Thus, for instance 'there is reasonably widespread agreement that animals, and even
plants, have rights' (EIJ p.3). But surely it is largely as a result of environmentalism, which must
(and should) be based on something else that people have began to respond thus and so. Naess
also argues from the the concern of many people about nature and natural phenomena for their own
sakes (the data is however not all that clearcut) to several other conclusions, for instance that
political and stilist approaches to the environmental crisis (etc) should be less anthropocentric (EIJ
p.5). The arguments are thus close in character to those widely used in arguments in economics
and democratic theory; they are none the better for that. The fact that people used to respond
favourably to damming up every nearby river and draining all the swamps is not a solid
recommendation for such practices. Moreover, such populist considerations hardly win out, as
Naess himself explains (p.4). Pressure groups pedalling narrow and sometimes destructive
economic ambitions often succeed against democratic opinion.
4. But much criticism of DE is even more seriously flawed.
Despite the growing constituency for core princles. De, which Naess will correctly have
alluded to here, DE has been portrayed as extremism - especially from the US political right (which
tends towards extreme right). What is extreme depends, of course, on where a carping critic is
4
He appears to have owed his appointment to a philosophy chair at Harvard in significient part to the fact
that he was in no way a radical, but suited to the conservative scene established there.
�11
situated. Gung-ho growth economists are extremists from a deeper environmental situation. No
doubt such GG economists would claim that they have reason, not emotion, on their side; but it is a
narrow flawed reason, tailored and biassed to their cause, reflecting a different class of emotions,
primarily preferences of business communities of humans.
In present deteriorating environmental circumstances, clever "extremism" is sometimes
exactly what is required - ideas and action that upset, disturb, interfere with, subvert, and
eventually overturn, the dominant military-industrial social ethos. Extremism presumably amounts
to being isolated on the outer margins of some politically or socially sensitive (more useless)
normal distribution, without respectable companions. On many environmentally important issues,
DE is no longer in such a position (often instead the power elite would be if it were not so
entrenched). Where it is in such a position, then generally it needs to be, and needs to try to swing
the norm in its direction or else to gather respectability for that position.
What, if anything, supports the charge of extremism, levelled against DE? Such emotionallycharged criticisms from the right tend to be particularly vague. Sometimes DE itself, portrayed as
radical environmentalism, and compared with radical feminism, is dismissed as extremist, without
indicating where it is considered extreme. In fact, while better developed, less accommodating DE
is radical, at least literally in going, as one aspect of its depth, to root issues and assumptions, it is
not very politically radical; it does not seriously challenge present political arrangements in the way
that ecoanovehism, or even ecosocialism, does.
What has infuriated some critics is undoubtedly the DE removal of humans from absolute
centre stage, and above all the cavalier or callous way in which some environmentalists have
portrayed the demise of unfortunate humans, from the God-given position to having to share the
world-stage. There are many different issues tangled up here, and the charges of extremism
depends on retaining the confusion, as well as ascribing to DE claims it does not make. DE asserts
that irreducible value is not confined to humans, that life other than humans has intrinsic value.
Although such a claim is indeed incompatible with the dominant social paradigm, it represents an
old challenge, going back in utilitarianism at least to Bentham. As some of those who held or now
hold such a position were not, by any means extremists or even radicals (e.g. Sidgwick) the charge
against this part of the DE platform, lapses. Similar points apply against any charge of extremism
based on the DE assertion (carefully avoided in the core platform) that a substantial decrease in
human population is desirable, especially for conservation of the biosphere. Such a theme is
increasingly widely maintained, by many respectable figures, far from any fringes. Nor need any
extreme, threatening or dangerous, action result from such DE themes. Human population
reduction can occur (and is envisaged by Naess to occur) by such unthreatening means as a
�12
reduction in birth rates, a demographic transition brought about for instance through improved
education and contraception. Yet some coupling to "extreme" action, and adoption or preparedness
to adopt such, has to be established if a proper charge of extremism is to sustained (cf. also the
OED definition of 'extremism').
Deep ecologists propose no extreme action to reduce human population, no wars, no
genecide, nothing macho. Indeed the idea is ludicrous. Deep ecologists tend to be gentle people,
who are opposed to violence; they care about humans, who are part of nature (even if too many of
them are trying to set themselves above and apart from it).
There are individuals and groups, more evident in America than elsewhere, who do adopt an
uncaring, and sometimes brutal attitude to other humans, especially those outside America. Ecofascists, like Hardin, to the right of environmental thought, who think that the time for triage has
already arrived, and that starving humans in third world countries should be left to fend for
themselfes, offer a striking example. But eco-fascism is far from deep ecology, and has been
severely criticised by those close to DE (e.g. Bennett and Griffin). It is no doubt troublesome for
deep ecology, and convenient for opportunistic critics, if environmentalists with eco-fascist
prodivities present themselves as deep ecologists (as has happened, a prominent example being the
present editor of Earth First). It is no doubt troublesome for a charitable organisation if members
of a mafia present themselves as agents of it and collect on its behalf; it has long been a problem for
democracy that fascists can present themselves as democrats, and even put an end to democracy
through seemingly democratic methods. Political movements admits of much infiltration, by both
well- and evil-intentioned.
ANNEX
1.
Interesting proposals continue to emerge from the deep literature.
One is for an
environmental organisation, which might could be called Environment International, parallelling
Amesty International , and adopting a similar role with regard to the environment that Amesty does
with respect to human rights and political processes (Naess p.4).
2. There are many false "virtues " in contemporary political life that green politics, such as
DE is coupled with, will eventually help remove. These include:-
•
Unity, united front.
All that has
merit is a certain limited unity
in diversity.
•
Balance.
Balance is achieved by
resolution of many forces. To shift
�13
the balance, then, environmentalists
should be as far out as they can
(while still being counted in the
resolution, not written off).
For
end
political
purposes,
citing
especially credibility doesn't matter,
by contrast with countability.
Advice to offer more balanced
statements and work should be
courteously ignored: it is
oppositional, political advice.
•
Two party ideal
REFERENCES
A. Naess, 'Environmental ethics and international justice', Ecospirit Quarterly IV (1) (198.) 1-7;
referred to as EIJ.
�
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page
PREFACE
Part 1
ill
ECOLOGICA L ETHICS & ECOLOGICA L POLITICS:
TURNING JOHN MCCLOSKE Y'S CHALLENGE
i
Conservative, reformative and radical responses to the impacts
of ecology on ethics
1
ii
A confused and confusing response: supplemented intuitionism
3
iii
On the supposedly dim prospects for new environmental ethics
especially that deep-green upstart
8
iv
Extending ecological ethics, inadequately, to ecological politics
12
V
Structuring ecological ethics and politics: towards an improved
classification of environmental problems
19
vi
Population impact: the fact of human consumption
21
vii
On limiting human populations: some neglected considerations
24
viii On animal rights and supposed political implications thereof
ix
Part 2
Two other critical features of dominant political ways:
the shibboleths of extensive private property and high technology
26
31
A CRITIQUE OF (WILD) WEST DEEP ECOLOGY: A RESPONSE TO
w ARWICK
Fox's RESPONSE TO AN EARLIER CRITIQUE.
i
Approaching deep ecology and understanding plurallism
39
ii
Value in deep ecology
42
iii
The extent of values-in-nature
46
iv
A biocentric ethic?
49
V
Biospheric egalitarianism revisted
51
vi
The uneasy position of value theory, or axiology within deep ecology
and the condemned environmental axiological route
53
vii
The 'case' against environmental axiology: 'the inadequacies or
repugnant conclusions that attend the environmental axiological
approach
viii Fox's 'Deep Ecological Territory': transpersonal identification
ix
Problems of Self and Self-realisation: the intrusion of value and the
issue of evil
57
62
65
11
X
Deconstruction and reselection of self
68
xi
More troubles with Self as foundation
73
xii
Liquidating Fox's 'deep ecological territory
75
xiii
Justifying 'extreme interpretations' of and 'extreme reactions' to
wild West deep ecology
77
xiv
Transpersonal logic and methodology
82
xv
More rubbish removal, especially that borrowed from pop science
86
Part 3
ANOTHER 'REFUTATION' OF ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS:
JANNA THOMPSON'S CRITICISMS
i
The newer destructive phase: overtaxing requirements for
(environmental) ethics
94
ii
Satisfying duly modified requirements, environmentally
98
iii
The former constructive phase: a new anthropocentric
environmental ethic?
105
PART 1.
CRITICAL EXPOSITION
Chapter 1. AT THE PYRAMIDS' JUNCTION.
THE BASICS AND CREED OF DEEP ECOLOGY
Deep ecology in both a movement and an ideological position. Thus in significant respects it
resembles a new religion, which has a creed as well as an organisational structure, practices and so
on; a political party, which has a platform as well as organisation, objective and so forth; and an
intellectual school, which aim to propagate a philosophy, gain converts and adherents, etc. Like a
religion in a literate society, there is a set of texts, DE texts as we shall call them, which present
elements of the faith: doctrine, themes, parables, heroic figures, warnings, and so on. The DE texts
have not so far been arranged into any authoritative form.
Although the movement may have come first, and the theory been but gradually extracted (the
historical and pseudo-sociological impression given by the DE texts), it makes for neater
characterisation and easier exposition to consider the theoretical structure J first. The very looselyknit movement, subsequently considered, essentially the genuine environment movement (excluding
those just in it for human ends), is in any case clustered around this structure - as older cities are
around their centre. The theoretical structure is itself conveniently organised in the following
(double) pyramidal diagram (now called by Naess, who devised it, "the Apron"):-
Diagram 1.
Basic Double Pyramid
LEVELS
UPPER (INVERTED) PYRAMID
C
B
p
1. Sources, or
ultimate bases
2.Core
Principles
DE PLATFORM
R
E
E
D
REGULAR PRACTICE
PARTICULAR PRACTICES
POLICIES
LIFESTYLES
3. General
themes & norms
4. Particular
norms and
concrete
decisions
LOWER (COMPLEX) PYRAMID
The theoretical centre of DE is to be found at level 2, where the upper and lower pyramid join.
The various sources of the central part, such doctrines as those of Buddhism (B) and Christianity (C)
and of philosophic cast (P) at level 1, are not usually a part of DE at all. But there is a preferred
philosophical source, ecosophy - another theory elaborated by N aess, who again coined the term which does enjoy a closer connection with DE, and is sometimes considered almost part of it. Levels
3 and 4, which are supposed to derive from the central creed, and in turn inductively inform it, are
parts of DE, but less central parts, parts of the varying practice. It is level 2 then that is crucial for
understanding DE. While the upper pyramid givgs the theoretical or intellectual content and sources
of DE, the lower pyramid supplies working DE, and core principles and the practice.
1. The Central level, level 2, and the standard DE platforms
Deep Ecology is structured around level 2, the central operational level. The main distinctive
principles of DE are set on level 2, the platform level. These principles may be grouped as shown in
the following diagram:CREED
LEVEL2
BASIC CREED
wider
platform
8 point
platform
further
and
more
peripheral
principles
The reason for distinguishing the 8-point platform from the wider platform is simple this:- The 8point platform, as variously presented in DE texts, omits some of the standard articles of the core DE
position, and fails to develop others. 1 There is accordingly a real point in distinguishing "the"
platform from the more comprehensive and better rounded core or creed.
DE is a decidedly vague object, with vague parts. Perhaps the most definite things about it are
its 8-point platform and its diametric opposition to features of the mainstream Western ideology, and
dominant social paradigm as it otherwise known.
The core position is something discerned from the DE texts, in much the way the platform is. But
whereas the 8 point platform is explicitly presented, though in different and incompatible terms, the
core has to be winnowed and from an array of more peripheral material (as is shown in part II).
Box 1 The 8-point platform, in capsule form. 2
I. Both non-human and human life have intrinsic value:
The well-being and flourishing of
human and non-human life on earth
have intrinsic value, inherent value,
etc. These value are independent of
the usefulness of the non-human
world for human purposes.
2. Richness and diversity intrinsic virtues:
Richness and diversity of lifeforms contribute to a realisation
themselves
these values and are also values in
of
3. Humans unjustified in reducing such natural virtues:
Humans have no right to reduce this
richness and diversity except to
satisfy vital needs.
4. Human interference with natural world excessive:
Present human interference with
the
and the situation is rapidly worsening.
non-human world is excessive
5. Policies and basic structures must be changed:
Policies must therefore be changed.
These policies will affect our basic
economic, technological and
ideological structures.
6. Human (values compatible with) population decrease:
The flourishing of human life and
culture is compatible with a substantial
population. Flourishing of nonhuman life requires such a decrease.
decrease of the human
7. Quality of life should supplant economic standard of living:
The change in our attitudes will
bring an appreciation of the quality of
life rather than adhering to an
increasingly higher standard of living.
There will be a profound awareness
of the difference between big and
great. We will have a great society
with no bigness.
8. Obligation to attempt implementation:
Those who subscribe to the
foregoing points have an obligation
directly or indirectly to try to
implement necessary changes.
2
The 8-point platform is perhaps the most repeated exhibit in the DE texts. The present formulation
adopts the presentation of Naess in Resorg ; the brief formulation on the left does not occur in Naess.
A slightly different formulation of the platform under heading 'Basic Principles' is given in DS p.70.
The principles have been rendered, and grJuped, to make their structure and interconnections a
little clearer. Principles / and 2 concern intrinsic values; principles 3-7 concern human practices and
policies. Principle 5 elaborates in principle 3; principle 6 draws the policy consequence of this. The
most important of the general policy changes is listed in principle 4; but another crucial policy change
is indicated in principle 7: decreased production and consumption. The prime terrestrial policy
objectives (that should have obtained separate listing) can in fact be derived from the impact formula:
roughly,
human environmental impact = human population x personal consumption x available technology.
Reducing excessive interference thus requires at least some of, and no doubt all of, human
population reduction, consumption reduction, and appropriate technology improvements. Finally,
principle 8 supplies a commitment principle. Observe that some of the principles of this 8-point
platform, 8-point principles as we may conveniently call them, provide linkages with other levels of
the DE pyramid. For example most of the principles, principles 3-7 especially, have implication for
policy at level 3, and thence for day-to-day practice at level 4. 8-point principle 8 has direct
application to level 4, individual lifestyles.
Before the incomplete 8-point platform was devised (as part of a political conciliation and
unification attempt), DE was rather differently characterised: primarily through listing of principles
countering assumptions of the conventional socioeconomic wisdom, resistance principles. Indeed,
in many respects DE is marked out through reaction and resistance: by its opposition the prevailing
ideology of industrial society, especially by those elements of it that have lead to the assault on the
natural environment, but also by elements that have led to breakdown of connected features of the
social fabric. It gives a clearer picture of what DE is about if we tabulate are principles in opposition
to those of the dominant Western ideology (or social paradigm), and as compared with those of
shallow or reform environmentalism:
TABLE 2 DE PRINCIPLES AS CONTRASTED, ON THE ONE SIDE, WITH THOSE OF THE
DOMINANT PARADIGM AND SHALLOW ECOLOGY, ON OTHER, WITH ONE OF ITS
SOURCES, TAOISM.
DOMINANT
SHALLOW
(WESTERN)
ECOLOGY
DEEP ECOLOGY
TAOISM
(DE)
PARADIGM (DE)
Domination over
nature
Stewardship of
Nature
Nature an exploitable
resource: intrinsic
value confined to
As for, but
with nature a
manager resource
Natural environment
valued for itself
Human
supremacy
Human
ascendency
Biocentric
egalitarianism
Harmony with
Nature
Elaboration of
DE
Much as for DE;
''humanism''
rejected
Differs from
DE; wide
impartiality
Ample resources
substitutes
Some resource
limitations
Earth supplies
limited
Supplies
Material economic
growth a predominant
goal
Sustainable
development
Non-material goods
especially
self-realization
Following
Tao-te
Consumerism
Optimised
consumerism
Doing with enough/
recycling
Doing with
enough
(recycling
inappropriate)
Competitive
lifestyle
As for DP
Cooperative
lifeway
Much as for DE:
voluntary
simplicity
Centralised/urbancentred/national focus
As for DP
Decentralized/
bioregional/
neighborhood focus
As for DE
Largely as for
DP
Non-hierarchical/
Grassroots democracy
Hierarchy
without
structure
More careful
high technology
Appropriate
technology
Limited
technology
Power structure
hierarchical
High technology
ample
Power
7
Shallow ecology, or reform environmentalism as it can to be called3 , differs from the
dominant paradigm primarily in its emphasis on stewardship, on long-term management, on
sustainable development. DE, while it reacts against the dominant paradigm primarily on
environmental grounds, stands opposed to shallow ecology, which it correctly sees as not going
nearly far enough, in particular to satisfy genuine environmental values. Of course the dominant
paradigm resisted is not itself a uniform or static position; some of the in determining of DE
flows from this very feature. For example, until very recently DP used to support dominance as
a throughgoing feature: not just over Nature, but of the male, white, Western, Protestant, rich,
powerful, free, adult, etc., over their opposites. Domination of the latter sorts, within the
human species, is, for the most part, no longer a part of the progressive ideology, having been
gradually shed over the last century; but such domination still remains part of much practice (as
well as of cultural ideologies).
Some of the most distinctive, and most controversial, principles of DE, are omitted from
the 8-point platform, as is evident from the opposition/resistance principles. These include the
principles regularly, and pontifically, claimed to distinguish deep ecology. Moreover without
these further principles, DE amount to nothing more than a slightly less shallow environmental
position (indeed apart from principle 1 and perhaps 2, all the principles of the 8-point platform
can be adopted by reform environmentalism and in fact often are enough espoused therefor).
These additional principles, part of the wider platform (and the creed) include these:9. Biospheric egalitarianism [in principle]: 'all things in the biosphere have an equal right to live
and blossom'. The principle is presented in this unqualified form (in DS) as one of the two
ultimate norms, the other being self-realisation. Fir fact Devall and Sessions proceed to tack on
a self-realisation component to this principle, of biocentric equality as they call it: namely 'and
to reach their own individual forms of unfolding and self-realisation with the larger Selfrealisation' (DS p.67). But, they immediately add, the 'basic intuition is that all organisms and
entities in the ecosphere, as parts of the interrelated whole, are equal in intrinsic worth' (p.67,
continuing, italics added). This italicised value-formulation is straightforward, and has the
advantage of moving rights out of the formulation (No doubt, if equal intrinsic value
guarantees an equal right to live and blossom, it yields the "equal rights to" formulation.) But it
encounters immediate difficulties, because in the process of continuing to live and blossom some
organisms interfere with others, for instance through basic demands for food and shelter, most
conspicuously in predation. To try to escape these difficulties, Naess at least regularly adds the
rider: in principle . 'Naess suggests that biocentric equality as an intuition is true in principle,
3
For example in D & S. The alternative, shallow ecology, was set aside because of the negative
conditions of the word 'shallow'.
8
although in the process of living, all species use each other as food, shelter, etc.' (DS p.67).
10. Self-realisation . This involves the realisation - growth, development and maturity - of the
self, becoming a whole and full person, but not merely in isolation or in a social setting as in
older models of self-realisation, but within a biospheric setting, taking due account of other
forms of life. It 'can be summarised symbolically as the realisation of "self-in-Self' where
"Self' stands for organic wholeness' (DS p.67).
Intimately linked with self-realisation in this wider ecological sense is the next principle.
11 Biospheric identification . The procedure, again a personal one, consists in suitably
identifying with parts or wholes of the larger surrounding biosphere. The underlying notion
here is one of partial identity, sharing certain salient features with, which permits a qualified
substitutivity of an imaginative person into the position of another creature, ecoobject or
ecosystem. Such "identification" is a significant method of heightening
12. Ecological consciousness . Less grandiosely this covers environmental awareness,
appreciation, and concern, and thus responsiveness to environmental depredation. Engendering
ecological consciousness is regarded as a crucial part of spreading the deep ecological message.
13. Holism. On DE precepts, this amounts to more than the modem holism according to which
there are nonadditive wholes, wholes or objects which amount to more than the sums of their
parts. But as to what else holism demands, there is some disagreement within deep ecological
circles.
2. Further principles of the DE creed and important optional extras
Beyond the standard platform there are further principles, not enunciated at all, or until
very recently, or else more peripheral. Some of the further themes help in deciding what clarity
DE had; that is one reason why they presumably do not feature in the 8-point platform.
Among the principles not enunciated are these:•
Non violence.
The new themes, several of them periphical to the main concerns of DE include the
following:• Deep ecology offers a green synthesis. It 'combines the "Social Greens" with the "Natural
Greens" avoiding the extremes of both' (Naess R p.6). This is a surprising theme for a position
that has itself been regularly castigated as extreme. What N aess means, above all, is that DE
does not neglect humans, and their legalerate social concerns and aspirations, in the way that the
9
Natural-greens have been (generally erroneously) accused of doing; nor does it neglect or
devalue nature and its features in the way that many social-greens are inclined to do.
Among the important optional extras that may be coupled with DE are principles of a more
through-going animal liberation, such as:• a severe reduction oforend to the enclavement, confinement and slaughter of animals.
• vegetarianism (of some form).
Some deep ecologists are vegetarians (e.g. Bennett), some are not (e.g. Drengson), and some
are in between (e.g. Naess). Unless they undergo a conversion, Northerness brought up in the
hunting-fishing-shooting tradition eschew these optimal principles. But evidently there is a
tension here; there is pressure coming from other principles, especially nonviolence, to limit
sharply slaughter of other creatures.
3. The creed, the basic creed, and the movement.
Like many a religious creed, the DE creed is an elaborate concoction (as well as a dubious
and rather arbitrary one). Adoption of it, knowledge of it even, cannot be expected of all
adherents, especially given its features: its vagueness, its inaccessibility, and so on. It is not
surprising that, again like many another creed or ideology, many of the faithful do not know too
well what it comprises, still less do many of the fellow-travellers (and DE has many). The most
that can perhaps be expected of adherents is adoption of some simpler creed, a basic creed more
or less in the vicinity of the 8-point platform. But it is apparent from DE texts that not even all
of that platform is demanded: enough will do, especially if other DE principles are adopted. The
platform represents 'what most supporters have in common at a deep level' 4 No doubt
supporters who eschew part of the platform compensate by adherence instead of other DE
principles or practice. Hence the depiction of the basic creed in diagram 2. A basic creed
comprises enough of the 8-point platform plus enough other principles at least to compensate for
omissions.
But not even a basic creed is always demanded. At its most generous and laxest, the DE
movement includes everyone who professes a concern for some part of the natural environment
and does not demolish a manifestation of concern or interest by blatantly anti-environmental
activity or involvement therewith. Inclusion in the movement does not even require strict
adoption of, or adherence to the DE platform, though it involves some vague recognition of
parts of it. Talk of membership of the movement would be somewhat inapposite; there is no
paid-up or recorded membership (or even rewarding as would be done in a voting system).
4
Naess R p.3, italics added.
10
It is sometimes said that the DE movement was born in Europe and adopted elsewhere,
US and Australia especially. But such a claim confuses the movement with quasi-sociological
extraction of the principles involved and the platform assembling them. The movement itself
emerged as a late 1960's affair, substantially under way before it was reported upon and labelled
(as usual, academics, like politicians, reacted to, rather than led, more popular movements).
Such a movement involves some "mass" of people; it must therefore be anticipated by some
smaller groups and likely some initiating individuals. So it was with the DE movement. There
were prominent individuals in several countries where environmental groups with deep leanings
formed or operated, in the 60s and before; and before that there were many isolated individuals.
In USA, where the DE movement no doubt grew to substance first, before that in Europe or
Australia, there is a significant chain of deep ecologists, or rather deep ecological thinkers,
reaching back to the beginning of the century and perhaps into the previous century; for
instance, in reverse temporal order, Carson, Leopold, Muir, perhaps Thoreau. 5 Muir is
regularly alluded to as an early deep ecologist by Americans. 6
There are deeper-seated motives for vagueness about the basic creed and uncertainty about
the basic requirements to be deep ecologist and who makes the hororific status. One is a dislike
of criticism, and resulting vacillation among the high bishops of DE as to what extent critics, and
those who declare themselves not to be deep ecologists, should be included in the fold, and
consequently as to who exactly is a deep ecologist. (From outside the issue can look rather
trivial, but gangs are gangs whether ecological or more generally not..) A main reason for the
omission of central doctrines of DE from the 8-point platform is of course related: the desire to
increase the flock, to turn away no-one who might be decently admitted. 7 Another motive,
linked also with trying to enlist support, in order to mobilize democratic forces and like people
power, concerns the pluralistic drive that is an important aspect of authentric DE. It concerns the
insertion of pluralistic elements within level 2 itself (rather than confining these elements to other
levels, where there are conspicuous, as later exposition will show). As Naess explains the idea
5
6
7
In Australia there were, in reverse order, Dunply, Griffin, Stead; there were of course many others
with very considerable environmental concerns (e.g. Ratcliffe), who apparently lacked however the
requisite feature of depth, and world count only as reform environmentalistser conservationists. But,
quite evidently, there are serious problems in discerning whether some environmentalist or other is
deep (there is generally only indirect evidence, as the category was not clearly recognised). The issue
as to whether some deep environmentalist is a (prota)-deep ecologist is even more vexed because of
the muddiness of DE. It is important to observe that little reliance can be placed, in such issues, on
standard and applauded histories, such as Nash's Wilderness and the America Mind, because these are
written from a shallow perspective and fail to realise the significance of depth; See further Devall's
report on Nash's third edition, Ecorotes, pp23-9.
See, for instance, Devall Ecorates. Devall also suggests that St. Francis is a deep ecologist, but
given what is now known about St. Francis there is room for considerable doubt.
Or othersie admitted. But may be excluded by ignored or incompetance, or deterred by qualms about
significent propositions (human populations restraint esp.).
11
is avoid the 'devastating' 'tendency to dogmatism': 'there is not one, definite, deep ecology
philosophy, not one definite one kind of green society'. Likewise there is no definite or
definitive basic creed. For many purposes this does not matter; we can still normally assert such
and such, so and so, definitely deep ecological, such and such, so and so, is definitely not.
In an attempt to evade criticism, DE is nowadays sometimes represented as a grass-roots
movement, one but loosely associated with philosophical views 8 But such movements have
intellectually-shaped objectives, offer at least a set of slogans and elementary principles. And
DE is this and more; it verges on the dishonest to try to portray DE as such a movement, when
in large measure it is the work of intellectuals, initiated by reporting, rather inaccurately it seems,
on the supposed attitudes of field ecologists and like workers - hardly typical grass-roots people.
8
In a different respect, in term of moral of ideas and change of themes, DE is no doubt a movement. It
has moved (and with Fox shedding critical principles, it continues moving). Such movement is not
good for the types of virtues that stable positions may acquire, such a replenity, reliability,
assessibility etc; but it does make life difficult for critics.
PART II
CRITIQUE OF DEEP ECOLOGY
Chapter 5.
THE INITIAL PROBLEM: WHAT ON EARTH IS DEEP ECOLOGY?
WHO IS AND ISN'T A DEEP ECOLOGIST?
Deep ecology appears , on a preliminary reading, to be some elaboration of the position
that natural things other than humans have value in themselves, value sometimes exceeding that of
or had by humans. So much appears to follow from the first part of the 8-point platform. But
even this much is denied by some of the never philosophers (e.g. Fox). Moreover which
elaboration is quite another matter, and decidedly controversial. Indeed DE has not just been
rapidly converted (in part through overuse) into a conceptual bog, but is well on the way to
becoming all things to all interested parties. This is undoubtedly a drawback; it makes
communication, and theoretical and persuasive use of the notion, that much more difficult though it does not condemn an afflicted notion, such as deep ecology undoubtedly is, out of
hand. For several important and fruitful notions, which have survived, have encountered very
much of this sort of problem - force, mind, energy, differential, infinitesimal, to take some older
examples, paradigm and culture to take relevant recent examples.O On the other hand, many
notions no more afflicted than deep ecology, such as societism, timocracy and ungrund, have
been assigned to the historical scrap-heap. These include the sort of neo-Hegelian panpsychism
which deep ecology of the American texts will tum out to resemble.
What is evidence of conceptual murkiness and degeneration? The trouble begins with the
very introduction of the terminology. Naess, - when first setting down in one preliminary
codification what was already in the air,* wrote only of the 'Deep Ecology movement' and set
down what he has subsequently described as a 'Deep Ecology platform'. The suggested notion
of deep ecology, the underlying notion that informed the loosely-knit and open-ended movement
and platform, was not extracted; that subtraction task fell primarily to West Coast American
intellectuals, and it was done differently by different proponents of deep ecology. The trouble
was accentuated through rapid evolution of the notion. Thus Naess's account of the movement in
0
*
In case it is supposed this sort of conceptual muddiness is limited to less exact science, consider such
recent notions as anthropic principle, from physics, and nonmonotonic logic, from computer science.
See Naess 73, p.98ff. While slogans and preliminary formulations are fine, particularly in campaigns,
philosophy cannot rest at the level of slogans or platforms, as too much of DE continues to do.
2
1983 is significantly different from the account he outlined in 1973; seven principles are replaced
by six different themes, only two or so of which have much in common with the original
principles. t
Although DE is introduced in the 8-point platform as a value theory, basically concerned
with environmental values 1 , it has been presented as a metaphysics, as a consciousness
movement (and as primarily psychological), and even as a sort of (pantheistic) religion. Popular
Australian sources will begin to indicate some of the spread. The Deep Ecologist , a network
newsletter, sees deep ecology as metaphysical at base, as part of a natural philosophy of humans'
place in nature (though many of its correspondents see it as a matter of deep experiences , often
of a religious cast, too often decidedly anthropocentric, obtained in or through Nature).
According to its manifesto, carried in each issue on its title page,
Deep ecology is the search for a sustaining metaphysics of the environment; it
represents "a deep understanding of our unity with other beings and livings
processes" (Drengson); it is biocentric, not anthropocentric.
Though we shall come to modify or reject this manifesto phrase by phrase (deep ecology is not a
search, but on one level a position or theory, on another a movement; sustaining should concern
the environment, not the metaphysics; depth lies elsewhere than understanding; unity too is a
metaphor for integration; biocentric is misleadingly restrictive), the present enterprise, illustrating
the degenerative spread of deep ecology, is different. Let us hasten on to the strikingly different
explanation John Seed prefers in introducing and advertising his anthology Deep Ecology 2 , a
person - and consciousness-oriented souffle (drawn from Devall):
"What I call deep ecology ... is premised on a gestalt of person-in-nature [an image
Naess had rejected at the very outset of the enterprise 3]. The person is not above or
outside of nature. The person is part of creation on-going. The person cares for and
about nature, shows reverence towards and respect for nonhuman nature, loves, and
lives with nonhuman nature, is a person in the "earth household" and "lets beings
be", lets nonhuman nature follow separate evolutionary destinies. Deep ecology,
unlike reform environmentalism, is not just a pragmatic, short-term social movement
with a goal like stopping nuclear power or cleaning up the waterways. Deep ecology
first attempts to question and present alternatives to conventional ways of thinking in
the modern West. Deep ecology understands that some of the "solutions" of reform
environmentalism are counter-productive. Deep ecology seeks transformation of
values and social organisation.
t
2
3
The claim is documented in the Appendix to this chapter.
Thus according to Naess (73, p.99), ' ... the significant tenets of the Deep Ecology movement are
clearly and forcefully normative . They express a value priority system ... '. But even this core claim
is now challenged, by Fox, who sees the primary focus of deep ecology as ontological and not
evaluative.
This is one of three different collections with this title which have been circulated or announced
recently: see references.
See Naess 73, p.95; but Naess's rejection is rejected below.
•
3
Deep ecology is liberating ecological consciousness ... Consciousness is knowing.
From the perspective of deep ecology, ecological resistance will naturally flow from
and with a developing ecological consciousness (Devall, 'The Deep Ecology
Movement').
Again, while informative, much of this will have to be rejected or rectified (for example, the
gesalt theme is problematic, and the deep person need do part only of what is specified; shallow
or reform ecology need not be short-term, insofar as it may take account of many future
generations of humans; it may well not be pragmatic; shallow ecology is better pluralistically
combined with deep ecology, as in Naess's original platform, than denigrated; etc.) It is to Bill
Devall, more than anyone, that we are indebted for a confusing myriad of formulations of the
driving notion, several of them however extending Naess; for instance, deep ecology is first of all
deep questioning, deep ecology is ultimately self-realisation and biocentrism, in deep ecology the
most important ideas are 'the wholeness and integrity of person/planet together with biological
egalitarianism'; it is also however much else - that again we shall come to modify or reject including a new psychology and new philosophical anthropology. 4 But Devall has been much
encouraged by George Sessions, and it is Sessions especially who has tried to convert deep
ecology into a new religion, with main texts drawn from pantheism, Spinoza and Buddhism.
Thus according to Sessions,
If the promise of American pantheism and nature mysticism is to be fulfilled, it will
occur in the deep ecology social paradigm which is based upon pantheism and the
idea of ecological egalitarianism in principle (Ecophilosophy ill).
But although Sessions refers immediately to Naess, there is nothing in Naess about American
pantheism and nature mysticism. At most Naess would allow that pantheism, along with other
comprehensive positions, like Christianity or ecosophy, can be an underlying base for the deep
ecology platform.
Small wonder that John Passmore (hardly one to be philosophically baffled given his
immense experience in comprehending Continental philosophy) goes astray in yet another
account, in which he conveniently pushes the shallow-deep contrast into the unsatisfactory
conservation/preservation boxes (of his 74):
Deep ecophilosophers ... are mainly interested in the preservation of species and
wilderness even when preserving them is not immediately and advantageous to
human interest. In order to provide intellectual support for such preservation they
are prepared to break with traditional Western ethical principles and metaphysical
beliefs (Passmore 83).
4
Devall 79, 83; for a synopsis, see Appendix 1, figure 7B.
4
Again, most of this will have to be rectified, since the presentation is decidedly misleading, not to
say biassed. As initial explanations of the deep ecological movement straightaway show, and
applications reveal, deep ecology has always concerned, and deep ecophilosophers have always
been interested in, much else as well, especially in human population levels and human
interference, and in quality of life and technological and organisational structures. While this of
course requires breaking with some Western traditions - which are in no way sacrosanct Wes tern tradition is far from uniform, and there are other tradition: deep ecology can remain, and
is, rooted in tradition, though much about it is as new and fresh as anything of this sort can be.
As a broad label for something rather environmentally different, and no doubt better, than
most vague ideologies that preceded it, 'deep ecology' is no doubt rather fine. That is broad
vague way is how the label often functions, honorific ally. That is, for instance how it functions
in the collection under that label edited by Tobias, which gives deep ecology none but a nebulous
content, and which indeed contains many articles (such as the interview with Soleri) in diametrical
opposition to the more detailed platform promulgated by the intellectual "leaders" of the deep
ecology movements. In fact, a good deal of the more popular appeal of deep ecology has been
obtained by vacillation between the more discerning authentic forms and the slack or nebulous
forms. The nebulous use of the label has also given cover to some of those who calls themselves
'deep ecologists', enabling them to shed awkward but crucial themes from the more detailed
platform (thus e.g. Fox, as explained below).
Many are those who are now pleased to march under the rather fashionable nebulous
banner. 5 Many are not deep, in theory or practice, deeply committed, or deeply changed by the
march. Attending a consciousness - raising weekend, purchasing or growing organic vegetables,
having spiritual experiences in a special natural place, or practising some oriental art or exercise
routine, does not ensure a deepened environmental position, though it can be a step on the way.
While nebulous deep ecology is compatible with much that is neither deep nor even
significantly ecologically oriented, such as minor lifestyle adjustments within the industrial
paradigm, authentic deep ecology, which is not so slack, remains a defective doctrine, itself
oscillating between an overpermissive environmental assembly point, fast growing its radical
potential, on the one side, and an impermissive, unduly narrow doctrine, dubious or defective in
5
I too am happy to march under the nebulous banner, though since my first critique I am no longer
particularly welcome. Initially I was cut by about half those individuals and institutions loosely
associated with deep ecology, since my critique began circulating. While I am become accustomed to
this sort of phenomenon in intellectual areas (criticism induces cool and long at least, even in logic), I
didn't expect so much of this given the Christian character of DE.; and such isolation does seriously
reduce information sources.
5
several of its leading themes, on the other side. Some of the worst of these themes, such as
biological egalitarianism, have already been subject to much criticism, deserved criticism as will
soon appear. But other features of authentic deep ecology have hitherto been left largely
untouched, and new features have emerged. So an ongoing critique is needed.
Recently 6 , it has been become more difficult, if anything, to grasp what DE is all about.
New themes are introduced, older ones withdrawn or whittled away. Even Naess, the finder of
the movement, who now tends to adhere much more closely to the (nonetheless adjustible)
platform than other self-proclaimed deep ecologists, is inclined to make apparently large
concessions to opposition charges, which however he subsequently more surreptitiously
withdraws (of course this is familiar philosophical practice). At other times, he withdraws with
one hand what he is offering, some sort of olive branch, with the other. The oscillation can be
partly ascribed to conflicting motivation. On the one side, there is the desire, stronger in the
finder-founder, Naess, than in his American and Australian prophets, to create a wide
constituency, to tum no one away if doing so can in any way be avoided. But, on the other, there
is an evident desire, among the prophers, to make deep ecology a very select position, a place for
a chosen few, a place to be achieved only after a journey crossing some arduous terrain and
involving some difficult life adjustments i.e. after an appropriate testing pilgrimage. Deep
ecology, however, lacks the other-worldly and after-life resources which, in some of its religious
sources, appear to make for an easy resolution of this type of conflict.
There is a considerable lack of discrimination among the pace-setters of the movement over,
and marked differences between them as to, who and what is accounted within deep ecology, and
some unwarranted discrimination from this exclusive club (e.g. of Rodman). Many of the people
classed as within or associated with deep ecology are shallow. And some who are excluded are
not. For example, Naess (in 75) presents a long list of people he associates with the movement,
many of whom are rather or even entirely shallow in their environmental orientation. Elsewhere
(in 83) Naess proceeds to identify with deep ecology several other positions or movements which
only overlap it, and which may be substantially shallow (such as green politics and new natural
philosophies). Some of the predominantly American lists Devall and Sessions assemble are not
so artless. To some extent, this combined discrimination and lack of discrimination again reflects
the conceptual murkiness of deep ecology; to some extent it is symptomatic of other oldconsciousness malignancies, both within the notion and as regards its use.
6
Since the first critique was produced
6
Still more damaging to the movement is that several of the advertised prophets of deep
ecology verge on the shallow, and some of these have denied DE.7 A striking example is
Bookchin who has recently denounced DE, and written ranging declamations much of
Bookchin's main, windy, bringin-it-together book, The Ecology of Freedom, said to be a "book
of deep ecology" is very far from that; it is yet another, is a celebration of humans in very much
the old (enlightenment) style. Insofar as it gets to grips with deeper environmental issues,
Bookchin's material amounts to an extension of shallow ecology. 8 Ecologically Bookchin, like
other of the prophets, buys into vitalism by way of extended consciousness. Ecological ethics is
said to render nature self-conscious; the mechanistic alternative is presented as deadness, thus
making an entirely false contrast. Indeed, part of the problem with the selection of prophets, is
that mechanism is seen as the main bogy - when it is only one of the forms metaphysically
underpinning shallower positions, Cartesian dualism being another - with the result that work that
simply attacks mechanism and its variants and also advocates some sort of environmental way,
gets accounted deep.
N aess has cast the net of deep ecology too wide, catching therewith not only many remote
"supporters", but a number of hostile critics as well, such as latterly the antagonistic Bockchin
(RS p.6). Naess now considers the 8-point platform, formulated by himself and Sessions and
published in several slightly different forms, as tentatively setting down the 'basic principles of
Deep Ecology' - though it leaves out what Devall and Sessions assert are the two essential
features of DE, biospheric egalitorionism and self-realisation, and though it does not require
depth (immediate positions conforming to the platform). Even so Naess 'look[s] upon the
formulations as tentatively expressing the most general and basic views which almost all
supporters of the movement have in common ' (letter 23.6.88). Thus the 8-point platform
provides, in a still vague and tentative sort of way, the distinguishing platform, of DE. To get
around a small obstacle, let us call those who would adhere to an approved minimum of the
principles of the distinguished platform (in some approved formulation) adherents of DE. They
are adherents in (simply and literally) holding to that much of the platform. They may not be
members of the movement in any ordinary sense, in any but the set-theoretical sense, because
appropriate intentionality is lacking, for instance they may never have heard of the movement, let
alone made any effort to join. Nor need adherents be supporters in the usual sense; support is
neither necessary nor sufficient for adherence. A critic such as Bockchin, or Routley, can be an
7
8
See, e.g., B. Devall and G. Sessions, 'The books of deep ecology', Earth First! 4(8) (1984). Several
of these books do not penetrate very deep ecologically or otherwise.
See especially p.344, with remarks like 'and wherever possible the wildlife they may support on their
fringes'. The paragraph portrays a very human-centered (and conquered-land) picture. See also p.342,
middle.
7
adherent without being a supporter, without being supportive. Conversely, a supporter may not
be an adherent. The Salvation Army has many supporters, including atheists, who are not
adherents. The DE movement has many supporters, some of whom call themselves 'deep
ecologists', who do not adhere to the platform, even "more or less". Many of these supporters
are shallow environmentalists, who do not accept the key first point, of intrinsic value outside
humans, or else try to evade it (e.g. by redefinition, or by wrapping up value inextricably in
relations to valuers). Since there are, in my experience, many supporters and indeed enthusiasts
who tum out to be of this shallow sort, Naess's view is a little puzzling: what does he mean here
'almost all supporters'? Also which isolated exceptions does he have in view?
With the rise of environmentism, most of the distinguishing platform is no longer
demanding; indeed it is deliberately lax with a view to increasing the following. Moreover, none
of it, except for the last point, specifying an obligation to attempted implementation, requires any
commitment in the past of adherents. Plainly adherence to DE, as well as support for DE, could
be very considerably increased were this requirement evaded. A neat strategy, common to
ecomonical practice and sociological research, readily presents itself. Let us speak of silent
adherents as those who adhere to the platform, more or less, except that they make no requisite
effort to implement it (they may of course have some vague feeling of obligation, should they
ever reflect on the matter). Even without the benefit of scholarly survey work, it is evident that
DE would now have a large number of silent adherents, many of whom are not however
adherents, being either oblimovish, situated in repressive regions or social situations, or simply
uninformed (like indigenous peoples who think here are excessively many excessively
interferring humans of Caucasian stock).
The core platform represents a surprisingly incomplete and rather ill-organised collocation
of principles. The incompleteness is most conspicuous in point 6, which advances no details as
to envisaged structural changes. In extenuation N aess pleads that he has 'not has courage to go
into detail and define what these different structures will be, because we are going to have a lot of
different Green varieties. We shouldn't have one set of structures imposed' 9 • The reasoning
does not hold up. A range of structures, rather than a unique structure, can easily be defined by
constraints well-known ones as it happens. Naess should certainly be encouraged to go on and
delimit the structural and policy changes. It is easy to give him a start, drawing upon DE and
neighbouring environmental positions. For instance,
6a. The policy objective of maximizing state economic growth should be abandoned in favour of
9
RS p.7. But elsewhere. Naess did go into some detail (e.g. Book). Furthermore, if Naess - old,
famous, unorthodox, courageous enough on difficult mountains - doesn't get down to requisite details
of structural change, who will? Well, even some rather shallow theorists do.
8
a highly selective approach to such growth. Evidently, there are many different ways such a
change in policy can be implemented. Some such change may be suggested by, but is not
implied by, point 7.
6b. Technology selection should be reoriented to appropriate technology, and away from risky
and polluting technology.
6c. Population policies should be directed at decreasing human populations in overpopulated
regions.
Principle 6c complements point 4, which does not actually enjoin any decrease in human
population. And so on, through a well-known list of constraints, with several of them regularly
included in principles of alternative social paradigms. Point 5 requires similar elaboration.
Another surprising feature is how mild most of these elaborations are, like the lax
distinguishing platform itself, which is pretty wishy-washy when contrasted with what is
happening out there environmentally. Many environmentalists now wish to proceed much
further, and to witness some real curtailment of heavy broad-acre assaults upon environments,
such as extensive clear-cutting of forests, over-fishing of shelves, and over-grazing of rangelands, extensive strip and beach mining, broad-acre pollution, and so on. Even
deindustrialization is not explicitly part of the DE creed, though some of the text enjoin it (e.g.
DS); but the issue is (no doubt wisely) avoided by leading prophets of DE familiar with the
demands of socialism. Yet deindustrialization - a considerable reduction in the levels of industrial
activity, particularly the undesirable dangerous destructive polluting types of industry that
conspicuously contributed to the first industrial revolution - would emerge from all the alternative
futures deep ecologists prefer to imagine, along with a much smaller, less consumption-oriented,
terrestrial human population. In any case, deindustrialization is an important environmental
objective, for both shallower and deeper ecology. It would assist, most materially, in obtaining
some better control on major environmental risks and problems, notably such matters as
greenhouse effects, atmospheric ozone destruction, and acid rain and its fall-out.
The idea of progress is, like that of more industrialisation, also under a cloud. It is now
naive to assume that progress per se is automatically to be applauded, and that a telling criticism
of something is that it would block progress. People are these days a little more discriminating
(in some respects); there is progress and progress, growth and growth, coke and coke. Much
that was progress, and still is in many quarters, is no longer universally regarded as such, as, for
instance, elimination of wetlands, pollution growth, assimilation of indigenous peoples. The
'previously ... dominant [assumption], that non-industrial society would and should progress
towards the industrial state and the scientific world view' was challenged, and is increasingly
rejected (cf. Naess, on the "status of mythology").
9
So wishy-washy is the core characterisation of deep ecology that it lets in as deep ecologists
all sorts of environmental philosophers who would not previously have made that select band,
philosophers whom main disciples of deep ecology previously did or would have excluded,
philosophers whose positions are not deep. If DE is to be more exclusive, it will require more
careful, tighter formulation. Only clearly ruled out among environmental philosophers, i.e. those
who philosophize about environments and environmental problems, are hard-line human
chauvinists, led in the textbook stakes by Australians, Passmore (in his main conservative
persona) and McCloskey, but recently joined by some Americans Many of these excluded
philosophers would, moreover, subscribe to most of the points in the core platform, as weakly
interpreted. It is nowadays a rare thinking person who does not consider that there are severe
environmental problems, local and global, about which something, fairly far-reaching by
conservative political standards, should be done. It is a rare philosopher, who becomes
immersed in some spread of these problems (though it is still a rather rare professional
philosopher that does), and who does not develop some environmental commitments - even if a
liberalish social agenda still continues to dominate an environmental one (even so it is fast
becoming hard to avoid observing the interprenetration of social with broadly environmental
problems). While environmental philosophy has, by contrast with economics 10 , tended to
become progressively more accommodating to what was only a short time ago radical
environmental throught, as the magnitude of environmental problems is revealed, deep ecology
has moved in the opposite direction, has tried be excessively conciliatory, confusing pluralism
with broad consensualism, and has lost much of its radical flare. A wide environmental pluralism
is just fine; but it does not have to be achieved through consensus, or at the cost of a deep or an
ecological platform. A pluralism can be achieved by the linking of different positions, not their
mergence.
Among the diverse and motley groups of philosophers who now gain entry as adherents of
deep ecology, too generously construed, are apparently included those examples:Example 1. Moral extensionists, both utilitarians and rationalists 11 . Among utilitarians are
Singer, and perhaps even Smart on some days. Most turns on how point 1 is construed.
Utilitarians in the Benthamite tradition assign intrinsic value to all creatures with preferences,
sentience or the like, and are concerned with the well-being and flourishing of such creatures.
Accordingly they satisfy point 1 if it is read, as it may well be, 'much human and much nonhuman life'. It all depends upon how the terms 'human' and 'non-human' are quantified. If both
are quantified with 'all', the theses becomes implausible (admitting e.g. lab-manufactured
10
11
Now benchmark of reaction rareness, but itself beginning to exhibit some restlessness and unpass and
signs of change.
The useful category of moral extensionism derives from Rodman. It is critically examined also in EE.
10
abominations as intrinsically valuable), and would exclude some acknowledged deep ecologists.
If the terms are more weakly quantified, then environmentally aware and active Benthamites are
admitted. An evident dividing line, provided by particular quantification, with 'some', is enough
to exclude shallow philosophers. But no quantification will serve to exclude either intermediate
positions which do not adopt a deep value theory, or individualism, such as moral extension
positions, almost invariably a spouse. Extensionists more patently included are those of
rationalistic persuasion, grouped loosely around Regan in the American South, who have
gradually move away from utilitarian prescriptions, to the view that ethical principles, including
those of vegetarianism, can be reached by rational means, by clear, consistent and coherent
thinking (thus, the broad position is really a coherence theory of morality).
Example 2. More far-reaching intermediate positions, which do assign intrinsic value less
stingily throughout nature, to some non-preference-havers, such as trees, and to some nonindividuals, such as forests, but which still adopt a greater value assumption, according to which
human values always take precedence over non-human assignments. Positions of this sort are
delineated (so far in insufficient theoretical detail) by Rolston and Attfield. In fact the positions so
far elaborated of this type typically, but hardly inevitably, draw on an enlightened Christian
backdrop heavily laced with science (a religious American naturalism, so to say, in Ralston's
case). They amount to nonsecular moral extensionisms, by contrast with the secular moral
extensionisms of example 1 (to try to squeeze these positions into Rodman's nonexhaustive
classification of positions).
Example 3. Deep-green theorists reject the biocentric restriction sometimes built into point 1,
though not in big formulation given above. This formulation certainly admits Sylvan as an
adherent of DE, despite what some deep ecologists have said. According to strict biocentrism
however, only what has life (in some sense) can have value. Deep-green theorist see this
restriction as very like that imposed by utilitarians, to sentience as unwarranted, unnecessary,
unenforceable and arbitrary.
Deep-green theorists, like environmental resisters, ecodefenders and Earth-Firsters, now
see the DE platform as much too moderate and quite insufficiently radical. The earlier radicalism
of DE has been excessively pruned back, on a mix of dubious grounds: the drive for an
environmental consensus (in place of a genuine pluralism), the religio-political quest for a large
support base (which could however be environmentalism broadly, with DE in the vanguard), and
the input of conservatizing academic thought and the aim of intellectual respectability. In fact DE
which has not gained much ground or good grades academically, as compared with its success
outside academia, especially with book-reading environmentalists, would better forget academic
success, where it has made progress only among outsiders, not power-players, and return to its
11
more radical mission. Academics, after all, form only a tiny minority, though one dangerously
and influentially supportive, on the whole, of most past environmental excesses and assaults.
We have proceeded to cut through the problem of what DE is or may be by formulating a
specific version, authentic deep ecology, and by taking explicit account of main alternatives
proposed. Authentic deep ecology follows, for the most part, Naess's account of deep ecology.
But insistence on authentic deep ecology leaves several casualties, nebulous deep ecologists who
prove not to be authentically deep. An important test is offorded through the greater value
assumption, and the associated special place reserved for humans in the scheme of things, assent
to which serves to expose the inadequate depth of more nebulous 'followers of deep ecology'.
For (after proper preparation) they make the wrong responses on the crucial tests of depth. A
conspicuous casualty who fails to negotiate 'these tricky slopes' is Drengson, behind whose
genuine ecological sensibility lies a human supremacist position with humans occupying 'a
unique position ... in the scheme of things', at the summit of that old-consciousness hierarchy,
"the great chain of being" .12 According to Drengson, circumstances
Might force us, sometimes, to choose between the life of a fish or a cow and that of
a human child. We do not hesitate to choose the child. Our priorities are a result of
our position in the scheme of things, with a spectrum of species (p.7).
Not even followers of medium-depth ecology need respond in this reflex fashion, for instance
where the child is seriously defective. Certainly, faced with a range of duly-elaborated imagined
circumstances of difficult or forced choice, deeper thinkers would hesitate - since such situations
tend to pose moral dilemmas. And sometimes at least their priorities would be different from
Drengson's; for example, the fish is rare and the child ordinary, the cow occupies a unique place
in an important ecosystem.13
Even Naess himself, who vacillates considerably in what he has to say and occasionally
lapses badly from the authentic way. 14 It is worth examining some of Naess's logics, not for
nonphilosophical reasons (or even to reveal N aess as a further flaws doyen, typical of the heroes
12
13
14
See The Trumpeter 1(4) (1984), 6-7. Drengson is not the only casualty; Berry, whose criticism
Drengson is trying to meet, is another.
Differently, the child is Hitler or the President who chooses to press the nuclear button. Such cases,
which in some settings permit of a traditional treatment, were considered from a deeper perspective in
Routley 2 79.
A most striking example is Naess's Rescequence article, 'The basis of deep ecology', which departs
considerably from the spirit and themes of DE. Even Naess, who is not significantly hang-up in
doctrinal purity and doctrinal divergence, felt obliged to circulate a note correcting, "reformulating",
what he had said and written (the article was originally a Sub ...... lecture). 'Some ... may find some of
its sentences not quite in forming with what I usually tend to say. Therefore I offer some
reformulations ... I still stick to my views recently expressed in various articles and books' (Nute,
italics added).
12
of DE), but because these show committing about DE, they are indicative of its doctrical
instability, lack of clarity, and scope for improvement.
• Any society worthy of the name Green is a deep ecological one. 15 Given that there are a range
of ........... societies that are green but not deep green, such a claim must fail. Even if 'deep
green' were substituted for 'green' it could not be contained, because DE policies exclude some
deep green alternatives. Accordingly, it is false that explication of DE is 'articulation of the
fundamental positions that are presupposed in Green societies' (p.4); DE societies are but part of
that rich and variety plurality.
What does Naess say by way of rectification? Frankly, not nearly enough. He proceeds to assert
that in his opinion, a 'society that does not operate in harmony with [the 8-point platform of DE
... is not] worthy of being called Green! But a genuinely Green society may well reject or violate
several of the points emanciated, e.g. the wide intrinsic value assumption (of point 1), the
obligation to action (of point 8).
•
'We should never engage in any discussion on technicalities without asking, "What do we
basically need in life?" Always ask the basic question. This is what I mean by the term Deep
Ecology Movement' (p.5). Naess does nothing whatever to complenish for presentation of the
basic technical question in this (biospherically) chauvinistic way. Do we need a DE which tells us
that the bottom line is "What's in it for us?"! Doesn't part of deep environmentalism consist in
seeing through and explaining what is wrong with this pernicious bottom line. As regard the
'This is what I mean by ... ' blunder, Naess tries to exonerate himself by use of the well-worn
criterion/definition distinction.1 6 But on its own it hardly helps; such bottom line inquiry is not a
criterion for DE either. Nor is following inquiry through to ultimate ends a distinctive feature of
DE; the shallowest sorts of hedonism, for example, may adopt similar procedures. In fact N aess
lands himself in further trouble in trying to extricate himself. To try to make the criterion offer
look tempting (a comprehensive test for depth), he claims that 'when supporters of the shallow
ecology movement are seriously asked about ultimate ends they tend to affirm the same ones as
supporters of the deep movement'. Not only would this be a most unlikely outcome of a
satisfactory questionaire; but worse, if it were the outcome, it would render shallow ecology
supporters deep; so the criterion would eliminate a fundamental contrast for, and for making out,
DE. In any event, too many humans, especially powerholders, remain outside the orbit of
15
16
This follows from what Naess asserts given on that a society that adapts 'policies characteristic of
Deep Ecology' is a deep ecological one.
There is at least a touch of arrogance (or is it part Naess's disdain for conceptual nicety?) in Naess's
introduction of this shabby exoneration attempt: The damaging sentences, - those quoted - 'might be
reformulated (in honor of my conceptually interested friends) in the follow way:'. Maybe Naess was
serious in his (otherwise ab sure) opening remarks in the R ......... article about looking forward to
hobnobbing with the aristocracy.
13
shallow ecology, often attached to the pernicious bottom line (it is doubtful that 'most people
dwell in shallow ecology', p.5 heading).
•
Articulation of DE principles gives a total view. (An amazing contrast with the ....... .
juxtaposed doctrine of ignorance which suggest we can never obtain a total view.) By contrast
with 'shallow ecology which (avoids) the basic questions ... the Deep Ecology Movement
concerns itself with basic beliefs and assumptions about the universe. If you articulate the
principles of the Deep Ecology Movement you get a total view . The term "total view" is
essential. The Deep Ecology Movement is a total view. It covers our basic assumptions, our life
philosophy and our decisions in everyday life' (Res ,p.6.italics added). In first place, the alleged
contrast with shallow ecology do not stand up to much examination. A dedicated shallow
Christian or capitalist may practice the same depth of questioning and reflection or a deep
ecologist, or rather more; such a person may have a well-integrated lifestyle, with a fairly
comprehensive philosophy (as these thing go) covering it. Secondly, N aess takes what seems to
be asserted back in commentary. 'If we articulate the principles of the deep ecology movement, -- you do not get a total view' (p.3); but that apparently directly contradicts the above italicized
passage. There is an escape from contradiction offered - distinguish the principles, by filling in
the dashes by "in the sense of principles of the DE platform" - but it leads a severe problem - what
are the principles of DE? What is DE? Naess's commentary implies that the principles of DE
required for a total view are those of all levels of the double pyramid. Such an idea lands the
articulation of DE in hopeless difficulties. Firstly, we do not, and cannot, know what the
principles are, because they now include principles applied and decisions taken at the bottom level
which refers to particular situations, including 'particular direct actions at a particular date'; but
these will vary, in ......... ways, over-future times. Secondly, since there are various different,
and compating, principles at the top level, DE will either be damagingly inconsistently
characterised, or else it will be far from uniquely characterised. For DE will include Christianity
of this and that sect, Buddinism of this and that form, and so on. In fact Naess accepts such an
outcome (but in his misdirect attempt to avoid dogmatism): 'There is not one, definite, deep
ecology philosophy, not one definite "ecosophy", no definite set of green policies' (p.3) and, he
should have added on this line of thinking no definite deep ecology or set of DE principles.
But there is a set of central principles, those at level 2. They do not present a total view.
But nor in general do those of all four levels of deep ecology. There is much, a mass of opinion
(for instance, concerning scientific speculation) which would form part of a more comprehensive
(world) view that is not reflected at any of the four levels. It is indeed entirely unclear what
would present a total view? Spiniza's philosophy perhaps? But it is easy to ...... of topics it
does not cover, such as city architecture and factory farming, on which a total view could have an
angle. It is certainly doubtful that lesser mentals than Spinaza, such as typical supporters of DE,
14
operate in a total view. N aess claims that they do, but adduces no evidence; testing is much more
likely to reveal how pragmentory the ecological view of most deep ecologists are. Not only is the
noton of a "total view", drawn from Naess's earlier philosophizing muddy; the desirability of the
notion is open to (damaging) questioning. "Total view" comprehends too much, fixes too much
that perhaps should be left open; it sails too close to "totaliterian view" for real pluralistic comfort.
There is, then, quite evidently, a serious problem with deep ecology, and in finding out
exactly what it is, that even the clearer accounts offered differ in significant subjects face similar
difficulties, philosophy for one. With movements, which is what deep ecology is often presented
as, the situation is normally much worse. Consider the difficulties in saying, with much
precision, what some political movement (such as green politics) represents, what some party
stands for and against. And despite the accelerating diversity of accounts there appears to be
substance to the deep ecology notion. Several important interconnected distinctions, which look
to be worth disentangling, are marked out, and an important group of ideas is assembled. Rather
than being simply junked (something my conservative inclinations rise against with notions, as
with the premature discarding of material "goods"), the notions involved should at least be
disentangled and, if feasible, renovated or recycled.
More generally, it is not merely valuabe, but quite essential in senous intellectul
assignments, to indicate what deep ecology is and isn't - for lots of purposes, including
explaining it, arguing from it, and applying it. What can be done? One resolution can be
obtained along the lines of critical rationalism. The fuller formulations of deep ecology, after
reorganisation into more tractable form, are subject to severe criticism, with a view to obtaining
thereby an improved, more satisfactory, thinner and fitter formulation, which at the same time
meets other desirable criteria. Among these is a desideratum often lost sight of in the ferment of
environmental action, the need for environmental pluralism.
A start on this rather analytic approach involves separating out the different components of
the deep ecology messages, and isolating core themes of deep and shallow ecology from wider
positions and paradigms which they inform. The core is (as Naess indicated) essentially
normative. Fortunately the core themes have already been isolated, in a previous application of
deep ecology to population theory 17 , and this work can be taken over largely intact. For the
extensive remainder, the following pretty complicated sort of picture starts to emerge (upon
organising themes and claims of several supporters of deep ecology, in a way explained in the
Appendix to this chapter):-
17
In Routley 84.
Figure 5.1.
SHALLOWER AND DEEPER POSITIONS, AND THEIR ACCLAIMED ASSUMPTIONS, PARTLY
SCHEMATIZED.
SHALLOW
VALUE
CORE
ENVIRONMENT AL
SUBJECT
SOLE
(INTRINSIC)
K,' ALUE ASSUMPTION
VALUES-IN-NATURE
GREATER VALUE ASSUMPTION BIOSPECIES IMPARTIALITY
FURTHER PHILOSOPHICAL BASES
GROUNDOF
VALUE
DEEP
(separable theoretical underpinning)
FEATURES OF
HUMANS
DIVERSITY, RICHNESS OF
NATURAL(LIFE)FORMS
ii. METAPHYSICAL
INDIVIDUAL
REDUCTION. NATURE
AS BACKDROP
IRREDUCIBLE SYSTEMS.
NATUREAS
IN1EGRAL
m EPISTEMIC
REDUCTIONIST/ANALYTIC
SUBJECT-OBJECT ACCOUNT
HOLISTIC/GESTALT /FIELD
ACCOUNT
LARGER
ENCOMPASSING
AND INFORMING
THEORY
EMPIRICISM,IDEALISM,
ECOSOPHY, PANTHEISM,
POSITIVISM
AMERICAN NATURALISM
+- DIFFERENT FACETS ➔
OF CHRISTIANITY, BUDDHISM, ...
VALUE (DEONTIC
AND ACTION)
COLLARIES
EXTENSIVE
INTERFERENCE
FOR HUMAN INTERESTS
AND PURPOSES
1.
ACTION
(META-) PRINCIPLE
APPLICATIONS
(AS COROLLARIES)
LIMITED INTERFERENCE
AND RIGHTS THEREfO
ETHICS
ASETHETICS
METAPHYSICS
EPISTEMOLOGY
IDEOLOGY/
RELIGION
LIFESTYLE
+-OBLIGATION TO IMPLEMENT COMMITMENTS➔
To population, (individual) consumption,
(individual) impact, resources, technology, pollution,
economic growth and quality-of-life, culture, organisation,
science, education; and to the variety of natural (and
some artifical) forms, such as land, oceans, atmosphere,
arctic regions, swamps, forests, soils, ...
POLICY
ECONOMICS
POLITICS
Given the picture some major and serious sets of problems with deep ecology begin to
appear at once. First, the value core arrived at already substantially transforms that suggested by
the literature, with, for instance, biospecies impartiality improving on biospheric egalitarianism.
Secondly, both the bases and the encompassing theories usually indicated (those diagrammed) are
not just highly problematic but are detachable from the core and can be avoided. For example, the
various, rather different, epistemic and metaphysical theories that have been proposed as
16
supporting, or even essential to, deeper positions are, to say the least, very dubious. So it is
fortunate that the deeper value core is independent of them all - though that is not to say that it is
independent of every account, since some (plausible) story of value qualities in the natural world,
and our perception and knowledge of them, has to be told, sooner or later.
But one weaker parts of the larger deep ecological story as usually told concerns the
embedding of deep ecology in a broader philosophical theory, such as Naess's system ecosophy
T, or Buddhism, or nature mysticism, or whatever. This much is true: as it is with shallow
positions, which can be supported by most of the mainstream, more comprehensive,
philosophical theories (for what they are worth), so it is with deeper positions, which can be
supported by very different, though unorthodox, philosophical theories, for instance, by (a
modification of) Whitehead's process theory or by (an adaption of) Meinong's object theory.
But, for reasons we shall come to, such theoretical frameworks as ecosophy, pantheism,
Christianity and Buddhism do not include thorough-going deep positions, but sustain only
shallower positions, and a properly deep picture is not derivable from them. This suggests that
the proposed derivation of deep ecology from ecosophy is substantially astray (and that so, more
sweepingly, is the whole derivational pyramid regularly presented by Naess in his four-level
picture). So it will prove to be: the success of these derivations would depend upon importing
analogues of shallowness into deep ecology.
APPENDIX
1. Survey methods as a way of pinning down deep ecology. How does the sort of
picture shown in figure 5.1 - which is worth persevering with, elaborating and applying - fit in
with the burgeoning deep ecological literature? It is surely not just tangential to that, so that we
should look elsewhere to grasp the deeper features of deep ecology?
In fact the core themes, and philosophical basis, and extension themes, were assembled in a
quite impressionistic fashion, namely working through much of the literature, and all the more
basic work, and setting down the themes which on reflection seemed to be presented or emerge.
Something like this is still a main method of research in the humanities, e.g. in history, history of
ideas, and philosophy.
Figure 7a Schematic picture of elementary procedures
Source 1
T
H
Source 2
Source n
i
INTERSECTION
(COMMON
CORE)
E
M
E
s
UNION
t
DISCOUNTED
But here, with deep ecology, there were prospects of doing better than such impressionistic
methods, or so one might have thought. Empirical, or at least quasi-empirical, methods (of the
sort favoured by Naess in his earlier days) could be employed. The main idea is that the set of
relevant sources is assembled, and then some statistical and set-theoretic work is done on the
themes extracted from these sources; so the method is an elaboration of the sort of technique
larger dictionaries such as the Oxford adopt in pinning down the standard senses of a term. The
hope was that analysis of the serious philosophical literature (pretty rough selection criteria these,
to be sure) on deep ecology would lead, not to despair, but in particular in two directions:Firstly, to what is more or less common to the positions presented - the intersection of theories,
giving the substantial core or basic theory. And secondly, to what results when all the theories
are put together - the union of themes, giving an approximation, after some sifting, to a deep
ecological paradigm.
As you might have anticipated by now, this thematic method hardly worked to perfection.
Still it is worth explaining the method in a little more detail since, despite its limited success, it
18
reveals much. First a set of sources is assembled. Here there is scope for sampling and statistical
methods, so beloved of social scientists; but in the case of deep ecology it seemed feasible, back
in 1984, to gather for winnowing all more serious texts accessible in Australia. That latter
limitation (all too familiar in environmental research) imposes a perhaps unfortunate parochial
geographical constraint; but it induces no violation of such adequacy requirements as that sources
introducing the notion be included in the bundle, as are all sources referred back to in several
other sources. With the rise of networking magazines concerned with deep ecology, there are
many references to deep ecological thinking and experience which get discounted, as not
appropriately serious. Increasingly often, any sort of deeper experience or thought gets assigned
under the "deep" heading, no matter how anthropocentric. This is one of the many problems
with the depth notion and deep terminology, rather counteracting the valuable idea of penetrating
below the conventional surface of received environmental assumptions, that it is important to
think deeper than the assumption of Environment Z-land, for instance, that the environment
should be managed for present and future generations of humans - a typical governmental surface
assumption, often announced, but much less often put into practice.
Once the sources are assembled, a beginning can be made on unscrambling themes,
something that calls for a good deal of judgement also, especially in such matters as deciding
whether themes from different sources come to the same or not. Here and elsewhere care is
required not to penetrate too deeply, to expose only so much of surface themes as is necessary (a
well-known principle in logical analysis). When the themes are duly marked out, there is some
smoothing of the thematic data; for instance, evidently remote and irrelevant themes in one source
may be deleted. (It is like the judging of a diving contest or the massaging of statistics, where
isolated wild elements are removed from the sample used for assessment.) Then the elementary
set operations of union and intersection are applied, again subject to some qualification. In
particular, if a very prominent theme in some formulations is omitted from, or only approximated
in, one formulation, then that theme will be put, initially at least, in the intersection. (Logicians
and mathematicians, for example, sometimes omit intended or assumed axioms; e.g. Parry in
analytic implication, Maclean in category theory.) A striking example concerns the very
introduction of the notion of deep ecology into the philosophical literature (Naess 73), which fails
to present the fundamental value thesis, that intrinsic value is not confined solely to humans or
human features. While it can be argued that rejection of the sole and greater value assumptions is
implied by what is said concerning biospheric egalitarianism (the equal right to live and
blossom), the argument is not decisive, since value is only involved indirectly and perhaps only
instrumentally (as Naess's appeal to effects on the 'life quality of humans' and to our ecological
dependence might suggest).
19
The results are tabulated, as follows:
Figure 7b. Actual results, in not form, of a survey of some main sources.
Naess 73
Naess 83
Naess-Sessions 84
Intrinsic value
Intrinsic value of
life (1)
(1)
Biological
egalitarianism (2)
Diversity/richness(3)
Complexity not
complication (6)
Diversity/
richness (2)
Diversity/
richness ( 1)
Total field holism (1)
No negative
interference
rights, excepting
vital needs (3)
No negative
interference,
etc. (3)
Devall 79
ROUGH
CLASSIFICATIONS
VALUE
CORE
Diversity (10
GROUNDSAND
BASES
New person/planet
metaphysics (1)
Objective approach to
nature 2
Earth wisdom,
VALUEAND
limited interference ACTION
COROLLARIES
More leisure (13)
Action obligation
6
Present interference
excessive (4)
Policy adjustments
to economic and
ideological structures
(5)
Anti-pollution/
resource depletion
(5)
Local autonomy/
decentralisation (7)
Anti-class posture
4
Action obligation
8
Present human
interference
excessive (5)
Policy adjustments,
etc. [Also to
technological
structures (6)
Objective life
quality rather than
higher living
standard (7)
World population
reduction (4)
POLICY AND
LIFESTYLE
APPLICATIONS
Interim policy
steady state (15),(18)
Soft Technology ( 11)
Life quality
rather than quantity
of products (6)
Reduction of population
to optimum (7)
Emphasis on pollution
and like topics
counterproductive (8)
Local autonomy/
decentralisation (11),(14)
New psychology (3)
DISCOUNTED AREAS:
with rejection of
NEW
SUBJECTS
dualisms: man/nature,
subject/object, etc
New philosophical
anthropology (9)
New objective
20
Embedding in
ecosophy
NOTES:
science (4)
New education (12)
? Embedding in
updated Spinoza (2)
EMBEDDJNG
PHrr,OSOPHY/RELIGION
1. Bracketed numerals indicate theses numbers in the sources.
2. The disappointing absence of core themes can to some extent be compensated for
by appeal to statements of them or implying them elsewhere in accompanying texts
and commentaries.
3. Naess-Sessions 84, also Naess 84, became the 8-point platform, now widely
reintensted.
Naturally one does not attempt this sort of analysis entirely in the dark, but in the partial
expectation that certain kinds of results will emerge, these three especially:
•
The substantial core represents a significant deviation from mainstream assumptions, a
deviation which has been encountered before.
•
The total theory, or union, is not simply a jumble of theses, but has some reasonable
coherence.
• There are ways of getting from the substantial core toward the total theory.
In the case of deep ecology it would have been pleasant to report triumphantly that these
expectations, and more, are fulfilled; indeed the theory is so well integrated it represents a
(sub)cultural paradigm. Unfortunately it did not work out that way, as is evident. What is more,
the situation has become markedly worse, as presentations of deep ecology have burgeoned since
1984.
Partly the thematic enterprise did not succeed because of the poor calibre of the leading
presentations of "the" deep ecology intuition, and because exponents had and have different
intuitions, messages and objectives. Partly, however it did not work because the idea of
obtaining a substantial core and a coherent union was misconceived. Taking the union, in
particular, assumed that there was much wider common ground - something that could be called
the deeper ecological paradigm which could be approached in this sort of way - rather than as a
plurality of positions. Pluralism is fine and feasible, and worth encouraging much more widely;
but taking the union of themes of some pluralistic system of positions is likely to lead only to
intractable inconsistent sets, and perhaps to trouble. Consider, to illustrate, the United Religion,
about to sweep California, a pluralist grouping made up of representations of the World's great
religions. While the refined common core of these positions is likely to be interesting, the union
is not: it will contain, for example, all of the following inconsistent triad: Many gods exist (from
e.g. Hinduism); Exactly one god exists (e.g. Islam); no gods exist (from e.g. Buddhism). There
is analogous trouble in combining deep ecological sources with such results as that stones and
mountains both do and do not have inherent value; there both are and are not detachable intrinsic
values; and so on. The picture is then as shown:-
21
putative
substantial core
inconsistent
elements of putative union
What all this emphicizes once again is that deep ecology has to be treated differently, not as
a coherent position but as a loose pluralistic grouping of position. To obtain a clearer authentic
starting position, we shall have to discount since of what paradox as deep ecology. It is for this
sort of reason of course that we chose to follow Naess before other prophets. Once an authentic
position has been made out other prositions can be clustered around it. Such a pluralistic outcome
does not show that the notion of a deeper ecological paradigm is illusory. It only reveals some of
the pluralistic features, mostly not duly recognised at the deeper ends of ecological movements.
And it only indicates that a different route should be taken in getting to a deeper paradigm. For
the alternative environmental, and deep ecological, paradigm covers a spread of positions, much
as the contrasting dominant social paradigm does.
A CRITIQUE OF (WILD) WESTERN DEEP ECOLOGY:
a response to Warwick Fox's Response to an earlier Critique.
Western deep ecology differs in important respects from the deep ecology originated
and pursued by Naess, what I now call authentic deep ecology, at which my Critique of
Deep Ecology was mainly, but by no means entirely, directed. Western deep ecology, also
known as transpersonal ecology (though the ecology has largely dropped out), is very
roughly a doctrine of the west of those new world continents where environmental
philosophy functions; it has been advanced primarily by West Coast Americans (Devall,
Drengson, Sessions and others) and associated West Australians (Fox, now of Tasmania,
also Hallem and others). Unlike authentic deep ecology, Western deep ecology is hostile to
environmental ethics, which it tends to dismiss as mere axiology; and it is excessively
enthusiastic about trans personal experience, spiritual "paths" and "ways", and unitarian
metaphysics - in which there are no ontological divides, no dualisms (of subject/object,
subjective/objective), and no separation of things.
Consider what Drengson 'take[s] to be at the heart of deep ecology as Devall and
Sessions present it', and which he enthusiastically endorses:
What deep ecology directs us towards ... is neither an environmental
axiology or a theory of environmental ethics nor a minor reform of
existing practices. It directs us to develop our own sense of self until it
becomes Self, that is, until we realise through deepening ecological
sensibilities that each of us forms a union with the natural world, and
that protection of the natural world is the protection of ourselves ....
reality lies not in the imaginative, subjective dualism of the dominant
outlook, with its self-destructive exploitation of nature and overkill
nuclear weapons. Reality is to be found in a quite different way: by a
path that is nonaggressive, humble, compassionate, and knows itself as
ultimately embedded in the Self of nature. The sacred is immanent in
the profane, the spirit pervades and is the world, the cosmos. It is the
formed and formless as a unity. This ecosophy is at hand for each of us
[ecosophical salvation]. Its realisation is always personal, firsthand
experiential understanding. It is an I-Thou, not an I-it relationship
(Review pp.87-8).
Fox's Response to my Critique develops similar themes, in considerably more detail, so
they become rather more open to assessment. That is why my further critique will
concentrate on his Responses. (On its own, I doubt that his Response would have
sufficient intrinsic interest to warrant an extensive reply.)
In Western deep ecology, the focus is upon, or even (as in Fox 89) contracts to, that
of self and Self (or what it might almost as well be, soul and Soul/Anima sive Natura, or
spirit and World Spirit). For example, Drengson pontificates upon
•
38
the crux of the issues raised by deep ecology [as follows]. We are
challenged to move to genuinely ecological modes of perception,
conception, and practice. If we do this, we will do it to the degree that
we realise that our self is part of a larger Self for which we must care.
This is part of the ecology of self-Self in the cosmology of deep
ecology' (p.89).
Fox goes further, making this type of stuff coextensive with "deep ecology":
Stated rather formally ... the deep ecological framework ... proceed[s]
from two basic hypotheses and one ultimate norm [all concerning self
and Self]. The hypotheses are (i) that "the self is as comprehensive as
the totality of our identifications. Or, more succinctly: Our Self is that
with which we identify" ... ; and (ii) that the self can and does
grow/develop/mature (i.e. widen its sphere and intensity of
identification over time). The norm is that the ideal state of being is one
that sustains the widest (and deepest) possible identification and, hence,
sense of Self.... this ideal state of being is referred to as "Selfrealisation" by N aess and as "ecological consciousness" by Devall and
Sessions" and its cultivation - effective a spiritual discipline - is
considered to be the "real work" of deep ecology (pp. 86-7).
This self-Self cultivation of Western deep ecology, which will be severely criticised, is far
removed from the deep ecology platform upon which authentic deep ecology is centred, a
mundane, secular platform concerned with real environmental issues, which is not a
predominantly human psychological exercise and which does not mention 'self' or 'Self'.
On the strength of the variant presentation of "deep ecology", of this elaboration of
Western deep ecology, Fox feels entitled to assert that 'Sylvan has seriously misunderstood
what deep ecology is about. ... Sylvan's criticisms miss their mark ... Sylvan's critique
leaves deep ecology ... largely untouched' (p.5). Drengson feels entitled to enlarge this
unfounded assertion: 'the critiques of deep ecology that have appeared so far have been
based on misconceptions of what deep ecology is all about, and they have therefore been off
the mark, or at best superficial' (p.89). The critiques that are substantial, not substantially
tirades or shallow, have been substantially directed at authentic deep ecology, not at its
different Western analogue. There has been no misconception or misunderstanding by such
critics; they have aimed at a different target in the same broad field.
On a personal level, I am quite attracted by authentic deep ecology; but I am
substantially repelled by Western deep ecology. I subscribe, more or less, to the 8-point
platform of deep ecology, and accordingly should be accounted a supporter of deep ecology
(for all that critics are not very welcome). Though I do not care for some features of
Naess's system Ecosophy T, which does provide a rickety bridge ·to Western deep ecology,
N aess has always insisted that this was but one of several optional background ideological
frameworks. Western deep ecology is another matter. Too much of it strikes me as like an
evangelic cult, much too incidentally coupled to deep environmentalism; too much is a
39
celebration of self, human self, an expanded egoism; too much is essentially a good oldfashioned celebration of things human, a comparatively shallow celebration disguised in
new environmental and avant-gard attire.
Drengson has the ability to lay on these
obnoxious, chauvinistic features disagreeably thick. Consider a bit of his poetic outpouring
on that jumbled text, Deep Ecology:
Sessions and Devall see humans as beings who are an expression of a
nature deeper, more mysterious, and creative than any of our abstract
theories appreciate .... it is hoped that [our] experiential encounter with
the otherness of Nature transformed as Self will help us to live in such a
harmonious way as to continually discover ever new wonders and value
inherent in wild nature and in the natural human self. ... The book,
thus is dedicated to ... presenting a philosophy of life that resolves
some of our most fundamental questions, the central one of this is: how
can we live truly in authentic, harmonious relationships with all beings
so as to realise a maximum of intrinsic goodness? This is a question,
ultimately, of what it means to become a complete, mature, fully Selfrealised human being (pp.94-5 rearranged).
The statement could almost have come straight out of modem romanticism; all the same
elements are there down to the maximization of human self-realisation. So presented, the
new environmental paradigm of Western deep ecology is the old anti-Enlightenment
movement in contemporary gear.
Though I am substantially turned off by some of Western deep ecology, though I am
disappointed by its apparent shallowness, by its reversion to human chauvinism, though I
try to take cover when its heavy evangelism blows through, I am far from suggesting that
more than critical intellectual action be taken against it. It is, after all, generally for the right
sorts of things environmentally, even if it has invested too heavily in dominant notions,
such as the exalted human self that a radical environmentalism should be escaping; and it is
no worse intellectually than predominant creeds that are far less kind to natural
environments, such as Vatican christianity and American pragmatism. Live and let live.
1. Approaching deep ecology and understanding plurallism.
Well is Fox's response to Sylvan's critique of deep ecology entitled 'Approaching
Deep Ecology'; for it does no more than approach deep ecology, it does not reach the
authentic article. Instead Fox converts deep ecology into a related concoction, largely of his
own (now called transpersonal ecology*). Having thus commandeered deep ecology for
*
Transpersonal ecology is an extreme variant of Western deep ecology, which tries, for
instance, to jettison what Drengson and others retain: intrinsic goodness, intrinsic value, and
the like.
40
his own purposes, it is easy for Fox to feel confident in his charge that 'Sylvan has
seriously understood what deep ecology is about' (p.5).
Fox's main accusation is indeed that I have seriously misunderstood what deep
ecology is about, that my criticism is misdirected, and that deep ecology emerges largely
unscathed. We shall see about that. But first, I want to lodge a counter-charge: Fox
appears to have misunderstood a good deal of what I was about. My critique was not
concerned with his position, except - in so far as it purported to be deep ecology - in
passing; it was addressed to the mainstream of deep ecology. Fox's own transpersonal
ecology does not belong to the mainstream of deep ecology; indeed it is doubtful that it is
deep ecology at all. It tries to throw away central parts of deep ecology, the value theory in
particular, and to revert to what appears, to all intents and purposes, to be a rather shallow
position. But, most remarkable, it has very little to do with the natural environment; much
of it is but expanded self adulation.
Both Fox and N aess, in their responses to my critique, try to make some easy initial
capital by pointing to the different ending of a working draft of the critique from the pluralist
ending of the published version. 1 Naess uses the different endings to ground his allegation
that Sylvan is uncertain what he is about, an ad hominem strategy which he presumably
hopes will help to defuse substantial criticisms of deep ecology which he does not address
(see his 84 and 85). Fox makes much of the different endings (almost 5 pages worth) in
order to reveal an uncharitable interpretation: that already indicated, of misunderstanding,
and that my 'critique leaves deep ecology .... largely untouched' (p.5).
Naess and Fox seem to think that it counts against a critique that it may enjoy more
than one ending, that it can leave room for doubt as to whether something should be
restored or abandoned. Yet these are very much the sort of outcome a more tolerant and
careful assessment may yield. Consider an old building seriously defective in main
structural detail, yet with many worthwhile period features. It may be a hard question,
over which there is room for uncertainty, whether it should be restored or demolished. So
it is often with intellectual systems, such as deep ecology and ecosophy. By and large I am
in favour of rehabilitation (see e.g. Routley 74), though from a favoured nonpluralistic
1
Though I feel a bit used, I'm not going to make anything of incomplete working drafts
I naively handed out not being a fair target for commentary (it is obvious that one can
be even more stupid and so forth in drafts than in more considered final versions).
Much of the interesting work in and around deep ecology appears only in working draft
form or in what academic snobs describe as semi-published form.
41
stance such systems as ecosophy include material destined for the intellectual scrap heap.
But, in any event, I am in favour of recycling of rubbish wherever this is feasible.
For anyone who adheres to a select position within an also conceded pluralistic
setting, there is always more than one presentation, and more than one ending: a monistic,
or singular, ending deriving from the select position, and a pluralistic ending from the
setting. There is nothing particularly remarkable about this, for all that it baffles Fox. On
the singular ending (of the limited edition "penultimate version" of my critique) many major
themes of deep ecology go down, not because they are ' insubstantial or vacuous' (what
Fox finds it convenient to infer p.2ff.), but because they are all defective, all substantially
astray. So much had already been argued in the main body of the work; for instance, one
sustained development aimed to demonstrate the substantial falsity of the principle of
biospheric egalitarianism and its inconsistency with other principles of deep ecology. What
of the last words, drawn from Eliot's Four Quartets, 'there is no one to bury'? By this, I
meant: no correct doctrine, not: nothing substantial. It is true that from the singular position
I did look upon several main 'ideas of deep ecology ... not even as if they were once useful
... but rather that upon closer scrutiny there is ... nothing ... [correct in] them in the first
place' (p.3); from that stance I still look upon them in that way.
On the final pluralistic ending what remains 2 are not the trumpeted major themes,
which still go down, but a good many of the less heralded points and themes, such as
departure principles in the 8-point platform of deep ecology. What can be added,
furthermore, are significant variations upon some of the major themes; for instance
ecospheric impartiality in place of biospheric egalitarianism. Now both Naess and Fox
assume that a pluralistic ending diminishes, or ought to weaken, the force of the criticism.
Not so. Naess ends his response to the critique with a relativistic complaint: 'if you have
your own philosophy from which you generate the [core] position of deep ecology, ... why
object to ecosophy T?' (Naess pp.3-4 reordered, also quoted in Fox). The short answer is
because system T is seriously intellectually flawed. A pluralist may let such material stand,
but, unlike a relativist, doesn't have to let it alone; its weaknesses can be exposed, its
inferiority exhibited. Fox goes on to claim that under pluralism, which he also confuses
with relativism, my 'critique loses much of its original sting and no longer constitutes the
challenge to deep ecology that was formerly intended' (p.5). Again, not so; the challenge
and sting remain as before. But now deep ecology is regarded more benignly; and more
future work will be directed at restoration, etc. As you might now anticipate, Fox finds 'a
2
Fox's surprise about this (p.3) can be attributed to his failure to appreciate the force of
'acclaimed major themes' in the theories to be put to rest.
42
strong tension between such a pluralistic position' and the singular position which he
regards as 'essentially argumentative' (p.5). But there is no tension; the singular position
slots neatly into the pluralistic array. Further, both are argumentative, though neither
essentially so. 3
2. Value in deep ecology
Fox's 'most fundamental objection to [my] critique' is that it offers, is based upon, an
'environmental axiological interpretation of deep ecology' (p.29, p.53). Given what Fox
intends by 'environmental axiological interpretation' (his never properly explained
terminology, not mine), which involves axiological reductionism and a certain axiological
priority and hegemony throughout environmental philosophy (p.52) 4 , I deny this. My
critique neither offers nor is based upon such an interpretation; and, as inspection will
confirm, my other work will not bear such an interpretation 5 , I do not 'pursue
environmental philosophical discussion almost entirely at the level of environmental
axiology'. What I do ascribe to deep ecology is "a value core", features of which I explain
in some detail (and to which we shall have to return). But a large transformer (or similar
item) does not reduce to its cores, there is much to such an item besides the core; nor do the
cores pervade, dominate or guide all the rest. The core, which was introduced primarily as
part of an organising structure, does not support what Fox tries to read out of it, namely an
axiological reduction (back in 84, Naess thought 'core' was a 'good expression' for a quite
proper part of deep ecology). In fact, I am not hooked on the term 'core'; substitution of
'value part' for 'value core' would make very little difference to the substance of my critique
of deep ecology, but it would quite adversely effect Fox's response.
An early example of the feebleness of Fox's reconstruction is his attempt to make my
treatment of deep ecological theory outside the value core look as if it too was part of an
axiological interpretation. He proceeds to argue from a title of a later section, 'Beyond the
value core: metaphysical and epistemological "intuitions" of deep ecology', thus: 'as this
title suggests, it is Sylvan's environmental axiological interpretation of deep ecology that
underpins his criticisms there (as elsewhere)' (p.29). The title was not intended to suggest,
and would not normally suggest, such an interpretation; it indicated a separation of parts and
3
For much more detail on all these pluralistic matters, see my Deep Plurallism.
4
For fuller illustration of such undesirable phenomena at work in philosophy, see
Edwards, Ethics without Philosophy.
5
For one example, see the jointly authored The Fight for the Forests.
43
the upcoming contents. As an argument (to be slack with this term), Fox's move is a nonsequitur. 6
Now to get down to the real adjudicational business (of this section), I claim to have
been verballed by Fox.7 While I am becoming pretty accustomed to serious
misrepresentation, I see Fox as ascending to new heights in this regard. For he proceeds to
attribute to me major derivative theses which I nowhere presented, which do not derive
from what I did present, and to which I should not, in any case, accede. Let's look straight
away at some of what Fox proceeds to foist upon me. 'Sylvan assumes from the outset and
proceeds upon the basis that deep ecology is ... primarily a value-in-nature position' (p.30),
that is the 'primary claim' (p.31). I do not assume that deep ecology is primarily that, but
that it is that among other things; 8 I do not proceed on that basis, and I never did suppose
that deep ecology was primarily or only a values-in-nature position. As I say, in a clause
Fox left out in the selective quotation of his indictment, deep ecology 'has been presented as
a metaphysics, as a consciousness movement (and a primarily psychological), and even as a
sort of (Pantheist) religion' (and in an accompanying note I mention Fox's alternative
ontological focus). I am not committed to such a primacy claim (what Fox refers to as
6
As the text reveals, Fox is rather fond of making passages suggest not what they were
intended to suggest or prima facie do suggest, but what he would have them "suggest"
conveniently for his own unscrupulous purposes (we might even label this the
suggestive fallacy). He is not averse either to considerable distortion. For example
(also on p.29) he makes it look, by a clever use of sectional divisions, as if the bulk
of my critique was concerned with the value part of deep ecology, when in fact I get
beyond that part on p.26 in a critique of 60 pages. Of course it would not show that
much even if I had devoted virtually the whole critique to the value part rather than less
than a third; it could just mean that that was the part of deep ecology that interested me
most, or that I ran out of energy and patience thereabouts, etc.
In the present critique I ran out of these commodities and time before I had finalized a
section on fallacious methodological practices in deep ecology, perhaps to be called
'fallacies of transpersonal ecology'. Next edition, perhaps.
7
Verbal is an Australian verb, alluding to fabricated evidence made up by police or
official prosecutioners. Verballing was a common practice in Queensland, and is
certainly used by police gangs in some other states.
8
I do begin the first "problem" section of the critique 'Deep ecology appears to be some
elaboration of the position that natural things other than humans have value in
themselves .. .' (Cp.1 ). But that says nothing more offensive than what can be inferred
from point 1 of the 8-point platform of deep ecology, and nothing about primacy.
Moreover I go on to say that the elaboration is extensive (e.g. Cp.4), a claim well
illustrated by Figure 1 (Cp.5), where the "value core" comprises but a small part of the
deep position.
44
'Sylvan's primary claim', p.31, p.33, p.34, p.47, p.48, p.57, p.70 and many other pages,
sometimes obliquely as 'Sylvan's claims' and the like, e.g. 'Sylvan says', p.86).
'Moreover', Fox continues (p.30), 'for Sylvan, it is an objective position since its
"core theme" of "values-in-nature suggests ... that natural items have value qualities
independently of perceivers"'. Firstly there is a misquotation; I refer to 'core themes',
which furthermore extend beyond the value part. 9 Secondly, no objectivist claim is made or
follows for Sylvan. 10 On the basis of the primacy claim, in conjunction with the objectivist
claim (in the case of D2 at least), Fox proceeds to foist upon me 'two derivative claims':
Dl. 'deep ecology does not proceed from a general vision of reality or "underlying
perception of the way things are" ' 11 , and
D2. 'deep ecology is not at all concerned with the way in which we experience the world'
(p.31, Fox's italics).
Firstly, I do not present such claims; indeed I present a substantial amount of material
incompatible with such claims, for instance in the discussion of the theme of extreme holism
as regards D 1, and of cosmic identity as regards D2. Secondly, I did not and do not adhere
to such claims; indeed I have put a good deal of effort into exposing the metaphysical and
epistemological parts of deep ecology. Thirdly, as should be thus evident, they do not
derive from what I did present in the critique. Fourthly, in particular, they do not derive
from the primacy and objectivist claims. Indeed readily available counter-models will show
as much. Consider a values-in-nature objectivist position such as that of Holmes Rolston,
which we can conveniently call 'R(olston)'s deep ecology' (there is not even any cheating
here, as Ralston's position has a better claim to be accounted deep ecology than some of the
positions admitted to the club). Now simply substitute 'R's deep ecology' for 'deep
ecology' throughout the "derivation" of the claims. The premiss or grounds hold, as R's
deep ecology satisfies both primacy and objectivist claims; but the claims supposed to be
derived do not hold, both RD 1 and RD2 fail. For example, Ralston's deep ecology is very
9
It seems to be on the basis of efforts like this misquotation that Fox feels himself
justified in writing of 'Sylvan's "core claim" that deep ecology is primarily a valuesin-nature position ' (p.34). That is remote from what I do. For example, I am in
trouble for dismissing a sizeable chunk of core deep ecology as rubbish; but a valuesin-nature position is not rubbish.
10
The point was explained in considerable detail in EE p.154ff, where the ugly term
nonjective was deliberately introduced to remove illusions as to objectivity or
subjectivity.
11
The context makes it look as if the internal quotation is drawn from me, but it is not
as perusal of fn.44 will show. DI gains no support from anything I assert.
45
much concerned with the way we experience the world, as a reading of Rolston quickly
discloses. Or if a clearer deep example than Rolston is demanded, there is N aess himself.
Finally, unsurprisingly now, Fox has made elementary mistakes in his alleged
derivations. Consider D2 first. 'This follows', Fox says, 'since value-in-nature are held to
exist "out there" independently of perceivers' (p.31). But again it just does not follow, as a
topic can be deeply concerned with something that enjoys some independence. You might
almost as well try to say that epistemology is not at all concerned with the way in which we
experience the world since primary properties are "out there" independent of perceivers.
Consider next D1, where there is considerably more distortion to be exposed. Fox's
"derivation" really consists of two separable parts. In the first part, Fox's thoroughly
fallacious strategy is to replace 'concerned with' by 'only concerned with' and 'because' by
'simply because', as textual comparisons, of my text with what Fox draws from it, make
plain. His strategy certainly makes for terrific derivations. For example, from "the Prime
Minister is concerned with his sex life" we obtain the startling result that the Prime Minister
is only concerned with his sex life. From the premiss that a man likes his wife because of
her body we obtain without any further ado the familiar worry that he likes her simply
because of her body. 'Beyond this', in a second part, there is an argument based on
independence (apparently involving some misunderstanding of the notion). The argument
appears to be of the form: A is independent of B, therefore A does not proceed from B. The
defectiveness of such an argument is obvious enough once its form is exposed. And the
defectiveness of the case in hand should have been evident to Fox. For Naess has
explained many times how a person can be a deep ecologist (e.g. can adhere to the platform)
without adopting (or even being aware of) the general metaphysical vision from which it
proceeds.
The felling of Fox's derivations brings down, like trees felled in a rainforest, a good
part of the rest of the structure. For instance, there cease to be the problems Fox supposes
he has found (p.32 ff.), such as difficulties of consistency in accounting for the
metaphysical 'sources that supporters of deep ecology draws upon' (p.33).
With that small exercise in logic, the remainder of Fox's "response" to my critique
(pages 31-89 of text and miles of footnotes) is disposed of in main essentials. For pages
53-84 constitute a largely separate essay on wider identification, an essay which only bears
obliquely on my critique; and most of the rest turns upon lumbering me with the claims just
off loaded, the claims which 'constitute [my] very poor understanding of deep ecology'
(p.31). Thus, for example, Fox expends a good deal of space upon citing authorities from
deep ecology (who too often supply extremely dubious statements) directed at contradicting
D 1 and D2. Obviously that is beside the point. But while my main work on Fox's dismal
response is done, and I could stop here, I don't intend to, as there is a lot more heavily
46
polluting rubbish to be despatched, or recycled. One's rubbish may be another's input
(therein for Moore lay the whole challenge of philosophy).
3 The extent of values-in-nature.
Even a casual reader of Fox's Response will have observed the following: that Fox is
very quick off the mark with (largely unsubstantiated) accusations like 'so and so has failed
to grasp', 'has misunderstood', 'has ignored', 'has missed the point'; that the evidence for
these ad hominem claims is often quite insubstantial; and that that 'so and so' often happens
to be Sylvan. One of the many things Sylvan allegedly 'fails to grasp' is 'that (a position)
deep ecology can be normative (i.e. offer prescriptive proposals) without that necessarily
meaning that it is prescriptive [of this or that,] of a values-in-nature position'. Well, I
thought I had a reasonable grasp upon, and had made use in print of, the distinction
between prescription and evaluation (likewise deontology and axiology), and had in the
critique sufficiently emphasized that shallow positions were normative but decidedly not
prescriptive of values-in-nature. So what evidence does Fox present for his charge? Well,
none really. True he begins his next sentence with a 'Thus', but he then rambles on with
quotations of material (he has previously tried to flog to death) concerning deep ecology and
value theory. But, as nearly everyone appreciates, a position may include a value theory
without that theory being a values-in-nature position; shallow positions are such.
Now 'Sylvan takes Naess's statement that deep ecology is normative as direct
support ... the only support that Sylvan provides ... for his own ... "claim" that deep
ecology is ... a value-in-nature position' (p.36 rearranged, prejudicial terms deleted). Well,
he didn't take that as direct support; what he did take as support is Naess's oft-repeated
assertion (quoted by Fox on the very page) that 'the significant tenets of ... Deep Ecology
... express a value priority system' (many places, e.g. 73 p.99, my italics). So it includes a
value framework. Furthermore further evidence is adduced or alluded to both for the claim
that deep ecology involves a value framework and that it includes a values-in-nature tenet
(e.g. 'deep ecology seeks a transformation of values' Cp.29, quoting Devall; an 'egalitarian
principle of equal value of all life, is "an intuitively clear and obvious value axiom"' Cp.13
quoting N aess; the restriction of this axiom to cases 'when genuine conflicts of value are
absent 'Cp.14 quoting Fox; etc).
Fox issues the challenge: 'where is the (objectivist) values-in-nature "core claim"?'
(p.36). Of course it is right there in the platform, in the very first point which duly
47
distributes intrinsic value much more widely than humans and human features; it is also
implied by the biocentric egalitarian principle; and so on. 12
What is more, although I have at long last (late 1989) read Fox's tactless Response, I
am sticking to my claim that deep ecology has a value core. As it happens, I think as much
is evident from Naess's recent publications (esp. 89 chapters 2 and 3). But the claim can be
argued, for example as follows:- Firstly, Deep ecology has a value part. Secondly, that part
is a core part. As to the first, I should begin by appealing to the value themes of the deep
ecology platform, particularly points 1 and 2 which amounts values-in-nature points.
Curiously, when several of the points in the platform are value themes, Fox proceeds to
assert that 'biocentric ... egalitarianism ... is the deep ecological notion that most lends itself
to interpretation as a value-in-nature position' (pp.31-33). Perhaps this is a diversionary
tactic. It seems that it would be most convenient for Fox's anti-axiology and unauthentic
view of deep ecology if critics forgot about the platform of deep ecology.
The value part of deep ecology is reasonably taken as a core, i.e. as a central or inner
part (to use dictionary accounts of 'core'). A number of arguments can be advanced for
adopting it as a core, of which I'll indicate one 13 . The 8-point platform is a central part of
deep ecology, what more or less distinguishes deep ecologists; value themes comprise a
central part of this platform (the first three points as well as others such as point 7); what is
a central part of a central part is indeed central.
It is no doubt 'somewhat unfortunate that the 8-principles start with ethical terms ... '
(quoting Sessions p.49). Fox tries to wriggle out of that unfortunate predicament, that the
8-point platform of deep ecology - one of the few hitherto stable parts of the whole jerrybuilt structure - begins with value themes and a values-in-nature claim, by an expansion of
the same shabby tactic he has already tried to use to defuse biological egalitarianism and
displace apparently ethical principles of deep ecology (such as the important obligation to
implement environmental commitments): Namely, the formal-axiological waste-disposal is
replaced by an even grander formal-philosophical disposal - down which goes my
criticism. 'Sylvan ... takes the "neutral"' (i.e. variously: literal, nontechnical,
12
It is only anomalous that the intrinsic value theme is missing Naess's early paper
because it features so prominently in the platform and in parts of Naess's later work,
both characterising deep ecology. Fox tries to twist the anomaly into a contradiction
in my evidence (pp.36-7), but it is a shabby effort, entirely neglecting the evidence I
assemble in Appendix 1 (which he quotes from however) for Figure 1 of the Critique
which indicates the value core.
13
Thereby doing in, by example, another of Fox's unpleasant shotgun accusations, p.6.
48
understandable to most persons) 'formulation of basic principles as a formal philosophical
position .... Thus, even such limited support for his "core claim" as Sylvan is able to find
turns out to be due to mistaking an everyday language 8-point list for an ultimate expression
of deep ecology in formal philosophical terms' (p.51) That I find, I confess, a ridiculous
accusation and defence. I wasn't taking the basic principles at other than face value, as
other than principles in a "neutral" formulation; I was, and am, 'using the word "value" in a
metaphorical or everyday sense' (p.49), namely in the literal everyday non-metaphorical
sense where it signifies worth. I frankly don't really know what it would be like to take
deep ecology in the way Fox alleges I do, as a 'formal philosophical position' (p.49, p.51).
It is not just that we are far removed from 'the ultimate expression of deep ecology in formal
philosophical terms'; deep ecology is not, in the hands of Fox and friends, the sort of
position that looks at all likely to obtain such formulation ever.
Until it is properly made out, then, Fox's "defence" lapses. He owes us an account
of what a 'formal philosophical expression' would be, by contrast with what we have, and
to provide requisite evidence that Sylvan (whatever his actual intentions) was "taking" the
platform in that "mistaken" way. I'm not surprised that Fox has not attempted the requisite
philosophical work; I am surprised he got Session to go along with him in the intellectually
disreputable ploy.
I freely confess, then, my astonishment that Sessions states that he and N aess would
not agree philosophically to the principles of the deep ecology platform (p.50,p.51 ). What
on earth does he mean? In his own book (with Devall), these principles are presented as
'basic principles of deep ecology' (in boldface capitals, p.69), they are supplemented by a
detailed commentary of a type appropriate for serious philosophical principles, and they are
introduced as having 'summarized fifteen years of thinking on the principles of deep
ecology' (p.69). If that doesn't make them philosophical, what in the deep ecological
scheme of things would? In any case, Sessions has elsewhere been prepared, in highly
philosophical contexts to ascribe intrinsic values to parts of nonhuman Nature (e.g. p.236).
For Naess too there is no easy escape. Firstly, the platform is said to derive from his
Ecosophy T; secondly Ecosophy T itself assigns 'intrinsic value to every life form' (89
p.164ff).
But I should make an admission; deep ecology is bound to be a values-in-nature
position, at least as I characterised those things. It follows from the way I explained depth
and what is meant by 'values-in-nature'.
That is one reason why I claim Fox's
49
transpersonal ecology is not deep ecology, because it is explicitly not a values-in-nature
position. 14
Fox himself has tried various ways of avoiding values-in-nature; but, needless to say,
value expressions of "in-nature" cast creep into much of his discourse. For example, the
shallow/deep distinction is now "explained" (in 89 p.33), not directly in terms of value, but,
to begin with, through an anthropocentric/ecocentric distinction. The trouble is that, in
explaining the intended senses of contrasting terms, value slips back again (as in 'use value
for humans (e.g. its scientific, recreational, or aesthetic value)'). But Fox's main chance is
the "value constellation" idea, which tries to lock values away in a complex involving a
valuer and a valuing relation. But nothing stops analyses of this complex, examination of
components of the constellation; and for many logical purposes (such as quantification of
the value end of the complex) some separation is required.
4 A biocentric ethic?
It has been widely thought that deep ecology supplies 'a biocentric ethic as opposed to
an anthropocentric one' 15 , that it includes at least rudiments of a value theory and leading
features of an environmental ethics. But now whether deep ecology is, among other things,
an environmental ethic is in increasing doubt. There are now many, not merely on the
margins of deep ecology, who would question the role or significance of ethics or even
dispense with it altogether. On these issues, as on others, deep ecology speaks not just
with many tongues, but forked tongues as well. Fox does something to assemble the
diverse voices from the deep ecology multitude (p.42ff.). Let us classify - in a preliminary
way:
A. Getting rid of ethics altogether. This appears to be a position taken by Livingston and
by Shepard, at least in the quotes Fox supplies. There is nothing new and exciting, still less
of new paradigmatic cast, about this. It is as old as ethical nihilism and scepticism, which is
to say, very old, reaching back to classical Greek thought. 16 Nor are the entirely dubious
supporting considerations adduced in any way new: 'ethics and morals were ... invented by
one species to meet the needs of that species' p.42, or, more cynically, for the advantage of
certain classes or pressure groups within that species; ethics are at best mischievous, more
14
See e.g. p.85. The matter is further discussed below.
15
Thus Bradford 89,p.10. The authentic deep ecology (of. Naess, on reliable days)
certainly does.
16
For preliminary notes on the history of moral nihilism, see Hinckfuss p.17.
50
likely damaging; ethics are unsuccessful and even counterproductive in their effects (p.43);
'ethics and morals are unknown in nature' (p.42); and similar.
A*. Retaining ethics, hardly intellectually revolutionary either, but
B. Downgrading the whole enterprise. Such appears to be one of Naess's newer
tactics, where ethics, now of minor importance, becomes an experiential epiphenomenon.
'I'm not much interested in ethics or morals. I'm interested in how we experience the
world .... Ethic follows from how we experience the world' (p.46, also Naess 89 p.20 and
elsewhere). Naess is doing more in this much quoted passage (which involves clear
commission of the prescriptive fallacy 17 ) than expressing personal idiosyncracies; he is
saying, he is taken as saying, by those who quote him, how things now stand for deep
ecology (of which he is still, though losing ground, the chief guru).
B*. While ethical enterprise is perhaps not downgraded,
C. Ethics as usually conceived is displaced or superseded. According to Fox,
"conventional ethics", which combines a code of conduct with a set of values, is displaced
by an 'experientially grounded state of being' (p.41). 18 That state of being is none other
than ecological consciousness, which 'precedes and preempts the search for an
"environmental ethic"' (Devall quoted p.45, similarly Sessions, who also goes further,
suggesting we should abandon the search for an environmental ethics' p.44). But surely it
is foolish to discard useful tools (if admittedly due for repair) because something that may
look brighter and shinier and does something for some agents, attracts attention; in these
critical times everything that works at all is needed. A bit differently, Rodman suggests
superfessions of conventional ethics (though perhaps not of a more expansive ethics),
because it is an integral part of the former moral/legal stage of consciousness, conventional
ethics - if not actually in the process of being superseded (in the dominant culture it is not)
by a later and higher stage, of appropriate new experience - ought to be superseded, since
the moral/legal stage is 'now more part of the problem than its solution' (p.43). Again all
17
Elsewhere however (e.g. Naess 89 p.24) explains how values go beyond "facts".
18
Later Fox proceeds differently, with 'deep ecology ... described as ... a position within
... "foundational ethics'" (p.86). "Foundational ethics", another exceedingly illexplained notion, is ethics as 'concerned with "understanding ourselves"' (p.86, p.113),
and so part of the egocentric self nexus; it is also said to be ethics as 'concerned with
development of a state of being' (p.113), the being of selves no doubt. Does
"foundational ethics" supply principles and some values? If not, how does it manage
to be an ethic? If so, how does it escape Fox's objections to environmental ethics? In
any case, "foundational ethics" which we are supposed to search for (along with
"understanding ourselves"), is intended to be an environmental ethic!
51
decidedly questionable, both historically and systematically, particularly given the prospect
of a plurality of integrated techniques.
C*. Instead, a radically new ethic is designed. This is of course part of what deepgreen and other radical, not merely reformist, alternatives to prevailing ethics and nature
philosophies are about. It was, once upon a time, an objective of deep ecology also; it
apparently no longer invariably is. But just as there is no definite position offered by deep
ecology on several critical issues (esp. in ecological politics), so there is now no definite
position on the place of ethics (pace p.41), as the tentative classification serves to reveal.
No doubt Fox had a particular message that he wanted to be drawn from the quotations and
needed for his arguments - explicit rejection of an ethical approach in favour of experience
in the shape of ecological consciousness (p.47) - but what he has supplied is an entertaining
pot pourri of positions, countering or jamming the message.
It is ironic that Western deep ecology should have tried to opt out of ethics, at exactly
the time that ethics is making a major come back, when ethics are becoming again a
significant force in business and the world. Or in terms of a different image, at the very
time when the ship of ethics is returning to harbour after a long period on high rough seas,
Fox and friends decide to jump overboard; we hope they are strong swimmers. With ethics
returned, a renewed force, what we need is not no ethics but new ethics, not to concede the
power of renewed ethics over to conservative power-holders or restrictive do-gooders, but
to put ethics to expansive tolerant good environmental and social works.
5. Biospheric egalitarianism revisited.
The notion is terminally ill, but I fear we shall keep revisiting it until it is buried under
heavy concrete. So far, for all its problems, it lives on (with apologists, Fox included,
shifting ground accordingly; similarly N aess, e.g. 85 p.6). It just keeps reappearing in
strong unqualified form, for instance in Sessions (recently): 'one of the first clear
statements' of ecosophy 'that all individuals, species (including humans), and ecosystems
have EQUAL inherent value (the ecocentric position) was made by Arne Naess when he
proposed the principle of BIOSPHERICAL (ECOLOGICAL) EGALITARIANISM ... ' (89, p.11).
So represented it simply succumbs to all the previous criticism (in my Critique and
indirectly in EE p.139 ff.). Interestingly then both Fox and Naess appeal to 'Sessions'
interpretation of biocentric egalitarianism as "a statement of non-anthropocent ricism"'
(p.39), to which Fox adds, in all seriousness, 'rather than as a formal environmental
axiological position'. In a revealing passage, Sessions puts it rather differently, 'Biocentric
egalitarianism is essentially a rejection of human chauvinistic ethical theory and the criteria
52
used to ascribe rights and value; it is a reductio ad absurdum of conventional ethics.
Biocentric egalitarianism is essentially a statement of non-anthropocentricism' 19 . This
statement does not hang together. For instance, non-anthropocentricism is weaker than
rejection of human chauvinism, which on its own is not a reductio ad absurdum of all
conventional ethics (because, first off, not an argument, and because, second, of the
character of some "conventional" ethics such as intuitionism). Without the logically
inadmissible loop through anti-human chauvinism (the deep-green position) the situation is
worse still; for, on the contrary, rather conventional British utilitarianisms such as Smart's
and Singer's are robustly nonanthropocentric. By so excessively eroding its egalitarian
principles, deep ecology loses much depth.
In a passage which Fox says 'greatly clarifies the confusion that has surrounded
Naess's notion', Naess too, again over-influenced by his minders, takes a similar pathetic
course. The principle had previously 'suggest[ed] a positive doctrine, and that is too
much'!
'The importance of the intuition' contracts to 'its capacity to counteract' certain
chauvinistic hubris. What Fox manages to draw out of these counteracting principles are,
however, not principles at all, but an orientation to or general attitude of non-interference,
"Letting be", etc. This is not just considerably removed from what N aess offers; it is pretty
remote from egalitarianisms. For one can let inferiors, and what is of no inherent value, be,
spare and preserve them, perhaps for later exploitation. But what Fox is really concerned to
draw from his authorities is the concession (they do not make, nor did he himself formerly)
that the principle of biospherical egalitarianism is not a principle, not a position at all (a
curious thing to think it was), but something much less definite, less positive, less specific,
less open to criticism, a more general attitude, no doubt underlying ethical practice, but
definitely not part of an environmental axiology. Poor deluded critics like Sylvan who
supposed that a principle is a principle have 'missed' 'the extremely important point' that for
supporters of deep ecology a "principle" is but a general attitude. These supporters indeed
feel that treating a principle as a principle can do more harm than good, 'and so have
deliberately chosen not to take the environmental axiological route' (p.41). There ends
Fox's diversion on biospheric egalitarianism. What it comes to is this:- Had the principle
been a principle, within environmental axiology, the criticism made of the principle would at
19
Quoted by Fox in a quote that never ends (p.39). In this mismash, Session proceeds
to draw upon our material against human chauvinism and conventional ethics, having
first dismissed us, referring to EE p.139, as 'mistak[ing] what Naess is up to. Naess's
position is not ... "an extension of conventional Western ethics"'. As it happens, we
don't mention Naess at all either on p.139 or in our discussion of extensionalism: how
do we mistake what Naess is up there to when we don't consider what he is up to?
Back in the 70s deep ecology was, after all, not a significant position.
53
the very least constitute a powerful challenge (p.38); but fortunately it is not, "positive
doctrines" are too open to criticism! It is only a general attitude concerning reluctance to
harm other living beings (p.40). 20 Egalitarianism, of value as well as principle, has
dropped out in this rather shallow evasion.
6. The uneasy position of value theory, or axiology within deep ecology
and the condemned "environmental axiological route".
Fox wants to distance deep ecology from value theory but is also aware, from time to
time, that this is not really possible. As a result his position on the relation of deep ecology
to value theory is decidedly ambiguous at best, and at worst inconsistent. The tensions
appear within the space of a single page (e.g. p.85). We are told both that 'deep ecology is
not [a] position within environmental axiology' and that 'it could be quite mistaken to think'
that deep ecology 'stands outside ... value theory'. Whence inconsistency results, given
that axiology has its normal technical sense. 21 But there is evidence that Fox intends
significantly more by 'axiology' than normal - as well as adopting the normal sense: so that
behind the initial inconsistency stands another inconsistency. What precisely Fox does
intend remains however obscure, scandalously obscure.
For one of Fox's main accusations against critics of deep ecology 22 , is that critics are
committed to 'environmental axiological reductionism', they 'pursue environmental
philosophical discussion almost entirely at the level of environmental axiology', so they are
blind to what 'deep ecology thinkers are really on about', which (negatively) consists in
'rejection of the "environmental axiological route"' (pp.51-53). Among these critics, mired
in "ethical reductionism", blind to the new paradigmatic character of deep ecology which
20
Or presumably otherwise negatively interfere with other natural things - otherwise the
reformulation, though apparently platitudinous, is too narrow, discriminating against
some parts of nature. The harm reformulation is borrowed from Devall and Session,
who try to make biospherical egalitarian and Self-realisation interpenetrate: 'Biocentric
equality is intimately related to the all inclusive Self-realisation in the sense that if we
harm the rest of Nature then we are harming ourselves' (p.56). Unfortunately in the
ordinary sense of 'harm' the latter claim is entirely false; as I previously remarked, it is
all too easy to harm parts of Nature without harming ourselves, with but negligible
impact on ourselves.
21
The word 'axiology' does not appear in the Oxford English Dictionary. But no doubt
it means the investigation, study and theory of value or worth, and is thus tantamount
to value theory, as contrasted however with deontology. What it means will soon
become an issue: see below.
22
Yes, it remains an unduly adversial intellectual game, part of the long Britishscholastic history of philosophy.
54
has taken as a guiding star precisely avoidance of the "axiological route", is the hapless
Sylvan; the tenacity with which he sticks to his indefensible account of deep ecology is
largely explained through these features (p.52).
For explanation of some of the operative abusive terminology we are referred
elsewhere, to other writings of Fox. But the source is scarcely more informative, and
indeed relevant parts of it have, in any case, been lifted for Fox's Response. 23 The promise
of explanation is not fulfilled. 'Ethical reductionism' is, like its successor 'environmental
axiological reductionism', explained by Fox on the run, which is to say it is not explained.
Nor is the reductionist charge sustained. For what is offered, what 'the vast majority of
environmental philosophers' are alleged to do, the pursuit of 'environmental philosophical
discussion almost entirely at the level of environmental ethics/axiology', may well reflect
undue concentration, but it is not reductionism. Fox is decidedly adept in the fallacious
business of sliding terms around (otherwise known as Humpty Dumptyism).
'Reductionism' and 'axiology' are not the only terms that suffer at his hands; so, relevant to
our purposes, does 'ontology'. At least in the context of his "guiding stars" paper, parts of
which are shunted into his Response, Fox uses 'ontology' to mean, not what it does mean,
roughly 'the general study of what exists', but very differently, the 'underlying perception
of the way things are', which, among other things, epistemologizes what was part of
metaphysics.
In those terms, 'deep ecology's guiding star ... [which] is (and should be) ... this
attempt to shift the primary focus of environmental philosophical concern from ethics to
ontology' becomes an epistemological diversion: a regressive attempt to move
environmental philosophy to anthropic experiential concerns (Fox 84 p.204 rearranged). It
is evident, by the way, who is attempting to do this shifting. If epistemologists focus their
efforts on a tiny number of tiny epistemological problems, if logicians discuss only
quantificational logic, they cannot be significantly accused of reductionism; they would have
23
While many sorts of recycling are of course commendable, reservations should be held
about academic recycling of earlier papers, especially when no improvements are
attempted. Fox does at least attempt some "improvements" to get around the obvious
objection that deep ecology is itself a normative and hence ethical route; but the
adjustments he infiltrates actually make other matters worse. For they consist of the
replacement of 'ethical' by 'axiological' or 'environmental axiological' or similar. So
now, for instance, the journal Environmental Ethics is charged with reflecting
environmental axiological reductionism (p.106); but as examination quickly shows the
journal carries much ethical material which is not axiological (e.g. on rights and
obligations) - evidently it also carries much that is not reductionistic and even some
that concerns philosophy of nature rather than ethics. Fox's charges are without proper
foundation.
55
also to claim that is all there is to their enterprise, and to make some attempt to show how
the apparent remainder comes down to that. These further necessary conditions are not
fulfilled in the case of 'the vast majority of environmental philosophers'; apart from a small
minority of philosophers associated with the "ethics without philosophy" idea here is
nothing approaching a requisite reduction framework. No doubt there is an axiological
reduction program, pursued by consequentalists of various brands, but that is
predominantly a program within ethics. As well the long-running naturalistic reduction
program grinds on unsuccessfully. But there is no recognisable environmental philosophy
reduction program; nor could such a program hope to succeed.
There are suitably many counter-instances to Fox's large accusations; among them,
conveniently, is that main target, Sylvan, who does not take an "environmental axiological
route". In print I have come out against reduction of deontic notions and normative
discourse generally to axiological terms; and have, in any case, made it perfectly plain that
environmental philosophy comprises much more than ethics, certainly including parts of
politics, philosophy of nature, metaphysics and so on. 24 Thus Sylvan, so far from
'criticis[ing] deep ecology on the erroneous basis of it being a position or approach within
environmental axiology' (p.101), does not himself take the alleged "environmental
axiological route", as the record shows. Rather than rely on my record (a political expedient
that should engender but little philosophical enthusiasm), I'm tempted to issue a countercharge: insofar as Sylvan is committed to an "environmental axiological route" so also is
(authentic) deep ecology, as elaborated by Naess. Consider, for instance, Naess's
elaboration of the deep ecological platform. But in sustaining this counter-charge (the
detailed support involves a comparison, made in Bennett and Sylvan, of deep-green theory
with authentic deep ecology), we come up once again against the problem of what is meant
here by 'axiology'.
Unremarkably Fox deploys the fallacious method of redefinition. By 'axiology' and
its compounds, Fox both means what is normally meant and also means significantly more.
Hardly necessary by now to add, he manages to slide from one to the other. In the normal
way, axiology, or value theory, is the philosophical study of virtue and values, 'their
meaning, characteristics, origins, types, criteria and epistemological status (p.100, quoting
Angeles).
24
So far so good.
But now for the first twist and slide.
'In the area of
See EP, e.g . p.188, p.222, and several works in the Green series. In the early 70s
when there was briefly some glimmer of hope that the Australian National University
might interest itself in environmental philosophy, I sketched out a perspective of what
it might comprise, which I reproduce as an Appendix (if I can find it!).
56
environmental ethics, the axiological concept of intrinsic value plays a fundamental role. 25
. . . On this understanding, environmental ethics is more accurately described as
environmental axiology ... ' (p.100). This is a major non-sequitur. It would almost as well
be said that because induction plays a fundamental role in philosophy of science,
philosophy of science is more accurately described as induction-theory, and even amounts
to induction-theory! Plainly it is quite inaccurately described as induction-theory, since
there is much else to philosophy of science; what makes matters still worse is that there are
schools which contend that induction drops out as a method and so as a problem. Rather
similarly environmental ethics is much more inaccurately redescribed as environmental
axiology because, but not only because, there is much more to ethics than axiology, the
whole matter of proper conduct for example. For value only impacts on action and proper
conduct by way of further principles which are not themselves part of value theory. It is
obvious that value theory does not in general exclude what is not (without further ado) a
part of it, such as deontic theory, moral epistemology, and so on; but the obvious gets lost
sight of, as when Fox assumes that environmental axiology rules out experiential and
empathetic procedures.
Fox attempts rather more than adjustment and exclusion in his "redescription" of
normal environmental ethics as environmental axiology; he has to if his charges against
environmental axiology (on the face of it a harmless enough study), and the importance of
avoiding it, are to begin to stand up.
25
Fox backs up this claim with themes drawn from Callicott and Regan, with which it
is said 'most environmental philosophers would agree', (p.100). Maybe others do; but
I doubt that they should, not without significant qualification. Regan states that 'the
development of what can properly be called an environmental ethic requires that we
postulate inherent value in nature'. Firstly, that is only one way to try to develop an
environmental ethic (which may not be deep). There are other feasible starting points
and primitives: rights, justice, respects, fairness, empathy, identification, utility,
vandalism, evil, and so on, in terms of which value may (or may not) be subsequently
be defined (e.g. along lines that tempted former philosophers: what it is fitting/right,
for any rational being to prefer/desire). Secondly, the term 'postulate' at best grates, at
worst gets the picture seriously wrong: value may not be self-evident, assumed
without proof, imposed as a demand, ... . Callicott describes 'the problem of intrinsic
value in nature ... as the most critical and most recalitrant theoretical problem of
environmental ethics'. That already presupposes that an ethics starts out in Regan's
sort of way. Even if a deep ethics does take value as primitive, that is but one
problem among several, a problem blown up to critical exaggerated size, primarily by
opponents of environmental ethics and infiltrators of the ranks. For other major
problems for any ethics, and a more balanced view, see Broad's final chapter.
57
We can glean further information as to what is loaded into the terminology from what
Fox tries to do. An environmental axiology is the same as a (formal) environmental
axiological position, and that as a formal value theory (pp.40-41; the word 'formal' can be
inserted or left out, in Fox it appears to function primarily as a con-term). Such theories,
which are "theoretical" and "definite", contain as well as
• a value theory, and perhaps also a rights theory (e.g. p.35), both
• exact principles, offering specific positional guidance, which are
• positively formulated
• which apply to all situations, and
• a code of conduct, no doubt made up from the principles. 26
Some of Fox's criticisms of environmental axiology turn on these further, and
excessively exacting, features he has tried illegitimately to incorporate into axiology. At this
stage, there are two main confusions:- first, as to the extent of ethics and moral theory that
axiology comprehends, and secondly as to the character of the principles axiology (and, for
that matter, deontology and praxis) is supposed to include. A value theory on it own yields
neither a rights' theory nor a code of conduct. Even a highly and objectionably reductive
theory such as consequentialism requires principles drawn from outside value theory, such
as that one ought to act so as to maximize value or utility, in order to arrive at principles of
conduct and actionable rights. A value theory may include principles but these are
principles concerning value. Like other principles, like those of deontology, they may well
not measure up to the excessive standards Fox tries to impose. In particular, the principles
may be defeasible, may include or presuppose unspecified and unlistable exceptions; they
may include ceteris paribus clauses; and so they may well not apply in all situations. They
may fall far short of supplying necessary and/or sufficient conditions; they may not be
positively formulated (prohibitions in such forms as 'Don't ... ' are commonplace in ethics);
and so on.
26
As well, it seems to be assumed that an axiology, and indeed an Anglo-American
ethics, must be atomistic and individualistic; they are but 'means of structuring the
interactions of atomistic individuals' (p.112). Not so. It is worth remarking that
deep-green theory assumes neither atomism nor individualism (see EP). Nor does it
pursue or assume any of the following reductive practices: deontic to axiological, or
vice versa; environmental philosophy to environmental ethics, or vice versa;
axiological notions to a unique set of primitives, or the single primitive value. As
there are several ways to disable a bulldozer, so there are many ways to enable an
environmental philosophy: value is but one starting point.
58
7. The "case" against environmental axiology: 'the inadequacies or
repugnant conclusions that attend the environmental axiological approach'
(p.82).
Among the 'serious problems' encountered are said to be those, now hoary, issues
concerning intrinsic value, which Fox tosses up in a substantially shallow way.
For most environmental ethicists, it is difficult to see how something
can have value in itself (i.e. intrinsic value) if it isn't valuable to itself,
and to be valuable to itself it must be able to matter to itself or, in other
words, be sentient, by which is meant that it must possess the capacity
to suffer (p.73)27_
This contention is at least dubious clause by clause, and overall profoundly mistaken. The
critical transformation, for deep environmentalism, is centred on that of value in to valuable
to (or of value to). It is difficult to see why any environmental thinker would accede to such
a transformation, in itself and to itself being so very different in meaning (e.g. consider
them coupled respectively with such terms as conspicuous, unusual, etc.) But, in any
event, there are several sorts of evident counter-examples to such transformations. Firstly,
there are examples from outside environmental territory such as works of art, intellectual
theories, and transcendental metaphysical gems. A beautiful theory or a resplendent form
can be intrinsically valuable without being of value to itself, without being able to matter to
itself, etc. Secondly, there are examples like rare seed, embryonic valuables, and the like.
Thirdly, there are sentient or conscious items of intrinsic value that are not valuable to
themselves, and do not matter to themselves, such as great but utterly modest people. There
is much else wrong in the connections Fox delivers up 28 , but we can bypass most of them
(e.g. sentience does not mean a capacity to suffer, as shown by perceptually aware creatures
who do not suffer because they have no pain receptors and the like; nor is sentience
required, as consciousness will serve for mattering; and so on).
27
It is hard to credit that someone fronting up as a deep environmental thinker could
present such stuff, but of course various reasons can be found. While the argument is
very bad, there is no doubt, what is no excuse, that worse can be found. For instance,
what is intrinsically valuable is valuable in itself, so it must have a self, so it must be
sentient, etc.
28
Fox subsequently announces the 'link between something not mattering to itself ...
and the conclusion that we can do as we will with it ... sacred in the Environmental
Axiological Orthodox Church of Intrinsic Value' (p.80). It is a Church of his own
fabrication, at which no respectable deep environmentalist would worship or even be
found.
59
Fox runs straight on to an old paradigm assertion by Frankena, from whom he
borrowed the argument, which he again proceeds to ascribe (without any evidence offered
or, I suspect, any research basis)to most environmental ethicists 29 : 'I do not see, however,
how anything can have intrinsic value except the activities, experiences, and lives of
conscious sentient beings (persons, etc.)' (Frankena, quoted p.73). Frankena's assertion,
as it stands utterly unsupported, 'is a powerful one', according to Fox, again displaying his
shallow proclivities: 'What difference does it make how I treat something if it cannot matter
to itself?' (p.78) Big differences, not merely to those in a region for whom it may matter,
but in the region, if Fox dams the last wild river in the region, cuts down the last lowland
rainforest. Fox tops his astounding move by dignifying this shallow rubbish by the title
'powerful argument'. Its power 'is evidenced by the fact that those who want to say rocks
or trees have intrinsic value often do so by pure assertion rather than providing an argument
for their view (140)' (p.78). That's no evidence, it's irrelevant; and I wouldn't pursue it,
were not such a familiar utterly shallow complaint built into the alleged evidence, and were
Sylvan not roped in again in a footnote as 'another case in point' (p.112 note 140). It may
come as news to Fox (who seems to have read little of what I have written before he rushed
out his Response), but I do provide arguments, including those built on examples like the
Last Person and the Last Sentient Creatures, examples which have obtained a fair bit of
exposure (for some of these, see e.g. EP pp.121-132; and in fact a general argument can be
developed from the semantical analysis of value).
The certainties of Frankena's dogmatic assertion can be whittled away, first by
separating conscious from sentient (after all many people can now see that animals that are
not conscious persons can have intrinsic value), second by assembling marginal cases and
analogies in a now familiar way, then by counter-arguments, and so on. But, in any case,
insofar as environmental ethicists (as distinct from conventional ethicists) continue to side
with Frankena that reveals them as a rather reactionary lot, significantly lagging popular
thinking. 30 As Naess and others report, many non-philosophers have no difficulty in
recognising value-in-itself outside persons, in living creatures and natural objects.
29
There is evidence that these ascriptions are mere desk-chair speculation, in fact of little
value; e.g. at the bottom of p.78 where Fox says, of Frankena's position, 'I think it
represents the dominant position within ... environmental axiology'. I suspect that,
once again, Fox is not duly separating environmental axiology from conventional
axiology.
30
The chauvinism of traditional ethical systems is enough to explain the comparative
lack of intellectual interest in such moribund systems, and the resulting much wider
search for roots, ideas, etc. There is accordingly no serious puzzle as to the sources of
deep environmentalism (pace Fox p.74).
60
In the course of trying to get his attack on the environmental axiological framework
airborne Fox resorts to some extraordinary distortion and falsification. The looseleaf insert
(page 79), where some disenchanted thinkers make an abrupt unexplained entry, affords a
good illustration. First we are told that what those in the business (except no doubt some
enlightened deep ecologists) 'typically fail to realise is that the environmental axiological
framework of discourse so dominates the discussion of our relationship with the natural
world that it is mistakenly taken to be the only possible approach' (p.79). This claim is, it
seems to me, roundly refuted by the history of the discussion and some of the literature it
encompasses. Among other approaches there are, for instance, extended rights (e.g.
Stone), environmental justice (e.g. Wenz), extended interests (e.g. Johnson), and
negatively ethical nihilism (e.g. Hinckfuss).
Fox continues unabashed: 'In other words [!], the hegemony of the environmental
axiological framework is such that it has led almost everybody involved in the
ecophilosophical debate to think that we have an obligation to care for something if and only
if it "has" intrinsic value' (p.79). There's some prime rubbish for you. The charge is
manifestly false, seriously flawed, plucked from thin air, and unnecessary except for Fox's
misguided mission. Even if an axiological approach were the only approach, no such
obligation-to-care principles would follow, and certainly not principles as dubious or
refutable as those given. The if -half of the unabashed claim is at, the very, least dubious
and would be rejected on some popular positions: suppose, for instance that the intrinsic
value of the thing is small, or that it is overridden by the intrinsic value of some competitor
for our attention. The only-if-half (which wins Fox's italics, he is going to make much of
it) would be rejected by almost everyone who thought about the matter, because of course
obligations apply to what has merely instrumental value. If I have borrowed a friend's tools
then I have an obligation to care for them though these tools have no intrinsic value.
Differently, I am under obligations to behave generally in certain sorts of ways whether the
things encountered have intrinsic value or not; accordingly I'm not entitled to treat them any
old way (e.g. to vandalise them) or even as I will or, more ambiguously, as I 'see fit'.
Combining the pernicious principles Fox has unearthed yields the following
ridiculous result: if a thing has no value to itself, for instance has ceased to be of value to
itself, then we have no obligation to care for it, we can do what we like with it. The
applications of this result are remarkable. There is no doubt that Fox has thereby provided a
simple - if appalling - solutions to such major social problems as those of drug and alcohol
abuse; victims who are so far down the track that they have ceased to be of value to
themselves, can simply be vanished, or dealt with in whatever other way we find
convenient. Then too human slavery and sacrifice, never entirely vanquished, could be
widely reinstated: Oh brave new world that Fox has lead us into!
61
Fox tries to make a lot out of these odious obligation-to-care principles he has
attempted to foist upon environmental axiology. He suggests they indicate the need to
abandon rather than broaden the notion of intrinsic value; he suggests they may 'reflect the
inherent limitations of the environmental axiological approach' (p.79); he suggests that we
need to find instead 'another framework of discourse that can articulate' our feelings about
what we ought to care about. This alternative framework - from the many and various that
might have been selected - is none other than the wider self identification framework. The
obvious course, which should be pursued anyway, of seeking an obligation-to-care
principle that does measure up better to our emotional presentations, does not seem to have
occurred to Fox, so preoccupied is he with attacking what he sees as "the environmental
axiological route" and getting to self immersion.
Finally, Fox runs out some examples which are supposed to show the repugnant
conclusions to which the axiological approach leads. Unfortunately for Fox's case, the
arguments involved do not succeed without further assumptions beyond those Fox
enumerates, assumptions smarter adherents of an axiological approach do not make. The
examples involve comparisons of groups of individuals, which, it is alleged, exponents of
intrinsic value cannot discriminate, though the group situations are very different. One
example runs as follows: ' ... the loss, by human interference at least, of the last members of
a species ... is somehow "worse" than the loss by human interference of an equivalent
number from an abundant species ... . Yet, in terms of intrinsic value, those losses are
equivalent since the same "amount" is lost in both cases' (p.80). Fox then argues against
more holistic assignments of value on the basis of another dogmatic pronouncement from
'Frankena that communities (such as species ... ) do not "have intrinsic value over and
above that contained in ... [their] members"' .31 But he goes on to assert that, irrespective
of Frankena's position, 'the point ... applies generally to any atomistic environmental
axiological position i.e. to any position that sees intrinsic value as exclusively adhering in or
attaching to individual entities' (p.81). Fox is dead wrong. The case assumes, without
warrant or mention, equality of the value adhering or assigned to individuals. Plainly the
loss of the last members of the species is worse (where it is, e.g. the species is not a
diabolical laboratory concoction) because the members of the species are individually more
valuable than those of the abundant species. Consider, for comparison, the razing by fire of
31
Fox's second example actually contains the elements of an interesting argument
(perhaps, to be uncharitable, the only example in his whole Response). This example,
of monoculture vs diversity (p.81), does introduce, if not much of holism, at least
relational features of the individuals assembled. There is no reason, of course, why
axiology should not take account of those features. Contrary to Fox, there is no need
to 'separately posit' that the principle of diversity is 'valuable in and of itself' (p.82).
62
two art galleries containing the same numbers of individual art works, one containing rare
art works, the other containing selections from the abundant works of relatively indifferent
crafters. The amount, assessed in monetary value even, lost in the first fire is much greater,
and so the loss much worse, than in the second fire.
Fox not only proceeds to state what his examples would show without due
qualification. But he goes on, quite inadmissibly, to general claims which leave off even
the qualifications he had earlier introduced (thus later on, p.82, he drops the essential
restriction to atomistic positions). Environmental axiology accordingly emerges
substantially unscathed; it does not need to be replaced by something else, such as wider
identification, only rendered smarter, and supplemented or merged into a fuller
environmental philosophy.
8.
Fox's 'Deep Ecological Territory': transpersonal identification.
But Wes tern deep ecology is now bent upon replacement. Devall, for example, now
maintains that 'the unique contribution that deep ecology makes to ecophilosophy is its
emphasis on ecological self and affirmation.
Subscribing to similar ideas Fox has
suggested changing the label "deep ecology" to "transpersonal ecology".' Devall (in 89
again) has deep ecology as, above all, discovering 'an aspect of our self' which has been
culturally neglected.
Such a reorientation is significantly at variance with Naess's
introduction and initial elaboration of deep ecology; for his original summary (in 73) of deep
ecology, which is ecologically focussed, contains no allusion to self, ecological or other. It
is also at variance with Devall and Sessions of but three years earlier, where nature, ecology
and biological systems still appeared fundamental to deep ecology, these entering through
the other ultimate norm (besides Self-realisation) of deep ecology, that of biocentric equality
(see their p.66). As it happens, Devall, by contrast with Fox, vacillates between a more
authentic deep ecology in the style ofNaess (chapter 1 of Devall 89) and the Western variant
of transparent ecology (e.g. pp.39-57), which would displace the original theory.
There is much speaking with many tongues, much inconsistency, in deep ecology.
We have already witnessed such deep ecology doubletalk in the matter of value and the
status of ethics. We see it again with transpersonal or expanded-self identification. We
only enter 'the real territory of deep ecology' according to Fox (p.53ff.) with such
expanded identification. Yet one can be a deep ecologist, much literature explains, without
any identification efforts at all (for example by adopting the platform which does not
mention identification). So one can be a deep ecologist without ever 'entering deep
ecological territory'. Deep ecology without deep ecology - another wonder, or just more
double talk? Like Fox's parting flourish: there are sketch maps for deep ecological territory
(p.89), yet it is 'ultimately mapless' (see Devall 89 p.39).
63
Fox tries to explain "the search" of deep ecology 'for such things as "ecological
consciousness" (Devall and Sessions) and "Self-realisation" (Naess)' through expanded
identification. Most conveniently he can take ready-made from Devall and Sessions
reductive explications:- 'Ecological consciousness is the result of a psychological expansion
of the narrowly encapsulated sense of self as isolated ego, through identification with all
humans (species chauvinism), to finally an awareness of the identification and
interpenetration of self with ecosystem and biosphere' (Sessions, quoted pp.53-4). 'The
essence of ecological consciousness ... [is] to overcome this illusory dichotomy [between
Humans and N ature 32 ]' for which 'the important task is ... the psychological development
from narrow egotistical "self' to identification with the whole' (Devall as quoted p.53).
But, once again, it is one thing to have on authority such explication; it is quite another thing
whether such reductions work. I submit that they do not, for the simple reason that
ecological consciousness may be had or attained without any such self expansion
developments.
Consider, first, Professor Flatpan who is a devoted but unimaginative ecological field
worker. All his practice, behaviour and so on, shows him as utterly committed to
ecological causes, preservation of wilderness and so on, and fully conscious of its
importance. But he makes no identification of himself with what he works with or for. It
may be that he is some sort of empirical separatist; or it may not. Perhaps he even rejects
identification suggestions when they are put to him, e.g. on grounds of hubris, nonsense,
... , or he simply doesn't identify, etc. In Professor Flatpan and his variants we seem to
have a tribe of people with strong ecological consciousness and affiliations but without
identification. Consider next, the interesting Wombat tribe, superb in their tribal treatment
of their environment, who have not developed the notion of self or, for that matter, that of
identification. The tribe exhibits a high ecological consciousness (in our ordinary
understanding of that non-technical notion, in terms of a strong perception or awareness of
environmental matters) but lacks even the conceptual apparatus for self expansion
developments.
Expanded identity or self developments may serve as useful or powerful tactics for
raising ecological consciousness in people raised and hooked on a narrow self-interested
self, but they are neither necessary nor sufficient for explaining or understanding ecological
consc10usness. Analogous points apply against the attempt to drag Self-realisation into the
picture.
32
Naess, in a regressive move, now asserts that humans are unique (e.g. in 89), whence
the dichotomy ceases to be illusory. More inconsistency.
64
There are in fact at least three separable notions which deep ecology has tended to
fuse: ecological consciousness, widened identification and wider Self-realisation. Confusion is made so much the easier because those notions are, for the most part, not decently
introduced. The whole deep ecological theory of expanded identification and Self remains
exceedingly poorly explained (thus e.g. identification in Fox, esp. p.60; dimensions of
Self, p.83). As ecological consciousness has already been distinguished, it remains to
begin on unscrambling identification and self-realisation, and therewith the many senses of
self
In the first place, identification is independent of self, its manifestation or
"realisation", at least to this extent: that discourse concerning identification can be explained
and can proceed satisfactorily without any introduction of or notion of selves. A theory
may well include identification, and even expanded identification with remote items, without
selves or expanded selves. Early Taoism appears to illustrate the point well. Differently, an
ontologically modest account of acting can afford a good example of how identification can
operate without persona or selves. In fact, a case can be argued that such theories proceed
better in this fashion, because they avoid problematic commitments to selves.
It may look as if Fox, following Naess and Wilber, can escape these problems, and
separation, simply by defining 'self' through identification (and perhaps conversely):
'succinctly: Our Self is that with which we identify' (p.54). There are serious obstacles to
such a stratagem.
d
Elsewhere Fox makes quite a fuss about ontological commitments; on the matter of
cluttering up the universe with Selves he is strangely silent. Yet there are rather a lot of
these strange selves. Assuming selves do not reproduce themselves, in a universe where
there are n objects, and so 2n -1 complexes, and m individuals with selves (with m << n),
there are, at first estimate, m x (2n -1) larger selves. Of course some of these larger selves
may be the same, nonetheless the number of selves is huge where n is large. Moreover, if a
person can identify with nonexistent, with Sherlock Holmes or Pegasus or Satan if not with
the form of the Good and the set of all sets, then the numbers shoot right up, into the big
infinities. Yet nothing is more common in this arena than for people to identify with
fictional objects, of books, TV and so on. Indeed the art of acting depends heavily upon it.
A character actor works to identify with the character being portrayed; a good actor enjoys
more success in this identification enterprise.
d
It does not in any case evade ontic issues, because the definition requires that which
abstraction which a modest theory would not have generally available.
d
There are questions as to the adequacy of such an explicative definition of self:
whether, for example, it answers duly to prevailing senses of 'self'. The proposal does not.
Consider, to bring out just one deficiency, two different but closely integrated creatures,
65
Arthur and Martha say, who identify with the same class of items including themselves and
each other. Then on the Naess-Fox definition, it follows, counter-intuitively, that Arthur's
Self = Martha's Self, though Arthur @ Martha. Part of what has gone wrong is evident
from recent philosophical investigations, namely that the first person point of view, crucial
to such items as a self or a spirit or a soul or an ego, has got omitted; a widened self
involves some sort of (concentric) expansion from, or focused upon, a first-person self. 33
Normally in religious settings, it is furthermore expansion outwards from an inner personal
locus by restrictive identification or selective identification (as Wilber has it), not arbitrary
identification.
9. Problems of Self and Self-realisation: the intrusion of value and the
issue of evil.
Restrictive practices can remove a serious problem for identification theory, the
problem of evil identifications, but they raise an equally serious problem, how the
re intrusion of value is to be avoided. Fox is vaguely aware that 'the concept of intrinsic
worth' may intrude in discussions of Self-realisation. But he assumes, much too facilely,
that it can be simply removed (p.56). Devall's later writings should have alerted him to the
problems of those who identify with anti-environmental objects or causes, such as beach
buggies, symbols of power like bulldozers or tanks , or sand mining opportunities.
Identification is not always with the good, with good guys or good causes, as selective deep
ecology examples invariably suggest (e.g. p.60, with sea turtles, tigers and gibbons).
Spinoza, one of the progenitors of the theory, avoided the problem of evil attachments and
causes by envisaging primarily identification with Nature or God, assumed ipso facto to be
good. But Naess and Sessions allow for a much wider range of identifications, with the
whole human race, which may overall be evil (for all that conventional ethics assert), or
with undoubtedly evil human groups or organisations (e.g. the German S.S. or the Mafia).
Such expanded identification is hardly to be recommended or encouraged.
33
The person touch is too narrow, unless animals are persons. For there appear to be no
serious difficulties in ascribing selves to animals. Of course, if consciousness (or
circularly self-consciousness) is written into the notion of self, as with some of the
dictionary senses, then selves will be restricted to those animals that enjoy
consciousness, a quite extensive class overlapping humans. In a different sense, tied to
an original meaning of 'self as same, or one and the same used esp. prepositionally in
referring back, there is no difficulty in ascribing selves much more widely. Thus we
naturally say of a forest, 'It looks after itself', of an automata or even boomerang, 'It
came back itself'. The broad philosophical sense (first part of sense 3 in OED) in
terms of individual essences, what a thing really and intrinsically is, haecceity,
certainly admits selves for forests!
66
There are criticisms, yet to be answered (though initiated in my Critique), that the
"widened identification route" introduces virtually as many problems as it would resolve,
and that it cannot proceed independently of what it is supposed to offer an alternative to
(p.53), the pernicious "environmental axiological route". In a passage quoted from Seed
part of the problem is glimpsed, though Fox who emphasizes the relevant passage fails to
observe it: 'It is only by identification with the whole process that correct values will
emerge' (p.63). Why? Because, as in Spinoza, "the whole process" is assumed Good,
while anything less may not be; a distribution of value is presupposed. How furthermore
does a disciple ensure that a proper totalising identification is made? By confirming that
correct values do emerge. In brief, then, identification theory is no substitute for valuation
theory, but an addition to it. Moreover, it is not an entirely essential addition, however
psychologically useful. With the reintrusion of value or the like, the acclaimed superiority
of the wider identification approach over the environmental axiological approach lapses.
The claim, for which Fox offers initial but unpersuasive defence (p.77 on), is based on
another mistake: the mistake, already observed, of thinking that value theory excludes
identification. But it need not: selective identification can complement intrinsic value.
Very selective identification reveals as well how a theory of heightened Self can be
substantially independent of widened (unrestrictive) identification. In showing
independence Hinduism, as sometimes presented (e.g. by Smith), affords an admirable
example. Hinduism supposes a diminution or deepening of the self to the underlying Self,
a route of self-abnegation; but that is taken to be equivalent, by inversion, to a unique
expansion of self to approximate a God's eye viewpoint (of things sub specie aeternitas ). 34
34
Whereas Western approaches aim to enlarge the self - as with stock aggrandizement, or
Western deep ecology expansion - Indian approaches are concerned primarily with
contracting upon the self, to reduce individual expectations, aspirations, wants (to
nothing on some accounts). For a resolution of life with disappointments, the
(negative) suggestion is: 'if the ego were to have no expectations, there would then be
nothing to disappoint' (Smith p.26). But interestingly, there is supposed to be a
positive inversion of self abnegation which turns it into self expansion. Expand 'the
interests of the self ... to the point of approximating a God's-eye view .. . . Seeing,
thus, all things "under the aspect of eternity", would not one become completely
objective towards oneself, accepting failure as being as natural an occurrence as success
... . How can defeat disappoint if one feels the joy of the victor as if it were one's
own?' (p.26). 'Detachment from the finite self or attachment to reality as a whole ... positive or negative ... ' (p.27).
One path to God, to oneness with the Godhead (Brahman), that through knowledge,
jnana yoga, strikingly resembles Western deep ecology in some of its features and
terminology. The 'Yoga of knowledge is said to be the shortest path to divine
realisation (to God). It is also the steepest' (p.35). For intellectuals, introverts and
the like 'Hinduism proposes a series of meditations and logical demonstrations
67
While Hinduism does also make room for expansions of selves through time, so as to 'rise
above the present and even above present lifespans' (p.28) these expansions are tied to lifelines of single creatures (perhaps as reincarnated). There is no technical provision for
unlimited wider identification, for instance identification with inanimate items, with a
motorcycle or nuclear reactor. Thus Hinduism can serve to show the independence of
unrestrictive expanded identification from self-Self theories. Evidently, too, variations on
self-Self (e.g. with more ascetic theories of big Self) can strengthen this result.
designed to convince the thinker that there is more to him than his finite self; ... [to]
shift his central concern to the deeper reaches of his being ... the larger self that lies
behind ... ' (p.33).
One 'must pierce and dissolve the innumerable layers of manifest personality until all
strata of the mask [all roles of the persona] are at length cut through, [to] arrive finally
at the anonymous and strangely unconcerned actor [Atman] who stands beneath. The
distinction between self and Self can come through another image' (p.34) however than
that of the removal of roles and personae; thus there is the image of the game of life
upon a chess-board and the image of the charioteer. Through exercise with such
images and such practices it is claimed that a practitioner can 'build up a lively sense
of an abiding Self that underlies his phenomenal personality' (p.34). The further 'step
consists in shifting his self-identification from the passing to the eternal part of his
being. The most direct way of doing this ... is simply to [contemplate] one's identity
with the Eternal Spirit ... ' (p.35).
Of course analogous self-improvement, self-abnegation and self-expansive elements
feature in other religions than Indian, where they were especially early and
conspicuous. In Zen, for instance, 'the dualisms of self and object, of self and other,
are transcended' (p.134). In Christianity too, the circle of self can be broken, and
release experienced from the cramping confines of ego (Smith again, p.280).
Analogous elements made their way into Western philosophies, such as that of
Spinoza, early romanticism (e.g. Schegel), German idealism and T.H. Green, and
directly or indirectly into Western deep ecology (Fox, p.57). As Marxism is
sometimes seen, crudely, as obtained by upending Hegelianism and replacing God by
Man, so transpersonal ecology can be regarded as similarly varying elements of
Hinduism, replacing God by Nature (rather than identifying them as in Spinoza).
Ideological tradition does not however point uniformly in one direction, with self
elevation as invariant. According to Buddhism, here too more enlightened than
alternatives, that is a wrong direction. 'Strong emotions, however lofty [including
those of ecological consciousness], tend to emphasize and strengthen the fatal illusion
of the ego, which it is the whole aim and purpose of religion to transcend'. For the
'idea of a Self is at the root of every evil passion (and through its action Salvation
becomes impossible)' (both quoted in Perrett, p.72). Instead Buddhism offers the
tantalizing doctrine of "no self', which at least denies the existence of a substantial
self. Further there is allusion to "'the two kinds of non-self': that means there is no
ego in humans and no Self in Nature'.
68
Features of Hinduism also show up deficiencies in the Western Enlightenmentsponsored objective of Self-realisation. These include the already remarked problem of
evil, which afflicts unrestricted Self-realisation in much the way it plagues closely related
hedonism (often a main goal of Self-realisation, and out of an adjacent intellectual stable).
To avoid promotion of evil and the like, ethical or similar controls need to be inserted. It
should be realisation of an ethical Self, just as elsewhere it should be ethical happiness and
ethical profit, not happiness and profit at the expense of other creatures or the Earth. There
is worse to come. For there is a scurrilous bigger-is-better element to big Self expansion
and realisation, and to often announced, but thoroughly dubious, goals of maximization.
Without ethical constraints, the supreme goal of ecosophy, of maximizing Self-realisation,
can be decidedly anti-environmental, as too many maximizers proceed to aggrandize
themselves, maximize their consumption, or their identification with false chauvinistic
Gods, or their dominance, and so on. Such maximal Self-realisation is evidently antithetical
to deep environmentalism, which like high-path Hinduism and Taoism, is opposed to selfelevation and self-aggrandizement, especially in material consumption, and favours some
self-restraint, self-effacement, self-domination, even selflessness and self-abnegation. But
such unconstrained maximization is also in conflict with other features of ecosophy, such as
simplicity of, and restraint in, material means, implying a certain Self-contraction. In brief,
unrefined ecosophy is liable to be inconsistent.
10.
Deconstruction and reselection of self.
The problems run deeper however. The theory of expanded self and Self-realisation
has ecologically defective starting points: it takes as given what should be investigated and
rejected. For instance, Naess simply assumes that the process of heightened Self-realisation
starts with the 'development of the narrow ego of the small [Western] child into the
comprehensive structure of a Self which comprises all human beings' (quoted p.55; egoism
is also assumed p.64 ). Of course deep ecology aims to induce a further development,
beyond the anthropic limitations of standard trans personal psychology, 'a deep
identification of individuals with all of life' (p.55 again). 35
While it is plain enough that ego is a theoretical notion, elaborated especially by
Freud, it is less plain that self too is a folk-theoretic term of certain folk cultures, and it is
quite insufficiently appreciated that narrow egos and individual selves are not culturally
independent items (artifacts some would now say), but are acquired concepts,
35
Both developments parallel ascents in Hinduism, of upward path of "renunciation", to
third (service to human communities) and fourth life-objectives.
69
chauvinistically learnt early in civilised life. Perhaps because individual selves are so
deeply entrenched, especially in Westerners' impressions of themselves, a clever practical
and ideological course is no doubt the encouragement of expanded egoism, self stretching
exercises and empathy.
But a deeper philosophical approach would investigate the notions of ego and selftheir history, development, entrenchment, arbitrariness, and dispensibility - rather than take
them substantially for granted. In dissolving egoism, it is wise not to concede it at the
outset. It, and the intertwined notions of self-interest, and self-ish-ness, should be taken
apart to begin with, both analytically and historically. There are of course two parts to the
unmasking and dethroning of self-interest: dealing with interest and dealing with self A
historical investigation of the rise of the modern theory of self, done in the style of
Foucault, might serve to show how arbitrary in crucial respects the notion now rigorously
adhered to in social theory happens to be, and how developments could have been different.
But even if such an investigation should run aground (e.g. because the notion, although not
present in all tribal peoples, reaches back to prehistory), a systematic investigation need not
get stuck. The notion of self-interest, and also expanded self interest in the form of group
or class interest, has already been taken apart, from the angle of interest, and found wanting
as an ethical starting point (see esp. our 79). A complementary investigation of self,
standard theories of which should certainly not be conceded, is now required. 36 Some
realisation of the problematic character of the notion of self is in fact disclosed in Naess's
much earlier investigations, but he does not apply it to the familiar Enlightenment ideal of
self-realisation which he takes over as foundation of his own ecosophy, and so of deep
ecology as he conceives it.
Instead of requisite critical and de( con)structive investigation of the notion of self,
resulting in its demotion, what we are witnessing in too much deeper environmental
philosophy, is an elevation of the notion and an attempt to focus and found much theory
upon it (as esp. in Fox). It is reminiscent of, and related to, the earlier failed attempt to
found much theory, including ethics (or a replacement for it), on the notion of person.3 7
36
My impression is that several such investigations are now under way. For discussion
and elaboration of earlier investigations, which glimpse some of the requisite points,
see Perrett. Our own previous investigations, particularly of the interests and needs of
oneself and their interrelations and overlap with those of others (and accordingly the
falseness of the egoism-altruism contrast) in 79 and EP, go some small way along the
requisite path.
37
Thus, for instance, Strawson in metaphysics, and Benn in moral sciences, both
elaborating on Kantian illusions.
70
Indeed those routes are significantly interlinked and offer similar beginnings; for instance, a
personality comprises certain roles into which a self, oneself, is cast. In important respects,
self amounts to person somewhat deanthropocized. It also suffers similar defects. Neither
is sufficiently explained (e.g. what are the existence conditions, the identity conditions, the
distinctive properties); neither is up to carrying the heavy theoretical load aficionados have
attempted to impose upon them. In particular, neither enables an independent
characterisation of central axiologic or deontic notions or other notions bound up with the
regulation of conduct which they would somehow displace and to some extent provide new
foundations for. Furthermore it appears that the notion of self is not, and cannot be,
sufficiently deanthropicized, short of distributing selves around in woods, springs and
mountains in the way pagan religions did with spirits (and then letting them be good and
evil, and so forth). Undue concentration upon selves has the unfortunate and retrograde
effect of swinging environmental philosophy away from deepened ecology and back to
agents and actors, the live active subcomponents within ecologies.
unacknowledged return to shallower waters.
It signals an
Because self, however dispensible in environmental philosophy, is integral to
Wes tern deep ecology, it behoves us to say something about it, something more than deep
ecology has said. Self is a folk-theoretic object of philosophical cast, though no doubt an
item with experiential linkage, for instance as a permanent substratum of a certain range of
successive (internal) states and experiences, or, without a substance, as a bundle or
stringing together of a succession of 'personal' experiences. 38 It is an item, almost an
objectification, whose features (which may vary with underlying theory) are primarily
supplied through a culturally-dependent theory or the like (e.g. a religious or cult theory).
In this regard it is like other typically psychological items of philosophical importance, such
as soul (with which it is sometimes identified), spirit, mental substance, mind, psyche,
person, personal essence, ego, life force, conatus, etc. In due course a now standard range
of philosophical theories gets invoked to account for, or discount, such items: realisms,
constructivisms, nominalisms, etc., with dominant scientific ideology committed to a
dismissive nominalism. A fashionable humanist opposition has, by contrast, become
enamoured of a flamboyant constructivism: selves are made, fabricated, and the like. By
contrast again Western deep ecology appears committed to realism, and therewith an
38
While the experiences, such as surges of desire or apprehension, are subjectively
empirical enough, the substratum or self-substance may not be. To put it in Humean
terms, when I look within I don't find a self just like that (how a sceptical Hume
managed to still eludes me). Self itself, like cause, though empirically grounded, is
not an "empirical" concept.
71
incredible ontology of selves (already castigated). None of these standard mass-produced
positions impresses as at all satisfactory (for reasons elaborated in JB ). For example,
scientific nominalism inexcusably leaves out lots of experience, life-forms, and much
richness (whereas for its own "legitimate" theoretical purposes it is prepared to introduce all
sorts of strange objects). For constructivism there are so far unsurmounted difficulties in
getting beyond the analogy: exhibiting the materials and explaining just how they are
assembled. While not averse to phrases like 'the fabrication of self', it needs to be
remembered that the fabrications are more like those of fiction. Insensitive realism is
different; there is sound reason to remain entirely sceptical about an intuitive ontology of
selves, especially when a good empathesizer may have numerous different existent selves.
I can see little excuse for (being taken in by) such ontological blow outs.
Item-theory offers an appealing alternative to these standard positions generally, and
therewith very different prospects for self. An item-theoretic account of self will resemble
that already offered for mind (in MX); analogous item-theoretic accounts can no doubt be
given for spirit, psyche and ego (and also spook, shade, spectre, ghost, etc.). Minds are
fairly satisfactory folk-theoretic items which do not exist; ghosts, whether in machines or
not, are decidedly less satisfactory inexistential items. Selves are different inexistential
items again, with different features; many subjects which do not have minds may have
selves. The difficult part of the business consists in explaining whic~ items selves are, a
business that is complicated because there are several somewhat different but interconnected
notions of self in circulation. Fortunately these can all be accounted for as restrictions in
one way or another- temporal, cultural, subject-discipline - of a total self. The total self of
a subject abstracts from the total set of features which contribute to the self or personality of
that subject, from everything that makes it selfwise what it is (whether supplied by local
cultures or not, both supplied internally and not), over the life-span of the subject. For
some subjects with richer psychic lives, these features will include states of consciousness
(and then the total self will properly include ego, the conscious self). Thus a total self is, if
you like, what distinguishes a subject, makes it what it is and so gives its abiding essence
(and id-entity), and so resolves issues of personal identity over times. 39
What the relevant features are will become clearer as we come to the usual restrictions.
A first set of restrictions are temporal restrictions, a second set aspect restrictions. These
are combined in the OED sense
39
This account sharpens and much elaborates the senses which the dictionaries list as
philosophical, e.g. OED sense 3. The inexistential account offered shares common
ground with the Buddhist "no self' theory when presented as denying the real existence
of a self.
72
'4.a. What one is at a particular time or in a particular aspect or relation;
one's nature, character, or (sometimes) physical constitution or
appearance, considered as different at different times. Chiefly with
qualifying adj.'
So, for example, Dobbin's total self restricted to time period t1 differs from his total self
restricted to t2 at which period he is old and mentally decrepit. A main aspect restriction,
very commonly imposed, is to psychically-relevant features, excluding merely bodily
features. Differently, a total self, especially a total psychic self, of a subject may be
partitioned into such selves, whence sense 4 b of OED.
'4. b. An assemblage of characteristics and dispositions which may be
conceived as constituting one of various conflicting personalities within
a human being. Better self: the better part of one's nature.'
Among the topic, or subject-discipline, restricted selves those of economics and social
sciences are nowadays particularly prominent. A broad economic self, for instance, is a
psychic self confined to an individual and restricted to its locus of wants, preferences,
desires, interests, needs, aspirations, goals, etc. (Of course some of the volitional features
can be explained in terms of others; in older faculty discourse, it coincides with the
individual will.) With a narrow economic self, that of mainstream economics, the broad
economic self is narrowed considerably to remove all volitional features stretching beyond
those of a present human. Thus interests, for instance, are restricted to selfish interests,
those of the human concerned, to exclude both altruistic interests (those of relevance to
other items and typically against a creature's own selfish interests) and, more important,
other-directed and higher-order interests (such as a's interest is that Ws interest be fulfilled,
a's concern for~' etc.) 40 This narrow self tightens up a further dictionary sense, namely
OED
'5. One's personal welfare and interests as an object of concern; chiefly
in a bad sense, selfish or self-interested motives ... '.
The tightened-up restrictive notion lies at the base of most modern social science. It is
characteristically coupled with the Hobbesian theme, according to which all motivation
reduces to that of narrow economic selves, effectively self-interest. Such psychological
egoism, that nothing can move a creature to action or decision except interests and like
experiences of its own self, was assumed by Spinoza, who proposed absorbing this
40
These points are much further explained in 79 and EP. Other selves, such as altruistic
selves and self-effacing selves, deploy quite different obverse restrictions, eliminating
local selfish interests.
73
excessively narrow self in a generous Nature (p.57). Deep ecology has attempted to expand
this sorry route (p.54), which starts out from a dominant paradigm mistake. 41
11.
More troubles with Self as foundation.
The big trouble is that an expanded Hobbesian picture, with expanded-self interest as
the only fundamental motive, presupposes the essential correctness of Hobbes' crude theme
- all that Hobbes really got wrong was the 'size' of one's self - but that is a fundamental
mistake. It is a mistake as fundamental as the conflicting crude motivational theme that the
only basic motive of business enterpreneurs is [self-]profit. It is a mistake of the same cast
as the pervasive idea that conventional ethics can be rendered environmentally adequate just
by expansion of those it applies to (expansion of the "community", or of a suitable base
class of parties with interests, sentience, etc.) - what is often now called 'moral
extensionism' 42 .
As empirical evidence tells, prima facie decisively, against intertwined Hobbesian and
entrepreneurial economic motivational theory - an extraordinarily convenient, and not
"rationally" abandoned, theory for contemporary power elites - two substantially successful
theory-saving strategies swing into action:
• a sustained propaganda campaign to align people's motives with the theory, conducted
through advertising, education and other mass channels of persuasion;
• a sustained reduction campaign by subservient intellectuals to show that all apparently
exceptional motives actually conform to the motivational theory. At the same time,
minorities (such as pre-industrial peoples) whose motives do not conform to the
established/ment theory are of course discounted. This seriously flawed anti-environmental
theory should be resisted and replaced, not just extended. For the only basic and legitimate
motives and interests are not merely those of self (whether expanded in a futile attempt to
encapture other or not). One distinct motive is, to put it in old-fashioned Kantian terms
though the example is not Kantian, that of duty, duty for instance to this Earth, duty which
is neither self-regarding or necessarily Self-regarding or, in any ordinary sense, otherregarding.
41
The chauvinistic expansion of self and person is sometimes carried to remarkable
lengths, as revealed by Shepard: 'we must affirm that the world is being a part of our
own body'.
42
For further explanation and criticism of this expansion, see EP. At least Fox does
Sylvan the "favour" of distancing him from the most famous exponent of such
extensionism, Leopold, whom he tries to push into the wider identification and wider
Self fold (p.64).
74
A third complementary strategy renders the theory normative: while agents may act, or
appear to act, on non-self-interested motives, it is only rational to act according to one's ongoing self-interest. (While we shall focus upon a strong version of the normative egoistic
theme, that it is only rational to act in one's own self-interest, including one's future self,
much of what is said counts against weaker forms of the theme according to which it is in
some way preeminently reasonable to act in one's own on-going self-interest.) This
normative assumption depends crucially however upon a specially-tailored theory of self- a
substantial underlying self that suitably integrates all one's interests and concerns, past,
present and future. Without such an account the peculiar self-evidence normative egoism is
presented as enjoying, and upon which it depends as an unargued rest position, begins to
fall away. Suppose instead a self or person is represented as a sequence of causally
connected experiential moments (e.g. momentary selves, of a person). Unfortunately then,
for normative egoism, it ceases to be evident to many presently placed selves that there are
special specially-valid reasons for only being concerned with future elements of one
particular sequence rather than another, to which one's present self may not belong; for
promoting the interests of this future momentary self rather than some other more congenial
one, perhaps in another sequence. 43 Indeed it is evident that reasons for action are not
confined to those intermalised to the interests of one future self rather than another, one my
or thou or it (say) rather than another; that reasons can and do operate beyond interests, as
when directed at the futures of forests or fens, and beyond selves and their extensions and
variants such as I's and Thou's and You's, as when arguing for deep environmental action.
Nor is there cogent reason for trying to curtail reasons to what answers to a bad, if deeply
incalcated, theory, a pernicious and damaging, if widely promoted, theory and sense of self
joined to chauvinistic bodily consumption and advancement. A more generous itemtheoretic theory of total self can expose this theoretical fraud, allowing for a full flowering
of reasons for action; it thus diffuses the narrow greedy self of Hobbesian theory.
Expanded Hobbesian is assumed in deep ecological Ego-tripping (pp. 65-66) and in
'the theme of ecological resistance as Self-defence', that resisting ecological depredation is
defending oneSelf, because the whales or forests are me; it is me that is being injured
(p.61). Such expanded Hobbesian is even less plausible than Hobbesianism itself - among
other things because you can go on, to become other You's even after You as the forest has
been destroyed. Be sure I do not deplore, but welcome worthwhile ecological resistance
43
On all these points see further Perrett, esp. p.72. Perrett explains how the regularly
assumed opposition between egoism and altruism depends on particular assumptions
about the nature of self, and breaks down when, as in buddhist ethics with its doctrine
of no-self, these assumptions get removed.
75
whether conducted as Self-defence, or not; good works, even if undertaken for self-ish or
distorted or ridiculous motives, are not to be disparaged. Nor similarly should the help of
campaigners whose motives have been distorted by propaganda systems be disparaged
because those campaigners are engaged on dubious or bizarre bases, such as that they are
defending themselves rather than something else that deserves their care, concern and
respect. What should be resisted are the twin ideas that these are the wholesome motives or
the only [rational] motives, and that quality of motivation does not affect goodness of act.
The main trouble then with the wild Western approach so advanced under Self-interest is
that, like Hobbesianism but on an expanded scale, it would reduce or suppress all other
motivation. In many ways, it has not really got beyond bad "old paradigm" thinking, but
merely bizarrely extended it.
12. Liquidating Fox's "deep ecological territory".
The success Fox imagines expanded-Self is going to have in the environmental
struggle arena, a success far surpassing that environmental ethics is likely to have (p.84), is
premissed on this faulty expanded Hobbesianism theory. It is not based on monitored field
experience. In the action field, where some Western deep ecologists are seldom seen,
identification techniques, far from admirably shifting the onus of proof (a dubious claim
also advanced on p.84 ), are likely to be greeted with amazement and disbelief: what is this
crap? It is not very long ago that people who thought they were tigers or trees were locked
away, or else regarded, like the man who identified his wife as a hat, as figures of fun not
to be taken seriously. Such motivation is likely to be taken, and presented, by a hostile and
backwards opposition as crazy. Furthermore, such defences can back-fire. Identification
with a rainforest, for instance, because symmetrical, does not guarantee defence of its needs
as one's own, as against one's own needs as its. A powerful bunch of developers and
bureaucrats who identify with the forest may take their needs, for timber profits and tourist
revenues, as its, and interfere with it accordingly. Identification, on its own, admits
disastrous reversal. Expanded Selves can be dubious allies in environmental struggles. It
is fortunate then that for almost all environmental purposes, including those of deep
environmental philosophy, the notion of self can drop out; selves are inessential. While
76
decent theories of self and self-Self can presumably be worked out44 , and Self tried out as
sole primitive, the theory so far, and with it (Western) deep ecological theory in present
form remains both a shambles and an embarrassment.
It is bad news then, given the abysmal shape of the deep ecological theory of self, that
deep ecology should contract, at least on Fox's continuing vision, to a theory of self (see
also 89). On this presentation much of authentic deep ecology is thrown away. The deep
ecological framework comes down to 'two basic hypotheses and on ultimate norm', all of
which revolve around Self (pp.86-7): it is Self, Self and Self, nothing but Self. And it has
nothing essentially to do with the environment. For Self does not provide the great new (or
shabby old) starting point to environmental philosophy that Fox imagines. To elaborate:One "hypothesis", already criticised, is that 'Our Self is that with which we identify' (p.86,
the pluralisation is interesting, e.g. a vintage car club has a group Self which includes their
cars and perhaps others they covet); the other, not previously encountered, is that 'the self
can and does grow/develop/mature ... over time' (p.17). That hypothesis is presumably
false; for selves, like plants, may decline, wither or die. Or don't ecological selves wither
and die? 'The norm is that the ideal state of being is one that sustains the evident (and
deepest) possible identification and, hence, sense of Self'. It seems to be assumed that the
ideal state, identified in the "norm", ought to be striven for (though it is hard to see why: it
involves much unpleasant, embarrassing or boring identification work, etc.). There are
accordingly covert principles of conduct, such as striving towards the norm and undertaking
the "real spiritual work" of deep ecology, and covert values, such as that of the (so-called)
ideal state, lurking at the bottom of Wes tern deep ecology; it too hides, even in its reduced
form, a condemned "axiology" and ethics. But not environmental ones; the norm could
have issued from a deviant Hinduism, without environmental commitments, concerned
above all with introverted cultivation of self.
Although Fox says the 'ideal state of being is referred to ... as "ecological
consciousness" by Devall and Sessions' (p.87), such reference does not make it so;
ecological consciousness involves rather awareness of and commitment to certain things and
matters ecological, not widest identification, which involves much that is unecological, such
44
Perhaps following through suggestions sketched earlier, perhaps elaborating, in less
anthropocentric style, T.H. Green, whose theory appears to anticipate much of wild
Western deep ecology. Green took self-awareness as a guide to the nature of things and
self-realisation as each person's goal. He held that the developed self is the end which
defines the good, and that all ethical terms may be formed, so far as required, to that
end. Of course he also spoke against atomism and individualism, and in favour of
holism and organicism.
77
as traffic with occult and transfinite, or antiecological, such as identification with developers
ripping down rainforest and heritage works. While Fox does claim that consequences for
the natural (not the built) environment do follow from his framework, the claim is mistaken.
According to him, 'it follows ... that when we harm or limit the flow of nature then we are
harming or limiting that with which we ... identify and so diminishing our ... Self' (p.87).
No such consequence follows as regards widest possible identification; all that destruction
of an ecosystem does is to put the ecosystem in a possible world, with which identification
is sustained, and bring up a different and perhaps humanly improved world (e.g. a wild
river is dammed to save villages). The remote Self is unperturbed by such commerce of
actuality. Even if Fox should try to save the show by again restricting awkward or
uncomfortable identification feats, his intended consequences do not follow. For we may
well increase that with which we identify by "limiting the flow of nature", for instance by
varying or enriching parts of extensive monotonous natural systems. 45 Fox's deep
ecological-framew ork, Self-indulgence of a deep spiritual cast, is no framework for an
environmental anything. Luckily it is not needed, but can be despatched with other deep
ecological rubbish.
13. Justifying "extreme interpretations" of and "extreme reactions" to wild
West deep ecology.
Fox exhibits full dominant paradigm outrage at what he refers to as my 'extreme
interpretations' and 'extreme reactions' (boldface headings for sections 3 and 4, p.13 and
p.19). While I am quite accustomed to being called or accounted an extremist, it is
generally done by those far on the shallow side of the environmental divide. I trust such
terms as 'extreme' carry no more weight with readers than they do with me. It is a
fashionable, but methodologically quite unsound, ploy to try to dismiss those who depart
far from some lately received position as extremists. Nowadays even 'Thomas Aquinas,
for example, is depicted as an 'extremist' (by Hart) and dismissed because the views he
expressed do not accord with what "all lawyers think" (Dworkin)' ;46 one is in good
company. The Earth will in the longer term be helped by deep environmental extremists
45
That Fox's theory (already epicycling, into dimensions) admits such cases is evident
from "the extinction example" (pp. 82-3). Because they are sufficiently evident, I have
not recorded difficulties regarding this example, which attempts to discriminate
different sorts of environmental losses by their differential effects on Selves (if there
are any ecological ones left that is: Last Self arguments retain their bite and smile).
46
According to H. Miles in a curious letter to the ANU Reporter 1989.
78
who serve to shift various balances in environmental directions - the balances to be
achieved, for example, in discussions, in time allowed in decision making, and so on.
But what Fox also says he means, under the emotive overlay, is that 'Sylvan's
arguments show a tendency to push the claims of those he criticises to extremes' through
application of the following reduction-of-relations principles:
S 1. 'if two concepts/ideas are linked, then they must be completely similar (equivalent
[identical])';
S2. 'if they are contrasted then they must be completely different (i.e. non-intersecting) as
well as completely exhaustive (i.e. covering all cases/examples of the set in question)' (p.13
and earlier).
All these principles (S2 breaks down into a pair straightaway) are evidently fallacious, and
only hold in very special cases. Now I claim to be well aware of this, and to have
illustrated this awareness sufficiently in my work (esp. investigation of the history of the
attempt to remove or suppress relations, investigation of very special cases, such as
"classical relevant logics", where a connections of the form, "where Rab then a = b" does
hold; see JB and RLR respectively). Indeed I discuss an example of this 'crude fallacy' in
one of the sectors that particularly excites Fox (Cp.27). But in any case, the principles are
substantially irrelevant to Fox's discussion of 'extreme interpretations' and 'extreme
reactions' (in his sections 3 and 4)! For, as we shall see, what really bothers Fox, and also
N aess, has little that is not superficial (merely terminological) to do with extremes; what
troubles them rather is that I take their claims seriously, and not as forever 'preliminary', or
at 'a superficial level', or 'metaphorical' or the like (see e.g. p.13, p.49). 47
Firstly, I introduced the quasi-technical term 'extreme holism' ('extreme' was
italicised to indicate its introduction and quasi-technical character, not to emphasize my
extremism) as contrasted with 'moderate holism' .48 That is obviously not an extreme
claim, it is not pressing a claim to extremes; it is simply using a piece of terminology, and
does nothing for Fox's cause.
I take seriously Naess's holistic claim, repeated by
incautious deep ecologists, that his conception 'dissolves ... the very notion of the world as
composed of discrete, compact, separate "things"', which I describe as 'extreme holism'.
47
One day I should really like some non-preliminary formulations from Naess. Quite
separately from that standing request, I do regard it as pretty ridiculous to insist that
ordinary discourse about chairs and desks, fems and wombats is 'talking at a superficial
or preliminary level of communication'. Perhaps we have to expect this sort of
twaddle from hard-wired physicalists, not from deep thinkers.
48
It is a contrast previously discussed, in more detail but in different terms, in EP,
p.222ff.
79
Fox's response to my reporting of Naess's claim, in the style of Dr. Johnson (no separate
things, so no wildernesses!, no forests!), his only response it seems, is '(Does Sylvan)
sincerely think that anybody could be that silly?' (p.14). The answer is of course: Yes,
damned right he does; for example, too many influenced by Hegelianism. It 1s
unremarkable that Fox and Naess are trying to backtrack without appearing to do so. 49
Where, then, is the (non-quotational) extreme interpretation? Fox makes two
connected moves, neither of which duly involve principles Sl and S2. Firstly, he
introduces a distinction, not previously in the ballpark, between relative and absolute
autonomy of "things in the world" (p.14). As commonplace in Fox's practice, the apparent
distinction is introduced and put to work without proper explanation. Then Fox announces
that 'it is clear from his interpretation that he [Sylvan] takes Naess and myself to be denying
even relative autonomy ... whereas it should be clear ... that what is being denied is
absolute autonomy'; and he has the audacity to go on, ' ... there is really no excuse for
Sylvan's extreme interpretation' (p.14). Well, you can take my word for it that Sylvan did
not take N aess and Fox that way; the distinction in question had not been introduced in the
literature under discussion. For similar reasons, that there is no basis for it, there is no
extreme interpretation, and nothing to underwrite Fox's captious moralising.
Secondly, Fox proceeds quite scurrilously to make it look as if I am attributing certain
themes I nowhere allude to him and Naess (but in fact attacked in Wilber's book). ' ...
Sylvan's extreme interpretation ... would have Naess and myself reduce all diversity and
multiplicity to something like "uniform, homogeneous, and unchanging mush" or to
"uniform, all-prevading, featureless but divine goo"'. The quotations, which may well look
as if they were drawn from my criticism, bear no resemblance to anything I attributed to
Naess or Fox; they are in fact drawn from Wilber's fashionable Eye to Eye. Similarly that
'extreme interpretation' is not to be found in Sylvan; it is a fabrication on the part of Fox.
Nothing I made critical use of tells against Naess's total-field exhibiting various features,
such as some internal differentiation. The Flux of late nineteenth century philosophy was
both non-uniform and non-homogeneous, with 'eddies, ripples and whirlpools in a stream
("unity in process")' (p.15), without being composed of separate individuals.
The other example Fox includes in his section in extreme interpretations, the matter of
internal relations, will also require, to begin with, some grimy textual exegesis, including
further inspection of Fox's practice of tactical misquotation (or quotation out of context),
49
Their behaviour is reminiscent of Parmenides and Zeno at the races, as delightfully
related by Bouwsma.
80
rather than real philosophical work. 50 But here no attempt is made to exhibit an 'extreme
interpretation' (nor again do principles Sl and S2 enter). Fox's first (and final) point is that
subscription to a doctrine of internal relations 'does not necessarily render one an idealist'
(p.17). Whereupon, by way of counterexample, Fox trots out his own admirable
philosophical pedigree, and reveals a doctrine of internal relations inherited from the neutral
monism of Spinoza and the process philosophy of Whitehead, both well known for their
doctrines of internal relations. N aess does at least make it evident that he is adopting or
adapting the received theory of internal relations. As it happens, I did not commit myself to
the proposition that a doctrine of internal relations (however characteristic of idealism)
entails idealism; naturally there appears to be more to idealism than that (such as a total-field
doctrine). Only by a misreading or misquotation does Fox obtain his necessarily linkage to
idealism. Firstly he represents me as ascribing to him 'this "idealist theory of internal
relations"' (p.15), when what I actually wrote was that a certain 'form of argument ...
commandeers elements of the idealist theory of internal relations' (p.27 emphasis added).
Later he congratulates himself upon 'discrediting Sylvan's claims that deep ecology
subscribes ... to his characterisation of the theory of internal relations, which he describes
(p.28) as "a terminal form of idealism newly warmed up"' (p.18). To credit to me 'a
characterisation of the theory of internal relations' is certainly a gross overstatement, though
it may be convenient in trying to exonerate the doctrine of deep ecology from evident
criticism. But the immediate salient point is that what I say 'looks like a terminal form of
idealism ... ' (C p.28 emphasis added) is not the theory of internal relations but 'what Fox
describes as "the central intuition of deep ecology"'.
The second, of Fox's three points as to my comments on the deep ecological doctrine
of internal relations, is a bit more philosophically substantive, and concerns the character of
the necessity ascribed to connections. But textual exegesis is again unavoidable. Fox
contends that 'Naess's definition of internal relations ... flatly contradicts Sylvan's claim
that this view point renders "all connections necessary" in the ... sense Sy Ivan intends'
(p.16; Fox has the term 'strong' where dots are inserted; we'll look at what Fox is trying to
hang on me shortly). 51 On Naess's explanation, an internal 'relation between two things A
and B is such that the relation belongs to the definitions or basic constituents of A and B, so
that without the relation, A and Bare no longer the same things' (see p.15). Consider any
50
By and large, deep ecology involves disturbingly little real philosophical work. So
much of it is name dropping, rank pulling, unacknowledged borrowing - all the old
stuff some of us hoped to be rid of with a "new environmental paradigm".
51
In fact I had been arguing from Fox's theme that "all entities are constituted by their
relations" (see C pp.27-8), but Fox diverts the issue to Naess.
81
internal connection R between A and B (indeed on the standard theory where all relations of
objects are internal, any connection). Then ARB holds by virtue of definitional or
constitutional features of A and B. But what so holds, holds as a matter of necessity (is
'necessarily constitutive' in Fox's lingo, Fox trying again for a resolving distinction);
whence the connection holds of necessity. A flat contradiction? Now to the 'strong sense'
Fox has located and is spreading abroad that I intend (once again he did not consult me as to
what I intended). 'Sylvan is claiming', according to him (though I have never advanced
such a claim, and am still not clear what it means, 'exact nature of' being Fox's
terminology), 'that the exact nature of all those relationships is also necessary' (p.16).
Now in trying to show that Naess's story conflicts with this claim he has hung on me, Fox
proceeds to run Naess into deep trouble (though Naess is blithely oblivious; see note (22)).
For, so Fox says,5 2 'Naess explicitly acknowledges that A and B can exist "without" the
relation"', meaning "'in a different relationship" or "in the absence of that specific relation"'
(p.16). Suppose such a different relation is S (at worst S is the absence of R). So
apparently ASB and not-ARB; whence A, for instance, has inconsistent properties, namely
both ... RB which is constitutive and not- ... RB by acknowledgement . To be sure, the
difficulty can be avoided, by insisting (as N aess did and as Fox also has him say) that
'without the relationship, A and B are no longer the same things', so what we have is
A'SB' and not- A'RB' for some counterparts A' and B' of A and B. Some such line is
taken by the standard theory. But Fox seeks a connection between A and B for Naess
which is in some respects contingent. Certainly that is possible, but it goes beyond the
bounds of the standard theory by admitting external relations, for which it is not required
that A and B are no longer the same without the relation. And, in a straightforward sense, it
fails the constituting claim: entities have relations, external ones, which are not constituting
(to deal with Fox-past), or alternatively (to refute Fox-present, p.17) it is false that 'all
relationships are necessarily constitutive' because some, external ones, are not.
My wombat example, to come to Fox's third point, was designed to indicate just that,
that a wombat stands in various relationships which are not (necessarily) constitutive and
which are merely contingent. Suppose wombat A passed by hollow stringbark B on its
foraging route (say once only, and accidentally, because it had wandered out of its
territory). Then "A passed by B" is a relation between A and B, a true relation, which
furthermore is merely contingent, because it might not have transpired. Moreover, the
relation is not constitutive, for instance of A, because it makes no difference to the nature or
52
The claim attributed to Naess does not appear in his original 1973 paper where the
relational total field image was presented, and from which the other Naess' quotes were
drawn.
82
constitution of wombat A. What I mean by term 'constitute' (and likewise 'constitutive') Fox professes unclarity about this (p.17) - is what is ordinarily meant by the term in such
contexts, namely what makes a thing what it is, what determines it (see OED), what gives a
definite nature or character to (see Concise English). 53 Wombat A, one and the same A, a
creature with exactly the same make-up as A, not some counterpart or surrogate A', might
not have passed by B. So "passed by B" is not constitutive of A; and again not all relations
are constitutive.
Despite the general paucity and poorness of argument in much revealed deep ecology
literature, the general downgrading of rational and analytic methods 54 , and the emphasis on
experiential and empathetic approaches, the status of argument turns out to be a sensitive
issue too. Fox beats up an issue on this topic, on route to the grander issue of intellectual
rubbish, by his standard practice of misattribution. He proceeds stealthily to amend my
aside, '(argument often not being considered in the proper style of such a nonanalytical
enterprise as deep ecology)', which I believe I can sustain, to the assertion 'that argument is
not in the "proper style" of deep ecology' (p.20), which I did not make (for all Fox's kind
attribution) and would not want to defend. I wish decent argument and careful reasoning
were more often considered in the proper sty le of deep ecology, and more often practised.
Then I should be more enthusiastic about it, writing much less critical of it, and castigating
less as rubbish. Fox, I am afraid, has done little to convince me that 'closely measured
intellectual argument is thoroughly in keeping with the style of deep ecology' (p.20) or that
it is much of a priority. He offers but two examples: he stands on his own record as
attested in his Response (how can I say anything unfavourable about that), and he appeals,
forgetting I said 'often ... considered', to an exceedingly loose talk by Devall on the
Stone/Sky path, which mentions 'logical analyses of ideas, premises, systems of thought'
and 'formal statements of definitions of key terms, explication of relationships', but
deliberately avoids any such work, preferring instead, in characteristic deep ecological style,
'a steeper ... path that requires ... the "real work"', consciousness elevation, jnana yoga or
psychedelic drugs maybe (pp.21-2).
14. Transpersonal logic and methodology.
53
It is proponents of the dubious doctrine of internal relations - a doctrine quite
inessential to and external to deep environmentalism - who are forced into assigning an
extraordinary meaning to constitute.
54
The Counter-Enlightenment antipathy to analytic and rational methods resurfaces in
Western deep ecology. For an example in Fox's Response, consider his remarks on
the 'blunt tools of logical analysis' when applied to the 'real world of communication'
(p.11), which could almost have come from the late eighteenth century.
83
The quaint relation-reduc tion principles, S 1 and S2, do show up with the first
premisses of what Fox dignifies with the misleading titles of "false equivalence argument"
and "false contrast argument". The second title is particularly misleading, because there is a
recognised traditional fallacy of "false contrast" or "false dichotomy" (arising as regards
classifications), which differs from Fox's defective "false contrast argument". Fox has
proceeded to latch onto my legitimate use of traditional logic, as when I say (rightly or
wrongly) that Devall and Sessions are operating with a false contrast (p.11), in order to
saddle me with a defective argument of his own concoction which I do not apply. But to
show that these defective arguments, which Fox accuses me of heavily and repeatedly
applying (p.6, p.11 ), are not deployed by me in the way Fox alleges, we shall need to look
at the arguments.
To avoid further confusion with tradition, let us relabel the arguments, replacing
'false' by 'foxy'. Let A and B be terms (Fox has 'concept/idea'); let a be a person or group
whose views are under criticism. Then the foxy equivalence argument, set down pretty
much in Fox's way, runs as follows
Key Premiss. When a links A with B (i.e. maintains that ARB for some relation R),
claim a holds that A=B.
Subargument. Show there are cases where A without B or B without A, whence A;;:: B.
Conclusion according to Fox: ' the "argument" (i.e. the claim that A = B) is "false" or
that it "fails"' (p.6).
An immediate observation is that Fox has not succeeded in setting down what he is after
with much success. The conclusion, which does not make use of the key premiss, is a
mess. As he hasn't located an argument, in 'the claim that A = B', he has perhaps felt
obliged to put critical terms in italics, or perhaps he imagines he is quoting me - what is
going on is unclear. He might have concluded, though a level up, that the "false
equivalence argument" itself fails, a conclusion he doesn't explicitly draw, but then he
would be left without a conclusion at all for the foxy equivalence argument.
There is a valid traditional argument, filling out the subargument that is buried in the
foxy argument as intended. In a standard logical format, with A( c) symbolising that c is or
has A or that A applies to c, it runs as follows:!. A= B
hypothesized claim (imposed on a)
2. A( c) iff B(c) for every case c
3. A(c) & ~B(c) for some case c
standard case expansion of 1
further data
4. ~2
from 3
5. ~(A= B)
from 4
6. ~(A= B)
reductio, discharging the hypothetical argument
84
Thus the claim, that A= B, is indeed false, as its negation is categorically established, given
the data. But again the argument, now valid, makes no use of the key premiss. A proper
fuller version of the argument would replace 3 by the disjunction, A(ci) & -B(ci) V.
-A(c2) & B(c2) for some cases ci and c2, and consider each disjunct. But the result would
be the same, namely 6 categorically.
The preceding represents the valid core of the foxy equivalence argument. What of
the key premiss however? That part also can be rendered correct, but upon assumption of
the quite defective S 1. To convert this part of the argument into available logical form, let
us replace holding or maintaining functors by a correspondin g asserting or (more
satisfactorily) commitment to asserting functor. (Should you imagine a fast one is being
pulled just read 't-a' as 'a holds that'). Then the key dubious premiss becomes, at first
approximation.
KP. from a is committed to asserting A is related to B, i.e. ARB, infer that a is committed
to asserting that A= B (or A= B).
Expressed in symbols in implicational form it looks as follows:
KP➔ .
.,_a ARB ➔ . t-a A= B.
This form makes it easy to see how the key premiss derives from relation-reduction S 1, i.e.
ARB ➔ A = B, namely by a standard distribution of the committed-to -asserting functor,
.,_a, or specifically by the rule x
➔
y / t-a x
➔
t-a y. S1 is the way to arrive at KP.
Moreover without S 1, there is little basis for KP.
Now the arguments can be put together. We argue to KP➔, e.g. from Sl. We run
out the subargument to ~(A= B), from which we conclude a is wrong or mistaken in
asserting A = B. Then we proceed back across KP➔ (using what results from it by
distribution of the mistake functor W, namely W t-a A= B ➔. W t-a ARB), to conclude
that our friends a were wrong in maintaining, as they did, that A is linked to B.
Exposure of that part of the argument involving KP➔ is enough to at least suggest that
I am unlikely to rely on it heavily, since it is manifestly defective when so exposed, relying
upon the already jettisoned S 1. Fox, for all his assertions, does nothing to show that I do
rely on it heavily; indeed he does not show that I rely upon it at all. For all his effort in
eliciting these arguments (shoddy though his work may be), he fails entirely to follow
through and show how they apply.
Consider his "example" of the foxy argument at work, and supposedly scrutinized,
where the terms involved are life and value (p.7). Fox's conclusion does not appear, no
conclusion is reached. Moreover the key premiss is not instantiated, nor is any evidence of
its use advanced; it is knocked down to the claim, deriving from certain deeper positions,
that life= value. Whence the sort of argument that I am alleged to be employing 'in a totally
85
fallacious manner' comes down to the valid traditional subargument. Fox's complaint is not
about an argument at all, it is about the premiss. As Fox concedes 'this argument is fine,
it's just that the original claim is false' (p.7)!
Let's take time out from the argument to consider the original claim. What Fox
reports that 'Sylvan ... claims, [namely] that (U.S.) "West Coast deep ecology" equates life
(A) and value (B)', differs significantly from what Sylvan did write, namely 'the
impression comes through from much West Coast deep ecology (from certain insufficiently
penetrating intermediate positions) that what is important is ... life and nothing but life'
(Cp.16). No universal claim, no equation, no falsehood. Naturally there are some
commitments, but Fox hasn't taken much care with those, or got them right either. For
example, Sylvan does not offer a definition (of his own or of any sort) of 'biospherical'
(which does not mean 'earth-centered') or of 'biocentric', but relies on standard meanings
(accordingly, too, he cannot 'refute his own ... definition').
The position with the foxy contrast argument is very similar to that already dealt with,
a similar shambles. The argument is exactly the same except that equality or (strong)
equivalence,= , is replaced throughout by a dual notion, exclusive disjunction, symbolised
V. But Fox does not dualise properly; instead of the dual conclusion, "the argument (i.e.
the claim that A V B) is "false" or that it fails", he misleadingly introduces the traditional
fallacy terms, as if they were new terms without a predetermined sense. He has it that we
'conclude that the contrast in question is a "false contrast" or a "false dichotomy'" (p.8).
Once again, a properly developed illustration of the argument is not offered, and in the very
sketchy "example" given the argument drops out. It turns into a question - an interesting
question - of the use, point, and merit of the shallow/deep distinction.
Let's take time out to consider the issues raised, as some are important. But first
some trivia. Fox, in effect, charges me with presenting a straw-person, as no one (but me)
takes the shallow/deep distinction as exhaustive of environmental positions. Well, he has
led a sheltered life; I've met too many activists who do. Fox implies that I 'want to assign
the shallow/deep terminology to the "historical scrap-heap"' (p.9). Here, and elsewhere,
Fox apparently joins the activists who conflate the shallow/deep distinction with the shallow
ecology/deep ecology distinction. It is only deep ecology that I have contemplated for the
scrap heap, not the shallow/deep distinction. More important is the status of such illdefined items as deep ecology. Fox now assumes that shallow and deep ecology, however
imperfect, are "ideal types", the merit of which is to be assessed pragmatically, through
their usefulness, heuristic roles, etc. Some scepticism is warranted. Ideal types such as
protestant and middle class might be defensible in sociological investigations where there
are plenty of protestants or middle class people to survey, but what is supposed to
correspond with deep ecology? The comparison has serious problems. Western deep
86
ecologists have yet to get their theoretical slum in order, to rectify their classifications, clean
up the objects of these, and so forth.
15. More rubbish removal, especially that borrowed from pop science.
Along with a substantial upgrading of the calibre of argumentation in deep ecology
should go extensive removal of rubbish, such as the unnecessary doctrine of internal
relations. The image of philosophers removing the rubbish, which comes from Locke, is
much favoured in Australia, and has been deployed by both Armstrong and Passmore. 55 It
tends to accompany the picture of real philosophy 'as tough, practical, rational and secular',
which Sessions deplores, in the case of environmental ethics, as 'neither desirable nor
necessary, and perhaps not possible'. 56 While such an approach is hardly necessary it is
certainly possible: it is a divisive issue whether it is desirable.
As is increasingly appreciated these days, there are various sorts of rubbish, which
can be separated; so too in philosophy there is more than one sort of rubbish. Not all of it is
nonsense or quite unintelligible (pace p.23). Considerable parts of prevailing religions have
been dismissed as rubbish (see OED examples); but while some parts, such as the doctrine
of Trinity, may be accounted unintelligible, most parts would not. They are regarded rather
as substantially false as well as seriously flawed in important respects, and perhaps also as
pernicious or largely worthless (and likely as unnecessary). Evidently, then, there are
several distinguishable components to rubbish; and, as dictionary senses reveal (e.g. OED:
'worthless, ridiculous, nonsensical ideas, discourse, or writing'), there may be quite a
variety of ideological and intellectual rubbish.
Rubbish, of all sorts, is hard to escape these days; unfortunately it is easily
encountered in both deep ecology and popular science. Many environmental philosophers,
Fox is one, do seem to be highly attracted by a very fashionable cutting edge, along with a
semi-respectable crank end, of recent diverting popular science. It is almost enough to look
at the cast of witnesses Fox pulls in for defence of his unstated theme that there is no
55
According to Locke, 'it is ambition enough to be employed as an under-labourer in
clearing the ground a little and removing some of the rubbish that lies in the way of
knowledge'. Contrary to the impression Fox tries to convey, here and elsewhere, it
wasn't so much a matter of 'following Passmore' (except in a dilute temporal sense, in
which I always follow Aquinas when I agree with him), as of following a larger
tradition.
56
This part of Session's essay is quoted approvingly in Fox's Response, p.44. Sessions
should be rapped over the knuckles for his sexist citations (which Fox too does little
to rectify).
87
rubbish in deep or transpersonal ecology (the theme is enthymematically Self-refuting, so to
say). The cast includes Capra, Davies, Bohm, Wilber, Gribbin, Pegals, Zukav, Prigogine,
d'Espagnat, Sheldrake, Pribram, Comfort and Walsh.
There is ample rubbish littering the works of some of these authors, some of which
finds its way into Western deep ecology (e.g. Fox's Section 4, and also e.g. pp. 58-9). It
is instructive to look at a couple of examples of prime rubbish early in the work of Gribbin
cited:- First 'Isaac Newton invented physics, and all of science depends on physics' (p.7).
Observe that this conjoint claim, which luckily does not drift into deep ecology, is
intelligible, but it is ridiculous 57 ; and observe, furthermore, that there is no straightforward
way of recycling such intellectual rubbish. Second, 'what quantum mechanics says is that
nothing is real and that we cannot say anything about what things are doing when we are
not looking at them' (p.2). As Gribbin presents quantum mechanics as true, we can detach
to achieve his shocking headlines and like assertions; so for instance, 'Nothing is real
unless it is observed' (p.3), naive phenomenalism. Remarkably, Gribbin is hardly obliged
to generate the amount of striking rubbish he does (but then he is a scientific journalist),
because of his later proclivity towards a "many worlds" interpretation of quantum
mechanics, which affords one neat way of halting production of this type of idealist
rubbish. Fox, eager to retain an idealistic Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics
for his nefarious metaphysical purposes, fails to take account of Gribbin's later turnabout
which effectively repeals the earlier headlines, and actually appeals to Gribbin's "authority"
(in note 41) in trying to dispose of the many worlds interpretation!
Fortunately we do not have to put up philosophically with the rubbish produced by
popular elaborations of the Copenhagen interpretation, which Fox and other avant-garde
thinkers would foist upon us. One reason is that micro-features of quantum behaviour very
rarely impinge upon macro-phenomena. They thus make little or no real difference to issues
of environmental philosophy (only problems tangential to it, such as determinism). Another
and major reason is that there are significant alternatives to the Copenhagen interpretation,
which at least shed most of the rubbish. And the 'range of choice' is far more extensive
than Fox would allow 'if Sylvan did follow his appeal through' (p.27) - yet another
example of "false choice". It happens that Sylvan had followed through on some of the
further options Fox does not consider, namely
57
If physics and science are the sorts of things that can significantly be invented, then
there are plenty of candidates for the claims both before and after Newton, e.g. Einstein
if we wish to be really extravagant. As for the extravagant reduction claim, well it is
refuted along with physicalism and associated Australian primitivism; see e.g. J.W.
Smith and JB .
88
• alternative logic approaches. There are many interesting possibilities here, but few of
which physicists have had time or inclination to investigate. My own, rather preliminary,
investigations have concerned a uniform relevant logic approach (see uu § 13, on ultramodal
quantum logic) and, differently, paraconsistent approaches (see OP p.157ff.)
• a neutral worlds interpretation (see my 85). What this amounts to is an ontic
neutralisation of many-worlds interpretation. Because of the neutralisation, the
'metaphysical baggage' and unparsimoniousness that Fox complains about are removed.
Of course too, since the interpretation corresponds, through the mathematical formalism
deployed, to other standard interpretations, it as just as falsifiable (pace note 41 ), and
accordingly hardly 'desperate', a mere "just-so" story. These observations, duly elaborated
(as attempted, in part, in work alluded to), indicate 'how Sylvan would describe the
ontological implications of the "new (ie. post-1920s) physics?"' (p.23 reordered). Briefly,
there are many hitherto unknown physical objects at the sub-atomic level whose behaviour
is classically anomalous, being partly wavelike and partly particlelike, for which a new and
interpretationally difficult theory has been devised. But the positivism and related idealism
of early interpretations can be removed by a warranted change of interpretation. And then
the ontic implications for ecology and most of environmental philosophy are much less
remarkable than Wes tern deep ecology has imagined.
Given apparently viable options as to interpretation, all the rubbish Walsh and Fox
add to the already problematic Copenhagen interpretation can be packed off (if you can find
a way to recycle it, good luck to you). For those who like picking through rubbish (I
occasionally collect stuff from the local dump myself), Fox's page 26 is particularly
rewarding. But two examples only :- 'What can be known is ... never the independent
properties of the observed alone'. So it cannot be known that the wounded wombat
(somehow) observed is female, pregnant, and so on. Such astonishing epistemological
results are not delivered by the Copenhagen interpretation, which only tells us that
knowledge as to quantum happenings is limited by exclusion principles. Similarly for 'the
known universe is inextricably linked with consciousness rather than being separable into
consciousness and objects of consciousness'. The standard formalism of quantum theory
discloses nothing about observers; and while observers do feature in the Copenhagen
interpretation these can be simply more measuring or witnessing devices: consciousness
does not figure. Even if it did, that would only apply to quantum objects, and would
scarcely warrant the grand extrapolations Fox and Walsh wish to make. Furthermore, the
Copenhagen interpretation as elaborated is obliged to set quantum domains within wider
classical settings always (by contrast with multiple-world interpretations there is no wave
function for the universe, etc.); so in the larger setting classical assumptions concerning
independence, separability, and so on, are not overthrown, but confirmed.
89
In fact my passing reference to rubbish in Fox's presentations was directed not at
Walsh, who was not pretending to tell us what deep ecology is about, but at Fox's
reproduction of this material 'in advancing the "unity of process" metaphysics of deep
ecology' (p.19). Fox's presentation of the issues (in section 4), with himself as some sort
of interested third party in a dispute between Sylvan and Walsh, is substantially misleading;
I was not attempting (what is overdue) a critique of transpersonal psychology.
What is taken to be known, furthermore, affords little comfort or support for the list
of 'ontological implications' that Fox and Walsh wish to draw from the "new physics".
Consider some representative exhibits, mostly compressed one-worders, from 'the
fundamental ontology now being revealed', with which Fox tells us deep ecology is not
merely 'in accord with' but 'throws its full weight behind' (see p.18):- Impermanen t?
Some of the newly discovered sub-atomic objects are extraordinarily durable and have
experimentally assessed lifetimes of millions of years. Fluid? This attribute of macrosystems does not extend significantly even down to the molecular level; it makes no sense to
say that wavicles (or even atoms) flow, they are the wrong sorts of things. Whereas the
attribution of impermanence makes straightforward sense (but is substantially false), that of
fluidity does not. Empty? Some of the newly located astrophysical objects are
extraordinarily dense, packed with matter. Infinitely over-determined? How does this sit
with quantum indeterminacy and under-determination? Or with another speculative exhibit
from the list: Self-consistent? At least questions of the consistency of the "new physics"
and its parts are proper and reasonable. But we are far from being in a position to assert
that the theory is consistent. On the contrary, inconsistencies keep emerging in the
developing theory, to which often ad hoc repairs are proposed (e.g. with the Dirac o
function, renormalization etc.; cf OP). Given the inadequate ramshackle character of the
present quantum theory, it is a fair bet that it remains inconsistent. It is a widespread
opinion among researchers that the present theory is something of a mess and in much need
of improvement. Even so practicing scientists are not hoping for foundations, which tend
to be frowned upon these days. However, foundations, such as an extension of von
Neumann's axiomatisatio n of part of quantum theory, would help in effecting
improvements, and something of the sort is a prerequisite for establishing consistency, if it
can be done. Foundationless? What is meant is, apparently, not foundations for the theory,
such as axiomatic foundations, nor really basic (atomic) components for what the theory is
about. In this sense, Newtonian physics had as foundational elements corpuscles, or
particles of certain sorts. It is sometimes said that quantum physics afford no such ultimate
building blocks, each apparent stopping point fragmenting into new substructures, most
recently quarks. But this idea, which so far appears to lack a satisfactory physical
modelling, diverges from the still entrenched paradigm of particle physics which, for all the
talk about "new paradigms" in physics, still consists in analytical reduction to ultimates.
90
Such objectual foundations leave open, of course, the question as to whether, and to what
extent, new phenomena may emerge, at "higher levels", as the building blocks are variously
put together and structured. As with elements, so with microphysical particles, while the
zoo of known items has expanded apace, the hope remains that there is a simple underlying
explanation in terms of very small ultimates, such as contemporary quarks. Those who
looked forward to a quite new outlook emerging from particle physics are bound - if they
look at what really goes on nowadays (esp. all the hightech dominant social paradigm
aspects) as distinct from what some popular science entrepreneurs say - to be very
disappointed.
Walsh's "explanation" of what 'foundationle ss' means is something else: 'the
universe appears to be ... foundationless and self-consistent in that, since all components
and mechanisms are interconnected and interdependent, none are ultimately more
fundamental than any other- hence the universe is inexplicable in terms of a limited number
of fundamental mechanisms' (p.23, quoting Walsh p.180). This is Fox's example of how
'Walsh provides clear and intelligible meanings to each and every one of the items on the
list'! The truth is that Walsh offers nothing of substance on some terms in his list (e.g.
'self-consistent'), and much of what he does offer is like that quoted, garbage. Granted we
can make something of some of it, something extravagantly false. Even on Newtonian
physics everything is connected, through forces such as gravitation 58 , but some objects are
fundamental building blocks. So it is too on the 'new physics', protons for instance are
more fundamental than molecules, quarks (if recent theory succeeds and proves consistent)
than protons. Some objects are certainly more fundamental than others. And in the "new
physics" it is widely assumed that the universe is explicable in terms of a very few
principles of mechanist character (e.g. the rashly promised single equation T-shirt). But
Walsh's hence clause would not follow, as simple models indicate, even if his premiss had
requisite physical cogency.
It does deep ecology no credit to include conspicuous rubbish. Nor is there any good
reason why it should; the rubbish is not essential to deep ecology. It is not part of the
platform for instance, and it is relatively easily removed from (authentic) deep ecology. So
much should be evident from my original Critique (as published), and the accompanying
58
Such forces as gravitation offer, of course, nonlocal connections, and delineate fields what are said to be at 'the nub of what these emerging ideas ... of cross-disciplinary
parallels ... have in common' (p.23, insert from p.23 and p.21). This confirms the
impression that Fox lacks a solid grasp on what is new in the "new physics" and other
"new sciences" such as they are, and thereby contributes towards answers to further of
Fox's questions (p.23), by undermining their presuppositions.
I
91
sketch of deep green theory, intended to function as a relatively rubbish-free relative of deep
ecology. It is some measure of the intellectual sloppiness of some of these engaged in
presenting and promoting deep ecology that in a recent major text from Naess (Naess 89),
the editor and translator, Rothenberg, asserts that my 'critique of deep ecological
philosophy ... labels all of deep ecology literature "inconsistent rubbish"' (p.19), somehow
achieving a fallacious transition from some to all. But apparently Rothenberg's
acquaintance with my Critique was extraordinarily casual, since I didn't use the label
'inconsistent rubbish' (and wouldn't as anyone who had read much of my work, esp. OP,
would realise), and since I certainly did not make a universal claim (and wouldn't for
reasons already given, which should have been evident). 'The interpretation of the whole
thing as rubbish', Rothenberg continues (p.19), 'comes only if you concentrate too much
on rereading some of the sketchy formulations of deep ecology philosophies ... '. While
endorsing the point about sketchy formulations, no rereading of many deep ecological
productions is required to produce rubbish, no projection; several offerings - such as items
lifted from trans personal psychology, idealist physics and other esoteric deep ecological
sources, and such as Fox's 'sketch map of deep ecological territory' (p.89) - contain
notable rubbish of themselves.
Unfortunately Rothenberg proceeds, without even a pause, to repeat Fox's regressive
conclusion, which would return deep ecology to human psychology, the very fate of earlier
establishment-cha llenging ethics, such as (group) egoism and utilitarianism. 'One should
steer clear of "environmental axiology" - that is, looking for values in nature', indeed one
almost feels, from looking directly at nature at all.
Instead, one should seek to change one's whole way of sensing oneself
and the world in the direction of identification and Self-realisation ....
Fox summarises [this debacle]: The appropriate framework of discourse
for describing and presenting deep ecology is not one that is
fundamentally to do with the value of the non-human world, but rather
one that is fundamentally to do with the nature and possibilities of the
Self, or, we might say, the question of who we are, can become, and
should become in the larger scheme of things (Rothenberg p.19,
quoting Fox p.85).
It is a sad fate for a promising philosophy of nature; degeneration into human psychology.
While that can no doubt be edifying enough, in the style of uplifting anthropocentric
religions, it is hardly the sought new ecological paradigm (p. 71) and only a warped
fragment of the sort of philosophy the whole Earth needs.
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f
I
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Session, G., 'Ecocentrism, wilderness, and global ecosystem protection', in The
Wilderness Condition (ed. M. Oelschlaeger), 1989; to appear.
Shepard, P., 'Introduction - ecology and man - a viewpoint' in The Subversive Science
(ed. P. Shepard & D McKinley), Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1969, 1-10.
Smith, H., The Religions of Man, Harper, New York, 1958.
Smith, J.W., Reductionism and Cultural Being, Nijhoff, The Hague, 1984.
Stone, C.D., Should Trees Have Standing? - Towards Legal Rights for Natural Objects,
revised edition, Avon Books, New York, 1975.
Sylvan, R., 'Windows on Science III, Towards a cosmo-logical synthesis', Research
Series in Unfashionable Philosophy, #2, RSSS Australian National University, 1985.
Sylvan, R., A Critique of Deep Ecology, Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy
#12, RSSS 1985; referred to as c.
Sylvan, R., 'Mind and its misplacement in nature', typescript, Canberra, 1988; referred to
asMX.
Sylvan, R., Deep Plurallism, completed typescript 1990.
Walsh, R.N., 'Emerging cross-disciplinary parallels: suggestions from the neurosciences',
Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 11(1979) 175-184.
Wenz, P.W., Environmental Justice, State University of New York Press, Albany N.Y.,
1988.
Wilber, K., Eye to Eye: The quest for the new paradigm, Anchor Press/Doubleday, Garden
City N.Y., 1983.
ECOLOGICAL ETHICS and ECOLOGICAL POLITICS:
turning John MCCioskey's challenge
This essay comes first because it offers an advanced introduction to parts of
environmental ethics, and to certain significant issues in environmental politics. It is
hung, not altogether incidentally, on MCCloskey's little text on the topics, because that is
a convenient vehicle for organising the material (it is also a text, written in haste, that
deserves more criticism than it has received). Fortunately no one need attempt the
onerous business of reading MCCioskey in order to follow the essay, should it succeed.
Rather, for the purposes of this essay, MCCioskey and likewise his little work can both
be regarded as characters in this piece of intellectual fiction; neither need ever have
existed.
1. Conservative, reformative, and radical responses to the impacts of
ecology on ethics.
There are three broad kinds of responses to the impact of ecology on ethics
according to MCCloskey's account, which adapts a standard political classification:
radical or revolutionary, reformist, and conservative. Of course there are responses
which lie outside this classification, not by disputing the impacts of escalating
environmental problems (or the new awareness of nature and its fragility), but by
questioning the relevance of the other end of the relation: ethics. Those responses target
ethics, its role in evaluating and regulating conduct, or differently, its place in
environmental philosophy (see other essays herein). As we too aspire to MCCloskey's
elevated view of the importance, potential power, and effective ineliminability of ethics
in rational evaluation and conduct, we set aside these gutter responses (which we have
argued against elsewhere). Otherwise, the responses are these:
Radical. A fundamentally new ethic is required, a non-human-centred nature-centred
(or nonanthropocentric ecocentric) ethic and morality, a deeper environmental ethic, what
MCCioskey and others call an ecological ethic. According to MCCioskey - who adopts
the usual double standard, requiring conspicuously higher standards for new challenging
theories than entrenched ones - no one 'has yet succeeded in stating or defending [an
ecological ethic] in a systematic way' (p.29). Nonetheless it will turn out, quite
remarkably, that MCCioskey himself, if he is at all successful, does, given but a small
twist to what he does.
2
There are two standard components to any such ethic: meta-ethical and normative.
According to Mccloskey, both components are 'more commonly alluded to than set out
and defended in a developed, worked-out form' (p.29). There are, accordingly, two
broad problems for an ecological ethics: devising a new meta-ethic, and furnishing a new
normative ethic (p.30). Meta-ethics, as well as comprising the study of ethics or ethical
systems, includes the logic and analysis of key ethical terms. For the new ethics a
critical meta-ethical task is to 'explain valuation, and hence values, without reference to
human beings, their preferences, pro-attitudes, and the like' (p.30). Normative ethics
involves the organisation, design and structure of systems themselves, their values,
principles, constraints and the like. For the new ethics critical normative tasks include
explaining and justifying the assignments of value made, especially to natural items
independently of species Homo sapiens, and the principles adopted, especially
concerning treatment of more natural environments, wilderness, and endangered species
of plants and animals.
Since all these requirements have been met, to some considerable extent (e.g. in
works such as EE), the issue becomes one of adequacy. How adequately have these
things been done, in particular in what is now called deep-green theory, and what of
significance has been left undone? These are central questions in the on-going dialogue
with MCCioskey; they will direct the questions discussed when shortly we get down to
the real business of MCCloskey's more substantive objections.
Reformist. Instead of a "new" ethic, standard ethical theories are reformed, modifying
them or adjusting them at the periphery, 'so as to acknowledge new, specifically
ecological values and duties' (p.30). Characteristically the adjustment is to the margins
of normative theory, with standard meta-ethics left substantially intact. Animal rights
theories which simply adjust utilitarianism to take account of the suffering of other
sentient creatures than humanoids, afford a stock example of significant reformism. By
contrast, differently designed and defended theories of animal rights may be radical in
character.
The classification is thus pretty rough and ready; given the comparative vagueness
of "newness" and "standardness" as regards ethical theories, the divisions between
responses is likewise blunt. Evidently too, the classification only overlaps other
classifications of ethics with some vogue, for instance that into shallow, intermediate,
and deep (used elsewhere e.g. TE). Thus while reformist utilitarianisms are typically
intermediate, a reformist ethic (or even a revolutionary one, such as Nietzsche's has been
taken to be) may be substantially shallow. The converse linkages are tighter: only an
ethic which merely purports to be conservative can really be intermediate, as
MCCloskey's intuitionism is, or deep, as "supplementation" of such intuitionism could
3
be.
Conservative. No input from ecology warrants even so much as reform, let alone
revolution, in standard ethical theory; all that is required is 'a more informed, more
accurate thinking out of our moral obligations and moral rights' (p.29). MCCioskey
claims to defend the stock conservative view that ecological considerations and 'findings
... do not necessitate a basic revolution in ethics but supply a more informed, more
accurate thinking out, of our moral obligations and moral rights' (p.29, similarly p.31).
Rather than looking hard at the conspicuous difficulties and inadequacies of
prevailing ethics, unresolved after thousands of years of investigation, MCCioskey
proceeds immediately to try to shift the onus of proof: ' ... no moral philosopher has yet
succeeded in either stating or defending it ... a new ecological ethic ... in a systemic
way' (p.29, insertion from same page). He alleges, to elaborate on a previous charge,
that 'the problem of [a radical] ecological ethics is that of devising
a a new meta-ethics, one that explains valuation, and hence values, without
reference to human beings, their preferences, pro-attitudes, and the like, and
a a new normative ethics that explains both
• the value of natural phenomena prior to man's existence and after the
extinction of the species Homo sapiens and
• why it is morally wrong for man to damage wilderness and endanger or
render extinct natural species of plants and animals' (p.30, display inserted).
As it happens, all these things have been attempted, as was said and as will become
evident - though perhaps in too sketchy and too technical a way so far (it is still early
days). For example, why it is wrong to damage pristine wilderness is, at bottom,
because such wilderness possesses high intrinsic value - something MCCioskey does not
really dispute. How then does he sustain his allegations? For the most part, despite the
repeated rhetoric about "arguing" this and that, he doesn't. He simply assumes that
'concern for human well-being' must dominate, that it always has, well almost always
has, priority (e.g. p.52).
2. A confused and confusing response: supplemented intuitionism.
Furthermore, MCCioskey, although he claims to be defending this conservative
'third view', does not state matters as clearly as he should: he only rules out the 'need for
a specifically ecological ethic', not reformism. This constitutes one part of what amounts
4
to substantial cheating in MCCloskey's "conservatism" . 1 A further part consists in
adopting an extremely unfashionable ethical theory, an intuitionism supplementing a now
little known theory of the kind developed by Ross, as his "standard" ethical theory. Like
the rare "ideal utilitarianism", such intuitionism can be much closer to proposed new
ecological ethics, given appropriate ideals and intuitions, than standard "standard" ethics
(indeed, given a deep tum, they can be tantamount to ecological ethics). But the most
important dodge is incorporated in the "supplementation" MCCioskey makes of his
"standard" ethic, which far exceeds what it is said to be: Ross 'supplemented by an
account of the moral rights of persons' (p.31). For he also concedes himself such
objectives as an open-ended 'promotion of good' and coupled 'prima facie obligations to
... promote good' (p.33 and p.31). Moreover, such promotion of good elsewhere
expands to a promotion of good, beauty and knowledge (p.36), and to include
promotion and preservation of what is intrinsically valuable (p.36); among 'recognised
ethical values' is 'the securing of the intrinsically valuable' (p.8). Moreover, among
what is intrinsically valuable are some (but not all) natural species, some wilderness
(p.36), and other valuable natural items such as 'forests, lakes, rivers, seas' (p.31).
Such critical "supplementations" mean that MCCioskey can proceed to argue for the
preservation of wilderness or natural species in just the ways that most deep
environmentalists do; for example, along the lines that an area of wilderness has not
merely instrumental value, but evident intrinsic value, which can be felt or intuited (e.g.
p.61 bottom). Such supplementations thus lift MCCioskey right out of the normal
conservative camp in which he has misleadingly located himself: for that shallow camp
does not recognise irreducible values in nature. What he is covertly assuming, in his
considerable supplementation of an unusual noncognitive ethic, is at least a significant
reform of standard ethics. MCCloskey's ethic is not 'perfectly familiar' historically;
more, his insistence (ascribable not to modesty but to political purposes) that it is not
1
There is analogous, if less outrageous, covert cheating in another leading Australian
conservative, with whom McCloskey aligns himself: Passmore. For example,
Passmore helps himself to a notion of vandalism (deep vandalism involving
depreciation or destruction of what has intrinsic value) to which his theory does not
entitle him. It has not been much appreciated that Passmore, too, for all his
apparently tough conservatism (early on) on ethics, also (characteristically) hedges his
claims. A much-quoted passage, endorsed by McCloskey (p.37 italics added), begins:
'what it [the West] needs,for the most part, is not so much a "new ethic" as a more
general adherence to a perfectly familiar ethic'. What that familiar ethic is, and how it
is to be reformed, Passmore never really tells us. In any case the main conservative
theme looks less and less plausible. It is increasingly dubious that better adherence to
established ethical and political forms will prove adequate, especially to environmental
problems unforeseen by these chauvinistic theories.
5
new is nowhere demonstrated, simply asserted. (In fact the claim is somewhat empty in
the absence of sharpened criteria for newness.)
How far removed MCCloskey's supplemented intuitionism is from its 'perfectly
familiar' source is readily shown by a comparison of MCCioskey with Ross on intrinsic
goodness. Ross contends (on the basis of reflection and using an interesting little
argument from a then 'widely accepted classification of elements in the life of the soul')
that four things, and basically only four things, 'seem to be intrinsically good', all of
which are 'ideal states of the mind' (p.140). How far things ethical have moved since
the nineteen thirties is also shown by the little argument Ross runs out, as if it was quite
decisive, to refute people like MCCioskey who imagine they find intrinsic value beyond
states of mind - in wilderness, forests and other material items. 'It might of course be
objected that there are or may be intrinsic goods that are not states of mind or relations
between states of mind at all, but in this suggestion I find no plausibility. Contemplate
any imaginary universe from which you suppose mind entirely absent, and you will fail
to find anything in it that you can call good in itself' (p.140). Ross no doubt reflects the
conventional ethical wisdom, a narrow wisdom, of his time and place (essentially British
ethics of the first half of the twentieth century). But many before Ross, and many more
since, have not so failed in finding items of intrinsic worth in the absence of states of
mind, in the Earth itself and its natural features for example. Such comparatively
successful arguments as those concerning the Last Sentient (in EE), and the world before
the rise of mental life, were designed to expose and reinforce such common findings.
So much Mccloskey is sufficiently clear about (thereby shortening subsequent
argument for a new ethics): 'The negative part of the Routley's argument, that traditional
[Western] ethics and contemporary morality are human-centered, is substantially well
based. The ecological moral intuitions they seek to explain and justify find no
justification in terms of such ethics' (p.58). But in MCCloskey's ethics they do find
some confirmation, or rather conformation, in the intrinsic ecological values discerned.
Moreover, with but a turn in the intuitions admitted that intuitionistic ethics itself
becomes properly deep - just allow the (over-malleable) intuitions to coincide with those
of deep ecological consciousness: then deepened MCCioskey is deep ecology.
MCCioskey even puts effort into explaining how conventional theories are 'heavily
human centered', without appreciating how far it removes him from the 'perfectly
familiar' ethic of Ross, and from his own professed conservatism.
As a result too, those making too superficial a survey of MCCloskey's complex
ethical position, especially if they came at it with preconceptions of what it amounted to,
have been seriously misled. Goodin is one reviewer who is undone. By quoting
MCCloskey's effort on conventional ethics right out of context, Goodin manages to
6
attribute to Mccloskey the very negation of what he advances, namely 'that all talk of
intrinsic value must nevertheless be human-centered' (Goodin p.345). The same applies
to what Goodin takes to be 'the punchline' of MCCloskey's position, 'that the
environment per se has no independent moral claims upon it. All our duties to protect it
must be derived from human-centered concerns' (p.344). Nor does such a punch line
emerge from the admittedly convoluted passage quoted in support; for the passage makes
the promotion of goodness, which includes promotion of intrinsic value independent of
humans, a prima f acie obligation.
But Goodin does have excuses. For not merely is MCCloskey's position hard to
fathom, but it exhibits confusion and is internally inconsistent. For example, Mccloskey
typically presents himself as having, and frequently operates as if he had, an entirely
conservative position, when his position is in important respects at least reformist,
making allowance for intrinsic values of natural items including wilderness, plants and
animals (pp. 52-3); his position is both different, with new elements, and not different,
with no new elements. Part of the problem can be traced back to a confusion about
intrinsic value (likewise intrinsic goodness), which is both intrinsic, valuable in itself,
and not intrinsic, because valuable for something else, typically beauty or human
knowledge in the case of natural items. The confusion is manifest in the many intuitive
judgements of intrinsic value of natural items advanced simply on the strength of
judgements of beauty or ugliness, and appears in such themes as that 'a moral duty to
preserve species and wilderness ... is ... based on ... the securing of the intrinsically
valuable objects of knowledge and the beautiful' (p.110). It is no longer just 'the
securing of the intrinsically valuable' as is earlier said (e.g. p.8); those "intrinsic values"
somehow now reduce or answer instrumentally to supposedly human evaluations, i.e.
are not "intrinsic" after all, whereupon MCCloskey's seriously damaged position reverts
to the shallow conservative position it is often been taken to be.
The main features brought out make MCCloskey's ethic, confusions apart, at least a
reformist one, not a conservative one. Briefly, MCCloskey's "supplementation " of
Ross's theory is so great as to make for a difference of kind. The features also render it
what is called an intermediate position. For it admits values in nature, it assigns intrinsic
value to some natural objects, while not however allowing values of natural things to
sometimes override those of humans. The point is fundamental. 'However, as the
theory developed here implies, ultimately, when there is a clear clash between human
welfare and human rights on the one hand and the preservation of wilderness and of
plant and animal species on the other, human welfare and respect for human rights must
prevail ... ' (p.36). Why so? Why preserve this ancient ethical prejudice? Despite the
assertion the theory sketched out, the supplemented Ross ethic, does not imply human
7
ethical supremacy. But even if the theory did imply this greater value assumption, the
appeal to it in defence of the assumption would be indecently circular. It is no proper
defence of proposition p that Shifty's theory implies p, unless Shifty's theory is shown
to have independent merit, such as correctness, robustness (i.e. continuing to yield p
under reasonable variations), etc. None of the requisite demonstration is attempted. The
radically reformed Ross ethic is just assumed.
In fact MCCioskey has adduced no decent case for this crucial assumption, which
colours much of his text. For it is his repeated insistence on the supreme importance of
things human, of Man over the rest of nature, that gives his work its undoubted antienvironmental appearance, which is obnoxiously exhibited at many places in the text.
One revolting example concerns venomous snakes: 'today they are a nuisance and a
danger to human life and health, concern for which dictates that individuals be accorded
the freedom to kill such snakes, to rid their properties of these pests even at the risk of
rendering them endangered species. (Sufficient specimens could be retained in zoos
throughout the world, where they survive well ... )', perhaps along with dangerous
subspecies of humans (p.116). MCCioskey is particularly concerned to put down
arguments 'for the preservation of species and wilderness at the cost of human interests,
human concerns .. ', even though these arguments 'appear to be correct about the
intuitive insights of those who live in different countries in affluence. 2 Nonetheless it
will be my concern in this work to reject this approach and the moral intuitions on which
it rests' (p.36, italics added). Unfortunately the strongly proclaimed rejection is not
backed up with requisite argument. MCCioskey, in a familiar intuitionistic predicament,
is stranded without argument. Nor, in this case, could the rejection be so easily
supported. For one thing MCCioskey feels obliged, almost immediately, to qualify his
human supremacy claim: human interest 'must prevail, unless what it is proposed to
preserve has great intrinsic value' (p.36 italics added). For another reason, the human
interests involved often cannot justify preeminence; they are too often trivial, or
unworthy, or just plain ordinary. So the ancient (unethical) prejudice in favour of
humans can, and should be relinquished (as argued in much more detail in other places,
e.g. EE).
But then there is nothing to stop MCCloskey's intuitionism sliding to real depth, the
ethic moving from reformist to radical. Call the resulting theory, MCCloskey's stripped
2
But the impression of McCloskey as a fighter for the under-privileged among humans,
one who of course along with developers and colonizers makes human interests
paramount, is deceptive.
8
of anthropic prejudice so to say, deepened intuitionism, intuitionism informed, again if
you like, by deep ecological consciousness. The beauty of deepened intuitionism is that
it answers, in MCCloskey's own terms, MCCloskey's challenge to radically new
ecological ethics. A now evident "adjustment" to MCCloskey's own theory will serve.
The trouble, of course, with this answer is the trouble with intuitionism in ethics
generally; that, for instance, it is built on the shifting sands of intuition. That is why a
direct response to Mccloskey will be offered, in terms of deep-green theory.
3. On the supposedly dim prospects for new environmental ethics, esp.
that deep-green upstart.
Part of MCCloskey's complaint is that the new environmental ethics demanded back
in the early seventies, have not been presented sufficiently 'clearly and fully' as to admit
proper examination and assessment (p.60). It is easy to level such charges at new
proposals; and such charges did carry some force, and still do, though less as the new
theories develop, among other things, to meet criticism. But MCCioskey would like to
make a much grander charge, the sort of charge (discussed below) that Thompson
recently did level: that such 'a new ethic ... is logically impossible to set out' (p.59
reordered). But Mccloskey, by contrast with Thompson who can slip into still
fashionable noncognitivism, is poorly placed to press such a charge. For he considers
that noncognitivism, which would logically tie all valuation to aspects of human (or
creature) cognition and so would be bad news for deep environmentalism, is bound to
fail. MCCioskey tries instead to push through an eliminative argument, relying upon the
limited range of cognitivist (meta-)ethics 'developed to date'. He claims to eliminate all
but intuitionism: 'Of the known, plausible, meta-ethical theories, the only one available
to such ecologist ethicists is the ethical realism of intuitionism' (p.59), which regrettably
they decline. But the elimination argument is radically defective, as MCCioskey is very
far from exhausting the initially plausible options open to environmentalism. In addition,
more satisfactory options will aim to discard not merely intuitionism but also both the
ethical realism and objectivism that regularly (and to its intellectual cost) accompany it,
but need not.
While it would hardly be surprising should the quite limited range of ethical
theories that have achieved much development to date prove inadequate to new
environmental objectives, the situation is by no means as desperate as MCCioskey
implies. Firstly, the options MCCioskey does offer, deviously pruned down (not 'ideal
observer ethic' but 'Humean ideal observer ethic', not 'natural law ethic' but 'Thomistic
natural law ethic'), are not all restricted in the way portrayed: 'All make human nature or
personhood or features thereof basic to ethics' (p.59). Not so; the contention certainly
does not hold for all the types of theory listed, e.g. naturalism or relativism, and insofar
9
as it does, it is sometimes easily avoided, as with natural law (e.g. set within pantheism).
Secondly, there is a range of recognised ethical types, such as those distinguished by
Broad, which affords scope for the elaboration of ecological ethics. Obvious candidates
within naturalism include biological and evolutionary naturalism - typical examples of
which 'are the following: "To be virtuous means to perform the specific activities of the
species to which you belong efficiently" (Spinoza). "Better conduct means conduct that
comes later in the course of evolution and is more complex than earlier conduct of the
same kind" (Herbert Spencer)' (Broad p.259). No doubt such proposals exhibit
deficiencies, but not per se of a human chauvinistic sort; and they admit of improvement,
which they are beginning to obtain within the tradition of American naturalism (thus e.g.
Rolston's work).
More promising, however, are "non-naturalistic" theories, of which objectivistic
realistic intuitionism such as Mccloskey is keen to offer and promote is but one kind.
For there are other less demanding types of intuitionism (see, e.g. Broad p.270),
including various "deep intuitionisms", which may be neither objectivistic nor realistic
(in the sense of labouring under heavy ontological commitments). In particular, as Elliot
explains (p.502), what entirely escapes MCCloskey is the feasibility of a meta-ethic
which is nonjective, that is, not objective, like transcendental intuitionism, but not
implausibly subjective either. Then there are moral sense theories and their more
plausible variations including mixtures with rationalism. Further, there are analogous
mixtures coherently building upon emotional presentation. Such a rational reconstuction,
varying the Austrian theory of values as elaborated empirically and logically by Meinong,
is in fact the ethical way taken by deep-green theory (for detail see TE and DG). And so
on. There is logical scope, then, for quite a variety of ecological meta-ethics, and
definitely scope for significant improvements upon those 'developed to date'.
As much to the point, there have already been significant developments of some
forms of ecological meta-ethics, notably of that theory in effect under criticism, deepgreen theory, which is already better articulated than most conventional ethics. There are
several connected parts to this elaboration because it brings into meta-ethics new logical
technology, especially world-semantics. The parts, furthermore, have not been duly
separated because of a pervasive verificationism living on in Anglo-American ethical
theory, which proceeds to equate semantic with epistemic, meaning with method of
coming to know, and the like. A first step then in meta-ethical analysis is some proper
separation of the parts, such as meaning, epistemic confirmation, and rational
justification. Naturally the parts fit together into a larger whole, into the meta-ethical
edifice, but simplistic positivistic equations do not satisfactorily explain the integration.
10
As to meaning, deep-green theory can already stand on its record of proferred
semantical analyses. 3 Semantics both for axiological terms such as value and bettemess
and for deontic terms such as obligation and wrongness have been provided through
world semantics (see sv, MD). The deontic theory developed in the process (in MD)
offers a considerable improvement over Ross's theory (which supplies no semantics),
because it enables the theory-saving artifice of prima facie obligations to be removed and
natural language discourse concerning obligations to be recovered. While such
semantical advances do not pretend to offer a full account of meaning, as much more
remains to be done within pragmatics, they do offer straightforward resolutions both of
long-standing ethical puzzles and paradoxes and of several complaints about
environmentally deep ethics. A major early problem for a genuinely nonchauvinistic
ethics was to give a satisfactory account of ethical terms without reference to favoured
biological species, above all to humans. On deep-green theory this was accomplished
by a combination of an "annular theory", offering an ethically relevant typology of doers
and receivers, with the semantical analyses (see EE and AP for details). By these means,
deep-green theory proceeded to remove humans from an essential role in ethics.
Humans enter importantly, of course, but only contingently, as certain sorts of valuers
and agents, which sorts depending upon their relevant capacities. For example, humans
do not inevitably enter, as too many had previously supposed, into every ethical picture,
because there were no value judgements without valuers, and all valuers were humans.
Both parts of this linkage fail. Most important, values are not tied to valuers or actual
valuing. But possible valuers and therewith their valuing can always be dummied in
logically. The reason is at bottom that any coherent distribution of values can be
regarded as the values of certain possible valuers. Furthermore, contrary to
MCCloskey's unsupported charge against such semantical analyses, this does not expose
the theory 'to difficulties parallel to those encountered by phenomenalism ... ' (p.60).
For phenomenalism attempts a reduction; the semantical theory makes no such attempt.
The meta-ethic is non-reductionist; nor is it obliged to rely upon tricks like
supervenience.
Deep-green theory already had more up on the meta-ethical scoreboard in the early
eighties than Ross's theory upon which MCCioskey purportedly proposed to reply.
MCCloskey's criticism of ecological ethics as meta-ethically inadequate lapses. As to
normative theory, the other prong of his attack, his demands are excessive. Few ethical
theories have been stated 'fully and clearly' and 'developed in a systematic, detailed
3
Standing on records is hardly a practice I embrace with much enthusiasm, but
sometimes it is inevitable if excess repetition is to be avoided.
11
form' such as Mccloskey appears to expect (e.g. p.60). To take some grand
comparisons: Those that are detailed such as Confusianism are not particular systematic,
those that are detailed and systematic such as Spinoza's ethic are hardly clear and are
likely inconsistent, those that are fairly full and moderately clear such as Sidgwick's
utilitarianism are also rather clearly defective; and in the twentieth century, nothing much,
ecological or not, matches these grand examples. But to indicate a few details of what is
accomplished normatively in deep-green theory:- Non-interference and like principles are
defended (cf EE p.174); these afford a basis for integrating standard social justice
principles (including obligations to the future), duly amended, with environmental
principles. In this way, making use of the annular theory, much of prevailing social
ethics, of a radical kind, can be subsumed.
In an attempt to be helpful, Mccloskey quite erroneously suggests that 'the
normative ethic appears to be base[d] on ... intuitive insights into what is intrinsically
valuable and what is intrinsically obligatory, where what is intrinsically obligatory need
not be tied to intrinsic value' (p.60, rearranged). What is obligatory, like what is right,
does answer back to what is intrinsically valuable, though in more complex fashion than
elementary ethical courses care to contemplate (see TE and MD). But what is intrinsically
valuable is often not discerned through intuitive insights. The idea that is is part of what
lies at the back of the expectation that instant answers can and should be given to any
question as to what is intrinsically valuable or the like. Rather what is intrinsically
valuable is arrived at through a process of reasoning and coherence-assessment, based at
bottom on emotional presentation (for more detail see TE). We offered, furthermore,
many examples of items - not only individuals, but species, such as the blue whale,
complexes, and ecosystems - that are intrinsically valuable, valuable in and for
themselves and not on other counts (such as some of MCCloskey's "intrinsic values"
which vanish into economic or aesthetic values). Accordingly, the charge (p.60), 'Nor
are the relevant values or principles explained or discussed', loses its force.
As to the specific difficulties for an ecological ethic of deep-green kind that
MCCioskey alleges, many of these are only encountered upon importing assumptions that
the ethics do not include and should not supply. So it is with the assumption that an
ecological ethic should assign intrinsic value to all species, even equally to each species,
given that it does to some. MCCloskey's own intermediate ethic does not do this, why
should an ecological ethic? Some-to-all arguments do not suddenly become valid in deep
space. Deep-green theory, in particular, unlike deep ecology, makes no assumptions as
to biospecies equality; rather it requires a certain interspecies impartiality. The extent of
intrinsic value of a species is assessed in principle, through a multiple factor procedure
incorporating value-making features of the species (cf. EE p.168). Mccloskey wheels
12
out the already exhausted examples of disease organisms and parasites, and offers his
intuition, a strong human prejudice, that 'there seems to be no intrinsic value in the
existence of such species and organisms' (p.61). No doubt such species and organisms
do not exhibit intrinsic value in the way or to the extent that conspicuous species near the
tops of food chains do. Their biological role and value is different. Their importance,
consists, in part, in control, in regulation of the character and the numbers of more
valuable species; their biological value is, to stretch a term, primarily facilitative, but
often nonetheless, under present ecological arrangements, apparently essential.
One reason why MCCioskey fails to observe how easy it is to shift the difficulties
he finds so pressing is, of course, that he is trying to make a case against deep positions.
Another reason is that he is operating with far too coarse a mesh, both ecologically and
socially. Intrinsic value does not come in big indiscriminable unsieved lumps: all species
if any, all pleasure if any, all knowledge if any. The need for discrimination becomes
evident if added to MCCloskey's list of intrinsic valuables (e.g. p.108) are such standard
goals as wealth and power (itself often linked to knowledge). Like wealth and power,
human pleasure and knowledge4, for example, are far from invariable goods. Often, like
much entrepreneurial information transmitted through expensive systems, they are trivial;
sometimes they are positively evil, as pleasure in extensive torture, or practical
knowledge of the means of excruciating torture. 5 A finer mesh is needed, and available,
a mesh that can be usefully applied in the ecological domain to remove standard
"difficulties", as it was applied by Mill, though in a failed attempt to repair utilitarianism.
4. Extending ecological ethics, inadequately, to ecological politics.
Ecological politics is a structure grafted onto ecological ethics, in much the way
that political theory more generally is supposedly built upon (or alongside) ethics.
Politics is essentially concerned with groups, societies and certain social institutions;
ethics, so it is said, with individuals. But the distinction is not quite so simple; ethics too
concerns groups and interrelations of individuals, normatively. In fact, the exact
4
For these often shoddy goals McCloskey indecently contemplates destruction of the
Rottnest quokka, a species McCloskey provocatively presents as 'useless' and 'ugly'
(p.61). Judgements of aesthetic and utility are notoriously ideological systemdependent, and here McCloskey flouts his commitment to an old, damaging, and
fortunately disappearing, ideology.
5
In any event, Western ethics and ideology much overrate knowledge and information;
largely defunct Eastern theories, such as Taoism, have a better appreciation of the
importance, and nonimportance, of different kinds of knowledge (cf. Sylvan and
Bennett on Taoism).
13
interrelation of politics with ethics, though an issue under investigation since Aristotle
sought to settle the matter, remains unclear. Judicious borrowing from logic can help a
bit in clarification, in both the general and the ecologically restricted cases. With ethics
and politics, or ecological ethics and ecological politics (of given sorts, e.g. utilitarian,
deep-green), both considered as theories, the relation is that of extension: the latter
extends the former, in fact extends it substantially. For comparison, logical examples of
extensions are afforded by the relation of quantification logic to sentential logic, or set
theory to quantification logic, or, a little nearer the mark in terms of complexity, classical
mathematics to set theory. Ecological politics is not merely - or as regards the pure
theory at all - an application of ecological ethics. It requires a considerable amount of
further apparatus (typically primitives and defined terms in the extended theory) that does
not enter into ethics proper, such as states, leaders, corporations, unions, organisers,
and moreover (what correspond to axiomatic constraints) the manifold interconnections
of these political items.
What kind of extension politics is, or ought to be, of ethics is a more vexed
question. In particular (depending on the matching of the politics to the presumed ethics
it extends) the extension may not be conservative. For example, theoretical allowance
has to be made for the Machiavellian idea that certain political components may be
exempt from given ethical constraints, an idea that has proved unacceptable to most
philosophers from Aristotle through Mccloskey. The prevailing conservative extension
theme is forcefully presented, if in too shallow and individualistic form, by Nozick:
Moral philosophy sets the background for, and the boundaries of,
political philosophy. What persons may and may not do to one another
limits what they may do [politically] through the apparatus of a state, or
do to establish such an apparatus. The moral prohibitions it is
permissible to enforce are the source of whatever legitimacy the state's
fundamental coercive power has (Nagel p.199, endorsing Nozick).
In short, should conservative extension be abandoned, rational justification
becomes a serious, indeed insuperable, problem.
As it happens, the way in which ecological politics proceeds to extend ecological
politics (when done conservatively) is admirably illustrated by MCCloskey's practice and
development of issues. In virtually every case, the approach adopted as regards the
politics of the issue builds directly upon the results reached in the ethical investigation of
that issue.
However, in the political theory advanced, Mccloskey does not take full and
proper advantage of his supplemented ethics, but lapses back into an old-fashioned
chauvinism. (He thus resembles a logician, actual exemplars shall go unnamed, who
14
with all the underlying logical technology available to avoid the paradoxes and anomalies
of classical set theory, lapses back into these when he makes the extension to set theory.)
Once again this abysmal outcome is primarily a result of his tenacious adherence to that
ancient greater value prejudice, which vastly overrates humans, their attitudes, freedoms
and products, and undervalues natural things, even to the extent of undercutting
previously granted intrinsic value (cf. p.111). Mccloskey proceeds to play humans off
against environments, assuming of course that humans ought to win hands-down. The
resulting theory is ecological only in addressing - in a decidedly unsympathetical way
ecologically - ecological problems. Ecologically then, the proferred ecological politics
proves exceedingly disappointing; politically, things are little better.
A political theory is bound to add to an ethical theory further organisational
structure, comprising further structural units (corporations, states, etc.), institutional
arrangements (property, markets, etc.), and so on. There are a great many, still illclassified and largely untried, types of options here: options as to what gets added, and
how it is adjoined. Among the enormous range of choice McCloskey opts, without
much argument, for unimaginative arrangements like those prevailing in the West and
North, for a statist and developmental status quo (for which he serves very much as an
apologist). He opts for what he is pleased to call 'liberal democratic states' - though the
veneer of democracy is thin (control typically being vested with a ruling minority) and
liberality is sharply hedged (true-blue liberalism conflicting with statism, in ways
thorough-going libertarianism has exposed). Practically, as we know from experience, it
is a jerry-built structure; theoretically, as is insufficiently realised, it remains a house of
cards.
The status quo choice of "liberal democracy" gets confirmed, so Mccloskey
imagines, by disposing of but two sorts of alternatives: primitivism, which he regards as
substantially self-refuting in presently highly civilized highly warlike times; and
totalitarianism, which he regards as the main and menacing alternative. It is a simplistic
scheme, leaving out significant alternatives; but such a picture is remarkably widespread,
even among academics. While, like most urbanised intellectuals, Mccloskey cannot
resist sounding off about any proposed 'return to primitivism', to 'rural communities of
the political imagination' (p.109), he does in fact confine his consideration of alternative
political arrangements to totalitarian alternatives which would sharply increase the
restrictiveness of present statist arrangements. Against totalitarian alternatives, even
present inadequate arrangements no doubt look good; but against certain other political
alternatives (e.g. decentralised organisation using advanced technology as appropriate),
these arrangements look more like a recipe for on-going ecological trouble. Such other
alternatives, Mccloskey does not really consider. He has sighted the far ecological right,
15
ecofascism as it is sometimes dubbed, and fires almost all his guns at it. However there
is an ecological left, with a longer tradition than the right, which passes unnoticed; yet it
offers a vision of new ecological communities in which liberal principles, on the face of
it MCCloskey's main concern, are maintained or even enhanced. But, for all its
shortcomings, MCCloskey's attempt to get to grips with ecological politics deserves a
somewhat fuller discussion than indicated by Goodin's cavalier dismissal: 'The politics
discussion just amounts to a bash at the authoritarianism of some of the more rabid
ecological doomsayers, propositions which are quite sufficient reductios in and of
themselves' (p.344).
For one thing, that was how much of the field looked when MCCioskey was
helping to put ecological politics on the philosophical agenda. Ecological politics still
remained an unfashionable, and in some places dangerous, field at the time MCCioskey
was writing. Liberal philosophers with respectable academic positions in North America
tended to keep out of the field, which accordingly got left to practical environmentalists,
over-enthusiastic in their appeals to the state for tough control and regulation, and to
authoritarian academics keen to strengthen totalitarian and isolationist tendencies of
states. As MCCioskey emphasizes,
Much ecological political writing exhibits two disturbing features that
undermine its value. The one feature relates to the readiness of many
political theorists on the basis of the flimsiest evidence to waive lightly
man's claim to recognition of his human rights on the ground that the
ecological crisis is so grave and critical that only the most drastic,
desperate measures will succeed. The other feature is the very great
confidence in the capacity of states to take whatever action is necessary
to avoid the ecological crisis. In fact, the states of the world today
greatly contribute to various of the ecologically based problems that
confront mankind. They are unworthy of the great faith and trust that
many ecological reformers appear to have in them or in the state in the
abstract.(p.108).
Bravo! But rather than considering carefully dismantling states, in favour of alternative
organisational arrangements, MCCioskey leaps immediately in the opposite direction, to
the orthodox position that 'a major part of the ecological political problem is that of
ensuring that states carry out their ecological responsibilities' - whatever those may be
(states do not regard themselves as morally bound, and typically their constitutions are
incredibly weak and unspecific, and sometimes evasive on such matters). Indeed he
goes further: 'The nation-state needs to be not superseded but complimented by a world
political authority' (p .107). Again there is little argument, and no due concern that such
an Authority would be yet a further developmental agency operating with tanks and
bulldozers.
16
For another, MCCioskey tried to open up or advance several issues in ecological
politics (and would have, if his book had existentially impacted and had not been largely
bypassed or dismissed). These issues include not merely the standard issues of
overpopulation, pollution and unethical technology; more notably, they also include the
issue, which has recently received much airing, as to whether environmental demands
and regulations interfere damagingly with individual freedoms and other aspects of
liberal principles. There are other facets to this that deserve further examination (do it
decently, someone!): the extent to which liberal states do and can deliver on
environmental matters, as well as the extent of interference with liberties (much turns
then on how it is all done).
MCCioskey has overestimated the abilities of states to deliver liberal ideals and
guarantee liberal principles, such as individual freedom (in fact, to note some lesser
infringements, they characteristically coerce citizens in many respects, forcing them into
a money economy, to pay taxes and obtain licences, even to serve on juries, to vote, to
fight, etc.). If the state promises liberties with one hand, it is busy actually taking
liberties away with the other. While we may be stuck with states for the present, as an
unpleasant political reality, it is not too difficult to see that there are better unrealised
alternatives even from a traditional liberal angle, alternatives that pass unconsidered.
And MCCioskey has grossly underestimated the severity of ecological problems states
should be trying to solve.
In some of his findings, MCCioskey is so wildly astray that his judgement on
factual issues and his credibility has to fall under real suspicion. For example: ' ... it is
evident that over the whole period of his existence man has only been one relatively
minor factor bearing on species survival rates' (p.47)! ' ... man is simply adding more
hazards to those created by nature itself for some species' (p.47 continuing). For the
next example, by contrast with the previous, MCCioskey might seek refuge in the fact
that he was writing back in 1982: 'Few suggest that man can or will destroy the
ecosystem of the earth' (p.49). Even so, the news on nuclear winter had broken, and the
Greenhouse effect was already worrying some scientists. "Man" appears able to do little
that is very wrong; MCCioskey can only bring himself to engage in the mildest of
censure: ' ... man could have used DDT to better effect' (p.50). No doubt he could have
refrained from using it to significantly better effect. A due adaptation of that Old
Testament idea that humans are characteristically radically flawed, regularly and perhaps
inevitably sinning in their treatment of the Earth, does not break through in MCCloskey's
approach. In fact anti-ecological themes strongly pushed by MCCioskey will break
through again and again in what follows.
17
Nor did Mccloskey anticipate the rapid march of ecological history at all well.
With his operational assumption that ecological reforms 'would not be popular' (e.g.
p.156), he appears to have been swiftly refuted by history. There has been much
popular movement in favour of ecological causes. The main resistance to far-reaching
reforms has not been popular, but establishment resistance, together with that from
business, wealth and privilege, and their hired economic men and thugs. Similarly with
his assumptions that reform, or change, would not occur unless the ecological problems
were believed 'to be real problems' (p.157) - which of course MCCloskey himself
believed they were not by and large, something he deluded himself that he had shown.
But popular beliefs have changed rapidly, taking MCCloskey's assumptions under along
with old beliefs.
In any case, MCCloskey's argument to unpopularity lacks cogency. It is that
ecological measures 'may necessitate less convenient, changed lifestyles, many controls
and restrictions, increased costs, additional taxes, basic interference with what now are
seen as being matters of basic rights .... democratic legislators [cannot] hope to bring
about the reforms ... and still retain office' (p.157). Whence, again ecological reformers
may look to totalitarian political solutions. So far as I am aware, there have been no such
proposals by ecological groups in Australasia. In small measure too, Mccloskey begins
to meet his own argument. For measures of the type Mccloskey rightly finds distasteful,
have already been run through in contemporary representative democracies; consider
security and surveillance, foreign control and surveillance, nuclear power and
surveillance, urban restructuring and surveillance opportunities, and so on. Secondly,
there are important trade-offs; if these often minor inconveniences are not experienced
now, much more drastic and dislocating changes will probably have to be undertaken
subsequently. Thirdly, of course, if they are not undertaken now much of immense
value will be lost. More direct democracies than we have today, where peoplegovernance and control of established elites is tenuous, would stand a better chance of
limiting these losses; properly pluralistic systems would presumably manage better still.
But Mccloskey does not address such issues as ecologically improved democracies.
Instead he assumes, quite wrongly, that solutions to ecological difficulties will require
strong and authoritarian central governments (perhaps both of states and of the world),
but that such institutions run directly counter to liberal concerns: 'the enjoyments of
many rights and liberties and opportunities to rectify grave injustices' (p.25). So he
tears off to address the difficulties of ecological totalitarianism (pp.158-9), well-known
difficulties (as Goodin observed) confronting Antipodean non-starters among political
alternatives.
18
Without examining other alternatives than certain totalitarian ones, Mccloskey
manages to conclude (to his own satisfaction) that 'the only realistic, feasible avenue to
ecological political reform is through the political institutions of an open society that
respects human rights', what he appears to think is offered by contemporary 'liberal
democratic states' (p.159). Naturally deep environmentalists seek open societies that
respect rights, including decently discerned human rights. The big trouble is that on
these matters, as with environmental matters, contemporary liberal democratic states have
performed decidedly sublimenally, i.e. well below adequacy threshold. 6 It is not
unreasonable to contemplate alternative political arrangements that perform more
satisfactorily. But it is perhaps unrealistic to expect such improved organisational
structure to be got into place at all easily or at all. For liberal democratic states retain
regional monopolies on violence and other critical control, which, for all the palavering
about respecting rights, they do not hesitate to deploy when their power and security are
threatened.
Nor is Mccloskey, by contrast with libertarians, at all averse to regulations and
restrictions and limitations on liberty - except when these put environmental things ahead
of humans. For humans, if not animals, things material are supposed to be pretty good
in MCCloskey's liberal democratic mixed capitalistic setting. Environmental constraints
are not to impose upon or reduce human living 'standards or levels of enjoyment'
(p.134) - unless that enjoyment should be profligate, for instance involving conspicuous
consumption and waste. Certainly such constraints are not to interfere with morally
acceptable human freedoms: such is one side of the proferred dilute liberalism. But
unnecessary waste is another thing, and should be curbed, through state guidance and
regulation; liberalism here parts company with libertarianism. 'The switch from a
resource-profligate society to a resource-liberal one would involve an acceptance of much
more state action, more state interference by way of incentives, disincentives,
regulations, restrictive laws, and over all planning than now prevails. However, it
would not require the loss of basic freedom ... ' (p.134)! Such double-talk certainly
makes the heavy liberal case MCCloskey tries to mount against decent environmental
concerns - as against decent human concerns - look thin and flawed. Because such
regulation does make serious inroads upon capitalistic freedoms, much hangs on the term
'basic', which is not however explained in this context. If, being freedom-loving
Europeans, we burn down an empty freeway at speeds in excess of wasteful
consumption limitations and we are accordingly locked away for months, then the effect
6
Sublimenal is a satisizing analogue of the maximization ideology's suboptimal.
19
on our basic freedom to life at large is serious. The paternalistic states MCCioskey
offers, in significant respects more paternal than those we already have in the West, do
not sit so easily with liberalism; patently they are incompatible with libertarianism, which
does not brook such restrictive regulation. The critical point is however this: what is
permissible in rectifying a resource-profligate society is similarly permissible in
reorganising an environmentally-profligate society. Again there need be no loss of basic
freedom, where basic is now characterised in terms of whats ethically acceptable. Only the ethics is now a deep environmental ethics.
5. Structuring ecological ethics and politics: towards an improved
classification of environmental problems.
Environmental ethics and politics are regularly said to be engendered by
environmental problems, increasingly severe and encroaching problems.
Yet in
MCCloskey's text, as in that of his main model, Passmore's establishment text, there is
no well-organised classification of environmental problems, only a rather ramshackle
list.
We can however reach towards an improved classification by considering
environmental impact in a dynamic setting (cf. the beginning of section 1). An impact of
something is something which comes from somewhere, sources, into something, sinks,
parts of environments. In a process diagram, it looks like this:
impacts
processes
sources
sinks
types of environments
participants
distinguished
agents of
impacts
recipients of
impacts
Expanding upon the elements of this process diagram will deliver the sought after
improved classification. Firstly, given distinguished background experience, especially
with environmental impact equations, a further two-way classification is suggested: in
terms of
• sorts of impacts, and
• types of environments.
The latter framework is wide enough (in obvious respects too wide for a tight
classification) to include both special concentrated sources such as mines, power
stations, factories, and the like, and special sinks such as rubbish dumps, sewerage
outflows, and the like. But the framework is not quite wide enough; it is important to
factor into types of environments, expected inhabitants of those environments, which are
the recipients of impacts (impactees). These will include not only present inhabitants of
20
environments: animals, plants, native humans, for land-surface environments, but also
expected future inhabitants, whose likelihood or very existence may be impaired. There
are two ways of incorporating these sorts of elements in the general scheme: either
expanding environmental components, by having zones and habitats with kinds of
expected inhabitants; or distinguishing participants in the impacts, givers and receivers.
Here the latter course is preferred; we distinguish also then
• kinds of recipients, and as well of course
• kinds of impactors.
While the kinds of impactors is diverse, including such superagents and nonagents as
Nature, Chance, God (as in "acts of God"), and so forth, as well as animals, the main
impactors of interest are, presently, humans.
Accordingly let us run out the standard environmental impact equation for humans
in a region, though it applies to any class of impactors through any kind of impact:
EI.
Environmental
impact
(of ...
through ... )
=
Population
size
(of ... )
X
Resource
use
per member
(of ... )
x
Impact
(through ... )
per unit of
resource use
e.g. of humans in USA through atmospheric pollution.
Such an impact breakdown leads directly to three major categories of environmental
problems, namely
a Population
a Consumption and use
a Technology and waste.
Those components act in concert, and, despite well-publicized attempts to load problems
onto just one component, evidently all are sometimes important.
A more sophisticated environmental impact equation would reduce the aggregation
of the equation, EI = P x C x T (in brief, and functional, form), by introducing
distributional features, which indicated where and when impact really mattered.
Suppose, for example, there are n sufficiently independent regions, as in the following
regionalized impact equation:
n
EI
=
Pi X Ci X Ti
i=l
Suppose, for instance, we are investigating the environmental impact of present humans
l
through industrialization, i.e. EI (present humans through industrialization). Then, on
an obvious regional breakdown, the impact is overwhelmingly dominated by three
regions: North America, Europe, and North Asia (primarily Japan). If it were not that
the rest of the world were locked into this system (and its humans encouraged to applaud
21
and emulate it), supplying much of the raw materials, taking too much of the expensive
products and waste, and suffering the pollution effects that spill outside the offending
regions, main problems of industrialisation could be isolated in the high latitude N orthem
hemisphere.
The regionalized environmental impact equation will also serve to better organise
widespread assumptions as to how those impacts that are taken seriously can be eroded.
Not only is there the illusory prospect of reducing impact to "acceptable levels" by
variation of just one parameter - Ci is that invariably favoured by socially-oriented
shallower environmentalists; Ti, in the shape of wizard technology, by economists and
technocrats (but such technology is likely to have its own impact and thereby to add to
environmental problems). There is also the possibility of moving further afield to new
regions, where impacts are lower. There are familiar frontier practices ( and a
corresponding frontier ethics), which can be seen as reapplied to elements such as
industrialisation and its components, pollution and waste. Of course such frontier
practices are impoverishing, and too often destructive of further environments and many
of their inhabitants; but in any case they are now seriously limited by biospheric
limitations of the whole Earth.
Many significant types of environment obtain little or no consideration in
MCCloskey's survey; e.g. deserts (too many the product of past human activity), urban
regions, polar regions, atmospheric zones, and so on. To stay within reasonable
bounds, however, not even all the areas of concern that Mccloskey does look at will be
examined in what follows. For to try to track Mccloskey in all the areas he does delve
into would require an extensive treatise, as he raises many fundamental issues in political
theory: to mention two remarkable examples, a brief discussion of 'the right to private
property' is tucked away under 'Family Rights and Rights to Reproduce', and of the
'right for education' under 'The Right to Respect as a Person' (p.75ff.) Instead a more
detailed treatment of a few of the areas he addresses will be offered (in fact some of the
other areas have been investigated elsewhere, in Green Series discussions, or will be).
6. Population impact: the fact of human overpopulation.
A major and very conspicuous impact of humans upon the Earth comes through
their sheer numbers, which, though already huge, are still growing rapidly, and are
overwhelming environmental and social bases for reasonable support in many parts of
the globe. MCCloskey's first thesis, which sets the agenda for his entire population
discussion, is this (pp 146-7,p.97): that there is no world population crisis, indeed
further,
NP. The world is not threatened by a population crisis in the foreseeable future.
22
But instead of coming out directly and cleanly with this preposterous thesis, MCCioskey
approaches the business in a typical oblique way, designed to shift the onus of proof,
claiming that he has 'argued that a tenable, plausible case had not been made out for
believing that the world is threatened by a population crisis in the foreseeable future'
(p.146). It is fair to wonder about his experiential basis, whether, for instance, he has
travelled through India or visited the vast urban slums of many third-world countries. It
is fair to wonder what would make a "tenable plausible case" - proper theoretical
business for philosophers, which philosophers have generally steadfastly avoided - or,
of immediate relevance, what would constitute a "population crisis", and what counts as
"overpopulation".
On the last at least we do have a proposal from MCCioskey, 'to use overpopulation
to refer to population sizes that exceed a country's or the world's capacity to feed
adequately and to make it possible for all to enjoy their basic rights' (p.97). While the
proposal is no doubt very convenient for the argumentative route MCCioskey will try to
take, a route it already signposts, it is a decidedly chauvinistic and exceedingly shallow
suggestion, which is ecologically entirely unacceptable. First, it takes no due account of
future humans, or other creatures. But present capacity is achieved, so far as it is, too
often through running down present biological and other systems, thereby jeopardising
future capacity; decent sustainability is required even by shallow ecological positions.
Secondly, the proposal is indecently chauvinistic; it takes account of naught but humans,
their basic rights and their feeding. It thus violates the framework MCCioskey elsewhere
professes to have adopted. For instance, high populations, which are not MCCioskey
overpopulations, may lead, and are leading, to promotion of evil and to gross reductions
in intrinsic value, including types of value MCCioskey earlier (somewhat reluctantly)
acknowledged. But like all the political applications of the potentially generous ethical
basis, that on population takes an ugly anti-ecological tum. It is all humans and humans,
humans first, last and only, though humans at brute food subsistence levels or less as it
turns out, and is turning out in many regions.
Now really the proposal should be relativised, to 'overpopulation of a region', as
the awkward disjunction, between country or world, makes evident. Many regions and
countries are already seriously overpopulated (even by MCCloskey's slack standards), as
he goes on to say. However, so he immediately asserts, 'the world as a whole is not
overpopulated' (p.97). Whatever the case for this claim - a defective and disreputable
case as will soon appear - plainly some large assumptions go into the proposition that a
whole or summation can enjoy certain distribution properties when many of its parts do
not: assumptions about the role of international trade, regionalism and self-sustainability
on the one side and about summative features on the other. If clothes, for example, are
23
dirty or shabby in many parts, so are they as a whole. Suppose some parts are
overpopulated because of constant infringements of basic human rights, infringements
presumably traceable back to excess population sizes (though the connection is not made
clear enough). Then the whole can hardly but be overpopulated, as it stands, whatever
the future prospects for redistribution, reorganisation, and so forth.
To evade such problems and to scramble to his conclusion Mccloskey firstly
weakens 'basic rights' to 'basic needs' (but rights normally demand more than need
satisfaction), and then drops 'basic needs' out altogether. Thus what he finally gets
down to is the bare food issue, all else set aside: of whether 'if the food actually
produced were distributed and used to the best advantage of all persons in the world'
every human could be fed. But, so he claims, 'it is widely accepted' that all can be
amply fed (pp 97-8). It is evident that, even if what is so "widely accepted" were true,
the outcome would be insufficient to show no Mccloskey overpopulation. Suppose the
world has the capacity (and will) to redistribute food to the most advantage. Still, basic
food is no assurance of basic rights. Further argument, not supplied, is essential;
argument to showing that regional overpopulation, stayed however by bread (but not
circuses), does not lead to basic rights infringement, through such media as
unemployment, poverty, inequity and so on. Furthermore it is very doubtful that this
can be established, for the simple reason that there are connections between these human
conditions (however difficult they may be to push into quantifiable or law-like form).
Humans do not survive or depend upon food alone. To keep many of them even
partly contented, so inflated have their wants and needs become under ideological
pressures, will require a very large and very environmentally destructive pie. Humans
are now an extraordinarily greedy and destructive species. Though one animal species
among thousands, and one biological species among tens of millions, they have taken
over most of the Earth and most of its products, so far as they can, for their own uses
and purposes. More than 80% of the fruits of photosynthesis, for example, now flow to
this one species. Yet perhaps 10% of the world's human population are malnourished,
and many millions at least lack other subsistence needs.
Even the bare food claim, upon which MCCloskey's whole case depends at
bottom, is no longer so widely accepted, since the shock of the North American and
other droughts; it was being questioned as MCCloskey wrote. Now however we have
available the Brown University study of world food supply in relation to human
24
population. 7 The study is based on the 1986 harvest, which was a world record. The
findings were that, with this supply, assuming perfect and equal redistribution, 6 billion
humans would be fed a vegetarian diet. Thus by the end of the century, present record
supplies will not be able to sustain the world's human population even at vegetarian
levels. If the somewhat better South American style diet, with 15% meat, is considered,
then only 4 billion humans can be fed; that is, less than the present world population.
While if a rather better Australian style diet is contemplated, the number that can be fed
declines to 2.5 billion, that is half the present world population. So much for ample
feeding.
It might reasonably be anticipated that the rest of the argument to NP, no
foreseeable population crisis, is hopeless. And it is. All we are offered are, firstly,
some reasons, of very variable quality, 'to suspect the most confident, brash predictions'
(p.99) - suspicions which seem to include NP within their scope, along with
MCCloskey's next speculative thesis. Secondly we are offered the speculative thesis that
world food production will grow at least sufficiently to match world population growth.
It is a thesis floated largely on technological optimism, a thesis that should be regarded
with heavy suspicion given recent serious declines in biological capital: fisheries, soils,
forests, and so on, and given apparently increasing climatic instability.
To give him his small due, MCCioskey does assert, repeatedly, that there is little
ground 'for complacency and inaction in respect of the world's population growth' (e.g.
p.99 ); and as well as firing moral shots at 'alarmist predictions ... based on the flimsiest
premisses' countering NP (for no problem), he makes heavy moral noises about morally
assessing the situation. In any case, he needs to say something like this in order to pull
off convincingly his big discussion of the ins and outs of, ethics and politics of, human
sexuality and population control.
7. On limiting human populations: some neglected considerations.
Hitherto received opinion, in modem Wes tern civilization, has taken the line that
culling animal species is perfectly alright, but that culling humans is not, because
humans have an unalienable right to life (a right regularly neglected however in times of
war, in regressive criminal justice systems, and now questioned as regards poachers of
significant animals). Received opinion, which MCCioskey tries to shore up, is now
being challenged. Alternative methods of controlling populations of wild animals, to
7
The study is regularly cited by Ehrlich in his talks, lectures and works: see reference.
25
previous technologically primitive ones, are being seriously considered. Another gulf
between humans and other sizeable intelligent animals is beginning to close.
Unlike some dangerous Christian thinkers, Mccloskey does not cede to humans an
unlimited right to procreation. As he says, 'there is no recognised moral, social or legal
right for consenting parties to reproduce at will', but 'few philosophers today would
seek philosophically to justify prevailing recognised ... restrictions on procreation'
(p.150). Mccloskey wishes to impose a restriction as regards adequate provision for
offspring; there is no right to reproduction where a requirement of reasonable prospects
of adequate provision is not met. This bears heavily, as he realises, and perhaps also
inequitably, on impoverished parents in poor communities; the issue is not really
resolved (see p.101). But otherwise, in richer countries, the duties of those who would
undertake human parenthood are presented as slight. Individuals, acting on their own,
have otherwise no duties to restrict the size of their families (for the unMCCloskeyian
consequentialist reason that it will have limited practical significance and achieve little).
Where overpopulation is an issue, political, not individual, action is what is required.
Where overpopulation threatens, individuals 'adequately fulfil their duty if they have
only that number of children for which they can adequately care and [very differently,
and with major political implications] if they foster and support world action to stabilize
the world population and [confirming a right previously hedged] to ensure that all
persons enjoy the right, equally with themselves, to have offspring if they so choose'
(p.104 ). Otherwise the issue is dumped in the (too hard) political basket, for states and
world organisations to try to handle. All this is decidedly unsatisfactory.
Most important, there is no right to production of children without limit, even
given that they can be "provided for". One reason is that new children produce impacts,
and children in quantity seriously interfere with others; so result in significant violations
of liberal principles regarding noninterference with others. In rough analogical terms, as
the Macs' new building interferes with their neighbours' views, so their new children
interfere with the neighbours' freedom and lifestyles and environments, beginning with
local noise and crowding and continuing, much further, through taxes for family
allowances, for schools and so on, through crowded and polluted parks and beaches and
so on. Those assuming (conditional) rights, to reproduce for instance, tend to forget that
rights require justifications (they cannot just be pulled out of thin air). But here any
straightforward justificatory pattern is upset, because of a very familiar neglect of
relations: namely, impacts of new people on environments, and interference of new
people with in-place people. A change in attitudes and practices is accordingly
warranted. Parties producing larger numbers of children should be regarded as socially
and ecologically irresponsible; they should no longer gain special financial support, but
26
perhaps should, on the contrary, be duly penalized. These themes run counter to the
main thrust of MCCloskey's discourse on population control, an extensive discussion
premised on what he takes to be the improbable hypothesis that a world population crisis
eventuates (pp.147-155). It ought to be enough to pull the plug on that discussion,
sending intellectual babies with soiled bath water.
That voluntary methods of limiting human births 'will not succeed' is MCCloskey's
prime thesis (p.147). The support offered for it is characteristic and characteristically
inadequate. First the thesis is weakened, and then some restricted and contestable
empirical evidence is advanced as suggestive. 'That voluntary methods of checking birth
rates are unlikely to be adequate is suggested by the relatively limited success of family
planning projects even where [well] backed ... ' (p.147). On the contrary, voluntary
methods of checking birth rates, mostly independent of family planning projects, have
been substantially successful in many better educated, less impoverished communities.
Some of these might even count as spectacularly successful, and more would be if they
achieved some real, and sensitive, state support. But there are many powerful interests,
especially those emanating from organised religions, operating against delivery of
support designed for success.
There is a conspicuous difference, again connected with ancient prejudices,
between the attitude shown to human populations and the approach MCCloskeyians take
to animal populations. Humans have the right, but socially constrained, to continue on
their expansive and environmentally degrading course; animals have no such right,
because, among other things, they have no rights.
8. On animal rights and supposed political implications thereof.
The argument to the conservative result, that animals cannot enjoy (moral) rights,
attempts to trade off an argument on which great emphasis is put, that 'there is a vast gap
between rights and interests' (p.66). But that attempt depends on a confusion between
what rights are - certainly not interests - and what can hold rights significantly - perhaps
only items with interests. With that confusion out of the way, MCCioskey still has two
main arguments to his shrill conclusion, that 'animals do not, cannot possess moral
rights' (p.66 and several other places): a tight redefinition argument, and an
environmental chaos otherwise argument.
The tight redefinition argument proceeds, by appealing to special features of rights,
to tighten up the notion of right so that unwanted (if commonly recognised) classes of
right-holders are excluded. Such an argument, widely deployed against animal
liberation, takes two main forms: less plausibly, that rights require interests, which
27
animals are alleged to lack, and, more plausibly, that rights have to be suitably
exercisable and claimable, feats beyond animals abilities and capacities to perform.
Though formerly among the ageing afficiandos of the less plausible Cartesian nointerests approach, MCCioskey now pursues the more plausible form. He appeals first to
typical features of rights (though really some combination of these must form an
invariant cluster for a decisive argument), such as their being 'foregone, insisted upon,
exercised in or contrary to one's interests. For possession of a moral right to be
meaningful, the possessor or his/her representative must be able to claim it, exercise it,
or the like' (p.66, italics added). Unfortunately for his argument, MCCioskey proceeds,
at crucial points, to leave out the representative alternative. Thus while an animal may
not be able to claim its rights, a representative can; whereupon talk of claiming a right is
not empty (pace p.66). Thus the argument so far is broken-backed.
Having recanted on his earlier contention that animals cannot have interests (see
p.65), MCCioskey is no longer in a position to preclude the attribution of rights on that
ground, that interests are a necessary condition. 8 'We can plausibly claim to have some
idea of what is in the interests of an animal. We can have no knowledge concerning how
it would exercise its moral rights, if it had any' (p.66). Surely we can. A wombat can
exercise its right to proceed along a way in the same way that a human can, namely by
proceeding along it, setting aside obstructions, and so on. But MCCioskey proceeds, in
a way characteristic of high redefinition strategies, to heighten the requirements. He
appeals to features of what he takes to be 'paradigm cases of the possessors of rights,
persons, rational, morally autonomous beings' which he couples with the characteristic
exercise of rights (p.66). There are, however, other paradigm examples of right
holders, such as small children, senile humans, imbeciles, etc. Despite the suggestions,
rationality and a high level of autonomy are not required for the possession or exercise of
rights. MCCioskey asserts that 'it is capacity for moral autonomy, for moral selfdirection and self-determination, that is basic to the possibility of possessing a right'
(p.66). That is a high redefinition, substantially exceeding the requirements normally
expected, especially where guardians or representatives are appointed or envisaged.
MCCioskey-rights are a quite proper subclass of rights as ordinarily conceived. Even so
it may well be that animals can hold them; it all depends upon how much gets pumped
into the elusive term 'moral'. Wombats, for example, are not human, do not read and
write, are not much given to calculus, do not enter into contracts, and so on; nor do
8
Elliot is quite mistaken in saying that McCloskey's views have not changed since
those espoused in 1979 (p.503). Admitting animal interests represents a major
change. That animals do, of course, have interests is argued in detail in my 81.
28
many primitive peoples, though humans, engage in any of these activities (though some
of them perhaps could with education). But wombats are, by and large, decidedly
autonomous, self-determining and self-directed; they exhibit much more independence
than most modern humans. Similarly with whales. Despite such familiar findings,
MCCioskey takes the following proposition as decisive: 'Consider how we should
respond if it were to be determined that a whale or dolphin possessed moral autonomy'
(p.66). He does not address the issues raised in this queer pronouncement, but
immediately leaps to his sought conclusion against animal rights. Given that moral
autonomy is not to the point, except for MCCioskey-rights, the proposition is irrelevant
to and not supportive of the conclusion. Without the elusive term 'moral', the
proposition is, furthermore, decidedly not a discussion stopper. Most dolphins exhibit a
high degree of autonomy, the exceptions being primarily those (improperly) held in
captivity, injured in fishing activities, sickened by pollution, and so on. The trouble
with the infiltration of morality is that it normally (if wrongly) suggests human activities
and human communities - whence what small force MCCloskey's proposition enjoys, as
whales as agents fall outside that setting.
The argument to environmental chaos, to entirely untoward environmental
implications, if rights were ceded to animals, comprises several facets. They are facets
that have been seen before, with every legitimate struggle for extensions of rights, such
as, most memorably, allocation of rights to enslaved humans. That latter certainly
brought some desirable dislocation to social arrangements; so will legitimating animal
rights. But it need bring nothing like the complication and aggravations of social and
environmental problems that MCCioskey fearfully envisages (p.69, p.122).
A first facet concerns conflict of rights. There are of course conflicts of rights
between humans and groups of humans, but MCCioskey fears the situation with animals
would not merely be more complicated (as it would with much greater numbers) but that
'the difficulty and complexity of this rights calculus' would make it unworkable (p.67).
But again he fails to show anything like this. Indeed he immediately weakens his
position of apparent strength by looking to an 'easier calculus' where 'man simply
protects animals from human violations of animal rights' (p.67). That would be a fine
start, though politically virtually all nations and peoples would have to advance a long
way to achieve it (Sweden less than most others).
While the "easier calculus" does not mean that animals have lesser rights than
humans, as MCCioskey implies, what is suggested is important in escaping from
difficulties MCCioskey tries to amass. For not all right-holders are on a par, much as not
all types of creatures are equal in abilities or capacities. In particular, to get to critical and
divisive issues straightaway: it does not follow then from the fact that animals have
29
rights that some of them, domestic ones, cannot be kept, or used - any more than it
follows from the fact that humans have rights that some cannot be kept, or employed, for
instance as servants. Nor does it follow that dead animals (or humans) cannot be eaten.
Nor, most controversially, is it incompatible with animals having rights, that some are
killed. For not all rights stand or fall together; a right for continued existence is very
different from a right to a decent life or treatment while alive. Furthermore,
MCCloskey's invalid arguments to ecological chaos succeed in turning animal liberation
into animal libertinism. They do this by familiar slide strategies from some to more to
all, from some rights, to many other rights, to the same rights as fully-competent
persons. The strategy is coupled with that of assigning to humans more rights than they
have, or should hold. Examples include the right to be absolutely where they like or to
breed at will. But one human does not have the right to be in any other human's house
or bed or space.9 No more do animals, like feral animals or 'disease-carrying pests such
as rats and mice'. So, for example, the major conflict MCCioskey alleges with human
rights to health dissolves; it depends upon granting excessive rights to rats and mice.
With a sensible calculus of rights humans need not be overwhelmed by either animals or
other humans; given due constraints on human populations (more than any other animal
populations), interference by others could be stabilized at a low level.
A further large facet of MCCloskey's argument to chaos doggedly pursues practical
and ecological costs of vegetarianism, costs which he considerably exaggerates. But
whether he is right about these costs, or not, is a separate issue - irrelevant to the main
issue of animal rights. For admitting or stressing animal rights most emphatically does
not 'dictate acceptance of vegetarianism as a moral position or practice' (p.68). There is
no valid route from rights for animals to vegetarianism, for reasons that have already
been very briefly indicated above. 10 MCCioskey has linked the question of animal rights
much too closely with positions like that of Singer (an evident target on pp.68-9 of the
text). But many more ordinary people and even some philosophers, 11 both before and
after Singer, have assigned rights to animals, without commitment thereby to
vegetarianism, and without evident (or any) fallacy. As a result or this flawed linkage,
9
While writing this I heard a local airforce contingent claiming its right-to the freedom
of Canberra. Plainly it only has a right-to the freedom of only certain cities, and to
quite limited things within those cities.
10
A much more detailed case, along with counter-models, can be extracted from my
previous work, esp. the Green Series, number 13, i.e.TE (essay 3), and number 2.
11
A neglected early philosopher is Maclver; see esp. his remarks on p.69.
30
MCCioskey makes another interesting mistake: namely 'that the two movements, animal
rights on the one hand (the view that some animals possess moral rights) and
conservation and preservation on the other', so far from being 'complementary, mutually
supportive positions', 'in fact are fundamentally opposed and are such as to be calculated
to lead to many major clashes' (p.69, rearranged). While there are major clashes, for
example, between moral extensionisms, such as the expanded utilitarianisms of
Bentham, Sidgwick and Singer on the one side, and deep environmentalism on the
other, there are no clashes of an animal rights position with deep environmentalism .
For, very simply, such deep positions accord animals rights.
As elsewhere, so with animal rights, errors in the ethical treatment intrude into the
supposed political implications. Unremarkably then MCCioskey sees 'the ecological
state' as committed to ecological chaos, all of which 'would very seriously curtail human
liberty in many ways' and 'create massive theoretical and practical political problems'
(p.122). No doubt decent treatment for animals, codified in rights, would restrict human
liberty somewhat, as abolition of public spectacles such as hangings, floggings or
throwing Christians to hungry lions, curtailed spectator opportunities and freedoms. But
the desirable elimination of factory-farmed fast foods and animal-tested cosmetics, or the
curtailment of circuses and reformation of zoos, are hardly very serious restrictions on
human liberty, or what MCCioskey is thinking of really. He is again thinking of his
house full of rats and his garden full of copulating animals, of vegetarianism and
protection of rabbits made legally obligatory, and so on (for many such fantasies see
p.122). But no such consequences, ensue, without repetition of the errors already
exposed in the ethical treatment: inferences from some rights to excessive rights, and so
on.
Because side-tracked by his own production, by this pantomime of absolutely
unconstrained, rampaging, warring and rapidly-multiplyin g animals (i.e. like some
humans when ideological controls are lifted, not like most animals), MCCioskey does not
address at all the very serious abuses in prevailing present treatment of animals, abuses
on farms and in laboratories, at home and in the wild, abuses that should be politically
addressed from ethical bases, issues well addressed through rights.
An
institutionalisation of animal rights would not produce the big problems MCCioskey
envisages; after all most people are now represented by professionals in many of their
dealings concerning legal rights, a professional paternalism increasingly operates, which
31
subsumes many professionals themselves. On the contrary, such institutionalisation of
animal rights, properly done could make for very desirable changes. 12
9. Two other critical features of dominant political ways: the shibboleths
of extensive private property and high technology.
The orthodox assumption, which McCloskey makes, is that a liberal democratic
state will have a mixed (or marginally socially constrained) market capitalist economy.
Under the simplistic equations that tend to distort much modem political discussion, even
the inadequate qualifications occasionally inserted are forgotten: a liberal democratic state
is often equated with institution of market capitalism, indeed too often market
arrangements get equated with capitalism. Evidently, however, these equations fall apart
under but slight disturbance. Logically they come apart entirely.
There are severe logical problems with the very idea of a liberal democracy, which
is a dialectical union of individual liberal with social welfare and democratic ideals. For a
democratic state, especially should it take popular majoritarian form, can seriously curtail
the freedom of minorities (the well-known "tyranny of the majority"). Liberal ends may
be better served by a benign dictatorship than by democratic arrangements. Liberality
and democracy part company. Similarly individual liberty and statist social welfare.
And so on. Certainly liberality, which is the most free ranging of the five big political
league players being disentangled, 13 does imply some significant limitations on
arrangements, but they may not favour democracy, or capitalism. Fully liberal
arrangements should enable a community to opt for democratic organisation, should it
wish; but similarly these arrangements should allow the community to choose otherwise,
should it want. Also liberal arrangements of a social cast (with decent freedom of the
servants) would mean winding back of capitalism. Despite the immense damage illregulated capitalism and market structures can, and do, separately inflict upon ecological
and social systems, there is practically no discussion of such matters in MCCloskey, and
again little investigation of improved structures or regulation. 14
12
For one thing, it challenges factory farming, as infringing animal rights, in an
obvious way. McCloskey avoids the issue when it arises (p.140).
13
In fact four of the five substantially independent players we are reflecting upon market, social welfare, capitalistic, democratic, and liberal arrangements - do not
receive an index listing in Mccloskey, while the fifth, liberal, collects many citations
and much discussion.
14
A major contemporary myth is that markets and capitalism can flourish without
regulation, indeed that they flourish best in a fully deregulated setting. Both
32
As with liberal democracy, so with market capitalism, the components separate.
Markets can flourish without capitalism, where for instance agents have sharply limited
and bounded budgets and capitalistic accumulation cannot operate. Markets require no
liberty in other parts of social life than those involving exchange of certain material
goods; they certainly do not require a democratic framework. Capitalism can function
without a vibrant free market system; indeed in advanced capitalist states it increasingly
does so, with oligopolistic arrangements in place of competitive output markets, vertical
integration and contract delivery replacing former input markets, and so on. Capitalism
too requires neither democracy nor liberty, indeed too much of either could seriously
undermine it. It does however depend upon property, for control and as a store for
capital accumulated. In principle, of course, a very limited capitalism could work
without private ownership of land and resources, so long as some exchangeable stable
form of wealth, such as a sound currency or gold, was available for accumulation and
payment of labour. But smart capitalists would rightly feel excessively vulnerable under
such arrangements; for they could be wiped out by an outside devaluation of the currency
or outside increases in rents on resources and land. In any case, many capitalists
(virtually all people of substantial wealth in Australia), and a large array of parasitic
middle parties, agents and hangers-on, would be duly despatched along with free-for-all
property markets.
Having glimpsed MCCloskey's unquestioned commitment to mixed capitalism, it is
piquant to behold him begining upon undermining an institution fundamental to historic
capitalism, namely private property. Most of MCCloskey's brief discussion of rights to
private property (pp. 78-80) focusses upon the labour theory of property, descended
from Locke and others, upon which he effects a full demolition job. In fact he severely
weakens the case for a substantially unfettered ("free") institution of private property,
upon which however the type of liberalism he advances depends. For strong property
rights and guarantees are basic to present liberal democratic arrangements, as they are to
proposed libertarian alternatives. MCCioskey even tries to close off discussion of the
'political desirability of allowing property rights by way of patent rights to discoveries'
in plant and animal breeding, particularly through genetic engineering, on the pretext that
these 'cannot reasonably be objected to without the whole private-property system of
institutions depend for their operation and for their very survival on regulation, on an
appropriate enforceable legal setting. Otherwise, in communities where a certain
egalitarianism counted for something for instance, a capitalist would be rash to bank
upon holding onto substantial surplus wealth for long.
33
liberal democratic states being questioned' (p.139). Now peripheral cases do not
generally threaten the centre, unless, perchance, it is already in some doubt.
The extent and character of property is a quite critical, indeed a watershed, issue
for environmental politics. For excessive propertarian rights and powers constitute a
very serious impediment to sound environmental practice. The reason is simple: the
proprietor may be less than well disposed to the environment, and may well permit or
enact unsound practices. Yet propertarians often now appeal to a purported need to
strengthen and expand the institution of private property - rather that to let it naturally
contract - in order to combat environmental problems. Thus such dubious proposals as
saleable rights to pollute environments, dump wastes, etc. - licences which look even to
the uninitiated like ways of extending, not contracting, pollution and like environmental
problems, and which look to the more cynical as ways of circumventing costs and limits
environmental constraints impose upon economic activity. 15
The liberal democratic structure to which MCCioskey commits himself to, with its
uncritical approach to population and consumption - like market capitalism, with its
commitments to expanding populations to ensure growth and profit, expanding markets,
enhanced consumption, and cheap labour resources - forces an unduly heavy
dependence on technological wizardry. In particular, it requires a technology that will
facilitate greatly increased cheap food supplies, without however too rapidly depleting
"biological capital". Given recent experience it demands a faith in technology, and the
smart science that underwrites it, that is increasingly difficult to justify. Like all too
many academics, MCCioskey has that faith. Science should be given entirely free reign,
and technology pushed to the hilt.
There is a naive optimism in MCCloskey's attitude to science. 'It is not improbable
that ultimately, through the investigations of the sciences, we will come ... to have a full
understanding of the earth's weather and climatic patterns. Man will be able to use this
15
Such saleable rights also appear to get another foot-in-the-door for bargaining
utilitarians, who claim to want no absolute prohibitions, but want to put the whole
environment up for negotiation - and ultimately for sale. What are not up for
negotiation are the underlying propertarian and utility maximization principles, the
insufficiently examined sources of many of the problems.
In any case, the evidence now coming in shows that market approaches to pollution,
such as saleable rights and pricing controls (like company fines), do not work at all
well. Making directors of polluting firms directly responsible, and putting offenders in
jail, apparently does.
34
knowledge for his and the earth's best advantage' (p.137). We, the total managers, will
know what is "best" for the earth! Despite the 'dangers of misuse', major disasters,
global warfare, climatic destablisation, and so on, 'this fact constitutes no reason for
holding back the pursuit of knowledge ... ' (p.137). Maximum speed ahead in the
glorious pursuit of science, with full anarchistic enthusiasm there. There is, as well, 'no
reason ... for entrusting rulers with the control of science' (p.137); science at least is
utterly free in MCCloskey's liberal democracy.
While Mccloskey wants the state kept out of science (except as a money pump
presumably), he wants it actively intervening in technology, not to limit it, but 'acting to
ensure that new technologies be developed and used and their benefits widely enjoyed'
(p.138). The liberal state is to be actively and heavily involved in technology promotion
and delivery - which puts into serious question its presumed neutral regulatory function.
Also espoused is a quite insufficiently discriminating attitude to technology. Like most
apologists, Mccloskey emphasizes the possible - but generally unrealised - benefits of
technology, that technology 'can release persons from much mindless, degrading work.
Hence some, even many persons may never need to work' (p.138). For all the talk
about the possible benefits of technology, many alleged benefits seldom or never accrue,
for instance to shorten substantially people's working hours and give them more
worthwhile leisure; and benefits that do accrue are often not well used. Rather
technology is primarily funded to maintain or increase market share and profits (which
too often end up in conspicuous consumption and waste), thereby inducing cycles of
production and waste, more technology to help control the waste, and so on and up.
Technology itself is merely of instrumental worth, with many of its instruments
and techniques defective, destructive or dangerous, either directly or through eventual
side-effects. While some technology is no doubt instrumentally good, much is not. And
the balance of good over bad has been systematically exaggerated in Wes tern culture,
where more technology is now looked to or required to rectify gross economic and social
mismanagement in liberal democratic states. Technology is however no universal
panancea. Both on its record, and in terms of its theoretical prospects, the faith being put
in it, to "deliver us from evil", is misplaced But, as remarked, MCCloskey has the faith
(such episodes as the Green Revolution are seen as unmitigated successes), and
enthusiastically expects great things from technology ('genetic engineering ... constitutes
a dramatic, exciting breakthrough of major proportions, one that opens up vastly wider
possibilities for developing new plant and animal organisms', p.139). Naturally he
concentrates on the sunny side of technology, scarcely touching upon the darker aspects.
We merely glimpse one darker side of genetic engineering (for which perhaps no further
engineering is needed), the edifying spectacle of mass-production of human drones for
35
industrial slavery (p. 139). As to the big problems with this engineering, we are fobbed
off with an evasive throw-away, of the kind more typical of politicians, as to 'the need
for relevant controls and checks', and no doubt balances, presumably determined by
state masters behind closed doors. Instead Mccloskey tries to divert attention by yet
another attack on the hypothetical totalitarian ecological state, and the threat of its
coercive methods, not those of your normal corrupt intimidatory democratic state, to
human liberties. But the smokescreen quickly subsides, our factional text degenerates
into notes: 'Relevant point here include ... ' (p.139).
Mccloskey would have us locked into state systems that are delivering increasingly
negative results for increasing numbers of humans and disastrous outputs for nonhumans and natural environments. By changing political directions significantly,
environmental and human affairs could again have an opportunity to flourish. But for
much of the environment at least, there is not a lot of time left.
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D. Bennett and R. Sylvan, Damn Greenies: Australian Perspectives on Environmental
Ethics, typescript, Canberra, 1989; referred to as AP.
C.D. Broad, Five Types of Ethical Theory, Kegan Paul and Others, London, 1944.
R. Elliott, Critical Notice of MCCloskey's Ecological Ethics and Politics, Australasian
Journal of Philosophy 63(1985) 499-504.
P.R. and A.H. Ehrlich, The Population Explosion, Simon & Schuster, New York,
1990.
R. E. Goodin, Review of MCCloskey's Ecological Ethics and Politics, Ethics 94(1984)
344-5.
A.M. Maciver, 'Ethics and the beetle', Analysis 8(1948) 65-70.
H.J. MCCioskey, Ecological Ethics and Politics, Rowman and Littlefield, Totowa N.J.,
1983; all page references not otherwise indicated are to this work.
T. Nagel, 'Libertarianism without foundations', in Reading Nozick (ed. J.Paul),
Blackwell, Oxford, 1981.
W.D. Ross, The Right and the Good, Clarendon, Oxford, 1930.
H. Rolston III, Environmental Ethics: Duties to and Values in the Natural World, Temple
University Press, Philadelphia, 1988.
R. Routley, 'Alleged problems in attributing beliefs and intentionality to animals',
Inquiry 24(1981) 387-417.
R. Routley and V. Plumwood, 'Moral dilemmas, and the logic of deontic notions', now
in Paraconsistent Logic (ed. G. Priest and others), Philosophia Verlag, Munich,
1989; referred to as MD.
36
R. and V. Routley, 'Semantical foundations for value theory', Nous 17(1973) 441-456;
referred to as sv.
R. and V. Routley, 'Human chauvinism and environmental ethics', in Environmental
Philosophy (ed. D. Mannison and others), RSSS, Australian National University,
1979; referred to as EE.
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Environmental Philosophy, (Green Series) #13, Australian National University
1987; referred to as TE.
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referred to as DG.
DEEP ECOLOGY AND DEEP-GREEN THEORY.
Deep-green theory is a deep pluralistic environmental position, underwritten by a deep
metaphysical theory. It is intended as an alternative, less fraught with problems, to deep ecology.
Deep-green theory has developed, in significant part, through fruitful interreaction with deep
ecology. Many of its leading ideas can thus be more rapidly introduced by contructing and
comparing them with ideas of deep ecology which are already widely diffused (if often in a
muddy or muddled way). As a spin-off then, this outline will offer a simple exposition of central
ideas of deep ecology, and further criticism of many of them. In any practical showdown,
however, deep ecology and deep-green theory are not antagenistic positions but close allies, both
deep positions within a wider environmental alliance.
Though the rudiments of deep-green theory go back about as far as deep ecology (to around
1973), it remained unnamed until the early 80's (and only achieved initial investigation in Bennett
86). Moreover, it has not hitherto attained in any fuller platform and slogan formulation, such as
deep ecology has benefitted (and suffered) from almost since its inception.
The term 'deep ecology' was coined by the Norwegian intellectual, Ame Naess, to label an
emerging environmental movement. But, despite Naess's commitment to pluralism, it was from
the outset constrained to a certain style of environmental position. The notion has since been
elaborated and further delimited not only by Naess but, in the first place, by several Northamericans, particularly Bill Devall and George Sessions, who have on occasion collaborated with
Naess (their main work on deep ecology is cited in the reference list at the end). The notion has
caught on outside narrow academic circles, especially in North America and Australia, where, in
contrast to Wes tern Europe, significant areas of natural environment remain and are becoming of
increasing public concern.
Deep ecology is a radical environmenta l position, which goes far beyond resource
conservation positions (which are typically concerned with the management and stewardship of
resources in long-term human interests); and it offers a much deeper challenge to prevailing
attitudes and practices (of the dominent social paradigm), especially those which concern more or
less natural environments. (Leading features of Resource Conservation are explained in several
sources; e.g. Rodman.)
2
Deep ecology takes off from value theory themes which stand in diametrical opposition to
mainstream Western ethical and social theory.1 The first of these themes, the wide values theme,
is that what is valuable in or for itself is not confined to human beings or their features (such as
their interests, concerns, pleasures, consciousness, etc.), but extends much more widely to other
beings. The value of these other systems or creatures of their features is not merely instrumental,
aluable as a means to human objectives, but is independent of human concerns; it is in brief
nonanthropic.
Indeed deep ecology goes further, rejecting the greater value assumption, according to
which anthropic values always take precedence over such natural values. How then is value
distributed, in particular across the things of the world? It is here that deep ecology and deepgreen theory part company. Deep ecology takes value to be restricted to things that are alive (in
some attentuated sense, so it turns out); this is the theme of biocentrism, life-centredness. And it
assumes that these things with life are all of equal value; this is the controversial theme of
biospheric egalitarianism. A unique assignment of value results. Deep-green theory rejects both
these themes. For reason to be given, Deep-green theory is much less specific as to how value is
distributed. But it is spread on to things - wholes, collectives, systems as well as individuals which are not alive, and it does not cover all things that are living. Nor is it distributed onto those
things that have the quality in an equal fashion, except in the trivial sense that all have or partake
of value. Some things that have value are much more valuable than others; there is some weak
(and partial) ordering of things with value. It is these things that are worth conserving,
preserving, and so on, the more the more valuable they are. Thus Deep-green theory is
axiocentric, value-centered.
Value in nature is regular coupled with some mix of value-making characteristics,
including such defeasible ecological universals as richness, rarity stability, resilience, diversity,
and so forth. But there are considerable constraints on how values are derived from any such
"objective function". One over or thing constraint, that of impartiality, substitutes for that of
egalitarianism. According to the requirement of biospecies impartiality, which excludes certain
types of class chauvinism, a thing cannot be ranked as valuable or ahead or another simply in
virtue of belonging to some species (e.g. being human); such features are not in themselves
value-making characteristics.
1 There are some who account
themselves deep ecologists who would repudiate such an approach through
value theory, most notably Warrick Fox.
3
Figure 1. A compariso n of Deep Ecology and Deep-gree n theory, in capsule
form. 2
Deep ecology
biospheric egalitarianism
Shared themes or goals I
I
I
I
I
Deep-gree n. theory
wider value theme rejection
of greater value assumption,
+through
➔
biocentrism
ecological universals as
defeasible value-making
biospecies impartiality , and
rejection of class chauvinism
axiocentrism
characteristics
extreme holism
natural systems as
integral, irreducible
cosmic identity
moderate holism
ultraperson al identificati on
maximal
satisizing on value
self-realisation
determinates
limited interference only
with natural systems;
restricted rights thereto
commitment to implement
principles applications to
economics, politics and
policy, especially in
bioregional ism
➔
environmen tal areas; e.g.
regionalism and federalism +-
ecoregionalism
human population reduction
A major difference between the theories lies in the distribution of value (from which much
else of ethical consequenc e arises: rights, obligations , and so forth). Deep ecology, like simpler
utilitarianism, proposes a unique initial distribution (over a given atomistic base class): each living
individual is assigned equal intrinsic value, and nothing else has intrinsic value. Values of other
things, complexes, systems and so on, are then in principle open to determinate s by a calculation.
It is a type of recipe to which intellectual s bent on numeration and calculation are regularly
attracted; pseudo-obj ective variations are to be found not only in utilitarianis m but in economics
and in democtrati c political theory, and also in probability theory, where elements of suitable
2 Most of the capsule theses of
deep ecology are explained in detail in the critique, CD; many of those of
Deep-green theory are explained in FE.
4
initial esembles are assigned equal probability, through a principle of indifference. The practice is
also as problematic as indifference principles (cf. CD on deep ecological egalitarianism).
Deep-green theory rejects the assumptions upon which the deep ecological distribution
depends. It rejects the latent atomism, the idea of ultimates upon which value devolves. More
dangerously these days, it rejects the equality assumption. Much as some humans are more
valuable than others (on most moral and other counts), so some creatures, some systems, are
more valuable than others. DG theory is, quite deliberately, much less specific as to how value is
distributed. Often enough, especially in difficult cases, assessment of value is a complex matter
which may call for much reflection (for some details see TE, first essay). But certainly value is an
unevenly distributed feature of a variety of things, not just at bottom altimates. It is a quality of
many items - wholes, collectives, systems as well as individuals - which are not alive; and it does
not extend to all things that are living, e.g. malignant virases engineered in biochemical
laboratories. Nor is it distributed onto those things that have the quality in an equal fashion,
except in the trivial sense that all have or partake of value. Some things that have value are much
more valuable than others; there is some weak (and partial) ordering of things with value. It is
these things that are worth conserving, preserving, and so on, the more the more valuable they
are. Thus the theory is at least weakly axiocentric, value-centered. In fact it is more strongly
axiocentric, in two important respects. Firstly, deontic notions such as those of obligation, rights
and duties, answer back to axiologic ones (see TE, essay 3). Secondly, more difficult to explain,
value penetrates the metaphysics, including what is accounted fact; most strikingly, the choice of
actual world itself depends upon value (see DP).
AUTHENTIC DEEP ECOLOGY:
expositio n, critique, alternati ves
PREFAC E
No longer is there so much need to chronicle and document the major and serious environmental
problems confonting the Earth and its ecosystems. Much of the relevant information - details of the
damage, difficulties, devastation, disasters, and dire threats of more - now appears in later chapters of
biology and geography textbooks, often in striking pictorial or diagramatic form; and the information
is regularly updated by articles, too often environmental horror stories, in popular perodicals or
newspapers. While many of the problems are abundantly and glaringly evident, others are more
subtle, sometimes more insidious, hidden from view, but bound to emerge in not so long term. So
we can take the problems, and further problems, "for granted", though with little comfort or ease.
Many were, and are, foreseeable; many were, or could be, avoided or mitigated.
Serious though these problems are they are still not being taken with full or due seriousness by
those who exercise some control over how relevant things happen. 1 Most states are busy attempting
more of what has landed us in some of the worst of these problems: more growth, of economic
products, of people, of consumption2 , of energy; more or "better" militarisation; more productivity,
of agriculture, with environmental cost-cutting and short-cutting, more development and more
consumption thereby of biological capital. Growth remains at the top of most national agendas; it is
seen as a panacea for all other problems, economic and security problems of course. Serious
environmental problems are still mostly treated as economic "externalities", peripheral but growing
nuisances, that we shall have to learn to live with3, but not the "real" problems.
We have lived under this dominant destructive ideology for much too long already. It has
already led to the devastation of much of the planet Earth, to the loss of much of value, many species,
While there is a power structure, and a power elite, in all states (virtually as a corollary of features of the
state, such as its monopolies on coercion, currency, etc), it cannot be pretended that there are any impressive
control systems. So some of the problems are unintended. Given the propensity for human-developed
control systems to function in undesirable ways, e.g. to tend towards militarism and totilitarianism, the lack
of satisfactory system is no doubt to the good.
2
So, for example, the USA is pressuring Japan to consume more, internally, to ease American balance-ofpayments problems, and soak up excessive production; there is no pressure to produce less.
3
So, for example, prestigious scientific organisations are preparing to teach us how to live with and love the
Greenhouse effect. Many communities have learned to live with damaging and noxious pollution; no doubt
they would miss it if it were gone.
2
much irreplaceable wilderness, and has left us with an immense, and sometimes hopeless, clean-up
and restoration task. Moreover things will rapidly get worse environmentally if we are not rid of it
and its variants. Plainly we need several strategies: a strategy for fundamental change, a strategy
(needed first) for what comes after the change, and so on.
Deep ecology offers a strategy and an initial structure for addressing these environmental
problems, along with proposals for addressing the menacing array of other problems confronting
modern industrial societies. It is a strategy which goes much deeper than the pathetic patch-up the
damage after it's largely done (pollute, then cleanup or pay a bit) approaches that prevail. For this
reason alone, deep ecology deserves to be much more widely known. But there is still no satisfactory
text on the topic. This book, while hardly an easy introduction to the subject4 , aims to fill a part of
the gap. Perhaps too, it can help serve as a basis for that introductory text that still needs to be
written.
This text tries to do what the title promises. It begins with a sympathetic exposition of deep
ecology. That is necessary. It remains hard to find out what deep ecology (DE) is, as it means so
many different things to different expositors and exponents. The matter of different visions and
elaborations of DE is taken up in the second part, which provides a detailed critique of DE in its main
versions. In the final part, other criticisms of DE, from its rival social ecology in particular, are
(negatively) assessed; an alternative to DE, deep-green theory is outlined; and some of the political
connections of deeper environmentalism are investigated, including strategies for appropriate
revolutionary change.
Deep ecology is the most exciting deep environmentalism on the present intellectual market; for
all its sortcomings, it is still the most thoroughly worked out widely accessible position. That is one
reason why its worth a fair bit of time, my time, in struggling with it and trying to improve it, and
your time, in getting to know it.
This text grew from a critique of DE along with an unpublished expansion of that critique
(called 'Continuin g the critique of deep ecology') and sundry associated articles on deep
environmentalism. As an expanded version of critique5 remains the centre of the text, some of what I
wrote in prefacing the critique should be repeated. I think, I hope, it merits repetition, as amended.
4
There is a need also, as will be explained in subsequent chapters, for a text that measures up to recognised
academic standards, sufficiently complex and full of (bad) argument, in order to put deep ecology firmly on
academic agenda, to try to ensure that it is not merely a crude popular movement that can be intellectually
ignored.
5
'A critique of deep ecology' Radical Philosophy.
3
It was with considerable ambivalence and some serious misgiving that I first undertook a
critique of DE, as it risked offending many friends in the deep ecology movement. It succeeded. The
trouble was that when I got down to trying to explain what deep ecology was all about (for a seminar,
at which N aess and Devell were present, some years ago), I found myself confronted by the
following predicament :- While I applauded much about the deep ecology movement, and what it
stood for, I could not find my way to accept deep ecology as formulated by any of its main
proponents. The reason was not merely that deep ecology is less than a fully coherent body of
doctrine, with, furthermore, many problematic sub-themes, but worse, that much of it departed from
the ideals I felt it should be expressing, and that some of it was rubbish. Yet I had no doubt that deep
ecology was a worthwhile enterprise (carried on by dedicated and good people), and that something
along the lines of a replacement for deep ecology - revamped deep ecology if it is simply a matter of
repairs, deep-green theory for more - was very much on the right track. Or to put it slightly
differently, while rejecting every formulation of deep ecology, I agreed with the general drift of much
of deeper ecology, and with virtually all the careful applications of deep ecology.
My attempted resolution went along the lines of critical rationalism (for which I have been
criticised). The method was to subject deep ecology to severe criticism, with a view to obtaining
thereby an improved, more acceptable formulation, which at the same time met other desirable criteria.
However to resort to such critical methods was already to type oneself, as old consciousness and old
paradigm still, and to risk alienating part of the deep movement. The risks have been taken: but there
are some concessions. In the end, when it comes to applications, to lifestyles and policies, the
rational ladder has to be enlarged and also supplemented; for it offers only one distinctive way among
many.
Though the applications of deep ecology to real-world problems are very important, as already
indicated, we shall only reach them and not attempt to develop them very far. However a detailed
listing of various important applications that have been made will be given.6
Naess and others have complained, with some justification, that I have not gone out my way to
find generous interpretation s of deep ecology, which remove apparent rubbish from it (see Naess RS
p.3). It is true that, following the prevailing philosophical mode (by no means always to be
applauded), I have not been very charatable (here or in other philosophical critiques). I have treated
DE as a find it, hopefully in an expositionally straightforwar d and honest way. I do, however, try to
6
The final part of the background paper on population (Routley 84) provides one application in detail, an
application expanding on some remarks of Naess (in 83). And several other examples which Naess has
outlined (also in 83) can be similarly elaborated. Gare has attempted a major elaboration applying to science.
4
offer alternatives to DE and improvements upon it when I discover them. Deep-greep theory can be
seen as a fairly comprehensive alternative.
/
ON SOCIAL ECOLOGY
A heavy attack on DE, a tirade really, was launched recently by Bookchin. It caught
leading deep ecologists - who had rather foolistly seen Bookchim as one of them, though it
was obvious enough that he wasn't - off-guard, entirely stunning some of them 1 .
Bookchin furthermore went about his frontal attack in a most ungentlemanly and less than
American way, using practices and methods that Americans do not use as regards decent
fellow countrymen, but reserve for communism and its representatives and others engaged
in un-American activities. 2 Intellectual exchanges are supposed, otherwise, to proceed in a
nice, collegial way (the knives come out in the back rooms, not on the front pages).
Bookchin broke American cultural conventions (which is a main reason why several people,
e.g. Sale, failed to comprehend what was going on). There is heaps of straight
mudslinging in Bookchin, name-calling, attributions of guilt by very thin associations, ad
hominen moves. We shall bypass this unworthy material, much of what there is in the
attack, because anyone with decent basic training in logic can document it for themselves, if
they can obtain copies of the work (not at all easy in the peripheral world). We shall try to
isolate the much slimmer intellectual content of Bookchin's criticism.
Should we dig under all the dirt, we find there are some core criticisms of DE, which
are for the most part defective, but as well some interesting suggestions, which are worth
fossicking out and displaying. There are two key issues. In both Bookchin's criticism
repacts, but focusses upon DE, the old-fashioned erroneous socialist condemnation of
environmentalism of all types - as not only getting priorities wrong in not putting human
societies absolutely first, but worse failing to appreciate that environmental problems are the
product of social problems and removed with them.
• Ecological problems are at bottom nothing but social problems. This rival reduction
theme, which is what justfies the social ecology terminology and approach, also gets stated
in various, often weaker or slacker forms: For instance, ecological problems have their
1
The phrase 'off-guard' is from Naess. As to the extent of Bookchin's depth see the
Critique.
2
This nasty face of American intellectual activity is well exposed in Chomsky's
political writings. For the most part American philosophical periodicals permit only
the nice face to be exhibited. For my part I enjoyed some of this outrageous stuff of
Bookchin's, which was livily and refreshing after the flatness and dullness of much in
Naess's notes, and also by contrast with Bookchin's earlier papers, which are mostly
repetitive and often rather vacuous diatribes.
2
roots in social problems, ecological problems have their ultimate roots in society and social
problems, etc. But DE, 'despite all its social rhetoric, has virtually no real sense of' this;
that is a major (disgusting) trouble with it.
The correctness and tellingness of social reduction themes vary more or less
inversely, depending in particular upon how far the operative term 'social' is stretched. If
all problems concerning "groups" (including single member groups) of "individuals" of any
sort (including volcanoes, hurricanes, seiges, etc.) are "social" problems, then evidently all
ecological problems become social problems, as these are all concerned in some way with
individuals and their relations with their surroundings. But such a misleading adjustment to
the theme, rendered near-tautologous by a low redefinition of 'social', is not what Bookchin
and other socialists have intended. They characteristically intend by 'social' 'human social',
and what they intend to convey by 'the social roots of the ecological crisis' is that it is 'the
gross inequities in [human] society' - which should be attended to first- 'that underpin the
disequilibrium between [human] society and nature'. 3
Now this strong social bias thesis is interestingly false. Consider counterexamples of
the following sort:Imagine mixed capitalistic and welfare socio-economic arrangements had worked and
succeeded in eliminating the gross inequities in society, at least in some relatively
independent regions of the world, and perhaps even globally. There were, it still seems,
real prospects that this could have happened in the 60s, had energy and funds been
redirected from military-industrial enterprise to social-industrial activity. A welfare safety
net is stretched right across the regions concerned so that no longer is any human homeless
or without sufficient nourishment or basic eductional opportunities and so on, so that
poverty and all other grosser inequities are eliminated. 4 It is sufficiently evident that even if
all this is achieved, many ecological problems will not be addressed, but may be aggravated
by the increased industrialisation and economic development involved. The lot of factory
farmed animals or of threatened wild species would not be removed, but, if touched at all,
3
Bookchin 87 p.10 where the thesis is inaccurately associated with Kropotkin.
4
Naturally, finer inequities, such as unsatisfactory job relativities, race relativities, etc.,
will not thereby be eliminated and are perhaps part of "the human condition", some of
which many societies will be prepared to live with or ignore.
The relatively easy opportunities of the 60s for societies free of grosser inequities (for
good or even great societies) may have passed, as certain new social problems have
much complicated matters.
3
likely worsened. There is no guarantee that the position of wild and natural regions would
thereby be improved, that these regions would be freed from constant inroads by human
developmental activity, that the Antartcic would not be citified, and so on. In general, no
environmental damage and degradation that did not rebound upon the relevant human social
situation would be halted or resolved. Furthermore, not only is the strong social bias thesis
false, as well human social concerns do not always come first where ecological depth is
attained.
Bookchin suggests an historical basis for the strong social bias thesis, that the notion
of the domination of nature arose in the first place out of social domination of people by
people, women by men, and so on. But that is pseudo-history; for the domination of nature
and some appreciation of its operation, reaches as far back, so far as we can see, so far as
our records go, as other forms of domination. What is more, even if a real history were like
Bookchin's it would offer little support for strong social bias thesis. All it would reveal is
that some ecological problems were glimpsed by anology with social problems, not that
ecological problems are at bottom social problems and so resolved with them.
• • "Second nature", constituted by human society, is uniquely different from first nature,
and so naturally and justifiably interferes substantially with the processes of first nature.
The unexploited play on "second nature" does nothing to support such intervention; or the
contrary, second nature follows nature rather effortlessly without specific reflection.
However, the two "natures" distinction, inadequately introduced and incapable of bearing
much weight, is applied, in social ecology, to support much human interferenc e and
substantial separateness. 'Natural evolution has not only provided humans with ability but
also the necessity to be purposive interveners into "first nature", to conscously change "first
nature" by means of highly institutionalized forms of community we call "society".' 5 Given
the highly artificial and rather accidental social forms now in place, that many humans now
suffer or swear under, this is very far from obvious.
This second nature vs. first nature division would re-erect the old division and
separation , Man vs. Nature, in old-fashio ned football-m ilitary terms, that deeper
environmentalism has been concerned to remove. It is human chauvinistic; it ignores the
continuity between humans and other creatures, the overlap in incapacities and skills
(remembering all the capable animals able to live skilfully off the land and all the incapable
humans). As regards relevant skills and capabilities, there is no uniqueness, or singularity,
of humans as a whole. It would chauvinistically try to convert being human into a
5
Bockchin 87 p.21.
4
significant moral category, when it is not. 6 It would induce an inverse, obnoxious ranking
among biological kinds; first class, matching second nature, and second class, matching
first or primitive nature. The division would accordingly offer a springboard to a range of
further interference of the sorts of which we have already witnessed much too much.
The main thrust of Bookchin's attack is thus an old-fashioned socialist criticism,
which fails any longer to impress because of its excess anthropocentrism. Social problems,
which are of course often but not always intertangled with environmental problems, are no
longer top of action, political, or other agendas; nor are their standard modern rivals,
similarly entangled with environmental problems, namely economic problems. There is a
third set of problems, neither exactly left nor right, neither exactly social nor economic nor
reducing in approved fashion to those would-be universal categories, nor yet forming an
entirely independent dimension: namely, environmental problems.
Bookchin faithfully rolls out other elements of routine socialist criticism, against deep
ecology. Some of these are telling enough, but mostly not new. They include:• a seriously flawed pantheon of heroic figures. Bookchin gets stuck into DEs favourable
mention of Heidegger, of course, but he also tries to convey quite by association with
Woody Guthrie (p.6), Malthus (p.15) Ehrlich (p.17) and others. Problems with the heroic
figures and historical pedigree of DE had already been observed by others, e.g.
Sholomowski.
• a thin and inadequate historical genesis and setting. In this regard Naess's work is, of
course, primarily in the perfectly admissible tradition and company of systematic
philosophy and of most science. Deep environmental has, no more than science, to supply
at the outset a full historical context in which its ideas are placed (pace. p.5 bottom).
6
So it is argued at length in EP.
INTRODUCTION
Deep ecology is a major environmental position and movement, one of the most important of
contemporary times. In name and in assemblage of themes it is a recently elaborated position,
dating back only to about 1973; but most of the themes are older, some of them much older. It is
the assemblage, package and the way that has been put to environmental work that is newer and
different. The initial assemblage and the name are due to Naess, a principal character (in all senses)
in what follows 1.
1. On the deep ecology movement and ideology: their intellectual standing.
The expression 'deep long-range ecological movement', of which 'deep ecology' 1s a
subsequent abbreviation, was minted by N aess to label an emerging environmental movement .
Naess was then (sociological) finder ather than founder of this emerging movement, a movement
concerned primarily with the natural environment. In explaining ideological features of the
movement Naess set down a number of what he took to be characteristic themes. It is from these
themes, with much elaboration and considerable variation, that deep ecology, as a doctrine, has
grown. It is with the evolving body of doctrine, the position, that we shall primarily be concerned.
Control such as it was, of the doctrine did not long remain with Naess. Like many good promising
ideas it was quickly imported into California, where it was modified, and to some extent converted
into a further individual consciousness-elevating exercise. Thus the doctrine has been elaborated
and further delimited not only by Naess but, in the first place, by several North-Americans,
particularly Devall and Sessions, who have on occasion collaborated with N aess, and more recently
by various Australians, most notably Fox and Seed.NI Deep ecology has caught on largely outside
No attempt will be made to give an account of Naess's philosophy, except insofar as it bears directly on
deep ecology, though such an attempt would be worth making. We commend the work (which could
simply be entitled Naess ) to others; a smell beginning is made in Naess and Rothenberg.
Naess was already a significant, influential, but maverick, figure on the European intellectual scene well
before deep ecology was discerned. Naess had been professor of philosophy at Oslo since 1939, a chair he
obtained when 27. In early days he was a Norwegian Ayer, likwise basking in reflected glory of a
disinfecting logical positivism; but how much Naess subsequently diverged from empiricism can be
gauged from his 1971 debate with Ayer (recorded in Reflexive Water). In fact Naess had already began to
move out of an empiricist set as a result of his early interesting attempt to carry it towards its logical
conclusion, and to do philosophy itself empirically, recorded in Truth as Conceived by those who are not
Professional Philosophers. Subsequently Naess traversed a wide and unusual range of philosophical
enterprise: scepticism naturally; many of the then fashionable areas, such as communication, semantics
and interpretation; and several others that were much less philosophically fashionable, but politically
significant, such as Gandhi and pacifism, ideology and failure of objectivity, and of course pluralism.
These investigations form the complex backdrop to deep ecology. Unfortunately, despite Naess's longstanding commitment to pluralism, deep ecology was from the outset constrained to a certain unduly
narrow style of environmentalismm as will appear.
5
narrower academic circles, especially in North America and Australia, where, in contrast to Western
Europe, significant areas of natural environment still remain; these are rapidly becoming of
increasing public concern.
Deep ecology is a radical environmental pos1t10n, which goes far beyond resource
conservation positions (which are typically concerned at best with the management, husbandry and
stewardship of resources in long-term human interests); and it offers a much deeper challenge to
prevailing attitudes and practices (of the dominant social paradigm), especially those which concern
more or less natural environments.N 2 Deep ecology (hereafter is an ideology in the respectible
older sense, a system of belief and ideas. It is not an ideology in the post Marxion sense, of such a
system characterised by an inflexibility and an unwillingness to listen to other points of view. Quite
the contrary.
Radical DE may still be, though its radicalness is in decline as it ages and as informed opinion
on environmental issues advances; respectable, it is not. In particularly DE is not a respectable
academic subject. Though it is arguably the most important movement in environmental philosophy
in recent times, it is fl:Ot even mentioned in several recent texts on the topic. There are several
reasons for this, ranging from the conservation and close-mindedness, snobbery and bigotry
almost, of much contemporary philosophy, to evident presentational deficiencies in DE, its
mouldeness, its lack of discriptive and argument, its popular appeal. DE is particularly weak weaker than environmental ethics, which do poorly on these academic indicators - on a run of
things that are taken to matter in contemporary ethics; analyses of meanings of key ethical terms,
reductions of ethical terms to few primitives, smart arguments, utilitarian-style justifications, etc.
That is one reason why it is not part of Anglo-American analytic philosophy; another is that it
challenges so much of what analytic philosophy represents and (politically) presupposes.
DE scarcely represents, then, many of you will be relieved to learn analytic philosophers'
philosophy. N aess believes has been through and seen through that sort of philosophy early in life;
and seen that it does not contribute very much to the real features of life and living that philosophy
should make significant contributions towards, but mostly does not. As a result you will find very
little analysis in DE. Also there is remarkedly little argument, though argument is often taken to be
what is distinctive in philosophy. (But that is an Anglo American idea of what philosophy is all
about; you find comparatively little argument in much Continental European philosophy - what you
do find, even in authors like Kant and Hegel who look superficially as if they are arguing, is mostly
patently bad argument, poor at best. DE is much more like European philosophy in tone and style,
which helps explain why it is neglected and denigrated in American schools; by contrast, in British
philosophy curricula the environment is only just beginning to win any satisfactory attention at all.)
6
These are some of the reasons why, despite its importance, DE goes largely unmentioned in
most texts on environmental philosophy and ethics. This says a good deal about the texts, which
are mostly not offering satisfactory coverage of their fields (see further chapter 2). But it indicates
something too about DE, which is not as intellectually accessible as it could or should be.
Moreover, presentation of DE often go out of their way to violate (questionable) academic
standards, expecially those for clarity of statement, extent of analysis, and level of argumentation.
Deep ecology is an amophous doctrine, as anyone who tries to set down from its sources in a
clear and crisp way what its themes are, will readily enough discover. Of course compared with
much French philosophy, it is clarity itself; but French philosophy does not provide an acceptable
benchmark. A good deal of the obscurity concerning DE results from its varying and different
presentations by different expositors. To avoid this problem, we shall, for the most part, follow
Naess's elaboration of DE, taking that as fairly authoritative. But the problem is not thereby
resolved. Naess's views on deep ecology, its place and importance, and its themes, have changed
over the years. Nor are the themes always, sufficiently clear though many of them are succinctly
stated. Some of them are said, by disciples or by N aess himself, to be metaphorical. Furthermore,
as some important matters go largely unelaborated, for instance the issues of satisfactory methods
for achieving ecopolitical change.
To surmount these kinds of difficulties, we shall (somewhat presumptuously no doubt) offer
our own exposition and elaboration of DE, what we call authentic deep ecology. At least under
Naess's conception of DE we are entitled to do this. In part II however, which offers a critique of
DE as it has been variously presented, we shall look at the genuine article in its various
formulations.
Rather than becoming easier with the passage of time, DE has become more and more
difficult, and less intellectually tractable as it picks up or toys with environmental fashions, often
zanier environmental fads. It is complicated by New themes, often muddy themes, and its solidity
is removed by modification or erosion of old themes. Among the new themes picked up, several to
be examined critically (in part II), are the Gaia hypothesis, according to which the Earth itself some
sort of organic living system.
DE is thus an irremedially vague object. Its vagueness has increased with its popularity with
its becoming on the green fringe a fashionable, not to say vogue, item (a Foucaultian object).
Vague and vogue, a common concotenation.
2. Types of environmental positions: deep environmentalism.
7
What distinguishes an environmental position is a certain level of constraint with respect to
the environment, the natural environment especially: not anything goes with respect to nature. In
this regard environmental positions contrast with a dominant theme of Western cultural heritage;
namely, provided it does not interfere with acknowledged people such as property holders, that
people can do more or less what they like with the land, and with what grows and lives there. It is
even therefor humans to exploit or manage.
This unrestrained position imposes few or no constraints upon treatment of the environment
itself. Under it there would, for example, be little compunction about using up material resources,
forests, fisheries and so on, immediately or even destroying them. But, because it grants such
entitlements to exploitation, the unrestrained position can be excluded from properly moral
positions. 2 For it fails to meet the basic universality requirement on moral principles, of
independence of person, place or time, a requirement which implies that persons of different races,
colours, sexes or ages, or at different places or times are not treated unfairly or seriously
disadvantaged. Insofar as the unrestrained position would permit the exploitation, degradation and
even destruction, of all present resources and environments, it places future humans at a very
serious disadvantage. The position is thus one of expediency, not morality, typically yielding, like
economics, evaluative assessments based on short-term narrow local (or national) interests, rather
than assessments appropriately based on long-range transnational values.
Opposed to the unrestrained position are various environmental positions (what Leopold saw
as the land ethic is just one of these). Such positions can be classified - conveniently for
subsequent development but in a way that already refines and extends Naess's classification - into
three groups: shallow, intermediate and deep. Unlike the unrestrained position, all these positions
would conserve and maintain things - materials, creatures, forests, etc. The shallow
(conservation) position differs from the unrestrained position primarily in taking a longer-term view
and taking account of future humans, their welfare and so forth. It is more enlightened than the
unrestrained position in taking a longer-term perspective: hence its alternative description in the
literture as resource conservation (thus, e.g., soil conservation organisations). Though this
conservation position is only a step away from the unrestrained position, it does pass the test of
morality in that future people are not treated unfairly; so it is a very significant step.
2
This is a substantial and controversial claim, especially since it accounts much economic activity
unethical in the narrow or semse, as involving practices of expediency, not morality. For the fuller case
for obligations and commitment to future humans, see e.g. Routley 81, and other essays collected with it
in Partridge 81. This section is drawn from my People vs the Land (84).
8
The shallow and unrestricted positions are closely related by an important feature they share and which justifies lumping them together as shallower positions. They are both highly
anthropocentric; they do not move outside a human-centred framework, which construes nature and
the environment instrumentally, that is, simply as a means to human ends and values. Thus they
take account ultimately only of human interests and concerns; all environmental values reduce to
these. It is in this respect especially that these shallower positions differ from deeper, less resource
and management and exploitation oriented, positions.
According to deeper positions, humans are not the sole items of value or bestowing value in
the world, and not all things of value are valuable because they answer back in some way to human
concerns. But deeper positions differ in the weight or relative importance they assign to human
concerns. According to an intermediate position serious human concerns always come first; and
while other things, such as higher animals, have value or utility in their own right, their value is
outranked by that of humans. The deep position rejects this assumption, and maintains that even
serious human concerns should sometimes lose out to environmental values.
Figure 1. The positions separated, and separating principles
SHALLOWER
UNRESTRAINED
DEEPER
SHALLOW
IMMEDIAIB
DEEP
MORALITY
SOLE VALUE
GREATER VALUE
REQUIREMENT
ASSUMPTION
ASSUMPTION
(of human apartheid)
(of human supremacy)
The watershed principle which divides the shallow from the deeper positions is the sole value
assumption . According to this major assumption, which underlies prevailing Western social
theory, humans are the only things of irreducible (or intrinsic) value in the universe, the value of all
other things reducing to or answering back to that of humans in one way or another. This
assumption is build into most present political and economic arrangements; for example, only
aggregated preferences or interests of certain (present) humans are considered in democratic
political choice, and likewise in economic decision making; other creatures and natural items are
presented at best through the preference or votes of interested humans. 3
3
The points are explained in more detail in EP, where too, account is taken of the shift from humans to
persons (which would be important were it taken seriously and adhered to) and also of the inclusion of
9
Similar assumptions are made in mainstream ethical theories. Typical are reductive theories
which endeavour to derive ethical judgements from features of closed systems of humans.
Examples are provided by presently fashionable ethical theories, such as standard utilitarianism. 4
According to utilitarianism what ought to be done, as well as what is best, is determined through
what affords maximum satisfaction (preference-fulfilment, pleasure, absence of pain, and so on,
for other satisfaction determinates) to the greatest number of individual humans. In theories like
utilitarianism, the outside world of nature does not enter through direct inputs or outputs, but only
insofar as it is reflected in the psychological states of individuals. Such ethical theories are
appropriately described as those of apartness or human apartheid. Man is, or is treated as, apart
from Nature; there is virtually total segregation. Nature or the land enters only as a remote
experiential backdrop, and onstage is the drama of human affairs and interests.
However, humans cannot be entirely insulated from their environment; for example,
volcanoes affect temperatures thus affecting climate thus affecting crop yield and food supplies. At
least limited intercourse with the environment has to be admitted as a result. So, in economics,
ethics, and political theory, secondary theories, dealing with linkages to the environment, have been
appended (thus, for example, externality theory in economics, some allowances for "side"
constraints in more sophisticated utilitarianism, and so on). But the environment remains treated as
an awkward or tiresome afterthought or backdrop, a (re-)source and sink, when it is considered at
all.
There is, however, another approach also with historical standing, vying with (and indeed
often confused with) human apartheid, which can accommodate secondary theories a little more
satisfactorily. That is the position of superiority or human supremacy, according to which Man,
though included in Nature, is above the rest of Nature, meaning ethically superior to it.N While
human supremacist positions can incorporate the sole value assumption and thus remain in the
shallow ethical area, they have the option of rejecting it in favour of the less objectionable greater
value assumption; other things being equal, the value of humans is greater than other things; the
value of humans surpasses that of all other things in the universe. This assumption allows that
other objects, such as some higher animals, may have irreducible value; what it insists upon is that,
at least for "normal" members of respective species, this value never exceeds that of humans. What
super-humans. With value for natural items goes, of course, concern, respect, and sensitivity, towards
them; but the reverie connection may exhibit occasional failures.
4
But the same holds for other fashionable theories on the American-dominated ethical scene, namely
contractualism and libertarianism. More broadly based historical utilitarianisms, which allow for some
input from other sentient creatures, are considered below.
10
is generally presupposed is that other objects - animals, plants and their communities - are never of
very much importance compared with humans. Though human supremacy has appeared in variants
upon utilitarianism (from Hutcheson and Bentham on) where animal pain is taken into consideration
along with human, Wes tern ethics and associated social sciences such as demography, economics
and political theory, remain predominantly apartheid in form. So in practice does most
utilitarianism. 5
It is the repudiation of the greater value assumption that separates deep from intermediate
positions. Perhaps the most familiar example of an intermediate position 6 is that of Animal
Liberation, in the form in which individual animals (but not plants, forests, ecosystems, etc.) are
taken to have value in their own right, though in any play-off with humans, humans win. Under
the deep position such an outcome is by no means inevitable and not alway assured; in cases of
conflict of animals with humans or natural systems with humans, humans sometimes lose.
There are various arguments designed to show that the deep assessment is right, that humans
do not always matter7 and, more pertinently, that humans should sometimes lose out. A typical one
takes the following form:- Some humans voluntarily lead worthless or negative lives, lives without
net value. The point, though not uncontroversial, 8 can be argued even from a shallow
utilitarianism. Take for instance a life of pain and suffering and little or no happiness: it has a
substantial net negative utility. However, some small natural systems do have net value; one
example would be an uninhabited undisturbed island (a live example might be a tropical island
before Club Mediterranee depradation). Now consider the situation where the considerable value of
a small natural system is to be sacrificed (in a way that shallowly affords no ethical impropriety) on
behalf of a set of humans whose lives each have no positive net value. For instance, the system is
to be exploited, just for the continued maintenance of these humans, or for their addition (as new
settlers) to an established population. Then in such circumstances, these humans lose out; the
natural system takes precedence. Similarly, trivial satisfactions of humans do not dominate over the
5
There practice contrasts with what the theory allows or requires. Utilitarianism is like much pollution
control, where regulations are on the books or are part of the law, but are or never only very occasionally
applied. Utilitarian double standards are further discussed and referenced in DEP #7.
6
Other examples are considered below. Two of the four form of ecological consciousness considered by
Rodman fit here (as Rodman has remarked). For instance, falling into the intermediate range are the types
of environmental positions adopted by Birch and Cobb, and by Attfield and by many other
consequentialists.
7
See the argument of EP, beginning the Last Man argument, p .... ff. See also the initial example of
Routley 2 79 ..
8
The point is argued in detail in DEP #3.
11
integrity of rich natural environments. This simple result cuts deeply into (standard shallow)
consumer theory, to take just one example of the impact of deep environmentalism.
Authentic deep ecology is a type of deep environmentalism. A genuinely ecospheric
egalitarianism, such as deep ecology offers, is bound to reject the Greater Value assumption. For
under egalitarianism, larger collarations of significant eco-objects outweight smaller groupings of
undistinguished humans.
Notes
1. All their main work on deep ecology is cited in the reference list at the end.
2. Leading features of Resource Conservation are explained in several sources; e.g. Rodman.
3. Here authenticity is important. As will become evident in part II, certain proclaimed deep
ecologists are not prepared to scuttle the Greater Value assumption. As will also become evident,
the egalitarian arguments upsetting the Greater Value assumption are build on defective
foundations.
CONTINUING THE CRITIQUE OF DEEP ECOLOGY
As a broad label for something rather environmentally different, and no doubt better, than
most ideologies that preceded it, 'deep ecology' is no doubt rather fine. That is how the label
often functions, honorifically, for instance in the collection under that label edited by Tobias, which
gives deep ecology none but a nebulous content, and which indeed contains many articles (such as
the interview with Soleri) in diametrical opposition to the more detailed platform promulgated by
the intellectual "leaders" of the deep ecology movements. In fact, a good deal of the more popular
appeal of deep ecology has been obtained by vacillation between the more discerning authentic
forms and the slack or nebulous forms. The nebulous use of the label has also given cover to some
of those who calls themselves 'deep ecologists', enabling them to shed awkward but crucial themes
from the more detailed platform (thus e.g. Fox).
Many are those who are now pleased to march under the rather fashionable nebulous
banner. 1 Many are not deep, in theory or practice, deeply committed, or deeply changed by the
march. Purchasing or growing organic vegetables, having spiritual experiences in a special natural
place, or practising some oriental art or exercise routine, does not ensure a deepened environmental
position, though it can be a step on the way.
While nebulous deep ecology is compatible with much that is neither deep nor even
significantly ecologically oriented, such as minor lifestyle adjustments within the industrial
paradigm, authentic deep ecology, which is not so slack, remains a defective doctrine, itself
oscillating between an overpermissive environmental assembly point, fast growing its radical
potential, on the one side, and an impermissive, unduly narrow doctrine, dubious or defective in
several of its leading themes, on the other side. Some of the worst of these themes, such as
biological egalitarianism, have already been criticised in sufficient detail in the original critique.
But other features of authentic deep ecology (hereafter mainly DE) were left largely untouched in
the original critique, and new features have emerged. The critique thus needs continuing.
Since the critique was produced, it has been become more difficult, if anything, to grasp
what DE is all about. Even Naess, the founder of the movement, who now tends to adhere much
more closely to the platform than other self-proclaimed deep ecologists, is inclined to make
I too am happy to march under the nebulous banner, though since my first critique I am no longer
particularly welcome. Initially I was cut by about half those individuals and institutions loosely
associated with deep ecology, since my critique began circulating. While I am become accustomed to this
sort of phenomenon in intellectual areas (criticism induces cool and long at least, even in logic), I didn't
expect so much of this given the Christian character of DE.; and such isolation does seriously reduce
information sources.
2
apparently large concessions to opposition changes, which however he subsequently more
surreptitiously withdraws (of course this is familiar philosophical practice). At other times, he
withdraws with one hand what he is offering, some sort of olive branch, with the other.
The oscillation can be partly ascribed to conflicting motivation. On the one side, there is the
desire, stronger in the founder of DE, Naess, than in his American and Australian prophels, to
create a wide constituency, to tum no one away if it can in any way be avoided. But, on the other
there is an evident desire to make deep ecology a very select position, for a chosen few, a place to
be achieved only after a journey crossing some arduous terrain and involving some difficult life
adjustments. Deep ecology lacks the other-worldly and after-life resources which, in some of its
religious sources, appear to make for an easy resolution of this type of conflict.
I.Further problems with the platform and core platform of deep ecology.
It is the platform (at level 2 of the organising "double pyramid" of DE depicted below) that
constrains, delimits and defines deep ecology, so far as it is well-characterised. For even this level
is not very precisely characterised to put it mildly. Some exponents or practitioners of deep
ecology (some of them self-nominated or self-proclaimed) appear to repudiate even the core themes
at level 2 (e.g. Fox on axiocentrism). In the face of criticism, Naess himself backtracks as far as
he plausibly can, and sometime further. Not only does he considerably muddy the clear waters of
doctrine of occasional prosentations, but the doctrine itself begins to disappear, to be qualified
away (see e.g. Naess's performance in Resurgance , discussed below). The response to
intellectual criticism, which DE has been increasingly encountering as it spreads, has not been an
appropriate one of clarifying, and where requisite expounding, the core theory; it has rather been
one of retreat and digging in, of trying to hold the temple under seige, through diversionary activity
(or by broken-record techniques: simply reiterating parts of the messge not under heavy criticism
over and over again). When the critical raid has passed, the priests (and very occassional priestess)
of deep ecology reemerge, bearing the original doctrine essentially unchanged. The practice
resembles christianity (and too much of the practice of dominant science, the rival Western church).
Dealing with deep ecologists is very like dealing with devout christians; some of them one feels
sure have only recently changed positional hats, from evangelism to deep ecology
(correspondingly, my own position has become that of a black sheep).
A good deal of the argumentative practice of deep ecology appears to be explained by its
evangelical, and even messianic, character. There is genuine effort to tum no-one, except the most
incorrigible moneylenders, away from the temple. Everyone else (except perhaps philosophic
critics) is welcome, and encouraged to join in worship. Much like the churches, the founder of the
3
De movement seeks as large a flock as possible. In these democratic days, numbers count (at least
under the "right" polling conditions); earlier numbers overted for taxing or tithing purposes. Other
high priests are not so sure: there are some critics of the movement, who may be beyond the poles;
and surely it should be a little more exclusive. But, in any event, DE is a much more liberal
doctrine than one of its sources, christianity, has ever been; it admits coupling not just (so it is
said) with all the great religions, but with all the more benign positions and practices that achieve
fashionability in California. All not ill-disposed to the natural world and duly acknowledging its
value can march under the banner of deep ecology, whose main citadel is Nature.
N aess casts the net of deep ecology wide, catching therewith not only many remote
supporters, but a number of hostile critics as well, such as latterly Bockshim (p.6). Naess now
considers the 8 point platform, formulated by himself and Susians and published in several slightly
different forms, as tentatively setting down the 'basic principles of Deep Ecology'. Naess 'look[s]
upon the formulations as tentatively expressing the most general and basic views which almost all
supporters of the movement have in common' (23.6.88). Thus the 8 point platform (condensed in
box 1) provides, in a still vague and tentative sort of way, the core, the core platform, of DE. To
get around a small obstacle, let us call those who would adhere to the principles of the core (in
some approved formulation) adherents of DE. They are adherents in (simply and literally)
holding to the core, the common (intersection of the) platform. They may not be members of the
movement in any ordinary sense, in any but the set-theoretical sense, because appropriate
intentionality is lacking, for instance they may never have heard of the movement, let alone made
any effort to join. Nor need adherents be supporters in the usual sense; support is neither
necessary nor sufficient for adherence. A critic such as Bockshim, or myself, can be an adherent
without being a supporter, without being supportive. Conversely, a supporter may not be an
adherent. The Salvation Army has many supporters, including atheists, who are not adherents.
The De movement has many supporters, some of whom call themselves 'deep ecologists', who do
not adhere to the core, even more or less. Many of these supporters are shallow environmentalists,
who do not accept the key first point, of intrinsic value outside humans, or try to evade it (e.g. by
redefinition, or by wrapping up value inextrically in relations to valuers). Since there are, in my
experience, many supporters and indeed enthusiasts who turn out to be of this shallow sort,
Naess's view is a little puzzling: what does he mean here 'almost all supporters'? Which isolated
exceptions does he have in view?
Box 1. The core
8 point plat/orm, in capsule form.
l. Non-human and human life have intrinsic value:
The well-being and flourishing of
human and non-human life on
earth have intinsic value, inherent
4
value, etc. These values are
independent of the usefulness of
the non-human world for human
purposes.
2. Richness and diversity intrinsic virtues :
Richness and diversity of lifeforms contribute to a realisation
of these values and are also
values in themselves.
3.Humans unjustified in reducing such natural virtues:
Humans have no right to reduce
this richness and diversity except
to satisfy vital needs.
4.Human (values compatible with) population decrease:
The flourishing of human life and
culture is compatible with a
substantial decrease of the human
population. Flourishing of nonhuman life requires such a
decrease.
5. Human inte,ference with natural world excessive:
Present human interference with
the non-human world is
excessive and the situation is
rapidly worsening.
6. Policies and basic structures must be changed:
Policies must therefore be
changed. These policies will
affect our basic economic,
technological and ideological
structures.
7.Quality of life should supplant economic standard of living:
The change in our attitudes will
bring an appreciation of the
quality of life rather than
adhering to an increasingly
higher standard of living. There
will be a profound awareness of
the difference between big and
great. We will have a great
society with no bigness.
8. Obligation to attempted implementation:
Those who subscribe to the
foregoing points have an
obligation directly or indirectly to
try to implement necessary
changes.
Most of the core platform is no longer demanding; none of it, except for the last point,
specifying an obligation to attempted implementation, requires any commitment in the past of
adherents. Mainly adherence to DE, and support of DE, would be very considerably increased
were this requirement evaded. A strategy common to econonical practice and sociological research
5
readily presents itself. Let us speak of silent adherents as those who adhere to the core platform,
more or less, except that they make no requisite effort to implement it (they may of course have
some vague failing of obligation, should they ever reflect on the matter). Even without the benefit
of scholarly survey work, it is evident that De would now have a large number of silent adherents,
many of whom are not however adherents, being either oblimovish, situated in repressive regions
or social situations, or simply uninformed (like indigenous peoples who think here are excessively
many excessively interferring humans of Caucasian stock).
The core platform represents a surprisingly incomplete and rather ill-organised collocation
of principles. The incompleteness is most conspicuous in point 6, which advances no details as to
envisaged structural changes. In extenuation N aess pleads that he has 'not has courage to go into
detail and define what these different structures will be, because we are going to have a lot of
different Green varieties. We shouldn't have one set of structures imposed' (R p.7). The
reasoning does not hold up; a range of structures, rather than a unique structure, can easily be
defined by constraints well-known ones as it happened. Naess should be encouraged to go on and
delimit the structural and policy changes. It is easy to give him a start, drawing upon DE and
neighbouring environmental positions. For instance,
6a. The policy objective of maximizing state economic growth should be abandoned in favour of a
highly selective approach to such growth. Evidently, there are many different ways such a change
in policy can be implemented. Some such change may be suggested by, but is not implied by point
7.
6b. Technology selection should be reoriented to appropriate technology, and away from risky
and polluting technology.
6c. Population policies should be directed at decreasing human populations in overpopulated
regions.
Principle 6c complements point 4, which does not actually enjoin any decrease in human
population. And so on, through a well-known list of constraints, with several of them regularly
included in principle of alternative social paradigms. Point 5 requires similar elaboration.
Another surprising feature is how mild most of these elaborations are, like the core platform
itself, which is pretty wishy-wasy when contrasted with what is happening out there
environmentally. Many environmentalists now wish to proceed much further, and to witness
some real curtailment of heavy broad-acre assaults upon environments, such as extensive clearcutting of forests, over-fishing of shelves, and over-grazing of range-lands, extensive strip and
beach mining, broad-acre pollution, and so on.
6
Deindustrialization is not explicitly part of the DE program, and the issue is (perhaps
wisely) avoided by some leading proponents of DE. But deindustrialization - a considerable
reduction in the levels of industrial activity, particularly the undesirable dangerous destructive
prolluting types of industry that conspiciuosly contributed to the first industrial revolution - would
emerge from the alternative futures deep ecologists prefer to imagine, with a much smaller, less
consumption-oriented,terrestial human population. In any case, deindustrialization is an important
environmental objective, for both shallower and deeper ecology. It would assist, most materially,
in obtaining some better control on major environmental risks and problems, notably such matters
as the greenhouse affect, atmospheric ozone destruction, and acid rain and its fall-out.
The idea of progress is, like industry, also under a cloud. It is now naive to assume that
progress per se is automatically to be applauded, and that a telling criticism of something is that it
would block progress. People are these days a little more discriminating (in some respects); there
is progress and progress, growth and growth, coke and coke. Much that was progress, and still is
in many quarters, is no longer universally regarded as such, as, for instance, elimination of
wetlands, pollution growth, assimilation of indigenous peoples. The 'previously ... dominant
[assumption], that non-industrial society would and should progress towards the industrial state
and the scientific world view' was challenged, and is increasingly rejected (cf. Naess, on the
"status of mythology").
So wishy-washy is the core characterisation of deep ecology that it lets in as deep ecologists
all sorts of environmental philosophers who would not previously have made that select hand,
philosophers whom main disciples of deep ecology previously did or would have excluded,
philosophers whose positions are not deep. If DE is to be more exclusive, it will require more
careful, tighter formulation. Only clearly ruled out among environmental philosophers, i.e. those
who philosophize about environments and environmental problems, are hard-line human
chauvinists, led by Australians, Passmore (in his main conservative persona) and McCloskey.
Many of these excluded philosophers would, moreover, subscribe to most of the points in the core
platform, as weakly interpreted. It is nowadays a rare thinking person who does not consider that
there are severe environmental problems, local and global, about which something, fairly farreaching by conservative political standards, should be done. It is a rare philosopher, who
becomes inmersed in a spread of these problems, and who does not develop some environmental
commitments, even if a liberalish social agenda continues to dominate an environmental one (and it
is fast becoming hard to avoid observing the interpretation of social with broadly environmental
problems). While environmental philosophy has, by contrast with economics (now ......... of
reaction crises), tended to become progressively more accomodating to what was only a short time
ago radical environmental drought, as the magnitude of environmental problems is revealed, deep
7
ecology has moved in the opposite direction, has tried be excessively conciliatory, confusing
pluralism with broad consensualism, and lost much of its radical flare. A wide environmental
pluralism is just fine; but it does not have to be achieved through consensus, or at the cost of a deep
or an ecological platform. A pluralism can be achieved by the joining of different positions.
Among the diverse and motley groups of philosophers who now gain entry as adherents of
deep ecology, too generously construed, are apparently included those examples:-
Example 1. Among extensionists, both utilitarians and ratonalists. Among utilitarians are Singer,
and perhaps even Smart on some days. Most turns on how point 1 is construed. Utilitarians in the
Benthamite tradition assign intrinsic value to all creatures with preferences, sometimes a or the like,
and are concerned with the well-being and flourishing of such creatures. Accordingly they satisfy
point 1 if it is read, as it may well be, 'much human and much non-human life'. It all depends
upon how the terms 'human' and 'non-human' are quantified. If both are quantified with 'all', the
theses becomes implausible (admitting e.g. lab-manufactured abominations as intrinsically
valuable), and would exclude some acknowledged deep ecologists. If the terms are more weakly
quantified, then environmentally aware and active Benthamites are admitted. An evident dividing
line, provided by particular quantification, with 'some', is enough to exclude shallow
philosophers. But no quantification will serve to exclude either intermediate positions, which do
not adopt a deep value theory, or individualism, such as moral extension positions, almost
invariably a spouse. Extensionists more patently included are those of rationalistic persuasion,
grouped loosely around Regan in the American South, who have gradually move away from a
utilitarian prescriptions, to the view that ethical principles, including those of vegetarianism, can be
reached by rational means, by clear, consistent and coherent thinking (thus, it is really a coherence
theory of morality).
Example 2. More far-reaching informediate positions, which do assign intrinic value less stingily
throughout nature, to some non-preference-havers, such as trees, and to some non-individuals,
such as forests, but which still adopt a greater value assumption, according to which human values
always take precedence over non-human assignments. Examples of this sort the postions
deliminated (so far in insufficient theoretical details) by Rolston and Attfield. In fact the positions
so far elaborated of this type typically, but hardly inevitably, draw on an enlightened Christian
backdrop heavily laced with science (a religious American naturalism, so to say, in Rolston's
case). They amount to nonsecular moral extensionisms, by contrast with the secular moral
extenionisms of example 1 (to try to squeeze these positions into Rodman's nonexhaustive
classificaton of positions).
Example 3. Deep-green theorists reject the biocentric restriction sometimes built into point 1,
though not in this formulation. This formulation certainly admits Sylvan as an adherent of DE,
8
despite what some deep ecologists have said. According to strict biocentrism however, only what
has life (in some sense) can have value. Deep-green theorist see this restriction as very like that
imposed by ulitarians, to sentience, or unwarranted, unnecessary and arbitrary. Deep-green
theorists, like enviromental resisters, ecodefenders and Earth-Facters, now see the DE platform as
much too moderate and quite insufficiently radical. The earlier radicalism of DE has been
excessively pruned back, on a mix of dubious grounds: the drive for an environmental consensus
(in place of a genuine pluralism), the religo-political quest for a large support Base (which could
however be environmentalism broadly, with DE in the vanguard), and the input of conservatizing
academic thought and aim of intellectual respectability. In fact DE which does not make much
ground academically, as compared with its success outside academia, especially with book-reading
environmentalists, would better forget academic success, where it has made progress only among
outsiders, not power-players and return to its more radical mission (academics form only a small
minority, though one dangerously and influentially supportive, one the whole, of most past
environmental excesses and assaults).
2. Variability, antiquity or dubiquity of main themes of deep ecology omitted
from the core platform.
Some themes have been retained by letting them undergo extensive change. Nowhere is this
more conspicuous than with the difficult principle of "biospherical egalitarianism in principle",
central to earle DE, which has taken on some remarkable new guises. In Naess, it becomes a
curiously qualified principle of rights: that every being has a right to live - unless the basic needs
of other beings overrides its rights. In Devall, who prefers to avoid the term 'rights' (the use of
which he asserts is metaphorical in Naess, not at all what Naess, who appeals to childrens" usage,
asserts), the principle is emptied of main egalitarian content: 'Properly understood, the principle of
biocentric equality means that humans are members of the biotic community, not its masters'
(p.58). So understood, the principle can be accepted by many shallow thinkers; it is not
incompatible with chauvinism, nor with conciderable inequality, nor with greater value invariably
assigned to humans, only with a certain domination. It is a sell-out.
Few of the supporters of deep ecology (DE) appear to realise how old-fashionedly defective
and sometimes inappropriate some of the elements, and most of the methodology, of deep ecology
really is. 2 The organic and organistic image, for instance - heavily deployed by one of the heroes
of deep ecology, Whitehead - is as old as Aristotle (for some of the history see Berlin). Despite
much valiant effort, no one has so far got the image (now redeployed in the extravagent Gaia
2
Recently, Sholomowski has re-emphasized some of these features.
9
hypothesis) - valuable as it may be, chauvinistic as it characteristically is -to work in a very fruitful
way. Likewise the drive for self-realisation, is both old-fashioned - it was fostered by the
Enlightenment and had its heyday in the 19thC, was decidedly human chauvinistic in its emphases.
But perhaps the heaviest residue of old-fashioned inappropriate material is to be found in the
methodology of deep ecology, which is mainly transferred from positivism with little alteration.
The hypothetico-deductive methodology, for example, appears essentially intact in the double
pyramidal diagram (now called 'the apron' by Naess), which one is supposed to shuffle around
and descend by deduction. Having descended so, the way back to the top is by intuition of
hypotheses, by the hypothetical part of the method. First principles at the top admit of no proof or
derivation - because of the character of the one inferential relation admitted, deduction.
In other respects, the double pyramid strait-jacket, which is Naess's way of trying to infuse a
certain pluralism (a pluralism of fundamental positions at first principles) into deep ecology, is
insufficiently specific. It does not explain, for example, how at a practical lower level, either an
environmental directive or environmental action is forthcoming. Indeed given restriction to
deduction, it cannot explain how these things come about. DE lacks any requisite theory of
environmental action. 3
The double pyramid gets stylized in the way on the left; an alternative representation is that on
the right (and Naess now has a representation awkwardly superimposed on a mandala):Needless to say, there are problems lacking within DE's easy pluralism. Noone has ever
explained how to get the unretracted DE platform derivationally out of - what looks incompatible Christianity. For that matter no-one has shown how to deduce the platform from any of the other,
sometimes more congenial, great religions or philosophies. The nearest we seem to get is Naess's
sketch of how we derive parts of the platform from his own specially concocted ecosophy.
3. Further flowing of the DE gospel: its heroes, its arguments, ....
Deep ecology is a seriously flawed gospel, not only as regards its doctrines and their
coherence, but in other surrounding evangelic respects as well. Virtually all the patron saints of
DE, the past philosophical heroes (all male) are deeply flawed. Spinoza's views on the place and
treatment of animals, for instance, should be entirely disowned by any deeper environmentalist.
Even the later "reformed" Heidegger is conspicuously human chauvinistic, too complacent in a
human-dominated and tamed landscape, and, (apart from some new-fangled technology and
3
Various old-fashioned, and again defective, models are available to DE, and could be tacked onto the
theory, e.g. the belief (or information) and desire (or value) account of intention and action conventionally
attributed to Hume.
10
industrialisation) with the established rural way of things in Germany, including significantly racist
and sexist ways. The pervasive background four-fold, fitting the cosmological scheme of things
in, includes only divinities and humans; wilderness and its creatures are not part of the
fundamentals. Whitehead, despite the apparent bounteousness of his philosophical scheme, was a
practising christian, committed to a great chain of being with humans at the top of the chain (and
thus to a greater value assumption antithetical to DE); he took no significant interest in nature or
nonhuman creatures at all, and was very comfortable in the ways of a socio-political order which
directly produced present environmental impasses. 4
No doubt the heroes should be differently viewed. Not as patrons, not even as forerunners;
but as deep thinkers, from whom certain elements can be drawn in elaborating an environmental
philosophy (e.g. parts of a theory of nature, features of process theory, elements of a critique of
technology), while much else is discarded. Most of this theoretical work remains to be done.
Regrettably the calibre of the arguments for proceeding to a DE position has not improved.
N aess has now resorted to making his case in a very conventionalistic populist fashion. People are
inclined to respond in such and such a way (favourable to environmental concerns) to so and so
questions. Thus, for instance 'there is reasonably widespread agreement that animals, and even
plants, have rights' (EIJ p.3). But surely it is largely as a result of environmentalism, which must
(and should) be based on something else that people have began to respond thus and so. Naess
also argues from the the concern of many people about nature and natural phenomena for their own
sakes (the data is however not all that clearcut) to several other conclusions, for instance that
political and stilist approaches to the environmental crisis (etc) should be less anthropocentric (EIJ
p.5). The arguments are thus close in character to those widely used in arguments in economics
and democratic theory; they are none the better for that. The fact that people used to respond
favourably to damming up every nearby river and draining all the swamps is not a solid
recommendation for such practices. Moreover, such populist considerations hardly win out, as
Naess himself explains (p.4). Pressure groups pedalling narrow and sometimes destructive
economic ambitions often succeed against democratic opinion.
4. But much criticism of DE is even more seriously flawed.
Despite the growing constituency for core princles. De, which Naess will correctly have
alluded to here, DE has been portrayed as extremism - especially from the US political right (which
tends towards extreme right). What is extreme depends, of course, on where a carping critic is
4
He appears to have owed his appointment to a philosophy chair at Harvard in significient part to the fact
that he was in no way a radical, but suited to the conservative scene established there.
11
situated. Gung-ho growth economists are extremists from a deeper environmental situation. No
doubt such GG economists would claim that they have reason, not emotion, on their side; but it is a
narrow flawed reason, tailored and biassed to their cause, reflecting a different class of emotions,
primarily preferences of business communities of humans.
In present deteriorating environmental circumstances, clever "extremism" is sometimes
exactly what is required - ideas and action that upset, disturb, interfere with, subvert, and
eventually overturn, the dominant military-industrial social ethos. Extremism presumably amounts
to being isolated on the outer margins of some politically or socially sensitive (more useless)
normal distribution, without respectable companions. On many environmentally important issues,
DE is no longer in such a position (often instead the power elite would be if it were not so
entrenched). Where it is in such a position, then generally it needs to be, and needs to try to swing
the norm in its direction or else to gather respectability for that position.
What, if anything, supports the charge of extremism, levelled against DE? Such emotionallycharged criticisms from the right tend to be particularly vague. Sometimes DE itself, portrayed as
radical environmentalism, and compared with radical feminism, is dismissed as extremist, without
indicating where it is considered extreme. In fact, while better developed, less accommodating DE
is radical, at least literally in going, as one aspect of its depth, to root issues and assumptions, it is
not very politically radical; it does not seriously challenge present political arrangements in the way
that ecoanovehism, or even ecosocialism, does.
What has infuriated some critics is undoubtedly the DE removal of humans from absolute
centre stage, and above all the cavalier or callous way in which some environmentalists have
portrayed the demise of unfortunate humans, from the God-given position to having to share the
world-stage. There are many different issues tangled up here, and the charges of extremism
depends on retaining the confusion, as well as ascribing to DE claims it does not make. DE asserts
that irreducible value is not confined to humans, that life other than humans has intrinsic value.
Although such a claim is indeed incompatible with the dominant social paradigm, it represents an
old challenge, going back in utilitarianism at least to Bentham. As some of those who held or now
hold such a position were not, by any means extremists or even radicals (e.g. Sidgwick) the charge
against this part of the DE platform, lapses. Similar points apply against any charge of extremism
based on the DE assertion (carefully avoided in the core platform) that a substantial decrease in
human population is desirable, especially for conservation of the biosphere. Such a theme is
increasingly widely maintained, by many respectable figures, far from any fringes. Nor need any
extreme, threatening or dangerous, action result from such DE themes. Human population
reduction can occur (and is envisaged by Naess to occur) by such unthreatening means as a
12
reduction in birth rates, a demographic transition brought about for instance through improved
education and contraception. Yet some coupling to "extreme" action, and adoption or preparedness
to adopt such, has to be established if a proper charge of extremism is to sustained (cf. also the
OED definition of 'extremism').
Deep ecologists propose no extreme action to reduce human population, no wars, no
genecide, nothing macho. Indeed the idea is ludicrous. Deep ecologists tend to be gentle people,
who are opposed to violence; they care about humans, who are part of nature (even if too many of
them are trying to set themselves above and apart from it).
There are individuals and groups, more evident in America than elsewhere, who do adopt an
uncaring, and sometimes brutal attitude to other humans, especially those outside America. Ecofascists, like Hardin, to the right of environmental thought, who think that the time for triage has
already arrived, and that starving humans in third world countries should be left to fend for
themselfes, offer a striking example. But eco-fascism is far from deep ecology, and has been
severely criticised by those close to DE (e.g. Bennett and Griffin). It is no doubt troublesome for
deep ecology, and convenient for opportunistic critics, if environmentalists with eco-fascist
prodivities present themselves as deep ecologists (as has happened, a prominent example being the
present editor of Earth First). It is no doubt troublesome for a charitable organisation if members
of a mafia present themselves as agents of it and collect on its behalf; it has long been a problem for
democracy that fascists can present themselves as democrats, and even put an end to democracy
through seemingly democratic methods. Political movements admits of much infiltration, by both
well- and evil-intentioned.
ANNEX
1.
Interesting proposals continue to emerge from the deep literature.
One is for an
environmental organisation, which might could be called Environment International, parallelling
Amesty International , and adopting a similar role with regard to the environment that Amesty does
with respect to human rights and political processes (Naess p.4).
2. There are many false "virtues " in contemporary political life that green politics, such as
DE is coupled with, will eventually help remove. These include:-
•
Unity, united front.
All that has
merit is a certain limited unity
in diversity.
•
Balance.
Balance is achieved by
resolution of many forces. To shift
13
the balance, then, environmentalists
should be as far out as they can
(while still being counted in the
resolution, not written off).
For
end
political
purposes,
citing
especially credibility doesn't matter,
by contrast with countability.
Advice to offer more balanced
statements and work should be
courteously ignored: it is
oppositional, political advice.
•
Two party ideal
REFERENCES
A. Naess, 'Environmental ethics and international justice', Ecospirit Quarterly IV (1) (198.) 1-7;
referred to as EIJ.
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Typescripts draft of contents (2 pages) ; Part 1 Critical exposition, Chapter 1 At the pyramid’s junction: the basics and creed of deep ecology (11 pages) ; Part II Critique of deep ecology, Chapter 5 The initial problem: what on earth is deep ecology? Who is and isn't a deep ecologist? (21 pages) ; A critique of (wild) western deep ecology: a response to Warwick Fox's response to an earlier critique (56 pages) ; Ecological ethics and ecological politics: turning John McCloskey's challenge (36 pages); Deep ecology and deep-green theory (4 pages) ; Authentic deep ecology: exposition, critique, alternatives: preface (4 pages) ; On social ecology (4 pages) ; Introduction (11 pages) ; Continuing the critique of deep ecology (13 pages).
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Box 16: Green Projects in Progress
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10.4.95
PROBLEMS IN DEEPER GREEN POLITICAL
ORGANIZATION THEORY:
an Australi an perspective on radical institutio nal change .
.. . people are ready for change and the impending debate will result m
constitutional change. We should, therefore, explore all options .... 1
As elsewhere, there is growing dissatisfaction with Australia's political institutions, and
increasing demand to change them. This demand, hiding co-optative elements, has been
initiated and fostered in a conspicuously top-down fashion, by politicians and by academics.
There is so far little surge of political enterprise at grass-roots levels, little pressure for the
usually very limited changes proposed. Nonetheless, along with apathy, there is widespread
popular disenchant ment with present political arrangements. There is now an opportunity
(although still only a small window therefore no doubt) to put green and radical themes on the
agenda for real political change in Australia. That opportunity should not be missed, within
Australia, or elsewhere. While the exposition that follows concentrates upon Australia, as a
convenient advanced example, much of what is argued and urged applies or adapts elsewhere.
Disenchan tment with politics, and political proposals for change.
There is now evident in Australia, what is variously described as disillusionment and
anxiety, cynicism and pessimism about the state of politics-a loss of confidence in it, and a
retreat from commitment. As much and more, Mackay has nicely exposed in a survey of the
Australian situation:
. anxiety about the nature and quality of Australian politics [has] increased. . ..
Widesprea d anxiety about the state of politics is based [in part] on an uneasy feeling
that, if the parties are not going to stand for some identifiable philosophy, and the
leaders are going to be chosen on the basis of their potential as television performers
or even as head-kickers, then the only appropriate response is cynicism.
That cynicism is reflected in a turning away from support for the major parties ... and
revealed in the attitudes of young Australians ... 2
who often cannot be bothered registering to vote, or voting. (though voting is legally
compulsory).
Lack of confidence is beginning to show not only as cynicism about politicians, but
also as doubt about the integrity of Australia's political institutions .3
1.
Hon . Ian Macphee, ' A new constitution? '. Of course Macphee did not really mean all options, nor
even all constitutiona l options. Furthermore, his claim about preparedness of people for change is
incompatible with Mackey's data (mentioned below) on exhaustion with change.
2
Mackay pp.174-177. For all the Australian casualness of Mackay's presentation, his sociological
findings are nonetheless fairly solidly survey and interview based (if occasionally stretching the
data). Plain findings are replicated by other socialogists.
3
Ibid. p.178
�2
In a recent survey, '62 percent of [Australians] expressed either little or no confidence in the
political system. Such a figure accurately reflects the mood of the Australian community' .4
Australian loss of faith in conventional politics is attributed to a mix of factors. A first
explanator y factor as regards this disenchantment comes from the changes in politics already
remarked (ranging from policy issues to media performers) and from resultant uncertainty. ' ...
the Australian electorate is confused about which party stands for what, and about whether any
party has a long-term commitment to any particular point of view' .5
A complex 'second factor ... concerns the adversaria l nature of two-party politics' .6
How can this 'two party, adversarial approach ... continue to be appropriate when the
distinctions between the two parties themselves are so hard to define'? But 'reµefinition of
party politics implies the possibility of a redefinition of the whole parliamentary process itself .
Why 'when parties seem quite capable of stealing each other's policies or of invading each
other's traditional philosophical territory, [can not] politicians work together in a more cooperative and harmonious spirit' ?7 'Adversarial politics may have made sense ... when .. .
distinction s between the parties were stark and when arguments about principle could be
justified; today, the idea that politicians would be arguing over a point of principle or
philosophy is almost unthinkable .... [They] are much more likely to be arguing over matters of
personality, prejudice and power than over issues which effect the long-term health of the body
politic' .8
'The quality of parliamentary debate is regarded not only as a symptom of the
adversarial nature of the institution, but also as a symptom either of the poor quality of
politicians ... , or of the effect of the system on those who are enmeshed in it' .9 Unless there is
marked improvement in party philosophies, programs and performance, 'the call to re-examine
the nature of the parliamentary process will gather momentum ' .10
4
Ibid.
5
Ibid. pp.178-179.
6
Ibid. The adversarial character of dominant State legal systems is also becoming subject to more
and more criticism. It appears likely that significant movement towards different inquiratorial
systems will occur, not least because of the huge expense and growing unaffordabili ty of
adversarial systems.
7
Ibid.
8
Ibid. p. 180.
9
Ibid. p.179. It is a symptom of both, the latter especially.
lO
Ibid . p. 181 .
�3
A third relevant factor contributing to loss of faith is the impression of Australians that
'they are overgoverned ' 11 , with too many expensive bureaucracies and too many houses of
parliament.
Conflicts between State and Federal parliaments - and between the various State
parliaments themselves - are regarded as a particularly unproductive expenditure of
political energy, and Australians question whether 15 houses of parliament may be
too many for the efficient government of 18 million people. The sheer number of
parliaments is often blamed for the problem of too many bureaucracies and for many
duplications of bureaucratic and political activity between State and Federal ·
governments.
... Whilst there is little love felt in the Australian community for Canberra and for the
idea of more centralised government even that is beginning to appear preferable ... .
The widespread support for the idea of a republic which emerged during 1992 is
closely related to the underlying sense that Australia is overdue for _some kind of
reexamination of its political institutions, and even the notion of Federation itself. ...
As debate about the idea of a republic proceeds ... it has begun to incorporate the idea
that Australian's political structures and systems might be quite significantly
reformed. 12
Such diseffection reflects too a growing awareness that Australia's political arrangements
owe more to historical accident than to rational design. Even though the main proposals for
change no doubt remain reformist in character and could lead in unfortunate directions, some of
them are far-reaching by normal standards. Both the extensive disenchantme nt with present
political arrangements and the felt need for significant change further suggest political times are
not altogether normal. Elements underpinning a political paradigm shift are already present, as
are features supporting rational redesign, to which radical additions are now feasible.
So far there have been, along with normal inertial resistance to change, two main
responses to growing pressure for change: political, from politicians, ex-politicians and political
commentator s , and academic from intellectuals, academic entrepreneurs and academic
journalists. By and large, political responses have been grander, more sweeping and vaguer;
academic responses more theoretical and cautious, piecemeal and detailed. But there are no
grand detailed plans.
Under the leading proposal so far for political change, Australia's constitutiona l
monarchy will be displaced by a constitutional republic with its own head of state displacing the
monarch, but with perhaps minimal adjustments otherwise. Nonetheless , as a result ,
republicanism is in the air. Politicians have begun to contemplate other practical reforms, while
11
Ibid. p. 181 , itals added.
12
Ibid. p.181 -2. Republican proposals have been circulating for some time . But the cause was
finally taken up by prominent politicians, who made it their own, after which it became a popular
issue. Mackay's accurate presentation of popular support for political change contrasts drolly with
the first part of his book which depicts an Australian populace exhausted by change and longing for
the old ease and somnolence.
�4
academics have begun to embroider theories around republicanism and institutional reform.
What happens to the Australian federation of states is one of the many unresolved issues
presently being debated.
The main reason for reform offered by the political camp can be summed up simply as
changing geopolitica l circumstances. The camp tends not to acknowledge what would reflect
adversely upon it, the poorness of federal political practice. Rather it tends to attribute popular
dissatisfaction to economic circumstances and uncertainties: declining real standards of living,
extensive unemploym ent, persistent recession until recently, problems to be surmounted by
full-steam ahead untrammelled economic growth, to be attained by recoupling Australia to the
Asian economic express. Meanwhile an orchestrated republican movement can help divert
popular political attention from poor political management and a gloomy economic predicament.
Much has changed in the century since present antiquated political arrangements were
hammered out, arrangeme nts making the newly-fashioned .Commonw ealth of Australia,
politically a federation of states, into a constitutional monarchy coupled to Britain, arrangements
of convenience fashioned for very different circumstances. Most non-symbolic linkages with
Britain, which has been inching towards a place in a united Europe, have already been severed.
Australia has gradually begun to appreciate its geo-political position in the Indian-Pacific region
(and the money-ma king opportunities for a sagging resource-based economy in allegedly
booming parts of Asia). Whence the main idealistic proposal: for an independent republic,
decoupled from Europe, assuming its own (prominent) place in its geo-political regions. In
principle at least, place and region begin to assume, or resume, some of their neglected, but
historic, significance (however that is not how it is yet seen).
Most proposals for constitutional and federal reform fit within that limited idealistic
conception. One important proposal, advanced by established political players, their most
radical proposal so far, includes abolition of the present states. Such a proposal would clearly
represent a welcome step in anarchist directi<;ms, were it not regularly offset by the idea of a
strengthened central state.13 Supposing this latter unfortunate idea is bracketed for the moment,
then what is being seriously considered already starts to look like a much more rational
regionalism than what presently prevails.
The present states of Australia are undoubtedly an anachronis m, based on accidental
boundaries of a contingent colonial history. They are ecologically irrational management units,
utterly failing to reflect ecological regions. Yet the states possess extensive environmental and
other manageme nt powers, inappropriate 'powers which derive from what was largely a
political bargaining process conducted a century ago.' Another effect of inapposite state-federal
13
Anarchists can even rest (if uneasily) with a con stitution , so long as it provides for an
organisation, Australia Inc . even, sufficiently different from a state and its authoritarian trappings.
�5
arrangements, especially 'funding arrangements, has been to lock out local government and,
more importantly, local communities . ... local communities must be given greater control over
those decisions of government which effect their lives ... '; the opportunity 'to design and
provide the services which are needed locally.' 14
At this stage of the dialectic McPhee slides easily and naturally from localism to
regionalism.
A glance at the map reveals natural regions for local government on a viable scale [an
optimistic contention]. Some cross State boundaries, and I would envisage that State
governments would be replaced with regional governments. These would be more
akin to larger local governments and would certainly not have the trappings of the
States. They should not have parliaments and the expensive, unwieldy and inefficient
bureaucracies which characterise our States. They should have a small number of
full-time councillors. .. Regional governments should be solely accountable to their
ratepayers ... 15 .
So far so good: however McPhee thereupon begins to infiltrate stock (small /) ·liberal
management assumptions. Nonetheless the basic idea to retain is simple: that of ecologicallyrational local and regional rearrangemen t of anachronistic state partitions. But that
regionalizatio n should be greened, as reform should be radicalized. More generally,
opportunites now present themselves to inset more radical ideas throughout the debate about
Australia's future directions.
For much has been left off political agendas for change, not merely environments and
habitats of their less prominent or noisy inhabitants, but also such issues as rights and liberties,
transformation of antiquated legal and executive frameworks, and so on. Omission of (human)
rights is especially remarkable in states such as Australia, whose constitutions astonishingly do
not mention at all (what is however often supposed to justify states) individual rights, such
rights only being ensured, so far as they are, assumptions from uncodified common law, by
indirect routes (statutes regarding treatment of minorities and the like). Nor do the political
camps pushing limited change speak of rights or liberties; a very limited conception of
adjustments required prevails (though without rights and liberties and a generous public sphere
there is little, and little prospect of,justificatio n for a state at all). Accordingly political agendas
for change need to be conspicuously broadened, to accommodate a decidedly more ambitious
range of constitutional and institutional redesign.
2.
A project within a project: radically reshaping Australian institutions.
14
All quotes in this paragraph are drawn from McPhee. An address along similar lines to the Hon.
Ian McPhee, also proposing abolition of the states, was delivered by the former Prime Minister
R.G. Hawke. Hawke's speech, by contrast with McPhee's, attracted much media attention, and
though facilely dismissed as "unrealistic" by some practicing politicians , appeared to gain a good
deal of support.
I5
McPhee ibid.
�6
Academic entrepreneurs have also responded quickly to proposals for constitutional and
institutional changes. Early to scramble on the bandwagon was the institution to which I am
affiliated, the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, with its
ambitious decade-lon g project, Reshaping Australian Institutions: Towards and Beyond
2001. 16 One. small part of this project does connect with the republican push, which no doubt
helped inspire it and gain its funding. The academic version of republicanism furnishes an
institutional and historic setting, tracing its roots back to ancient Rome, and thereby linking in,
what admits much modem adaptation, notions of citizenship and civic virtues. But most of the
project is independent of any republican reorganisation.
The Reshaping Australian Institutions project is presented in predominantly reformist
fashion, unsurprisingly. It is supposed, for instance, to 'provide major input into evaluation
and refonn of Australia's institutions'; indeed it is explicitly 'aimed at contributing to Australian
constitutio nal reform'. 17 Nothing however precludes considerat ion of reshaping or
transforming Australian institutions - those of the whole ecological region - in a unreformist
and possibly unconstitutional way, in a radical way.
Admittedly, the rough boundary between reformist and radical routes becomes even more
blurred when the constitution of a country is open for possible major reconsideration and much
political infrastructure may be altered. Nonetheless, from the perspective of a strong central
state, the stock. boundary stands intact. For reformist changes would amount to comparative
small adjustments leaving it substantially intact. For example, a minimal transformation, of the
sort presently much favoured, from constitutional monarchy to Australian republic, though
entailing non-negligible constitutional redrafting, need only amend the roles of a few elite
power- and position-holders. By contrast, radical changes would substantially alter that strong
central state, perhaps (as will be proposed) eliminating it altogether.
There are appealing reasons for attempting wider, more radical investigations. For,
firstly, there may be more satisfactory institutional structures not accessible, or even visible,
along normal constitutional reform routes. Secondly, there is a demand, a small but growing
16
A recent brief description of this two million dollar project, now outlined in several places, is
given in Tynan, pp.17-19. Fuller descriptions are available from a main coordinator of the project,
J. Braithwaite, Law, RSSS, ANU. One of the many strands (17 at last count) of this project is an
environmental (or green) strand.
The immediate predecessor of this article was presented in a workshop at RSSS on green political
theory , arranged under the project. That accounts for some of the otherwise puzzling structure of
what has eventuated. Another earlier version was tried out at Ecopolitics VIII, Pacific Visions,
held at Lincoln University, Christchurch, New Zealand, in July 1994.
17
' Reshaping Australian institutions : towards and beyond 200 l' in Tynan , p.17, italics added.
�7
demand from green directions for instance, for radical institutional change. It would be
prudent, then, to make some investigation of the options, to assess their prospects. Thirdly,
reflection on such structures would certainly be part of a more comprehensive study of and
theory of institutional design, which the Reshaping project also presents as an objective.
Fourthly, much more controversially, major environmental problems cannot be satisfactorily
solved along merely reformist paths. For states, what are reformed, states themselves are
ecologically dysfunctional. In practice this appears obvious enough. Simply reflect upon their
environmental records; these are even worse than those abysmal records compiled for human
rights. But the practical case can be argued in detail in a state by state way, or less laboriously,
through the familiar rough classification of states into first, second and third world states. In
main third world regions, the rise of the state has seen the serious decline of environments.
Those third world states that have not largely destroyed their natural environments are in rapid
process of doing so. The activities involved are, furthermore, not merely tolerated by these
states but are usually actively encouraged (e.g. with state participation or by state concessions,
as through taxation advantages, subsidies, expert incentives, etc.). Further, the role of
exploitation and plunder of remaining natural "resources'', and depletion of "biological capital",
by third world states, most of which are now trapped in debt and structural adjustment, has
increased many-fold in the last two decades. How destructively second world states of eastern
Europe treated their own (and also other regions') environment, how they over-expoited and
polluted them, has recently been much publicized. While the recent record in first world states
is no doubt marginally better, many of these states dominated their natural environments and
their wild inhabitants in the past and have heavily polluted and exported their urban and
industrial regions. Nor does their present record gain an environmental pass. For example,
those that have any natural forests (similarly fisheries) left are in the process of eliminating or
degrading most what remains; most are failing seriously in meeting (their own) targets on
greenhouse emissions, and so on. More theoretically, it is unlikely that states, increasingly
focussed narrowly upon shallow economic agendas, will or can deliver satisfactorily
environmentally. A prime reason is this: states are ineluctably committed, more and more as
their populations expand, to high levels of economic activity characteristically to economic
growth of sorts which impact heavily environmentally, inducing inevitable degradation.18
Accordingly, there are then, or should be, two bands to any green (or environmental)
strand of a restructuring Australian institutions project: not merely an important reformist side,
18
This theme, that states are normally ecologically dysfunctional, is documented and argued in detail
elsewhere; see e.g. Carter and especially . Sylvan 96 . On the dismal environmental records of
particular states see Punting. For shocking figures and illustrations as regards environmental
exploitation of third world states, see Bolla, pp57-65 .
�8
but as well a radical spread. It is part of this underfunded and undersupported radical spread
which forms the main object of investigation in what follows, that part that relinquishes present
state structures, in favour of more environmentally benign institutions - which no doubt can be
designed, even if not so readily brought to practical use. 19
In order to reach radical redesign ideas quickly, let us touch only lightly upon some of the
more distinctively green reasons for this anarchoid quest (familiar anarchist reasons stand: the
illegitimacy of present states, the undesirability and severe disutility of states, which typically
are highly destructive and corrosive institutions based on concetration of power, hierarchical
authority, massive coercion, manipulation by economic elites, technobureaucracy, utilitarian
rationality, and sundry other evils. 20) As 1ndicated, present states are incompatible with stock
ecologically sustainable practices, because of their heavy unrelenting commitments to shallow
economic growth. More generally, standard states and their practices comprise very significant
parts of environmental problems, but quite insufficient parts of any solutions. Moreover, states
constitute an enormous and destructive drain on regional environments, a feature particularly
evident in smaller states which are always looking out for revenue-raising expedients for their
.
.
own expensive runnmg.
Apart from those greens who have recognised the excessive environmental costs of states
and their heavy demands on environments, and thus or otherwise have come to recognise the
desirability of their withering away, there are many more who have become ambivalent about
states, who appreciate their very problematic character and very questionable legitimacy, but do
not see yet how to get along altogether without them, or more exactly (to point towards a partial
resolution) without certain functions that they serve. To point immediately towards a resolution
of this crucial problem, the functional dissolution idea advocated is this: that the functioning
parts may be separately utilized without the colossal whole. The state is not an organism the
functioning parts of which must fail without the whole. So it may well be the enormous fat of
state can simply be shed, to great advantage.
In any event, 'the State is a social institution', always 'within', Marxists continue, 'a
,concrete historic setting' .21 Granted, it is an institution. For an institution in the relevant sense
is 'a society or association for the [organisation or] promotion of some particular object [or
19
To adapt a referee's trenchant summary . For detail on some familiar anarchist reasons , see
Bumheim and above all Marshall.
20
Nonetheless practical revolutionary displacement of the state is not so remote as is generally
supposed.
21
Thus, Green p.61, who adds quite wrongly that Proudhon and his disciples do not see it that way
'but as an abstraction and aberration'.
�9
function]'. 22 Institutions include therefore the state, the central state. So it too is up for
reshaping, radical slimming, and possible removal in a concrete historical setting, such as late
twentieth century Australia. Whittling away the state means in tum dismantling corporate
capitalism, which now dwells in symbiosis with the bureaucratic state, and also much else,
often environmentally undesirable, that the state affords a supportive framework for and enables
to flourish.
Ideas and schemes for radical redesign are already available from rich anarchist and
socialist sources, those for g_reen design and reshaping from growing and diverse
environmental sources. In main part, then, radical ecoredesign is a matter of convivially
meeting (not joining) the two, an intersection that favours anarchist inputs. Something ofthe
sort has already been attempted, in an environmentally shallower way, in eco-anarchism, alias
social ecology, and in a deeper way, in deep-green social theory. 23 Moreover, it could be
attempted in other kinds of deeper green theory-itself really a plurality of theories, which
however does not itself force radical ecoredesign, though most variants would support it. Thus
Naess's "deep ecology" for example, which is not so far politically radical, only strongly
reformist, could (and should) be given a radical tum. 24
Concentrating upon the radical spread of deeper green theory does not preclude
concomitant reformist investigation and activity. Both sides of the green street should be
played. Reformist opportunities should of course be pursued-increme ntal change, social
engineering, greening bureaucrats, lobbying politicians, and like activity (but better really to cut
through much such pleading and obiesance and be rid of politicians and bureaucrats). There are
many reformist proposals being advanced for the greening of Australian federal institutionswith but few so far having much impact on practice. 25 Nonetheless, more limited, more
constrained, proposals of this sort certainly have a better chance of making a difference than
radical redesigns, regularly smartly dismissed as "unrealistic" or "utopian".26 No doubt the
22
Oxford English Dictionary, adapted. An institution is an organitution.
23
On social ecology, see Bookchin 90, and for information on deep-green social theory , see Sylvan
and Bennett 94 and Routleys 80.
24
As to the political character of deep ecology, and why it should be turned, see Sylvan and Bennett
94, where an expose of the political theory of Naess's ecosophy is presented.
25
There are many many narrower economic and technological proposals. One of the more interesting
wider proposals comes from an Opposition not noted for its green initiatives and commitments, for
an overseeing Department of Sustainable Development, a Department that could see to the
greening of all federal institutions.
26
Too smartly, as we argue elsewhere (e.g. Sylvan and Bennett 90).
�normal "reshaping institutions" investigations are rightly focussed upon institutional reform, not
upon revolutionary reshaping, where much freer scope for redesign is offered. However the
real possibility of radical change should not be excluded; green radicals should be prepared.
There have been various opportunities for revolutionary change in Australian history, the last
occurring, according to some historians, with the ignominious fall of the Whitlam government.
There may well be opportunities again both in the near and intermediate future, especially
should some solid work be put into propagating the prospect. In the near term there is
economic disarray, social fragmentation, and constitutional destabilization; in the longer term
increasing ecological problems and expanding eco-catastrophes loom.
Under present incremental reform and regression, for all th_e spasmodic environmental
rhetoric, comparatively little in the way of radical green change occurs or can be expected.
Witness, for comparison, the snail pace of the establishment movement towards a rather
minimal grey republicanism in Australia, or differently away from meeting carbon-reduction
commitments. It is increasingly doubtful, given prevailing responses to economic and other
difficulties, that present structural and systematic problems confronting Australia, for example,
will be satisfactorily addressed, environmental problems such as extensive and expanding land
and water degradation not least. Furthermore, under more incremental reform, the sorts of
problems concerning reorganising society in deeper green ways, problems that provide
subsequent topics, would likely noi arise. So in getting beyond more muddling along, do
imagine fairly free scope for institutional eco-redesign is somehow dispensed. One nice
corollary is that once it is worked out where to go organisationally, it is much easier to ascertain
how to arrive there.
3.
A basic problem of structure: central or decentralised organisation.
There are large and immediate advantages in pursuing a problem-oriented approach to
redesign. That approach, which will tend towards anarchoid outcomes, will be anarchistically
guided in this respect: Unless there is a genuine problem, already causing difficulties or
developing, nothing need be done; otherewise let things alone, let Being be. 27 On this non.:.
managerial low-work approach a good deal of structure presently inoperational, and of idle
regulation presently enacted, can be removed; organisational arrangements can be very
significantly down-sized.
The leading methodological idea is that enough relevant
(biodegradable) structure is introduced to resolve organisational problems, but not substantially
27
The non -prejudical term 'anarchoid' is deployed, not because what emerges will not be anarchistic
(as characterized in Marshall and in Sylvan 94), but because it departs from standard forms of
anarchism in significant respects, not least in planned political organization. In this exercise
organization is of the essence ..
�11
more. Organisationa l oversupply and waste is thus avoided. Moreover, much structure that
keeps so much environmenta lly destructive industry in business is likewise shed.
Among basic problems for deeper green theory are those of political reorganisation and so
of organisatior,,. Evidently institutions, and their types, are critical to such organisation. And a
major organisational problem for any putative green society concerns structure: to take a critical
case, whether society is centrally organised (concentrated, bureaucratised , hierarchical, largescale and so on) or decentralised (dispersed, non-hierarchic al, small-scale and supposedly
beautiful, and so on).
This focal problem, to centralise or not to centralise, is sometimes presented as a serious
dilemma for concerned green theorists. 28 The binary horns of this dilemma are respectively: on
the one horn, the pull ( or push) to localisation and regionalisatio n, to non-anonymo us smallscale low-impactin g environmenta lly-friendly arrangements , to diffusion of power and
dismantling of the incubus of a central state with its crippling costs and unfriendly practices; and
on the other horn, the need for continuing and further central income generation and welfare (re)distribution, central regulation and control, and the pressures to environmenta l reliance upon
and use of the central state. 29
The dilemma has been trenchantly posed as follows:
... the demands of the Greens sometimes appear contradictory, in seeking increasing
environmenta l regulation and welfare measures ... alongside a halt to industrial
expansion, the very source of income for the welfare state. Yet the expansion and
further centralization of the bureaucratic state apparatus is neither their overt goal nor
covert motivation. Quite the contrary. Their genuine long term vision is of a
decentralized , steady state society of self-sufficient, relationally autonomous (albeit
interlinked) regions. 30
As it happens, not only does the theoretical and utopian literature run both ways, towards
and away from centralisation , but so does practice and experience. As to theory,
anarchistically -inclined presentations tend to favour decentralisation, perhaps with some central
compensation through federation (thus recent Blueprints, ecotopias, and so on), whereas
socialistically -inclined presentations invariably opt for powerful central states (to control and
redistribute grander social programs, etc.). As to practice, there are local councils, community
organisations, residents' groups aiming to keep out, or to remove, the state-sponsore d nuclear
plants, toxic waste incinerators, waste dumps or super-highway s, on the one horn; and, on the
28
As by Michael Jacobs of The Green Economy, who has posed the problem sharply, as part of an
argument however for retaining the central state (and much of present status quo arrangements).
29
Environmental reasons for favouring small-scale bioregional organisation are nicely gathered in
McLaughlin, chapter I 0.
30
Fox, Ecopolitics III.
�12
other, central states blocking, modifying, or regulating local or regionally promoted schemes
for large dams (e.g. Tasmania's Franklin), forest exploitation, pulp mills, strip mining, and so
on .31
To some extent, the way the problem has often been re-presented, in terms of a dilemma
between top-down and bottom-up structure and power transmission, already points towards a
theoretical resolution: namely, both, or rather enough of both. But how is this combination to
be achieved? An answer does not fall out by pure reason, operating in isolation from other
problems. By taking advantage of information gathered from other connected problems, a
promising answer can be teased out. Neither standard socialism nor anarchism afford answers,
socialism because it leaves the central institution of state intact. But standard anarchism, much
more promising, does not resolve the problem either, because federation , as usually explained,
does not leave enough structure; it may not even concede sufficient power to delegates to
constrain exploitative local communities.
A solution to such dilemma lies through a combinational strategy, which includes partial
dissolution of the central state, into its actual organisational functions in each region. While
removing the state, itself source of several environmenta l and social problems, and its
concentration of power, invariably under environmenta lly unfriendly control, functional
dissolution nonetheless retains its apparently essential services, including (where necessary)
those of environmenta l regulation. Relevant continent-wid e functions would persist or be
introduced: for example, services controlling inflow into Australia of damaging forms and
materials such as toxic wastes and exotic pest species, or regulating outflow from Australia of
native wildlife and flora. In part, ecoregional functionalism offers a radical continuation of the
separation of powers of recent historical process, of church and state, legislature and executive,
and so forth. As these functions come to operate separately while remaining coordinated, so
would those functional arrangements and institutions dissolving the state.
It is a major illusion of modem political theory that a central state, ceded monopolies on
coercion, currency, taxation and so on, is necessary in order to secure adequate supply of
public goods, including public order and environmenta l regulation. To the contrary, the most
that appears required, the most that arguments would support, is some network of specific
organisations functioning to look after specific kinds of goods and services, those necessary for
this or that, that are not otherwise supplied. There is no inherent reason why communities
should not institute and regulate specialised bodies coordinated among themselves (by
negotiations or, failing that, through recognised arbitrators) to ensure the adequate maintenance
or production of various types of public goods, including control of damaging crime. Each
3I
Much turns on the exploitative character of certain local and regional communities, their get-richquick schemes, what they are prepared to do to survive in old or affluent ways, and so on .
�13
such institution could gain community standing from its support base, for instance through
achieving democraticall y-generated recognition. Such an institution would aim to secure
execution of its recommendat ions and decisions by sanctions and like admissible means, and in
doing this it could mobilize in co-operation with communities and with other recognised
institutions . There are many examples of such institutions operating successfully both
regionally and internationally; for instance, those for postal and communicational arrangements,
international sporting bodies, international academies and clubs, environmenta l and consumer
organizations.32
4.
Selecting satisfactory political arrangemen ts within the span of anarchoid
options.
Anarchoid options come in a wide variety of forms, including, among others, both right
leaning individualisti c or capitalistic varieties, and lef-leaning social or communitaria n
varieties.33 A suitably generous political pluralism will allow for all these form, while not
encouraging all, <:lS they are of very different merit. For example, some may be neglectful or
repressive of some of their inhabitants, or destructive of their environments; others, superior in
these coino-environmental regards, may not be. Dismantling or deconstructing a state does not,
on its own, make a sharp selection between alternatives. No doubt the hope is, what can be
striven for, that adequate design are sought and adequate selections inadmissible forms rapidly
perish. Those forms that are admissible can be ranked, for instance according to defeasible
criteria based upon "pillars" of German green movement such as environmenta l sensitivity,
democratic institutions, and nonviolent practices.
While right leaning anarchoid arrangements could in theory work (e.g. under what is
improbable, benevolent capitalists), they are unlikey to succeed in practice, for several reasons.
Consider to illustrate in outline, why that much promoted rightist form, market (or "liberal"
32
This passage borrows from the summary in Burnheim 86 p.221 of Burnheim 85. For much fuller
elaboration see Burnheim 85 and Sylvan 94.
The critical issue of funding administration, without a coercive location system, is also breached in
these places (and developed in Sylvan 96). The broad proposal is that low-cost administration ,
much of which would be volunteer, could be funded by rents (there would be no property in land
and resources), use charges, and fines .
33
There are many more varieties of political systems than much recent theory has cared to concede .
For example, to take right-leaning dimensions, all of individualism , market-organiza tion and
capitalism function substantially independently. There can be markets without capitalism
(characterised through opportunities to accumulate capital), and conversely, capitalism with free
mar1cet arrangements. And so on . Most historic and modern systems, upon which political theory
has tended inadmissilby to concentrate almost exclusively, are hybrid arrangements with mixes of
different elements drawn from both "left" and "right".
�14
capitalism is unlikely to serve. For one reasons an intrusive state is likely to emerge, with
standing state controlled and funded military and police forces to defend capitalist interests and
accommod ation, to protect private property, to uphold social in equalities, and to enforce
particular market and trade structures, with a substantial and heavy taxation system to fund
these forces and a correspond ing bureaucracy needed to administer and regulate these and other
institutions, such as those required to guarantee that capitalist liabilites are limited and to keep
markets (far from self-regulating) free and competitive. Not only are anarchoid conditions thus
violated, so are those for benign green socities. In normal practice, market capitalism tends to
be highly environmental exploitative, as modem history demonstrates all too plainly (plainly too
it is not alone in this propensity, so are other modern statist systems). Furthermor e, given the
sorts of humans and practices (including extravagen t consumptio n for all that can afford it)
these systems tend to elevate, exalt, encourage and some times even enforce, extensive
exploitation is to be expected, and liable to persist-wi thout further state interventio n to distort
"natural" capitalistic incentives and institutions, to limit practices on private property (thereby
altering the institution 34 ), to establish new mitoument s and commoditi es such as pollution
licences, green investment s and futures, and so forth. Even though a shallow greenness could
be sprayed upon parts of market capitalism (factoiries in fields, forest reserves retained for
tourists, etc.) and some green chowcase exhibits tacked on, environme ntal depth cannot.
Shallownes s is both an inevitable consequenc e of the justifying socio-econ omic theory, and
also an expected best outcome of practice.
Accordingl y in institutional design it is much more promising to look in democratic leftleaning directions. It would be rash to gamble upon any bright new clause of environme ntally
and socially benign market capitalism, which could in any event easily revert back to dark
industrial ages. Similar arguments to those sketched could be developed as regards centralised
socialism, especially as untempered by democratic procedures. While island communiti es of a
wide range of varieties are naturally not excluded under anarchoida l pluralism, brighter
continental prospects lie through modifications of democratic sociality, which appears to permit
much of what is sought in design.
Under duly decentralized social organization, each requisite function would be carried out
by some association of agents comprising operative and support staff (that is, as regards bare
formal structure, more or less as now, in institutions like department s and corporation s). For
direct accountability downwards , and also to ensure desirable separation and dilution of power,
upper operatives, those of a directing or steering committee (the nervous system of the
organisation), would be democratic ally selected (from a relevant lower level constituenc y, and
34
Infiltrated too is much mythology, including acclaimed environmenta l virtues of private property
and privatization generally .
�15
from the whole people of an ecoregion in case of a typical bottom level institution). Note well
that selection is not election: election is but one method of democratic selection, and often
enough not an altogether satisfactory method. The point of some sort of democratic selection,
as a guiding though not invariant rule, is manifold: it is in part to ensure due accountability, in
part to prevent unethical accumulation of power in special classes, and in part for reasons that
devolve from the very notion of democracy itself.
In brief, certain forms of democracy offer promising prospects for green reorganisation,
particularly within complementing left-leaning settings where those froms can function in
favour of sustainability. However even with an informed democracy in place, there are few
guarantees. Some structure, such as limited executive power separated from judicial and
administrative functions, needs to be set in place to block or retard worse eventualities (such as
mob actions, selection of tryants, mistreatment of noncitizens and so on). Even then several
thorny problems remain for any deeper green political theory.
5.
Problems of chauvinism and present-time bias in democratic political
institutions.
In modem usage of the motherhood term democracy, two main lines are visible: included
are not only forms of political organisation where 'power [is presumed to] reside in the people
as a whole, and is exercised either directly by them ... or by officers [selected] by them\ but
'often more vaguely denoting a social state in which all have equal rights, without hereditary or
arbitrary differences of rank or privilege' 35 . It is on the basis of this second line that the call for
democracy has operated to remove chauvinism and discrimination of a range of forms: against
unpropertied minorities, nonconformists, women, blacks, tribals, and so on. Even so pursuit
of the line, where successful, has not generally conferred adequate representation and rights on
several of these groups; but, more important, pursuit has stopped short in its inclusions at
certain humans, such as those granted citizenship-though relevant interests of many other
creatures and welfare of many of other items may be affected by what those citizens elect to do.
While democratic voters can perhaps be entrusted to take some account of those near and dear
(within remarkably sharp limits, as the situation of women in many regions still shows), such
as those deemed incompetent to vote: the young, deranged, and so on, much evidence reveals
that they cannot be relied for what is less near or dear (and indeed are easily herded into casting
their votes in accord with a shallow mercantilism). Consider what get left out , outcasts of even
perfect democratic control:-
35
Oxford English Dictionary entry 1, main entry. These two lines are by no means the only
distinctive lines now visible: increasingly conspicuous in calls for "democracy", notably in Asia,
are calls to freedom and rights: not merely for basic legal freedoms such as free assembly, fair
process and so on, but for freedom to access information (the "right to know" ).
�16
• spatially distant agents. For example, the interests of many humans outside USA are much
affected by practices of the US government, which however is outside their democratic reach.
• temporally distant agents. Since the past is past, it is future agents who would be affected,
often drastically affected, by present practices, that matter. Some way of taking due account of
future agents, their interests and welfare, is required, even under shallow long-term ecology,
that is under lighter green positions. Sustainable development has been regularly diverted
into--what is part of what it is about-such a way, an indirect and so far utterly ineffectual
way.36
Much more of importance is also excluded according to deep-green theory:
• creatures with interests, other than present human citizens, and
• items with welfare, but perhaps lacking interests. The category includes items with intrinsic
value, whose value can be effected, made to fare worse or better.
A major problem, little addressed, is how to take due account of such democraticall y
excludes. It is a problem especially for deeper green theories: that deep problem is, so to say,
how to obtain satisfactory representation of all that is of value in the natural world? That way of
putting it, while a little misleading, does point to a particular type of resolution.
Problems special to deep ecopolitical theory, include, that is, issues as to adequacy of
representation of items of value outside those humans that are represented, representation of
their interests, where they have them, of their welfare otherwise, of favourable conditions for
their sustenance, continuation and retention of value. Democracy of discussed modem sorts,
whether representative or participative, will not serve these purposes at all satisfactorily. For
instance, insofar as party-political representative democracies represent anything (even human
"bottom lines" as is sometimes erroneously supposed), they appear to represent primarily
interests of certain business-allied elites. Among the issues are of course those as to adequacy
of retention and protection of nonhuman items of intrinsic value, tropical forests and their
inhabitants and elements for instance.
As observed, there is really no organisationa l alternative to proceeding with and through
agents, preferably well-disposed and quality agents. It is hard to guarantee either politically.
As agents are but a subclass of what requires democratic representation and what should have
its welfare or interests considered, how are the rest to be taken care of satisfactorily? There are
significant older responses to like problems, through totems and taboos, guardians and
constraints. Looked at one way the problem repeats, more or less, a familiar problem: namely,
how in larger constituencies do decision-mak ing agents represent the whole mass of agents and
others in the constituency? A main democratic answer, designed to avoid many shortcomings
36
See Sylvan and Bennett 93.
�17
of alternatives, was: by representative means-only "representation" was almost never taken
seriously or literally enough. The sorts of considerations that made representation a promising
resolution make what is to be proposed-wh ere representation has, in any case, to be expanded
-also promising. A key principle is this: all relevant items are to be represented. Relevance
criteria enter importantly. Steering committees of lower level institutions among the main
decision-mak ing bodies should be appropriately representative of all items whose welfare is
affected by their decisions (principle of deepened demanarchy). Under more equitable
arrangements, then, some decision-engaged agents will have to be selected as representative of
relevant classes of excludeds. Electoral arrangements do not so readily allow for such;
sortition, well-designed selection by lot, does. 37 Of course, however good the selection
processes, however disinterested and well-intentioned the agents selected, some bias may
remain. Nonetheless prejudice and mal-treatment may be much reduced.
As already hinted, deepened representation is not the only promising resolution of the
present problem that might be tried. Another, which could be attempted either separately or
concurrently, operates through the directive of ecologically sustainable development, requiring
as a constraint, not only intergenerational equity but also preservation of items of ecological
value. 38 It might be suggested that such a directive be made mandatory, applying to all relevant
steering committees. But, as already evident, there <;1re severe obstacles to getting such a
directive properly implemented. (In present oligarchical circumstance s, even very dilute
versions are worth pressing for however, as they would offer definite improvements upon what
presently happens.)
6.
A fundamenta l dilemma for (deeper)-gre en organization democratic or
authoritaria n procedures?
There is strictly no logical space for a deeper green democracy, according to Saward for
one. For there is a clash, an essential tension, between democratic procedures and deeper green
values and commitments, notably to intrinsic values in nature. The main drift of the argument is
that green values, which are mandatory for deeper greens, require for their implementation antidemocratic, indeed authoritarian procedures; otherwise they cannot be guaranteed.
This nasty conundrum for green theory over democracy, which the theory typically
sponsors, is put in sharper form as follows :39
Democracy concerns procedures, environmentalism certain outcomes. What guarantee can
37
No doubt there are electoral approximations; e.g. candidates in separate classes for each category to
be represented.
38
For elaboration of this option, see Sylvan and Bennett 93 and its sequel.
39
Goodin, condensing Saward, p.168 .
�18
there be that the procedures will deliver the outcomes? What guarantee that democracy would
yield a way of protecting environments?
However the type of situation is worse than a matter of guarantess, which greens are not
really seeking and could not in general expect. (For here as almost everywhere else, things can
go wrong. Philosophy especially supplies few absolutes and little certainty.) It is a type of
situation, moreover, which effects not only environmentalism but any sort of social and other
amelioration, and even democracy itself. For democratic procedures may yield unsatisfactory
and even anti-democratic outcomes. Unfortunately there are few or no guarantees that
masitonous forms will eventuate or persist. Political history itself capiously illustrates that. But
ti can be argued theoretically. For example, succession of regimes must view (owing to finite
lifetimes, etc.), and in occasional transitions deterioration can occur; there are no effective
mechanisms that an exclude decline absolutely. Democratic procedures of certain sorts offer
better controls, and better prospects of satisfactory transition than most other available, but even
they afford no cast as on guantees of adequacy, and are beset by paradoxes of their own. In
inadequate democratic structure plausible scenarios are easily designed where just such
outcomes occur, for instance as in what has been called a "paradox of democracy" where a
constituency elects an anti-democratic tyrant. 40
A concerned attempt is made by Saward to mount a destructive version of such a paradox
against deep-green political theory (which he darkly calls 'dark green'). The version is based
upon holism and intrinsic value requirements, coupled with democratic demands, of deep green
theory . In clearest form, the version runs as follows:
Holism implies consistency or
compatibility. But intrinsic value maintenance and democracy are not compatible, under evident
conditions (e.g. democratic procedures result in diminution or destruction of intrinsic value).
Firstly, partial confirmation for this explication:
The green imperative contains a number of elements, variously economic,
political, social, geographical, religious, and so on. Its force comes partly
from the holism it embodies, and partly from its basis in the idea of the
'intrinsic value' of nature. Holism implies that the various elements which
make up the imperative are compatible. The elements of the imperative gain
their importance, and their links with each other, by being referable back to a
common, intrinsic value. It is at this point that we can pick up the position of
democracy or 'direct democracy' in lists of basic values set out by greens.
These goals are the elements of the overall green imperative, and gain their
importance from both the holistic nature and intrinsic merit of the values
which the imperative represents. 41
40
Such paradoxes of democracy, and variants thereupon, are presented trenchantly by Popper, and
nullified in Sylvan and Bennett 90. Improved structures can much reduce the likelihood and
problematicness of paradoxical overturns.
41
Saward, paper version p.3 .; repeated p.5 .
�19
As should now be plain, and is becoming plainer, consistency is not an invariant desideratum,
and is not insisted upon; coherence is what is "implied" and what supersedes consistency .42 As
more than a century of Hegelian theory should have revealed, there can be inconsistent wholes.
A further key assumption in the argument is that guaranteeing that intrinsic value is
protected (or like absolutes sustained) will require undemocratic procedures, such as
authoritarian ones. An underlying assumption (soon to be rejected, e.g. as incorporating an
offensive false dichotomy) is that only undemocratic, authoritarian procedures fit with deeper
green imperatives or givens. 43 Several illustrations are offered of inconsistency of green
imperative_s with types of democratic procedures-none of which tell, without testing
adaptation, specifically against deeper green positions.
A first illustration is directed against Porritt:
A direct democratic procedure (is not) compatible with imperative goals like
' local production for local need', 'low consumption', 'labour-intensive
production' , and ' voluntary simplicity' (other items from Porritt's list). 44
Against this and other illustrations, it is worth emphasizing goals resemble objectives and
~argets; goals are goals which are not mandatory and by no means always achieved, especially if
the achievers, like present humans, fall short (e.g . irt ecological sensitivity) or their
organisational means and opportunities are inadequate. Observe the oppositional attempt, to
convert or to twist (since it is an up-grading by high redefinition), goals, programs , and
principles-through 'imperative goals' and the like-into 'imperatives', 'prescribed outcomes' ,
undeniable principles, ultimates. That attempt should be resisted.
A second example looks at an alleged
contradiction in the programme of the German Green Party. ' Grassroots
democracy' is one of the four 'basic principles' of the party's 'global
conception' . Another is the 'ecological': 'Proceeding from the laws of nature,
and especially from the knowledge that unlimited growth is impossible in a
limited system, and ecological policy means understanding ourselves and our
environment as part of nature'. In effect, this means that certain outcomes are
proscribed from decision-making procedures. Proscribed outcomes go well
beyond any plausible list of outcomes which must be proscribed in the
interests of defending a direct democratic decision procedure. Therefore,
there is a clear contradiction between elements of the value-set, whereas given
the holism the green imperative is based on we would have the right to expect
these goals and values to be_thoroughly compatible.4 5
42
See Priest and others.
43
Cf.p.12 essay.
44
[Reference]
45
[Reference]
�20
The last charge repeats the critical point already rejected, that holism implies consistency. A
further critical point should also be rejected: the flawed inference that 'certain outcomes are
proscribed' . A political party in a democratic system has to be prepared to see its principles,
however spendid, overridden, certainly by other parties if they gain or hold political power.
There is a misconception too about principles (especially higher level principles) and their roles:
' principles [too] can only be akin to [givens and] "laws of nature", against which democratic
procedures must inevitably be traded off the board'. Sets of principles, which may themselves
turn out to be inconsistent, are hardly akin to natural laws; consider for instance reasons for
their revision, procedures for rechecking and revision, and so on. In any case, democratic
procedures are not traded away against laws of nature, which they may try to upset or suppress.
(Rather effort should be directed at informing the electorate and the like).
To reinforce his case, Saward appeals to other authors who have advanced similar claims
(it is like appealing for confirmation of a newspaper report to other newspapers).
Frankel accuses Bahro of an 'anti-democratic' vision of an ecological society,
given that politics as conflict will have no place in a sea of 'givens'. He sees
the dilemma as being similar to that of socialists-de eming certain things as
desirable in an ultimate sense, but proclaiming attachment to democracy and
the diversity it implies. Ophuls has stated the matter especially clearly. · The
basic question about politics, he writes, is 'Is the way we organize our
communal life and rule ourselves compatible with ecological imperatives and
other natural laws? ... how we run our lives will be increasingly determined
by ecological imperatives' 46
In an ecological society, enough of the demos (members of democratic constituency) will hold
ecological attitudes and vote or select accordingly, almost by definition. Problems of effecting
change lie with unecological communities, which may not support ecological principles under
instituted democratic procedures (as presently in many places) . Principles, and ecological
"givens", stand, they remain 'desirable in an ultimate sense', but they are not followed and
implemented, while revealed democratic preferences go unchanged. There need be no 'antidemocratic vision', but rather an unecological praxis, which principled greens will work to
change.
The route is accordingly barred to Sayward's
important conclusions ... : that at best direct democracy, and for that matter
indirect forms of democracy, can only be at or near the bottom of value-lists
of greens. A commitment to democracy must clash with values that are
inherent to ecologism-a nd ecologism is about inherency, intrinsic values,
laws of nature and holism. Things-like democracy-t hat can only have
instrumental value must lose out to imperatives backed by inescapable
canonical force.47
·
46
47
�..
·-
·----------- ------ - - - - - - - - - - - -- ------
21
What Saward proposes instead is depressing ly familiar: pragmatism , jettison intrinsic value.
Out therewith go deep-green positions .
... greens should not think in terms of green imperatives . Indeed, it suggests
that to think in terms of imperative s based on arguments about intrinsic merit
is unjustifiabl e.48
Fortunately the argument developed does not sustain the proposals. There is, to iterate a
central point, no internal or latent contradicti on between (deep-)gree n policy objectives and
democratic procedures . Rather, green objectives would fail to be achieved without welldisposed decision makers, who may not straightforwardly reflect any "will" of the demos. A
logical requiremen t on a realistic set of political objectives is that there are accessible
circumstan ces where they are realisable, where all elements of the whole would obtain. It
should not be required that there are are no situations where they may conflict, become
inconsisten t. It is certainly not required that they are realised, by whatever means. A
community , as variously represented , can choose better or worse. There are many means
available, which it may shun (again there are no absolute guarantees) , enabling it to choose
better, including improved structures, attitudinal change and consciousn ess raising; and so on.
In the end Saward too recognises the popular power of attitudinal change, thereby
removing himself his previous loading of authoritarian means upon greens. There
needs, from a green perspectiv e [and others], to be a change in political
culture such that it will be compatible with sustainability. This, of course, is a
familiar theme from green writing. How[?] ... It can only be the case that
'political change will ony occur once people think differently or, more
particularly, that sustainable living must be prefaced by sustainable thinking' .
By abandoning foundation alist myths of intrinsic merit, greens abandon the
implicit arrogance that have made democracy such a tenuous part of green
political theory. 49
But he overstates the attitudinal point, with 'only ... the case'. People can be politically led
(retardation , however, as distinct from genuine advancement, is a familiar phenomena ); they
could just elect a green governmen t which instituted, under permissible democratic methods,
sustainable living or the like. Worse still, his final ungrammatical sentence is a complete non48
Of course it is now put in terms of "imperatives "; it would be better expressed in terms of
principles, policy objectives or the like.
Opposition to deeper green political approaches often derives, as in Saward and in Goodin, from a
underlying shallow utilitarianism . The differences concern not only depth, but the rejection of
individual interest bases, in favour of welfare bases and holism in deeper approaches.
49
[Ref. and page] There are further defects in this passage than those noted in the text. For one,
admission of intrinsic merit does not entail foundationalism. For another, such recognition of
merit, which is less liable to disturb democracy, or render it tenuous, than adherence to
Christianity, need caary no tinges of arrogance; to the contrary, by contrast with humanism it may
yield a certain humbleness.
�22
sequitur. Attitudinal change may including coming to appreciate intrinsic merit in natural things
other than humans.
7.
Ecoregio nal demanar choid reshaping of Australi an political institutio ns: one
beginni ng.
Is such a radical restructur ing as that suggested feasible? Initial investiga tions hold out
the hope that major problems for deeper green theory can be solved, at least in theory.
Investigations according ly suggest that the project within the Reshaping Australia n Institutions
project is viable and worth pursuing. A logical next stage offers sketches for a radical political
reorganisation of Australia. 50 Evidently there would be many designs (thereby removing facile
jeers against "the blueprint ", a part of co-optative strategy for persistence with prevailing statist
arrangem ents). Among the many designs, some few, conformi ng to favoured principles,
would be selected for detailed study. If the study were attempted, most appropria tely through
systems modelling s, then flexibility could be built into modellings, so that even though only a
few basic designs were examined , many variations would be feasible. Not only is systems
modelling particular ly well suited to modelling network designs; it also further offers prospects
for computin g simulatio n and impleme ntation, and even some simulate d political
experime ntation. Furtherm ore, such modelling s begin to give some grasp on the size and
complexi ty of the task (a useful comparison is with World 3 modelling of the on-going "Limits
to Growth" project 51 , or, better, with a regionalized version of it).
To get started on such ecoregional design, for Australia, two broad classifica tions and
associated maps and charts are required:
• 1. an ecoregional classification, with partitions and overlays, for Australia and its continental
shelf. Observe that this classifica tion would be hierarchi cal, as smaller regions merge into
larger regions; but it is a benign hierarchy of levels (it facilitates no accumula tion of power or
wealth) . Observe too that any such classification is far from unique. Plurality has already set
in, and a choice of classifica tion (or a few choices) would have to be made, taking due account
of political organisat ional principle s and objective s. Fortunate ly some of the prelimina ry
classifica tory work has already been accompli shed in Environm ental Regional isations of
Australia, where 3 broad classifications are presented and procedures for generatin g many more
50
Such design, well accomplish ed, would help considerab ly in revealing what is possible, thereby
providing a seriously neglected contribution to politics, itself sometimes presented, with undue
licence, as the art of the possible.
5I
See e.g. Meadows.
�23
given. 52 For political purposes further classification attributes (e.g. demog
raphic features) need
to be included.
Ecoregions provide the basis for spatially linked admin istrativ e and
comm unity units.
(Not all units need be of this sort; many contemporary arrangements
are spatially unlinked). At
this stage a basic principle of decentralization and distributed and smalle
r-scale organization can
be invoked, namely
• subsidiarization: organisational functions should be allowed to fall
down to (or to be pushed
down to) the lowest level compatible with their satisfactory performance
. Thus, for instance,
most matters concerning such things as sewerage and primar y educat
ion would be localized.
This subsidiarization principle, drawn from classical anarchism, has
been widely adopted in
green planni ng propo sals. (It is said to have been applie d by
the Catho lic Churc h in
admin istratio n of the Holy Roman Empire, whenc e the not altoge
ther apt title derives. It is
presently being reassessed for use in that successor organisation , united
Europe.) No doubt the
principle is open to challenge, for instance on grounds of efficiency,
that larger size may prove
more efficie nt, of duplic ation, and so on. But, the object ive
is not maxim ization of
technological values such as efficiency factors; instead it aims to satisiz
e on a wider framework
of values , including holistic social arrangements. Presum ably, howev
er, undue duplication of
expensive administrative bodies is to be avoided.
Coupled with subidiarization is another principle,
• direct accountability downwards: units should answer directly to region
al constituencies. This
contra sts with prevailing accountability (such as it is) upwar ds, throug
h some indirect and
tenuou s , centra lized circui ting chain. Natura lly much more gets
compr ehend ed under
accountability , for instance openness of environmental accounting.
There are also principles interrelating smaller with larger regions, both
bottom-up and topdown (or centre down) principles. Among these will be
• repres entatio n of smalle r regions in relevant planni ng institutions
of more compr ehensi ve
region s . Representation, appropriately regulated, would often replac
e anarchistic federation,
which as observed appears too weak for requisite environmental contro
l.
The point needs no labouring that the classifications and principles are
open to challenge
at every step; for instance, there is nothing rock-hard about the type of
ecoregional classification
prefer red, nor about social functio ns to be addres sed. At a
theore tical stage that is
unproblematic: there are other (less preferable) models; elaborate your
own if you want to and
can. In any case, it is to be hoped that a diversity in theory might be
to some extent reflected in
some diversity in practi ce-wi th different regions and continents trying
different arrangements,
52
See Thackway and Cresswell. Rudiments of a politically useful classific
ation begin to emerge on
their 30 Group Regionalisation .
�24
with much less of the sort of cosmopo litan political monocult ure that we are presently being
harassed toward, with much more resilient political biodiversity. Of course, not all political
forms (includin g stateless types) are equally desirable or satisfactory, and some (includin g
present state examples) are inaccepta ble. So there are bounds open diversity. Moreove r, what
suits one communi ty or region well may not suit another to be satisfactory for it. So too there
are limits open successful transfer of organisational structure; what works .in one region may
require much modification in another, or may substantially resist transfer.
Structural diagram :
Schematic diagram of organisation structur e
(with some sample components indicated, but not all their network interlinkages displayed)
statistics
bureau
upper levels:
administrative,
executive,
research
ground level:
functional
inflow
control
materials
selectoral
college
Australian
region
(federal)
immigratio n
sup_erreg10ns
(a to k)
interregional
transport, etc.
upper
levels
arbitration
bureau
resources
income
office
ground
level
(local)
regions
(1 ton)
water
systems
rental
entitlements
office
hospital
systems
region 1
sewer
systems
reg10n n
�25
• 2 a social function classification, of those community matters that require explicit organisa
tion
at some level. An initial listing can be compiled by consulting Australian metropolitan telephon
e
directories, especially the government sections that used to feature in the front (until a year
ago).
What results under redesign and reorganisation would, of course, look very different from
what
is listed. Parliaments, parties and all their supporting apparatus would vanish; the Australi
an
Bureau of Statistic s will assume a new significance and indepen dent role, and so on.
But
which instituti ons are retained, which adapted, and so on, would depend on further
social
organisa tional features, not yet considered here. The result would be a levelled pyramid
al
structure, a flat-untopped network as depicted in the structural diagram below, not a
power
hierarchy.
While some requisite research has been undertaken .upon how the various functional
bodies and decision -making committees can be selected and can operate 53, insuffic
ient
investig ation has been made of the interrelations and adequate fundings of the bodies
and
institutions involve d - whichever they are! For little such detailed anarchoid modellin
g has
apparen tly been attempt ed for any region anywhere. Evident ly there is much to be
done
theoretically. Detailed modellings could bring issues down to earth, without setting things
in
concrete; no doubt too they would disclose many further problems hidden in the detailing
,
problems to which anarchoid solutions can however reasonably be expected.
Noneth eless compar atively little is likely to be done, unless requisit e support is
forthcom ing, support in the shape of researchers (researc h volunte ers and students
) and
research infrastr ucture (from research, donatio ns and the like). For such support,
for
investigating its own demise, a state is hardly likely knowingly to supply; nor are its establish
ed
research institutions. Insofar then as it is done visibly, it will probably have to be accompl
ished
largely outside state-supported and state-supporting infrastructure, such as prominent universi
ty
projects. (like Reshaping Australian Institutions). Fortunately there are now other structure
s,
such as internet and radio channels, that can facilitate interconnections and interchanges
of
researches, both regionally and internationally. On these sorts anarcho id communicationa
l
bases, networks of groups interested in elaborating such alternative political modellings,
both in
theory and in practice , could be formed. Given the dismal state of present politica
l
arrange ments, almost everywhere terrestial, there is a great need, as a very minimu
m, for
networks of innovative researchers who chose such goals. 54
53
Thus e.g. Burnheim 85. The present article is not only heavily indebted to Burnheim
's work, but
overlaps on-going investigations on his part.
54
To echo one referee. My sincere thanks to demandin g referees for several helpful suggestio
ns and
many improvem ents.
�26
Richard Sylvan*
Refer ences .
Bello, W., Dark Victory, Pluto Press, Londo n, 1994.
Bookc hin, M., Remaking Society: Pathw ays to a Green Futur
e, South End Press,
Boston , 1990.
Bumh eim, J., Is Democracy Possible?, Polity Press, Cambr idge,
1985.
Burnh eim, J., 'Demo cracy, nation states and the world
system
Democracy. (ed. D. Held and C. Pollit t) Londo n, Sage, 1986, pp.218 ', New Form s of
-239.
Ul.rh2r) A
Fox, W. , in Ecopolitics III, Hamil ton, New Zealan d.
Goodi n, R., Green Political Theory, Polity Press, Cambr idge,
1992.
Green , G., The New Radicalism: Anarchist or Marxist?, Intern
ationa l Publis hers, New
York, 1971.
Jacobs , M., The Green Economy: enviro nmen t, sustainable
development, and the
politics of the future., Pluto Press, Conco rd, Mass, 1991.
Macka y, H., Reinventing Australia: the mind and mood
of Australia in the 90s,
Hugh Macka y, Pymbl e, NSW, Angus & Rober tson, 1993.
Macph ee, I., 'A new constitution?' (excer pts from an openin g addres
s) NILEFA Newsletter,
Griffith Unive rsity Schoo l of Law, June 1993.
Marsh all, P., Dema nding the Impossible: a history of anarc
hism, Londo n, Harpe r
Collins 1992.
Mc Laugh lin, A., Regarding Nature, SUNY Press, Alban y NY.,
1993.
Meado ws D., and others , Beyond the Limits, Chesle y Green, Vermo
nt, 1992.
Naess , A., Ecolo gy, comm unity and lifesty le (trans. and
ed. D. Rothe nberg ),
Cambr idge Unive rsity Press, Cambridge, 1989.
Pontin g, C., A Green History of the World, Sincla ir-Stev enson,
Londo n, 1991.
Priest, G., Routle y, R. and Norma n, J. (eds), Paraconsistent Logic
, Philos ophia Verlag ,
Munic h, 1989.
Routle y, V. and R., 'Socia l theorie s, self manag ement and enviro
nment
al proble ms', in
Environmental Philosophy (ed. D Mann ison and others ), RSSS,
Austra
lian Nation al
University,
1980.
*
where is it
�"
.
\)ot:;::,o
27
~\)--:, \\-'
Saward, M., 'Green. Democ racy', in Politics f Natur~ op cit, pp.
~~~ J..-.'->~f\,
l(;
~ '5:>
r 1\J
'
' .
b3 - 'S/J
L , £_? ~ J?_
\._\J.. cfr
\~~ 2
~"\,o (')roN
CrlL~ rv fbltf ~~L, H-iof2 v-
Sylvan, R. and Bennet t, D., Utopias, Tao and Deep Ecology, Green
Series , RSSS,
Australian National University, 1990.
Sylvan, R. and Bennet t, D., The Greening of Ethics, White Horse Press,
Cambridge,
1994.
Sylvan, R., 'Anarc hism\ in Contemporary Political Theory (ed. R. Goodin
and P.Pettit)
Blackwell, Oxford, 1993.
Sylvan, R., Deep Plurallism, University of Edinburgh Press, 1994.
Sylvan, R., Green Anarchism, to appear, 1996.
Thackw ay, R. and Cressw ell, I.D., Enviro nment al Regionalisations
of Austra lia,
Enviro nmenta l Resour ces Information Network, Australian Nation al Parks
and Wildlife
Service, 1992.
Tynan, L., The Institute of Advanced Studies, The Australian National Univer
sity, May
1993.
�The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions.
Letter, Thomas V. Cahill, Editor, Department of Politics and International Relations, Lancaster
University to Richard Sylvan, 18 May 1994 re feedback from referees on paper by Sylvan for
Anarchist Studies (1 page)
�ABSTRACT OF
PROBLEMS and SOLUTIONS in DEEP ECOPOLITICAL THEORY
A reshaping of social and political institutions, which are often outmoded or suboptimal
and certainly commonly anti-environmental, is now prominent on theoretical agendas, at least in
Australia. One such project is the multi-million dollar "Reshaping Australian Institutions"
project at the Australian National University.
At the same time there is widespread
disenchantment with prevailing politics in Australia. Accordingly there is an opportunity to put
radical green themes on agendas for real political and institutional change.
A deep change, however, which is what deep green theories require, encounters several
problems. For one, there appears to be a contradiction between demands for, on the one side,
increasing environmental regulations and welfare arrangements, characteristically dependent
upon bureaurcratic centralisation and economic growth, and on the other, decentralized lower
impact organisation, which halts anti-environmentally industry and economic growth. A
functional resolution, partially dissolving a central state, is outlined, along with a theory of
encephaletic organisation.
Further problems to surmount include human chauvinism and present-time bias, even in
present "best practice" democratic institutions. Deep demarchoidal resolutions of these
problems are sketched and defended.
R. Sylvan
RMB 683
Bungendore Australia 2621
f0J.._/ ,C. #--0/'...__~,_,k_J ver.r~
~
-;-
I
c}~J
,h,,z'7
-?<
�ABSTRACT OF
PROBLEMS and SOLUTIONS in DEEP ECOPOLITICAL THEORY
A reshaping of social and political institutions, which are often outmoded or suboptimal
and certainly commonly anti-environmental, is now prominent on theoretical agendas, at least in
Australia. One such project is the multi-million dollar "Reshaping Australian Institutions"
project at the Australian National University. At the same time there is widespread
disenchantment with prevailing politics in Australia. Accordingly there is an opportunity to put
radical green themes on agendas for real political and institutional change.
A deep change, however, which is what deep green theories require, encounters several
problems. For one, there appears to be a contradiction between demands for, on the one side,
increasing environmental regulations and welfare arrangements, characteristically dependent
upon bureaurcratic centralisation and economic growth, and on the other, decentralized lower
impact organisation, which halts anti-environmentally industry and economic growth. A
functional resolution, partially dissolving a central state, is outlined, along with a theory of
encephaletic organisation.
Further problems to surmount include human chauvinism and present-time bias, even in
present ."best practice" democratic institutions. Deep demarchoidal resolutions of these
problems are sketched and defended.
R. Sylvan
RMB 683
Bungendore Australia 2621
�
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·*' . ~":'"
mw
10.4.95
PROBLEMS IN DEEPER GREEN POLITICAL
ORGANIZATION THEORY:
an Australi an perspective on radical institutio nal change .
.. . people are ready for change and the impending debate will result m
constitutional change. We should, therefore, explore all options .... 1
As elsewhere, there is growing dissatisfaction with Australia's political institutions, and
increasing demand to change them. This demand, hiding co-optative elements, has been
initiated and fostered in a conspicuously top-down fashion, by politicians and by academics.
There is so far little surge of political enterprise at grass-roots levels, little pressure for the
usually very limited changes proposed. Nonetheless, along with apathy, there is widespread
popular disenchant ment with present political arrangements. There is now an opportunity
(although still only a small window therefore no doubt) to put green and radical themes on the
agenda for real political change in Australia. That opportunity should not be missed, within
Australia, or elsewhere. While the exposition that follows concentrates upon Australia, as a
convenient advanced example, much of what is argued and urged applies or adapts elsewhere.
Disenchan tment with politics, and political proposals for change.
There is now evident in Australia, what is variously described as disillusionment and
anxiety, cynicism and pessimism about the state of politics-a loss of confidence in it, and a
retreat from commitment. As much and more, Mackay has nicely exposed in a survey of the
Australian situation:
. anxiety about the nature and quality of Australian politics [has] increased. . ..
Widesprea d anxiety about the state of politics is based [in part] on an uneasy feeling
that, if the parties are not going to stand for some identifiable philosophy, and the
leaders are going to be chosen on the basis of their potential as television performers
or even as head-kickers, then the only appropriate response is cynicism.
That cynicism is reflected in a turning away from support for the major parties ... and
revealed in the attitudes of young Australians ... 2
who often cannot be bothered registering to vote, or voting. (though voting is legally
compulsory).
Lack of confidence is beginning to show not only as cynicism about politicians, but
also as doubt about the integrity of Australia's political institutions .3
1.
Hon . Ian Macphee, ' A new constitution? '. Of course Macphee did not really mean all options, nor
even all constitutiona l options. Furthermore, his claim about preparedness of people for change is
incompatible with Mackey's data (mentioned below) on exhaustion with change.
2
Mackay pp.174-177. For all the Australian casualness of Mackay's presentation, his sociological
findings are nonetheless fairly solidly survey and interview based (if occasionally stretching the
data). Plain findings are replicated by other socialogists.
3
Ibid. p.178
2
In a recent survey, '62 percent of [Australians] expressed either little or no confidence in the
political system. Such a figure accurately reflects the mood of the Australian community' .4
Australian loss of faith in conventional politics is attributed to a mix of factors. A first
explanator y factor as regards this disenchantment comes from the changes in politics already
remarked (ranging from policy issues to media performers) and from resultant uncertainty. ' ...
the Australian electorate is confused about which party stands for what, and about whether any
party has a long-term commitment to any particular point of view' .5
A complex 'second factor ... concerns the adversaria l nature of two-party politics' .6
How can this 'two party, adversarial approach ... continue to be appropriate when the
distinctions between the two parties themselves are so hard to define'? But 'reµefinition of
party politics implies the possibility of a redefinition of the whole parliamentary process itself .
Why 'when parties seem quite capable of stealing each other's policies or of invading each
other's traditional philosophical territory, [can not] politicians work together in a more cooperative and harmonious spirit' ?7 'Adversarial politics may have made sense ... when .. .
distinction s between the parties were stark and when arguments about principle could be
justified; today, the idea that politicians would be arguing over a point of principle or
philosophy is almost unthinkable .... [They] are much more likely to be arguing over matters of
personality, prejudice and power than over issues which effect the long-term health of the body
politic' .8
'The quality of parliamentary debate is regarded not only as a symptom of the
adversarial nature of the institution, but also as a symptom either of the poor quality of
politicians ... , or of the effect of the system on those who are enmeshed in it' .9 Unless there is
marked improvement in party philosophies, programs and performance, 'the call to re-examine
the nature of the parliamentary process will gather momentum ' .10
4
Ibid.
5
Ibid. pp.178-179.
6
Ibid. The adversarial character of dominant State legal systems is also becoming subject to more
and more criticism. It appears likely that significant movement towards different inquiratorial
systems will occur, not least because of the huge expense and growing unaffordabili ty of
adversarial systems.
7
Ibid.
8
Ibid. p. 180.
9
Ibid. p.179. It is a symptom of both, the latter especially.
lO
Ibid . p. 181 .
3
A third relevant factor contributing to loss of faith is the impression of Australians that
'they are overgoverned ' 11 , with too many expensive bureaucracies and too many houses of
parliament.
Conflicts between State and Federal parliaments - and between the various State
parliaments themselves - are regarded as a particularly unproductive expenditure of
political energy, and Australians question whether 15 houses of parliament may be
too many for the efficient government of 18 million people. The sheer number of
parliaments is often blamed for the problem of too many bureaucracies and for many
duplications of bureaucratic and political activity between State and Federal ·
governments.
... Whilst there is little love felt in the Australian community for Canberra and for the
idea of more centralised government even that is beginning to appear preferable ... .
The widespread support for the idea of a republic which emerged during 1992 is
closely related to the underlying sense that Australia is overdue for _some kind of
reexamination of its political institutions, and even the notion of Federation itself. ...
As debate about the idea of a republic proceeds ... it has begun to incorporate the idea
that Australian's political structures and systems might be quite significantly
reformed. 12
Such diseffection reflects too a growing awareness that Australia's political arrangements
owe more to historical accident than to rational design. Even though the main proposals for
change no doubt remain reformist in character and could lead in unfortunate directions, some of
them are far-reaching by normal standards. Both the extensive disenchantme nt with present
political arrangements and the felt need for significant change further suggest political times are
not altogether normal. Elements underpinning a political paradigm shift are already present, as
are features supporting rational redesign, to which radical additions are now feasible.
So far there have been, along with normal inertial resistance to change, two main
responses to growing pressure for change: political, from politicians, ex-politicians and political
commentator s , and academic from intellectuals, academic entrepreneurs and academic
journalists. By and large, political responses have been grander, more sweeping and vaguer;
academic responses more theoretical and cautious, piecemeal and detailed. But there are no
grand detailed plans.
Under the leading proposal so far for political change, Australia's constitutiona l
monarchy will be displaced by a constitutional republic with its own head of state displacing the
monarch, but with perhaps minimal adjustments otherwise. Nonetheless , as a result ,
republicanism is in the air. Politicians have begun to contemplate other practical reforms, while
11
Ibid. p. 181 , itals added.
12
Ibid. p.181 -2. Republican proposals have been circulating for some time . But the cause was
finally taken up by prominent politicians, who made it their own, after which it became a popular
issue. Mackay's accurate presentation of popular support for political change contrasts drolly with
the first part of his book which depicts an Australian populace exhausted by change and longing for
the old ease and somnolence.
4
academics have begun to embroider theories around republicanism and institutional reform.
What happens to the Australian federation of states is one of the many unresolved issues
presently being debated.
The main reason for reform offered by the political camp can be summed up simply as
changing geopolitica l circumstances. The camp tends not to acknowledge what would reflect
adversely upon it, the poorness of federal political practice. Rather it tends to attribute popular
dissatisfaction to economic circumstances and uncertainties: declining real standards of living,
extensive unemploym ent, persistent recession until recently, problems to be surmounted by
full-steam ahead untrammelled economic growth, to be attained by recoupling Australia to the
Asian economic express. Meanwhile an orchestrated republican movement can help divert
popular political attention from poor political management and a gloomy economic predicament.
Much has changed in the century since present antiquated political arrangements were
hammered out, arrangeme nts making the newly-fashioned .Commonw ealth of Australia,
politically a federation of states, into a constitutional monarchy coupled to Britain, arrangements
of convenience fashioned for very different circumstances. Most non-symbolic linkages with
Britain, which has been inching towards a place in a united Europe, have already been severed.
Australia has gradually begun to appreciate its geo-political position in the Indian-Pacific region
(and the money-ma king opportunities for a sagging resource-based economy in allegedly
booming parts of Asia). Whence the main idealistic proposal: for an independent republic,
decoupled from Europe, assuming its own (prominent) place in its geo-political regions. In
principle at least, place and region begin to assume, or resume, some of their neglected, but
historic, significance (however that is not how it is yet seen).
Most proposals for constitutional and federal reform fit within that limited idealistic
conception. One important proposal, advanced by established political players, their most
radical proposal so far, includes abolition of the present states. Such a proposal would clearly
represent a welcome step in anarchist directi<;ms, were it not regularly offset by the idea of a
strengthened central state.13 Supposing this latter unfortunate idea is bracketed for the moment,
then what is being seriously considered already starts to look like a much more rational
regionalism than what presently prevails.
The present states of Australia are undoubtedly an anachronis m, based on accidental
boundaries of a contingent colonial history. They are ecologically irrational management units,
utterly failing to reflect ecological regions. Yet the states possess extensive environmental and
other manageme nt powers, inappropriate 'powers which derive from what was largely a
political bargaining process conducted a century ago.' Another effect of inapposite state-federal
13
Anarchists can even rest (if uneasily) with a con stitution , so long as it provides for an
organisation, Australia Inc . even, sufficiently different from a state and its authoritarian trappings.
5
arrangements, especially 'funding arrangements, has been to lock out local government and,
more importantly, local communities . ... local communities must be given greater control over
those decisions of government which effect their lives ... '; the opportunity 'to design and
provide the services which are needed locally.' 14
At this stage of the dialectic McPhee slides easily and naturally from localism to
regionalism.
A glance at the map reveals natural regions for local government on a viable scale [an
optimistic contention]. Some cross State boundaries, and I would envisage that State
governments would be replaced with regional governments. These would be more
akin to larger local governments and would certainly not have the trappings of the
States. They should not have parliaments and the expensive, unwieldy and inefficient
bureaucracies which characterise our States. They should have a small number of
full-time councillors. .. Regional governments should be solely accountable to their
ratepayers ... 15 .
So far so good: however McPhee thereupon begins to infiltrate stock (small /) ·liberal
management assumptions. Nonetheless the basic idea to retain is simple: that of ecologicallyrational local and regional rearrangemen t of anachronistic state partitions. But that
regionalizatio n should be greened, as reform should be radicalized. More generally,
opportunites now present themselves to inset more radical ideas throughout the debate about
Australia's future directions.
For much has been left off political agendas for change, not merely environments and
habitats of their less prominent or noisy inhabitants, but also such issues as rights and liberties,
transformation of antiquated legal and executive frameworks, and so on. Omission of (human)
rights is especially remarkable in states such as Australia, whose constitutions astonishingly do
not mention at all (what is however often supposed to justify states) individual rights, such
rights only being ensured, so far as they are, assumptions from uncodified common law, by
indirect routes (statutes regarding treatment of minorities and the like). Nor do the political
camps pushing limited change speak of rights or liberties; a very limited conception of
adjustments required prevails (though without rights and liberties and a generous public sphere
there is little, and little prospect of,justificatio n for a state at all). Accordingly political agendas
for change need to be conspicuously broadened, to accommodate a decidedly more ambitious
range of constitutional and institutional redesign.
2.
A project within a project: radically reshaping Australian institutions.
14
All quotes in this paragraph are drawn from McPhee. An address along similar lines to the Hon.
Ian McPhee, also proposing abolition of the states, was delivered by the former Prime Minister
R.G. Hawke. Hawke's speech, by contrast with McPhee's, attracted much media attention, and
though facilely dismissed as "unrealistic" by some practicing politicians , appeared to gain a good
deal of support.
I5
McPhee ibid.
6
Academic entrepreneurs have also responded quickly to proposals for constitutional and
institutional changes. Early to scramble on the bandwagon was the institution to which I am
affiliated, the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, with its
ambitious decade-lon g project, Reshaping Australian Institutions: Towards and Beyond
2001. 16 One. small part of this project does connect with the republican push, which no doubt
helped inspire it and gain its funding. The academic version of republicanism furnishes an
institutional and historic setting, tracing its roots back to ancient Rome, and thereby linking in,
what admits much modem adaptation, notions of citizenship and civic virtues. But most of the
project is independent of any republican reorganisation.
The Reshaping Australian Institutions project is presented in predominantly reformist
fashion, unsurprisingly. It is supposed, for instance, to 'provide major input into evaluation
and refonn of Australia's institutions'; indeed it is explicitly 'aimed at contributing to Australian
constitutio nal reform'. 17 Nothing however precludes considerat ion of reshaping or
transforming Australian institutions - those of the whole ecological region - in a unreformist
and possibly unconstitutional way, in a radical way.
Admittedly, the rough boundary between reformist and radical routes becomes even more
blurred when the constitution of a country is open for possible major reconsideration and much
political infrastructure may be altered. Nonetheless, from the perspective of a strong central
state, the stock. boundary stands intact. For reformist changes would amount to comparative
small adjustments leaving it substantially intact. For example, a minimal transformation, of the
sort presently much favoured, from constitutional monarchy to Australian republic, though
entailing non-negligible constitutional redrafting, need only amend the roles of a few elite
power- and position-holders. By contrast, radical changes would substantially alter that strong
central state, perhaps (as will be proposed) eliminating it altogether.
There are appealing reasons for attempting wider, more radical investigations. For,
firstly, there may be more satisfactory institutional structures not accessible, or even visible,
along normal constitutional reform routes. Secondly, there is a demand, a small but growing
16
A recent brief description of this two million dollar project, now outlined in several places, is
given in Tynan, pp.17-19. Fuller descriptions are available from a main coordinator of the project,
J. Braithwaite, Law, RSSS, ANU. One of the many strands (17 at last count) of this project is an
environmental (or green) strand.
The immediate predecessor of this article was presented in a workshop at RSSS on green political
theory , arranged under the project. That accounts for some of the otherwise puzzling structure of
what has eventuated. Another earlier version was tried out at Ecopolitics VIII, Pacific Visions,
held at Lincoln University, Christchurch, New Zealand, in July 1994.
17
' Reshaping Australian institutions : towards and beyond 200 l' in Tynan , p.17, italics added.
7
demand from green directions for instance, for radical institutional change. It would be
prudent, then, to make some investigation of the options, to assess their prospects. Thirdly,
reflection on such structures would certainly be part of a more comprehensive study of and
theory of institutional design, which the Reshaping project also presents as an objective.
Fourthly, much more controversially, major environmental problems cannot be satisfactorily
solved along merely reformist paths. For states, what are reformed, states themselves are
ecologically dysfunctional. In practice this appears obvious enough. Simply reflect upon their
environmental records; these are even worse than those abysmal records compiled for human
rights. But the practical case can be argued in detail in a state by state way, or less laboriously,
through the familiar rough classification of states into first, second and third world states. In
main third world regions, the rise of the state has seen the serious decline of environments.
Those third world states that have not largely destroyed their natural environments are in rapid
process of doing so. The activities involved are, furthermore, not merely tolerated by these
states but are usually actively encouraged (e.g. with state participation or by state concessions,
as through taxation advantages, subsidies, expert incentives, etc.). Further, the role of
exploitation and plunder of remaining natural "resources'', and depletion of "biological capital",
by third world states, most of which are now trapped in debt and structural adjustment, has
increased many-fold in the last two decades. How destructively second world states of eastern
Europe treated their own (and also other regions') environment, how they over-expoited and
polluted them, has recently been much publicized. While the recent record in first world states
is no doubt marginally better, many of these states dominated their natural environments and
their wild inhabitants in the past and have heavily polluted and exported their urban and
industrial regions. Nor does their present record gain an environmental pass. For example,
those that have any natural forests (similarly fisheries) left are in the process of eliminating or
degrading most what remains; most are failing seriously in meeting (their own) targets on
greenhouse emissions, and so on. More theoretically, it is unlikely that states, increasingly
focussed narrowly upon shallow economic agendas, will or can deliver satisfactorily
environmentally. A prime reason is this: states are ineluctably committed, more and more as
their populations expand, to high levels of economic activity characteristically to economic
growth of sorts which impact heavily environmentally, inducing inevitable degradation.18
Accordingly, there are then, or should be, two bands to any green (or environmental)
strand of a restructuring Australian institutions project: not merely an important reformist side,
18
This theme, that states are normally ecologically dysfunctional, is documented and argued in detail
elsewhere; see e.g. Carter and especially . Sylvan 96 . On the dismal environmental records of
particular states see Punting. For shocking figures and illustrations as regards environmental
exploitation of third world states, see Bolla, pp57-65 .
8
but as well a radical spread. It is part of this underfunded and undersupported radical spread
which forms the main object of investigation in what follows, that part that relinquishes present
state structures, in favour of more environmentally benign institutions - which no doubt can be
designed, even if not so readily brought to practical use. 19
In order to reach radical redesign ideas quickly, let us touch only lightly upon some of the
more distinctively green reasons for this anarchoid quest (familiar anarchist reasons stand: the
illegitimacy of present states, the undesirability and severe disutility of states, which typically
are highly destructive and corrosive institutions based on concetration of power, hierarchical
authority, massive coercion, manipulation by economic elites, technobureaucracy, utilitarian
rationality, and sundry other evils. 20) As 1ndicated, present states are incompatible with stock
ecologically sustainable practices, because of their heavy unrelenting commitments to shallow
economic growth. More generally, standard states and their practices comprise very significant
parts of environmental problems, but quite insufficient parts of any solutions. Moreover, states
constitute an enormous and destructive drain on regional environments, a feature particularly
evident in smaller states which are always looking out for revenue-raising expedients for their
.
.
own expensive runnmg.
Apart from those greens who have recognised the excessive environmental costs of states
and their heavy demands on environments, and thus or otherwise have come to recognise the
desirability of their withering away, there are many more who have become ambivalent about
states, who appreciate their very problematic character and very questionable legitimacy, but do
not see yet how to get along altogether without them, or more exactly (to point towards a partial
resolution) without certain functions that they serve. To point immediately towards a resolution
of this crucial problem, the functional dissolution idea advocated is this: that the functioning
parts may be separately utilized without the colossal whole. The state is not an organism the
functioning parts of which must fail without the whole. So it may well be the enormous fat of
state can simply be shed, to great advantage.
In any event, 'the State is a social institution', always 'within', Marxists continue, 'a
,concrete historic setting' .21 Granted, it is an institution. For an institution in the relevant sense
is 'a society or association for the [organisation or] promotion of some particular object [or
19
To adapt a referee's trenchant summary . For detail on some familiar anarchist reasons , see
Bumheim and above all Marshall.
20
Nonetheless practical revolutionary displacement of the state is not so remote as is generally
supposed.
21
Thus, Green p.61, who adds quite wrongly that Proudhon and his disciples do not see it that way
'but as an abstraction and aberration'.
9
function]'. 22 Institutions include therefore the state, the central state. So it too is up for
reshaping, radical slimming, and possible removal in a concrete historical setting, such as late
twentieth century Australia. Whittling away the state means in tum dismantling corporate
capitalism, which now dwells in symbiosis with the bureaucratic state, and also much else,
often environmentally undesirable, that the state affords a supportive framework for and enables
to flourish.
Ideas and schemes for radical redesign are already available from rich anarchist and
socialist sources, those for g_reen design and reshaping from growing and diverse
environmental sources. In main part, then, radical ecoredesign is a matter of convivially
meeting (not joining) the two, an intersection that favours anarchist inputs. Something ofthe
sort has already been attempted, in an environmentally shallower way, in eco-anarchism, alias
social ecology, and in a deeper way, in deep-green social theory. 23 Moreover, it could be
attempted in other kinds of deeper green theory-itself really a plurality of theories, which
however does not itself force radical ecoredesign, though most variants would support it. Thus
Naess's "deep ecology" for example, which is not so far politically radical, only strongly
reformist, could (and should) be given a radical tum. 24
Concentrating upon the radical spread of deeper green theory does not preclude
concomitant reformist investigation and activity. Both sides of the green street should be
played. Reformist opportunities should of course be pursued-increme ntal change, social
engineering, greening bureaucrats, lobbying politicians, and like activity (but better really to cut
through much such pleading and obiesance and be rid of politicians and bureaucrats). There are
many reformist proposals being advanced for the greening of Australian federal institutionswith but few so far having much impact on practice. 25 Nonetheless, more limited, more
constrained, proposals of this sort certainly have a better chance of making a difference than
radical redesigns, regularly smartly dismissed as "unrealistic" or "utopian".26 No doubt the
22
Oxford English Dictionary, adapted. An institution is an organitution.
23
On social ecology, see Bookchin 90, and for information on deep-green social theory , see Sylvan
and Bennett 94 and Routleys 80.
24
As to the political character of deep ecology, and why it should be turned, see Sylvan and Bennett
94, where an expose of the political theory of Naess's ecosophy is presented.
25
There are many many narrower economic and technological proposals. One of the more interesting
wider proposals comes from an Opposition not noted for its green initiatives and commitments, for
an overseeing Department of Sustainable Development, a Department that could see to the
greening of all federal institutions.
26
Too smartly, as we argue elsewhere (e.g. Sylvan and Bennett 90).
normal "reshaping institutions" investigations are rightly focussed upon institutional reform, not
upon revolutionary reshaping, where much freer scope for redesign is offered. However the
real possibility of radical change should not be excluded; green radicals should be prepared.
There have been various opportunities for revolutionary change in Australian history, the last
occurring, according to some historians, with the ignominious fall of the Whitlam government.
There may well be opportunities again both in the near and intermediate future, especially
should some solid work be put into propagating the prospect. In the near term there is
economic disarray, social fragmentation, and constitutional destabilization; in the longer term
increasing ecological problems and expanding eco-catastrophes loom.
Under present incremental reform and regression, for all th_e spasmodic environmental
rhetoric, comparatively little in the way of radical green change occurs or can be expected.
Witness, for comparison, the snail pace of the establishment movement towards a rather
minimal grey republicanism in Australia, or differently away from meeting carbon-reduction
commitments. It is increasingly doubtful, given prevailing responses to economic and other
difficulties, that present structural and systematic problems confronting Australia, for example,
will be satisfactorily addressed, environmental problems such as extensive and expanding land
and water degradation not least. Furthermore, under more incremental reform, the sorts of
problems concerning reorganising society in deeper green ways, problems that provide
subsequent topics, would likely noi arise. So in getting beyond more muddling along, do
imagine fairly free scope for institutional eco-redesign is somehow dispensed. One nice
corollary is that once it is worked out where to go organisationally, it is much easier to ascertain
how to arrive there.
3.
A basic problem of structure: central or decentralised organisation.
There are large and immediate advantages in pursuing a problem-oriented approach to
redesign. That approach, which will tend towards anarchoid outcomes, will be anarchistically
guided in this respect: Unless there is a genuine problem, already causing difficulties or
developing, nothing need be done; otherewise let things alone, let Being be. 27 On this non.:.
managerial low-work approach a good deal of structure presently inoperational, and of idle
regulation presently enacted, can be removed; organisational arrangements can be very
significantly down-sized.
The leading methodological idea is that enough relevant
(biodegradable) structure is introduced to resolve organisational problems, but not substantially
27
The non -prejudical term 'anarchoid' is deployed, not because what emerges will not be anarchistic
(as characterized in Marshall and in Sylvan 94), but because it departs from standard forms of
anarchism in significant respects, not least in planned political organization. In this exercise
organization is of the essence ..
11
more. Organisationa l oversupply and waste is thus avoided. Moreover, much structure that
keeps so much environmenta lly destructive industry in business is likewise shed.
Among basic problems for deeper green theory are those of political reorganisation and so
of organisatior,,. Evidently institutions, and their types, are critical to such organisation. And a
major organisational problem for any putative green society concerns structure: to take a critical
case, whether society is centrally organised (concentrated, bureaucratised , hierarchical, largescale and so on) or decentralised (dispersed, non-hierarchic al, small-scale and supposedly
beautiful, and so on).
This focal problem, to centralise or not to centralise, is sometimes presented as a serious
dilemma for concerned green theorists. 28 The binary horns of this dilemma are respectively: on
the one horn, the pull ( or push) to localisation and regionalisatio n, to non-anonymo us smallscale low-impactin g environmenta lly-friendly arrangements , to diffusion of power and
dismantling of the incubus of a central state with its crippling costs and unfriendly practices; and
on the other horn, the need for continuing and further central income generation and welfare (re)distribution, central regulation and control, and the pressures to environmenta l reliance upon
and use of the central state. 29
The dilemma has been trenchantly posed as follows:
... the demands of the Greens sometimes appear contradictory, in seeking increasing
environmenta l regulation and welfare measures ... alongside a halt to industrial
expansion, the very source of income for the welfare state. Yet the expansion and
further centralization of the bureaucratic state apparatus is neither their overt goal nor
covert motivation. Quite the contrary. Their genuine long term vision is of a
decentralized , steady state society of self-sufficient, relationally autonomous (albeit
interlinked) regions. 30
As it happens, not only does the theoretical and utopian literature run both ways, towards
and away from centralisation , but so does practice and experience. As to theory,
anarchistically -inclined presentations tend to favour decentralisation, perhaps with some central
compensation through federation (thus recent Blueprints, ecotopias, and so on), whereas
socialistically -inclined presentations invariably opt for powerful central states (to control and
redistribute grander social programs, etc.). As to practice, there are local councils, community
organisations, residents' groups aiming to keep out, or to remove, the state-sponsore d nuclear
plants, toxic waste incinerators, waste dumps or super-highway s, on the one horn; and, on the
28
As by Michael Jacobs of The Green Economy, who has posed the problem sharply, as part of an
argument however for retaining the central state (and much of present status quo arrangements).
29
Environmental reasons for favouring small-scale bioregional organisation are nicely gathered in
McLaughlin, chapter I 0.
30
Fox, Ecopolitics III.
12
other, central states blocking, modifying, or regulating local or regionally promoted schemes
for large dams (e.g. Tasmania's Franklin), forest exploitation, pulp mills, strip mining, and so
on .31
To some extent, the way the problem has often been re-presented, in terms of a dilemma
between top-down and bottom-up structure and power transmission, already points towards a
theoretical resolution: namely, both, or rather enough of both. But how is this combination to
be achieved? An answer does not fall out by pure reason, operating in isolation from other
problems. By taking advantage of information gathered from other connected problems, a
promising answer can be teased out. Neither standard socialism nor anarchism afford answers,
socialism because it leaves the central institution of state intact. But standard anarchism, much
more promising, does not resolve the problem either, because federation , as usually explained,
does not leave enough structure; it may not even concede sufficient power to delegates to
constrain exploitative local communities.
A solution to such dilemma lies through a combinational strategy, which includes partial
dissolution of the central state, into its actual organisational functions in each region. While
removing the state, itself source of several environmenta l and social problems, and its
concentration of power, invariably under environmenta lly unfriendly control, functional
dissolution nonetheless retains its apparently essential services, including (where necessary)
those of environmenta l regulation. Relevant continent-wid e functions would persist or be
introduced: for example, services controlling inflow into Australia of damaging forms and
materials such as toxic wastes and exotic pest species, or regulating outflow from Australia of
native wildlife and flora. In part, ecoregional functionalism offers a radical continuation of the
separation of powers of recent historical process, of church and state, legislature and executive,
and so forth. As these functions come to operate separately while remaining coordinated, so
would those functional arrangements and institutions dissolving the state.
It is a major illusion of modem political theory that a central state, ceded monopolies on
coercion, currency, taxation and so on, is necessary in order to secure adequate supply of
public goods, including public order and environmenta l regulation. To the contrary, the most
that appears required, the most that arguments would support, is some network of specific
organisations functioning to look after specific kinds of goods and services, those necessary for
this or that, that are not otherwise supplied. There is no inherent reason why communities
should not institute and regulate specialised bodies coordinated among themselves (by
negotiations or, failing that, through recognised arbitrators) to ensure the adequate maintenance
or production of various types of public goods, including control of damaging crime. Each
3I
Much turns on the exploitative character of certain local and regional communities, their get-richquick schemes, what they are prepared to do to survive in old or affluent ways, and so on .
13
such institution could gain community standing from its support base, for instance through
achieving democraticall y-generated recognition. Such an institution would aim to secure
execution of its recommendat ions and decisions by sanctions and like admissible means, and in
doing this it could mobilize in co-operation with communities and with other recognised
institutions . There are many examples of such institutions operating successfully both
regionally and internationally; for instance, those for postal and communicational arrangements,
international sporting bodies, international academies and clubs, environmenta l and consumer
organizations.32
4.
Selecting satisfactory political arrangemen ts within the span of anarchoid
options.
Anarchoid options come in a wide variety of forms, including, among others, both right
leaning individualisti c or capitalistic varieties, and lef-leaning social or communitaria n
varieties.33 A suitably generous political pluralism will allow for all these form, while not
encouraging all, <:lS they are of very different merit. For example, some may be neglectful or
repressive of some of their inhabitants, or destructive of their environments; others, superior in
these coino-environmental regards, may not be. Dismantling or deconstructing a state does not,
on its own, make a sharp selection between alternatives. No doubt the hope is, what can be
striven for, that adequate design are sought and adequate selections inadmissible forms rapidly
perish. Those forms that are admissible can be ranked, for instance according to defeasible
criteria based upon "pillars" of German green movement such as environmenta l sensitivity,
democratic institutions, and nonviolent practices.
While right leaning anarchoid arrangements could in theory work (e.g. under what is
improbable, benevolent capitalists), they are unlikey to succeed in practice, for several reasons.
Consider to illustrate in outline, why that much promoted rightist form, market (or "liberal"
32
This passage borrows from the summary in Burnheim 86 p.221 of Burnheim 85. For much fuller
elaboration see Burnheim 85 and Sylvan 94.
The critical issue of funding administration, without a coercive location system, is also breached in
these places (and developed in Sylvan 96). The broad proposal is that low-cost administration ,
much of which would be volunteer, could be funded by rents (there would be no property in land
and resources), use charges, and fines .
33
There are many more varieties of political systems than much recent theory has cared to concede .
For example, to take right-leaning dimensions, all of individualism , market-organiza tion and
capitalism function substantially independently. There can be markets without capitalism
(characterised through opportunities to accumulate capital), and conversely, capitalism with free
mar1cet arrangements. And so on . Most historic and modern systems, upon which political theory
has tended inadmissilby to concentrate almost exclusively, are hybrid arrangements with mixes of
different elements drawn from both "left" and "right".
14
capitalism is unlikely to serve. For one reasons an intrusive state is likely to emerge, with
standing state controlled and funded military and police forces to defend capitalist interests and
accommod ation, to protect private property, to uphold social in equalities, and to enforce
particular market and trade structures, with a substantial and heavy taxation system to fund
these forces and a correspond ing bureaucracy needed to administer and regulate these and other
institutions, such as those required to guarantee that capitalist liabilites are limited and to keep
markets (far from self-regulating) free and competitive. Not only are anarchoid conditions thus
violated, so are those for benign green socities. In normal practice, market capitalism tends to
be highly environmental exploitative, as modem history demonstrates all too plainly (plainly too
it is not alone in this propensity, so are other modern statist systems). Furthermor e, given the
sorts of humans and practices (including extravagen t consumptio n for all that can afford it)
these systems tend to elevate, exalt, encourage and some times even enforce, extensive
exploitation is to be expected, and liable to persist-wi thout further state interventio n to distort
"natural" capitalistic incentives and institutions, to limit practices on private property (thereby
altering the institution 34 ), to establish new mitoument s and commoditi es such as pollution
licences, green investment s and futures, and so forth. Even though a shallow greenness could
be sprayed upon parts of market capitalism (factoiries in fields, forest reserves retained for
tourists, etc.) and some green chowcase exhibits tacked on, environme ntal depth cannot.
Shallownes s is both an inevitable consequenc e of the justifying socio-econ omic theory, and
also an expected best outcome of practice.
Accordingl y in institutional design it is much more promising to look in democratic leftleaning directions. It would be rash to gamble upon any bright new clause of environme ntally
and socially benign market capitalism, which could in any event easily revert back to dark
industrial ages. Similar arguments to those sketched could be developed as regards centralised
socialism, especially as untempered by democratic procedures. While island communiti es of a
wide range of varieties are naturally not excluded under anarchoida l pluralism, brighter
continental prospects lie through modifications of democratic sociality, which appears to permit
much of what is sought in design.
Under duly decentralized social organization, each requisite function would be carried out
by some association of agents comprising operative and support staff (that is, as regards bare
formal structure, more or less as now, in institutions like department s and corporation s). For
direct accountability downwards , and also to ensure desirable separation and dilution of power,
upper operatives, those of a directing or steering committee (the nervous system of the
organisation), would be democratic ally selected (from a relevant lower level constituenc y, and
34
Infiltrated too is much mythology, including acclaimed environmenta l virtues of private property
and privatization generally .
15
from the whole people of an ecoregion in case of a typical bottom level institution). Note well
that selection is not election: election is but one method of democratic selection, and often
enough not an altogether satisfactory method. The point of some sort of democratic selection,
as a guiding though not invariant rule, is manifold: it is in part to ensure due accountability, in
part to prevent unethical accumulation of power in special classes, and in part for reasons that
devolve from the very notion of democracy itself.
In brief, certain forms of democracy offer promising prospects for green reorganisation,
particularly within complementing left-leaning settings where those froms can function in
favour of sustainability. However even with an informed democracy in place, there are few
guarantees. Some structure, such as limited executive power separated from judicial and
administrative functions, needs to be set in place to block or retard worse eventualities (such as
mob actions, selection of tryants, mistreatment of noncitizens and so on). Even then several
thorny problems remain for any deeper green political theory.
5.
Problems of chauvinism and present-time bias in democratic political
institutions.
In modem usage of the motherhood term democracy, two main lines are visible: included
are not only forms of political organisation where 'power [is presumed to] reside in the people
as a whole, and is exercised either directly by them ... or by officers [selected] by them\ but
'often more vaguely denoting a social state in which all have equal rights, without hereditary or
arbitrary differences of rank or privilege' 35 . It is on the basis of this second line that the call for
democracy has operated to remove chauvinism and discrimination of a range of forms: against
unpropertied minorities, nonconformists, women, blacks, tribals, and so on. Even so pursuit
of the line, where successful, has not generally conferred adequate representation and rights on
several of these groups; but, more important, pursuit has stopped short in its inclusions at
certain humans, such as those granted citizenship-though relevant interests of many other
creatures and welfare of many of other items may be affected by what those citizens elect to do.
While democratic voters can perhaps be entrusted to take some account of those near and dear
(within remarkably sharp limits, as the situation of women in many regions still shows), such
as those deemed incompetent to vote: the young, deranged, and so on, much evidence reveals
that they cannot be relied for what is less near or dear (and indeed are easily herded into casting
their votes in accord with a shallow mercantilism). Consider what get left out , outcasts of even
perfect democratic control:-
35
Oxford English Dictionary entry 1, main entry. These two lines are by no means the only
distinctive lines now visible: increasingly conspicuous in calls for "democracy", notably in Asia,
are calls to freedom and rights: not merely for basic legal freedoms such as free assembly, fair
process and so on, but for freedom to access information (the "right to know" ).
16
• spatially distant agents. For example, the interests of many humans outside USA are much
affected by practices of the US government, which however is outside their democratic reach.
• temporally distant agents. Since the past is past, it is future agents who would be affected,
often drastically affected, by present practices, that matter. Some way of taking due account of
future agents, their interests and welfare, is required, even under shallow long-term ecology,
that is under lighter green positions. Sustainable development has been regularly diverted
into--what is part of what it is about-such a way, an indirect and so far utterly ineffectual
way.36
Much more of importance is also excluded according to deep-green theory:
• creatures with interests, other than present human citizens, and
• items with welfare, but perhaps lacking interests. The category includes items with intrinsic
value, whose value can be effected, made to fare worse or better.
A major problem, little addressed, is how to take due account of such democraticall y
excludes. It is a problem especially for deeper green theories: that deep problem is, so to say,
how to obtain satisfactory representation of all that is of value in the natural world? That way of
putting it, while a little misleading, does point to a particular type of resolution.
Problems special to deep ecopolitical theory, include, that is, issues as to adequacy of
representation of items of value outside those humans that are represented, representation of
their interests, where they have them, of their welfare otherwise, of favourable conditions for
their sustenance, continuation and retention of value. Democracy of discussed modem sorts,
whether representative or participative, will not serve these purposes at all satisfactorily. For
instance, insofar as party-political representative democracies represent anything (even human
"bottom lines" as is sometimes erroneously supposed), they appear to represent primarily
interests of certain business-allied elites. Among the issues are of course those as to adequacy
of retention and protection of nonhuman items of intrinsic value, tropical forests and their
inhabitants and elements for instance.
As observed, there is really no organisationa l alternative to proceeding with and through
agents, preferably well-disposed and quality agents. It is hard to guarantee either politically.
As agents are but a subclass of what requires democratic representation and what should have
its welfare or interests considered, how are the rest to be taken care of satisfactorily? There are
significant older responses to like problems, through totems and taboos, guardians and
constraints. Looked at one way the problem repeats, more or less, a familiar problem: namely,
how in larger constituencies do decision-mak ing agents represent the whole mass of agents and
others in the constituency? A main democratic answer, designed to avoid many shortcomings
36
See Sylvan and Bennett 93.
17
of alternatives, was: by representative means-only "representation" was almost never taken
seriously or literally enough. The sorts of considerations that made representation a promising
resolution make what is to be proposed-wh ere representation has, in any case, to be expanded
-also promising. A key principle is this: all relevant items are to be represented. Relevance
criteria enter importantly. Steering committees of lower level institutions among the main
decision-mak ing bodies should be appropriately representative of all items whose welfare is
affected by their decisions (principle of deepened demanarchy). Under more equitable
arrangements, then, some decision-engaged agents will have to be selected as representative of
relevant classes of excludeds. Electoral arrangements do not so readily allow for such;
sortition, well-designed selection by lot, does. 37 Of course, however good the selection
processes, however disinterested and well-intentioned the agents selected, some bias may
remain. Nonetheless prejudice and mal-treatment may be much reduced.
As already hinted, deepened representation is not the only promising resolution of the
present problem that might be tried. Another, which could be attempted either separately or
concurrently, operates through the directive of ecologically sustainable development, requiring
as a constraint, not only intergenerational equity but also preservation of items of ecological
value. 38 It might be suggested that such a directive be made mandatory, applying to all relevant
steering committees. But, as already evident, there <;1re severe obstacles to getting such a
directive properly implemented. (In present oligarchical circumstance s, even very dilute
versions are worth pressing for however, as they would offer definite improvements upon what
presently happens.)
6.
A fundamenta l dilemma for (deeper)-gre en organization democratic or
authoritaria n procedures?
There is strictly no logical space for a deeper green democracy, according to Saward for
one. For there is a clash, an essential tension, between democratic procedures and deeper green
values and commitments, notably to intrinsic values in nature. The main drift of the argument is
that green values, which are mandatory for deeper greens, require for their implementation antidemocratic, indeed authoritarian procedures; otherwise they cannot be guaranteed.
This nasty conundrum for green theory over democracy, which the theory typically
sponsors, is put in sharper form as follows :39
Democracy concerns procedures, environmentalism certain outcomes. What guarantee can
37
No doubt there are electoral approximations; e.g. candidates in separate classes for each category to
be represented.
38
For elaboration of this option, see Sylvan and Bennett 93 and its sequel.
39
Goodin, condensing Saward, p.168 .
18
there be that the procedures will deliver the outcomes? What guarantee that democracy would
yield a way of protecting environments?
However the type of situation is worse than a matter of guarantess, which greens are not
really seeking and could not in general expect. (For here as almost everywhere else, things can
go wrong. Philosophy especially supplies few absolutes and little certainty.) It is a type of
situation, moreover, which effects not only environmentalism but any sort of social and other
amelioration, and even democracy itself. For democratic procedures may yield unsatisfactory
and even anti-democratic outcomes. Unfortunately there are few or no guarantees that
masitonous forms will eventuate or persist. Political history itself capiously illustrates that. But
ti can be argued theoretically. For example, succession of regimes must view (owing to finite
lifetimes, etc.), and in occasional transitions deterioration can occur; there are no effective
mechanisms that an exclude decline absolutely. Democratic procedures of certain sorts offer
better controls, and better prospects of satisfactory transition than most other available, but even
they afford no cast as on guantees of adequacy, and are beset by paradoxes of their own. In
inadequate democratic structure plausible scenarios are easily designed where just such
outcomes occur, for instance as in what has been called a "paradox of democracy" where a
constituency elects an anti-democratic tyrant. 40
A concerned attempt is made by Saward to mount a destructive version of such a paradox
against deep-green political theory (which he darkly calls 'dark green'). The version is based
upon holism and intrinsic value requirements, coupled with democratic demands, of deep green
theory . In clearest form, the version runs as follows:
Holism implies consistency or
compatibility. But intrinsic value maintenance and democracy are not compatible, under evident
conditions (e.g. democratic procedures result in diminution or destruction of intrinsic value).
Firstly, partial confirmation for this explication:
The green imperative contains a number of elements, variously economic,
political, social, geographical, religious, and so on. Its force comes partly
from the holism it embodies, and partly from its basis in the idea of the
'intrinsic value' of nature. Holism implies that the various elements which
make up the imperative are compatible. The elements of the imperative gain
their importance, and their links with each other, by being referable back to a
common, intrinsic value. It is at this point that we can pick up the position of
democracy or 'direct democracy' in lists of basic values set out by greens.
These goals are the elements of the overall green imperative, and gain their
importance from both the holistic nature and intrinsic merit of the values
which the imperative represents. 41
40
Such paradoxes of democracy, and variants thereupon, are presented trenchantly by Popper, and
nullified in Sylvan and Bennett 90. Improved structures can much reduce the likelihood and
problematicness of paradoxical overturns.
41
Saward, paper version p.3 .; repeated p.5 .
19
As should now be plain, and is becoming plainer, consistency is not an invariant desideratum,
and is not insisted upon; coherence is what is "implied" and what supersedes consistency .42 As
more than a century of Hegelian theory should have revealed, there can be inconsistent wholes.
A further key assumption in the argument is that guaranteeing that intrinsic value is
protected (or like absolutes sustained) will require undemocratic procedures, such as
authoritarian ones. An underlying assumption (soon to be rejected, e.g. as incorporating an
offensive false dichotomy) is that only undemocratic, authoritarian procedures fit with deeper
green imperatives or givens. 43 Several illustrations are offered of inconsistency of green
imperative_s with types of democratic procedures-none of which tell, without testing
adaptation, specifically against deeper green positions.
A first illustration is directed against Porritt:
A direct democratic procedure (is not) compatible with imperative goals like
' local production for local need', 'low consumption', 'labour-intensive
production' , and ' voluntary simplicity' (other items from Porritt's list). 44
Against this and other illustrations, it is worth emphasizing goals resemble objectives and
~argets; goals are goals which are not mandatory and by no means always achieved, especially if
the achievers, like present humans, fall short (e.g . irt ecological sensitivity) or their
organisational means and opportunities are inadequate. Observe the oppositional attempt, to
convert or to twist (since it is an up-grading by high redefinition), goals, programs , and
principles-through 'imperative goals' and the like-into 'imperatives', 'prescribed outcomes' ,
undeniable principles, ultimates. That attempt should be resisted.
A second example looks at an alleged
contradiction in the programme of the German Green Party. ' Grassroots
democracy' is one of the four 'basic principles' of the party's 'global
conception' . Another is the 'ecological': 'Proceeding from the laws of nature,
and especially from the knowledge that unlimited growth is impossible in a
limited system, and ecological policy means understanding ourselves and our
environment as part of nature'. In effect, this means that certain outcomes are
proscribed from decision-making procedures. Proscribed outcomes go well
beyond any plausible list of outcomes which must be proscribed in the
interests of defending a direct democratic decision procedure. Therefore,
there is a clear contradiction between elements of the value-set, whereas given
the holism the green imperative is based on we would have the right to expect
these goals and values to be_thoroughly compatible.4 5
42
See Priest and others.
43
Cf.p.12 essay.
44
[Reference]
45
[Reference]
20
The last charge repeats the critical point already rejected, that holism implies consistency. A
further critical point should also be rejected: the flawed inference that 'certain outcomes are
proscribed' . A political party in a democratic system has to be prepared to see its principles,
however spendid, overridden, certainly by other parties if they gain or hold political power.
There is a misconception too about principles (especially higher level principles) and their roles:
' principles [too] can only be akin to [givens and] "laws of nature", against which democratic
procedures must inevitably be traded off the board'. Sets of principles, which may themselves
turn out to be inconsistent, are hardly akin to natural laws; consider for instance reasons for
their revision, procedures for rechecking and revision, and so on. In any case, democratic
procedures are not traded away against laws of nature, which they may try to upset or suppress.
(Rather effort should be directed at informing the electorate and the like).
To reinforce his case, Saward appeals to other authors who have advanced similar claims
(it is like appealing for confirmation of a newspaper report to other newspapers).
Frankel accuses Bahro of an 'anti-democratic' vision of an ecological society,
given that politics as conflict will have no place in a sea of 'givens'. He sees
the dilemma as being similar to that of socialists-de eming certain things as
desirable in an ultimate sense, but proclaiming attachment to democracy and
the diversity it implies. Ophuls has stated the matter especially clearly. · The
basic question about politics, he writes, is 'Is the way we organize our
communal life and rule ourselves compatible with ecological imperatives and
other natural laws? ... how we run our lives will be increasingly determined
by ecological imperatives' 46
In an ecological society, enough of the demos (members of democratic constituency) will hold
ecological attitudes and vote or select accordingly, almost by definition. Problems of effecting
change lie with unecological communities, which may not support ecological principles under
instituted democratic procedures (as presently in many places) . Principles, and ecological
"givens", stand, they remain 'desirable in an ultimate sense', but they are not followed and
implemented, while revealed democratic preferences go unchanged. There need be no 'antidemocratic vision', but rather an unecological praxis, which principled greens will work to
change.
The route is accordingly barred to Sayward's
important conclusions ... : that at best direct democracy, and for that matter
indirect forms of democracy, can only be at or near the bottom of value-lists
of greens. A commitment to democracy must clash with values that are
inherent to ecologism-a nd ecologism is about inherency, intrinsic values,
laws of nature and holism. Things-like democracy-t hat can only have
instrumental value must lose out to imperatives backed by inescapable
canonical force.47
·
46
47
..
·-
·----------- ------ - - - - - - - - - - - -- ------
21
What Saward proposes instead is depressing ly familiar: pragmatism , jettison intrinsic value.
Out therewith go deep-green positions .
... greens should not think in terms of green imperatives . Indeed, it suggests
that to think in terms of imperative s based on arguments about intrinsic merit
is unjustifiabl e.48
Fortunately the argument developed does not sustain the proposals. There is, to iterate a
central point, no internal or latent contradicti on between (deep-)gree n policy objectives and
democratic procedures . Rather, green objectives would fail to be achieved without welldisposed decision makers, who may not straightforwardly reflect any "will" of the demos. A
logical requiremen t on a realistic set of political objectives is that there are accessible
circumstan ces where they are realisable, where all elements of the whole would obtain. It
should not be required that there are are no situations where they may conflict, become
inconsisten t. It is certainly not required that they are realised, by whatever means. A
community , as variously represented , can choose better or worse. There are many means
available, which it may shun (again there are no absolute guarantees) , enabling it to choose
better, including improved structures, attitudinal change and consciousn ess raising; and so on.
In the end Saward too recognises the popular power of attitudinal change, thereby
removing himself his previous loading of authoritarian means upon greens. There
needs, from a green perspectiv e [and others], to be a change in political
culture such that it will be compatible with sustainability. This, of course, is a
familiar theme from green writing. How[?] ... It can only be the case that
'political change will ony occur once people think differently or, more
particularly, that sustainable living must be prefaced by sustainable thinking' .
By abandoning foundation alist myths of intrinsic merit, greens abandon the
implicit arrogance that have made democracy such a tenuous part of green
political theory. 49
But he overstates the attitudinal point, with 'only ... the case'. People can be politically led
(retardation , however, as distinct from genuine advancement, is a familiar phenomena ); they
could just elect a green governmen t which instituted, under permissible democratic methods,
sustainable living or the like. Worse still, his final ungrammatical sentence is a complete non48
Of course it is now put in terms of "imperatives "; it would be better expressed in terms of
principles, policy objectives or the like.
Opposition to deeper green political approaches often derives, as in Saward and in Goodin, from a
underlying shallow utilitarianism . The differences concern not only depth, but the rejection of
individual interest bases, in favour of welfare bases and holism in deeper approaches.
49
[Ref. and page] There are further defects in this passage than those noted in the text. For one,
admission of intrinsic merit does not entail foundationalism. For another, such recognition of
merit, which is less liable to disturb democracy, or render it tenuous, than adherence to
Christianity, need caary no tinges of arrogance; to the contrary, by contrast with humanism it may
yield a certain humbleness.
22
sequitur. Attitudinal change may including coming to appreciate intrinsic merit in natural things
other than humans.
7.
Ecoregio nal demanar choid reshaping of Australi an political institutio ns: one
beginni ng.
Is such a radical restructur ing as that suggested feasible? Initial investiga tions hold out
the hope that major problems for deeper green theory can be solved, at least in theory.
Investigations according ly suggest that the project within the Reshaping Australia n Institutions
project is viable and worth pursuing. A logical next stage offers sketches for a radical political
reorganisation of Australia. 50 Evidently there would be many designs (thereby removing facile
jeers against "the blueprint ", a part of co-optative strategy for persistence with prevailing statist
arrangem ents). Among the many designs, some few, conformi ng to favoured principles,
would be selected for detailed study. If the study were attempted, most appropria tely through
systems modelling s, then flexibility could be built into modellings, so that even though only a
few basic designs were examined , many variations would be feasible. Not only is systems
modelling particular ly well suited to modelling network designs; it also further offers prospects
for computin g simulatio n and impleme ntation, and even some simulate d political
experime ntation. Furtherm ore, such modelling s begin to give some grasp on the size and
complexi ty of the task (a useful comparison is with World 3 modelling of the on-going "Limits
to Growth" project 51 , or, better, with a regionalized version of it).
To get started on such ecoregional design, for Australia, two broad classifica tions and
associated maps and charts are required:
• 1. an ecoregional classification, with partitions and overlays, for Australia and its continental
shelf. Observe that this classifica tion would be hierarchi cal, as smaller regions merge into
larger regions; but it is a benign hierarchy of levels (it facilitates no accumula tion of power or
wealth) . Observe too that any such classification is far from unique. Plurality has already set
in, and a choice of classifica tion (or a few choices) would have to be made, taking due account
of political organisat ional principle s and objective s. Fortunate ly some of the prelimina ry
classifica tory work has already been accompli shed in Environm ental Regional isations of
Australia, where 3 broad classifications are presented and procedures for generatin g many more
50
Such design, well accomplish ed, would help considerab ly in revealing what is possible, thereby
providing a seriously neglected contribution to politics, itself sometimes presented, with undue
licence, as the art of the possible.
5I
See e.g. Meadows.
23
given. 52 For political purposes further classification attributes (e.g. demog
raphic features) need
to be included.
Ecoregions provide the basis for spatially linked admin istrativ e and
comm unity units.
(Not all units need be of this sort; many contemporary arrangements
are spatially unlinked). At
this stage a basic principle of decentralization and distributed and smalle
r-scale organization can
be invoked, namely
• subsidiarization: organisational functions should be allowed to fall
down to (or to be pushed
down to) the lowest level compatible with their satisfactory performance
. Thus, for instance,
most matters concerning such things as sewerage and primar y educat
ion would be localized.
This subsidiarization principle, drawn from classical anarchism, has
been widely adopted in
green planni ng propo sals. (It is said to have been applie d by
the Catho lic Churc h in
admin istratio n of the Holy Roman Empire, whenc e the not altoge
ther apt title derives. It is
presently being reassessed for use in that successor organisation , united
Europe.) No doubt the
principle is open to challenge, for instance on grounds of efficiency,
that larger size may prove
more efficie nt, of duplic ation, and so on. But, the object ive
is not maxim ization of
technological values such as efficiency factors; instead it aims to satisiz
e on a wider framework
of values , including holistic social arrangements. Presum ably, howev
er, undue duplication of
expensive administrative bodies is to be avoided.
Coupled with subidiarization is another principle,
• direct accountability downwards: units should answer directly to region
al constituencies. This
contra sts with prevailing accountability (such as it is) upwar ds, throug
h some indirect and
tenuou s , centra lized circui ting chain. Natura lly much more gets
compr ehend ed under
accountability , for instance openness of environmental accounting.
There are also principles interrelating smaller with larger regions, both
bottom-up and topdown (or centre down) principles. Among these will be
• repres entatio n of smalle r regions in relevant planni ng institutions
of more compr ehensi ve
region s . Representation, appropriately regulated, would often replac
e anarchistic federation,
which as observed appears too weak for requisite environmental contro
l.
The point needs no labouring that the classifications and principles are
open to challenge
at every step; for instance, there is nothing rock-hard about the type of
ecoregional classification
prefer red, nor about social functio ns to be addres sed. At a
theore tical stage that is
unproblematic: there are other (less preferable) models; elaborate your
own if you want to and
can. In any case, it is to be hoped that a diversity in theory might be
to some extent reflected in
some diversity in practi ce-wi th different regions and continents trying
different arrangements,
52
See Thackway and Cresswell. Rudiments of a politically useful classific
ation begin to emerge on
their 30 Group Regionalisation .
24
with much less of the sort of cosmopo litan political monocult ure that we are presently being
harassed toward, with much more resilient political biodiversity. Of course, not all political
forms (includin g stateless types) are equally desirable or satisfactory, and some (includin g
present state examples) are inaccepta ble. So there are bounds open diversity. Moreove r, what
suits one communi ty or region well may not suit another to be satisfactory for it. So too there
are limits open successful transfer of organisational structure; what works .in one region may
require much modification in another, or may substantially resist transfer.
Structural diagram :
Schematic diagram of organisation structur e
(with some sample components indicated, but not all their network interlinkages displayed)
statistics
bureau
upper levels:
administrative,
executive,
research
ground level:
functional
inflow
control
materials
selectoral
college
Australian
region
(federal)
immigratio n
sup_erreg10ns
(a to k)
interregional
transport, etc.
upper
levels
arbitration
bureau
resources
income
office
ground
level
(local)
regions
(1 ton)
water
systems
rental
entitlements
office
hospital
systems
region 1
sewer
systems
reg10n n
25
• 2 a social function classification, of those community matters that require explicit organisa
tion
at some level. An initial listing can be compiled by consulting Australian metropolitan telephon
e
directories, especially the government sections that used to feature in the front (until a year
ago).
What results under redesign and reorganisation would, of course, look very different from
what
is listed. Parliaments, parties and all their supporting apparatus would vanish; the Australi
an
Bureau of Statistic s will assume a new significance and indepen dent role, and so on.
But
which instituti ons are retained, which adapted, and so on, would depend on further
social
organisa tional features, not yet considered here. The result would be a levelled pyramid
al
structure, a flat-untopped network as depicted in the structural diagram below, not a
power
hierarchy.
While some requisite research has been undertaken .upon how the various functional
bodies and decision -making committees can be selected and can operate 53, insuffic
ient
investig ation has been made of the interrelations and adequate fundings of the bodies
and
institutions involve d - whichever they are! For little such detailed anarchoid modellin
g has
apparen tly been attempt ed for any region anywhere. Evident ly there is much to be
done
theoretically. Detailed modellings could bring issues down to earth, without setting things
in
concrete; no doubt too they would disclose many further problems hidden in the detailing
,
problems to which anarchoid solutions can however reasonably be expected.
Noneth eless compar atively little is likely to be done, unless requisit e support is
forthcom ing, support in the shape of researchers (researc h volunte ers and students
) and
research infrastr ucture (from research, donatio ns and the like). For such support,
for
investigating its own demise, a state is hardly likely knowingly to supply; nor are its establish
ed
research institutions. Insofar then as it is done visibly, it will probably have to be accompl
ished
largely outside state-supported and state-supporting infrastructure, such as prominent universi
ty
projects. (like Reshaping Australian Institutions). Fortunately there are now other structure
s,
such as internet and radio channels, that can facilitate interconnections and interchanges
of
researches, both regionally and internationally. On these sorts anarcho id communicationa
l
bases, networks of groups interested in elaborating such alternative political modellings,
both in
theory and in practice , could be formed. Given the dismal state of present politica
l
arrange ments, almost everywhere terrestial, there is a great need, as a very minimu
m, for
networks of innovative researchers who chose such goals. 54
53
Thus e.g. Burnheim 85. The present article is not only heavily indebted to Burnheim
's work, but
overlaps on-going investigations on his part.
54
To echo one referee. My sincere thanks to demandin g referees for several helpful suggestio
ns and
many improvem ents.
26
Richard Sylvan*
Refer ences .
Bello, W., Dark Victory, Pluto Press, Londo n, 1994.
Bookc hin, M., Remaking Society: Pathw ays to a Green Futur
e, South End Press,
Boston , 1990.
Bumh eim, J., Is Democracy Possible?, Polity Press, Cambr idge,
1985.
Burnh eim, J., 'Demo cracy, nation states and the world
system
Democracy. (ed. D. Held and C. Pollit t) Londo n, Sage, 1986, pp.218 ', New Form s of
-239.
Ul.rh2r) A
Fox, W. , in Ecopolitics III, Hamil ton, New Zealan d.
Goodi n, R., Green Political Theory, Polity Press, Cambr idge,
1992.
Green , G., The New Radicalism: Anarchist or Marxist?, Intern
ationa l Publis hers, New
York, 1971.
Jacobs , M., The Green Economy: enviro nmen t, sustainable
development, and the
politics of the future., Pluto Press, Conco rd, Mass, 1991.
Macka y, H., Reinventing Australia: the mind and mood
of Australia in the 90s,
Hugh Macka y, Pymbl e, NSW, Angus & Rober tson, 1993.
Macph ee, I., 'A new constitution?' (excer pts from an openin g addres
s) NILEFA Newsletter,
Griffith Unive rsity Schoo l of Law, June 1993.
Marsh all, P., Dema nding the Impossible: a history of anarc
hism, Londo n, Harpe r
Collins 1992.
Mc Laugh lin, A., Regarding Nature, SUNY Press, Alban y NY.,
1993.
Meado ws D., and others , Beyond the Limits, Chesle y Green, Vermo
nt, 1992.
Naess , A., Ecolo gy, comm unity and lifesty le (trans. and
ed. D. Rothe nberg ),
Cambr idge Unive rsity Press, Cambridge, 1989.
Pontin g, C., A Green History of the World, Sincla ir-Stev enson,
Londo n, 1991.
Priest, G., Routle y, R. and Norma n, J. (eds), Paraconsistent Logic
, Philos ophia Verlag ,
Munic h, 1989.
Routle y, V. and R., 'Socia l theorie s, self manag ement and enviro
nment
al proble ms', in
Environmental Philosophy (ed. D Mann ison and others ), RSSS,
Austra
lian Nation al
University,
1980.
*
where is it
"
.
\)ot:;::,o
27
~\)--:, \\-'
Saward, M., 'Green. Democ racy', in Politics f Natur~ op cit, pp.
~~~ J..-.'->~f\,
l(;
~ '5:>
r 1\J
'
' .
b3 - 'S/J
L , £_? ~ J?_
\._\J.. cfr
\~~ 2
~"\,o (')roN
CrlL~ rv fbltf ~~L, H-iof2 v-
Sylvan, R. and Bennet t, D., Utopias, Tao and Deep Ecology, Green
Series , RSSS,
Australian National University, 1990.
Sylvan, R. and Bennet t, D., The Greening of Ethics, White Horse Press,
Cambridge,
1994.
Sylvan, R., 'Anarc hism\ in Contemporary Political Theory (ed. R. Goodin
and P.Pettit)
Blackwell, Oxford, 1993.
Sylvan, R., Deep Plurallism, University of Edinburgh Press, 1994.
Sylvan, R., Green Anarchism, to appear, 1996.
Thackw ay, R. and Cressw ell, I.D., Enviro nment al Regionalisations
of Austra lia,
Enviro nmenta l Resour ces Information Network, Australian Nation al Parks
and Wildlife
Service, 1992.
Tynan, L., The Institute of Advanced Studies, The Australian National Univer
sity, May
1993.
The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions.
Letter, Thomas V. Cahill, Editor, Department of Politics and International Relations, Lancaster
University to Richard Sylvan, 18 May 1994 re feedback from referees on paper by Sylvan for
Anarchist Studies (1 page)
ABSTRACT OF
PROBLEMS and SOLUTIONS in DEEP ECOPOLITICAL THEORY
A reshaping of social and political institutions, which are often outmoded or suboptimal
and certainly commonly anti-environmental, is now prominent on theoretical agendas, at least in
Australia. One such project is the multi-million dollar "Reshaping Australian Institutions"
project at the Australian National University.
At the same time there is widespread
disenchantment with prevailing politics in Australia. Accordingly there is an opportunity to put
radical green themes on agendas for real political and institutional change.
A deep change, however, which is what deep green theories require, encounters several
problems. For one, there appears to be a contradiction between demands for, on the one side,
increasing environmental regulations and welfare arrangements, characteristically dependent
upon bureaurcratic centralisation and economic growth, and on the other, decentralized lower
impact organisation, which halts anti-environmentally industry and economic growth. A
functional resolution, partially dissolving a central state, is outlined, along with a theory of
encephaletic organisation.
Further problems to surmount include human chauvinism and present-time bias, even in
present "best practice" democratic institutions. Deep demarchoidal resolutions of these
problems are sketched and defended.
R. Sylvan
RMB 683
Bungendore Australia 2621
f0J.._/ ,C. #--0/'...__~,_,k_J ver.r~
~
-;-
I
c}~J
,h,,z'7
-?<
ABSTRACT OF
PROBLEMS and SOLUTIONS in DEEP ECOPOLITICAL THEORY
A reshaping of social and political institutions, which are often outmoded or suboptimal
and certainly commonly anti-environmental, is now prominent on theoretical agendas, at least in
Australia. One such project is the multi-million dollar "Reshaping Australian Institutions"
project at the Australian National University. At the same time there is widespread
disenchantment with prevailing politics in Australia. Accordingly there is an opportunity to put
radical green themes on agendas for real political and institutional change.
A deep change, however, which is what deep green theories require, encounters several
problems. For one, there appears to be a contradiction between demands for, on the one side,
increasing environmental regulations and welfare arrangements, characteristically dependent
upon bureaurcratic centralisation and economic growth, and on the other, decentralized lower
impact organisation, which halts anti-environmentally industry and economic growth. A
functional resolution, partially dissolving a central state, is outlined, along with a theory of
encephaletic organisation.
Further problems to surmount include human chauvinism and present-time bias, even in
present ."best practice" democratic institutions. Deep demarchoidal resolutions of these
problems are sketched and defended.
R. Sylvan
RMB 683
Bungendore Australia 2621
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Box 17, Item 971: Draft of Problems in deeper green political organization theory: an Australian perspective on radical institutional change, with letter from Thomas Cahill, Editor of Anarchist Studies to Richard Sylvan, 18 May 1994
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Typescript (photocopy) draft, with handwritten emendations. Paper dated 10.4.95. Includes two copies of abstract of paper, with handwritten annotations.
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Letter redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions.
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<a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=&type=&user=&tags=&public=&featured=&exhibit=&geolocation-mapped=&geolocation-address=&geolocation-latitude=&geolocation-longitude=&geolocation-radius=10&submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a>
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<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&pageSize=20&sortBy=score&sortDirection=Desc&searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 17, Item 971
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<a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a>
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<span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a><span>.</span>
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[30] leaves + 1 letter (1 leaf). 29.02 MB.
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<a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:14e81ee">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:14e81ee</a>
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Lake George - Floor - Pile 7
Box 17: Green Projects in Progress
Lake George House
Lake George House > Floor > Pile 7
-
https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/11628f2bcbc3662efac3cdfbd36f91f2.pdf
14d16e4188eb5909aab1b95fe48f8953
PDF Text
Text
,x»
REMARKS ON ‘COMMUNITARIAN ANARCHISM
AND HUMAN NATURE’.
This article makes a worthwhile historial contribution concerning communitarian
anarchism, in helping to remove a familiar criticism. It needs considerable redrafting, in my
opinion, before it is published. Necessary redrafting concerns both structure and several points
of detail. In what follows some points are sketched and some suggestions made, in no
particular order of importance. (It should not be simply assumed that what I have not
commented upon, e.g. historical interpretation, I generally find more or less satisfactory.)
• The naivety thesis is not satisfactorily specified. (It is said to be an inference, and then what
is offered is a poorly structured argument, not strictly a thesis). In fact, most of the argument
and discursion concerns thesis (i), better restated (cf. pl7) as the following target thesis
(ti) Anarchists believe that egoism is a product of (contemporary) social organisation, not an
inherent part of human nature.
The main work is devo ted to trying to rebut such a thesis, at least as regards three classical
anarchists. (The success of this main work is partially assessed below.)
Part of the trouble with the “naivety thesis” arises because of apparent errors concerning
the interrelations of propositions (i) and (ii) on the one side and propositions (iii) and (iv) on the
other (as also as to (v) and its consequent). Showing (i) and (ii) are false does not show (iii)
and (iv) and the back of (v) are all false (contrary to p.3 middle, and to p.20 end also). For the
most part, as here, a believes that p is independent of p. (Note too that (iii) and (iv) look rather
more plausible than what (ii) and (ti) cover.)
As it happens, I suspect our author intended to cover all propositions, not just (iii) and
(ti), by ‘anarchists believe that’. However such covering will not effect a repair.
In sum, the naivety thesis should be better characterised, the associated argument should
be clarified and rectified, and the interrelation of theses should be worked out properly. This
affects the total structure of the article.
• It may seem to be a minor matter that feature f is innate says something different from feature
fis an inherent part of human nature, for features such as egoism, sociability, etc.. (E.g. the
feature may be bom in, but fade out or be educated out, or it may not be “innate” but invariably
develop.) However this comes to assume a larger role because of the emphasis put upon
nativism (from p.4 on), nativism getting linked to innateness, when it is inherentness that
matters.
There is also an historical problem, that nativism is characterised in late 20th century
terms, not in terms that automatically apply in a 19th century setting. A less metaphorical
explication is required, which connects nativism with apparatus of the target thesis.
• As regards elaborating and establishing the main thesis of the article, namely
(ci) communitarian anarchism, as manifested in three major espositors, is not dependent upon a
�2
naive account of human nature (that of (ti)), much in the article is strictly irrelevant. The article
could be substantially cut in length and sharpened.
Much space is devoted to trying to show that
(li) ‘only in their later writings’ do ‘Proudhon and Bakunin adopt a clearly defined nativism’—
‘subsequent to their repudiation of Hegelian metaphysics’. This involves considerable perusal
of their early writings, material that does not assist in supporting (ci). If historical exegesis
directed towards (li) is to take up such a large part of the article, then the early part (e.g. p.l)
should be reoriented to indicate what much of it is really about. Otherwise much of pp.5-9, for
instance, can be chopped.
Without such restructuring, but a. fraction of what appears on pp.5-19 is needed (a few
critical points). A much sharper less circuitous defence of (ci) could be provided. And even
with radical restructuring much diffuse material on “the intellectual voyages” of the expositors
could be profitably deleted.
• There is a serious difficulty as regards Proudhon; so much so that there is real doubt that he
can be regarded as furnishing positive support for (ci). The problem is that, by the time
Proudhon abandons ‘too ideal a conception of man’, he appears also prepared to abandon (or at
least indirectly erode) communiitarian anarchism: for instance ‘it is unlikely... that all trace of
government and authority will disappear—’ (both quotes from p.l 1).
• The historical argument developed is not entirely decisive in shoring up communitarian
anarchism (contrary to the impression given). For a critic could contend that the historical
figures were either deluded about their continuing commitment to communitarian anarchism or
else mistaken about the coherence and viability of their theory in this regard. In short, the
historical examples are not genuine counter-examples to the naivety of such anarchism.
Something should be added to offset this sort of objection.
Richard Sylvan
�
Dublin Core
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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
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Text
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,x»
REMARKS ON ‘COMMUNITARIAN ANARCHISM
AND HUMAN NATURE’.
This article makes a worthwhile historial contribution concerning communitarian
anarchism, in helping to remove a familiar criticism. It needs considerable redrafting, in my
opinion, before it is published. Necessary redrafting concerns both structure and several points
of detail. In what follows some points are sketched and some suggestions made, in no
particular order of importance. (It should not be simply assumed that what I have not
commented upon, e.g. historical interpretation, I generally find more or less satisfactory.)
• The naivety thesis is not satisfactorily specified. (It is said to be an inference, and then what
is offered is a poorly structured argument, not strictly a thesis). In fact, most of the argument
and discursion concerns thesis (i), better restated (cf. pl7) as the following target thesis
(ti) Anarchists believe that egoism is a product of (contemporary) social organisation, not an
inherent part of human nature.
The main work is devo ted to trying to rebut such a thesis, at least as regards three classical
anarchists. (The success of this main work is partially assessed below.)
Part of the trouble with the “naivety thesis” arises because of apparent errors concerning
the interrelations of propositions (i) and (ii) on the one side and propositions (iii) and (iv) on the
other (as also as to (v) and its consequent). Showing (i) and (ii) are false does not show (iii)
and (iv) and the back of (v) are all false (contrary to p.3 middle, and to p.20 end also). For the
most part, as here, a believes that p is independent of p. (Note too that (iii) and (iv) look rather
more plausible than what (ii) and (ti) cover.)
As it happens, I suspect our author intended to cover all propositions, not just (iii) and
(ti), by ‘anarchists believe that’. However such covering will not effect a repair.
In sum, the naivety thesis should be better characterised, the associated argument should
be clarified and rectified, and the interrelation of theses should be worked out properly. This
affects the total structure of the article.
• It may seem to be a minor matter that feature f is innate says something different from feature
fis an inherent part of human nature, for features such as egoism, sociability, etc.. (E.g. the
feature may be bom in, but fade out or be educated out, or it may not be “innate” but invariably
develop.) However this comes to assume a larger role because of the emphasis put upon
nativism (from p.4 on), nativism getting linked to innateness, when it is inherentness that
matters.
There is also an historical problem, that nativism is characterised in late 20th century
terms, not in terms that automatically apply in a 19th century setting. A less metaphorical
explication is required, which connects nativism with apparatus of the target thesis.
• As regards elaborating and establishing the main thesis of the article, namely
(ci) communitarian anarchism, as manifested in three major espositors, is not dependent upon a
2
naive account of human nature (that of (ti)), much in the article is strictly irrelevant. The article
could be substantially cut in length and sharpened.
Much space is devoted to trying to show that
(li) ‘only in their later writings’ do ‘Proudhon and Bakunin adopt a clearly defined nativism’—
‘subsequent to their repudiation of Hegelian metaphysics’. This involves considerable perusal
of their early writings, material that does not assist in supporting (ci). If historical exegesis
directed towards (li) is to take up such a large part of the article, then the early part (e.g. p.l)
should be reoriented to indicate what much of it is really about. Otherwise much of pp.5-9, for
instance, can be chopped.
Without such restructuring, but a. fraction of what appears on pp.5-19 is needed (a few
critical points). A much sharper less circuitous defence of (ci) could be provided. And even
with radical restructuring much diffuse material on “the intellectual voyages” of the expositors
could be profitably deleted.
• There is a serious difficulty as regards Proudhon; so much so that there is real doubt that he
can be regarded as furnishing positive support for (ci). The problem is that, by the time
Proudhon abandons ‘too ideal a conception of man’, he appears also prepared to abandon (or at
least indirectly erode) communiitarian anarchism: for instance ‘it is unlikely... that all trace of
government and authority will disappear—’ (both quotes from p.l 1).
• The historical argument developed is not entirely decisive in shoring up communitarian
anarchism (contrary to the impression given). For a critic could contend that the historical
figures were either deluded about their continuing commitment to communitarian anarchism or
else mistaken about the coherence and viability of their theory in this regard. In short, the
historical examples are not genuine counter-examples to the naivety of such anarchism.
Something should be added to offset this sort of objection.
Richard Sylvan
Dublin Core
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Box 17, Item 984: Remarks on 'Communitarian anarchism and human nature'
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Typescript.
Description
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Note, one item digitised from item 984.
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<a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=&type=&user=&tags=&public=&featured=&exhibit=&geolocation-mapped=&geolocation-address=&geolocation-latitude=&geolocation-longitude=&geolocation-radius=10&submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a>
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<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&pageSize=20&sortBy=score&sortDirection=Desc&searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 17, Item 984
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<a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a>
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<span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a><span>.</span>
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[2] leaves. 1.53 MB.
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<a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:fa8761a">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:fa8761a</a>
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Lake George - Floor - Pile 7
Box 17: Green Projects in Progress
Lake George House
Lake George House > Floor > Pile 7
-
https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/d238dd79bb3f1ee48d89a9ee1eaafa0d.pdf
e2faa9a5b7a1df99c3768418e2d7768c
PDF Text
Text
����
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Notes, Correspondences and Marginalia
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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
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Box 17, Item 984: Miscellaneous notes on anark
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Handwritten notes on scrap paper.
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Verso of leaves not digitised. Note, one item digitised from item 984.
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<a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=&type=&user=&tags=&public=&featured=&exhibit=&geolocation-mapped=&geolocation-address=&geolocation-latitude=&geolocation-longitude=&geolocation-radius=10&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&pageSize=20&sortBy=score&sortDirection=Desc&searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 17, Item 984
Publisher
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<a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a>
Contributor
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<span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a><span>.</span>
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For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library.
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[4] leaves. 1.84 MB.
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<a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:5c3aeec">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:5c3aeec</a>
Box 17: Green Projects in Progress
Lake George House
Lake George House > Floor > Pile 7