1
20
7
-
https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/74c5918ce1775b9771b6ab241d1cfda9.pdf
d64b9b726171c91b2c89e43f71832e29
PDF Text
Text
✓
f
/
/ Z
)
The Australian National University
■The Research School of Social Sciences
Department of Philosophy
reference
Post Office Box 4 Canberra ACT 2600
Telegrams & cables natuniv Canberra
Telex aa 62694 sopac
'telephone 062-49 $111
22 July 1983
John Martin
10 Alamein Avenue
WARRACKNABEAL
VIC
3393
Dear John,
Thank you for the July 83 copy of The Deep Ecologist.
I
certainly think that such a network newsletter is a fine idea (and
my sub. follows under separate cover).
I should confess, however, that I was alarmed by the extent
to which shallow ecology - which already has an excellent press had crept into the issue. In particular, the centerpiece article,
purportedly on wilderness (signed P. Conroy) contained themes
directly antithetical to deeper ecology, some of which I shall
note. I really hope the article was intended as some sort of
test or as a spoof; but I fear it wasn't.
1.
'The wonders of creation exist in the minds of humans'. The
three step argument to this, from the granted 'Nature is wondrous,
...' is quite fallacious. For one thing, it smuggles in the
assumption of a creation. Deep ecologists don't have to buy into
creation, or (what Conroy goes on to, in a version of the argument
from design I suppose) God(s). More important, the wonders of
nature are not confined to, and do not require, the minds of humans.
A core theme of deep ecology is that some natural things are
intrinsically valuable, worthwhile in themselves, independently of
any creatures, including humans. An alpine gentian does not owe
its value, its importance to humans.
For similar reasons the deep ecologist, who may embrace some
one of the more orthodox religions but need not, rejects both parts
of Conroy's supporting comparison:
'As light needs our eyes to give it reality, so [nature] around
us needs our constant assent', human affirmation. There was light,
as an element of nature, before humans evolved; there will be
light, and still some wonders of nature, when humans are gone, for
instance after nuclear annihilation.
It is the same on the genesis
account as it is on deep ecological assumptions: nature and light
were real, and also good, before man appeared on the scene (on the
seventh day).
2.
Admittedly some deeper ecological themes are picked up by
Conroy, for example 'the importance of relationships', especially
those of ecosystems. Unfortunately Conroy almost at once tries to
2/...
�2.
undermine this theme (a theme that runs counter to a main thrust
of Western philosophy, concerning the eliminability or secondary
character of relations) and in a human chauvinist way:
'Let us not
delude ourselves as to the basis for this'.
Relations too are
alleged to answer back to humans, and owe their importance to them:
again shallow, and surely mistaken, anthrocentricism. But Conroy
wants us to proceed to a strong form of this‘shallow doctrine:
'To
recognise the importance of our environment is to recognise the
importance of ourselves'. No; and certainly not on deeper thinking.
Environments free of humans, such as pure wilderness, can be
important; worlds devoid of humans beautiful, or ugly.
3.
'Humans do hold dominion over the earth';
'recognise your
kingship of the earth'. The dominion position, with which Conroy
gets quite carried away, is only one of various positions that the
shallow ecologist can adopt; others (delineated by Passmore) are
the stewardship and the perfectionist positions. It is however the
position most antithetical to the concerns of deep ecology.
4.
Conroy repudiates the theme of biological (or biospheric)
egalitarianism, often taken to be an ingredient of deep ecology, in
a decidedly arrogant way:
'To pretend we can treat ourselves as
equals with other organisms in our cohabitation of this planet is to
show an ignorance of the inevitable forces that continue to shape
human destinies everywhere' (it reminds me of the worst reaches of
German Ubermensch philosophy, Nietzsche to Hitler). An egalitarian
theme was tendered by Naess in his introduction of deep ecology, and
has certainly been built into the West Coast understanding of the
notion. And as Singer's work on "equality of consideration", and
other nonutilitarian work on respect has made plain, the theme can
be given relatively palatable construals. It remains however something
of an open question whether the theme is an essential ingredient of
deep ecology. My view is also that it is not; but I should not want
to have anything much to do with Conroy's human chauvinist (and
sometimes human fascist) case for ditching the theme.
Regrettably Naess's more recent account of deep ecology, in
terms of asking 'deeper and deeper questions', has further muddied
what started out by being d valuable and sufficiently clear notion.
Now a nuclear engineer who asks deeper questions, or any shallow
ecologist who 'probes the deepness of the human psyche', stands a
fair chance of passing perself off as a deep ecologist. I hope
however that Ths Deep Ecologist can maintain a deep relationship
with deep ecology.
Best wishes,
Richard
�The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions.
Letter, John Martin to Richard Sylvan, 30 July 1983 re Martin replies to Sylvan's letter and
comments on an article published in The Deep Ecologist. (1 leaf)
�
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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
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✓
f
/
/ Z
)
The Australian National University
■The Research School of Social Sciences
Department of Philosophy
reference
Post Office Box 4 Canberra ACT 2600
Telegrams & cables natuniv Canberra
Telex aa 62694 sopac
'telephone 062-49 $111
22 July 1983
John Martin
10 Alamein Avenue
WARRACKNABEAL
VIC
3393
Dear John,
Thank you for the July 83 copy of The Deep Ecologist.
I
certainly think that such a network newsletter is a fine idea (and
my sub. follows under separate cover).
I should confess, however, that I was alarmed by the extent
to which shallow ecology - which already has an excellent press had crept into the issue. In particular, the centerpiece article,
purportedly on wilderness (signed P. Conroy) contained themes
directly antithetical to deeper ecology, some of which I shall
note. I really hope the article was intended as some sort of
test or as a spoof; but I fear it wasn't.
1.
'The wonders of creation exist in the minds of humans'. The
three step argument to this, from the granted 'Nature is wondrous,
...' is quite fallacious. For one thing, it smuggles in the
assumption of a creation. Deep ecologists don't have to buy into
creation, or (what Conroy goes on to, in a version of the argument
from design I suppose) God(s). More important, the wonders of
nature are not confined to, and do not require, the minds of humans.
A core theme of deep ecology is that some natural things are
intrinsically valuable, worthwhile in themselves, independently of
any creatures, including humans. An alpine gentian does not owe
its value, its importance to humans.
For similar reasons the deep ecologist, who may embrace some
one of the more orthodox religions but need not, rejects both parts
of Conroy's supporting comparison:
'As light needs our eyes to give it reality, so [nature] around
us needs our constant assent', human affirmation. There was light,
as an element of nature, before humans evolved; there will be
light, and still some wonders of nature, when humans are gone, for
instance after nuclear annihilation.
It is the same on the genesis
account as it is on deep ecological assumptions: nature and light
were real, and also good, before man appeared on the scene (on the
seventh day).
2.
Admittedly some deeper ecological themes are picked up by
Conroy, for example 'the importance of relationships', especially
those of ecosystems. Unfortunately Conroy almost at once tries to
2/...
2.
undermine this theme (a theme that runs counter to a main thrust
of Western philosophy, concerning the eliminability or secondary
character of relations) and in a human chauvinist way:
'Let us not
delude ourselves as to the basis for this'.
Relations too are
alleged to answer back to humans, and owe their importance to them:
again shallow, and surely mistaken, anthrocentricism. But Conroy
wants us to proceed to a strong form of this‘shallow doctrine:
'To
recognise the importance of our environment is to recognise the
importance of ourselves'. No; and certainly not on deeper thinking.
Environments free of humans, such as pure wilderness, can be
important; worlds devoid of humans beautiful, or ugly.
3.
'Humans do hold dominion over the earth';
'recognise your
kingship of the earth'. The dominion position, with which Conroy
gets quite carried away, is only one of various positions that the
shallow ecologist can adopt; others (delineated by Passmore) are
the stewardship and the perfectionist positions. It is however the
position most antithetical to the concerns of deep ecology.
4.
Conroy repudiates the theme of biological (or biospheric)
egalitarianism, often taken to be an ingredient of deep ecology, in
a decidedly arrogant way:
'To pretend we can treat ourselves as
equals with other organisms in our cohabitation of this planet is to
show an ignorance of the inevitable forces that continue to shape
human destinies everywhere' (it reminds me of the worst reaches of
German Ubermensch philosophy, Nietzsche to Hitler). An egalitarian
theme was tendered by Naess in his introduction of deep ecology, and
has certainly been built into the West Coast understanding of the
notion. And as Singer's work on "equality of consideration", and
other nonutilitarian work on respect has made plain, the theme can
be given relatively palatable construals. It remains however something
of an open question whether the theme is an essential ingredient of
deep ecology. My view is also that it is not; but I should not want
to have anything much to do with Conroy's human chauvinist (and
sometimes human fascist) case for ditching the theme.
Regrettably Naess's more recent account of deep ecology, in
terms of asking 'deeper and deeper questions', has further muddied
what started out by being d valuable and sufficiently clear notion.
Now a nuclear engineer who asks deeper questions, or any shallow
ecologist who 'probes the deepness of the human psyche', stands a
fair chance of passing perself off as a deep ecologist. I hope
however that Ths Deep Ecologist can maintain a deep relationship
with deep ecology.
Best wishes,
Richard
The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions.
Letter, John Martin to Richard Sylvan, 30 July 1983 re Martin replies to Sylvan's letter and
comments on an article published in The Deep Ecologist. (1 leaf)
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Box 14, Item 1765: Correspondence between Richard Sylvan and John Martin, 2 letters, Jul 1983
Subject
The topic of the resource
Letter 1: Typescript on a Australian National University letter head. Letter dated 22 July 1983 to John Martin, Warracknabeal, VIC 3393. From Richard Sylvan, The Research School of Social Sciences, Department of Philosophy, The Australian National University. Sylvan sends feedback to Martin about an article published in The Deep Ecologist (July 183). John Martin was the founding editor of the Australian based newsletter, The Deep Ecologist. One of three copies of letter held in collection, two copies with annotations: Deep ecology notes ; Fred, please return newsletter [?]. Thanks for your comments, [?] things. [Richard?]. Letter 2: Handwritten letter dated 30 Jul 1983 to Richard Sylvan. From John Martin, Warracknabeal, VIC 3393. Martin replies to Sylvan's letter and comments on an article published in The Deep Ecologist.
Description
An account of the resource
Note, one of two papers digitised from item 1765. Letter from John Martin 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>
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 14, Item 1765
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<a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a>
Date
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July 23, 1983
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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[7] leaves. 1.43 MB.
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Correspondences
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<a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:4660a51">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:4660a51</a>
Australian National University Office
Australian National University Office > Second Shelf > Bottom Shelf
Box 14: Green Projects in Progress
-
https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/8a962b5798d431ed7a49e3c965d3293d.pdf
3793cc17bc61a17cc2d746104329864a
PDF Text
Text
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�The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions.
Computer printout, draft paper with emendations and annotations, Intrinsic value, quantum
theory, and environmental ethics by J. Baird Callicott. Includes annotation addressed to
Professor Routley from J. Baird Callicott. (37 pages) Paper published, Callicott J B (1985)
‘Intrinsic Value, Quantum Theory, and Environmental Ethics’, Environmental Ethics, 7(3): 257275. https://doi.org/10.5840/enviroethics19857334
�
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
'"T__
/
<'Y
J
/x
X<X
X
I
z
/
//.
/
c
f-vX'
‘'t Xr" Y
( <lr~ / <■ Ye t
e tZ<? Z C
z4 /X/
Xi
/z-
a
/
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/XX «) -
YY/XX e X
X'X
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Z
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X-^—y X—-
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The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions.
Computer printout, draft paper with emendations and annotations, Intrinsic value, quantum
theory, and environmental ethics by J. Baird Callicott. Includes annotation addressed to
Professor Routley from J. Baird Callicott. (37 pages) Paper published, Callicott J B (1985)
‘Intrinsic Value, Quantum Theory, and Environmental Ethics’, Environmental Ethics, 7(3): 257275. https://doi.org/10.5840/enviroethics19857334
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 14, Item 1765: Letter, Richard Sylvan to J. Baird Callicott, 25 Oct c1985 ; Draft of Intrinsic value, quantum theory, and environmental ethics by J. Baird Callicott
Subject
The topic of the resource
Computer printout of draft paper with emendations and annotations. Includes annotation on title page, addressed to Professor Routley from J. Baird Callicott. Paper published, Callicott J B (1985) 'Intrinsic Value, Quantum Theory, and Environmental Ethics', Environmental Ethics, 7(3): 257-275, https://doi.org/10.5840/enviroethics19857334.
Description
An account of the resource
Note, one of two papers digitised from item 1765. Paper by J. Baird Callicott redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions.
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 14, Item 1765
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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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October 25
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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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[40] leaves. 1.73 MB.
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Correspondences
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<a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:f77bd00">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:f77bd00</a>
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Australian National University - Second Shelf - Bottom Shelf
Australian National University Office
Australian National University Office > Second Shelf > Bottom Shelf
Box 14: Green Projects in Progress
-
https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/68d29df80f9d20e41a77ef7fdb412966.pdf
f2093594e525a6ba4c68813d0f8e0eb4
PDF Text
Text
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 improved with nuclear war for its potential to
disrupt a wide range of human and natural systems, [severely] complicating the
back of moneying economics 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 Greenhouse problematique, 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, the substantially new socio-economic arrangements soon eventuate.
There is certainly plenty of room for different approaches, 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 forests for fifty years ahead down a very
hazardous track. But 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
those, 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. 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.
�2
Diagram 1. Spectrum of approaches:
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 action1
Moderate action
Considerable action
These very condensed responses will be expanded and explained as we proceed.
Breifly too the outcome is that there is no easy path; future humans should expect a hard
landing.
1. Investigative philosophy, argument and rational decision
The role of philosophy in such a complex problematique as that of Greenhouse is not
difficult to state briefly. Philosophy, Anglo-American philosophy especially, is concerned
above all with argument. Investigative philosophy is applied philosophy, investigating
arguments, their features - assumptions, reliability, etc. - and their generalisation to rational
processes, but outside normal philosophical topics. The generalisation to rational processes
comprehends a wider range of philosophical throughput than the orthodox range of argument
typically addressed in logic courses; to probabilistic and plausibilistic reasoning, to decision
processing and making.
A main objective in this piece of investigative philosophy is to consider certain
arguments for severe dislocation pprobabilities, as a result of Greenhouse effects, and the
resulting impact on rational decision formation and action. There are certain arguments of
particular interest radical decision and action: various neo-Malthusian arguments, and
doomsday arguments.
1
Taoist no-action would be different. It would not have undertaken excessive industrial action in
the first place.
�3
The main run of arguments to considerable action are neo-Malthusian in character. The
general form of these arguments is simply this: growth in some parameter encounters limits,
with severe effects. A characteristic graphic representation is as follows:
limits
growth
parameter
time
exponential growth
pattern
J
encountering
limits
subsequent
varying unstable
behavior
The limits are often imposed just by finitude, e.g. finiteness of a resource or a sink. But
other limits can be important, for instance where new phenomena or thresholds come into
play. General Malthusian arguments loom in the background in what follows.
But a different argument, of especial concern as regard climatic changes, is the
following anthropic doomsday 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 Lesser Venus Prospect, premiss).
• That result would be disastrous for human activities, and indeed for humans (Catastrophe
Prospect).
• Because of the unusual, and unusually precarious, position of humans, 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 (Catastrophe Probability).
That is, by a rectified version of Murphy's law - that if something can go wrong then in
appropriate unusual conditions, it very probability will - an incrementally small probability is
inflated into a very large probability.
�4
It would be a mistake to conclude that because the argument itself is an unlikely one,
everyone can stop worrying. The argument is but one of a substantial raft of arguments that
should have everyone worried; it is but a final intellectual string, so to say, from the
inconspicuous cosmological tail.
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 who -will 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 moral irrationality 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.
Diagram 2. Macro-climatic setting.
Bands: all
boundaries fuzzy
mean
global
temperature
(degrees C)
escalating
emissions
Disequilibrium:
Venus prospect
increasing dislocation
possible adaptation
increasing dislocation
thermonuclear
war
disequilibrium: Mars
prospect
�5
1860
1990
The apparatus for conducting a world-wide nuclear wars 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 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 chemo-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 nuclear arrangements - both
through what they are in themselves for what purposes, and through their moral opportunity
costs - are widely appreciated. The thesis that the arrangements and practices are immoral,
irrational, and ought to be dismantled - already much argued, and also contested2 - 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.3 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.
Greenhouse and nuclear winter are more intricately connected than being the upside
and downside of meteorological phenomena. One of the high-tech solutions suggestions for
atmospheric overheating, involves the generation of wintering effects - to cool things down -
by flinging enough dust up into the atmosphere, a trick most easily achieved no doubt on the
requisite scale by nuclear explosives. Needless to say, like backburning against out-of-
control fires, artificial winter would be a pretty desperate and, given present expertise,
irrational 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 many who have some role in decision making
For my very small contribution to this, see the War and Peace series in Discussion Papers in
Environmental Philosophy, RSSS, Australian National UniversityGlobal warming, by no means entirely certain, is assumed to be the outcome of increasing
greenhouse gas build up. Of course though some temperatures will rise, cooling will probably
occur also in some localized regions.
�6
(including both experts and politicians), lack a firm grasp on decision-making in conditions
of uncertainty or possible risk.4
The main canvassed policy approaches to the Greenhouse problematique lie firmly
within the dominant social paradigm, the high-tech growth and development ideology.
Diagram 2 Broad policy responses to the Greenhouse problematique.
Dominant paradigm
Alternative paradigm
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, all the dominant approaches.
• Procrastination, the prevailing response. In fact the main gooon mental and conservative
response thus far has been procrastination, or “wait-and-see” as it is more benignly known.5
The approach makes much of the uncertainties, of the shortcomings in even the most
elaborate general circulation models, 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.
There is the pretence that we do not know enough to act6 But it is known that carbon
dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases are fast increasing. The main causes and
enough likely consequences are also known. Theoretical consideration, have already been
partially confirmed by rising temperatures in the eighties. Outlines of rising temperatures are
also known in broad outline, rising sea levels, and so forth. In addition, there are partial
Following Knight, some economists (try to) distinguish between uncertainty and risk. Risk is
said to obtain when some more or less objective numberable probabilities can be assigned to
outcomes, a situation not obtaining as regards the global greenhouse effect. Bayesians, who can
always assign subjective probabilities tend to eschew the distinction, e.g. Cyert and DeGroot,
also 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.
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’.
Part of the problem is that scientists have been caught out (e.g. crying wolf) and have become
ultra-cautious. With the advent of thermodymumies, for instance, scientists begin ‘threatening
mankind with a rather swift “bad death’” as the universe random ‘Thus m. Aber, on ‘balant
ideological use of science even by scientists themselves’ (Bernard p.9).
�7
small-scale models of the Greenhouse effect in action. For example a city such as MexicoCity, which is situated in the bowl-like valley is placed in an environment traps heat as well
as pollution. The ecological affects, like the human affects, are pretty dramatic even at this
small level, and hardly to be sought, or amelated elsewhere.
There is a pretence, fostered also by many scientists, that Greenhouse difficulties have
only just been discovered; a date commonly set for that watershed even is the Villiers
conference and statement of 1986 (e.g. Pittoch ....). Actually there have been Greenhouse
warmings for more than a decade, and there has been a corresponding decade of inaction.
Nor is any action of much significance presently seriously contemplated.
Back in 1979 Bernard wrote at length about and reported the substantial concern of
climate logists about Greenhouse effects. Even the magazine Nature, not noted for its green
sympathies, recorded that ‘the release of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by the burning of
fossil fuels is, concemally, the most important environmental issue in the world today’ (May
? 1975). Bernard quotes many other concerned scientists, several asserting 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 scientists
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
problem has happened. There has been more than a decade of inaction , during which
matters have got worse, and the time frame for evasive action 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 bark 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 may be, as some more reactionary modal-managering
academics would have - a problem or two.
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 activity” is
required for action to be taken. Physical scientists are not done in their misapprehension of
rational decision methods.
Although there is a good deal of practical experience available of statistical-type decision
making order uncertainty, for instance as regards insurance coverage and engineering
projects, decision theory, especially as regards unreputable 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 ever problem back to a
world of certainty where all solutions are known or can be easily found.’ Natural scientists
�including dematologists are, for the most part, on the same erroneous-reduction-toconlittainable-certainty trip. ‘This is not to say that economists have not worked on
uncertainty. ... however ... uncertainty is introduced and then taken out by assumption’
(Cyort and DeGroot p.l). But there are several classes of problematic situations, where
decision and action may be required, where uncertainty cannot be discarded by first,
reduction strategeness or otherwise, notably:• inheritantly probabilistic situations, such as those of indeterminacy in quantum theory;
• essentially unpredictable situations (which may be deterministic) such as those now under
investigation chaos theory;
• presently uncertain situations and outcomes, which may eventually resolve into certain
cases, or may turn 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 assumption being
that with enough money and research effort thrown at it, it will resolve to decent certainty.
But it may well not; there are grounds for supposing that critical parts of climatology will fall
into the essentially unpredictable class. The standard approach of too many research
scientists is a pathetic begging-bowl posture: Supply more funding so we can go on
researching until we obtain certainty.7
There are some severe problems with this standard response. Firstly, it is irrational.
Certainty if 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 additive (non additive) and so incapable of delivering
stable results over slightly fluctuating in strict data. The standard response is
methodologically unsound.
• Adaptation, 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 strain [themselves] ... more widely
adopted... ’ (Schneider p.8). Observe, however, that it is a decidedly restricted “adaptation”
that is being proposed, that humans adjust to the results of present economic and industrial
practices, rather than adjusting them. It is assumed 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 these practices. The policy is like a pernicious
agriculture policy that says, “Let farmers adjust to the results of soil erosion, salination and
7
It does not seem to have occurred to most research scientists demanding more money (even more
per article) that an important reason why they are not obtaining the funding they expect is
because their research results could, if unfavorable, act a serious drag on the industrial
establishment. They are not going to be funded to delegitimize modem industrial society.
�9
so on, without attempting to mitigate or prevent these deleterious changes in advance.” Such
“adaptative agriculture”, the present predominant practice in advanced agriculture, is antienvironmental, but is given a spurious air of evolutionary inevitability and evolutionary
redistributive justice; you can't back natural evolution, which is entirely natural, can you.
Let us condense such far-from-inevitable and highly artificial mal-adaptation in the neologism
badaptation. Greenhouse adaptation, like nuclear adaptation, is badaptation (some, less
kind, would say medaptation).
There is a pragmatic, if cynical, political argument for badaptation, namely, that
unilateral action to prevent a warning is unfeasible and requisite international cooperation
unattainble. Both contentions open to doubt. Unilateral action by the USA, by far the
World's heaviest resource and energy consumer (per capita and on several other relevant
domains) backed up by pressure (familiar from other settings, such as the narcotics war) on
other nations and through the United Nations could make a major difference. Unfortunately
the USA is also the world's largest supplier of influential grown economists. In any case,
international agreements such as those in whaling and 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 adaptation proposal is presently compatible with wait-and-see; both mean no
hauling back on trace gas production. Indeed procrastination will force societies towards
badaptation. Typical of adaptation, like procrastination, is an (over-)emphasis on the
uncertainties of Greenhouse forecasts, and on the decision-theoretic paralysis such
uncertainties are alleged to produce. Characteristic of adaptation too is a minimisation of the
extent 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 rational course of action (instead of the seemingly
irrational course it is). Thus badaptation tends to play with figures at the law 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 fractions
of a degree centigrade may well be linked ot macro-physical and macro-biological change.
Recent modellings deliver, an average, on increase in 2°C attributable to carbon dioxide, and
it is widely thought that other trace gases will double the CO2 effect, yielding a 4°C
temperature increase.8
8
Sources. Note that methane is beginning to rival carbon dioxide as a gas where atmospheric
propostems really matter and whose present increase is excessive.
�10
The colossal extent of future human dislocation has correspondingly been deliberately
underemphasized. The adaptive capacities of human arrangements, when humans are living
at the margin, to massive natural shifts, has been grossly exaggerated.
Consider agriculture alone - set aside flooded cities, 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 conditions.
The mid continental summer temperatures were only 1-2° C warmer than the present
average, under greenhouse conditions they could be more than 3-4° C warmer. In the dustbowl rainfall only slipped at critical growing times (e.g. July for northern com) to 80% of
the contemporary norm; but under Greenhouse conditions it could be significantly less again.
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.
• Intervention, high-tech Gaean engineering. Interventionist proposals so far floated include
• 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 childrens' 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, are far down the planning track; with these schemes
procrastination is rational.
• Regulation, controlling free(-wheeling) enterprise.
Regulation itself, not so bureaucratically popular under that presentation in these latter days
of economic irrationalism, 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 prevention 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
�11
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 systems and a
devological adjustment. While such adjustment may be rational, it is unlikely. Power
structures have too much to lose.9
This is an opposite point to record the chauvinism and environmental shallowness of
the Greenhouse debate. Like heart disease and cancer, the Greenhouse effect is gaining
much discussion and some funding because it just may severely effect the affluent, affluent
people and affluent nations, that have a good deal to lose, in North America 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 expensive dyking (or where
such effort would be in the longer term, as seas rise, 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 worming. Massive destruction of forests,
wetlands, and even the polar tundra could irrevocably destroy complex ecosystems 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 increase in mean atmospheric
temperatures will seriously interfere with most remaining natural environments and result in
the degeneration or destruction of many of them, especially forests wetlands, maritime
environments. Nor will adaptationism help here; for natural evolution is much too slow for
adaptationism to succeed (cf. Keeton pp.763-4).
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
Holistic problems are too extensive for individuals, or even small collectives, to make much
difference acting or their own. Some are too beg even for large collectives or states, but would
require whole regions of the Earth acting in concerte. But of course some state players, such as
the superpowers, as regards nuclear winter, can make a substantial difference, or even all the
difference.
�12
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
(Brown p.10).
Of course the immediate climate 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. 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’ (p.19 ref?)10
Unlike the interim effect of a small nuclear winter, where after a few years at most,
climatic behavior (as distinct from radioactivity levels) would presumably return towards the
previous norm, there will be no similar recovery under greenhouse impact. Technically
then, stability would be lost under the impact,11 disequilibrium induced. An eventual longterm return to some different 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
Second order probabilities, probabilities and uncertainties in the light of first order subjective
probabilities, enter importantly.
Stability is defined in physics in terms of return to an initial (inertial) position after small
disturbance.
�13
temperatures (e.g. 6 - 34°C); outside that range the plants shut down operations.12 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... in southern Sahara, where there is but one ancient tree hanging on in
thousands of square kilometers 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 13 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.14 It is
thought to be due to a complex of factors, including a range of insect predators whose effects
are enhanced on isolated trees left after an excessive zeal for clearing (i.e. holistic effects
enter as regards healthy persistence of trees). The relevant point is that these features are
likely to be accelerated given the additional impact of greenhouse warming on plant
functioning and reproduction.
There are several 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
delicacy 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 the planet could suffer than those chemo-nuclear
warfare, some human induced, some a “chance” matter of the planets' position in space,
namely
• a mini Big Bang, or an undermining of metastability, brought about through very high
energy experimentation (see Leslie)
• a collision with a large meteorite or asteroid.
Such uncertainties, 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
rationally.. Should we obtain it, should we obtain easy relatively unproblematic lives, then
we have, by world standards, been rather lucky. Moreover, these latter uncertainties do
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.
Reported by Recher on Earthworm.
Thus coastline vegetational destruction through detergents in sewerage waters.
�14
appear negligible compared with those bound up with climate, ascribable to:
• excess economic development. The practices involve a complex and sustained assault on
most of the Earth's major ecosystems, forests, seas, etc, 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 conflagration.; 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 desiccative 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), [describe briefly]
Such non-additive, or nonlinear, effects, characteristic of more holistic dissipative
systems, are bound to occur within the Earth's atmosphere and oceans as they undergo
compositional changes. Carbon dioxide itself provides a good example.
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 reactions
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 doubting of carbon dioxide
levels under economic activity over the next 50 years15. However eventual exponential
growth will lead towards levels, and the side effect of such growth, the release of carbon
dioxide from forests and oceans and the considerable reduction in fixation of carbon dioxide
with the decline of forests, will lead in that disastrous direction rather more rapidly. The 1%
15
In the atmosphere of the very early Earth, CO2 exceeded the critical 1% figure; but solar
luminority was about 25% less than now. With increasing solar flux the Earth would have
overheated had the proposition of CO2 not been much reduced (e.g. see Lovelock 88 p.56).
�15
bound constitutes just one of the many serious limits to continuation of present
developmental practices.
Now there can be no rational confidence with respect to complex dissipative systems -
about the behavior of which we presently know comparatively little - that no other
nonadditive effects will no be encountered at a much earlier stage. After all, the Gaean
system, its atmosphere, oceans and ecosystems, will be pushed into essentially
unexperienced and substantially unknown reaches. There is, for example, no experience
from past times of such elevated temperatures as Green house 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 a 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 makings, 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 have that present investigation
of holistic systems, among much else, is still in its infancy. The probability of 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.16 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 escalation.17 ‘Contrary to the forebodings of many environmentalists,
Coupled with this, there is a certain schizophrenia in Lovelock's attitude to the natural
environment. There is also a matching schizophrenia as to the fragility of life on Earth. On the
one side, it required very delicate settings and fine barring to arise; this is part of the argument for
a Gaia hypothesis. On the other side, life is ‘tough, robust, and [highly] adaptable’, virtually
indestructable (p.90). But though a flawed hero, Lovelock is a hero nonetheless.
See Lovelock 79, p.40ff; and also 88? [detail]
�16
finding a suitable’ destructive agent to bring about a ‘doom scenario’ ‘turns out to be an
almost insoluble problem’ (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 scientific 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 National Academy of
Sciences ... prepared by an eight-man committee of their own distinguished members,
assisted by forty-eight other scientists chosen from those expert in the effects of nuclear
explosions and all things subsequent to them’ (p.41, italics added). Lovelock draws from
the distinguished expert report the findings that
... 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 first time, Lovelock had
been caught out badly.
As with pollution, Lovelock has more recently shifted ground18 considerably in the
vulnerability of the Earth to human-induced disturbance. When a system such as Gaia 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....
Shifting ground may be fine, especially when it is to an improved position. But it should be
done honestly and openly, not stealthily or shiftily. Lovelock proceeds to attribute a caricuture of
his own previous position to critics of the Gaia hypothesis (as a clever ‘fabrication’ which 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).
�17
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 pp5354).
The argument to the lesser Venus path, to significant disequilibrium with the Earth's
ecological support system destabilized, takes the following lines. The Earth appears to be a
discipative (far-from-equilibrium) system held at its present balance by a combination of an
(increasing) solar flux - a main energy input into the system - and its major ecological
arrangements, especially vegetation complanes 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 composition.
TABLE 1.
Substance
Carbon dioxide
A
Nitrogen
T
R
Oxygen
Argon
0
C
E
A
N
S
Water
Planetary comparisons
(principal components per cent).
Equilibrium
Earth
Venus
Lifeless
Earth
Mass
Present
Earth
99
0
98
1.9
98
1.9
95
2.7
0.03
79
0
1
trace
0.1
trace
0.1
0.13
2
21
1
63
Salt
3.5
Sodium
nitrate
1.7
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, pp37 and p.39.
�18
The whole Earth system is accordingly far from equilibrium. Unpredictable behavior
as locals increase is therefore almost to be expected. A likely moral is presumably: stress
they system, or destabilize ecosystem controls sufficiently, and the system may be in deep
trouble. It is relevant to inquire into what evidence we have on this case.
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 Gaia hypothesis). But for 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
saltios 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 what 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, but the mean global temperatures have
exhibited no corresponding increase, but have remained relatively constant. Such an
expected consistency in the face of disturbing inputs is ascribed, under holistic approaches
that do something to explain it, to the concerted activity of plants, [detail] Lovelock and
collaberaters have devised an elementary daisy world model which reveals how a feedback
system with two types of daisies can, within limits, stabilize temperatures despite increasing
energy input. The limits are important, for as these limits are approached the maintenance
systems break down.
diagram Q
Similarly several of the well-known chemical cycles, such as those for nitrogen,
sulphur, sodium and so forth depends for their maintenance on the adequate operation of
active ecological structures. Plainly if a cycle loops through a component, such as forests,
which is severely disturbed then the cycle itself could be disrupted.
There is some probability furthermore that the foregoing changes will disturb crucial
equilibrium systems and chemical cycles. Some of these feedback systems are in fact
maintained in equilibrium by natural ecosystems (an example is Lovelock's daisy world
model, which becomes unstable when temperature rises too high). Instability could ensue
under disturbance [explain, include Greenhouse holism].
Without doubt these matters are bad enough. Demise of most of the Earth's richness19
is not a minor matter. Worse could follow.
Natural richness is the main richness, much exceeding human artifice.
�19
The general tenor of the argument is so far this:- By arguments from physical models,
and because of uncertainties, the probability that something could go badly wrong is
nonzero,20 and indeed far from negligible. Part of the argument can be put as follows: there
is a decent probability that a modest Gaia hypothesis holds. But then, there is a considerable
probability that excessive Greenhouse build up will lead to damaging system destabilization.
So containing probabilities, there at least a nonneglizible 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 fast and higher than it has
ever travelled before. Even for an experimental prototype, a now very fast (air-)bus say,
with a select text 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 nonelite 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 breakdown 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.21
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, 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 aptly rarely Daedelian
4. The Sting in the Cosmic Tail: the mini-Furphy theorem and the likely
demise of homo sapiens, spp. economicus..
The trouble with the initial formulation of Murphy's law:
if anything can go wrong, it will,
From logical theories of probability such as Carnap'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 characteristed, to some extent, by restruction 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 opposite image (88 p.63), which corresponds to the demolition of
Gaians control systems.
�20
was that it was insufficiently qualified, much too absolutist, and apparently self-refuting..22
Certain crucial qualifications are required:• Replacement of the certain (certainlistic) conclusion by a somewhat weaker probabilistic
one: namely, it probably 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 result:23
if some thing can genuinely go wrong, given a relatively chancy situation,
it probably will.
Here ‘chancy’ means more or less what it means according to the dictionaries: doubtful,
decidedly risky, or as we shall construe it, having a comparatively low probability vis-a-vis
its alternatives. The precise extent of relative chanciness will be explained as we go.
To prove this proposition, let us first recast it in appropriate symbolic form. Let D be
some arbitrary bad situation, a suitable disaster. Let the possibility of D's happening 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, otherwise
the requisite conclusion would follow in any case. Let C represent the features that render
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 take the following form
where there are n alternative hypotheses hi,...,hn including h:
Pv(h) x P(i < h)
P(h < i)
X 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, is
in Carnap, a new observation), which in our case is C.24 P(h < i) is the probability of h
22
23
24
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 Aviation Mechanics, see the Encyclopaedia Americana', Chase's initial
formulation in a 1955 issue read ‘If an aircraft part can be installed in correctly, someone will
install it the way”.
This little theorem was originally more accurately entitled the Murphy-Leslie theorem. It is an
adaptation, suggested by Leslie's work, of Murphy's Law. This section is overwhelmingly
indebted to Leslie; for Leslie's debts, and so the transitive debts of this section, see Leslie
himself, who deserves to be read in defence his legitimate doomsday apprehensions. The next not
indicates the limited extent to which Leslie's arguments are endorsed.
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.
�21
given i, or of h on condition i (the backward arrow notation, <, symbolises the condition
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)
__________ P(D) x P(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:
Cases
D
D*
Initial (or prior) probability
d
1-d
m, say Vd
m/l, say 1/dl
of outcome
relative chance that C
As it is the relative chance of C that matters, we can rescale to set m = 1/d. To make C
relatively chancy, I has some modest size; specifically let I exceed 1-d/d.
Then the probability to be estimated, P(D < C), is
d x 1/d
d x 1/d + (l-d)/dl
where
k
=
•
1
1+k
_
“
That is»
and P(D < C) | y when k < 1, i.e. when I [
p(D
<
C) =
where
k
=
1,
.
Thud D is probable, at least in being more probable than not, given C, when I 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,
In effect we shall look at the form
P(h < i) =
--------------- < h)------------------------------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.
�P(D [ C)
22
d x m
d x m + (1-d) x m/l
1
1 + k’
1
as before. That is m drops out, only the relative chanciness really matters. The little Furphy
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
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), they 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 initial 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.
Application Table 1.
Cases
D human decline
D* human success
Initial probabilities
1%, i.e. .01
99%, i.e. .99
Relative chanciness,
VlOO, i.e. .01
1/100 x l/l
ofC
Then the probability of human decline given
.01 x ,01
P(D < C)
.01 x .01 + .99 x .01/1
1
!/2
, when I > 99.
�23
It remains to fill out C, thereby showing that I is likely much much larger, and
correspondingly human decline so much the more probable in the light of additional
information, i.e. a posteriori probable in the usual jargon.
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,.... It is appropriate for estimate posterier probability relative to anyone 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 posterier probability is assessed relative to
such matters as our being alive, humans being thus and so (Leslie's reference class), this
being present energy use, present wast output, present forest destruction and so forth.25
The anthropic argument considers the environmentally invidious situation 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 estimated for
instance through energy consumption.
Let us consider the prospects given additional 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, is alive now.
Chart: Our present population predictment on the two scenerios.
Demise scenerio
“Success” scenerio -
representative
zjs
human numbers
human numbers
On of the weaknesses in the argument may appear to be its dependence on an appropriate choice
of relative class. For, the relative probabilities can fall away if different reference classes, not
exhibiting such growth patterns are taken, e.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 cuh as our being scientists, or being computer programmers, etc..
�24
Humans have got themselves - to some extent put themselves, though much may be the
result of muddling through - into an extremely dubious, environmentally insidious and
unsustainable position, on a range of critical parameters. Their numbers are excessive, their
high energy use is excessive, their waste and their pollution are both excessive - and all
chose and other excesses are at the steep end of upward exponential curves.
Several relevant graphs are distressingly exponential, with the present in the near
vertical growth phase:
graphs
Many other similarly shaped graphs26 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 methane, and so on. The display typifies the accelerating human
roller coaster.
Those curves are tightly interconnected, in criss-crossing fashion. For example, the
productivity of contemporary agriculture which enables the feeding of hugh 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 turn on fossil fuel agriculture.
Because of the intertwining of these phenomena, there is no easy way of getting off the
accelerating roller-coaster.
26
All the graphs exhibited are drawn from Boyden.
�25
Nor, as observed, is there much 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 Malthusian factors; they are becoming very disasterprone.
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 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 warfard, and experimental equipment such as very high energy particle
accelerators (which could perhaps tunnel under a metastable state or induce a min-Big-Bang;
see Leslie).
• Accumulated risk factors, such as the hugh relative size of human population, energy
consumption, greenhouse gas production, etc..27
Despite the ideological obstacles, enormous political, religious and economic obstacles
blocking the way of requisite change, major efforts should be put into reducing both these
types of risks. Philosophers could have a significant role in breaking down the ideological
barriers and in clarifying and developing the arguments involved.
5. What ought to be done about Greenhouse?
The general result already reached, that humans collectively should reduce their risk
taking, and in particular reduce their gross numbers, extends to rational Greenhouse decision
and action theory. But that large and difficult challenge is not all that there is to try, that
should rationally be attempted.
While some increase in mean global temperatures, and all that implies, can no longer be
averted, the potentially most damaging effects can be: namely, by curtailing human-induced
27
As before, there are various different reasons why these induce risk, neo-Malthusian and
probabilistic in particular.
�26
output of Greenhouse gases. Moreover, there is an approximate upper bound upon
temperature of importance, which can serve to supply a significant limit as output. That
bound - which reduces risk taking by confining encountered situations to those where there
is some past experiential basis - is given by estimated temperatures during Altithermal 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 1°C.
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 easily in the 1990s.
That means shifting from the dominant growth paradigm; it means expensive re- and deindustrialisation. It is unlikely.
Final corollary: Humans collectively are not (particularly) rational. But we had already
guessed as much from the latest...... in the long history of human wars.
References
H.W. Bernard, The Greenhouse Effect, Ballinger, Cambridge Mass., 1980.
A. Block, Murphy's Law. Book Two, Magnum, Methuen, ...
S. Boyden, Western Civilization in Biological Perspective, Clarendon, Oxford, 1987.
L.R. Brown and others, State of the World 1989, Norton/Worldwatch, New York, 1989;
referred to as Worldwatch.
R. Carnap, Logical Foundations of Probability, Second edition, University of Chicago
Press, 1962.
R.M. Cyert and M.H. DeGroot, Bayesian Analysis and Uncertainty in Economic Theory,
Rowman & Littfield, New Jersey, 1987.
‘Developing policies for responding to climatic change’, Report of the Beijer Institute,
February 1988.
Keeton,
J. Leslie, ‘Risking and World's End’, Bulletin of the Curiadian Nuclear Society 10(3)
(1989) 1-6; all references to Leslie are to this article unless otherwise indicated.
J. Leslie, ‘Is the end of the world nigh?’, The Philosophical Quarterly, to appear; referred to
as PQ.
J.E. Lovelock, Gaia. A new look at life on Earth, Oxford University Press, 1979.
J. Lovelock, ‘Are we destabilising world climate?’, The Ecologist 15(1985) 52-55.
�27
J.Lovelock, ‘Man and Gaia’, The Earth Report Monitoring the Battle for Our Environment,
(ed. E. Goldsmith and N. Hilgard) Mitchell Benzley, London, 1988, 51-64.
R. and V. Routley, ‘Nuclear energy and obligations to the future’, Inquirey 21(1978) 133R. Routley, ‘Ultralogic as universal?’ reprinted as an Appendix in Exploring Meinong's
Jungle, RSSS, Australian National University, 1979.
S. Schneider ‘Not to decide is to decide’, in Greenhouse 1988: Planning for Climate Change
(ed. T. Dendy), Department of Environment and Planning, Adelaide, 1989, 5-10.
R.P. Turco and others, ‘Nuclear winter: Global consequences of multiple nuclear
explosions’, Science 222 (1983) 1283-1292.
�
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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 improved with nuclear war for its potential to
disrupt a wide range of human and natural systems, [severely] complicating the
back of moneying economics 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 Greenhouse problematique, 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, the substantially new socio-economic arrangements soon eventuate.
There is certainly plenty of room for different approaches, 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 forests for fifty years ahead down a very
hazardous track. But 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
those, 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. 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.
2
Diagram 1. Spectrum of approaches:
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 action1
Moderate action
Considerable action
These very condensed responses will be expanded and explained as we proceed.
Breifly too the outcome is that there is no easy path; future humans should expect a hard
landing.
1. Investigative philosophy, argument and rational decision
The role of philosophy in such a complex problematique as that of Greenhouse is not
difficult to state briefly. Philosophy, Anglo-American philosophy especially, is concerned
above all with argument. Investigative philosophy is applied philosophy, investigating
arguments, their features - assumptions, reliability, etc. - and their generalisation to rational
processes, but outside normal philosophical topics. The generalisation to rational processes
comprehends a wider range of philosophical throughput than the orthodox range of argument
typically addressed in logic courses; to probabilistic and plausibilistic reasoning, to decision
processing and making.
A main objective in this piece of investigative philosophy is to consider certain
arguments for severe dislocation pprobabilities, as a result of Greenhouse effects, and the
resulting impact on rational decision formation and action. There are certain arguments of
particular interest radical decision and action: various neo-Malthusian arguments, and
doomsday arguments.
1
Taoist no-action would be different. It would not have undertaken excessive industrial action in
the first place.
3
The main run of arguments to considerable action are neo-Malthusian in character. The
general form of these arguments is simply this: growth in some parameter encounters limits,
with severe effects. A characteristic graphic representation is as follows:
limits
growth
parameter
time
exponential growth
pattern
J
encountering
limits
subsequent
varying unstable
behavior
The limits are often imposed just by finitude, e.g. finiteness of a resource or a sink. But
other limits can be important, for instance where new phenomena or thresholds come into
play. General Malthusian arguments loom in the background in what follows.
But a different argument, of especial concern as regard climatic changes, is the
following anthropic doomsday 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 Lesser Venus Prospect, premiss).
• That result would be disastrous for human activities, and indeed for humans (Catastrophe
Prospect).
• Because of the unusual, and unusually precarious, position of humans, 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 (Catastrophe Probability).
That is, by a rectified version of Murphy's law - that if something can go wrong then in
appropriate unusual conditions, it very probability will - an incrementally small probability is
inflated into a very large probability.
4
It would be a mistake to conclude that because the argument itself is an unlikely one,
everyone can stop worrying. The argument is but one of a substantial raft of arguments that
should have everyone worried; it is but a final intellectual string, so to say, from the
inconspicuous cosmological tail.
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 who -will 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 moral irrationality 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.
Diagram 2. Macro-climatic setting.
Bands: all
boundaries fuzzy
mean
global
temperature
(degrees C)
escalating
emissions
Disequilibrium:
Venus prospect
increasing dislocation
possible adaptation
increasing dislocation
thermonuclear
war
disequilibrium: Mars
prospect
5
1860
1990
The apparatus for conducting a world-wide nuclear wars 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 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 chemo-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 nuclear arrangements - both
through what they are in themselves for what purposes, and through their moral opportunity
costs - are widely appreciated. The thesis that the arrangements and practices are immoral,
irrational, and ought to be dismantled - already much argued, and also contested2 - 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.3 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.
Greenhouse and nuclear winter are more intricately connected than being the upside
and downside of meteorological phenomena. One of the high-tech solutions suggestions for
atmospheric overheating, involves the generation of wintering effects - to cool things down -
by flinging enough dust up into the atmosphere, a trick most easily achieved no doubt on the
requisite scale by nuclear explosives. Needless to say, like backburning against out-of-
control fires, artificial winter would be a pretty desperate and, given present expertise,
irrational 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 many who have some role in decision making
For my very small contribution to this, see the War and Peace series in Discussion Papers in
Environmental Philosophy, RSSS, Australian National UniversityGlobal warming, by no means entirely certain, is assumed to be the outcome of increasing
greenhouse gas build up. Of course though some temperatures will rise, cooling will probably
occur also in some localized regions.
6
(including both experts and politicians), lack a firm grasp on decision-making in conditions
of uncertainty or possible risk.4
The main canvassed policy approaches to the Greenhouse problematique lie firmly
within the dominant social paradigm, the high-tech growth and development ideology.
Diagram 2 Broad policy responses to the Greenhouse problematique.
Dominant paradigm
Alternative paradigm
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, all the dominant approaches.
• Procrastination, the prevailing response. In fact the main gooon mental and conservative
response thus far has been procrastination, or “wait-and-see” as it is more benignly known.5
The approach makes much of the uncertainties, of the shortcomings in even the most
elaborate general circulation models, 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.
There is the pretence that we do not know enough to act6 But it is known that carbon
dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases are fast increasing. The main causes and
enough likely consequences are also known. Theoretical consideration, have already been
partially confirmed by rising temperatures in the eighties. Outlines of rising temperatures are
also known in broad outline, rising sea levels, and so forth. In addition, there are partial
Following Knight, some economists (try to) distinguish between uncertainty and risk. Risk is
said to obtain when some more or less objective numberable probabilities can be assigned to
outcomes, a situation not obtaining as regards the global greenhouse effect. Bayesians, who can
always assign subjective probabilities tend to eschew the distinction, e.g. Cyert and DeGroot,
also 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.
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’.
Part of the problem is that scientists have been caught out (e.g. crying wolf) and have become
ultra-cautious. With the advent of thermodymumies, for instance, scientists begin ‘threatening
mankind with a rather swift “bad death’” as the universe random ‘Thus m. Aber, on ‘balant
ideological use of science even by scientists themselves’ (Bernard p.9).
7
small-scale models of the Greenhouse effect in action. For example a city such as MexicoCity, which is situated in the bowl-like valley is placed in an environment traps heat as well
as pollution. The ecological affects, like the human affects, are pretty dramatic even at this
small level, and hardly to be sought, or amelated elsewhere.
There is a pretence, fostered also by many scientists, that Greenhouse difficulties have
only just been discovered; a date commonly set for that watershed even is the Villiers
conference and statement of 1986 (e.g. Pittoch ....). Actually there have been Greenhouse
warmings for more than a decade, and there has been a corresponding decade of inaction.
Nor is any action of much significance presently seriously contemplated.
Back in 1979 Bernard wrote at length about and reported the substantial concern of
climate logists about Greenhouse effects. Even the magazine Nature, not noted for its green
sympathies, recorded that ‘the release of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by the burning of
fossil fuels is, concemally, the most important environmental issue in the world today’ (May
? 1975). Bernard quotes many other concerned scientists, several asserting 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 scientists
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
problem has happened. There has been more than a decade of inaction , during which
matters have got worse, and the time frame for evasive action 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 bark 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 may be, as some more reactionary modal-managering
academics would have - a problem or two.
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 activity” is
required for action to be taken. Physical scientists are not done in their misapprehension of
rational decision methods.
Although there is a good deal of practical experience available of statistical-type decision
making order uncertainty, for instance as regards insurance coverage and engineering
projects, decision theory, especially as regards unreputable 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 ever problem back to a
world of certainty where all solutions are known or can be easily found.’ Natural scientists
including dematologists are, for the most part, on the same erroneous-reduction-toconlittainable-certainty trip. ‘This is not to say that economists have not worked on
uncertainty. ... however ... uncertainty is introduced and then taken out by assumption’
(Cyort and DeGroot p.l). But there are several classes of problematic situations, where
decision and action may be required, where uncertainty cannot be discarded by first,
reduction strategeness or otherwise, notably:• inheritantly probabilistic situations, such as those of indeterminacy in quantum theory;
• essentially unpredictable situations (which may be deterministic) such as those now under
investigation chaos theory;
• presently uncertain situations and outcomes, which may eventually resolve into certain
cases, or may turn 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 assumption being
that with enough money and research effort thrown at it, it will resolve to decent certainty.
But it may well not; there are grounds for supposing that critical parts of climatology will fall
into the essentially unpredictable class. The standard approach of too many research
scientists is a pathetic begging-bowl posture: Supply more funding so we can go on
researching until we obtain certainty.7
There are some severe problems with this standard response. Firstly, it is irrational.
Certainty if 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 additive (non additive) and so incapable of delivering
stable results over slightly fluctuating in strict data. The standard response is
methodologically unsound.
• Adaptation, 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 strain [themselves] ... more widely
adopted... ’ (Schneider p.8). Observe, however, that it is a decidedly restricted “adaptation”
that is being proposed, that humans adjust to the results of present economic and industrial
practices, rather than adjusting them. It is assumed 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 these practices. The policy is like a pernicious
agriculture policy that says, “Let farmers adjust to the results of soil erosion, salination and
7
It does not seem to have occurred to most research scientists demanding more money (even more
per article) that an important reason why they are not obtaining the funding they expect is
because their research results could, if unfavorable, act a serious drag on the industrial
establishment. They are not going to be funded to delegitimize modem industrial society.
9
so on, without attempting to mitigate or prevent these deleterious changes in advance.” Such
“adaptative agriculture”, the present predominant practice in advanced agriculture, is antienvironmental, but is given a spurious air of evolutionary inevitability and evolutionary
redistributive justice; you can't back natural evolution, which is entirely natural, can you.
Let us condense such far-from-inevitable and highly artificial mal-adaptation in the neologism
badaptation. Greenhouse adaptation, like nuclear adaptation, is badaptation (some, less
kind, would say medaptation).
There is a pragmatic, if cynical, political argument for badaptation, namely, that
unilateral action to prevent a warning is unfeasible and requisite international cooperation
unattainble. Both contentions open to doubt. Unilateral action by the USA, by far the
World's heaviest resource and energy consumer (per capita and on several other relevant
domains) backed up by pressure (familiar from other settings, such as the narcotics war) on
other nations and through the United Nations could make a major difference. Unfortunately
the USA is also the world's largest supplier of influential grown economists. In any case,
international agreements such as those in whaling and 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 adaptation proposal is presently compatible with wait-and-see; both mean no
hauling back on trace gas production. Indeed procrastination will force societies towards
badaptation. Typical of adaptation, like procrastination, is an (over-)emphasis on the
uncertainties of Greenhouse forecasts, and on the decision-theoretic paralysis such
uncertainties are alleged to produce. Characteristic of adaptation too is a minimisation of the
extent 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 rational course of action (instead of the seemingly
irrational course it is). Thus badaptation tends to play with figures at the law 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 fractions
of a degree centigrade may well be linked ot macro-physical and macro-biological change.
Recent modellings deliver, an average, on increase in 2°C attributable to carbon dioxide, and
it is widely thought that other trace gases will double the CO2 effect, yielding a 4°C
temperature increase.8
8
Sources. Note that methane is beginning to rival carbon dioxide as a gas where atmospheric
propostems really matter and whose present increase is excessive.
10
The colossal extent of future human dislocation has correspondingly been deliberately
underemphasized. The adaptive capacities of human arrangements, when humans are living
at the margin, to massive natural shifts, has been grossly exaggerated.
Consider agriculture alone - set aside flooded cities, 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 conditions.
The mid continental summer temperatures were only 1-2° C warmer than the present
average, under greenhouse conditions they could be more than 3-4° C warmer. In the dustbowl rainfall only slipped at critical growing times (e.g. July for northern com) to 80% of
the contemporary norm; but under Greenhouse conditions it could be significantly less again.
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.
• Intervention, high-tech Gaean engineering. Interventionist proposals so far floated include
• 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 childrens' 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, are far down the planning track; with these schemes
procrastination is rational.
• Regulation, controlling free(-wheeling) enterprise.
Regulation itself, not so bureaucratically popular under that presentation in these latter days
of economic irrationalism, 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 prevention 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
11
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 systems and a
devological adjustment. While such adjustment may be rational, it is unlikely. Power
structures have too much to lose.9
This is an opposite point to record the chauvinism and environmental shallowness of
the Greenhouse debate. Like heart disease and cancer, the Greenhouse effect is gaining
much discussion and some funding because it just may severely effect the affluent, affluent
people and affluent nations, that have a good deal to lose, in North America 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 expensive dyking (or where
such effort would be in the longer term, as seas rise, 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 worming. Massive destruction of forests,
wetlands, and even the polar tundra could irrevocably destroy complex ecosystems 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 increase in mean atmospheric
temperatures will seriously interfere with most remaining natural environments and result in
the degeneration or destruction of many of them, especially forests wetlands, maritime
environments. Nor will adaptationism help here; for natural evolution is much too slow for
adaptationism to succeed (cf. Keeton pp.763-4).
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
Holistic problems are too extensive for individuals, or even small collectives, to make much
difference acting or their own. Some are too beg even for large collectives or states, but would
require whole regions of the Earth acting in concerte. But of course some state players, such as
the superpowers, as regards nuclear winter, can make a substantial difference, or even all the
difference.
12
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
(Brown p.10).
Of course the immediate climate 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. 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’ (p.19 ref?)10
Unlike the interim effect of a small nuclear winter, where after a few years at most,
climatic behavior (as distinct from radioactivity levels) would presumably return towards the
previous norm, there will be no similar recovery under greenhouse impact. Technically
then, stability would be lost under the impact,11 disequilibrium induced. An eventual longterm return to some different 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
Second order probabilities, probabilities and uncertainties in the light of first order subjective
probabilities, enter importantly.
Stability is defined in physics in terms of return to an initial (inertial) position after small
disturbance.
13
temperatures (e.g. 6 - 34°C); outside that range the plants shut down operations.12 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... in southern Sahara, where there is but one ancient tree hanging on in
thousands of square kilometers 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 13 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.14 It is
thought to be due to a complex of factors, including a range of insect predators whose effects
are enhanced on isolated trees left after an excessive zeal for clearing (i.e. holistic effects
enter as regards healthy persistence of trees). The relevant point is that these features are
likely to be accelerated given the additional impact of greenhouse warming on plant
functioning and reproduction.
There are several 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
delicacy 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 the planet could suffer than those chemo-nuclear
warfare, some human induced, some a “chance” matter of the planets' position in space,
namely
• a mini Big Bang, or an undermining of metastability, brought about through very high
energy experimentation (see Leslie)
• a collision with a large meteorite or asteroid.
Such uncertainties, 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
rationally.. Should we obtain it, should we obtain easy relatively unproblematic lives, then
we have, by world standards, been rather lucky. Moreover, these latter uncertainties do
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.
Reported by Recher on Earthworm.
Thus coastline vegetational destruction through detergents in sewerage waters.
14
appear negligible compared with those bound up with climate, ascribable to:
• excess economic development. The practices involve a complex and sustained assault on
most of the Earth's major ecosystems, forests, seas, etc, 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 conflagration.; 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 desiccative 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), [describe briefly]
Such non-additive, or nonlinear, effects, characteristic of more holistic dissipative
systems, are bound to occur within the Earth's atmosphere and oceans as they undergo
compositional changes. Carbon dioxide itself provides a good example.
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 reactions
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 doubting of carbon dioxide
levels under economic activity over the next 50 years15. However eventual exponential
growth will lead towards levels, and the side effect of such growth, the release of carbon
dioxide from forests and oceans and the considerable reduction in fixation of carbon dioxide
with the decline of forests, will lead in that disastrous direction rather more rapidly. The 1%
15
In the atmosphere of the very early Earth, CO2 exceeded the critical 1% figure; but solar
luminority was about 25% less than now. With increasing solar flux the Earth would have
overheated had the proposition of CO2 not been much reduced (e.g. see Lovelock 88 p.56).
15
bound constitutes just one of the many serious limits to continuation of present
developmental practices.
Now there can be no rational confidence with respect to complex dissipative systems -
about the behavior of which we presently know comparatively little - that no other
nonadditive effects will no be encountered at a much earlier stage. After all, the Gaean
system, its atmosphere, oceans and ecosystems, will be pushed into essentially
unexperienced and substantially unknown reaches. There is, for example, no experience
from past times of such elevated temperatures as Green house 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 a 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 makings, 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 have that present investigation
of holistic systems, among much else, is still in its infancy. The probability of 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.16 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 escalation.17 ‘Contrary to the forebodings of many environmentalists,
Coupled with this, there is a certain schizophrenia in Lovelock's attitude to the natural
environment. There is also a matching schizophrenia as to the fragility of life on Earth. On the
one side, it required very delicate settings and fine barring to arise; this is part of the argument for
a Gaia hypothesis. On the other side, life is ‘tough, robust, and [highly] adaptable’, virtually
indestructable (p.90). But though a flawed hero, Lovelock is a hero nonetheless.
See Lovelock 79, p.40ff; and also 88? [detail]
16
finding a suitable’ destructive agent to bring about a ‘doom scenario’ ‘turns out to be an
almost insoluble problem’ (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 scientific 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 National Academy of
Sciences ... prepared by an eight-man committee of their own distinguished members,
assisted by forty-eight other scientists chosen from those expert in the effects of nuclear
explosions and all things subsequent to them’ (p.41, italics added). Lovelock draws from
the distinguished expert report the findings that
... 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 first time, Lovelock had
been caught out badly.
As with pollution, Lovelock has more recently shifted ground18 considerably in the
vulnerability of the Earth to human-induced disturbance. When a system such as Gaia 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....
Shifting ground may be fine, especially when it is to an improved position. But it should be
done honestly and openly, not stealthily or shiftily. Lovelock proceeds to attribute a caricuture of
his own previous position to critics of the Gaia hypothesis (as a clever ‘fabrication’ which 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).
17
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 pp5354).
The argument to the lesser Venus path, to significant disequilibrium with the Earth's
ecological support system destabilized, takes the following lines. The Earth appears to be a
discipative (far-from-equilibrium) system held at its present balance by a combination of an
(increasing) solar flux - a main energy input into the system - and its major ecological
arrangements, especially vegetation complanes 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 composition.
TABLE 1.
Substance
Carbon dioxide
A
Nitrogen
T
R
Oxygen
Argon
0
C
E
A
N
S
Water
Planetary comparisons
(principal components per cent).
Equilibrium
Earth
Venus
Lifeless
Earth
Mass
Present
Earth
99
0
98
1.9
98
1.9
95
2.7
0.03
79
0
1
trace
0.1
trace
0.1
0.13
2
21
1
63
Salt
3.5
Sodium
nitrate
1.7
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, pp37 and p.39.
18
The whole Earth system is accordingly far from equilibrium. Unpredictable behavior
as locals increase is therefore almost to be expected. A likely moral is presumably: stress
they system, or destabilize ecosystem controls sufficiently, and the system may be in deep
trouble. It is relevant to inquire into what evidence we have on this case.
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 Gaia hypothesis). But for 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
saltios 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 what 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, but the mean global temperatures have
exhibited no corresponding increase, but have remained relatively constant. Such an
expected consistency in the face of disturbing inputs is ascribed, under holistic approaches
that do something to explain it, to the concerted activity of plants, [detail] Lovelock and
collaberaters have devised an elementary daisy world model which reveals how a feedback
system with two types of daisies can, within limits, stabilize temperatures despite increasing
energy input. The limits are important, for as these limits are approached the maintenance
systems break down.
diagram Q
Similarly several of the well-known chemical cycles, such as those for nitrogen,
sulphur, sodium and so forth depends for their maintenance on the adequate operation of
active ecological structures. Plainly if a cycle loops through a component, such as forests,
which is severely disturbed then the cycle itself could be disrupted.
There is some probability furthermore that the foregoing changes will disturb crucial
equilibrium systems and chemical cycles. Some of these feedback systems are in fact
maintained in equilibrium by natural ecosystems (an example is Lovelock's daisy world
model, which becomes unstable when temperature rises too high). Instability could ensue
under disturbance [explain, include Greenhouse holism].
Without doubt these matters are bad enough. Demise of most of the Earth's richness19
is not a minor matter. Worse could follow.
Natural richness is the main richness, much exceeding human artifice.
19
The general tenor of the argument is so far this:- By arguments from physical models,
and because of uncertainties, the probability that something could go badly wrong is
nonzero,20 and indeed far from negligible. Part of the argument can be put as follows: there
is a decent probability that a modest Gaia hypothesis holds. But then, there is a considerable
probability that excessive Greenhouse build up will lead to damaging system destabilization.
So containing probabilities, there at least a nonneglizible 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 fast and higher than it has
ever travelled before. Even for an experimental prototype, a now very fast (air-)bus say,
with a select text 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 nonelite 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 breakdown 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.21
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, 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 aptly rarely Daedelian
4. The Sting in the Cosmic Tail: the mini-Furphy theorem and the likely
demise of homo sapiens, spp. economicus..
The trouble with the initial formulation of Murphy's law:
if anything can go wrong, it will,
From logical theories of probability such as Carnap'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 characteristed, to some extent, by restruction 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 opposite image (88 p.63), which corresponds to the demolition of
Gaians control systems.
20
was that it was insufficiently qualified, much too absolutist, and apparently self-refuting..22
Certain crucial qualifications are required:• Replacement of the certain (certainlistic) conclusion by a somewhat weaker probabilistic
one: namely, it probably 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 result:23
if some thing can genuinely go wrong, given a relatively chancy situation,
it probably will.
Here ‘chancy’ means more or less what it means according to the dictionaries: doubtful,
decidedly risky, or as we shall construe it, having a comparatively low probability vis-a-vis
its alternatives. The precise extent of relative chanciness will be explained as we go.
To prove this proposition, let us first recast it in appropriate symbolic form. Let D be
some arbitrary bad situation, a suitable disaster. Let the possibility of D's happening 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, otherwise
the requisite conclusion would follow in any case. Let C represent the features that render
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 take the following form
where there are n alternative hypotheses hi,...,hn including h:
Pv(h) x P(i < h)
P(h < i)
X 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, is
in Carnap, a new observation), which in our case is C.24 P(h < i) is the probability of h
22
23
24
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 Aviation Mechanics, see the Encyclopaedia Americana', Chase's initial
formulation in a 1955 issue read ‘If an aircraft part can be installed in correctly, someone will
install it the way”.
This little theorem was originally more accurately entitled the Murphy-Leslie theorem. It is an
adaptation, suggested by Leslie's work, of Murphy's Law. This section is overwhelmingly
indebted to Leslie; for Leslie's debts, and so the transitive debts of this section, see Leslie
himself, who deserves to be read in defence his legitimate doomsday apprehensions. The next not
indicates the limited extent to which Leslie's arguments are endorsed.
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.
21
given i, or of h on condition i (the backward arrow notation, <, symbolises the condition
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)
__________ P(D) x P(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:
Cases
D
D*
Initial (or prior) probability
d
1-d
m, say Vd
m/l, say 1/dl
of outcome
relative chance that C
As it is the relative chance of C that matters, we can rescale to set m = 1/d. To make C
relatively chancy, I has some modest size; specifically let I exceed 1-d/d.
Then the probability to be estimated, P(D < C), is
d x 1/d
d x 1/d + (l-d)/dl
where
k
=
•
1
1+k
_
“
That is»
and P(D < C) | y when k < 1, i.e. when I [
p(D
<
C) =
where
k
=
1,
.
Thud D is probable, at least in being more probable than not, given C, when I 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,
In effect we shall look at the form
P(h < i) =
--------------- < h)------------------------------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.
P(D [ C)
22
d x m
d x m + (1-d) x m/l
1
1 + k’
1
as before. That is m drops out, only the relative chanciness really matters. The little Furphy
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
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), they 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 initial 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.
Application Table 1.
Cases
D human decline
D* human success
Initial probabilities
1%, i.e. .01
99%, i.e. .99
Relative chanciness,
VlOO, i.e. .01
1/100 x l/l
ofC
Then the probability of human decline given
.01 x ,01
P(D < C)
.01 x .01 + .99 x .01/1
1
!/2
, when I > 99.
23
It remains to fill out C, thereby showing that I is likely much much larger, and
correspondingly human decline so much the more probable in the light of additional
information, i.e. a posteriori probable in the usual jargon.
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,.... It is appropriate for estimate posterier probability relative to anyone 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 posterier probability is assessed relative to
such matters as our being alive, humans being thus and so (Leslie's reference class), this
being present energy use, present wast output, present forest destruction and so forth.25
The anthropic argument considers the environmentally invidious situation 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 estimated for
instance through energy consumption.
Let us consider the prospects given additional 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, is alive now.
Chart: Our present population predictment on the two scenerios.
Demise scenerio
“Success” scenerio -
representative
zjs
human numbers
human numbers
On of the weaknesses in the argument may appear to be its dependence on an appropriate choice
of relative class. For, the relative probabilities can fall away if different reference classes, not
exhibiting such growth patterns are taken, e.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 cuh as our being scientists, or being computer programmers, etc..
24
Humans have got themselves - to some extent put themselves, though much may be the
result of muddling through - into an extremely dubious, environmentally insidious and
unsustainable position, on a range of critical parameters. Their numbers are excessive, their
high energy use is excessive, their waste and their pollution are both excessive - and all
chose and other excesses are at the steep end of upward exponential curves.
Several relevant graphs are distressingly exponential, with the present in the near
vertical growth phase:
graphs
Many other similarly shaped graphs26 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 methane, and so on. The display typifies the accelerating human
roller coaster.
Those curves are tightly interconnected, in criss-crossing fashion. For example, the
productivity of contemporary agriculture which enables the feeding of hugh 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 turn on fossil fuel agriculture.
Because of the intertwining of these phenomena, there is no easy way of getting off the
accelerating roller-coaster.
26
All the graphs exhibited are drawn from Boyden.
25
Nor, as observed, is there much 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 Malthusian factors; they are becoming very disasterprone.
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 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 warfard, and experimental equipment such as very high energy particle
accelerators (which could perhaps tunnel under a metastable state or induce a min-Big-Bang;
see Leslie).
• Accumulated risk factors, such as the hugh relative size of human population, energy
consumption, greenhouse gas production, etc..27
Despite the ideological obstacles, enormous political, religious and economic obstacles
blocking the way of requisite change, major efforts should be put into reducing both these
types of risks. Philosophers could have a significant role in breaking down the ideological
barriers and in clarifying and developing the arguments involved.
5. What ought to be done about Greenhouse?
The general result already reached, that humans collectively should reduce their risk
taking, and in particular reduce their gross numbers, extends to rational Greenhouse decision
and action theory. But that large and difficult challenge is not all that there is to try, that
should rationally be attempted.
While some increase in mean global temperatures, and all that implies, can no longer be
averted, the potentially most damaging effects can be: namely, by curtailing human-induced
27
As before, there are various different reasons why these induce risk, neo-Malthusian and
probabilistic in particular.
26
output of Greenhouse gases. Moreover, there is an approximate upper bound upon
temperature of importance, which can serve to supply a significant limit as output. That
bound - which reduces risk taking by confining encountered situations to those where there
is some past experiential basis - is given by estimated temperatures during Altithermal 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 1°C.
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 easily in the 1990s.
That means shifting from the dominant growth paradigm; it means expensive re- and deindustrialisation. It is unlikely.
Final corollary: Humans collectively are not (particularly) rational. But we had already
guessed as much from the latest...... in the long history of human wars.
References
H.W. Bernard, The Greenhouse Effect, Ballinger, Cambridge Mass., 1980.
A. Block, Murphy's Law. Book Two, Magnum, Methuen, ...
S. Boyden, Western Civilization in Biological Perspective, Clarendon, Oxford, 1987.
L.R. Brown and others, State of the World 1989, Norton/Worldwatch, New York, 1989;
referred to as Worldwatch.
R. Carnap, Logical Foundations of Probability, Second edition, University of Chicago
Press, 1962.
R.M. Cyert and M.H. DeGroot, Bayesian Analysis and Uncertainty in Economic Theory,
Rowman & Littfield, New Jersey, 1987.
‘Developing policies for responding to climatic change’, Report of the Beijer Institute,
February 1988.
Keeton,
J. Leslie, ‘Risking and World's End’, Bulletin of the Curiadian Nuclear Society 10(3)
(1989) 1-6; all references to Leslie are to this article unless otherwise indicated.
J. Leslie, ‘Is the end of the world nigh?’, The Philosophical Quarterly, to appear; referred to
as PQ.
J.E. Lovelock, Gaia. A new look at life on Earth, Oxford University Press, 1979.
J. Lovelock, ‘Are we destabilising world climate?’, The Ecologist 15(1985) 52-55.
27
J.Lovelock, ‘Man and Gaia’, The Earth Report Monitoring the Battle for Our Environment,
(ed. E. Goldsmith and N. Hilgard) Mitchell Benzley, London, 1988, 51-64.
R. and V. Routley, ‘Nuclear energy and obligations to the future’, Inquirey 21(1978) 133R. Routley, ‘Ultralogic as universal?’ reprinted as an Appendix in Exploring Meinong's
Jungle, RSSS, Australian National University, 1979.
S. Schneider ‘Not to decide is to decide’, in Greenhouse 1988: Planning for Climate Change
(ed. T. Dendy), Department of Environment and Planning, Adelaide, 1989, 5-10.
R.P. Turco and others, ‘Nuclear winter: Global consequences of multiple nuclear
explosions’, Science 222 (1983) 1283-1292.
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Australian National University Office
Australian National University Office > Miscellaneous
Box 14: Green Projects in Progress
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https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/87ae026d1b7eb1686912cf50e2b4c625.pdf
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PDF Text
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material and cultural resources, and to settle the many
disputes and conflicts which will continue to be a part of
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A FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM FOR (DEEP-)GREEN POLITICAL
THEORY? DEMOCRATIC OR AUTHORITARIAN PROCEDURES
There is strictly no logical space for a deep-green democracy, according forexample to
For there is a clash, an essential tension, between deeper green values and
commitments, notably to intrinsic values in nature, and democratic procedures. The main drift
of the argument is that green values, which are mandatory for deeper greens, require for their
implementation anti-democratic, indeed authoritarian procedures; otherwise they cannot be
guaranteed.
__
This nasty conundrum for green theory over democracy, which 'it typically supports, is
put in a sharp form as follows:1*
Democracy concerns procedures, environmentalism certain outcomes. What guarantee can
there be that the procedures will deliver the outcomes? What guarantee that democracy will
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.^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
ocout-r
outcomes. Plausible scenarios are easily designed where just such outcomes happens, for
instance as in what has been called a “paradox of democracy” where a constituency elects an
antidemocratic tyrant.3
A concerned attempt is made by Saward to mount a strong version of such a paradox
against deep-green political theory (which he calls ‘dark green’). The version is based upon
holismand intrinsic value requirements, coupled with democratic demands, of deep-green
theory. In clearest form, the version turns 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
3
Goodin condensing Saward p.168.
( For here as almost everywhere else, things can go wrong. Philosophy especially supplies few
absolutes and little certainty.)
Such paradxes of democracy, and varieants thereupon, are presented trenchantly by Popper, and
nullified in UTD.
�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.4
As should now be plain, and will be made plainer, consistency is not an invariant desideratien,
and is not insisted upon; coherence is what is “implied” and what supersedes consistency. As
more than a century of Hegalian theory revealed, there may 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 rejectee^) is that only undemocratic,
authoritarian procedures fit with deeper green imperatives or givens.5 Several illustrations are
offered of inconsistency of green imperatives with types of democratic procedures—none of
which tell, without testing adaptation, specifically against deeper green positions.
\ first illustration is directed against Porritt:
A direct democratic procedure (is not) compatible with imperative goals like
‘local production for local need’, Tow consumption’, ‘labour-intensive
production’, and ‘voluntary siplicity’ (other items from Porritt’s list).6
Against this and other illustrations, it is worth emphasizing goals resemble objectives and
targets, goals are goals which are not mandatory and by no means always achieved, especially if
the achievers, like present humans, fall short (e.g. in ecological sensitivity) or their
organisational means and opportunities are inadequate. Observe the oppositional attempt, to
convey (fatTup-grading by high redefinition), ^ twistzgoals, programs, and principles—through
‘imperative goals’ and the like—into ‘imperatives’, ‘prescribed outcomes’, undeniable
principles, intimates. 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.7
Saward, paper version p.3.; repeated p.5.
Cf. p.12 essay.
[Reference]
[Reference]
�3
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 splendid, overriden, certainly by other parties if they gain or hold political power.
‘..^principles [too] can only be akin to [givens and] Taws 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, etc.).
To reinforce his case, Saward appeals to other authors who have advanced similar claims
CO
l
Qf~
(it is like appealing for information of a newspaper repeat 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—deeming 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’8
In an ecological society, enough of the demos (members of democratic constituency) will hold
ecological attitudes and vote 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 “givenT, 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 ‘anti-democratic vision’, but
rather an unecological prbxis, which principled greens will work to change.
The route is accordingly barred to Say ward’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—and ecologism is about inherency, intrinsic values,
laws of nature and holism. Things—like democracy—that can only have
instrumental value must lose out to imperatives backed by inescapable
canonical force.9
familiar: pragmatism, jettison intrinsic value.
What Skyward proposes instead is dep
Out therewith go deep-green positions.
8
9
[Ref.] Note that a very streamlined version of Saward’s case is being presented. The last part of
Saward’s essay contains much fitfand a good deal of garbage.
[ref].
�4
... greens should not think in terms of green imperatives. Indeed, it suggests
that to think in terms of imperatives based on arguments about intrinsic merit
is unjustifiable.10
Fortunately the argument developed does not sustain the proposals. There is, to itberate a
central point, no inteVal or latent contradiction between (deep-)green policy objectives and
democratic procedures. Rather, green objectives will fail to be achieved without ^ell-disposed
decision makers, who may not straightforwardly reflect any “will” of the demos. A logical
requirement on a realistic set of political objectives is that there are accessible circumstances
where they are realisable, where all elements of the whole world obtain. It should not be
required that there are are no situations where they may conflict, become inconsistent. 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 guarantees), enabling it to choose better, including improved structures,
attitudinal change and consciousness raising, and so on.
In the end, Saward too recognises the popules power of attitutdinal change, thereby
removing himself;his previous loading of authoritarian means upon greens. There
needs, from a green perspective [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’.
Byibandoning foundationalist myths of intrinsic merit, greens abandon the
implicit arrogance that have made democracy such a tenuous part of green
political theory.11
But he overstates the attitudinal point, with ‘only...the case’. People can be politically led
(retardation, as distinct from genuine advancement is a common phenomena); they could just
elect a green government which instituted, under permuaible democratic methods, sustainable
living or the like. And:the fmq ungrammatical sentence is a complete non-sequitur. Attitudinal
change may including coming to appreciate intrinsic merit in natural things other than humans.
10
11
Of course it is now put in terms of “imperatives”; it y>uld be better expre^n terms of
principles, policy objectives or the like.
[Ref. and page]
.
/
/“■
w
/’
�11
4.
Technical interlude: Strong family resemblances of ubiquitous problem-generating
structures.
The skeleton or scaffolding of organisation is structure; it is the frame on which
organisation is hung, which organisation fills or fleshes out. The sense of structure, explicating
the underlying organic image, implies as much. According, for instance, to the Concise Oxford
Dictionary, ‘structure: manner in which a building or organism or other complete whole is
constructed, supporting framework or whole of the essential parts of something’. Structure
itself is primarily, though not entirely, a matter of relations of elements and parts.
Remarkably, the same sort of problem-generating structures occur in a range of
seemingly diverse theoretical areas, to be displaced in each case by a similar sort of problem-
dissipating structure.
To illustrate, consider an order on a type (or set) of items Q given by one order relation R,
where R may itself depend on item c in Q, i.e. R = Rc. For example, where Q is a system of
worlds including your world the ordering R of worlds may depend on your world (and my
world could supply a different order). Differently, where Q is a system of values or valued
items, R may depend upon your values; and so on. As an order, R is at least transitive, and
perhaps either (if like <) reflexive or (if like <) symmetric, on its range. The system <£2, R> is
a simple ordered structure, or a frame. (The latter is the term now used in modal logic, where
such structures are the bases of models for the logic.) A cap or top t of such a system is an
element such that all items of Q bear R to t but which does not itself bear R to any element of
Q. (The notion, that of supremum, and likewise maximum, may be similarly defined relative to
subsets or types within Q.33)
Simple Theorem. There are order structures without tops.
Examples are provided by systems (often with much more structure) with no supremum. Here
is a simple 6 element example drawn from relevant logical theory.
+1
X
/ \
„ = {=2, -1, -0, +0, +1, +2}
R = — is as shown by arrows.
T = {+0, +1, +2} is a truth component
-1
Topologically, several notions of prime political and philosophical cast are tantamount to
tops in order structures, including chiefs (top persons in power rankings) hierarchs, grand
leaders, centres, absolutes, and objective items.
33
Consider, a pertinent issue, the matter of
A supremum t of R (in type T) is an (that) element (of T) such that all elements (of T) bear R to t
but which does not itself bear R to anything (in T).
�11
Topologically, several notions of prime political and philosophical cast are tantamount to
tops in order structures, including chiefs (top persons in power rankings) hierarchs, grand
leaders, centres, absolutes, and objective items.
Consider, a pertinent issue, the matter of
central control or authority, where as in the next diagram all elements answer to L
Looked at from above t is centre of a network. In the diagram shown, it remains a structure, a
flattened hierarchy, when t and relations leading to it are deleted, under decapitation so to say.
What this shows in a simple fashion is that there can be ordered structures without central
control (and ranging further there can be statelessness, absence of central control, anarchy
without “anarchy” or chaos, because there is order), anencephaletic structures. Order,
including good order of a range of sorts, does not require central controls, leaders, absolute
rulers or arrangements, or similar. Order does not require hierarchy, such hierarchy.34
Let us briefly allude to a much wider philosophical sweep. Related order structural
considerations to those that tell against central states, absolute rulers, top authorities as required
for satisfactory order, also count against absolutes of other sorts, such as absolute truth (there
need be none, as the first diagram above indicates), absolute order (thus R itself is relative to c),
and objectives Qt various sorts, such as objective fact (another supposed absolute), objective
value (supplied under an absolute order), and so on. On this broad sweep the following sorts
contrast sets emerge:35
centralism
elitism
statism
in
decentralism
egalitarianism
anarchism
Part of what seems correct in Bookchin's vendetta against hierarchy can be captured in this way.
For a fuller picture see Sylvan 93/4, chapter 10.
n
�12
central control or authority, where as in the next diagram all elements answer to t.
t
c
Cl
C4
a
C2
c3
b
at
b2
a2
bi
Looked at from above t is centre of a network. In the diagram shown, it remains a structure, a
flattened hierarchy, when t and relations leading to it are deleted, under decapitation so to say.
What this shows in a simple fashion is that there can be ordered structures without central
control (and ranging further there can be statelessness, absence of central control, anarchy
without “anarchy” or chaos, because there is order), anencephaletic structures. Order,
including good order of a range of sorts, does not require central controls, leaders, absolute
rulers or arrangements, or similar. Order does not require hierarchy, such hierarchy.34
Let us briefly allude to a much wider philosophical sweep. Related order structural
considerations to those that tell against central states, absolute rulers, top authorities as required
for satisfactory order, also count against absolutes of other sorts, such as absolute truth (there
need be none, as the first diagram above indicates), absolute order (thus R itself is relative to c),
and objectives of various sorts, such as objective fact (another supposed absolute), objective
value (supplied under an absolute order), and so on. On this broad sweep the following sorts
contrast sets emerge:35
centralism
elitism
statism
absolutism
realism
objectivism
in
rough
contrast
respectively
with
maximizing rationalism
decentralism
egalitarianism
anarchism
pluralism
nonrealism
nonjectivism
satisizing rationalism
Naturally, these simple structural considerations are only indicative, not decisive. For we
might find, as more and more constraints are imposed on structures, as account is taken of
Part of what seems correct in Bookchin's vendetta against hierarchy can be captured in this way.
For a fuller picture see Sylvan 94, chapter 10.
�13
actual conditions, that freedom contracts, that structural arrangements are forced towards
centralism or absolutism. While such forcing may now look, in the light of a little logic,
implausible, it requires further argument that it need not in general eventuate. The argument
here against centralism and statism takes these lines: that there is ready design of institutional
arrangements for decentralised communities which does not lead back to a central state. The
state is organisationally otiose.
Organisation is delivered anencephaletically, more specifically through a decentralised
functional ecoregionalism. As to how this can be accomplished, a sweep of anarchoidal work
discloses.36
36
Most of the key elements are already available from political theory relevant to anarchism. As to
putting them together see e.g. Bumheim 85 (where demarchy and much else of reference is
explained) and Sylvan 95.
�
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
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. a new democratic public sphere of empowered,
decentralized and diverse local communities needs a set of
national and regional state structures to facilitate
legal, economic, educational and cultural values and
practices, to support those local citizens lacking in
material and cultural resources, and to settle the many
disputes and conflicts which will continue to be a part of
any foreseeable social formation. A combination of local,
direct democracy and new semi-direct democratic structures
at the national level will make life for traditional
political parties very difficult if not impossible.
This
development is to be applauded because too many citizens
in contemporary societies have an impoverished notion of
the possibilities of democratic participation and often
equate democracy with voting rituals® . /zCtZJ/J
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<3
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'
i
— publicpolicies-ts-involved in one or other project/ Arterton s
study shows
stimulate
the promise of some ways of using
and
enhance
the
impact
and
technology
quality
of
to
citizen
participation in politics in the US, almost exclusively at the
local level^?.
Barber is perhaps the most prominent example of
a democratic theorist putting great faith in teledemocracy to
revitalise local participation and local political power in his
As one of a range of far’strong democracy'.
reaching reforms,, including the establishment of 'neigborhood
assemblies', he advocates 'a national civic communications
vision
of
regulate and oversee
technology
and
to
communications
__ ____ ___
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discussion of referendum
issues
cooperative
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8.2.95
A FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM FOR (DEEP-)GREEN POLITICAL
THEORY? DEMOCRATIC OR AUTHORITARIAN PROCEDURES
There is strictly no logical space for a deep-green democracy, according forexample to
For there is a clash, an essential tension, between deeper green values and
commitments, notably to intrinsic values in nature, and democratic procedures. The main drift
of the argument is that green values, which are mandatory for deeper greens, require for their
implementation anti-democratic, indeed authoritarian procedures; otherwise they cannot be
guaranteed.
__
This nasty conundrum for green theory over democracy, which 'it typically supports, is
put in a sharp form as follows:1*
Democracy concerns procedures, environmentalism certain outcomes. What guarantee can
there be that the procedures will deliver the outcomes? What guarantee that democracy will
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.^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
ocout-r
outcomes. Plausible scenarios are easily designed where just such outcomes happens, for
instance as in what has been called a “paradox of democracy” where a constituency elects an
antidemocratic tyrant.3
A concerned attempt is made by Saward to mount a strong version of such a paradox
against deep-green political theory (which he calls ‘dark green’). The version is based upon
holismand intrinsic value requirements, coupled with democratic demands, of deep-green
theory. In clearest form, the version turns 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
3
Goodin condensing Saward p.168.
( For here as almost everywhere else, things can go wrong. Philosophy especially supplies few
absolutes and little certainty.)
Such paradxes of democracy, and varieants thereupon, are presented trenchantly by Popper, and
nullified in UTD.
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.4
As should now be plain, and will be made plainer, consistency is not an invariant desideratien,
and is not insisted upon; coherence is what is “implied” and what supersedes consistency. As
more than a century of Hegalian theory revealed, there may 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 rejectee^) is that only undemocratic,
authoritarian procedures fit with deeper green imperatives or givens.5 Several illustrations are
offered of inconsistency of green imperatives with types of democratic procedures—none of
which tell, without testing adaptation, specifically against deeper green positions.
\ first illustration is directed against Porritt:
A direct democratic procedure (is not) compatible with imperative goals like
‘local production for local need’, Tow consumption’, ‘labour-intensive
production’, and ‘voluntary siplicity’ (other items from Porritt’s list).6
Against this and other illustrations, it is worth emphasizing goals resemble objectives and
targets, goals are goals which are not mandatory and by no means always achieved, especially if
the achievers, like present humans, fall short (e.g. in ecological sensitivity) or their
organisational means and opportunities are inadequate. Observe the oppositional attempt, to
convey (fatTup-grading by high redefinition), ^ twistzgoals, programs, and principles—through
‘imperative goals’ and the like—into ‘imperatives’, ‘prescribed outcomes’, undeniable
principles, intimates. 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.7
Saward, paper version p.3.; repeated p.5.
Cf. p.12 essay.
[Reference]
[Reference]
3
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 splendid, overriden, certainly by other parties if they gain or hold political power.
‘..^principles [too] can only be akin to [givens and] Taws 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, etc.).
To reinforce his case, Saward appeals to other authors who have advanced similar claims
CO
l
Qf~
(it is like appealing for information of a newspaper repeat 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—deeming 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’8
In an ecological society, enough of the demos (members of democratic constituency) will hold
ecological attitudes and vote 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 “givenT, 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 ‘anti-democratic vision’, but
rather an unecological prbxis, which principled greens will work to change.
The route is accordingly barred to Say ward’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—and ecologism is about inherency, intrinsic values,
laws of nature and holism. Things—like democracy—that can only have
instrumental value must lose out to imperatives backed by inescapable
canonical force.9
familiar: pragmatism, jettison intrinsic value.
What Skyward proposes instead is dep
Out therewith go deep-green positions.
8
9
[Ref.] Note that a very streamlined version of Saward’s case is being presented. The last part of
Saward’s essay contains much fitfand a good deal of garbage.
[ref].
4
... greens should not think in terms of green imperatives. Indeed, it suggests
that to think in terms of imperatives based on arguments about intrinsic merit
is unjustifiable.10
Fortunately the argument developed does not sustain the proposals. There is, to itberate a
central point, no inteVal or latent contradiction between (deep-)green policy objectives and
democratic procedures. Rather, green objectives will fail to be achieved without ^ell-disposed
decision makers, who may not straightforwardly reflect any “will” of the demos. A logical
requirement on a realistic set of political objectives is that there are accessible circumstances
where they are realisable, where all elements of the whole world obtain. It should not be
required that there are are no situations where they may conflict, become inconsistent. 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 guarantees), enabling it to choose better, including improved structures,
attitudinal change and consciousness raising, and so on.
In the end, Saward too recognises the popules power of attitutdinal change, thereby
removing himself;his previous loading of authoritarian means upon greens. There
needs, from a green perspective [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’.
Byibandoning foundationalist myths of intrinsic merit, greens abandon the
implicit arrogance that have made democracy such a tenuous part of green
political theory.11
But he overstates the attitudinal point, with ‘only...the case’. People can be politically led
(retardation, as distinct from genuine advancement is a common phenomena); they could just
elect a green government which instituted, under permuaible democratic methods, sustainable
living or the like. And:the fmq ungrammatical sentence is a complete non-sequitur. Attitudinal
change may including coming to appreciate intrinsic merit in natural things other than humans.
10
11
Of course it is now put in terms of “imperatives”; it y>uld be better expre^n terms of
principles, policy objectives or the like.
[Ref. and page]
.
/
/“■
w
/’
11
4.
Technical interlude: Strong family resemblances of ubiquitous problem-generating
structures.
The skeleton or scaffolding of organisation is structure; it is the frame on which
organisation is hung, which organisation fills or fleshes out. The sense of structure, explicating
the underlying organic image, implies as much. According, for instance, to the Concise Oxford
Dictionary, ‘structure: manner in which a building or organism or other complete whole is
constructed, supporting framework or whole of the essential parts of something’. Structure
itself is primarily, though not entirely, a matter of relations of elements and parts.
Remarkably, the same sort of problem-generating structures occur in a range of
seemingly diverse theoretical areas, to be displaced in each case by a similar sort of problem-
dissipating structure.
To illustrate, consider an order on a type (or set) of items Q given by one order relation R,
where R may itself depend on item c in Q, i.e. R = Rc. For example, where Q is a system of
worlds including your world the ordering R of worlds may depend on your world (and my
world could supply a different order). Differently, where Q is a system of values or valued
items, R may depend upon your values; and so on. As an order, R is at least transitive, and
perhaps either (if like <) reflexive or (if like <) symmetric, on its range. The system <£2, R> is
a simple ordered structure, or a frame. (The latter is the term now used in modal logic, where
such structures are the bases of models for the logic.) A cap or top t of such a system is an
element such that all items of Q bear R to t but which does not itself bear R to any element of
Q. (The notion, that of supremum, and likewise maximum, may be similarly defined relative to
subsets or types within Q.33)
Simple Theorem. There are order structures without tops.
Examples are provided by systems (often with much more structure) with no supremum. Here
is a simple 6 element example drawn from relevant logical theory.
+1
X
/ \
„ = {=2, -1, -0, +0, +1, +2}
R = — is as shown by arrows.
T = {+0, +1, +2} is a truth component
-1
Topologically, several notions of prime political and philosophical cast are tantamount to
tops in order structures, including chiefs (top persons in power rankings) hierarchs, grand
leaders, centres, absolutes, and objective items.
33
Consider, a pertinent issue, the matter of
A supremum t of R (in type T) is an (that) element (of T) such that all elements (of T) bear R to t
but which does not itself bear R to anything (in T).
11
Topologically, several notions of prime political and philosophical cast are tantamount to
tops in order structures, including chiefs (top persons in power rankings) hierarchs, grand
leaders, centres, absolutes, and objective items.
Consider, a pertinent issue, the matter of
central control or authority, where as in the next diagram all elements answer to L
Looked at from above t is centre of a network. In the diagram shown, it remains a structure, a
flattened hierarchy, when t and relations leading to it are deleted, under decapitation so to say.
What this shows in a simple fashion is that there can be ordered structures without central
control (and ranging further there can be statelessness, absence of central control, anarchy
without “anarchy” or chaos, because there is order), anencephaletic structures. Order,
including good order of a range of sorts, does not require central controls, leaders, absolute
rulers or arrangements, or similar. Order does not require hierarchy, such hierarchy.34
Let us briefly allude to a much wider philosophical sweep. Related order structural
considerations to those that tell against central states, absolute rulers, top authorities as required
for satisfactory order, also count against absolutes of other sorts, such as absolute truth (there
need be none, as the first diagram above indicates), absolute order (thus R itself is relative to c),
and objectives Qt various sorts, such as objective fact (another supposed absolute), objective
value (supplied under an absolute order), and so on. On this broad sweep the following sorts
contrast sets emerge:35
centralism
elitism
statism
in
decentralism
egalitarianism
anarchism
Part of what seems correct in Bookchin's vendetta against hierarchy can be captured in this way.
For a fuller picture see Sylvan 93/4, chapter 10.
n
12
central control or authority, where as in the next diagram all elements answer to t.
t
c
Cl
C4
a
C2
c3
b
at
b2
a2
bi
Looked at from above t is centre of a network. In the diagram shown, it remains a structure, a
flattened hierarchy, when t and relations leading to it are deleted, under decapitation so to say.
What this shows in a simple fashion is that there can be ordered structures without central
control (and ranging further there can be statelessness, absence of central control, anarchy
without “anarchy” or chaos, because there is order), anencephaletic structures. Order,
including good order of a range of sorts, does not require central controls, leaders, absolute
rulers or arrangements, or similar. Order does not require hierarchy, such hierarchy.34
Let us briefly allude to a much wider philosophical sweep. Related order structural
considerations to those that tell against central states, absolute rulers, top authorities as required
for satisfactory order, also count against absolutes of other sorts, such as absolute truth (there
need be none, as the first diagram above indicates), absolute order (thus R itself is relative to c),
and objectives of various sorts, such as objective fact (another supposed absolute), objective
value (supplied under an absolute order), and so on. On this broad sweep the following sorts
contrast sets emerge:35
centralism
elitism
statism
absolutism
realism
objectivism
in
rough
contrast
respectively
with
maximizing rationalism
decentralism
egalitarianism
anarchism
pluralism
nonrealism
nonjectivism
satisizing rationalism
Naturally, these simple structural considerations are only indicative, not decisive. For we
might find, as more and more constraints are imposed on structures, as account is taken of
Part of what seems correct in Bookchin's vendetta against hierarchy can be captured in this way.
For a fuller picture see Sylvan 94, chapter 10.
13
actual conditions, that freedom contracts, that structural arrangements are forced towards
centralism or absolutism. While such forcing may now look, in the light of a little logic,
implausible, it requires further argument that it need not in general eventuate. The argument
here against centralism and statism takes these lines: that there is ready design of institutional
arrangements for decentralised communities which does not lead back to a central state. The
state is organisationally otiose.
Organisation is delivered anencephaletically, more specifically through a decentralised
functional ecoregionalism. As to how this can be accomplished, a sweep of anarchoidal work
discloses.36
36
Most of the key elements are already available from political theory relevant to anarchism. As to
putting them together see e.g. Bumheim 85 (where demarchy and much else of reference is
explained) and Sylvan 95.
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Handwritten notes and typescript papers with handwritten emendations and annotations, 'A fundamental dilemma for (deep-) green political theory? Democratic or authoritarian procedures' (dated 8.2.95), and 'Technical interlude, strong family resemblances of ubiquitous problem-generating structures'.
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Lake George - Floor - Pile 7
Box 14: Green Projects in Progress
Lake George House
Lake George House > Floor > Pile 7
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https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/25d2a53b15afcd5de40afc43ffff2826.pdf
f4ec86397788c8e5164df2c4e3b701db
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Text
---'--A-—
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exrif(paring- mm :
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2073
WAR AND PEACE IV:
TAO AND DEEP-GREEN flAClF/Stf
Taoism and deep-green environmental theory, although closely aligned on very many
issues, diverge over war. For Taoism, by contrast for instance with Buddhism, is not a pacific
doctrine, but is committed to skilful defensive militarism. While it does not espouse a fortress
mentality, Taoism certainly condones limited defensive military operations for specific
purposes, a sort of guerilla warfare. By contrast, deep-green theory, while acknowledging the
role of organised social defence, stands opposed to professional militarism, and thereby to
military defence, and is committed to a principled pacifism. Conveniently a route through
Taoism, philosophically fascinating in its own right, will lead us to problems of pacifism and
towards deep-green theory.
1. Features of a Taoist critique of war and militarism.
War did not receive a favourable press in ancient Chinese philosophy. Generally
aggression and war were to be avoided. Even Confucius imposed very demanding conditions:
for example, ‘when good men have instructed the people [in morals, agriculture, military
tactics] for seven years, they may be allowed to bear arms,’ ‘If a ruler ... does not set himself
right, even his commands will not be obeyed’ (SB p.41, italics added). Mo Tzu went much
further than Confucius, roundly condemning war - on utilitarian grounds, that war yields no
net benefit at any level (SB p.227). What is more, he backed his heavy condemnation
practically (unlike some conspicuous contemporary theoretical utilitarians); ‘he did not hesitate
to walk for ten days and ten nights in an effort to dissuade a ruler from making war’ (SB
p.212). But none, it is said, went as far, in a detailed and sophisticated criticism of war, as Lao
Tzu; ‘none has condemned war more strongly than Lao Tzu’. ‘[T]he opposition of Taoism to
the use of force is well-known, and the most bitter attack on militarism if found in the Lao Tzu'
(Chan, p.154, p.17.)
But, after that splendid build-up, the text is slightly disappointing. Lao Tzu does not
assert outright that war is an abomination, or even roundly condemn it. His critique of war,
militarism, and military technology, is subtle and oblique, and, on the surface, far distanced
from pacifism. For he does not recommend an end to war - in that genuine Taoists, those who
possess Tao, will never participate in them - but expects wars to continue as unavoidable evils.
Worse, he even goes so far as to outline proper attitudes to war and conduct in war, and indeed
to suggest military techniques and strategies, some of which look decidedly devious. Among
the classical works of Taoism, we focus on the Lao Tzu because, by contrast with other works,
a remarkable component of that book is devoted to war and militarism.
The apparent deviousness of the tactics Lao Tzu allocates serves to highlight what has
been seen as ‘the most troublesome element’ in his philosophy (Chan p.17) - not so much
however because they concern military operations, but because they are taken to apply much
�2
dispensation? Why should what is not tolerated more generally be exonerated there? But given
that Taoism has here the virtue of consistency (i.e. uniformity on principles) and of
universalizability, that simply leaves more explaining to be done.
• Puzzles for Taoism, and wars as unavoidable evils
There are two puzzles here in Taoism rather than one. There is the military-practices
paradox, and, varying and generalising on that, there are life-practices paradoxes. The special
paradox is generated by the following incompatible elements: on the one side, ‘the most bitter
attack on militarism’, the well-known opposition of Taoism to the use of force (p. 17) and to the
possession and use of smart military weapons and technology - implying that war is far from
all right - and on the other, advocacy of certain (devious) military tactics, outlines of (deceitful)
conduct in war, and so on - implying that war is all right after all. A straightforward
generalisation of this paradox would look at other morally-sensitive parts of life, where some
practice was strongly condemned yet engaged in (for many examples, see the dilemmas
assembled in MD). But the variation of concern to Chan and the neo-Confucians concerns the
conjunction of upright with devious practices in life, in particular in the life of the sage. For a
Taoist sage is presumed to lead an upright straightforward life, yet appears to engage in devious
and even deceitful practices incompatible with such a life-style. Call this the Taoist-lifestyle
paradox.
Evidently a good deal of explaining is required, as to how Taoism can coherently take the
positions it appears to presume, both on war and peace, and on life more generally. A desirable
preliminary would seem to be a little investigation of what position A taken, especially on war
and militarism. One key pasage runs:
Fine weapons are instruments of evil
They are hated by creatures
Therefore those who possess the Tao turn away from them....
Weapons are instruments of evil, not the instruments of a good ruler.
When he uses them unavoidably, he regards calm restraint as the best
principle
Even when he is victorious, he does not regard it as praiseworthy,
For to praise victory is to delight in the slaughter of men.
He who delights in the slaughter of men will not succeed in the empire. ...
For a victory, let us observe the occasion with funeral-ceremonies
(LT p.154).
Wars, which involve the use of weapons, instruments of evil, are accordingly themselves evil.
They are also evil because they involve the slaughter of men. But they are also sometimes
unavoidable (also p. 152). Therefore such wars are unavoidable evils. Such discourse,
obtained by almost immediate inference from the passage, is within the standard orbit of
dilemma talk. But Taoism lacks, through deliberately eschewing deontic talk, the discourse
which enables direct expression of such dilemmas, or even direct condemnation of wars or of
clever weapons. Instead the points are made by circumlocution, what the possesser of Tao
does, how the good ruler conducts himself, or by analogy, of victory in war with death.
�3
Unavoidable evils are the very stuff of deontic dilemmas (though many theories,
underpinned by shonky logic, lack the resources for representing this stuff properly). Where
something is unavoidably evil, it is both bad, because evil, and also not bad, doing it is
excusable, because it is unavoidable. So, given such an argument (which has its weaknesses),
an unavoidable evil is a genuinely dilemmatic object with inconsistent features. Certain wars
have looked, since ancient times, like such dilemmatic objects.
Revealingly, Chan tries to explain that ‘most troublesome element’ in Taoism, the
military-practice paradox, through the following exercise in lateral thinking:
It can ... be argued that Lao Tzu uses warfare to illustrate his principles of
taking no action and weakness because warfare is among the most dynamic
and critical of human experiences, just as the Indian classic, the Bhagavadgita
chooses fighting as the theme on which to discuss the terrible dilemma
whether one should fulfil his duty, as in the case of a soldier, and kill, or
should fail in his duty and refrain from killing (p. 17).
‘Just as’? The Indian classic prevents a classic moral dilemma, a dilemma represented in
contemporary philosophy (following its rediscovery by Sartre), where there are incompatible
duties: the duty to kill, because of one's role as a soldier, and the duty not to kill, because of
one's human condition, and the supervenient dilemma of failing in and fulfilling one's duties.
These dilemmas for an individual (male, as it then was) are replicated in dilemmas regarding
war for group institutions: at bottom, the obligation to engage in war (for one set of compelling
reasons) as contraposed with the obligation not to engage in war (for another, perhaps
overlapping, set of reasons).
A theory of moral dilemmas (as worked out for example in MD) is crucial for an adequate
treatment of major issues in war and peace, especially (as will become evident) for a viable
strong pacifism. But Taoism, eschewing deontic discourse, lacks the apparatus to state or
develop moral dilemmas. Hence it is logically excluded from giving a full or adequate account
of what is going on conceptually. One of the philosophically fascinating feature of Taoism is
the fashion in which it manages to avoid deontic discourse, and to substitute for direct deontic
discourse or improvise circumlocutions when deontic discourse would otherwise appear
inevitable (cf. UT for examples). But there are costs. One is inability to display the mechanism
of deontic dilemmas, or to show what reasons and argument lie behind Taoist prounouncements
and conclusions (the shortage of Taoism on argument is another philosophically conspicious
feature, also observed in UT). As conceptual apparatus for analysizing moral dilemmas is
missing, most of the machinery involved has to be passed over. Only the outcomes, as Taoism
sees them, are presented, as if from a black box. Taoism blacks out the story on deontic
dilemmas that deep-green theory can tell, as the following diagram tries to show:
Diagrams . Charting the processing of deontic dilemmas that are "resolved”.
�4
Deep-green chart:
dilemma
input
Arguments to
incompatible
prescriptions
->
Processing of dilemma,
directive
situational procedures
output
Corresponding Taoist chart:
Black
directive
Box
output
input
It is evident that Taoism can be extended', information can be put into the Black Box
rendering it less opaque. That extension can be made so as to conform to deep-green theory,
i.e. so that the extended Taoist chart, a neo-Daoist chart, looks like the deep-green one. That is
indeed essentially how neo-Daoism get characterised, in terms of conformity of the extension to
deep ecological theory (see UT).
We are now placed to explain how to dissolve, or at least neutralize, the paradoxes
deriving from repudiation of militarism, an awkwardly qualified repudiation in the case of
Taoism. In a significant sense there is no resolving of genuine deontic dilemmas. The
principles delineating the fix may stand, incompatible, signalling the persisting suboptimality
(or better, sublimenality) of the dilemmatic situation. Where there is a dilemma, involved
parties should try to do well enough in the sublimenal circumstances (for a much fuller account,
see MD). Thus where there is a war, itself a non-Taoist process, engaged or caught up Taoists
will not abandon Taoism. Taoist methods will be applied, Taoist strategies pursued.
So much for theoretical representation and (non-)resolution of life-practices and other
dilemmas, details of which are readily elaborated in deep-green extensions of Taoism. A prior
substantive issue is whether dilemmas always are generated: not whether wars are evil
(typically they are, an issue we shall come to), but whether wars are unavoidable. Analysis of
wars does not bear that familiar claim out decisively. Many wars could have been avoided,
through conciliation, negotiation, restraint, etc., and no worse results apparently obtained,
through sanctions, exchange, trade, etc. Through a typology of wars (coming up) that
conjecture can be given some substance. Consider, for instance, what would be walk-overs.
Then there is little point in making a military response. So war can be avoided. Certainly an
occupation, to be met in a different way, may still occur. And so on, perhaps, for various other
types of war. But, more generally, try this:Every war involves an aggressor, who makes an aggressive move. Such an aggressor
could always avoid that move, taking a different (or a do-nothing) course of action. Therefore,
�5
every war can be avoided. No war is entirely unavoidable.
Setting aside determinism (which renders all actual wars along with all other events
unavoidable), it could be argued that a war sometimes simply boils up, without an aggressor,
an intensification of a conflagatory situation. There are grounds for scepticism regarding such
examples; for such intensification can only occur if provocative military moves are made, for
instance troops are stationed in provocative or risky positions.
The presumption that certain wars are unavoidable typically derives from a one-sided
perspective on war, a defender's perspective. A defender has no option, so it is routinely
averred, but to respond to a determined aggressor. Even if that should be so sometimes, when
there is no running away or going underground, it does not establish that such a war is
unavoidable; for it neglects the role of the aggressor. By a smarter formulation, relevant
features of unavoidability can be captured. Although wars may not be unavoidable, defensive
action in wars that have been initiated may be unavoidable. At least such action may be
unavoidable if unacceptably high costs (death, enslavement, etc.) are not to be avoided.
Thereupon another highly relevant feature emerges: the linkage of avoidability to costs. For
whether an action is unavoidable then depends upon what costs a party is prepared to incur
before and when insisting on action: but this appears entirely unacceptable. How can what is
“unavoidable” cease to be so when some further costs are absorbed? However with basics like
survival, a certain liberty, and so on, we do reach such bounds. An important type of
unavoidability. We also reach scenarios, unavailable to Lao Tzu but kindly brought within
range by modem technology, which may appear to justify aggressive strikes.
State Z, while not an aggressor, is carrying out practices which will impose unacceptably
high costs upon peoples of other states and implacably refuses to desist. It could, for example,
be poisoning air or water flowing to other states. But ,to make the case vivid, let us suppose
that state Z is constructing, for reasons Zeders find convincing (they are committed to a faith
which depicts all humans as incorrigible sinners and unworthy of life), an effective doomsday
machine. Would an (aggressive) preemptory strike designed to disable or destroy the machine
be unavoidable?1 In a sense, No; in another Yes. For different modalities can operate.
Physically outsiders need to do nothing, but watch Zeders go about their zealous work. But
deontically they are under heavy moral pressure, because of the costs of standing by idly: if the
human race is worth anything very substantial, then they are obliged to act, action is deontically
unavoidable. Here is a situation where a proposed reduction of deontic logic proves
illuminating. Obligation is explicated through not implying, or necessitating, the sanction, i.e.
1
Whether it would be justifiable, or just, are separate issues. But it is evident enought that
such scenarios further damage the obsolescent idea of just war. For, according to received
doctrine, a just war is defensive. (How such a war can be fought at all is another matter;
coherence requires relativization to ‘just war for party d’.)
�6
excessive ethical costs such as extermination. Let us explain deontic unavoidability
analogously: an action is so unavoidable if not undertaking it would result in excessive ethical
costs. Then if it can be established that there is no other way than a military strike, an act of
war, to ensure that the Zeders desist (and certainly we can envisage scenarios like that), then
that is deontically unavoidable. It is also dilemmatic for those committed to, or inclined
towards pacifism; and it is, for them at least, but paradoxically justifiable, as the negation is
also justifiable, on pacific grounds.
Scenarios like that sketched, that appear to render certain wars deontically unavoidable
require but little or no elaboration to render them evil. Evil indeed is such a standard feature of
standard wars that at least its great presence call for little supporting evidence. But it has taken
to vast stretch of human history to reach this general point of recognition.
The manifold evils of war Lao Tzu very early recognised and emphasized:
Wherever armies are stationed, briars and thorns grow.
Great wars are always followed by famines (p.152).
And nowadays followed by great tides of refugees. This passage includes not only recognition
of the widely-observed socio-environmental consequences of war, but, more striking, very
early recognition of the severe environmental impact of military forces. That critique is not
however developed in Taoism.2 Only recently has it been pushed substantially further. And
only recently could a new, most significant twist occur, the merging of resource security, long a
military objective, with environmental security.
The appalling idea has recently been floated that the military, in need of new work and
roles with the apparent warming of West-East relations and cooling of the Cold War, should
exchange usual military idleness for meddling in environmental matters: regulation and policing
of environmental resources, ensurance of environmental security of powerful states, and
similar. This is a bit like reassigning those imprisoned for child abuse to managing
kindergartens; for consider the impressive military record of environmental vandalism. What
the military is alleged to offer is a structure appropriate and available for handling such matters.
But, to the contrary, it is precisely the sort of hierarchical, authoritarian expensive structure that
should be wound down and up as soon as the opportunity appears, as (briefly) now, rather than
being retained and shockingly reoriented (as a state-serving “Greenwar”).
2.
On the divergence of deep-green from Taoism.
Having arrived, by better or worse arguments, at the conclusion that wars, though
2
But a bridge to deep-green theory can be made through neo-Daoism, an updating of Taoism in
confirmity with deep ecology (which however is somewhat thin and threadbare on war; for
what there is so far, see Naess p. 160). On neo-Daoism, sec UT.
�7
generally evil, may be sometimes unavoidable, it is evidently important to say something about
how they - those of the theoretical residue - are to be conducted. By appropriate conduct the
damage they do may be reduced; also the conduct should be appropriate to the funereal nature
of wars (to exceed Taoist resources for stating this sort of point). It is at this stage that deep
green theory begins to diverge from Taoism.
In further explaining the Taoist and deep-green critiques of war, and diverting objections
to them, a rough and preliminary typology of wars is important. It is also of passing interest in
its own philosophical right. War, according to English Dictionaries, is a ‘contest carried on by
force of arms, typically between nations or states’. More exactly, war is a game - in the
generous technical sense of game-theory, with players, rules, goals, strategies, and so on carried on in significant part by military means, normally between states or substates. Call the
contestants, (warring) parties. They typically represent of course larger populations. The set
up between parties resembles the arrangements of players in game theory. There are several
analogical extensions of the term war to cover games where one of the parties is an object,
construed as hostile (an enemy of the state), such as Crime, Drugs, Poverty or Nature. These
we can set aside as analogical wars. Of course wars form only a part of military activities.
Military interests and objectives have always stretched significantly further than war, to include
surveillence and security, easily extended to resource security, environmental security and life
style security, and beyond that to political stability and other political matters. Evidently
military ambitions have far over-extended themselves in bagging such democratic concerns.
An anarchist solution to the whole problem of war, which some have seen Taoism as
reaching towards, is immediate: eliminate the source of war, states. Unfortunately it is not
quite that simple (and that's not simple). For wars can also occur between nations, cultures,
races or tribes (which are not such artifices as states, and not always so readily or desirably
abolished), between inhabited regions, and between factions within states (thus civil wars) or,
perhaps by extension, between factions within other social structures (thus, for instance, gang
wars). But undoubtedly eliminating states and aspiring states would abolish most wars and
virtually all the worst wars.
While “nonviolent wars” are excluded by definition, by virtue of ‘force of arms’, token
wars, limited wars, and so on, are not: for instance, wars fought by small armed teams
representing competing sides (cf. medieval and science fiction war games). As wars are
hemmed in by conventions and agreed rules, there is no reason in principle why they should
not be reduced to two person contests, fought under strict rules like boxing or gladiatorial
contests. But in modern times wars have never taken such sensible forms, but have been much
larger affairs, making heavy (though fortunately restricted) use of latest technology. Let us
distinguish such wars as techno-powered, wars. They have, directly or indirectly (for the
technology may be bought or bartered), a heavy research and development support structure
(indeed the bulk of contemporary science is devoted - misdirected - in one way or another to
�8
this effort).
Among wars, an important distinction is that between offensive and defensive wars. An
offensive war is one which ventures off a given party's territory or recognised pad, “invading”
that of another party or parties; correlatively defensive parties, if they have not also invaded.
Force projection typifies offensive practice. Plainly, offensiveness and defensiveness are not
strictly features of a war, but of parties to a war. In a two-party war, while both parties can
easily act offensively, the possibility of both parties proceeding defensively is excluded, unless
they share territory. (Even then issues may arise as to which party, if any, was the aggressor,
which started it, was responsible for starting it, and so on.) Thus mutually defensive wars
between contemporary states are impossible (but would be possible if states shared territory,
e.g. if Eire and Britain shared the territory of Northern Ireland). Tao-accredited wars were
defensive wars, never wars aiming at domination: last-resort wars, in which no pride was taken
(LTp.152).3
The pretence that offensive wars are defensive is widespread, and reflected in the
subterfuge that departments or ministries of war are those of defence, security or whatever. (If
they really were what they purport to be, we should be well on the way to an end to war.)
Offensive practices are rendered defensive ones by shabby redefinitional strategems, such as
redefining ‘defensive’ to include defence of ideals like democracy or liberty, infringed (or
allegedly infringed) on territories abroad, or to include “defence” of a third party or place
(whence every offensive war is “defensive”). In the present war in which part of Arabia is
engulfed (February 1991), one party claims to be defending what really was (or should be) part
of its territory, namely Kuwait, another party to be defending (what Kuwait did not enjoy)
democracy. It is a doubly offensive war presented in this guise as jointly defensive.
Aggressive wars are waged for a variety of reasons, but usually for resources or access to
resources or markets, a matter often disguised by appeal to ideology (thus a war for oil is
represented as a war of liberation). But there are other reasons than narrowly economic ones,
such as religion (as with crusades), power and aggrandisement (as in building an empire), and
so on. Nor are those reasons necessarily far separated; ideologies like Marxism and market
capitalism, for example, exhibit many of the features of religion.
The economic reasons for war appear to have become much more complex with the
3
There is one line in LT that may suggest that attack was sometimes justifiable, namely ‘For
deep love helps one to win in the case of attack’ (p.219). But how can compassion be
appropriate unless this attack is within a defensive setting, a larger context of unavoidability
or such like. A passage shortly below confirms this interpretation:
I dare not take the offensive but I take the defensive:
I dare not advance an inch but I retreat a foot (p.222).
These are advances and attacks within a defensive setting.
�9
advent of an integrated world economy. At the same time many of the independent reasons for
economic wars are now obsolete. For to powerful states accrue the advantages of war without
war. At least most of the former economic advantages of war can be obtained without
expensive wars, through trade, institution of economic dependence, etc. Small medieval wars
were sometimes instituted for the collection of neighbouring riches and booty, a kind of piracy
meeting conditions of war. “Small” contemporary wars can be waged for a remarkable mix of
political-economy ends: to establish a regime favourable to economic penetration and profit
repatriation, to subjugate markets and to remove competition, to boost a sagging weapons
economy by using up old stocks and also testing new equipment, to restart a depressed
economy, and so on. Such wars, along with the economic aims which motivate them, are in
effect heavily castigated by Lao Tzu:
When Tao prevails in the world, galloping horses are turned back to
fertilize (the fields ...).
When Tao does not prevail in the world, war horses thrive in the suburbs.
There is no calamity greater than lavish desires. (LT p. 181).
But it does exceed evidential warrant to claim that Tao is not only sufficient, but necessary, for
cessation of such practices.
The practice of regularly stimulating complex military-saturated economies through war is
reminiscent of older, much ridiculed practices in simpler societies. They now ridicule the
Tsembaga, who proceeded to destroy much of their surplus product by going to war every 5-15
years (cf Rapaport). But they do not similarly ridicule the most powerful nation on the Earth,
the USA, which proceeds to write off a colossal amount of surplus in war every 10-20 years
(the Gulf war liquidated some $1.7 billion per day). Taoists would. For ridicule was a
favoured method, an important rhetorical strategem, and war and its idiocy were favourite
targets.
Some classification of defensive wars is also important, for various reasons: reducing and
abolishing wars, their costs and damage, restructuring societies away from war and military
practices, and, not least, for appreciating Taoism.
A main distinction is between
• conventional defence, maintained by armies of armed soldiers, many of them professionals,
and
• social defence, where there are no such armies or but fragments of them, and defence is
carried out through social networks of a significant part of society.4
It is here that Taoism and deep-green theory part company. Under Taoism, the state will
have a standing army, but a defensive army operating by strange, surprise tactics (p.201). No
4
Details of social defence are presented in Sharp and in Martin.
�10
doubt defensive wars are to remain last resort action. Nonetheless the state will operate in
secrecy, in a way incompatible with decentralised social defence; people will be kept in the dark
about smart weapons of the state; and they too will be surprised, along with presumed enemies
of the state. By contrast, under deep-green theory, there should be no hidden smart weapons
of state; information would flow more freely and not be hidden from the people (who should
retain influence in informed decision making). Under deep-green, standing armies, and more
generally military organisation, will be wound down altogether.
Taoism should have pushed its searching criticism further. For military objectives, easily
acquired by standing armies with time on their hands, are frequently incompatible with Taoism.
For example, Taoism is opposed to domination (LT p.152), whereas military operations
frequently seek or involve domination; and military structure is invariably hierarchical and
authoritarian. Taoism aims for self-regulation, wherever feasible (cf. p.201); so does deep
green theory, which is one reasons why it aims to dispose of standing armies, as an important
preliminary to the withering away of states themselves (military forces being major props of
state control and power, and often maintained primarily for internal state security). Taoism has
no project for ending the era of wars; deep-green theory does. That project involves an
elimination of standing armies, too often poised for fighting or political interference.
A recommended route to end war consists in progressive scaling down: reduction of the
means and manpower. The initial stages are well-known, and include
• elimination of nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry, and
• force reduction. It can hardly be pretended that the Earth's states have managed to proceed
very far on even this complex of stages. The next stage consists in
• contraction to defensive capacities only, and the final stage consists in
• elimination of remaining military defensive forces, and adoption, so far as required, of social
defence practices. The complete route thus involves complete demilitarisation.
Reasons why deep-green aims to proceed the full distance are readily grasped by
considering the environmental shallowness of an otherwise cogent traditional case for the sharp
curtailment of wars and militarism. The traditional Western case against wars has been
primarily along two dimensions: social and moral. Wars are highly disruptive of the social
fabric; wars may be unjust. From these joint features, it was argued that wars should be a
matter of last resort, to be fought to ensure peace. It was argued further that only just wars
should be fought. Just wars were rare objects. But as there was little evidence of the decline
and fall of wars, much effort was expended, more practically and unsuccessfully, upon
endeavouring to improve the calibre of wars, and more theoretically, upon trying to characterize
just war satisfactorily, or rather to bend the notion in an effort to approximate the gory unjust
facts.
Progress was long hindered, furthermore, because there was always a rival positive
perspective on wars, which encouraged the exaltation of wars and military feats. It also
�facilitated the transfer of the favourable image of war to other problem areas, whence the long
and apparently successful war against Nature (but the short-term successes are turning into
long-term problems), the short and unsuccessful war against Poverty, and so on. Behind all
this is the complex idea of war as rejuvenating, even cleansing, like fire; of war as heroic, and
glorious, of war as the supreme testing ground of men. These pictures of war - finally
shattered by the first World War (where even the poets began to tell of horrors and atrocities)
and subsequent technological wars - though no longer in ascendency, have by no means
vanished. The notion of war as rejuvenating a flagging economy persists, along with the
practice of keeping capitalism running smoothly by integrating substantial military components
into the industrial engine.
With the development of highly technological wars — the celebrated development of the
dirty industrial age is substantially military - the traditional negative case has grown in strength.
Wars have become much more damaging, with the potential for much more that is significantly
worse, and the possibility of a just war has correspondingly contracted, virtually to zero. The
opposition to war has likewise grown, but more than correspondingly with the rise of women
in social and political influence. Wars have almost always and everywhere been Men's affairs;
likewise conquest.
Deep-green theory accepts much of the traditional negative case, but would further
strengthen it. For example, the stricture against unjust wars, as out and out immoral, can be
strengthened, through the following syllogism:
All wars should be fully just wars.
Modem wars cannot be fully just wars.
Therefore, there should be no modern wars.
A fully just war is not merely a just war, but a war those just character can be reliably forecast
in advance. A modern war is of course a war that deploys modern technology, at least that
available this century. The evidential basis for the second premiss derives from much
information that collateral damage, damage to innocent bystanders and involved citizens is
always likely and cannot be excluded. Such wars are always liable to violate uncontroversial
requirements for a just war, even if they are purely “conventional” wars, not throwing radiation
or chemical or biological weapons around.
From a contemporary viewpoint the traditional doctrine of a just war, really of a just
defensive v/ax, is seriously out of date. The reasons for this reach wider than the new features
introduced by modem technological wars and the character of modem civilization, with its giant
cities littered with dangerous and vulnerable military targets. They have also to do with the
chauvinism of the justice proposed, which is shallow human justice, not natural or
environmental justice. There is no consideration of justice to other creatures or to the Earth (cf
Naess p.160). Two troubles are really intertwined here: conceptual difficulties with too narrow
a notion of justice, and ideological difficulties with too narrow a vision of what is an object of
�12
value, of what counts.
The deep-green case against war adds to the traditional case a further dimension,
neglected until very recently: the environmental dimension. It has suddenly been seen that wars
are typically environmental atrocities. Earlier, of course, “environments” were simply
backgrounds, backdrops in paintings and plays, to the real drama.
Contemporary technological wars tend to be not merely social tragedies but environmental
ones as well. There is a doctrine of just war, but it is a human chauvinistic affair. There is no
similarly developed doctrine of an ecologically sound war, a deep ecological war. Unless any
such war were literally different from modern wars, that is from contemporary technological
wars, it would overstep permitted bounds. For such wars are characteristically ecological
disasters. Hardened military people, desensitized by a rigorous unethical training, feel even
less compunction about degrading or destroying environments or members of other species
than they do of maiming or killing civilians through “collateral” activity.
Matching the no-just-war syllogism is a no-sound-war syllogism:
All wars should be environmentally sound wars.
Modern wars cannot be environmentally sound.
Therefore, there should be no modern wars.
The argument for the second premiss has of course to be different. It looks to the information
accumulating on what wars do to natural and built environments. The Vietnam and Gulf wars
both inflicted immense damage on natural environments or what was left of them.
The environmental effects of war are not confined to direct and collateral damage. There
are indirect effects also. Thus, for instance, war also supplied the mechanism of, and the
technology for, modern environmental destruction: explosives, bulldozers from tanks, etc. As
well, training for war and engagement in war have much fostered, along with attitudes that
make for social callousness or ruthlessness, those that contribute to environmental insensitivity
and cruelty.
3. Puzzles about Taoist strategy and its critiques of technology and violence
‘It is surprising how much of the Lao Tzu is devoted to military strategy’. Which
strategies? Surprise, above all. But why such strategies? ‘Do they not contradict the Taoists’
strong opposition to the use of force’ (Chan p.222), the implied commitment to quietism?
Briefly, Taoism is not committed to quietism, and while certainly antagonistic to violence, does
not oppose certain uses of force (only really z7/-forcing, as will be explained). Even so, the
emphasis on military strategy remains puzzling.
The strategies, many of them relevant to social defence, include
• seriousness, not ‘making light of the enemy’ (p.222)
• surprise, and nonvisibility (p.201). The defensive strategy involves guerilla tactics:
marching without formation, holding weapons without seeming to have them, confronting
�13
enemies without seeming to meet them (p.222). But even in times of peace, ‘smart weapons of
the state should not be displayed to the people’ (p.164). Such recommendations helped to fuel
the charge of deviousness lodged against Lao Tzu. But look at part of the reason for concealing
smart weapons: ‘The more smart weapons the people have, the more troubled the state will be’
(p.201). Smart weapons are carried in corrupt states, where the rich engage in conspicuous
consumption and the people are suppressed, not where Tao is practiced (LT p.194).
• advance from weakness, flexibility but firmness. Weakness is the principle of life and will
overcome strength (LT p.164, p.233).
• coolness and non-competition (LT p.233, p.164). Like these, most of the general strategies
are standard Taoist practices simply applied to military conduct. For these standard practices
the charge of deviousness looks feeble.
The response applies more generally to other allegedly devious political strategies. For
the strategies are but application of Taoist principles and techniques to warfare, politics and
elsewhere. Nothing excludes application of these techniques to what are accounted, in general,
unnecessary evils (which must sometimes, on other Taoist grounds, be countered). Nor, to
meet the main criticism, need any deceit or deviousness be involved; nor is it. In particular, the
legalist tactic, Tn order to grasp, it is necessary first to give’ (LT p.164), is cited as involving
‘an element of deceit’ ‘undeniably’, and ‘worse’ it is ‘morally questionable’ (Chan p.17). But
in order for me to grasp your hand in a normal handshake, it is necessary first for me to give
my hand. There is no deceit here, nothing morally questionable. All the tactics permit of
benign construals, of a Taoist kind. Consider, for instance, Tn order to contract, it is necessary
first to expand’ (LT p.164). In order to bend a copper pipe to the intended angle, it is better to
bend it first a little further than required. The transformation of water to ice (both favoured
natural items for symbolic purposes: natural processes which may look devious!) neatly
illustrates the Taoist principle (which is however hardly necessary), and shows softness and
weakness turned hardness and strength.
The Taoist critique of militarism is as much a critique of technology as of war. Sharp
weapons, ‘smart weapons’ as we might now say, come in for much critical attention, as we
have already noticed. Only in corrupt and degenerate states are they displayed or flaunted
(p.194, p.164); in deep-green regions smart weapons of state’ would not be retained
unexhibited. The people will not have them for they mean trouble (p.201); for similar reasons
deep-green regions will be free of them. So, it seems, will ideal Taoist regions: ‘Even if there
are arrows and weapons, none will display them’ (LT p.238). Much technology, military and
other, is excluded under the Taoist edict against violence (a further facet of the military-practices
paradox).5
5
Under contemporary technology and technological arrangements, such as the storage of
quantities of oil and nuclear and chemical materials in great cities, wars have assumed new and
�14
The powerful critique of militarism in the Tao-te Ching is coupled with strong opposition
to violence. Some of the linkage is evident enough. Militarism as practised represents an
ultimate form of state (or party) violence. A basic theme is that violent practices will come to an
unnatural end, and accordingly to a non-Taoist end (generalising LT p.176). While force may
occur in spectacular, but satisfactory, natural forms, force is duly distinguished from violence.
To force the growth of life means ill omen.
For the mind to employ the vital force without restraint means violence
(LT p. 197).
One who follows Tao does not apply dominating force, which usually has had results bringing
requital (p.152). Dominating force, like power, is in general castigated, under doctrine of wuwei, no forced actions, no violence. To force natural growth is deviant, destroying harmony.
To stop natural growth is deviant. But there is a significant difference between force and
violence. To intentionally employ destructive force is to do violence. To so force things is
condemned. To remain in harmony with things one does not so force things or practice
violence. There is a non-interference principle at work, which also indicates types of non
interference that are excluded.
However Taoism does not always get the distinction between force and violence quite
right. ‘Vital force without restraint’, intentionally excessive force, is only part of what counts
as violence, which is more generally force which violates, i.e. transgresses, descrecrates,
very destructive dimensions, to the point of being utterly irresponsible.
A different approach to technology, as to war, is now mandatory. These are no longer things
that can in principle be nicely confined and need not touch parties outside the fray. An
important part of ending wars, “winning the war against wars”, is removing the technology of
war, above all from irresponsible state power.
As for which technology to try to jettison and which to try to retain or improve, it is not so
difficult to indicate, provided evaluative terminology is not outlawed. What is wanted is
technology that is good in its place, what should be excluded is technology that is indifferent
or bad or potentially so. Technology to be justified has to do something worthwhile, it has
to address identifiable respectable needs. That is why merely indifferent technology is out;
there is no virtue in technology for technology's sake, as it is a mere means technique. It is
because of the crucial evaluative component in choice of technology that appropriateness,
itself evaluative, comes closer to encapsulating the criterion than other recent efforts. Size,
such as smallness, or intermediateness, are not what matter, though modest and not excessive
technologies are likely to fare better in satisfying appropriateness. In simpler societies, small
technology is of course more appropriate; for that is what is good there. From known criteria
for what is good these other features for locally appropriate technology can be read off:
reliability, esp. in maintenance, functioning well and safely under the expected range of
operating conditions (which may be difficult), ease of repair, capital cheapness and repair
inexpensiveness, environmental benignness, and meeting sound social needs.
�15
profanes, injures, outrages, etc. It is thus a negatively connoted force, an evil force in some
specified intentional respect. There is a tendency for Taoist commentators, not Taoists, to
regard Taoism as condemning all uses, or even occurrences, of force, but this is not so. Rather
intentional ill-forcing is what is castigated, what is deviant. Thus Taoism does not exclude a
range of defensive practices, which make satisfactory use of natural forces, like letting the
machines of war industry stop.
Those who would abolish war and its machinery, substituting for it nonwarlike and
ideally nonviolent methods, technology, and strategies, have been confronted not merely with
much sub-rational abuse but with plenty of criticism and even some paradoxes. Here is a recent
paradox concerning war and nonviolence:
• War must be abolished. One reason is simply economic. We can no longer afford it, and
the opportunity costs are enormous. Along with other extraordinarily wasteful activities, it is an
anachronism.
• Doing so cannot be accomplished without violence, i.e. in effect, given the types of violence
involved, without what amounts to war. According to a fuller version of this premiss, the
process of abolishing a war would only be achieved through a revolution so profound that it
could not succeed without extensive and extreme violence, amounting to (civil) war.
But then war cannot be abolished without war.
Therefore, war which must be abolished cannot be abolished.6
This “paradox” has been compared with the Liar paradox, but the parallel does not persist far.
For this paradox does not involve self-referential features, and is easily broken, as follows. Let
the “last war” be not the last standard war but the revolution abolishing war. Then, given that
the revolution is successful, war will be abolished therewith, i.e. with that last war. There need
be no regress, given again a successful outcome. All the premisses stand intact, but the
conclusion, following the ‘therefore’ is a nonsequitur. However, while the dissolution of the
argument is accordingly logically fine, the route is repugnant. Standard pacifism challenges the
second premiss.
4. Standard and moral pacifism.
6
Brian Medlin, who forcefully propounded this puzzle, set other analogous puzzles alongside it
- designed to reveal deep difficulties in contemporary political, and especially alternative,
thought. Another puzzle, concerning liberty and repression in the context of capitalism,
revolved around the following inconsistent triad:
• capitalism must be removed, but liberty retained.
• capitalism cannot be removed without repression.
• repression is antithetical to liberty.
The puzzle is resolved as with the analogous puzzle of abolishing. Let the “last capitalist”
action before the days of liberty be the repressive but liberating revolution overthrowing
capitalism.
�16
Although Taoism is strongly opposed to war, and much in favour of peace - and
accordingly by prevailing standards a substantially pacific position - it is not (nowhere in the
central texts) committed to pacifism in usual senses, for two different reasons:• It is not, by contrast with pacifism, opposed to all types of warfare, for example smart
defensive wars.
• It eschews deontology in terms of which moral pacifism is commonly stated, for instance
through the watershed thesis
P2.
It is morally wrong to use violence.
By contrast with Taoism, deep environmentalism does not avoid deontic claims, and is
committed in principle to nonviolent technologies and ways and to pacifistic principles.
Moreover, certain forms of deep environmentalism are completely committed to pacifism,
notably European forms. Is deep green?
There is heavy contemporary opposition to pacifism, as there also was to Taoism in the
warring times when Taoism was first being promulgated. Many of the central institutions of
contemporary life are intricated in coercion, violence and war. The most prominent
contemporary institutions, states, are premissed on these elements of damaging force; they
claim entitlement to use them widely, and even claim a certain territorial monopoly on their use.
As a result they are having constantly to engage in them in attempt to maintain that monopoly.
They are certainly the main perpetrators of wars, and of violence. They are indeed inured to
wars, are in constant preparation for wars, yet propound dialectial (and normally dishonest and
cynical) doctrines of peace through war (for a recent example see the appendix).
Unremarkably then, the extensive propagandistic machinery of state has invested heavily
in “justificatory” exercises in favour of controlled use, its own use, of destructive force, and
continues to inveigh against pacifism. Because a routine trick in this sophistical repetoire
consists in conflating pacifism with extreme, naive and inplausible, forms, an inevitable and
important early task commits in unscrambling senses of ‘pacifism’. Semantical skulduggery
can be thwarted in this way.
Pacifism, as explained by English dictionaries, invariably concerns wars and warfare, and
contains two components, negative and, elaborating on that, positive:- The negative component
is, in Amauld's word, anti-War-ism, opposition (in ways to be further specified) to all forms of
warfare (see OED). The positive component supplies alternative ways of settling disputes (what
it is supposed that wars with some semblance of justification involve), such as negotiation,
arbitration,... - and, adding to too narrow dictionary accounts - sanctions, substitutions (e.g.
of sporting events, operatic contests, cooperative ventures),... . In brief standard pacifism is
opposition to all warfare and resolution of potential wars by other nonmilitary means.
Plainly the opposition to warfare, like the sanctions and so on, cannot itself be military
(using soldiers and other devices of war), on pain of some incoherence. But otherwise the
ways of opposition can be many and various: they can certainly be active, as with nonviolent
�17
demonstrations, resistance movements, and so forth, and they may also be devious (e.g.
turning the forces of war upon themselves so they are neutralised). It quickly becomes evident,
then, that some of the dictionaries offer but loaded definitions which, by restricting the negative
components, reduce the initial appeal and plausibility of pacifism. Consider the Concise
English definition of the negative component: ‘the doctrine of non-resistance to hostilities and
of total non-co-operation with any form of warfare’. Thereby excluded are forms of pacifism
which offer active and plausible alternatives to warfare such as social defence. The Concise
English tends to force pacifism into what the Oxford English Dictionary lists as its final item:
‘often, with depreciatory implication, the advocacy of peace at any price’, ‘in any
circumstance’. Pacifism can easily resist being forced into these sorts of circumstances: it has
many resources, as an extensive series of texts on alternatives to war, such as negotiation, non
violent action and social defence, from Taoism to contemporary environmentalism attest.
Academic philosophers have much advanced the semantical strategy of some dictionaries,
of rendering pacifism more difficult from the very outset by narrow and biassed definitions.
They have stretched the term from its restricted setting of warfare, confined to state and
organised gang violence, to cover all forms of violence, from state and interstate to, what is
very different, personal and interpersonal violence. Call the resulting considerably stretched
notion of pacifism, according to which it is morally wrong to use violence, according to which
P2 holds, stretched pacifism.'1 While stretched pacifism certainly includes standard pacifism
(unless the notions of war and warfare are tampered with), the converse is very far from being
the case. A pacifist is in no way committed to stretched pacifism, which is a much more
problematic and difficult position than standard pacifism. There are several, substantially
different reasons for this, which will be picked up seriatim.
Stretched pacifism, also misleadingly called moral pacifism, has looked a very easy
critical target to moral philosophers. Many the effusive philosopher who, upon sighting such a
target, has charged, whooping such rhetoric as “incoherent”, “inconsistent”, “insensitive”,
“fanatical”. However, with improved logical technology now available for accommodating and
treating moral dilemmas, it is no great feat to resist such attacks, in the fashion of previous
investigations (see esp. Al, also MD). A main aim was to demonstrate that stretched pacifism
was not so stupid as it was made out to be or appeared to be to these inured to present dominant
violent ways. So far from being stupid, it is viable. In future gentler times stretched pacifism
could even be realised for whole communities of creatures (as some genuinely Christian sects
envisaged); whence it will finally be seen to be feasible not merely for sages and supermen, and
many ordinary women, but much more extensively.
7
In Al this notion was contrasted with standard pacifism as comprehensive pacifism:
overcomprehensive might have been better.
�18
The method of philosophical accommodation was through moral dilemmas. The sort of
moral dilemma that stretched pacifism can induce derives as follows. On the one side stands
the theme P2, Wv, in convenient symbols, for Wrong V-ing, violencing. Now this implies to
WB, where B presents a case of of violence. On the other side, particular circumstances
develop which lead to W ~B, because ~B would produce in the circumstances considerable
wrong, for instance extensive violence, mass murder, etc. One stock example from the
literature concerns calling off the firing squad about to shoot several captives if the pacifist
shoots one of them (it is elaborated in Al p.13). Interestingly, another stock example from the
literature concerns standard pacifism (it can also be presented in terms of patriotism; for details
of both see MD p.10).
Resolution of intractable moral dilemmas is, where it is required, situational. The agent
decides in the situation, within the fix, what to do. There are many ways in which such
decision making can proceed, less rational, such as those applying chance or involving bad
faith, or more rational, such as those applying consequentialist decision theory (for details see
MD, pp.32-9). A decision theory taking account of all that should be included will not however
be purely consequential. It would also take account of relevant motivation.
This defence and rehabilitation of moral pacifism has been challenged, in particular by
Smith (hereafter JWS). JWS claims the defence offered is a ‘failure because it trivializes
pacifism’ (p. 153 twice). The rehabilitation
trivializes pacifism because it entails that pacifism doesn't substantially differ
from a form of activism which holds that while violence is always wrong
one is sometimes justified on consequentialist grounds for preferring violent
acts, if these acts are lesser evils than any other real alternatives. This is the
commonsense position which most people hold - yet - pacifism after all was
supposed to be radical moral doctrine - (p.153 rearranged).8
Part of the criticism is, then, not so much that pacifism is trivialized - JWS “activism” is
hardly trivial - as that pacifism is popularised, deflated from a radical position to the
commonsense position most people hold (p.154 also). Yet not a shred of evidence is adduced
that JWS activism is such a populist position. Available evidence, for example from peace
movements and oppositional opinion polls, suggests the very opposite: that, for instance, most
people support state-justified conventional wars with the military violence they incur, and
accordingly do not hold that violence is always wrong. From such a commonsense angle,
pacifism with its condemnation of conventional wars and the violence they involve remains a
radical doctrine.
As regards wars and other violence-incurring social authorities, contemporary pacificism
8
JWS now informs me that he has changed his position. Whether the move effects his
criticism, I don't know.
�19
is, as previous explained (e.g. Al p.3), a form of activism. Pacifism does not imply utter
pacifity, but may actively involve social defence, resistance and so on. However a certain level
of misrepresentation enters into the JWS challenge in the details of what forms of activism
pacifism may include. That misrepresentation begins in the second clause concerning what is
said to be sometimes justified. For the situational procedure where dilemmas arise will not
generally be consequential applying a principle of lesser evil. In dilemmatic situations such
principles are suspended, and such a principle is in any case unacceptable to moral pacifists. A
small amount of violence may be less bad in its consequences than verbal offence, but a
principled pacifist will choose the slightly greater evil where other obligations do not exclude it.
A more serious distortion occurs in JWS's effort to force procedures in dilemma
situations into purely consequentialist form. In fact consequential decision theory was
deployed as a model only for how to proceed rationally in a situational setting where deontic
procedures were suspended (see MD p.38). What was said, still misleadingly retrospective
vision reveals, was this: ‘what is done is a very consequentialist thing’ (Al p.13), not ‘one acts
in a consequentialist fashion to do the sufficiently good thing in the circumstances’ (JWS
p.152). Situationally other procedures than those resembling orthodox rational decision
making (modified from maximizing to satisizing objectives) may be adopted (MD p.38).
Further the orthodox consequentialist theory is inadequate because it leaves out, or tries to
reduce to consequences, nonconsequential elements, notably motives. It is not difficult, in
principle (in advance of attempted consequentialization of motives), to design situations where
motives, such as integrity or maintaining faith, enter to yield outcomes upsetting consequential
calculations. More elaborate decision making procedures than those of consequentialism,
sometimes at variance with consequentialism, are thus presupposed.
A further part of JWS's criticism accordingly goes by the board, the alleged appeal ‘to
“second best” consequentialist considerations,... already explicitly condemned’ (p.154). What
was condemned was stock universal consequentialism, ‘that only consequentialist
considerations carry argumentative weight’ (quoted on p. 152), so undercutting other deontic
principles, such as those of pacifism. It was not claimed, what is utterly different, that
consequentialist considerations can nowhere enter into deliberation and decision making. The
conclusion JWS arrives at is therefore substantially astray.
After criticising modern moral philosophy for its reliance upon
consequentialist modes of thought, it is surprising, and inconsistent, to find
... [reliance] upon such modes of thought to escape logical difficulties raised
by moral dilemmas facing ... pacifis[m] (p. 152)
There is no inconsistency. JWS has confused universal with particular. As well he has
wrongly contracted all situational decision making to consequentialist modes.
There is a third part to the criticism, that the defence is too easy; the ‘strategy will allow
too much violence to be (perpetrated and) justified to suit the tastes of any real pacifist’ (p. 153).
This another part of the so-called trivialization, this time however dilution rather than
�20
popularization, weakening the moral stand against violence. This third contention is premissed
on a mistake: that one can ‘justify on consequentialist grounds any number of violent acts,
providing that such acts are lesser evils than other real alternatives facing social agents’ (p.153).
Moral pacifism offers no such licence; allowing such consequentialism to take over was never
part of the position. The slide to such consequentialism is made on the strength of a similarly
erroneous example. The potential victim of an aspiring rapist ‘is supposed to flee or wriggle
free if possible. But it is easy to consequentially justify the use of violence by the woman to
prevent herself from being raped’ (p.153 italics added). In the example so far described there is
no dilemma, and no such easy resort to consequentially ‘justified’ violence.
What allows too much violence is the lesser evil JWS assumes is easily consequentially
justified; for example that the woman is entitled to inflict, and escalate, violence so long as it
remains ‘a lesser evil than the violence of attempted rape’ (p. 153). Since she may thereby
inflict quite unreasonable damage (esp. if she is a Kung Fu expert), the result is inconsistent
with ‘the basic principle of self-defence’ which JWS earlier adduced according to which what is
‘appropriate, in response is only that level of force necessary to defend oneself against the
threat’ (p.150). There is evidence in JWS's work of some enthusiasm for levels of violence
which exceed his ‘basic principle’, his appeal to ‘lesser evil’ generates some instances. The
‘basic principle’, itself fraught with difficulties (cf. the contorted discussion of what weapons
are appropriate in response to what attacks, p. 150), still exceeds what stretched pacifism would
enjoin; for instance, it may not be appropriate to respond with force. But in a technical sense
stretched pacifism is compatible with the ‘basic principle’, since it only imposes the upper
bound on level of force.
As for easiness, moral pacifism is not an easy position to live by, or to justify. Removing
objections to pacifism is one thing; solidifying a positive case for it is quite another, and so far
hardly conclusive (as Al tried to explain, pp 29-31). Stretched pacifism was advanced,
hypothesized to put it more precisely, as a still viable option. It was not presented as a morally
compulsory position, or, for that matter, as one that this defender adhered to or affirmed.
To reiterate, while a cumulative case can be made for stetched pacifism as principled non
violence, that case was not conclusive, and is hard to improve. For, further, some serious
difficulties standing in the way of stretched pacifism were assembled, the most important of
which derives from the extent of violence apparent in transactions within the natural world.
Simply consider the practices of carnivores, essential to their natural way of life. In order to
meet their life needs for sustenance, these creatures do, and are often obliged to, engage
routinely in violent activity. While it can no doubt be argued, as some vegetarians may do, that
the natural order is an immoral order, and that remaining carnivores should be converted to
vegetarianism as rapidly as proves possible (in the way domestic dogs are converted to dog
biscuits), the difficulties with such proposals are immense. The task envisaged is gigantic, and
beyond human capacities - even if it were desirable. For there are millions of species to be
�21
somehow converted to proper vegetarianism. Then there are millions of other species to be
converted to proper and well regulated contraceptive practices, else their numbers will get out of
hand (uncontrollably) with predation removed. Given humans lack of success in limiting their
own excessive numbers, such regulation appears entirely remote. Aside however from the
practical difficulties, is such a fully vegetarian order, with evolution further derailed, a desirable
improvement on the natural order? Is it morally obligatory? It is certainly not obligatory, as
alternative systems of morality in harmony with the prevailing natural order are feasible. Nor is
it desirable, for (to appeal to such alternative value systems) the natural order is more or less in
order as it is. Full vegetarianization would only reduce its value, vastly.
More generally, a defensible ethical framework should not, it would be rightly contended,
be right out of step with the natural order of other creatures, decently depicted. Decent
depiction is important, for some features of the natural order, such as competition, combat and
predation, so far from escaping attention, have been grossly exaggerated and exploited. Thus,
for instance, the ludicrous picture of nature red in truth and claw, so beloved of descendents of
orthodox Victorians and of orthodox economists. However, even under decent depiction, the
“natural order” is often not benign. That appears to be enough to induce a supervenient moral
dilemma for any stretched pacifism which is coupled to a deep ethic (e.g. which does not
separate humans out from the natural order) and which eschews the desperate vegetarian route:
The natural order is not an immoral order
The natural order contains (regular) instances of violence.
Therefore, instances of violence are not immoral in apparent defiance of P2 Moreover, there are too many instances of violence, too regularly
occurring, for them all to be plausibly shunted into the moral dilemma category (and predatory
carnivores face no dilemmas). Raptors that practice violence every week are not immoral
(neither are they clearly moral; the category of morality only significantly extends so far).
The main trouble lies however with P2 (which needs some finer adjustment, as was
alrady indicated in Al). While P2 is alright in context, within a particular, perfectly viable,
ethical framework, designed for the usual human round, the conventional setting for ethical
theories, it stands in need of modification outside that setting. It is time to suggest the sort of
modification envisaged. Evidently P2 was addressed to moral agents. Which agents? Not to
carnivores that supply their own livelihood, nor really to morally degenerate humans, but to
peace-sensitive agents. With that semi-technical form, yet to be characterised, a suitably
P2
MP2. It is morally wrong, for a peace-sensitive agent, to use violence.9
modified
9
results:
The generalization of P2, suggested in Al, to cover also the parallel situation of
environmental vandalism, can be similarly modified. The anti-vandolence principle becomes
MP2°. It is morally wrong, for a peace- and environmentally-sensitive agent, to use
�22
To recover what amounts, in the previous discussive context, to P2, it suffices to add the
proposition that every human agent ought to be peace-sensitive. Much as that proposition has
to recommend it, it appears too ethically advanced for many modern humans; it sets too high a
moral standard to be taken as a serious guide to practice. It seems wise to settle presently for
something less demanding, such as that every advanced moral agent ought to be peace
sensitive. To put essentially the same proposition alternatively:
Stretched pacifism (as modified) is supererogatory. While it is perhaps too late to hope for
much moral progress in humans, it is pleasant to contemplate alternative futures where what is
supererogatory became obligatory, and widely practiced.
Richard Sylvan*
Appendix
I began drafting this essay at the time (January 17, midday Australian time) of the
American attacks upon Iraq. The optly named Prime Minister Hawke of Australia had just
made a statement to the nation-state, announcing (the) war. In this statement there was much
talk of peace. There was even - in what was effectively a declaration of war - reiteration of the
modem quest for ‘a new world order of peace’. Peace through war; so it rings out again and
again, through the centuries. ‘War must be for the sake of peace’ (Aristotle p.220). More than
two thousand years later, we have fought those wars to end all wars. But it is no use, Hawke
solemely pronounced, just talking about peace, and thinking about peace; we must work for
peace, fight for it - through war. Impeccable logic?
President Bush, supreme commander, convinced us with similar logic, speaking too with
many tongues. Of how he ‘preferred to think of peace, not war’. But now ‘only force will
prevail’, as ‘all reasonable efforts to reach a peaceful solution are exhausted’. ‘What must be
done’ must be done, or will be anyway. With God on side with the US offensive (as well as
on the other side), it will go well. As it was said to have, though it achieved comparatively little
that other efforts may not have yielded more satisfactorily, and thought it may now have to
followed with another invasion. Nor have we ever managed to glimpse much of what is now
supposed, when we are no longer engaged, to come ‘out of the horror of war’: a ‘new world
order ... which governs the conflict of nations’; a ‘rule of law’, not war. How the one,
enforcable law, is achieved, unless backed by the the other, is not explained (Medlin's paradox
hits back). Similarly what we now hear from many militarists, as they rush to war, is that
vandolence.
Thank to David Bennett for joint contributions (from UT) and to JWS for opposition (in
JWS)
�23
‘peace is a great good, war a great evil’. But, for the most part, only the rhetoric has shifted;
practice has scarcely changed at all.
REFERENCES
W.-T. Chan, A Source Book on Chinese Philosophy, Princeton University Press, 1963;
referred to as ST.
W.-T. Chan (ed.), The Way of Lao Tzu (Tao-te Ching), Bobbs-Merrill, New York, 1963;
referred to as LT.
B. Martin, Uprooting War, Freedom Press, London, 1984.
A. Naess, Ecology, community and lifestyle, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK,
1989.
R.A. Rapaport, Pigs for the Ancestors : ritual in the ecology of a New Guinea People, Yale
University Press, New Haven, 1967.
R. Routley, ‘War and Peace II. On the alleged inconsistency, moral insensitivity and fanaticism
of pacifism’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy #9, Research School of
Social Science, Australian National University, 1983 (also in. Inquiry ); referred to as AL
R. Routley and V. Plumwood, ‘Moral dilemmas and the logic of deontic notions’, Discussion
papers in environmental philosophy #6, Research School of Social Science, Australian
National University, 1984 (also in Paraconsistent Logic)-, referred to as MD.
R. Routley, ‘War and Peace I. On the ethics of large-scale nuclear war and nuclear-deterrence
and the political fall-out’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy, #5, Research
School Of Social Science, Australian National University, 1984.
G. Sharp, Social Power and Political Freedom, Porter Sargent, Boston, 1980.
J.W. Smith, The Worms at the Heart of Things , Public Relations Unit, Flinders University,
1989.
R. Sylvan, ‘War and Peace III, Australia's defence philosophy’, Social Philosophy, for Nuclear
Conference, University of Queensland, 1985.
R. Sylvan and D. Bennett, ‘Of Utopias, Tao and Deep Ecology’, Discussion papers in
environmental philosophy #19, Research School of Social Science, Australian National
University, 1990; referred to as UT.
�
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2073
WAR AND PEACE IV:
TAO AND DEEP-GREEN flAClF/Stf
Taoism and deep-green environmental theory, although closely aligned on very many
issues, diverge over war. For Taoism, by contrast for instance with Buddhism, is not a pacific
doctrine, but is committed to skilful defensive militarism. While it does not espouse a fortress
mentality, Taoism certainly condones limited defensive military operations for specific
purposes, a sort of guerilla warfare. By contrast, deep-green theory, while acknowledging the
role of organised social defence, stands opposed to professional militarism, and thereby to
military defence, and is committed to a principled pacifism. Conveniently a route through
Taoism, philosophically fascinating in its own right, will lead us to problems of pacifism and
towards deep-green theory.
1. Features of a Taoist critique of war and militarism.
War did not receive a favourable press in ancient Chinese philosophy. Generally
aggression and war were to be avoided. Even Confucius imposed very demanding conditions:
for example, ‘when good men have instructed the people [in morals, agriculture, military
tactics] for seven years, they may be allowed to bear arms,’ ‘If a ruler ... does not set himself
right, even his commands will not be obeyed’ (SB p.41, italics added). Mo Tzu went much
further than Confucius, roundly condemning war - on utilitarian grounds, that war yields no
net benefit at any level (SB p.227). What is more, he backed his heavy condemnation
practically (unlike some conspicuous contemporary theoretical utilitarians); ‘he did not hesitate
to walk for ten days and ten nights in an effort to dissuade a ruler from making war’ (SB
p.212). But none, it is said, went as far, in a detailed and sophisticated criticism of war, as Lao
Tzu; ‘none has condemned war more strongly than Lao Tzu’. ‘[T]he opposition of Taoism to
the use of force is well-known, and the most bitter attack on militarism if found in the Lao Tzu'
(Chan, p.154, p.17.)
But, after that splendid build-up, the text is slightly disappointing. Lao Tzu does not
assert outright that war is an abomination, or even roundly condemn it. His critique of war,
militarism, and military technology, is subtle and oblique, and, on the surface, far distanced
from pacifism. For he does not recommend an end to war - in that genuine Taoists, those who
possess Tao, will never participate in them - but expects wars to continue as unavoidable evils.
Worse, he even goes so far as to outline proper attitudes to war and conduct in war, and indeed
to suggest military techniques and strategies, some of which look decidedly devious. Among
the classical works of Taoism, we focus on the Lao Tzu because, by contrast with other works,
a remarkable component of that book is devoted to war and militarism.
The apparent deviousness of the tactics Lao Tzu allocates serves to highlight what has
been seen as ‘the most troublesome element’ in his philosophy (Chan p.17) - not so much
however because they concern military operations, but because they are taken to apply much
2
dispensation? Why should what is not tolerated more generally be exonerated there? But given
that Taoism has here the virtue of consistency (i.e. uniformity on principles) and of
universalizability, that simply leaves more explaining to be done.
• Puzzles for Taoism, and wars as unavoidable evils
There are two puzzles here in Taoism rather than one. There is the military-practices
paradox, and, varying and generalising on that, there are life-practices paradoxes. The special
paradox is generated by the following incompatible elements: on the one side, ‘the most bitter
attack on militarism’, the well-known opposition of Taoism to the use of force (p. 17) and to the
possession and use of smart military weapons and technology - implying that war is far from
all right - and on the other, advocacy of certain (devious) military tactics, outlines of (deceitful)
conduct in war, and so on - implying that war is all right after all. A straightforward
generalisation of this paradox would look at other morally-sensitive parts of life, where some
practice was strongly condemned yet engaged in (for many examples, see the dilemmas
assembled in MD). But the variation of concern to Chan and the neo-Confucians concerns the
conjunction of upright with devious practices in life, in particular in the life of the sage. For a
Taoist sage is presumed to lead an upright straightforward life, yet appears to engage in devious
and even deceitful practices incompatible with such a life-style. Call this the Taoist-lifestyle
paradox.
Evidently a good deal of explaining is required, as to how Taoism can coherently take the
positions it appears to presume, both on war and peace, and on life more generally. A desirable
preliminary would seem to be a little investigation of what position A taken, especially on war
and militarism. One key pasage runs:
Fine weapons are instruments of evil
They are hated by creatures
Therefore those who possess the Tao turn away from them....
Weapons are instruments of evil, not the instruments of a good ruler.
When he uses them unavoidably, he regards calm restraint as the best
principle
Even when he is victorious, he does not regard it as praiseworthy,
For to praise victory is to delight in the slaughter of men.
He who delights in the slaughter of men will not succeed in the empire. ...
For a victory, let us observe the occasion with funeral-ceremonies
(LT p.154).
Wars, which involve the use of weapons, instruments of evil, are accordingly themselves evil.
They are also evil because they involve the slaughter of men. But they are also sometimes
unavoidable (also p. 152). Therefore such wars are unavoidable evils. Such discourse,
obtained by almost immediate inference from the passage, is within the standard orbit of
dilemma talk. But Taoism lacks, through deliberately eschewing deontic talk, the discourse
which enables direct expression of such dilemmas, or even direct condemnation of wars or of
clever weapons. Instead the points are made by circumlocution, what the possesser of Tao
does, how the good ruler conducts himself, or by analogy, of victory in war with death.
3
Unavoidable evils are the very stuff of deontic dilemmas (though many theories,
underpinned by shonky logic, lack the resources for representing this stuff properly). Where
something is unavoidably evil, it is both bad, because evil, and also not bad, doing it is
excusable, because it is unavoidable. So, given such an argument (which has its weaknesses),
an unavoidable evil is a genuinely dilemmatic object with inconsistent features. Certain wars
have looked, since ancient times, like such dilemmatic objects.
Revealingly, Chan tries to explain that ‘most troublesome element’ in Taoism, the
military-practice paradox, through the following exercise in lateral thinking:
It can ... be argued that Lao Tzu uses warfare to illustrate his principles of
taking no action and weakness because warfare is among the most dynamic
and critical of human experiences, just as the Indian classic, the Bhagavadgita
chooses fighting as the theme on which to discuss the terrible dilemma
whether one should fulfil his duty, as in the case of a soldier, and kill, or
should fail in his duty and refrain from killing (p. 17).
‘Just as’? The Indian classic prevents a classic moral dilemma, a dilemma represented in
contemporary philosophy (following its rediscovery by Sartre), where there are incompatible
duties: the duty to kill, because of one's role as a soldier, and the duty not to kill, because of
one's human condition, and the supervenient dilemma of failing in and fulfilling one's duties.
These dilemmas for an individual (male, as it then was) are replicated in dilemmas regarding
war for group institutions: at bottom, the obligation to engage in war (for one set of compelling
reasons) as contraposed with the obligation not to engage in war (for another, perhaps
overlapping, set of reasons).
A theory of moral dilemmas (as worked out for example in MD) is crucial for an adequate
treatment of major issues in war and peace, especially (as will become evident) for a viable
strong pacifism. But Taoism, eschewing deontic discourse, lacks the apparatus to state or
develop moral dilemmas. Hence it is logically excluded from giving a full or adequate account
of what is going on conceptually. One of the philosophically fascinating feature of Taoism is
the fashion in which it manages to avoid deontic discourse, and to substitute for direct deontic
discourse or improvise circumlocutions when deontic discourse would otherwise appear
inevitable (cf. UT for examples). But there are costs. One is inability to display the mechanism
of deontic dilemmas, or to show what reasons and argument lie behind Taoist prounouncements
and conclusions (the shortage of Taoism on argument is another philosophically conspicious
feature, also observed in UT). As conceptual apparatus for analysizing moral dilemmas is
missing, most of the machinery involved has to be passed over. Only the outcomes, as Taoism
sees them, are presented, as if from a black box. Taoism blacks out the story on deontic
dilemmas that deep-green theory can tell, as the following diagram tries to show:
Diagrams . Charting the processing of deontic dilemmas that are "resolved”.
4
Deep-green chart:
dilemma
input
Arguments to
incompatible
prescriptions
->
Processing of dilemma,
directive
situational procedures
output
Corresponding Taoist chart:
Black
directive
Box
output
input
It is evident that Taoism can be extended', information can be put into the Black Box
rendering it less opaque. That extension can be made so as to conform to deep-green theory,
i.e. so that the extended Taoist chart, a neo-Daoist chart, looks like the deep-green one. That is
indeed essentially how neo-Daoism get characterised, in terms of conformity of the extension to
deep ecological theory (see UT).
We are now placed to explain how to dissolve, or at least neutralize, the paradoxes
deriving from repudiation of militarism, an awkwardly qualified repudiation in the case of
Taoism. In a significant sense there is no resolving of genuine deontic dilemmas. The
principles delineating the fix may stand, incompatible, signalling the persisting suboptimality
(or better, sublimenality) of the dilemmatic situation. Where there is a dilemma, involved
parties should try to do well enough in the sublimenal circumstances (for a much fuller account,
see MD). Thus where there is a war, itself a non-Taoist process, engaged or caught up Taoists
will not abandon Taoism. Taoist methods will be applied, Taoist strategies pursued.
So much for theoretical representation and (non-)resolution of life-practices and other
dilemmas, details of which are readily elaborated in deep-green extensions of Taoism. A prior
substantive issue is whether dilemmas always are generated: not whether wars are evil
(typically they are, an issue we shall come to), but whether wars are unavoidable. Analysis of
wars does not bear that familiar claim out decisively. Many wars could have been avoided,
through conciliation, negotiation, restraint, etc., and no worse results apparently obtained,
through sanctions, exchange, trade, etc. Through a typology of wars (coming up) that
conjecture can be given some substance. Consider, for instance, what would be walk-overs.
Then there is little point in making a military response. So war can be avoided. Certainly an
occupation, to be met in a different way, may still occur. And so on, perhaps, for various other
types of war. But, more generally, try this:Every war involves an aggressor, who makes an aggressive move. Such an aggressor
could always avoid that move, taking a different (or a do-nothing) course of action. Therefore,
5
every war can be avoided. No war is entirely unavoidable.
Setting aside determinism (which renders all actual wars along with all other events
unavoidable), it could be argued that a war sometimes simply boils up, without an aggressor,
an intensification of a conflagatory situation. There are grounds for scepticism regarding such
examples; for such intensification can only occur if provocative military moves are made, for
instance troops are stationed in provocative or risky positions.
The presumption that certain wars are unavoidable typically derives from a one-sided
perspective on war, a defender's perspective. A defender has no option, so it is routinely
averred, but to respond to a determined aggressor. Even if that should be so sometimes, when
there is no running away or going underground, it does not establish that such a war is
unavoidable; for it neglects the role of the aggressor. By a smarter formulation, relevant
features of unavoidability can be captured. Although wars may not be unavoidable, defensive
action in wars that have been initiated may be unavoidable. At least such action may be
unavoidable if unacceptably high costs (death, enslavement, etc.) are not to be avoided.
Thereupon another highly relevant feature emerges: the linkage of avoidability to costs. For
whether an action is unavoidable then depends upon what costs a party is prepared to incur
before and when insisting on action: but this appears entirely unacceptable. How can what is
“unavoidable” cease to be so when some further costs are absorbed? However with basics like
survival, a certain liberty, and so on, we do reach such bounds. An important type of
unavoidability. We also reach scenarios, unavailable to Lao Tzu but kindly brought within
range by modem technology, which may appear to justify aggressive strikes.
State Z, while not an aggressor, is carrying out practices which will impose unacceptably
high costs upon peoples of other states and implacably refuses to desist. It could, for example,
be poisoning air or water flowing to other states. But ,to make the case vivid, let us suppose
that state Z is constructing, for reasons Zeders find convincing (they are committed to a faith
which depicts all humans as incorrigible sinners and unworthy of life), an effective doomsday
machine. Would an (aggressive) preemptory strike designed to disable or destroy the machine
be unavoidable?1 In a sense, No; in another Yes. For different modalities can operate.
Physically outsiders need to do nothing, but watch Zeders go about their zealous work. But
deontically they are under heavy moral pressure, because of the costs of standing by idly: if the
human race is worth anything very substantial, then they are obliged to act, action is deontically
unavoidable. Here is a situation where a proposed reduction of deontic logic proves
illuminating. Obligation is explicated through not implying, or necessitating, the sanction, i.e.
1
Whether it would be justifiable, or just, are separate issues. But it is evident enought that
such scenarios further damage the obsolescent idea of just war. For, according to received
doctrine, a just war is defensive. (How such a war can be fought at all is another matter;
coherence requires relativization to ‘just war for party d’.)
6
excessive ethical costs such as extermination. Let us explain deontic unavoidability
analogously: an action is so unavoidable if not undertaking it would result in excessive ethical
costs. Then if it can be established that there is no other way than a military strike, an act of
war, to ensure that the Zeders desist (and certainly we can envisage scenarios like that), then
that is deontically unavoidable. It is also dilemmatic for those committed to, or inclined
towards pacifism; and it is, for them at least, but paradoxically justifiable, as the negation is
also justifiable, on pacific grounds.
Scenarios like that sketched, that appear to render certain wars deontically unavoidable
require but little or no elaboration to render them evil. Evil indeed is such a standard feature of
standard wars that at least its great presence call for little supporting evidence. But it has taken
to vast stretch of human history to reach this general point of recognition.
The manifold evils of war Lao Tzu very early recognised and emphasized:
Wherever armies are stationed, briars and thorns grow.
Great wars are always followed by famines (p.152).
And nowadays followed by great tides of refugees. This passage includes not only recognition
of the widely-observed socio-environmental consequences of war, but, more striking, very
early recognition of the severe environmental impact of military forces. That critique is not
however developed in Taoism.2 Only recently has it been pushed substantially further. And
only recently could a new, most significant twist occur, the merging of resource security, long a
military objective, with environmental security.
The appalling idea has recently been floated that the military, in need of new work and
roles with the apparent warming of West-East relations and cooling of the Cold War, should
exchange usual military idleness for meddling in environmental matters: regulation and policing
of environmental resources, ensurance of environmental security of powerful states, and
similar. This is a bit like reassigning those imprisoned for child abuse to managing
kindergartens; for consider the impressive military record of environmental vandalism. What
the military is alleged to offer is a structure appropriate and available for handling such matters.
But, to the contrary, it is precisely the sort of hierarchical, authoritarian expensive structure that
should be wound down and up as soon as the opportunity appears, as (briefly) now, rather than
being retained and shockingly reoriented (as a state-serving “Greenwar”).
2.
On the divergence of deep-green from Taoism.
Having arrived, by better or worse arguments, at the conclusion that wars, though
2
But a bridge to deep-green theory can be made through neo-Daoism, an updating of Taoism in
confirmity with deep ecology (which however is somewhat thin and threadbare on war; for
what there is so far, see Naess p. 160). On neo-Daoism, sec UT.
7
generally evil, may be sometimes unavoidable, it is evidently important to say something about
how they - those of the theoretical residue - are to be conducted. By appropriate conduct the
damage they do may be reduced; also the conduct should be appropriate to the funereal nature
of wars (to exceed Taoist resources for stating this sort of point). It is at this stage that deep
green theory begins to diverge from Taoism.
In further explaining the Taoist and deep-green critiques of war, and diverting objections
to them, a rough and preliminary typology of wars is important. It is also of passing interest in
its own philosophical right. War, according to English Dictionaries, is a ‘contest carried on by
force of arms, typically between nations or states’. More exactly, war is a game - in the
generous technical sense of game-theory, with players, rules, goals, strategies, and so on carried on in significant part by military means, normally between states or substates. Call the
contestants, (warring) parties. They typically represent of course larger populations. The set
up between parties resembles the arrangements of players in game theory. There are several
analogical extensions of the term war to cover games where one of the parties is an object,
construed as hostile (an enemy of the state), such as Crime, Drugs, Poverty or Nature. These
we can set aside as analogical wars. Of course wars form only a part of military activities.
Military interests and objectives have always stretched significantly further than war, to include
surveillence and security, easily extended to resource security, environmental security and life
style security, and beyond that to political stability and other political matters. Evidently
military ambitions have far over-extended themselves in bagging such democratic concerns.
An anarchist solution to the whole problem of war, which some have seen Taoism as
reaching towards, is immediate: eliminate the source of war, states. Unfortunately it is not
quite that simple (and that's not simple). For wars can also occur between nations, cultures,
races or tribes (which are not such artifices as states, and not always so readily or desirably
abolished), between inhabited regions, and between factions within states (thus civil wars) or,
perhaps by extension, between factions within other social structures (thus, for instance, gang
wars). But undoubtedly eliminating states and aspiring states would abolish most wars and
virtually all the worst wars.
While “nonviolent wars” are excluded by definition, by virtue of ‘force of arms’, token
wars, limited wars, and so on, are not: for instance, wars fought by small armed teams
representing competing sides (cf. medieval and science fiction war games). As wars are
hemmed in by conventions and agreed rules, there is no reason in principle why they should
not be reduced to two person contests, fought under strict rules like boxing or gladiatorial
contests. But in modern times wars have never taken such sensible forms, but have been much
larger affairs, making heavy (though fortunately restricted) use of latest technology. Let us
distinguish such wars as techno-powered, wars. They have, directly or indirectly (for the
technology may be bought or bartered), a heavy research and development support structure
(indeed the bulk of contemporary science is devoted - misdirected - in one way or another to
8
this effort).
Among wars, an important distinction is that between offensive and defensive wars. An
offensive war is one which ventures off a given party's territory or recognised pad, “invading”
that of another party or parties; correlatively defensive parties, if they have not also invaded.
Force projection typifies offensive practice. Plainly, offensiveness and defensiveness are not
strictly features of a war, but of parties to a war. In a two-party war, while both parties can
easily act offensively, the possibility of both parties proceeding defensively is excluded, unless
they share territory. (Even then issues may arise as to which party, if any, was the aggressor,
which started it, was responsible for starting it, and so on.) Thus mutually defensive wars
between contemporary states are impossible (but would be possible if states shared territory,
e.g. if Eire and Britain shared the territory of Northern Ireland). Tao-accredited wars were
defensive wars, never wars aiming at domination: last-resort wars, in which no pride was taken
(LTp.152).3
The pretence that offensive wars are defensive is widespread, and reflected in the
subterfuge that departments or ministries of war are those of defence, security or whatever. (If
they really were what they purport to be, we should be well on the way to an end to war.)
Offensive practices are rendered defensive ones by shabby redefinitional strategems, such as
redefining ‘defensive’ to include defence of ideals like democracy or liberty, infringed (or
allegedly infringed) on territories abroad, or to include “defence” of a third party or place
(whence every offensive war is “defensive”). In the present war in which part of Arabia is
engulfed (February 1991), one party claims to be defending what really was (or should be) part
of its territory, namely Kuwait, another party to be defending (what Kuwait did not enjoy)
democracy. It is a doubly offensive war presented in this guise as jointly defensive.
Aggressive wars are waged for a variety of reasons, but usually for resources or access to
resources or markets, a matter often disguised by appeal to ideology (thus a war for oil is
represented as a war of liberation). But there are other reasons than narrowly economic ones,
such as religion (as with crusades), power and aggrandisement (as in building an empire), and
so on. Nor are those reasons necessarily far separated; ideologies like Marxism and market
capitalism, for example, exhibit many of the features of religion.
The economic reasons for war appear to have become much more complex with the
3
There is one line in LT that may suggest that attack was sometimes justifiable, namely ‘For
deep love helps one to win in the case of attack’ (p.219). But how can compassion be
appropriate unless this attack is within a defensive setting, a larger context of unavoidability
or such like. A passage shortly below confirms this interpretation:
I dare not take the offensive but I take the defensive:
I dare not advance an inch but I retreat a foot (p.222).
These are advances and attacks within a defensive setting.
9
advent of an integrated world economy. At the same time many of the independent reasons for
economic wars are now obsolete. For to powerful states accrue the advantages of war without
war. At least most of the former economic advantages of war can be obtained without
expensive wars, through trade, institution of economic dependence, etc. Small medieval wars
were sometimes instituted for the collection of neighbouring riches and booty, a kind of piracy
meeting conditions of war. “Small” contemporary wars can be waged for a remarkable mix of
political-economy ends: to establish a regime favourable to economic penetration and profit
repatriation, to subjugate markets and to remove competition, to boost a sagging weapons
economy by using up old stocks and also testing new equipment, to restart a depressed
economy, and so on. Such wars, along with the economic aims which motivate them, are in
effect heavily castigated by Lao Tzu:
When Tao prevails in the world, galloping horses are turned back to
fertilize (the fields ...).
When Tao does not prevail in the world, war horses thrive in the suburbs.
There is no calamity greater than lavish desires. (LT p. 181).
But it does exceed evidential warrant to claim that Tao is not only sufficient, but necessary, for
cessation of such practices.
The practice of regularly stimulating complex military-saturated economies through war is
reminiscent of older, much ridiculed practices in simpler societies. They now ridicule the
Tsembaga, who proceeded to destroy much of their surplus product by going to war every 5-15
years (cf Rapaport). But they do not similarly ridicule the most powerful nation on the Earth,
the USA, which proceeds to write off a colossal amount of surplus in war every 10-20 years
(the Gulf war liquidated some $1.7 billion per day). Taoists would. For ridicule was a
favoured method, an important rhetorical strategem, and war and its idiocy were favourite
targets.
Some classification of defensive wars is also important, for various reasons: reducing and
abolishing wars, their costs and damage, restructuring societies away from war and military
practices, and, not least, for appreciating Taoism.
A main distinction is between
• conventional defence, maintained by armies of armed soldiers, many of them professionals,
and
• social defence, where there are no such armies or but fragments of them, and defence is
carried out through social networks of a significant part of society.4
It is here that Taoism and deep-green theory part company. Under Taoism, the state will
have a standing army, but a defensive army operating by strange, surprise tactics (p.201). No
4
Details of social defence are presented in Sharp and in Martin.
10
doubt defensive wars are to remain last resort action. Nonetheless the state will operate in
secrecy, in a way incompatible with decentralised social defence; people will be kept in the dark
about smart weapons of the state; and they too will be surprised, along with presumed enemies
of the state. By contrast, under deep-green theory, there should be no hidden smart weapons
of state; information would flow more freely and not be hidden from the people (who should
retain influence in informed decision making). Under deep-green, standing armies, and more
generally military organisation, will be wound down altogether.
Taoism should have pushed its searching criticism further. For military objectives, easily
acquired by standing armies with time on their hands, are frequently incompatible with Taoism.
For example, Taoism is opposed to domination (LT p.152), whereas military operations
frequently seek or involve domination; and military structure is invariably hierarchical and
authoritarian. Taoism aims for self-regulation, wherever feasible (cf. p.201); so does deep
green theory, which is one reasons why it aims to dispose of standing armies, as an important
preliminary to the withering away of states themselves (military forces being major props of
state control and power, and often maintained primarily for internal state security). Taoism has
no project for ending the era of wars; deep-green theory does. That project involves an
elimination of standing armies, too often poised for fighting or political interference.
A recommended route to end war consists in progressive scaling down: reduction of the
means and manpower. The initial stages are well-known, and include
• elimination of nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry, and
• force reduction. It can hardly be pretended that the Earth's states have managed to proceed
very far on even this complex of stages. The next stage consists in
• contraction to defensive capacities only, and the final stage consists in
• elimination of remaining military defensive forces, and adoption, so far as required, of social
defence practices. The complete route thus involves complete demilitarisation.
Reasons why deep-green aims to proceed the full distance are readily grasped by
considering the environmental shallowness of an otherwise cogent traditional case for the sharp
curtailment of wars and militarism. The traditional Western case against wars has been
primarily along two dimensions: social and moral. Wars are highly disruptive of the social
fabric; wars may be unjust. From these joint features, it was argued that wars should be a
matter of last resort, to be fought to ensure peace. It was argued further that only just wars
should be fought. Just wars were rare objects. But as there was little evidence of the decline
and fall of wars, much effort was expended, more practically and unsuccessfully, upon
endeavouring to improve the calibre of wars, and more theoretically, upon trying to characterize
just war satisfactorily, or rather to bend the notion in an effort to approximate the gory unjust
facts.
Progress was long hindered, furthermore, because there was always a rival positive
perspective on wars, which encouraged the exaltation of wars and military feats. It also
facilitated the transfer of the favourable image of war to other problem areas, whence the long
and apparently successful war against Nature (but the short-term successes are turning into
long-term problems), the short and unsuccessful war against Poverty, and so on. Behind all
this is the complex idea of war as rejuvenating, even cleansing, like fire; of war as heroic, and
glorious, of war as the supreme testing ground of men. These pictures of war - finally
shattered by the first World War (where even the poets began to tell of horrors and atrocities)
and subsequent technological wars - though no longer in ascendency, have by no means
vanished. The notion of war as rejuvenating a flagging economy persists, along with the
practice of keeping capitalism running smoothly by integrating substantial military components
into the industrial engine.
With the development of highly technological wars — the celebrated development of the
dirty industrial age is substantially military - the traditional negative case has grown in strength.
Wars have become much more damaging, with the potential for much more that is significantly
worse, and the possibility of a just war has correspondingly contracted, virtually to zero. The
opposition to war has likewise grown, but more than correspondingly with the rise of women
in social and political influence. Wars have almost always and everywhere been Men's affairs;
likewise conquest.
Deep-green theory accepts much of the traditional negative case, but would further
strengthen it. For example, the stricture against unjust wars, as out and out immoral, can be
strengthened, through the following syllogism:
All wars should be fully just wars.
Modem wars cannot be fully just wars.
Therefore, there should be no modern wars.
A fully just war is not merely a just war, but a war those just character can be reliably forecast
in advance. A modern war is of course a war that deploys modern technology, at least that
available this century. The evidential basis for the second premiss derives from much
information that collateral damage, damage to innocent bystanders and involved citizens is
always likely and cannot be excluded. Such wars are always liable to violate uncontroversial
requirements for a just war, even if they are purely “conventional” wars, not throwing radiation
or chemical or biological weapons around.
From a contemporary viewpoint the traditional doctrine of a just war, really of a just
defensive v/ax, is seriously out of date. The reasons for this reach wider than the new features
introduced by modem technological wars and the character of modem civilization, with its giant
cities littered with dangerous and vulnerable military targets. They have also to do with the
chauvinism of the justice proposed, which is shallow human justice, not natural or
environmental justice. There is no consideration of justice to other creatures or to the Earth (cf
Naess p.160). Two troubles are really intertwined here: conceptual difficulties with too narrow
a notion of justice, and ideological difficulties with too narrow a vision of what is an object of
12
value, of what counts.
The deep-green case against war adds to the traditional case a further dimension,
neglected until very recently: the environmental dimension. It has suddenly been seen that wars
are typically environmental atrocities. Earlier, of course, “environments” were simply
backgrounds, backdrops in paintings and plays, to the real drama.
Contemporary technological wars tend to be not merely social tragedies but environmental
ones as well. There is a doctrine of just war, but it is a human chauvinistic affair. There is no
similarly developed doctrine of an ecologically sound war, a deep ecological war. Unless any
such war were literally different from modern wars, that is from contemporary technological
wars, it would overstep permitted bounds. For such wars are characteristically ecological
disasters. Hardened military people, desensitized by a rigorous unethical training, feel even
less compunction about degrading or destroying environments or members of other species
than they do of maiming or killing civilians through “collateral” activity.
Matching the no-just-war syllogism is a no-sound-war syllogism:
All wars should be environmentally sound wars.
Modern wars cannot be environmentally sound.
Therefore, there should be no modern wars.
The argument for the second premiss has of course to be different. It looks to the information
accumulating on what wars do to natural and built environments. The Vietnam and Gulf wars
both inflicted immense damage on natural environments or what was left of them.
The environmental effects of war are not confined to direct and collateral damage. There
are indirect effects also. Thus, for instance, war also supplied the mechanism of, and the
technology for, modern environmental destruction: explosives, bulldozers from tanks, etc. As
well, training for war and engagement in war have much fostered, along with attitudes that
make for social callousness or ruthlessness, those that contribute to environmental insensitivity
and cruelty.
3. Puzzles about Taoist strategy and its critiques of technology and violence
‘It is surprising how much of the Lao Tzu is devoted to military strategy’. Which
strategies? Surprise, above all. But why such strategies? ‘Do they not contradict the Taoists’
strong opposition to the use of force’ (Chan p.222), the implied commitment to quietism?
Briefly, Taoism is not committed to quietism, and while certainly antagonistic to violence, does
not oppose certain uses of force (only really z7/-forcing, as will be explained). Even so, the
emphasis on military strategy remains puzzling.
The strategies, many of them relevant to social defence, include
• seriousness, not ‘making light of the enemy’ (p.222)
• surprise, and nonvisibility (p.201). The defensive strategy involves guerilla tactics:
marching without formation, holding weapons without seeming to have them, confronting
13
enemies without seeming to meet them (p.222). But even in times of peace, ‘smart weapons of
the state should not be displayed to the people’ (p.164). Such recommendations helped to fuel
the charge of deviousness lodged against Lao Tzu. But look at part of the reason for concealing
smart weapons: ‘The more smart weapons the people have, the more troubled the state will be’
(p.201). Smart weapons are carried in corrupt states, where the rich engage in conspicuous
consumption and the people are suppressed, not where Tao is practiced (LT p.194).
• advance from weakness, flexibility but firmness. Weakness is the principle of life and will
overcome strength (LT p.164, p.233).
• coolness and non-competition (LT p.233, p.164). Like these, most of the general strategies
are standard Taoist practices simply applied to military conduct. For these standard practices
the charge of deviousness looks feeble.
The response applies more generally to other allegedly devious political strategies. For
the strategies are but application of Taoist principles and techniques to warfare, politics and
elsewhere. Nothing excludes application of these techniques to what are accounted, in general,
unnecessary evils (which must sometimes, on other Taoist grounds, be countered). Nor, to
meet the main criticism, need any deceit or deviousness be involved; nor is it. In particular, the
legalist tactic, Tn order to grasp, it is necessary first to give’ (LT p.164), is cited as involving
‘an element of deceit’ ‘undeniably’, and ‘worse’ it is ‘morally questionable’ (Chan p.17). But
in order for me to grasp your hand in a normal handshake, it is necessary first for me to give
my hand. There is no deceit here, nothing morally questionable. All the tactics permit of
benign construals, of a Taoist kind. Consider, for instance, Tn order to contract, it is necessary
first to expand’ (LT p.164). In order to bend a copper pipe to the intended angle, it is better to
bend it first a little further than required. The transformation of water to ice (both favoured
natural items for symbolic purposes: natural processes which may look devious!) neatly
illustrates the Taoist principle (which is however hardly necessary), and shows softness and
weakness turned hardness and strength.
The Taoist critique of militarism is as much a critique of technology as of war. Sharp
weapons, ‘smart weapons’ as we might now say, come in for much critical attention, as we
have already noticed. Only in corrupt and degenerate states are they displayed or flaunted
(p.194, p.164); in deep-green regions smart weapons of state’ would not be retained
unexhibited. The people will not have them for they mean trouble (p.201); for similar reasons
deep-green regions will be free of them. So, it seems, will ideal Taoist regions: ‘Even if there
are arrows and weapons, none will display them’ (LT p.238). Much technology, military and
other, is excluded under the Taoist edict against violence (a further facet of the military-practices
paradox).5
5
Under contemporary technology and technological arrangements, such as the storage of
quantities of oil and nuclear and chemical materials in great cities, wars have assumed new and
14
The powerful critique of militarism in the Tao-te Ching is coupled with strong opposition
to violence. Some of the linkage is evident enough. Militarism as practised represents an
ultimate form of state (or party) violence. A basic theme is that violent practices will come to an
unnatural end, and accordingly to a non-Taoist end (generalising LT p.176). While force may
occur in spectacular, but satisfactory, natural forms, force is duly distinguished from violence.
To force the growth of life means ill omen.
For the mind to employ the vital force without restraint means violence
(LT p. 197).
One who follows Tao does not apply dominating force, which usually has had results bringing
requital (p.152). Dominating force, like power, is in general castigated, under doctrine of wuwei, no forced actions, no violence. To force natural growth is deviant, destroying harmony.
To stop natural growth is deviant. But there is a significant difference between force and
violence. To intentionally employ destructive force is to do violence. To so force things is
condemned. To remain in harmony with things one does not so force things or practice
violence. There is a non-interference principle at work, which also indicates types of non
interference that are excluded.
However Taoism does not always get the distinction between force and violence quite
right. ‘Vital force without restraint’, intentionally excessive force, is only part of what counts
as violence, which is more generally force which violates, i.e. transgresses, descrecrates,
very destructive dimensions, to the point of being utterly irresponsible.
A different approach to technology, as to war, is now mandatory. These are no longer things
that can in principle be nicely confined and need not touch parties outside the fray. An
important part of ending wars, “winning the war against wars”, is removing the technology of
war, above all from irresponsible state power.
As for which technology to try to jettison and which to try to retain or improve, it is not so
difficult to indicate, provided evaluative terminology is not outlawed. What is wanted is
technology that is good in its place, what should be excluded is technology that is indifferent
or bad or potentially so. Technology to be justified has to do something worthwhile, it has
to address identifiable respectable needs. That is why merely indifferent technology is out;
there is no virtue in technology for technology's sake, as it is a mere means technique. It is
because of the crucial evaluative component in choice of technology that appropriateness,
itself evaluative, comes closer to encapsulating the criterion than other recent efforts. Size,
such as smallness, or intermediateness, are not what matter, though modest and not excessive
technologies are likely to fare better in satisfying appropriateness. In simpler societies, small
technology is of course more appropriate; for that is what is good there. From known criteria
for what is good these other features for locally appropriate technology can be read off:
reliability, esp. in maintenance, functioning well and safely under the expected range of
operating conditions (which may be difficult), ease of repair, capital cheapness and repair
inexpensiveness, environmental benignness, and meeting sound social needs.
15
profanes, injures, outrages, etc. It is thus a negatively connoted force, an evil force in some
specified intentional respect. There is a tendency for Taoist commentators, not Taoists, to
regard Taoism as condemning all uses, or even occurrences, of force, but this is not so. Rather
intentional ill-forcing is what is castigated, what is deviant. Thus Taoism does not exclude a
range of defensive practices, which make satisfactory use of natural forces, like letting the
machines of war industry stop.
Those who would abolish war and its machinery, substituting for it nonwarlike and
ideally nonviolent methods, technology, and strategies, have been confronted not merely with
much sub-rational abuse but with plenty of criticism and even some paradoxes. Here is a recent
paradox concerning war and nonviolence:
• War must be abolished. One reason is simply economic. We can no longer afford it, and
the opportunity costs are enormous. Along with other extraordinarily wasteful activities, it is an
anachronism.
• Doing so cannot be accomplished without violence, i.e. in effect, given the types of violence
involved, without what amounts to war. According to a fuller version of this premiss, the
process of abolishing a war would only be achieved through a revolution so profound that it
could not succeed without extensive and extreme violence, amounting to (civil) war.
But then war cannot be abolished without war.
Therefore, war which must be abolished cannot be abolished.6
This “paradox” has been compared with the Liar paradox, but the parallel does not persist far.
For this paradox does not involve self-referential features, and is easily broken, as follows. Let
the “last war” be not the last standard war but the revolution abolishing war. Then, given that
the revolution is successful, war will be abolished therewith, i.e. with that last war. There need
be no regress, given again a successful outcome. All the premisses stand intact, but the
conclusion, following the ‘therefore’ is a nonsequitur. However, while the dissolution of the
argument is accordingly logically fine, the route is repugnant. Standard pacifism challenges the
second premiss.
4. Standard and moral pacifism.
6
Brian Medlin, who forcefully propounded this puzzle, set other analogous puzzles alongside it
- designed to reveal deep difficulties in contemporary political, and especially alternative,
thought. Another puzzle, concerning liberty and repression in the context of capitalism,
revolved around the following inconsistent triad:
• capitalism must be removed, but liberty retained.
• capitalism cannot be removed without repression.
• repression is antithetical to liberty.
The puzzle is resolved as with the analogous puzzle of abolishing. Let the “last capitalist”
action before the days of liberty be the repressive but liberating revolution overthrowing
capitalism.
16
Although Taoism is strongly opposed to war, and much in favour of peace - and
accordingly by prevailing standards a substantially pacific position - it is not (nowhere in the
central texts) committed to pacifism in usual senses, for two different reasons:• It is not, by contrast with pacifism, opposed to all types of warfare, for example smart
defensive wars.
• It eschews deontology in terms of which moral pacifism is commonly stated, for instance
through the watershed thesis
P2.
It is morally wrong to use violence.
By contrast with Taoism, deep environmentalism does not avoid deontic claims, and is
committed in principle to nonviolent technologies and ways and to pacifistic principles.
Moreover, certain forms of deep environmentalism are completely committed to pacifism,
notably European forms. Is deep green?
There is heavy contemporary opposition to pacifism, as there also was to Taoism in the
warring times when Taoism was first being promulgated. Many of the central institutions of
contemporary life are intricated in coercion, violence and war. The most prominent
contemporary institutions, states, are premissed on these elements of damaging force; they
claim entitlement to use them widely, and even claim a certain territorial monopoly on their use.
As a result they are having constantly to engage in them in attempt to maintain that monopoly.
They are certainly the main perpetrators of wars, and of violence. They are indeed inured to
wars, are in constant preparation for wars, yet propound dialectial (and normally dishonest and
cynical) doctrines of peace through war (for a recent example see the appendix).
Unremarkably then, the extensive propagandistic machinery of state has invested heavily
in “justificatory” exercises in favour of controlled use, its own use, of destructive force, and
continues to inveigh against pacifism. Because a routine trick in this sophistical repetoire
consists in conflating pacifism with extreme, naive and inplausible, forms, an inevitable and
important early task commits in unscrambling senses of ‘pacifism’. Semantical skulduggery
can be thwarted in this way.
Pacifism, as explained by English dictionaries, invariably concerns wars and warfare, and
contains two components, negative and, elaborating on that, positive:- The negative component
is, in Amauld's word, anti-War-ism, opposition (in ways to be further specified) to all forms of
warfare (see OED). The positive component supplies alternative ways of settling disputes (what
it is supposed that wars with some semblance of justification involve), such as negotiation,
arbitration,... - and, adding to too narrow dictionary accounts - sanctions, substitutions (e.g.
of sporting events, operatic contests, cooperative ventures),... . In brief standard pacifism is
opposition to all warfare and resolution of potential wars by other nonmilitary means.
Plainly the opposition to warfare, like the sanctions and so on, cannot itself be military
(using soldiers and other devices of war), on pain of some incoherence. But otherwise the
ways of opposition can be many and various: they can certainly be active, as with nonviolent
17
demonstrations, resistance movements, and so forth, and they may also be devious (e.g.
turning the forces of war upon themselves so they are neutralised). It quickly becomes evident,
then, that some of the dictionaries offer but loaded definitions which, by restricting the negative
components, reduce the initial appeal and plausibility of pacifism. Consider the Concise
English definition of the negative component: ‘the doctrine of non-resistance to hostilities and
of total non-co-operation with any form of warfare’. Thereby excluded are forms of pacifism
which offer active and plausible alternatives to warfare such as social defence. The Concise
English tends to force pacifism into what the Oxford English Dictionary lists as its final item:
‘often, with depreciatory implication, the advocacy of peace at any price’, ‘in any
circumstance’. Pacifism can easily resist being forced into these sorts of circumstances: it has
many resources, as an extensive series of texts on alternatives to war, such as negotiation, non
violent action and social defence, from Taoism to contemporary environmentalism attest.
Academic philosophers have much advanced the semantical strategy of some dictionaries,
of rendering pacifism more difficult from the very outset by narrow and biassed definitions.
They have stretched the term from its restricted setting of warfare, confined to state and
organised gang violence, to cover all forms of violence, from state and interstate to, what is
very different, personal and interpersonal violence. Call the resulting considerably stretched
notion of pacifism, according to which it is morally wrong to use violence, according to which
P2 holds, stretched pacifism.'1 While stretched pacifism certainly includes standard pacifism
(unless the notions of war and warfare are tampered with), the converse is very far from being
the case. A pacifist is in no way committed to stretched pacifism, which is a much more
problematic and difficult position than standard pacifism. There are several, substantially
different reasons for this, which will be picked up seriatim.
Stretched pacifism, also misleadingly called moral pacifism, has looked a very easy
critical target to moral philosophers. Many the effusive philosopher who, upon sighting such a
target, has charged, whooping such rhetoric as “incoherent”, “inconsistent”, “insensitive”,
“fanatical”. However, with improved logical technology now available for accommodating and
treating moral dilemmas, it is no great feat to resist such attacks, in the fashion of previous
investigations (see esp. Al, also MD). A main aim was to demonstrate that stretched pacifism
was not so stupid as it was made out to be or appeared to be to these inured to present dominant
violent ways. So far from being stupid, it is viable. In future gentler times stretched pacifism
could even be realised for whole communities of creatures (as some genuinely Christian sects
envisaged); whence it will finally be seen to be feasible not merely for sages and supermen, and
many ordinary women, but much more extensively.
7
In Al this notion was contrasted with standard pacifism as comprehensive pacifism:
overcomprehensive might have been better.
18
The method of philosophical accommodation was through moral dilemmas. The sort of
moral dilemma that stretched pacifism can induce derives as follows. On the one side stands
the theme P2, Wv, in convenient symbols, for Wrong V-ing, violencing. Now this implies to
WB, where B presents a case of of violence. On the other side, particular circumstances
develop which lead to W ~B, because ~B would produce in the circumstances considerable
wrong, for instance extensive violence, mass murder, etc. One stock example from the
literature concerns calling off the firing squad about to shoot several captives if the pacifist
shoots one of them (it is elaborated in Al p.13). Interestingly, another stock example from the
literature concerns standard pacifism (it can also be presented in terms of patriotism; for details
of both see MD p.10).
Resolution of intractable moral dilemmas is, where it is required, situational. The agent
decides in the situation, within the fix, what to do. There are many ways in which such
decision making can proceed, less rational, such as those applying chance or involving bad
faith, or more rational, such as those applying consequentialist decision theory (for details see
MD, pp.32-9). A decision theory taking account of all that should be included will not however
be purely consequential. It would also take account of relevant motivation.
This defence and rehabilitation of moral pacifism has been challenged, in particular by
Smith (hereafter JWS). JWS claims the defence offered is a ‘failure because it trivializes
pacifism’ (p. 153 twice). The rehabilitation
trivializes pacifism because it entails that pacifism doesn't substantially differ
from a form of activism which holds that while violence is always wrong
one is sometimes justified on consequentialist grounds for preferring violent
acts, if these acts are lesser evils than any other real alternatives. This is the
commonsense position which most people hold - yet - pacifism after all was
supposed to be radical moral doctrine - (p.153 rearranged).8
Part of the criticism is, then, not so much that pacifism is trivialized - JWS “activism” is
hardly trivial - as that pacifism is popularised, deflated from a radical position to the
commonsense position most people hold (p.154 also). Yet not a shred of evidence is adduced
that JWS activism is such a populist position. Available evidence, for example from peace
movements and oppositional opinion polls, suggests the very opposite: that, for instance, most
people support state-justified conventional wars with the military violence they incur, and
accordingly do not hold that violence is always wrong. From such a commonsense angle,
pacifism with its condemnation of conventional wars and the violence they involve remains a
radical doctrine.
As regards wars and other violence-incurring social authorities, contemporary pacificism
8
JWS now informs me that he has changed his position. Whether the move effects his
criticism, I don't know.
19
is, as previous explained (e.g. Al p.3), a form of activism. Pacifism does not imply utter
pacifity, but may actively involve social defence, resistance and so on. However a certain level
of misrepresentation enters into the JWS challenge in the details of what forms of activism
pacifism may include. That misrepresentation begins in the second clause concerning what is
said to be sometimes justified. For the situational procedure where dilemmas arise will not
generally be consequential applying a principle of lesser evil. In dilemmatic situations such
principles are suspended, and such a principle is in any case unacceptable to moral pacifists. A
small amount of violence may be less bad in its consequences than verbal offence, but a
principled pacifist will choose the slightly greater evil where other obligations do not exclude it.
A more serious distortion occurs in JWS's effort to force procedures in dilemma
situations into purely consequentialist form. In fact consequential decision theory was
deployed as a model only for how to proceed rationally in a situational setting where deontic
procedures were suspended (see MD p.38). What was said, still misleadingly retrospective
vision reveals, was this: ‘what is done is a very consequentialist thing’ (Al p.13), not ‘one acts
in a consequentialist fashion to do the sufficiently good thing in the circumstances’ (JWS
p.152). Situationally other procedures than those resembling orthodox rational decision
making (modified from maximizing to satisizing objectives) may be adopted (MD p.38).
Further the orthodox consequentialist theory is inadequate because it leaves out, or tries to
reduce to consequences, nonconsequential elements, notably motives. It is not difficult, in
principle (in advance of attempted consequentialization of motives), to design situations where
motives, such as integrity or maintaining faith, enter to yield outcomes upsetting consequential
calculations. More elaborate decision making procedures than those of consequentialism,
sometimes at variance with consequentialism, are thus presupposed.
A further part of JWS's criticism accordingly goes by the board, the alleged appeal ‘to
“second best” consequentialist considerations,... already explicitly condemned’ (p.154). What
was condemned was stock universal consequentialism, ‘that only consequentialist
considerations carry argumentative weight’ (quoted on p. 152), so undercutting other deontic
principles, such as those of pacifism. It was not claimed, what is utterly different, that
consequentialist considerations can nowhere enter into deliberation and decision making. The
conclusion JWS arrives at is therefore substantially astray.
After criticising modern moral philosophy for its reliance upon
consequentialist modes of thought, it is surprising, and inconsistent, to find
... [reliance] upon such modes of thought to escape logical difficulties raised
by moral dilemmas facing ... pacifis[m] (p. 152)
There is no inconsistency. JWS has confused universal with particular. As well he has
wrongly contracted all situational decision making to consequentialist modes.
There is a third part to the criticism, that the defence is too easy; the ‘strategy will allow
too much violence to be (perpetrated and) justified to suit the tastes of any real pacifist’ (p. 153).
This another part of the so-called trivialization, this time however dilution rather than
20
popularization, weakening the moral stand against violence. This third contention is premissed
on a mistake: that one can ‘justify on consequentialist grounds any number of violent acts,
providing that such acts are lesser evils than other real alternatives facing social agents’ (p.153).
Moral pacifism offers no such licence; allowing such consequentialism to take over was never
part of the position. The slide to such consequentialism is made on the strength of a similarly
erroneous example. The potential victim of an aspiring rapist ‘is supposed to flee or wriggle
free if possible. But it is easy to consequentially justify the use of violence by the woman to
prevent herself from being raped’ (p.153 italics added). In the example so far described there is
no dilemma, and no such easy resort to consequentially ‘justified’ violence.
What allows too much violence is the lesser evil JWS assumes is easily consequentially
justified; for example that the woman is entitled to inflict, and escalate, violence so long as it
remains ‘a lesser evil than the violence of attempted rape’ (p. 153). Since she may thereby
inflict quite unreasonable damage (esp. if she is a Kung Fu expert), the result is inconsistent
with ‘the basic principle of self-defence’ which JWS earlier adduced according to which what is
‘appropriate, in response is only that level of force necessary to defend oneself against the
threat’ (p.150). There is evidence in JWS's work of some enthusiasm for levels of violence
which exceed his ‘basic principle’, his appeal to ‘lesser evil’ generates some instances. The
‘basic principle’, itself fraught with difficulties (cf. the contorted discussion of what weapons
are appropriate in response to what attacks, p. 150), still exceeds what stretched pacifism would
enjoin; for instance, it may not be appropriate to respond with force. But in a technical sense
stretched pacifism is compatible with the ‘basic principle’, since it only imposes the upper
bound on level of force.
As for easiness, moral pacifism is not an easy position to live by, or to justify. Removing
objections to pacifism is one thing; solidifying a positive case for it is quite another, and so far
hardly conclusive (as Al tried to explain, pp 29-31). Stretched pacifism was advanced,
hypothesized to put it more precisely, as a still viable option. It was not presented as a morally
compulsory position, or, for that matter, as one that this defender adhered to or affirmed.
To reiterate, while a cumulative case can be made for stetched pacifism as principled non
violence, that case was not conclusive, and is hard to improve. For, further, some serious
difficulties standing in the way of stretched pacifism were assembled, the most important of
which derives from the extent of violence apparent in transactions within the natural world.
Simply consider the practices of carnivores, essential to their natural way of life. In order to
meet their life needs for sustenance, these creatures do, and are often obliged to, engage
routinely in violent activity. While it can no doubt be argued, as some vegetarians may do, that
the natural order is an immoral order, and that remaining carnivores should be converted to
vegetarianism as rapidly as proves possible (in the way domestic dogs are converted to dog
biscuits), the difficulties with such proposals are immense. The task envisaged is gigantic, and
beyond human capacities - even if it were desirable. For there are millions of species to be
21
somehow converted to proper vegetarianism. Then there are millions of other species to be
converted to proper and well regulated contraceptive practices, else their numbers will get out of
hand (uncontrollably) with predation removed. Given humans lack of success in limiting their
own excessive numbers, such regulation appears entirely remote. Aside however from the
practical difficulties, is such a fully vegetarian order, with evolution further derailed, a desirable
improvement on the natural order? Is it morally obligatory? It is certainly not obligatory, as
alternative systems of morality in harmony with the prevailing natural order are feasible. Nor is
it desirable, for (to appeal to such alternative value systems) the natural order is more or less in
order as it is. Full vegetarianization would only reduce its value, vastly.
More generally, a defensible ethical framework should not, it would be rightly contended,
be right out of step with the natural order of other creatures, decently depicted. Decent
depiction is important, for some features of the natural order, such as competition, combat and
predation, so far from escaping attention, have been grossly exaggerated and exploited. Thus,
for instance, the ludicrous picture of nature red in truth and claw, so beloved of descendents of
orthodox Victorians and of orthodox economists. However, even under decent depiction, the
“natural order” is often not benign. That appears to be enough to induce a supervenient moral
dilemma for any stretched pacifism which is coupled to a deep ethic (e.g. which does not
separate humans out from the natural order) and which eschews the desperate vegetarian route:
The natural order is not an immoral order
The natural order contains (regular) instances of violence.
Therefore, instances of violence are not immoral in apparent defiance of P2 Moreover, there are too many instances of violence, too regularly
occurring, for them all to be plausibly shunted into the moral dilemma category (and predatory
carnivores face no dilemmas). Raptors that practice violence every week are not immoral
(neither are they clearly moral; the category of morality only significantly extends so far).
The main trouble lies however with P2 (which needs some finer adjustment, as was
alrady indicated in Al). While P2 is alright in context, within a particular, perfectly viable,
ethical framework, designed for the usual human round, the conventional setting for ethical
theories, it stands in need of modification outside that setting. It is time to suggest the sort of
modification envisaged. Evidently P2 was addressed to moral agents. Which agents? Not to
carnivores that supply their own livelihood, nor really to morally degenerate humans, but to
peace-sensitive agents. With that semi-technical form, yet to be characterised, a suitably
P2
MP2. It is morally wrong, for a peace-sensitive agent, to use violence.9
modified
9
results:
The generalization of P2, suggested in Al, to cover also the parallel situation of
environmental vandalism, can be similarly modified. The anti-vandolence principle becomes
MP2°. It is morally wrong, for a peace- and environmentally-sensitive agent, to use
22
To recover what amounts, in the previous discussive context, to P2, it suffices to add the
proposition that every human agent ought to be peace-sensitive. Much as that proposition has
to recommend it, it appears too ethically advanced for many modern humans; it sets too high a
moral standard to be taken as a serious guide to practice. It seems wise to settle presently for
something less demanding, such as that every advanced moral agent ought to be peace
sensitive. To put essentially the same proposition alternatively:
Stretched pacifism (as modified) is supererogatory. While it is perhaps too late to hope for
much moral progress in humans, it is pleasant to contemplate alternative futures where what is
supererogatory became obligatory, and widely practiced.
Richard Sylvan*
Appendix
I began drafting this essay at the time (January 17, midday Australian time) of the
American attacks upon Iraq. The optly named Prime Minister Hawke of Australia had just
made a statement to the nation-state, announcing (the) war. In this statement there was much
talk of peace. There was even - in what was effectively a declaration of war - reiteration of the
modem quest for ‘a new world order of peace’. Peace through war; so it rings out again and
again, through the centuries. ‘War must be for the sake of peace’ (Aristotle p.220). More than
two thousand years later, we have fought those wars to end all wars. But it is no use, Hawke
solemely pronounced, just talking about peace, and thinking about peace; we must work for
peace, fight for it - through war. Impeccable logic?
President Bush, supreme commander, convinced us with similar logic, speaking too with
many tongues. Of how he ‘preferred to think of peace, not war’. But now ‘only force will
prevail’, as ‘all reasonable efforts to reach a peaceful solution are exhausted’. ‘What must be
done’ must be done, or will be anyway. With God on side with the US offensive (as well as
on the other side), it will go well. As it was said to have, though it achieved comparatively little
that other efforts may not have yielded more satisfactorily, and thought it may now have to
followed with another invasion. Nor have we ever managed to glimpse much of what is now
supposed, when we are no longer engaged, to come ‘out of the horror of war’: a ‘new world
order ... which governs the conflict of nations’; a ‘rule of law’, not war. How the one,
enforcable law, is achieved, unless backed by the the other, is not explained (Medlin's paradox
hits back). Similarly what we now hear from many militarists, as they rush to war, is that
vandolence.
Thank to David Bennett for joint contributions (from UT) and to JWS for opposition (in
JWS)
23
‘peace is a great good, war a great evil’. But, for the most part, only the rhetoric has shifted;
practice has scarcely changed at all.
REFERENCES
W.-T. Chan, A Source Book on Chinese Philosophy, Princeton University Press, 1963;
referred to as ST.
W.-T. Chan (ed.), The Way of Lao Tzu (Tao-te Ching), Bobbs-Merrill, New York, 1963;
referred to as LT.
B. Martin, Uprooting War, Freedom Press, London, 1984.
A. Naess, Ecology, community and lifestyle, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK,
1989.
R.A. Rapaport, Pigs for the Ancestors : ritual in the ecology of a New Guinea People, Yale
University Press, New Haven, 1967.
R. Routley, ‘War and Peace II. On the alleged inconsistency, moral insensitivity and fanaticism
of pacifism’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy #9, Research School of
Social Science, Australian National University, 1983 (also in. Inquiry ); referred to as AL
R. Routley and V. Plumwood, ‘Moral dilemmas and the logic of deontic notions’, Discussion
papers in environmental philosophy #6, Research School of Social Science, Australian
National University, 1984 (also in Paraconsistent Logic)-, referred to as MD.
R. Routley, ‘War and Peace I. On the ethics of large-scale nuclear war and nuclear-deterrence
and the political fall-out’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy, #5, Research
School Of Social Science, Australian National University, 1984.
G. Sharp, Social Power and Political Freedom, Porter Sargent, Boston, 1980.
J.W. Smith, The Worms at the Heart of Things , Public Relations Unit, Flinders University,
1989.
R. Sylvan, ‘War and Peace III, Australia's defence philosophy’, Social Philosophy, for Nuclear
Conference, University of Queensland, 1985.
R. Sylvan and D. Bennett, ‘Of Utopias, Tao and Deep Ecology’, Discussion papers in
environmental philosophy #19, Research School of Social Science, Australian National
University, 1990; referred to as UT.
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Richapd'Sylvan
/> << Ji
197d
p. I
WHAT IS WRONG WITH APPLIED ETHICS
Richard Sylvan
There is much that is wrong with and in applied ethics. Specifically, there are three comprehensive
counts where things are wrong with the commodity concerned, applied ethics, that is with applied
ethics so economically viewed.1 Namely on the following three counts:
•
extraneous, with the supply, delivery, consumption, and the like of applied ethics, AE. The
category prominently includes the delivery of applied ethics: what is done, taught and learnt,
by whom, and how qualified (e.g. whether taught by professionals, professional ethicists or
philosophers in particular). That has tended to presume that the commodity itself is more or
less in order, though the presumption lacks good pedigree, delivery of defective goods being
almost as ubiquitous as business enterprise.
The present focus is not however upon the delivery, or other features of the production and
consumption, packaging and marketing of the goods, but on features of the commodity itself, applied
ethics itself. Thus
•
intraneous counts, concerning the commodity itself, where a further two things are wrong:
••
the applied idea, and
•••
what the application is presumed to be made to, established - or, should it be,
establishment - ethics.
Because an implicit premiss in organising the Philosophy and Applied Ethics Re-examined1
Conference seems to have been that the issues to be addressed are predominantly extraneous, and
because most of the papers actually relevant to the Conference topic appear to focus on extraneous
issues, the present exercise, by contrast, concentrates upon intraneous problems, especially the third:
radical deficiencies in what is supposed to be applied, prevailing ethics, and some extensive repairs
thereto.
1.
The applied count
To begin with, there is something decidedly3 odd, not to say radically unsatisfactory, about the very
idea of applied ethics. To bring out the oddness, the conceptual inadequacy, it helps to consider the
dictionary senses and established usage of applied. The term in the only relevant sense (the other
obsolete sense is that offolded) means: ‘put to practical use; practical as distinguished from abstract
or theoretical' (OED, similarly Concise English). Relevant examples cited are: ‘the applied sciences’
(from Babbage 1832), ‘applied logic (as distinguished from pure)’ (from Thomson 1806).4
It may appear then, that "applied ethics" amounts to pleonasm, a popular tautology (and "pure ethics"
correspondingly to an oxymoron), because ethics itself is already practical, for instance much or all
of it being concerned with practical action and its qualities (such is Maclver s assumption: moral
philosophy is practical - in a way in which other branches of philosophy are not’, p.206). In this
respect "applied ethics", even more "applied morals", is rather like "applied motoring", "applied
nursing" or "applied housekeeping". Conceptual confusion would be considerably reduced by
removing the modifier ‘applied .5 Such a charge of confusion can however be mitigated by properly
I7
�18
What is wrong with applied ethics
distinguishing ethics, which includes philosophy and theory of morality, from morals, thereby
revealing, perhaps, elements of some theory apt for application. No doubt something like this is the
presupposition of those who preach or profit from practical ethics (similarly practical economics, but
doubtfully practical housekeeping): that standing in contrast is a suitably established theoretical ethics
(could it perchance be utilitarianism?) which can rather uncontroversiarbe used to guide practice.
But is there such a theory, apt for application, for translation into practice?
To appreciate what is required for adequacy, consider successful applied subjects. Let us compare
"applied ethics" with^long established applied discipline, namely applied mathematics, which often
boasts a separate department in universities (a discipline I was obliged to study as an undergraduate
in order to proceed further in pure mathematics). In the first place, applied mathematics contrasts with
pure mathematics, applied logic with pure. Where, a naive outsider may ask, is pure ethics that
similarly stands in contrast with applied ethics? Could there decently be separate departments of pure
and of applied ethics?
For the most part, applied mathematics applies to practice, in some wide sense, a body of pure
mathematics that is more or less correct, at least within the assumption framework and contextual
settings where it is applied. (The qualified formulation is given for pluralistic reasons; given the
dominant paradigm, the pure mathematics that is applied is correct without further qualification,
correct period.) A body of substantially correct theory ready for application is then the first of several
pertinent features of that relational object, applied mathematics, the first of several dubiously
matchable by "applied ethics". The proviso ‘for the most part’ (introducing the paragraph) signals
another discrepancy. There is a, presumably derivative, part of applied mathematics that investigates,
in essentially the manner of pure mathematics, theories, algebras, spaces and similar, selected through
postulates, principles or equational sets drawn from standard applied mathematics (thus e.g. Newtonian
theories where classical force laws are satisfied, Hilbert and phase spaces, and so on).6 Such
derivative applied mathematics need not compromise at all normal methodological requirements (such
as they are) of pure mathematics, for rigour, exactness, and similar.
Ordinary applied mathematics, in its quest, even haste, for practical results, does compromise, or
violate, pure mathematical methodology. For example, shortcuts are taken, simplifications made,
information shed, figures rounded, approximations adopted, and so. Science veers towards art. From
a pure perspective, dreadful things are often done to data or mathematical transformations of data.
Skilled practitioners tend to appreciate what they can get away with in this sort of regard. Again,
none of this, neither the body of information nor the kinds of skills, is really matched in ethics, in
putting ethical theory to practical work.
Next, the mathematics that is applied, a body of pure mathematics, is not thoroughly contested. Ethics
however is. There is nothing in ethics like arithmetic or elementary mechanics; the nearest thing
ethics can offer is some controversial development along axiomatic geometric lines. Mathematics has
its critics, both inside (e.g. intuitionists) and out (e.g., cultural relativists), but none (hard core sceptics
excepted) suggest changing all of it or tampering with most of what is applied. By contrast, in ethics,
there continues to be an array of competing theories, none of which has managed to win broad
allegiance. What pure theory is there to apply, to do dreadful things to? It might be said in response:
whichever of them is adopted!
Even that, a hollow compromise will not stand up for long. For deeper environmental ethics challenge
a broad range of pure theory that is alleged to be applied! What challenges a whole subject, that
would change it, can hardly be an application of it. The rise of such environmental ethics is one
reason why the modifier applied is a misnomer. For deeper environmental ethics is not any sort of
/
�Richard Sylvan
19
application of ethics; it instead challenges prevailing ethics. Nor is it, like stock "applied ethics", an
adaptation of ethics within an environmental context.
The label applied is substantially, if not entirely, a misnomer. Adjectives in modifier or attributive
roles, in the combination adjective-noun phrase, often enough do not signify application. The
assumption that all modification is application invokes a dubious, presumably false, theory of
adjectival attribution. Consider a few examples involving a relevant adjective, ‘medical’.
Combinations such as ‘medical student’, ‘medical book’, ‘medical trial’ do not signify applications.
A medical s is not normally an application of s to medical matters (of books or students in this
fashion); normally it is a type (an m type) of s.7 There are occasional exceptions, in which case
compounds are liable to be recorded in dictionaries, as with medical jurisprudence which is not a type
of jurisprudence, but ‘the legal knowledge required of a doctor’. There is good reason to think that
ethics induces no exception, that medical ethics, and similarly business ethics, follow the normal
pattern. Thus business ethics is a type of ethics, namely ethics within a specifically business setting,
and accordingly adapted thereto. Observe that such a preliminary account incorporates automatically
(what gives the applied presumption some problemsj^sce-^ppendix T) allowance for variations in
standards, that business corporations for example should not be expected to measure up to standards
set up for ordinary persons (any more than they should iw»t be expected to pay the same levels of
taxes)!
Given the manifold inadequacies of the label applied, amendment of terminology appears warranted.
Amendment, not abandonment. After all, what ‘applied ethics’ is supposed to comprehend, such as
medical ethics, business ethics, even environmental ethics, are not themselves in court, but presently
taken as viable fields. A superior label is field, for field-defined or field-restricted; another is type,
for type-delimited, another domain. Where others speak of "applied ethics", let us discourse about
field ethics. Investment ethics, for instance, is a field ethic, with field investment. An "institute for
applied ethics concentrating upon applications to business" is an institute for field ethics with main
field business. The "applied ethics" movement becomes effectively a field ethics movement.
Observe that professional ethics are field ethics, with the field in each case the profession concerned.
But professional ethics in sum form a quite proper subclass of field ethics; bio-ethics and ecological
ethics are plainly not professional ethics. Less obviously, more importantly, field ethics differs from
practical ethics (as usually poorly defined), with which "applied ethics" is regularly conflated. For,
on the one side, ordinary living and daily life, central to practical ethics, are not fields. On the other,
field ethics are not confined to practice, but may involve considerable theoretical material, particularly
from the fields concerned.
2.
The ethics count
Not only is the applied operation in trouble, ethics also is in deep trouble. Indeed, in a way, the main
problem lies here. There is not a fit, properly satisfactory subject, for some significant applications.
For some "applications" have to change and develop the subject! But, the problems do not vanish
when the amendment to field ethics is made. Satisfactory fieldwork, satisfactory outcomes in field
ethics are seriously hampered by long-standing troubles in ethics. For as field ethics involve ethics,
whatever is wrong with ethics affects field ethics.
To glimpse these troubles, consider recent ambivalence towards ethics. Is ethics even a good good.
There is a most curious contrast in later 20th century attitudes towards ethics. On the one side, there
are great expectations, for instance for what ethics can contribute, to social and professional lite
�20
What is -wrong with applied ethics
especially; but on the other there is serious disquiet, occasionally verging upon despair and into
nihilism, as to ethics, and its role. Virtually the whole spectrum from great expectations through no
expectations to substantial forebodings is selectively represented. A few examples:
•
Great expectations for ethics, beginning to re-emerge these days, tend to come from outside
professional philosophical ranks, from scientists and social scientists.8 Ethics is seen as taking
up again its grand legitimization and critical roles. It can indeed be used in this respect as
regards to a wide variety of practices, such as in business, economics, government, scientific
experimentation, and so on. Of course it cannot always succeed, because one ethics can be
pitted against another, and each and all challenged.
( p-— These expectations, a bit surprising after the drab days of analytic moral philosophy (where
I
philosophy could express no interesting moral opinions), contrast sharply with
' /•—•
heavy disquiet or worse as to present ethics. A recent example is afforded by
z
MacIntyre’s disturbing introduction to After Virtue', that ‘we have - very largely, if not
entirely - lost our comprehension, both theoretical and practical of morality’ (p.2).
Some, like MacIntyre, promise a happy, even a great, outcome, should we return to
proper paths, to a virtue ethic in the tradition of Aristotle. Others are not so sanguine;
,
there is
1
•
no hope for ethics. There are divergent routes here. Either it can play no relevant
,
role any longer, or it can play only a negative or damaging role (thus e.g. Hinckfuss).
Though both these routes lead badly astray, present (merely classificatory) objectives
do not include showing as much.9
There is, furthermore, reason for at least serious disquiet. Should we care to look closely at, and try
to assess, the total ethical heritage, then what we find is not very promising.
•
What is on offer is mostly extremely sketchy and very piecemeal, much of it a hotchpotch.
There are extraordinarily few well-worked out and detailed ethics. Spinoza’s Ethics is perhaps
one rare example.
•
Most of what is on offer is seriously biassed or prejudiced, indeed from a deep environmental
perspective even unethical. Prime examples include
•
religious bias, heavily constraining or distorting creatures’ lives, and putting them to
work to serve imagined religious objectives.
•
spiritualistic distortion. Even where an explicit religion does not feature, as in
Platonism and neo-Platonism and in edified Buddhism, the whole of life may be
distorted through promise of an after-life or successor life or extra-material life, where
furthermore some system of rewards or punishments may be dished out for previous
performance. No doubt such biasses help in conferring upon ethics authority,
unwarranted authority (fulfil duties or be dammed, etc.).
•
humanistic distortion, summed up as human chauvinism. It is upon this prejudice,
critical for environmental ethics, that we concentrate.
A main matter that is wrong with ethics, and ipso facto its practice and its belated appearance in many
professional settings (when it$ should have been in evidence long ago), is its anthropic bias, its
considerable prejudice in favour of (present) humans.10 The matter is highly material in several fields,
most obviously in environmental ethics, but also in medical ethics, bio-ethics, agricultural and
vefinarian ethics, and similar.
It is widely assumed, however, that ethics is inevitably human biassed, that it has to be
anthropocentric. That is not so. Ethics can be repaired. So much is the substance of ethics without
humans. Both morals and ethics can be characterised, in substantially reportive ways, so as to free
�Richard Sylvan
21
them of anthropocentrism and the like.11 Furthermore, the whole superstructural theory can be
developed in a fashion that makes no essential reference to humans or any other biological species.12
These repairs represent, however, only the beginning of adjustment and change - of many changes if
a satisfactory deep-green ethics is to be reached. When repairing goods, there often comes a stage,
increasingly rapidly encountered those days, when it becomes a more attractive proposition to acquire
new items than to persist with repairs. So it may be, it is now suggested, with ethics. So increasingly
it has been suggested this century, with demands for new ethics, new moral philosophies. Those
making such proposals include Schweitzer, Maclver, Leopold, along with many others.13
Suppose we should arrive, through addressing different or new fields, at what amounts to a new ethics,
as many think we do (thus Maclver, p. 179 and many ecocentric philosophers). Then what emerges
is no "application" of a standard ethics, but something different, not an applied standard ethics at all.
Now something similar may appear to occur for normal applied subjects. A newly encountered group
of physical phenomena, for instance, leads not to the elevation of some dusty mathematical theory
buried in archives, what is mostly the case, but to elaboration of a new mathematical theory.
Normally in this event, the main body of pure mathematics would remain untouched; a new annex or
suburb would simply be added to it.14 With ethics, however, things are different. There are grounds
for contending that the green (environmental) revolution has shaken ethics to its (dubious) foundations
and core, and, as coupled with associated non domination themes (as emphasised especially in
ecofeminism), has left comparatively little untouched. The standard city of ethics is not left alone,
unscathed.
Much the same sort of points can be presented in the form of a dilemma, for standard ethics and a
proposed field, such as environmental issues. Either standard ethics will not cover the field (or cannot
be extended to do so because it (or its extension) does not apply, or through being forced upon the
field it twists or damages the data, for instance leaves an indelible anthropic bias. A homely carpentry
analogy may help: there is some cabinet work where delicate hammering would be appropriate, but
the only tool we have is a sledgehammer.15 Likewise, a standard chauvinistic ethic is the wrong tool
to try to use or extend for deeper environmental work.
Unremarkably, the three options emerging, namely (inappropriate) application, extension or adjustment,
and fashioning of something new or different, correspond more or less to the now familiar threefold
division of environmental positions, into shallow, intermediate and deep.16 As before, deep ethics are
not "applications", but near ethics.
3.
Extraneous issues
Among the many extraneous issues concerning field ethics, those that have come to exercise
philosophers do look distinctly partisan:17 namely, the role of philosophers, especially professionals;
the place of philosophy in field ethics; and the poor practice of these ethics, particularly from a
professional philosophical perspective. Here the main thesis to be advanced inclines towards these
professionally unsympathetic lines: insofar as these matters, philosophical extranalities, are of negatixe
impact for philosophy, philosophers have largely themselves to blame, for they are largely of their own
making (or, to sheet some of the responsibility more accurately, of the controlling power elite of the
profession}.18 Let us investigate some of the extraneous issues seriatim.
Because a field ethics concerns the field as well as (relevant parts of) ethics, its investigation, practice
and teaching, requires an intersection of capacities and skills, drawn from both ethics and the field.
�n
What is wrong with applied ethics
This simple observation enables an immediate response to such questions as: if not philosophers, then
who is to investigate, and teach, field ethics? That response is: those from one area or the other who
have acquired requisite knowledge and technique in the other, or less promising, those from outside
(but with some appropriate informational background) who acquire these prerequisites in both. In
medical ethics, where there is perhaps a larger pool of information concerning the field than there is
regarding ethics, a moral philosopher untrained in medicine may have more to learn than a medical
doctor unversed in ethics and lacking philosophical skills. (Really, neither should be let loose on
students before they are duly prepared in the intersection.) It is evident, then, that philosophy enjoys
no natural monopoly in field ethics. The place of philosophy is less exalted, and certainly is not
dominant - still less given recent proposed (but hardly well justified) decoupling of ethics from
philosophy.19
There are corollaries regarding the roles of philosophers on committees relating to field ethics, in
decision-making and so on on these topics. Philosophers do not have an automatic place. Unless they
are well-informed as to ethics (many philosophers are not) and as to the field, they do not deserve a
place at all (of course they still may gain a role for want of any better placed). Ousting of
under-informed or unenergetic philosophers is not always such a bad thing.
While the informational situation is now significantly better than in 1945 when Maclver was agonising
over the predicament of moral philosophy, it is still true that ‘academic moral philosophers are not
using ‘every opportunity to make themselves acquainted, so far as possible, with the real difficulties
of those [not merely present humans] who need the help of moral philosophy most... I ... confess that
I myself lack the factual knowledge which would be required to do this work well. I suspect that
many ethic philosophers are in the same position ...20 One of the reasons why philosophy has lost
prestige in recent years is that it has not kept pace’ (pp.204-205). One example Maclver incisively
develops concerns ‘discoveries associated with the name of Freud. The behaviour of philosophers in
this connection is particularly hard to excuse. At first they flatly denied the reality of the alleged
discoveries - maintained that the notion of "unconscious mind" was self contradictory, and so forth.
But all this has now been given up. ... Philosophers no longer dispute ... details of the Freudian
system - but disregard them. If they mention them at all, they talk as if they somehow concerned
none but medical men - as if the same propositions could be sene in medicine and false outside it.
In the light of the recognition of unconscious motives the whole traditional theory of moral
responsibility needs overhauling, but no moral philosopher undertakes this’ (p.205). The reason why
the corresponding philosophical debate (about whether unconscious desires are sometimes evil, whether
relevant moral predicates are restricted to conscious motives, and so forth) had not "by 1945, after 40
years of exposure to Freudian issues, Maclver attributed to the mass of psychological literature which
philosophers have not read and would have to read, reading that is obligatory if moral philosophy is
to be made ‘the subject which it ought to be’ (p.206).
There has been disappointment among some professional philosophers, those with expansionist .
instin^tions, that field ethics has not turned out to be quite the bonanza anticipated, that the expected /
boom in new opportunities and positions began to dissipate as field practitioners started to supply their
own "field ethicists".21 None of this should have been surprising, for broad inductive reasons.
Philosophy had long shed subjects and fields of overlap; and those professionals who have hung in
have become something different (economists instead of social philosophers, computer scientists
instead of logicians22) Nor have philosophers, especially those who have not changed or reskilled, all
the virtues assumed by professionals; e.g. they have little or no theory, they are too fuzzy, they are
indecisive, or vacillate, etc. (remember the sophists; these provide some of the reasons too why
philosophers are often not welcome on committees).
(
�Richard Sylvan
23
Some outside inputs into ethics, such as field studies or field workers may supply, would not go
astray. For there is theoretically little that is new or interesting on the standard ethics scene. Much
of it is 19th century revival, refinement of utilitarianism or Kantianism, and ornate additions (with
bells and whistles). One of the few "new" offerings is the revival of Aristotelian virtue ethics!
Nothing, however, stops outside inputs. Anyone is free to attempt philosophy. Professionals have no
exclusive rights over philosophy, still less over ethics; nor should they. There is a case for widening
practice of philosophy, and encouraging paraphilosophers. For critical problems emerging are not so
much those of philosophy itself (which could be very different from the way it is practised and
professionalised), but of philosophy as professionalised and as conducted. The immediate future does
not bode well for change in the latter, for several reasons; the prevailing materialistic technological
ethos (which dev^lyes pure intellectual activity), the consequent marginalisation of subjects like
philosophy and continuing narrowness of dominant philosophical activity.
Nor, moreover, have philosophers proceeded well, particularly in the Antipodes, in training and
"^pp^ing students who can readily adapt to become field ethicists. Philosophy has never been strongly
employment-market driven (but has tended to rely on a version of Say’s flawed law); indeed there are
features intrinsic to philosophy, such as its contemplative character, that renders it antithetical to the
veiy idea of responding to markets at all. There are other regional features that compound this sort
of problem: the conservative, and class, bias of philosophy (inherited from similar British
arrangements), which has meant that Australian philosophy has not been innovative in adapting its
topics and emphases to changing circumstances;23 and the heavy concentration, as in British
empiricism (still dominant in Australia), upon epistemology, with ethics and what went into moral
sciences and social philosophy still regarded as second class arenas and not what philosophy was really
about or what first class chaps would mainly concern themselves. These are major reasons why
philosophy lost out, and Reserved to lose.
It is for those latter sorts of reasons in particular, that environmental ethics and environmental
philosophy have been unable to gain more than occasional marginal status in philosophy curricula in
Australian universities. Fuller accounts of the predicament of environmental philosophy have been
given elsewhere.24 Its predicament tends to illustrate a general problem for field ethics, with bioethics
(with its own institutional settings) the only partial exception.
Now that field ethics is being lost to the fields in many cases, there are complaints about the calibre
of what is done and taught, the quality of the investigators and teachers, and so on. No doubt much
of this criticism is warranted; some similar criticism of ethics within philosophy would also be
warranted. Among the justified criticisms are these:
•
that field ethics as done from the field is divorced from ethical theory (from what theory has
so far been developed). Too much comprises mere case studies, as with business MBAs.
•
that the field practitioners are not trained in ethical theory, and are often ill-informed ethically
and lacking in analytic and critical skills crucial for satisfactory philosophy.
A different complaint, of importance, concerns the poor ethical practice, even the unethical practice
in some of the fields, despite the development of field ethics. Such a problem is particularly
conspicuous in the field of business.25 But this has been a long-standing problem for ethics itself;
how to get people to behave as they ought? Teaching agents ethics can certainly enable, and
encourage, them to be moral: but it cannot make them moral. Nor would it be proper for it to do so.
The field ethics movement, successor to the late AE movement, is both important and timely,
especially as regards getting ethics and axiology back into many fields that hard tried, erroneously it
now appears, to eliminate them. The movement will have to be carefully orchestrated however to
\
I
1
�24
What is wrong with applied ethics
avoid capture by the very power structures and disciplinary paradigms that it should transform. These
are certainly grounds for some cynicism about such movements: that they are easy targets for
co-option, that they can bemused to cover up abuses by power structures, and to authorise dubious
procedures, or worse,^with a rubber stamp of ethical approval from appropriate ethics’ committees and
inquiries. Such grounds for cynicism can be reasoned, however, and new hope inaugurated, given
more adequate formulation and development of relevant field ethics (exercises including considerable
theoretical work), along with independent and impartial administration of emerging codes and decision
methods, and with appropriate openness of the formerly abused procedures they are intended to
regulate fairly.
REFERENCES
Callicott, J.B., In Defense of the Land Ethic, State University of New York Press, Albany, 1989.
Edwards, J.C., Ethics without Philosophy, University Presses of Florida, Tampa, 1982.
Engel, J.R., Ethics of Environment and Development, Belhaven Press, 1990.
Hinkfuss, I., The Moral Society: Its Structure and Effects, Discussion papers in environmental
philosophy, no. 16, The Australian National University, 1987.
Leopold, A., A Sand Country Almanac, Oxford University Press, New York, 1949.
MacIntyre, A., After Virtue, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, 1981.
Maclver, A.M., "Towards anew moral philosophy", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, no. 46
(1945-6): 179-206.
Sylvan, R. "Prospects for regional philosophy in Australasia", Australasian Journal of Philosophy,
1986.
Sylvan, R., From Wisdom to Wowserism, typescript, 1991.
Sylvan, R., Deep-Green Ethics, typescript, 1993.
i
Sylvan, R. and Bennett, H., The Greening of Ethics, White Horse Press, Cambridge, 199^.
Wilson, E.O. (ed.), Biodiversity, National Academy Press, Washington, DC, 1988.
NOTES
1. For such a treatment of items like ethics, as economic goods, see further Greening of Ethics.
2. The Conference, organised by the University of Newcastle in August 1993, where this paper was
presented.
3. Ethical theory has tended to borrow classifications from elsewhere, from apparently more successful
enterprises. Thus, for instance, the (normative) ethics/meta-ethics distinction lifted, none too adeptly,
�25
Richard Sylvan
from logical theory. Thus too the present pure/applied distinction, also purloined. By no means
everything that intelligent agents dream up and promote is entirely in order. Rather uncontroversially
colourless green ideas is one such combination, more controversially human nature, deep ecology and
post-modernism are such. Applied ethics appears to belong to this not-in-satisfactory-order or
out-of-order bunch.
4. ‘Applied. Practical, put to practical use. Applied science. Science of which the abstract principles
are put to practical use in the arts’ (Concise English').
‘2. Put to practical use; practical as distinguished from abstract or theoretical’ (OED). Though
we persevere with these dictionary explications, there are grounds for complaint; there are neglected
nuances. For example, the practical/theoretical contrast (just one of the muddy contrasts with
practical) differs from an applied/pure contrast. A theory can in principle be applied (a plying to, i.e.,
a mapping) in a non practical, or impractical, field. Different again is that concrete/abstract contrast.
And what exactly is practical?
5. The advance notices for the Conference (which look pretty confused, even mumbo jumbo), well
they add insult to injury by invoking talk of a theory of applied ethics. There is said to ‘appear to be
a significant gap between the theory of applied ethics and its practice’; this is said to be why
‘disillusionment has set in’ now. While there may be a theory of applications, talk of a "theory of
applied ethics" heaps confusion (‘theory of) upon confusion (‘applied ethics’). As for gaps (really,
between the theory and practice of ethics), there are two, as we shall see; there is an ambiguity in
‘gap’As for mumbo jumbo, try the following sentence:
‘The teaching and practice of applied ethics has grown rapidly and in an unruly manner across many
disciplines, with many practitioners now not possessing any depth of philosophical knowledge and
expertise and, because of difficulties experienced with the theory and practice given, in some cases
deciding that same is relevant.’ Its sequel is easily unscrambled:
‘We wish to hold a conference to explore this issue for the Australian community and its practical
consequences.’
6. Thus, too, there is a two way process. Application feeds back to inform theory and to enrich the
pure subject. With ethics, as we shall see, something similar or more dramatic happens. Field
developments not merely may inform and enlarge the ethical theory; some may alter it irrevocably.
7. Of course not all adjectives function in this way. butTor. instance without types of responded s.
Thus, e.g. possible, probable, alleged, putative,etc.
I
8. Examples include Wilson in Biodiversity, Engel.
9. We try to
show as much elsewherey-Routley and HTIF.
10. This is by no means all that is wrong with standard ethics. Another, important for field ethics,
is the lack of an adequate theory of ethical dilemmas, confronting which is a main engine of progress
in ethics.
11. See Greening of Ethics', also ‘Ethics without humans. Philosophy without humans', Observe that
^repairs are not unique.
<y :
»
12. As to how this is accomplished, see the annular theory, reiterated in Greening'.
X
�26
What is wrong with applied ethics
13. Maclver suggests ‘that all the old codes are out of date and a satisfactory new one has still to be
discovered. A lost moral code cannot be recovered, and a new one obtained, simply for the asking’
(p.201).
14. Nothing, no paradigm shift as revolution has effected the whole citadel of mathematics; none is
likely to (even dialethism, more threatening than much else, because central areas can be protected by /w roj
due qualification).
15. A different example: an isolated person has an extensive weeding tool in a weed invaded forest,
with the only techniques availabe a broad-acre chemical defoliant.
16. For a classification of environmental positions along the lines of the three options, see Callicott
Introduction, where attention is also drawn to shortcomings in the applied idea.
17. On extraneous issues in ethics, including especially field ethics such as environmental ethics, see
for a detailed treatment Greening of Ethics, part II/.
JJ
18. Among other things, philosophers did not act, did not respond to incipient demand, fast enough
in organising appropriate structures for delivery of field ethics.
<5?
19. See esp. Edwards, plhieswilhourPhilosophy^
20. Maclver continues ‘and for this reason this conception of the task of moral philosophy is unlikely
to be popular in the profession.’ There are two troubles with the tack: firstly, field ethics do not should not - exhaust ethics; secondly, field ethics are enjoying some popularity.
21. The proposition, from the circulated Conference announcement, that field ethics might rejuvenate
a flagging philosophy, that they had ‘given philosophy a rebirth’ can hardly be taken seriously (for
all that they may have given jaded philosophy departments a fillip). Concrete working examples and
dilemmas might stimulate ethical investigation, but would only exceptionally impact an ethical theory,
and moreover ethics itself has but rarely been a source of growth and development in philosophy.
Field practitioners, who often have their own expansionist and imperialist ambitions and
programs, are unlikely to let a service subject be supplied from elsewhere unless they cannot yet
manage the subject themselves and then only so long as times are good so they do not need the jobs
and can avoid chores involved.
22. Interestingly there has been no similar fuss from professionals regarding the attrition of logicians
within philosophy (for which some of them have responsibility), or the on-going loss of logic to
computing science and mathematics.
23. It is for this sort of reason that philosophy in Australia, unlike that in parts of USA^,missed the
field van.
24. See Sylvan 1986, The Greening of Ethics, From Wisdom to Wowserism.
iSrn-
25. A problem in fact exacerbated under prominent ethical positions, e.g., crude utilitarian fostering
"greed is good" notions, most social Darwinism encouraging cut-throat competition.
I'
�
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Richapd'Sylvan
/> << Ji
197d
p. I
WHAT IS WRONG WITH APPLIED ETHICS
Richard Sylvan
There is much that is wrong with and in applied ethics. Specifically, there are three comprehensive
counts where things are wrong with the commodity concerned, applied ethics, that is with applied
ethics so economically viewed.1 Namely on the following three counts:
•
extraneous, with the supply, delivery, consumption, and the like of applied ethics, AE. The
category prominently includes the delivery of applied ethics: what is done, taught and learnt,
by whom, and how qualified (e.g. whether taught by professionals, professional ethicists or
philosophers in particular). That has tended to presume that the commodity itself is more or
less in order, though the presumption lacks good pedigree, delivery of defective goods being
almost as ubiquitous as business enterprise.
The present focus is not however upon the delivery, or other features of the production and
consumption, packaging and marketing of the goods, but on features of the commodity itself, applied
ethics itself. Thus
•
intraneous counts, concerning the commodity itself, where a further two things are wrong:
••
the applied idea, and
•••
what the application is presumed to be made to, established - or, should it be,
establishment - ethics.
Because an implicit premiss in organising the Philosophy and Applied Ethics Re-examined1
Conference seems to have been that the issues to be addressed are predominantly extraneous, and
because most of the papers actually relevant to the Conference topic appear to focus on extraneous
issues, the present exercise, by contrast, concentrates upon intraneous problems, especially the third:
radical deficiencies in what is supposed to be applied, prevailing ethics, and some extensive repairs
thereto.
1.
The applied count
To begin with, there is something decidedly3 odd, not to say radically unsatisfactory, about the very
idea of applied ethics. To bring out the oddness, the conceptual inadequacy, it helps to consider the
dictionary senses and established usage of applied. The term in the only relevant sense (the other
obsolete sense is that offolded) means: ‘put to practical use; practical as distinguished from abstract
or theoretical' (OED, similarly Concise English). Relevant examples cited are: ‘the applied sciences’
(from Babbage 1832), ‘applied logic (as distinguished from pure)’ (from Thomson 1806).4
It may appear then, that "applied ethics" amounts to pleonasm, a popular tautology (and "pure ethics"
correspondingly to an oxymoron), because ethics itself is already practical, for instance much or all
of it being concerned with practical action and its qualities (such is Maclver s assumption: moral
philosophy is practical - in a way in which other branches of philosophy are not’, p.206). In this
respect "applied ethics", even more "applied morals", is rather like "applied motoring", "applied
nursing" or "applied housekeeping". Conceptual confusion would be considerably reduced by
removing the modifier ‘applied .5 Such a charge of confusion can however be mitigated by properly
I7
18
What is wrong with applied ethics
distinguishing ethics, which includes philosophy and theory of morality, from morals, thereby
revealing, perhaps, elements of some theory apt for application. No doubt something like this is the
presupposition of those who preach or profit from practical ethics (similarly practical economics, but
doubtfully practical housekeeping): that standing in contrast is a suitably established theoretical ethics
(could it perchance be utilitarianism?) which can rather uncontroversiarbe used to guide practice.
But is there such a theory, apt for application, for translation into practice?
To appreciate what is required for adequacy, consider successful applied subjects. Let us compare
"applied ethics" with^long established applied discipline, namely applied mathematics, which often
boasts a separate department in universities (a discipline I was obliged to study as an undergraduate
in order to proceed further in pure mathematics). In the first place, applied mathematics contrasts with
pure mathematics, applied logic with pure. Where, a naive outsider may ask, is pure ethics that
similarly stands in contrast with applied ethics? Could there decently be separate departments of pure
and of applied ethics?
For the most part, applied mathematics applies to practice, in some wide sense, a body of pure
mathematics that is more or less correct, at least within the assumption framework and contextual
settings where it is applied. (The qualified formulation is given for pluralistic reasons; given the
dominant paradigm, the pure mathematics that is applied is correct without further qualification,
correct period.) A body of substantially correct theory ready for application is then the first of several
pertinent features of that relational object, applied mathematics, the first of several dubiously
matchable by "applied ethics". The proviso ‘for the most part’ (introducing the paragraph) signals
another discrepancy. There is a, presumably derivative, part of applied mathematics that investigates,
in essentially the manner of pure mathematics, theories, algebras, spaces and similar, selected through
postulates, principles or equational sets drawn from standard applied mathematics (thus e.g. Newtonian
theories where classical force laws are satisfied, Hilbert and phase spaces, and so on).6 Such
derivative applied mathematics need not compromise at all normal methodological requirements (such
as they are) of pure mathematics, for rigour, exactness, and similar.
Ordinary applied mathematics, in its quest, even haste, for practical results, does compromise, or
violate, pure mathematical methodology. For example, shortcuts are taken, simplifications made,
information shed, figures rounded, approximations adopted, and so. Science veers towards art. From
a pure perspective, dreadful things are often done to data or mathematical transformations of data.
Skilled practitioners tend to appreciate what they can get away with in this sort of regard. Again,
none of this, neither the body of information nor the kinds of skills, is really matched in ethics, in
putting ethical theory to practical work.
Next, the mathematics that is applied, a body of pure mathematics, is not thoroughly contested. Ethics
however is. There is nothing in ethics like arithmetic or elementary mechanics; the nearest thing
ethics can offer is some controversial development along axiomatic geometric lines. Mathematics has
its critics, both inside (e.g. intuitionists) and out (e.g., cultural relativists), but none (hard core sceptics
excepted) suggest changing all of it or tampering with most of what is applied. By contrast, in ethics,
there continues to be an array of competing theories, none of which has managed to win broad
allegiance. What pure theory is there to apply, to do dreadful things to? It might be said in response:
whichever of them is adopted!
Even that, a hollow compromise will not stand up for long. For deeper environmental ethics challenge
a broad range of pure theory that is alleged to be applied! What challenges a whole subject, that
would change it, can hardly be an application of it. The rise of such environmental ethics is one
reason why the modifier applied is a misnomer. For deeper environmental ethics is not any sort of
/
Richard Sylvan
19
application of ethics; it instead challenges prevailing ethics. Nor is it, like stock "applied ethics", an
adaptation of ethics within an environmental context.
The label applied is substantially, if not entirely, a misnomer. Adjectives in modifier or attributive
roles, in the combination adjective-noun phrase, often enough do not signify application. The
assumption that all modification is application invokes a dubious, presumably false, theory of
adjectival attribution. Consider a few examples involving a relevant adjective, ‘medical’.
Combinations such as ‘medical student’, ‘medical book’, ‘medical trial’ do not signify applications.
A medical s is not normally an application of s to medical matters (of books or students in this
fashion); normally it is a type (an m type) of s.7 There are occasional exceptions, in which case
compounds are liable to be recorded in dictionaries, as with medical jurisprudence which is not a type
of jurisprudence, but ‘the legal knowledge required of a doctor’. There is good reason to think that
ethics induces no exception, that medical ethics, and similarly business ethics, follow the normal
pattern. Thus business ethics is a type of ethics, namely ethics within a specifically business setting,
and accordingly adapted thereto. Observe that such a preliminary account incorporates automatically
(what gives the applied presumption some problemsj^sce-^ppendix T) allowance for variations in
standards, that business corporations for example should not be expected to measure up to standards
set up for ordinary persons (any more than they should iw»t be expected to pay the same levels of
taxes)!
Given the manifold inadequacies of the label applied, amendment of terminology appears warranted.
Amendment, not abandonment. After all, what ‘applied ethics’ is supposed to comprehend, such as
medical ethics, business ethics, even environmental ethics, are not themselves in court, but presently
taken as viable fields. A superior label is field, for field-defined or field-restricted; another is type,
for type-delimited, another domain. Where others speak of "applied ethics", let us discourse about
field ethics. Investment ethics, for instance, is a field ethic, with field investment. An "institute for
applied ethics concentrating upon applications to business" is an institute for field ethics with main
field business. The "applied ethics" movement becomes effectively a field ethics movement.
Observe that professional ethics are field ethics, with the field in each case the profession concerned.
But professional ethics in sum form a quite proper subclass of field ethics; bio-ethics and ecological
ethics are plainly not professional ethics. Less obviously, more importantly, field ethics differs from
practical ethics (as usually poorly defined), with which "applied ethics" is regularly conflated. For,
on the one side, ordinary living and daily life, central to practical ethics, are not fields. On the other,
field ethics are not confined to practice, but may involve considerable theoretical material, particularly
from the fields concerned.
2.
The ethics count
Not only is the applied operation in trouble, ethics also is in deep trouble. Indeed, in a way, the main
problem lies here. There is not a fit, properly satisfactory subject, for some significant applications.
For some "applications" have to change and develop the subject! But, the problems do not vanish
when the amendment to field ethics is made. Satisfactory fieldwork, satisfactory outcomes in field
ethics are seriously hampered by long-standing troubles in ethics. For as field ethics involve ethics,
whatever is wrong with ethics affects field ethics.
To glimpse these troubles, consider recent ambivalence towards ethics. Is ethics even a good good.
There is a most curious contrast in later 20th century attitudes towards ethics. On the one side, there
are great expectations, for instance for what ethics can contribute, to social and professional lite
20
What is -wrong with applied ethics
especially; but on the other there is serious disquiet, occasionally verging upon despair and into
nihilism, as to ethics, and its role. Virtually the whole spectrum from great expectations through no
expectations to substantial forebodings is selectively represented. A few examples:
•
Great expectations for ethics, beginning to re-emerge these days, tend to come from outside
professional philosophical ranks, from scientists and social scientists.8 Ethics is seen as taking
up again its grand legitimization and critical roles. It can indeed be used in this respect as
regards to a wide variety of practices, such as in business, economics, government, scientific
experimentation, and so on. Of course it cannot always succeed, because one ethics can be
pitted against another, and each and all challenged.
( p-— These expectations, a bit surprising after the drab days of analytic moral philosophy (where
I
philosophy could express no interesting moral opinions), contrast sharply with
' /•—•
heavy disquiet or worse as to present ethics. A recent example is afforded by
z
MacIntyre’s disturbing introduction to After Virtue', that ‘we have - very largely, if not
entirely - lost our comprehension, both theoretical and practical of morality’ (p.2).
Some, like MacIntyre, promise a happy, even a great, outcome, should we return to
proper paths, to a virtue ethic in the tradition of Aristotle. Others are not so sanguine;
,
there is
1
•
no hope for ethics. There are divergent routes here. Either it can play no relevant
,
role any longer, or it can play only a negative or damaging role (thus e.g. Hinckfuss).
Though both these routes lead badly astray, present (merely classificatory) objectives
do not include showing as much.9
There is, furthermore, reason for at least serious disquiet. Should we care to look closely at, and try
to assess, the total ethical heritage, then what we find is not very promising.
•
What is on offer is mostly extremely sketchy and very piecemeal, much of it a hotchpotch.
There are extraordinarily few well-worked out and detailed ethics. Spinoza’s Ethics is perhaps
one rare example.
•
Most of what is on offer is seriously biassed or prejudiced, indeed from a deep environmental
perspective even unethical. Prime examples include
•
religious bias, heavily constraining or distorting creatures’ lives, and putting them to
work to serve imagined religious objectives.
•
spiritualistic distortion. Even where an explicit religion does not feature, as in
Platonism and neo-Platonism and in edified Buddhism, the whole of life may be
distorted through promise of an after-life or successor life or extra-material life, where
furthermore some system of rewards or punishments may be dished out for previous
performance. No doubt such biasses help in conferring upon ethics authority,
unwarranted authority (fulfil duties or be dammed, etc.).
•
humanistic distortion, summed up as human chauvinism. It is upon this prejudice,
critical for environmental ethics, that we concentrate.
A main matter that is wrong with ethics, and ipso facto its practice and its belated appearance in many
professional settings (when it$ should have been in evidence long ago), is its anthropic bias, its
considerable prejudice in favour of (present) humans.10 The matter is highly material in several fields,
most obviously in environmental ethics, but also in medical ethics, bio-ethics, agricultural and
vefinarian ethics, and similar.
It is widely assumed, however, that ethics is inevitably human biassed, that it has to be
anthropocentric. That is not so. Ethics can be repaired. So much is the substance of ethics without
humans. Both morals and ethics can be characterised, in substantially reportive ways, so as to free
Richard Sylvan
21
them of anthropocentrism and the like.11 Furthermore, the whole superstructural theory can be
developed in a fashion that makes no essential reference to humans or any other biological species.12
These repairs represent, however, only the beginning of adjustment and change - of many changes if
a satisfactory deep-green ethics is to be reached. When repairing goods, there often comes a stage,
increasingly rapidly encountered those days, when it becomes a more attractive proposition to acquire
new items than to persist with repairs. So it may be, it is now suggested, with ethics. So increasingly
it has been suggested this century, with demands for new ethics, new moral philosophies. Those
making such proposals include Schweitzer, Maclver, Leopold, along with many others.13
Suppose we should arrive, through addressing different or new fields, at what amounts to a new ethics,
as many think we do (thus Maclver, p. 179 and many ecocentric philosophers). Then what emerges
is no "application" of a standard ethics, but something different, not an applied standard ethics at all.
Now something similar may appear to occur for normal applied subjects. A newly encountered group
of physical phenomena, for instance, leads not to the elevation of some dusty mathematical theory
buried in archives, what is mostly the case, but to elaboration of a new mathematical theory.
Normally in this event, the main body of pure mathematics would remain untouched; a new annex or
suburb would simply be added to it.14 With ethics, however, things are different. There are grounds
for contending that the green (environmental) revolution has shaken ethics to its (dubious) foundations
and core, and, as coupled with associated non domination themes (as emphasised especially in
ecofeminism), has left comparatively little untouched. The standard city of ethics is not left alone,
unscathed.
Much the same sort of points can be presented in the form of a dilemma, for standard ethics and a
proposed field, such as environmental issues. Either standard ethics will not cover the field (or cannot
be extended to do so because it (or its extension) does not apply, or through being forced upon the
field it twists or damages the data, for instance leaves an indelible anthropic bias. A homely carpentry
analogy may help: there is some cabinet work where delicate hammering would be appropriate, but
the only tool we have is a sledgehammer.15 Likewise, a standard chauvinistic ethic is the wrong tool
to try to use or extend for deeper environmental work.
Unremarkably, the three options emerging, namely (inappropriate) application, extension or adjustment,
and fashioning of something new or different, correspond more or less to the now familiar threefold
division of environmental positions, into shallow, intermediate and deep.16 As before, deep ethics are
not "applications", but near ethics.
3.
Extraneous issues
Among the many extraneous issues concerning field ethics, those that have come to exercise
philosophers do look distinctly partisan:17 namely, the role of philosophers, especially professionals;
the place of philosophy in field ethics; and the poor practice of these ethics, particularly from a
professional philosophical perspective. Here the main thesis to be advanced inclines towards these
professionally unsympathetic lines: insofar as these matters, philosophical extranalities, are of negatixe
impact for philosophy, philosophers have largely themselves to blame, for they are largely of their own
making (or, to sheet some of the responsibility more accurately, of the controlling power elite of the
profession}.18 Let us investigate some of the extraneous issues seriatim.
Because a field ethics concerns the field as well as (relevant parts of) ethics, its investigation, practice
and teaching, requires an intersection of capacities and skills, drawn from both ethics and the field.
n
What is wrong with applied ethics
This simple observation enables an immediate response to such questions as: if not philosophers, then
who is to investigate, and teach, field ethics? That response is: those from one area or the other who
have acquired requisite knowledge and technique in the other, or less promising, those from outside
(but with some appropriate informational background) who acquire these prerequisites in both. In
medical ethics, where there is perhaps a larger pool of information concerning the field than there is
regarding ethics, a moral philosopher untrained in medicine may have more to learn than a medical
doctor unversed in ethics and lacking philosophical skills. (Really, neither should be let loose on
students before they are duly prepared in the intersection.) It is evident, then, that philosophy enjoys
no natural monopoly in field ethics. The place of philosophy is less exalted, and certainly is not
dominant - still less given recent proposed (but hardly well justified) decoupling of ethics from
philosophy.19
There are corollaries regarding the roles of philosophers on committees relating to field ethics, in
decision-making and so on on these topics. Philosophers do not have an automatic place. Unless they
are well-informed as to ethics (many philosophers are not) and as to the field, they do not deserve a
place at all (of course they still may gain a role for want of any better placed). Ousting of
under-informed or unenergetic philosophers is not always such a bad thing.
While the informational situation is now significantly better than in 1945 when Maclver was agonising
over the predicament of moral philosophy, it is still true that ‘academic moral philosophers are not
using ‘every opportunity to make themselves acquainted, so far as possible, with the real difficulties
of those [not merely present humans] who need the help of moral philosophy most... I ... confess that
I myself lack the factual knowledge which would be required to do this work well. I suspect that
many ethic philosophers are in the same position ...20 One of the reasons why philosophy has lost
prestige in recent years is that it has not kept pace’ (pp.204-205). One example Maclver incisively
develops concerns ‘discoveries associated with the name of Freud. The behaviour of philosophers in
this connection is particularly hard to excuse. At first they flatly denied the reality of the alleged
discoveries - maintained that the notion of "unconscious mind" was self contradictory, and so forth.
But all this has now been given up. ... Philosophers no longer dispute ... details of the Freudian
system - but disregard them. If they mention them at all, they talk as if they somehow concerned
none but medical men - as if the same propositions could be sene in medicine and false outside it.
In the light of the recognition of unconscious motives the whole traditional theory of moral
responsibility needs overhauling, but no moral philosopher undertakes this’ (p.205). The reason why
the corresponding philosophical debate (about whether unconscious desires are sometimes evil, whether
relevant moral predicates are restricted to conscious motives, and so forth) had not "by 1945, after 40
years of exposure to Freudian issues, Maclver attributed to the mass of psychological literature which
philosophers have not read and would have to read, reading that is obligatory if moral philosophy is
to be made ‘the subject which it ought to be’ (p.206).
There has been disappointment among some professional philosophers, those with expansionist .
instin^tions, that field ethics has not turned out to be quite the bonanza anticipated, that the expected /
boom in new opportunities and positions began to dissipate as field practitioners started to supply their
own "field ethicists".21 None of this should have been surprising, for broad inductive reasons.
Philosophy had long shed subjects and fields of overlap; and those professionals who have hung in
have become something different (economists instead of social philosophers, computer scientists
instead of logicians22) Nor have philosophers, especially those who have not changed or reskilled, all
the virtues assumed by professionals; e.g. they have little or no theory, they are too fuzzy, they are
indecisive, or vacillate, etc. (remember the sophists; these provide some of the reasons too why
philosophers are often not welcome on committees).
(
Richard Sylvan
23
Some outside inputs into ethics, such as field studies or field workers may supply, would not go
astray. For there is theoretically little that is new or interesting on the standard ethics scene. Much
of it is 19th century revival, refinement of utilitarianism or Kantianism, and ornate additions (with
bells and whistles). One of the few "new" offerings is the revival of Aristotelian virtue ethics!
Nothing, however, stops outside inputs. Anyone is free to attempt philosophy. Professionals have no
exclusive rights over philosophy, still less over ethics; nor should they. There is a case for widening
practice of philosophy, and encouraging paraphilosophers. For critical problems emerging are not so
much those of philosophy itself (which could be very different from the way it is practised and
professionalised), but of philosophy as professionalised and as conducted. The immediate future does
not bode well for change in the latter, for several reasons; the prevailing materialistic technological
ethos (which dev^lyes pure intellectual activity), the consequent marginalisation of subjects like
philosophy and continuing narrowness of dominant philosophical activity.
Nor, moreover, have philosophers proceeded well, particularly in the Antipodes, in training and
"^pp^ing students who can readily adapt to become field ethicists. Philosophy has never been strongly
employment-market driven (but has tended to rely on a version of Say’s flawed law); indeed there are
features intrinsic to philosophy, such as its contemplative character, that renders it antithetical to the
veiy idea of responding to markets at all. There are other regional features that compound this sort
of problem: the conservative, and class, bias of philosophy (inherited from similar British
arrangements), which has meant that Australian philosophy has not been innovative in adapting its
topics and emphases to changing circumstances;23 and the heavy concentration, as in British
empiricism (still dominant in Australia), upon epistemology, with ethics and what went into moral
sciences and social philosophy still regarded as second class arenas and not what philosophy was really
about or what first class chaps would mainly concern themselves. These are major reasons why
philosophy lost out, and Reserved to lose.
It is for those latter sorts of reasons in particular, that environmental ethics and environmental
philosophy have been unable to gain more than occasional marginal status in philosophy curricula in
Australian universities. Fuller accounts of the predicament of environmental philosophy have been
given elsewhere.24 Its predicament tends to illustrate a general problem for field ethics, with bioethics
(with its own institutional settings) the only partial exception.
Now that field ethics is being lost to the fields in many cases, there are complaints about the calibre
of what is done and taught, the quality of the investigators and teachers, and so on. No doubt much
of this criticism is warranted; some similar criticism of ethics within philosophy would also be
warranted. Among the justified criticisms are these:
•
that field ethics as done from the field is divorced from ethical theory (from what theory has
so far been developed). Too much comprises mere case studies, as with business MBAs.
•
that the field practitioners are not trained in ethical theory, and are often ill-informed ethically
and lacking in analytic and critical skills crucial for satisfactory philosophy.
A different complaint, of importance, concerns the poor ethical practice, even the unethical practice
in some of the fields, despite the development of field ethics. Such a problem is particularly
conspicuous in the field of business.25 But this has been a long-standing problem for ethics itself;
how to get people to behave as they ought? Teaching agents ethics can certainly enable, and
encourage, them to be moral: but it cannot make them moral. Nor would it be proper for it to do so.
The field ethics movement, successor to the late AE movement, is both important and timely,
especially as regards getting ethics and axiology back into many fields that hard tried, erroneously it
now appears, to eliminate them. The movement will have to be carefully orchestrated however to
\
I
1
24
What is wrong with applied ethics
avoid capture by the very power structures and disciplinary paradigms that it should transform. These
are certainly grounds for some cynicism about such movements: that they are easy targets for
co-option, that they can bemused to cover up abuses by power structures, and to authorise dubious
procedures, or worse,^with a rubber stamp of ethical approval from appropriate ethics’ committees and
inquiries. Such grounds for cynicism can be reasoned, however, and new hope inaugurated, given
more adequate formulation and development of relevant field ethics (exercises including considerable
theoretical work), along with independent and impartial administration of emerging codes and decision
methods, and with appropriate openness of the formerly abused procedures they are intended to
regulate fairly.
REFERENCES
Callicott, J.B., In Defense of the Land Ethic, State University of New York Press, Albany, 1989.
Edwards, J.C., Ethics without Philosophy, University Presses of Florida, Tampa, 1982.
Engel, J.R., Ethics of Environment and Development, Belhaven Press, 1990.
Hinkfuss, I., The Moral Society: Its Structure and Effects, Discussion papers in environmental
philosophy, no. 16, The Australian National University, 1987.
Leopold, A., A Sand Country Almanac, Oxford University Press, New York, 1949.
MacIntyre, A., After Virtue, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, 1981.
Maclver, A.M., "Towards anew moral philosophy", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, no. 46
(1945-6): 179-206.
Sylvan, R. "Prospects for regional philosophy in Australasia", Australasian Journal of Philosophy,
1986.
Sylvan, R., From Wisdom to Wowserism, typescript, 1991.
Sylvan, R., Deep-Green Ethics, typescript, 1993.
i
Sylvan, R. and Bennett, H., The Greening of Ethics, White Horse Press, Cambridge, 199^.
Wilson, E.O. (ed.), Biodiversity, National Academy Press, Washington, DC, 1988.
NOTES
1. For such a treatment of items like ethics, as economic goods, see further Greening of Ethics.
2. The Conference, organised by the University of Newcastle in August 1993, where this paper was
presented.
3. Ethical theory has tended to borrow classifications from elsewhere, from apparently more successful
enterprises. Thus, for instance, the (normative) ethics/meta-ethics distinction lifted, none too adeptly,
25
Richard Sylvan
from logical theory. Thus too the present pure/applied distinction, also purloined. By no means
everything that intelligent agents dream up and promote is entirely in order. Rather uncontroversially
colourless green ideas is one such combination, more controversially human nature, deep ecology and
post-modernism are such. Applied ethics appears to belong to this not-in-satisfactory-order or
out-of-order bunch.
4. ‘Applied. Practical, put to practical use. Applied science. Science of which the abstract principles
are put to practical use in the arts’ (Concise English').
‘2. Put to practical use; practical as distinguished from abstract or theoretical’ (OED). Though
we persevere with these dictionary explications, there are grounds for complaint; there are neglected
nuances. For example, the practical/theoretical contrast (just one of the muddy contrasts with
practical) differs from an applied/pure contrast. A theory can in principle be applied (a plying to, i.e.,
a mapping) in a non practical, or impractical, field. Different again is that concrete/abstract contrast.
And what exactly is practical?
5. The advance notices for the Conference (which look pretty confused, even mumbo jumbo), well
they add insult to injury by invoking talk of a theory of applied ethics. There is said to ‘appear to be
a significant gap between the theory of applied ethics and its practice’; this is said to be why
‘disillusionment has set in’ now. While there may be a theory of applications, talk of a "theory of
applied ethics" heaps confusion (‘theory of) upon confusion (‘applied ethics’). As for gaps (really,
between the theory and practice of ethics), there are two, as we shall see; there is an ambiguity in
‘gap’As for mumbo jumbo, try the following sentence:
‘The teaching and practice of applied ethics has grown rapidly and in an unruly manner across many
disciplines, with many practitioners now not possessing any depth of philosophical knowledge and
expertise and, because of difficulties experienced with the theory and practice given, in some cases
deciding that same is relevant.’ Its sequel is easily unscrambled:
‘We wish to hold a conference to explore this issue for the Australian community and its practical
consequences.’
6. Thus, too, there is a two way process. Application feeds back to inform theory and to enrich the
pure subject. With ethics, as we shall see, something similar or more dramatic happens. Field
developments not merely may inform and enlarge the ethical theory; some may alter it irrevocably.
7. Of course not all adjectives function in this way. butTor. instance without types of responded s.
Thus, e.g. possible, probable, alleged, putative,etc.
I
8. Examples include Wilson in Biodiversity, Engel.
9. We try to
show as much elsewherey-Routley and HTIF.
10. This is by no means all that is wrong with standard ethics. Another, important for field ethics,
is the lack of an adequate theory of ethical dilemmas, confronting which is a main engine of progress
in ethics.
11. See Greening of Ethics', also ‘Ethics without humans. Philosophy without humans', Observe that
^repairs are not unique.
<y :
»
12. As to how this is accomplished, see the annular theory, reiterated in Greening'.
X
26
What is wrong with applied ethics
13. Maclver suggests ‘that all the old codes are out of date and a satisfactory new one has still to be
discovered. A lost moral code cannot be recovered, and a new one obtained, simply for the asking’
(p.201).
14. Nothing, no paradigm shift as revolution has effected the whole citadel of mathematics; none is
likely to (even dialethism, more threatening than much else, because central areas can be protected by /w roj
due qualification).
15. A different example: an isolated person has an extensive weeding tool in a weed invaded forest,
with the only techniques availabe a broad-acre chemical defoliant.
16. For a classification of environmental positions along the lines of the three options, see Callicott
Introduction, where attention is also drawn to shortcomings in the applied idea.
17. On extraneous issues in ethics, including especially field ethics such as environmental ethics, see
for a detailed treatment Greening of Ethics, part II/.
JJ
18. Among other things, philosophers did not act, did not respond to incipient demand, fast enough
in organising appropriate structures for delivery of field ethics.
<5?
19. See esp. Edwards, plhieswilhourPhilosophy^
20. Maclver continues ‘and for this reason this conception of the task of moral philosophy is unlikely
to be popular in the profession.’ There are two troubles with the tack: firstly, field ethics do not should not - exhaust ethics; secondly, field ethics are enjoying some popularity.
21. The proposition, from the circulated Conference announcement, that field ethics might rejuvenate
a flagging philosophy, that they had ‘given philosophy a rebirth’ can hardly be taken seriously (for
all that they may have given jaded philosophy departments a fillip). Concrete working examples and
dilemmas might stimulate ethical investigation, but would only exceptionally impact an ethical theory,
and moreover ethics itself has but rarely been a source of growth and development in philosophy.
Field practitioners, who often have their own expansionist and imperialist ambitions and
programs, are unlikely to let a service subject be supplied from elsewhere unless they cannot yet
manage the subject themselves and then only so long as times are good so they do not need the jobs
and can avoid chores involved.
22. Interestingly there has been no similar fuss from professionals regarding the attrition of logicians
within philosophy (for which some of them have responsibility), or the on-going loss of logic to
computing science and mathematics.
23. It is for this sort of reason that philosophy in Australia, unlike that in parts of USA^,missed the
field van.
24. See Sylvan 1986, The Greening of Ethics, From Wisdom to Wowserism.
iSrn-
25. A problem in fact exacerbated under prominent ethical positions, e.g., crude utilitarian fostering
"greed is good" notions, most social Darwinism encouraging cut-throat competition.
I'
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2051THE IRREFUTABILITY of anarchism
1.
GOD, THE CHURCH, AND THE STATE.
The State is like God:
the
anarchist is like the atheist in disbelief and nonrecognition of what is
commonly assumed, mostly as a matter of faith, to be needed.
The parallel,
drawn by Bakunin, has its weaknesses as well as its strengths.
While
the atheist believes that God does not exist, the anarchist does not believe
that there are no states:
none are legitimate.
on the contrary, there are all too many, though
The important parallel is as to arguments.
The
agnostic does not believe that the arguments for the existence of God succeed,
and so adopts a "neutral" stance; similarly the State-agnostic does not believe
that the arguments for the State work, and likewise tries to adopt a fence
sitting position.
Soundly based atheism goes further than agnosticism, not
only faulting the arguments for, but taking it for granted that there are
arguments, or at least solid considerations, against.
So it is with soundly
based anarchism, which can both fault arguments for the State
and produce
a case against the State.
A more obvious comparison, appreciated from Reformation on and again
emphasised by Bakunin^ is that of State and Church.
This institutional
comparison enables several relevant features of the State to be emphasised;
for example, how, as the Church used to, the State assigns to itself many
very extensive powers, such as a monopoly on the production and control of
the main medium of exchange, currency, and an ultimate monopoly an
organised violence, all other internal security arrangements being eventually
answerable to its police and military; how it is of the same category as
business organisations such as multinationals, which now to some extent
threaten it but by and large collaborate with it; how, as again the Church
used to, it has nominal support of most of its "subjects", though many of
them are little better than Sunday believers, and an increasing number have
come to see the State as in many respects evil and inevitably corrupt, but
as a necessary evil.
Whether the State is inevitably evil or not, it is unnecessary, so it will
be argued, in a way parallelling the famous Five Ways of Aquinas designed to prove
that God exists.
Since the State is unnecessary, as well as
costly
and
typically at least evil in many of its practices and undesirable in other
respects, it should be superseded.
social arrangements.
And it can be succeeded, by alternative
�2
2. THE FIRST WAY OF SHOWING THAT THE STATE IS NOT REQUIRED : THE REPLACEMENT
ARGUMENT.
The core of the argument is simple and persuasive: everything in the
collective interest accomplished by the State can equally be accomplished by
alternative arrangements such as voluntary cooperation, the remainder of State
activity being dispensed with.
The argument is not a straight substitution
argument, for it is not as if a rational person would want to have everything
accomplished by the State replicated by alternative arrangements.
There is much
the State does or supports that is at best rather indifferent, e.g. sponsorship
of pomp and ceremony and of junkets by VIPs; and a great deal of typical State
activity is positively evil and not in the collective interest, e.g. graft,
corruption, brutality, maintenance of inequitable distribution of wealth, land
and other resources, and encouragement or protection of polluting or
environmentally destructive industries (e.g. without state sponsorship we should
not be well embarked on a nuclear future, without state assistance and
subsidization Australia would not be burdened with its extensive forest
destructive pine planting and woodchip projects).
The modern State has however many other functions than repressive or
damaging ones, functions of community welfare or of otherwise beneficial kind.
This does not upset the replacement argument for anarchism.
The argument, implicit
in the works of the classical anarchists, goes like this:- The functions of
the State can be divided into two types, those that are in the collective interest
and generally beneficial such as community welfare and organisational functions,
and those that are not (but are, presumably, in the interests of some of the
powerful groups the State tends to serve).
But as regards functions of the first type, the generally beneficial functions
which are in the collective interest, no coercion is required.
For why should
people have to be coerced into carrying out functions which are in their
collective interest?
Such functions can be performed, and performed better,
without the coercion which is the hallmark of of the State, and without the
accompanying tendency of the State to pervert such functions to the maintenance
of privilege and inequality of power, and to remove power from those it "serves".
The detailed argument that such functions can be performed takes a case by case
2
form, considering each function in turn.
In each case the function is carried
out through alternative arrangements, such as voluntary cooperation by the
people directly concerned, which replace State arrangements.
Consider, for
example, the operation of mutual aid or self help medical services or building
programs, or self managed welfare, housing or environment services, or community
access communications (e.g. radio)^ most of which are presently either starved
of infrastructure or hindered by the State.
Such beneficial services would in
general be reorganised so that all the relevant infrastructure became communally
�held, and those wishing to arrange or use the service would manage the
operation themselves, taking the operation into their own hands instead of
being the passive recipients of favours meted out to them by professionals
and powerful agencies.
Coercion is unnecessary because, in more communal
types of anarchism, the basic infrastructure and many resources (other than
individual labour) are already held by the community, so there is no need to
apply coercion to individuals to extract these resources needed for community
welfare projects, as there is in the situation where wealth and resources are
privatised and coercion is required to wrest resources from unwilling private
individuals.
As for the second type of functions, those which are not in the
collective interest, coercion will normally be required for the performance of
those functions, and is thus an essential part of the State's operation.
But
those functions are better dispensed with, since they are not in the collective
interest.
In this way, while the good part of the State's operation is
retained and improved upon, the bad part - especially the evils of brutality,
corruption and other abuses invariably associated with the coercive apparatus is detached.
State services that are concerned with order, in the general sense, may
be similarly removed or replaced.
These services, which include reduction of
violence to persons and redress for such violence, quarantine services,
security, orderly operation of traffic, and so on, have often been said to
make for especial difficulties for anarchism, or even to refute it.
do not.
They
Firstly, disputes can be settled and offences dealt with directly by
communities themselves without intervention by the State.
Secondly, a great
many of these problems are created or enhanced by the State, e.g. violence
of which the State is the main purveyor .and which is often the outcome of
WAvditai 3
the State's propping up of gross
.
A community which seriously
A
limits (or dispenses with) the institution of private property and removes
«//
gross inequities in the distribution of wealth thereby removes the need for
many "welfare" services and the basis for a great many offences involving
violence: virtually all those involving violence to private property and
many of those involving personal violence.
Such a left-leaning anarchism is
also quite invulnerable to further familiar, but ludicrous, arguments for the
State, such as those from the fairer distribution of land, property and wealth
that is alleged to be achieved by State enforcement of redistribution.
As all
too many people are aware, a major function of the State is to maintain and
police inequitable distribution. 5? This then is the main classical argument
for anarchism.
The argument has however been challenged, both by historical
�and more recent objections, which are designed to show that people cannot
act in their collective interest without coercion.
I
3.
THE CASE AGAINST REPLACEMENT FROM PRISONERS' DILEMMA SITUATIONS AND THE
LIKE.
The main arguments designed to rebut the replacement argument for
anarchism and to buttress the State status quo, are based on variants of the
Prisoners' Dilemma, to the effect that there are important cases where
individuals will not agree or cooperate to provide themselves with (or to
maintain) collective goods without coercion, such as only the State can
furnish.In such "dilemma" situations each individual will hope to gain
advantage, without contributing (or exercising restraint), from others’
contributions (or restraint), by freeloading on others (or profiting from
others' restraint).
The claim is that only the State with its backing
of force can resolve such situations: anarchistic replacement cannot succeed.
A basic ingredient of a considerable variety of arguments of this type,
Including Hobbes' and Hume's arguments for the State, the "Tragedy of the
Commons" argument, and recent economic arguments for State intervention to
secure collective goods, is the single Prisoners' Dilemma game with just two
players.Two prisoners, 1 and 2, taken to be accomplices in a crime, have
been separately imprisoned.
A State representative makes the following offers
separately to each: if the prisoner confesses and becomes a State's witness while
his or her accomplice remains silent, he or she will be released at once while
the accomplice gets 8 years.
It so happens that if both prisoners remain
silent the State has only enough evidence to impose a 1 year sentence.
if both confess they would each receive 4 years.
But
The "game" can be summarised
in the following "payoff" matrix:Prisoner 1
S(ilence)
C(onfess)
S
-1, -1
-8, 0
C
0, -8
S t rategies
-4, -4
The game is not intended to present a moral dilemma, that each can only go free
at the cost of the others' freedom, but the following dilemma:- It is in
each prisoner's private interest to choose strategy C no matter what the other
does : strategy C is, in the jargon, each players' "dominant" strategy (and also
in fact a minimax strategy).
For if 2, for example, remains silent, then 1 goes
free by confessing, while if 2 confesses, then 1 halves his or her sentence by
confessing.
But if both prisoners choose their dominant strategy they obtain
an inferior outcome to that which would have resulted by what is tendentiously
called "cooperating", by their both remaining silent.
�5
4. FOILING THE PRISONERS'
DILEMMA ARGUMENT.
It is bizarre that a dilemma
alleged to show the necessity of the State - which is supposed to intervene,
forcibly if required, to ensure that the prisoners "cooperate" to obtain an
optimal outcome - should be set up by the State's own operative.Of course
the State's presence in arranging (or accentuating) some such dilemmas is
inessential, as is much else from the example.
But some features of the
prisoner's relations are essential, in particular the separability assumption
that the prisoners are isolated, and so have no opportunity to communicate
or really cooperate.
Similarly, in the more general argument, a privatisation
assumption is smuggled in in the way the dilemma is formulated, that we are
dealing with self contained individuals who, like the prisoners, act only in
their own narrowly construed private interests and whose interests are opposed.
The applicability of the dilemma to the human condition is accordingly
seriously limited.?
A cursory aside is often added to the Prisoners' Dilemma to the effect
that the segregation of the prisoners makes no real difference.
It is claimed
that even if the prisoners could meet and discuss and even agreed to cooperate,
that would make no difference, since neither could trust (the sincerity) of
the other (Abrams, p. 193), 'neither has an incentive to keep the agreement'
(Taylor, p. 5).
Experimental and historical evidence indicates that this is
very often not so - and in a more cooperative social setting than the currently
encouraged privatisation
of life, the
extent of cooperation and trust would
o
undoubtedly be much higher.
The argument has to depend crucially then on
substantially mistaken assumptions about human propensities in various settings,
e.g. that purely egoistic interests are always pursued, backed up by a large
measure of scepticism about the reliability of other people (but if people
were that unreliable and devious,tate arrangements involved in providing
public goods/-oueh as—taxatioa-y would not succeed either) .
That such assumptions
are operating can be seen by elaborating the situation; e.g., to bring out the
first.suppose the prisoners have a common bond, e.g., they are friends or they
are political prisoners with a shared social commitment, or they are neighbours
and face a future in the same community; to bring out the philosophical
scepticism,
involved, suppose the prisoner with a tarnished record offers the
other security against default, and so on.
The question of the character of human interests and preferences
and the
extent of their determination by the social context in which they occur is
fundamental to the whole question of social and economic arrangements, and
also accordingly to arguments for the State on the basis of human propensities.
A major assumption underlying prevailing (non-Marxist) economics and associated
political theory, is that the interests and preferences, as summed up in a
preference ranking or utility function, of each human that is taken to count
�is an independent parameter, which depends neither on the preference rankings
of others nor on the social context in which that human operates.
While the
individuals and firms of mainstream economic theory do, by definition, satisfy
the independence requirements, and while there is very substantial cultural
pressure on consumers to conform (through advertising, education, popular
media), very many humans do not conform, and the extent of cultural pressure
towards privatisation itself belies the naturalness of this independence,
And, sufficiently many interest-interdependent people in a small community
A
(which is not thoroughly impoverished) is normally enough, given their social
influence, to avoid or resolve, by cooperation, the types of Prisoners'
Dilemma situations that appear to count in favour of the State.
5.
WHY THE DILEMMA ARGUMENTS CANNOT SUCCEED.
What the Dilemma-based case
for the State has to show - what never has been shown - is that there are
outs tanding Dilemma situations, which are relevant and important, and also
o’wt foot
damaging if unresolved, lint ypsoHved by State intervention, and only so
g-
fa
(optimally) resolved, ami Finallythat in the course of so resolving these
Dilemma situations, worse situations than those that are resolved are not
thereby induced.
These complex conditions cannot be satisfied, if they can be
satisfied at all, in a way that is not question begging.
For several of the
conditions are value dependent (e.g. what is important, damaging, optional,
worse) and involve considerations about whichf reasonable parties can differ.
/W/’
chuck
The selection of Dilemmas,provides an example: after all there are many such
A
A
Dilemmas (e.g. as to environmental degradation, of overexploitation, of
.—t>n Vi o!-c h
family -fs*tds) which are considered beyond the sphere of the State or not
worthy of State attention.
There are now grounds for concluding that the conditions cannot be
satisfied at all.
For many of the arguments using Prisoners' Dilemma games,
Hobbes' and Hume's arguments for the State and Hardin's "Tragedy of the
Commons" for instance, turn out when properly formalised to consist not just
of a single game but of a sequence of such games, to be more adequately
represented by what is called a supergame.
But in many such sequential
Prisoners' Dilemma games, rational "cooperation" can occur, even assuming
separated players with purely egoistic interests/^ For what sequential
games permit that isolated games exclude, is that players' actions may be
dependent upon past performance of other players.
This dependence effectively
removes one extremely unrealistic self-containment assumption from Dilemma
situations, that individuals act in totally isolated ways, not learning from
past social interaction.
In such supergames then, no intervention is required.
�7
Undoubtedly some Dilemmas are resolved by "intervention", e.g. by allowing
the prisoners to get in touch so that they find they are neighbours or that
they can really cooperate.
Equally important, and equally independent of the
State, is the matter of breaking down the adversary, or game, situation so
the prisoners do not act as competitors but are prepared to cooperate J'1
Informational input may also be important, e.g. news that each prisoner has
a good record of adhering, or if not is prepared to stake collateral, etc.
A
Nor
is force or threat of force required as an incentive to guarantee optimal
strategies : a range of other inducements and incentives
they be required in recalcitrant cases), and
is known (should
is used even by the State, e.g.
But at no stage is the State
gifts, deprivation, social pressure, etc.
required to make these arrangements: much as some real Prisoners' Dilemmas
are resolved by work of Amnesty International, so voluntary organisations
can be formed to detect and deal with Prisoners' Dilemma situations where they
are not already catered for.
And in fact communal and cooperative organisation
did resolve Prisoners' Dilemma-type situations historically, for example in
the case of the Commons.
In sum, here also replacement works.
There are no important Dilemma
situations, it seems, where the State is essential.
The State has been thought
to be essential because of certain influential false dichotomies; for example,
that all behaviour that is not egoistic is altruistic (but altruistic behaviour
is uncommon, and "irrational"), that the only way of allocating goods, apart
from profit-directed markets - which tend to deal abysmally with collective
goods - is through State control.But it is quite evident that there are
other methods of allocation, both economic (e.g. exchange, through traditional
markets, based on supply costs) and social (e.g. by cooperatives, clubs).
Lastly, introduction of the State to resolve some Dilemma situations
/J
has very extensive effects, many of them negative, so that the gains made, if
any, in so resolving Dilemma^ situations, appear to be substantially outweighed
by the costs involved.
For there are the many evil aspects of the typical State
to put in the balance.
As regards Dilemma situations, entry of the State with
ty showing may not help but may worsen some situations, and more
,
new Dilemmas may be initiated by State activity, as/
/A
t * /<»
the working
differently with the State as a further player (since the State
may engage in whaling, have access to a commons, etc.).
also to further arguments against the State.
These points lead
�9
to accept.
(Toleration of such a tamed democracy then brings benefits to
those who hold power, especially the cover of legitimation).
But institutional
checks which operate only insofar as a ^system*^ acceptable to the powerholders
is not seriously challenged, and which depend ultimately upon the toleration
of those checked,^ are not really checks at all.
£
gand preventing
The problem of controlling the power of the State, 'ur
IA
the State once established from usurping further power and exceeding its
mandate, is only satisfactorily solved by not ceding power to the State in the
first place.
The best way of avoiding the evils of accumulated power is the
anarchist way, of blocking its accumulation.
8.
THE FOURTH WAY : THE ARGUMENT FROM FREEDOM AND AUTONOMY.
responsible for actions deliberately undertaken.
A person is
This premiss can be derived,
if need be, from the notion of a person as a moral agent,
Taking responsibility
for one's actions implies, among other things, making the final decision about
what to do on each occasion oneself; not acting simply on direction from outside,A
4
determining how to act, what ought to be done, oneself; not handing that decision
over to someone or something else. , It implies, that is, moral autonomy,
Autonomy in turn implies, what responsibility requires, freedom.
For the
autonomous being, endorsing its own decisions and principles, is not subject
to the will of another.
another so directs.
Even if it does what another directs, it is not because
In being free, not of constraints (both physical and
self-determined), but of the constraints and will of others, an autonomous
being is morally free.
A necessary feature of the State is authority over those in its territory
(under its de facto jurisdiction), the right to rule and impose its will upon
them.
Such authority backed by force is incompatible with moral autonomy and
with freedom.
An autonomous being, though it may act in accordance with some
imperatives of the State, those it independently endorses, is bound to reject
such (a claim to) authority, and therewith the State.
7
s
In sum, being a person,
as also being autonomous and being free, implies rejecting the authority
of the State, and so not acknowledging the State; that is, each condition on
, ika.
/J
18
personhiood implies^anarchism.
V
It is possible to combine autonomy with an extremely attenuated "State",
one based on on-going unanimous direct democracy.
But such a "State", with no
independent authority, is not really a state, since any participant can dissolve
it at any time, and so constitutes no threat to anarchism,
On the contrary,
such direct democratic methods are part of the very stuff of anarchistic
organisation.
�10
9.
The replacement
THE FIFTH WAY : THE ARGUMENT FROM ANARCHIST EXPERIENCE.
argument enables construction of a model of a society functioning without the
State, of a practically possible Stateless world; which shows that the State
is not necessary.
But it can always be claimed - even if the claim can seldom
or ever be made good - that the modelling leaves out some crucial feature of
real world circumstances, rendering it inapplicable.
The gap may be closed by
appeal to the independently valuable argument from experience, that at various
times and places anarchism has been tested and has worked.
Examples of such
Stateless organisation suffice to show that crucial real world features have
not been omitted.
There are many examples of nonindustrialised societies which were, or are,
19
anarchistic, there is the rich experience of the Spanish collectives,
and
there is much localised experience of self-management and small-scale anarchistic
20
arrangements within the State structure.
10. THE EMERGING CHARACTER OF ANARCHISM AND ITS ORGANISATION.
The arguments
outlined, predominantly theoretical, inform the practical, revealing the
options open for anarchism, courses of action in superannuating the State
and for transition to a stateless Society, and so on.
For example, spontaneous
anarchism — according to which organisation is unnecessary and social arrange
ments will arise spontaneously, and will be ushered in during the revolution
without any prior organisation — is a position which is not viable and could
not endure, because it makes none of the requisite replacements upon which
durable supersession of the State depends.
which these theoretical arguments.
A
The sort of anarchist society
will certainly be organised, but the
organisation will not be compulsory, and will eschew authoritarian measures
(and, by the overshoot argument, will reject transition by any strengthening
of the centralised State), relying heavily on voluntary cooperation and direct
democracy.
The society which emerges will be much as Bakunin and Kropotkin
sometimes pictured it.
It will be based on smaller-scale decentralised
communities, for otherwise such arrangements as community replacement of
State welfare arrangements, control of their environment, removal of
Prisoners' Dilemmas, and participatory democracy, will work less satisfactorily.
Communities will be federated and control will be bottom-up, not merely by
representation and subject to a downward system of command.
Within each
community there will not be great discrepancies in the distribution of wealth
and property, and no highly concentrated economic
power.
community will be a rather equalitarian group, sharing in much that is
communally owned or not owned at all.
A
�11
While theoretical arguments help outline the general shape of social and
also economic arrangements they do not determine them completely, they offer
no detailed blueprint.
Accordingly what emerges is not a particular form of
anarchism, for instance anarchist communism, but a more experimental and
pluralistic anarchism, such as was instituted in the Spanish collectives.
11. STRATEGIES FOR TRANSITION TO ANARCHIST SOCIETY ; THE FOREST SUCCESSION
MODEL OF REPLACEMENT BY AN ALTERNATIVE STRUCTURE.
The main strategy, emerging
from the First Way, is that of replacement : transition to a new anarchist
social order proceeds by replacement or addption of the more satisfactory State
organisations and structures by organisations and structures of a more
anarchistic cast, and by removal or phasing out of remaining no longer
necessary or unsatisfactory State arrangements.
Replacement and supersession suggest a biological model, of such change
and succession as occurs where one forest type succeeds another; and such
a model is in turn very suggestive.
To make the model more definite, and
to give it some local colour, consider forest succession where a sub-tropical
rainforest replaces a eucalypt forest, as analogous to the case where anarchism
replaces a Statist society.
There is certainly a marked change in structure,
typically from a tall forest with a fairly open canopy to a more compact
closed forest with more layers of vegetation, much more local diversity and
a richer variety of life forms, especially floral forms.
A forest is not
merely a set of trees, but trees in structural arrangement and interdependence,
not merely on one another but on other life forms such as pollinating insects,
seed-carrying birds and animals, and so on; and the changes in structure
include changes in microclimate, in soil moisture levels and humus and
bacterial content.
The change of forest type may be by evolution, by hastened or induced
evolution, or by catastrophe (revolution) as when a eucalypt forest is
clearfelled and artificially succeeded by planted rainforest.
(Strictly,
there is a spectrum of practices and replacement strategies between evolutionary
and revolutionary, and various different revolutionary strategies; and the
standard evolutionary-revolutionary contrast presents a false dichotomy.)
Even reliance on predominantly evolutionary methods, which tend to be
very slow by human time scales may require some (management) practices, else
evolution towards rainforest will not begin or continue.
For example, seeds
for rainforest species may not be available if adjoining areas have been
stripped of suitable seed trees, e.g. by clearing or eucalypt conversion,
in which case it will be necessary to introduce seeds (of anarchist ideas,
methods, arrangements, etc.).
And rainforest evolution may not be able to
�13
12. APPLYING THE FOREST SUCCESSION MODEL.
How to apply the model is not
difficult to see in broad outline, and many of the further details have
been filled out by work, that can be described as indicating how allegiance
can be shifted in practice from where we mostly are to alternative social
22.
arrangements and life-styles built on self-management and mutual aid.
The seeds of anarchism should be broadcast or planted, anarchist (nonStatist)
arrangements instituted or strengthened, and efforts made to replace or
vulnerable Statist arrangements.^ Some of the practices are familiar :
'anarchist groups, clubs, pamphlets, broadcasts, newsletters, etc.; (anarchist)
cooperatives, exchanges, neighbourhood groups, rural communities, etc.
Others
are slightly less familiar: avoidance of State influence by arrangements beyond
State reach such as costless (or alternative currency) interchanges of
goods and services, action directed at removing decision-making from State
departments, such as forest services, and into citizen hands, and ultimately, to
decentralized local communities.
In this sort of way worthwhile State arrangements
can be replaced, and power can be progressively transferred from the State, and
returned to the community and to people more directly involved.
"V-
ht)
�FOOTNOTES
1.
Bakunin on Anarchy (edited S. Dolgoff), Allen & Unwin, London,
especially p. 139.
1973,
Much else in this paper, e.g. the distinction
between the State and Society, also derives from Bakunin.
2.
That is, proper elaboration of this argument takes each facet of
generally beneficial state activity - there is only a
(relatively small) finite number to consider - and shows how it
can be replaced in one way or another.
course uniquely determined.
Replacement is not of
Lines such replacements can take are
indicated in much anarchist (and self-management) literature,
consider especially, but not uncritically, P. Kropotkin, Mutual Aid.
New York University Press,
1972, and also his Fields, Factories and
Workshops, second edition, Nelson, London, 1913, and The Conquest
of Bread, Chapman and Hall, London, 1913.
3.
On these points see, e.g. Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets (edited
S. Baldwin), Dover Publications, New York,
1970, p. 206 ff. ; also
P.J. Proudhon, Confessions of a Revolutionary .
For recent discussion
of, and practical examples of, replacements for arbitration and law
court procedures (but for right-leaning anarchism), see C.D. Stone,
'Some reflections on arbitrating our way to anarchy', A
Nomos / XIX^New York University Press, 1978, pp. 213-4.
V
4.
J-
Arguments of this type are sometimes said to represent 'the strongest
case that can be made for the desirability of the State'
Anarchy and Cooperation, Wiley, London, 1976, p. 9).
(M. Taylor,
To cover all
arguments of the type, and to avoid repetition of the phrase 'variants
of' and disputes as to whether certain arguments such as those of
Hume and of Olson involve Prisoners' Dilemma situations,
'Prisoner's
Dilemma' is used in a wide sense to include not merely single n-person
Prisoners' Dilemma games, but for example, games where the payoffs are
X
not merely e^gjistic (as with both Hobbes and Hume) and where such
games are iterated.
As the bracketed clauses in the text indicate,
there are two types of case, not sharply separated and both of
the same logical form - those where people do not contribute to
supply themselves with, or with "optimum" quantities of, a
"collective good" (e.g. security, order, sewage), and those where
people do not restrain themselves to maintain, or maintain "optimum"
quantities of, some already available "collective good" (e.g. commons,
�2
unpolluted streams, whales, wilderness).
That received arguments
of all these types involves Prisoners' Dilemma situations (in the
wide sense) is argued, in effect, in Taylor, op. cit. and elsewhere.
An easier introduction to the material covered by Taylor, which also
surveys other important literature, is given in the final chapter
of R. Abrams, Foundations of Political Analysis, Columbia University
Press, New York,
5.
1980.
An important matter the two player game does not illustrate is the relevance
of population size in the arguments for the State.
But size is not
decisive (see, e.g., Taylor, chapter 2), and the issue can be avoided
(or relocated) by organisation info
The figures
smaller communities.
given in the matrix are illustrative only; for inequalities which
suffice for a Dilemma situation, see Taylor, p. 5.
6.
It is similarly bizarre that there should be outcomes that the State
alone is said to be able to arrange, but not mere social cooperation,
when the State is (as on many theories) the result or reflection of
social cooperation.
7.
This important point is much elaborated in V. and R. Routley,
Theories, Self Management, and
'Social
Environmental Problems' in
Environmental Philosophy (edited D. Mannison and others), RSSS,
Australian National University, 1980.
8.
As a result of G. Hardin's "Travesty of the Commons", historical evidence
has been assembled which reveals how far Hardin's "Commons" diverges
from historic commons; see, in particular, A. Roberts, The Self-
Managing Environment, Allison & BUfsby, London, 1979, chapter 10,
but also Routley, op. cit., p. 285 and pp. 329-332.
Similar points
apply as regards many other Dilemma situations.
'In the. experimental studies of the prisoner's dilemma game
approximately half of the participants choose a cooperative strategy
even when they know for certain that the other player will cooperate'.
Abrams, op. cit., p. 308.
9.
Cf.
the discussion in Taylor, op. cit., p. 93.
�3
10. This important result is established in Taylor, op. cit., for a number of
critical cases, though not generally; see, e.g. p. 32 but especially
chapter 5.
11. Such moves have proved valuable in reducing the State's role in legal
prosecution, and in eliminating courtroom procedures, including
cases where the State is one of the "adversaries".
12. Both the false dichotomies cited are commonplace, not to say rife,
in modem economic and political theorising.
Both are to be
found in Abram's final chapter, for example, and the firstJ^(with an
attempt to plaster over the gap with a definition^/
op. cit., p. 250 ff.
13. For instance, a certain social escapism : one escapes
one's social roles
erf
and is enabled to concentrate on private affairs or just to laze.
Or so it may appear : for in reality anyone who works, works long and
often alienated hours to pay for this apparent escapism and to cover
the high costs of frequently inadequate State activity.
cit., chapter 7.
A related argument, also in Bakunin, is from the way
o/icA
14. The argument, to be found in Bakunin, is elaborated a little in Taylor, op.
in which emergence of the State compromises and even closes off
regions.
15. The question is in effect Plato's question, and the regress is reminiscent
of his Third Man argument.
16. K.R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. II.
Fourth edition
(revised), Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1962, p. 129 and p. 127.
The (overshoot) problem is, according to Popper 'the most fundamental
problem of all politics: the control of the controller, of the
dangerous accumulation of power represented in the State1, 'upon which'
Marxists never had 'any well-considered view'
(p. 129).
17. V. Lauber, 'Ecology, politics and liberal democracy', Government and
Opposition 13 (1978), 199-217: see p. 209 and p.(^25jTP
18. The argument, outlined by Bakunin, is much elaborated in R.P. l/olff,
In Defense of Anarchism, Harper & Row, New York, 1970.
No argument
is however without assumptions, which are open to dispute.
argument, for example^is disputed by G. Wall, 'Philosophical
anarchism revised' Nomos XIX, op. cit., p. 273 ff.
Wolff's
i
nonstate solutions to problems of social organisation in adjoining
�THE IRREFUTABILITY OF ANARCHISM
1.
GOD, THE CHURCH, AND THE STATE.
The State is like God:
the
anarchist is like the atheist in disbelief and nonrecognition of what is
commonly assumed, mostly as a matter of faith, to be needed.
The parallel,
drawn by Bakunin, has its weaknesses as well as its strengths.
While
the atheist believes that God does not exist, the anarchist does not believe
that there are no states:
none are legitimate.
on the contrary, there are all too many, though
The important parallel is as to arguments.
The
agnostic does not believe that the arguments for the existence of God succeed,
and so adopts a "neutral" stance; similarly the State-agnostic does not believe
that the arguments for the State work, and likewise tries to adopt a fence
Soundly based atheism goes further than agnosticism, not
sit-ting position.
only faulting the arguments for, but taking it for granted that there are
arguments, or at least solid considerations, against.
So it is with soundly
,
nene.
based anarchism^ which can both faults arguments for the State^and
(ncisi'je.
X case against the State.
A more obvious comparison, appreciated from Reformation on and again
emphasised by Bakunin^- is that of State and Church.Clx This institutional
comparison enables several relevant features of the State to be emphasised;
for example, how, as the Church used to, the State assigns to itself many
very extensive powers, such as a monopoly on the production and control of
the main medium of exchange, currency, and an ultimate monopoly an
organised violence, all other internal security arrangements being eventually
answerable to its police and military; how it is of the same category as
A
business organisations such as multinationals, which now to some extent
threaten it but by and large collaborate with it; how, as again the Church
used to, it has nominal support of most of its "subjects", though many of
them are little better than Sunday believers, and an increasing number have
come to see the State as in many respects evil and inevitably corrupt, but
as a necessary evil
Whether the State is inevitably evil or not, it is unnecessary, so it will
be argued, in a way parallelling the famous Five Ways of Aquinas designed to prove
that God exists.
Since the State is unnecessary, as well as
costly
and
typically at least evil in many of its practices and undesirable in other
respects, it should be superseded.
social arrangements.,^
And it can be succeeded, by alternative
�2. THE FIRST WAY OF SHOWING THAT THE STATE IS NOT REQUIRED : THE REPLACEMENT
ARGUMENT.
The core of the argument is simple and persuasive: everything in the
collective interest accomplished by the State can equally be accomplished by
alternative arrangements such as voluntary cooperation, the remainder of State
activity being dispensed with.
The argument is not a straight substitution
argument, for it is not as if a rational person would want to have everything
accomplished by the State replicated by alternative arrangements.
There is much
the State does or supports that is at best rather indifferent, e.g. sponsorship
of pomp and ceremony and of junkets by VIPs; and a great deal of typical State
activity is positively evil and not in the collective interest, e.g. graft,
corruption, brutality, maintenance of inequitable distribution of wealth, land
and other resources, and encouragement or protection of polluting or
environmentally destructive industries (e.g. without state sponsorship we should
not be well embarked on a nuclear future, without state assistance and
subsidization Australia would not be burdened with its extensive forest
destructive pine planting and woodchip projects).
The modern State has however many other functions than repressive or
damaging ones, functions of community welfare or of otherwise beneficial J$ind.
This does not upset the replacement argument for anarchism.
The argumertf:, implicit
in the works of the classical anarchists, goes like this:- The functions of
the State can be divided into two types, those that are in the collective interest
and generally beneficial such as community welfare and organisational functions,
and those that are not (but are, presumably, in the interests of some of the
powerful groups the State tends to serve).
But as regards functions of the first type, the generally beneficial functions
which are in the collective interest, no coercion is required.
For why should
people have to be coerced into carrying out functions which are in their
collective interest?
Such functions can be performed, and performed better,
without the coercion which is the hallmark of of the State, and without the
accompanying tendency of the State to pervert such functions to the maintenance
of privilege and inequality of power, and to remove power from those it "serves".
The detailed argument that such functions can be performed takes a case by case
2
form, considering each function in turn.
In each case the function is carried
out through alternative arrangements, such as voluntary cooperation by the
people directly concerned, which replace State arrangements.
Consider, for
example, the operation of mutual aid or self help medical services or building
programs, or self managed welfare, housing or environment services, or community
access communications (e.g. radio)^ most of which are presently either starved
of infrastructure or hindered by the State.
Such beneficial services would in
general be reorganised so that all the relevant infrastructure became communally
�3
held, and those wishing to arrange or use the service would manage the
operation themselves, taking the operation into their own hands instead of
being the passive recipients of favours meted out to them by professionals
and powerful agencies.
Coercion is unnecessary because, in more communal
types of anarchism, the basic infrastructure and many resources (other than
individual labour) are already held by the community, so there is no need to
apply coercion to individuals to extract these resources needed for community
welfare projects, as there is in the situation where wealth and resources are
privatised and coercion is required to wrest resources from unwilling private
individuals.
As for the second type of functions, those which are not in the
collective interest, coercion will normally be required for the performance of
those functions, and is thus an essential part of the State's operation.
But
those functions are better dispensed with, since they are not in the collective
interest.
In this way, while the good part of the State's operation is
retained and improved upon, the bad part - especially the evils of brutality,
corruption and other abuses invariably associated with the coercive apparatus is detached.
State services that are concerned with order, in the general sense, may
be similarly removed or replaced.
These services, which include reduction of
violence to persons and redress for such violence, quarantine services,
security, orderly operation of traffic, and so on, have often been said to
make for especial difficulties for anarchism, or even to refute it.
do not.
They
Firstly, disputes can be settled and offences dealt with directly by
communities themselves without intervention by the State.
Secondly, a great
many of these problems are created or enhanced by the State, e.g. violence
of which the State is the main purveyor and which is often the outcome of
ol
3
the State's propping up of gross inequities.
A community which seriously
limits (or dispenses with) the institution of private property and removes
a//
gross inequities in the distribution of wealth thereby removes the need for
many "welfare" services and the basis for a great many offences involving
violence: virtually all those involving violence to private property and
many of those involving personal violence.
Such a left-leaning anarchism is
also quite invulnerable to further familiar, but ludicrous, arguments for the
State, such as those from the fairer distribution of land, property and wealth
that is alleged to be achieved by State enforcement of redistribution.
As all
too many people are aware, a major function of the State is to maintain and
police inequitable distributionThis then is the main classical argument
for anarchism.
The argument has however been challenged, both by historical
�and more recent objections, which are designed to show that people cannot
act in their collective interest without coercion.
3.
THE CASE AGAINST REPLACEMENT FROM PRISONERS' DILEMMA SITUATIONS AND THE
LIKE.
The main arguments designed to rebut the replacement argument for
anarchism and to buttress the State status quo, are based on variants of the
Prisoners' Dilemma, to the effect that there are important cases where
---------
(?)
individuals will not agree“or cooperate to provide themselves with (or to
maintain) collective goods without coercion, such as only the State can
4
furnish.
In such "dilemma" situations each individual will hope to gain
advantage, without contributing (or exercising restraint), from others'
contributions (or restraint), by freeloading on others (or profiting from
others' restraint).
The claim is that only the State with its backing
of force can resolve such situations: anarchistic replacement cannot succeed. (6J
A basic ingredient of a considerable variety of arguments of this type,
including Hobbes' and Hume's arguments for the State, the "Tragedy of the
Commons" argument, and recent economic arguments for State intervention to
secure collective goods, is the single Prisoners' Dilemma game with just two
players.Two prisoners, 1 and 2, taken to be accomplices in a crime, have
been separately imprisoned.
A State representative makes the following offers
separately to each: if the prisoner confesses and becomes a State's witness while
his or her accomplice remains silent, he or she will be released at once while
the accomplice gets 8 years.
It so happens that if both prisoners remain
silent the State has only enough evidence to impose a 1 year sentence.
if both confess they would each receive 4 years.
But
The "game" can be summarised
in the following "payoff" matrix:-
Prisoner 2
The game is not intended to present a moral dilemma, that each can only go free
at the cost of the others' freedom, but the following dilemma:- It is in
each prisoner's private interest to choose strategy C no matter what the other
does : strategy C is, in the jargon, each players' "dominant" strategy (and also
in fact a minimax strategy).
For if 2, for example, remains silent, then 1 goes
free by confessing, while if 2 confesses, then 1 halves his or her sentence by
confessing.
But if both prisoners choose their dominant strategy they obtain
an inferior outcome to that which would have resulted by what is tendentiously
called "cooperating", by their both remaining silent.
�5
4. FOILING THE PRISONERS'
DILEMMA ARGUMENT.
It is bizarre that a dilemma
alleged to show the necessity of the State - which is supposed to intervene,
forcibly if required, to ensure that the prisoners "cooperate" to obtain an
optimal outcome - should be set up by the State's own operative.Of course
the State's presence in arranging (or accentuating) some such dilemma£is
inessential, as is much else from the example.
But some features of the
prisoner's relations are essential, in particular the separability assumption
that the prisoners are isolated, and so have no opportunity to communicate
or really cooperate.
Similarly, in the more general argument, a privatisation
assumption is smuggled in in the way the dilemma is formulated, that we are
dealing with self contained individuals who, like the prisoners, act only in
their own narrowly construed private interests and whose interests are opposed.
The applicability of the dilemma to the human condition is accordingly
seriously limited.?
A cursory aside is often added to the Prisoners' Dilemma to the effect
that the segregation of the prisoners makes no real difference.
It is claimed
that even if the prisoners could meet and discuss and even agreed to cooperate,
that would make no difference, since neither could trust (the sincerity) of
the other (Abrams, p. 193), 'neither has an incentive to keep the agreement'
(Taylor, p. 5).
Experimental and historical evidence indicates that this is
very often not so - and in a more cooperative social setting than the currently
encouraged privatisation
of life, the
extent of cooperation and trust would
o
undoubtedly be much higher.
The argument has to depend crucially then on
substantially mistaken assumptions about human propensities in various settings,
e.g. that purely egoistic interests are always pursued, backed up by a large
measure of scepticism about the reliability of other people (but if people
were that unreliable and deviousState arrangements involved in providing
public goodsy such as taxation', would not succeed either).
That such assumptions
are operating can be seen by elaborating the situation; e.g., to bring out the
first,suppose the prisoners have a common bond, e.g., they are friends or they
are political prisoners with a shared social commitment, or they are neighbours
and face a future in the same community; to bring out the philosophical
scepticism,
involved, suppose the prisoner with a tarnished record offers the
other security against default, and so on.
The question of the character of human interests and preferences
and the
extent of their determination by the social context in which they occur is
fundamental to the whole question of social and economic arrangements, and
also accordingly to arguments for the State on the basis of human propensities.
A major assumption underlying prevailing (non-Marxist) economics and associated
political theory, is that the interests and preferences, as summed up in a
preference ranking or utility function, of each human that is taken to count
�is an independent parameter, which depends neither on the preference rankings
of others nor on the social context in which that human operates.
While the
individuals and firms of mainstream economic theory do, by definition, satisfy
the independence requirements, and while there is very substantial cultural
pressure on consumers to conform (through advertising, education, popular
media), very many humans do not conform, and the extent of cultural pressure
towards privatisation itself belies the naturalness of this independence.
And^sufficiently many interest-interdependent people in a small community
(which is not thoroughly impoverished) is normally enough, given their social
influence, to avoid or resolve, by cooperation, the types of Prisoners'
Dilemma situations that appear to count in favour of the State.
5. WHY THE DILEMMA ARGUMENTS CANNOT SUCCEED.'
What the Dilemma-based case
for the State has to show - what never has been shown - is that there are
outstanding Dilemma situations, which are relevant and important, and also
qaA'-fkc-l'
oft
damaging if unresolved,\but resolve^/by State intervention, and only so
A A- jZAz-zv
(optimally) resolved, and finally.that in the course of so resolving these
Dilemma situations, worse situation than those that are resolved are not
thereby induced.
These complex conditions cannot be satisfied, if they can be
satisfied at all, in a way that is not question begging.
For several of the
conditions are value dependent (e.g. what is important, damaging, optional,
worse) and involve considerations about which reasonable parties can differ.
The selection of Dilemmas^provides an example^: after all there are many such
Dilemmas (e.g. as to environmental degradation, of overexploitation, of
l/«o|on<c or
family, feuds) which are considered beyond the sphere of the State or not
worthy of State attention.
There are now grounds for concluding that the conditions cannot be
satisfied at all.
For many of the arguments using Prisoners' Dilemma games,
Hobbes' and Hume's arguments for the State and Hardin's "Tragedy of the
Commons" for instance, turn out when properly formalised to consist not just
of a single game but of a sequence of such games, to be more adequately
represented by what is called a supergame.
But in many such sequential
Prisoners' Dilemma games, rational "cooperation" can occur, even assuming
separated players with purely egoistic interests?^ For what sequential
games permit that isolated games exclude, is that players' actions may be
dependent upon past performance of other players.
This dependence effectively
removes one extremely unrealistic self-containment assumption from Dilemma
situations, that individuals act in totally isolated ways, not learning from
past social interaction.
In such supergames then, no intervention is required.
�7
Undoubtedly some Dilemmas are resolved by "intervention", e.g. by allowing
the prisoners to get in touch so that they find they are neighbours or that
they can really cooperate.
Equally important, and equally independent of the
State, is the matter of breaking down the adversary, or game, situation so
the prisoners do not act as competitors but are prepared to cooperate.
Informational input may also be important, e.g. news that each prisoner has
a good record of adhering, or if not is prepared to stake collateral, etc.
A
Nor
is force or threat of force required as an incentive to guarantee optimal
strategies : a range of other inducements and incentives
they be required in recalcitrant cases), and
is known (should
is used even by the State, e.g.
But at no stage is the State
gifts, deprivation, social pressure, etc.
required to make these arrangements: much as some real Prisoners’ Dilemmas
are resolved by work of Amnesty International, so voluntary organisations
can be formed to detect and deal with Prisoners' Dilemma situations where they
are not already catered for.
And in fact communal and cooperative organisation
did resolve Prisoners' Dilemma-type situations historically, for example in
the case of the Commons.
In sum, here also replacement works.
There are no important Dilemma
situations, it seems, where the State is essential.
The State has been thought
to be essential because of certain influential false dichotomies; for example,
that all behaviour that is not egoistic is altruistic (but altruistic behaviour
is uncommon, and "irrational"), that the only way of allocating goods, apart
from profit-directed markets - which tend to deal abysmally with collective
goods - is through State control.1-
But it is quite evident that there are
other methods of allocation, both economic (e.g. exchange, through traditional
markets, based on supply costs) and social (e.g. by cooperatives, clubs).
Lastly, introduction of the State to resolve some Dilemma situations
has very extensive effects', many of them negative, so that the gains made, if
any, in so resolving Dilemma1
situations, appear to be substantially outweighed
by the costs involved.
For there are the many evil aspects of the typical State
to put in the balance.
As regards Dilemma situations, entry of the State with
its authority showing may not help but may worsen some situations, and more
/A
of
important, new Dilemmas may be initiated by State activity, as with the working
example, or differently with the State as a further player (since the State
may engage in whaling, have access to a commons, etc.).
also to further arguments against the State.
These points lead
�8
6.
THE SECOND WAY : THE ARGUMENT FROM PROBLEM RECURRENCE^/
The solution
by the State to problems of social organisation repeats or generates in more
dangerous form the very problems introduction of the State was designed to
solve, including new Dilemmas.
Suppose, for instance, the secular State really
were introduced in order to solve Prisoners' Dilemmas - introduced as opposed
to inherited from the religious State and the Church, and maintained to prop
up privilege and foster objectives that are not in its communities' interests -
then the array of States generates new Prisoners' Dilemmas, which there is no
Super-State to resolve by coercion.
Suppose, as the myth has it, the State
really were introduced in the interest of order and stability and to curb
violence; then the arrays of States resulting more than negates these advantages,
with instability, disorder and violence on a grander scale than before the
14
emergence of modem secular States.
7.
THE THIRD WAY : THE OVERSHOOT ARGUMENT,FROM THE INADEQUACY OF
INSTITUTIONAL CONTROLS ON STATE POWER.
Having ceded a monopoly on power to
the State, in order to resolve some dilemmas, some of them arising from an
oontrols or balances the power of the
inequitable distribution of power, what
State?
A Super-State.
And its power?
There is a
vicious infinite regress
if the reply to the question "What controls the controller?" is "a further
controller".^ The only promising way of avoiding this problem - other routes
lead (even more) directly to totalitarianism - is by having the first of these
controllers, the State, answer back to those in whose interests it is allegedly
established,
those of the society or group of communities it controls.
implies democratic methods of some kind.
Others go further:
This
'democracy Lis]
the only known means to achieve this control, the only known device by which
, 16
we can try to protect ourselves against the misuse of political power .
In this event, control has mostly failed.
Democracy is extremely attenuated,
even in those states that claim to practice it.
The exercise of power in modern
"democratic" states - much increased power reaching deep into peoples' lives,
power which has passed to certain political elites and is directed at the
attainment of such objectives as economic growth and material "progress" - is
often channelled through 'non-elected authority' and 'is not democratic in the
traditional meaning of the term'.In any case, indirect democratic and other
institutional checks are tenuous in as much as
they depend ultimately on the
toleration of those who have direct control of the forces of the State.
Experience seems to show that such toleration will only be shown so long as
democratic procedures deliver results that are not too disagreeable, that are
broadly in accord with what those who control the coercive power are prepared
�9
to accept.
(Toleration of such a tamed democracy then brings benefits to
those who hold power, especially the cover of legitimation).
But institutional
/I
checks which operate only insofar as a "system" acceptable to the powerholders
is not seriously challenged, and which depend ultimately upon the toleration
of those checked, are not really checks at all.
n.
? ’■
The problem of controlling the power of the State, u/surping and preventing
the State once established from usurping further power and exceeding its
mandate, is only satisfactorily solved by not ceding power to the State in the
first place.
The best way of avoiding the evils of accumulated power is the
anarchist way, of blocking its accumulation.
8. THE FOURTH WAY : THE ARGUMENT FROM FREEDOM AND AUTONOMY.
responsible for actions deliberately undertaken.
A person is
This premiss can be derived,
if need be, from the notion of a person as a moral agent.
Taking responsibility
for one's actions implies, among other things, making the final decision about
what to do on each occasion oneself; not acting simply on direction from outside,£»/
A
determining how to act, what ought to be done, oneself; not handing that decision
over to someone or something else.
It implies, that is, moral autonomy.
Autonomy in turn implies, what responsibility requires, freedom.
For the
autonomous being, endorsing its own decisions and principles, is not subject
to the will of another.
another so directs.
Even if it does what another directs, it is not because
In being free, not of constraints (both physical and
self-determined), but of the constraints and will of others, an autonomous
being is morally free.
A necessary feature of the State is authority over those in its territory
(under its de facto jurisdiction), the right to rule and impose its will upon
them.
Such authority backed by force is incompatible with moral autonomy and
with freedom.
An autonomous being, though it may act in accordance with some
imperatives of the State, those it independently endorses, is bound to reject
such (a claim to) authority, and therewith the State.
In sum, being a person,
as also being autonomous and being free, implies rejecting the authority
of the State, and so not acknowledging the State; that is, each condition on
ike.
a
>18
personhood implies anarchism.
It is possible to combine autonomy with an extremely attenuated "State",
one based on on-going unanimous direct democracy.
But such a "State", with no
independent authority, is not really a state, since any participant can dissolve
it at any time, and so constitutes no threat to anarchism.
On the contrary,
such direct democratic methods are part of the very stuff of anarchistic
organisation.
�10
9.
THE FIFTH WAY : THE ARGUMENT FROM ANARCHIST EXPERIENCE.
The replacement
argument enables construction of a model of a society functioning without the
State, of a practically possible Stateless world; which shows that the State
is not necessary.
But it can always be claimed - even if the claim can seldom
or ever be made good - that the modelling leaves out some crucial feature of
real world circumstances, rendering it inapplicable.
The gap may be closed by
appeal to the independently valuable argument from experience, that at various
times and places anarchism has been tested and has worked.
Examples of such
Stateless organisation suffice to show that crucial real world features have
not been omitted.
There are many examples of nonindustrialised societies which were, or are,
19
anarchistic, there is the rich experience of the Spanish collectives,
and
there is much localised experience of self-management and small-scale anarchistic
20
arrangements within the State structure.
10. THE EMERGING CHARACTER OF ANARCHISM AND ITS ORGANISATION.
The arguments
outlined, predominantly theoretical, inform the practical, revealing the
options open for anarchism, courses of action in superannuating the State
and for transition to a stateless Society, and so on.
For example, spontaneous
anarchism — according to which organisation is unnecessary and social arrange
ments will arise spontaneously, and will be ushered in during the revolution
without any prior organisation — is a position which is not viable and could
not endure, because it makes none of the requisite replacements upon which
durable supersession of the State depends. The sort of anarchist society
deJintafe.
which these theoretical arguments
will certainly be organised, but the
A
organisation will not be compulsory, and will eschew authoritarian measures
(and, by the overshoot argument, will reject transition by any strengthening
of the centralised State), relying heavily on voluntary cooperation and direct
democracy.
The society which emerges will be much as Bakunin and Kropotkin
sometimes pictured it.
It will be based on smaller-scale decentralised
communities, for otherwise such arrangements as community replacement of
State welfare arrangements, control of their environment, removal of
Prisoners' Dilemmas, and participatory democracy, will work less satisfactorily.
Communities will be federated and control will be bottom-up, not merely by
representation and subject to a downward system of command.
Within each
community there will not be great discrepancies in the distribution of wealth
Zand property, and no highly concentrated economic
power. A
community will be a rather equalitarian group, sharing in much that is
communally owned or not owned at all.
�FOOTNOTES
1.
Bakunin on Anarchy (edited S. Dolgoff), Allen & Unwin, London, 1973,
especially p. 139.
Much else in this paper, e.g. the distinction
between the State and Society, also derives from Bakunin.
2.
That is, proper elaboration of this argument takes each facet of
generally beneficial state activity - there is only a
(relatively small) finite number to consider - and shows how it
can be replaced in one way or another.
course uniquely determined.
Replacement is not of
Lines such replacements can take are
indicated in much anarchist (and self-management) literature,
consider especially, but not uncritically, P. Kropotkin, Mutual Aid.
New York University Press,
1972, and also his Fields, Factories and
Workshops, second edition, Nelson, London, 1913, and The Conquest
of Bread, Chapman and Hall, London, 1913.
3.
On these points see, e.g. Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets (edited
S. Baldwin), Dover Publications, New York, 1970, p. 206 ff.; also
P.O. Proudhon, Confessions of a Revolutionary.
For recent discussion
of, and practical examples of, replacements for arbitration and law
court procedures (but for right-leaning anarchism), see C.D. Stone,
'Some reflections on arbitrating our way to anarchy', Anarchism(<y>»~7
Nomos, XIX), New York University Press, 1978, pp. 213-4.
4.
Arguments of this type are sometimes said to represent 'the strongest
case that can be made for the desirability of the State'
Anarchy and Cooperation, Wiley, London, 1976, p. 9).
(M. Taylor,
To cover all
arguments of the type, and to avoid repetition of the phrase 'variants
of' and disputes as to whether certain arguments such as those of
Hume and of Olson involve Prisoners' Dilemma situations,
'Prisoner's
Dilemma' is used in a wide sense to include not merely single n-person
Prisoners' Dilemma games, but for example, games where the payoffs are
not merely eristic (as with both Hobbes and Hume) and where such
games are iterated.
As the bracketed clauses in the text indicate,
there are two types of case, not sharply separated and both of
che same logical form - those where people do not contribute to
supply themselves with, or with "optimum" quantities of, a
"collective good" (e.g. security, order, sewage), and those where
people do not restrain themselves to maintain, or maintain "optimum
quantities of, some already available "collective good" (e.g. commons,
�2
unpolluted streams, whales, wilderness).
That received arguments
of all these types involves Prisoners' Dilemma situations (in the
wide sense) is argued, in effect, in Taylor, op. cit. and elsewhere.
An easier introduction to the material covered by Taylor, which also
surveys other important literature, is given in the final chapter
of R. Abrams, Foundations of Political Analysis, Columbia University
Press, New York,
5.
1980.
An important matter the two player game does not illustrate is the relevance
of population size in the arguments for the State.
But size is not
decisive (see, e.g., Taylor, chapter 2), and the issue can be avoided
(or relocated) by organisation into
smaller communities.
The figures
given in the matrix are illustrative only; for inequalities which
suffice for a Dilemma situation, see Taylor, p. 5.
6.
It is similarly bizarre that there should be outcomes that the State
alone is said to be able to arrange, but not mere social cooperation,
when the State is (as on many theories) the result or reflection of
social cooperation.
7.
This important point is much elaborated in V. and R. Routley, 'Social
Theories, Self Management, and
Environmental Problems' in
Environmental Philosophy (edited D. Mannison and others), RSSS,
Australian National University, 1980.
8.
As a result of G. Hardin's "Travesty of the Commons", historical evidence
has been assembled which reveals how far Hardin's "Commons" diverges
from historic commons; see, in particular, A. Roberts, The Self-
Managing Environment, Allison & Ba<sby, London, 1979, chapter 10,
<A./
but also Routley, op. cit., p. 285 and pp. 329-332.
Similar points
apply as regards many other Dilemma situations.
(
'
'In the experimental studies of the prisoner's dilemma game
.
>
approximately half of the participants choose a cooperative strategy
even when they know for certain that the other player will cooperate'.
Abrams, op. cit., p. 308.
).
Cf.
the discussion in Taylor, op. cit., p. 93.
�10. This important result is established in Taylor, op. cit., for a number of
critical cases, though not generally; see, e.g. p. 32 but especially
chapter 5.
11. Such moves have proved valuable in reducing the State's role in legal
prosecution, and in eliminating courtroom procedures, including
cases where the State is one of the "adversaries".
12. Both the false dichotomies cited are commonplace, not to say rife,
in modern economic and political theorising.
Both are to be
found in Abram's final chapter, for example, and the first (with an
attempt to plaster over the gap with a definition)
in Taylor.
For a
further criticism of such false dichotomies, see Routley, op.cit.,pp.250
13. For instance, a certain social escapism : one escapes
one's social roles
and is enabled to concentrate on private affairs or just to laze.
Or so it may appear : for in reality anyone who works, works long and
often alienated hours to pay for this apparent escapism and to cover
the high costs of frequently inadequate State activity.
14. The argument, to be found in Bakunin, is elaborated a little in Taylor, op.
cit., chapter 7.
A related argument, also in Bakunin, is from the way
in which emergence of the State compromises and even closes off
nonstate solutions to problems of social organisation in adjoining
regions.
X
15. The question is in effect Plato's question, and the regress is reminiscent
of his Third Man argument.
16. K.R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. II.
Fourth edition
(revised), Routledge and Regan Paul, London, 1962, p.
129 and p.
127.
The (overshoot) problem is, according to Popper 'the most fundamental
problem of all politics: the control of the controller, of the
dangerous accumulation of power represented in the State1,
Marxists never had 'any well-considered view'
'upon which'
(p. 129).
17. V. Lauber, 'Ecology, politics and liberal democracy', Government and
Opposition 13 ( 1978), 199-2 17: see p. 209 and p. 211 .
18. The argument, outlined by Bakunin, is much elaborated in R.P. Wolff,
In Defense of Anarchism, Harper & Row, New York, 1970.
No argument
is however without assumptions, which are open to dispute.
Wolff's
argument, for example, is disputed by G. Wall, 'Philosophical
anarchism revised' Nomos XIX, op. cit., p. 273 ff.
While theoretical arguments help outline the general shape of social and
also economic arrangements they do not determine them completely,
no detailed blueprint.
they offer
Accordingly what emerges is not a particular form of
anarchism, for instance anarchist communism, but a more experimental and
pluralistic anarchism, such as was instituted in the Spanish collectives.
�19. Documented in The Anarchist Collectives (edited S. Dolgoff), Free Life Editions,
New York, 1974.
20. As B. Martin boldly asserts,
'The advantages of self-management and
alternative lifestyles are many and significant.
And these
alternatives are entirely feasible: there is plenty of evidence and
experience to support
operates.
their superiority over the present way society
The obstacles to self-management and alternative life
styles are powerful vested interests and institutional resistance to
change', Changing the Cogs, Friends of the Earth, Canberra, 1979,
p- 6.
21. As sketched in some of the material already cited, for example, Routley,
284 ff.
�
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b'l
2051THE IRREFUTABILITY of anarchism
1.
GOD, THE CHURCH, AND THE STATE.
The State is like God:
the
anarchist is like the atheist in disbelief and nonrecognition of what is
commonly assumed, mostly as a matter of faith, to be needed.
The parallel,
drawn by Bakunin, has its weaknesses as well as its strengths.
While
the atheist believes that God does not exist, the anarchist does not believe
that there are no states:
none are legitimate.
on the contrary, there are all too many, though
The important parallel is as to arguments.
The
agnostic does not believe that the arguments for the existence of God succeed,
and so adopts a "neutral" stance; similarly the State-agnostic does not believe
that the arguments for the State work, and likewise tries to adopt a fence
sitting position.
Soundly based atheism goes further than agnosticism, not
only faulting the arguments for, but taking it for granted that there are
arguments, or at least solid considerations, against.
So it is with soundly
based anarchism, which can both fault arguments for the State
and produce
a case against the State.
A more obvious comparison, appreciated from Reformation on and again
emphasised by Bakunin^ is that of State and Church.
This institutional
comparison enables several relevant features of the State to be emphasised;
for example, how, as the Church used to, the State assigns to itself many
very extensive powers, such as a monopoly on the production and control of
the main medium of exchange, currency, and an ultimate monopoly an
organised violence, all other internal security arrangements being eventually
answerable to its police and military; how it is of the same category as
business organisations such as multinationals, which now to some extent
threaten it but by and large collaborate with it; how, as again the Church
used to, it has nominal support of most of its "subjects", though many of
them are little better than Sunday believers, and an increasing number have
come to see the State as in many respects evil and inevitably corrupt, but
as a necessary evil.
Whether the State is inevitably evil or not, it is unnecessary, so it will
be argued, in a way parallelling the famous Five Ways of Aquinas designed to prove
that God exists.
Since the State is unnecessary, as well as
costly
and
typically at least evil in many of its practices and undesirable in other
respects, it should be superseded.
social arrangements.
And it can be succeeded, by alternative
2
2. THE FIRST WAY OF SHOWING THAT THE STATE IS NOT REQUIRED : THE REPLACEMENT
ARGUMENT.
The core of the argument is simple and persuasive: everything in the
collective interest accomplished by the State can equally be accomplished by
alternative arrangements such as voluntary cooperation, the remainder of State
activity being dispensed with.
The argument is not a straight substitution
argument, for it is not as if a rational person would want to have everything
accomplished by the State replicated by alternative arrangements.
There is much
the State does or supports that is at best rather indifferent, e.g. sponsorship
of pomp and ceremony and of junkets by VIPs; and a great deal of typical State
activity is positively evil and not in the collective interest, e.g. graft,
corruption, brutality, maintenance of inequitable distribution of wealth, land
and other resources, and encouragement or protection of polluting or
environmentally destructive industries (e.g. without state sponsorship we should
not be well embarked on a nuclear future, without state assistance and
subsidization Australia would not be burdened with its extensive forest
destructive pine planting and woodchip projects).
The modern State has however many other functions than repressive or
damaging ones, functions of community welfare or of otherwise beneficial kind.
This does not upset the replacement argument for anarchism.
The argument, implicit
in the works of the classical anarchists, goes like this:- The functions of
the State can be divided into two types, those that are in the collective interest
and generally beneficial such as community welfare and organisational functions,
and those that are not (but are, presumably, in the interests of some of the
powerful groups the State tends to serve).
But as regards functions of the first type, the generally beneficial functions
which are in the collective interest, no coercion is required.
For why should
people have to be coerced into carrying out functions which are in their
collective interest?
Such functions can be performed, and performed better,
without the coercion which is the hallmark of of the State, and without the
accompanying tendency of the State to pervert such functions to the maintenance
of privilege and inequality of power, and to remove power from those it "serves".
The detailed argument that such functions can be performed takes a case by case
2
form, considering each function in turn.
In each case the function is carried
out through alternative arrangements, such as voluntary cooperation by the
people directly concerned, which replace State arrangements.
Consider, for
example, the operation of mutual aid or self help medical services or building
programs, or self managed welfare, housing or environment services, or community
access communications (e.g. radio)^ most of which are presently either starved
of infrastructure or hindered by the State.
Such beneficial services would in
general be reorganised so that all the relevant infrastructure became communally
held, and those wishing to arrange or use the service would manage the
operation themselves, taking the operation into their own hands instead of
being the passive recipients of favours meted out to them by professionals
and powerful agencies.
Coercion is unnecessary because, in more communal
types of anarchism, the basic infrastructure and many resources (other than
individual labour) are already held by the community, so there is no need to
apply coercion to individuals to extract these resources needed for community
welfare projects, as there is in the situation where wealth and resources are
privatised and coercion is required to wrest resources from unwilling private
individuals.
As for the second type of functions, those which are not in the
collective interest, coercion will normally be required for the performance of
those functions, and is thus an essential part of the State's operation.
But
those functions are better dispensed with, since they are not in the collective
interest.
In this way, while the good part of the State's operation is
retained and improved upon, the bad part - especially the evils of brutality,
corruption and other abuses invariably associated with the coercive apparatus is detached.
State services that are concerned with order, in the general sense, may
be similarly removed or replaced.
These services, which include reduction of
violence to persons and redress for such violence, quarantine services,
security, orderly operation of traffic, and so on, have often been said to
make for especial difficulties for anarchism, or even to refute it.
do not.
They
Firstly, disputes can be settled and offences dealt with directly by
communities themselves without intervention by the State.
Secondly, a great
many of these problems are created or enhanced by the State, e.g. violence
of which the State is the main purveyor .and which is often the outcome of
WAvditai 3
the State's propping up of gross
.
A community which seriously
A
limits (or dispenses with) the institution of private property and removes
«//
gross inequities in the distribution of wealth thereby removes the need for
many "welfare" services and the basis for a great many offences involving
violence: virtually all those involving violence to private property and
many of those involving personal violence.
Such a left-leaning anarchism is
also quite invulnerable to further familiar, but ludicrous, arguments for the
State, such as those from the fairer distribution of land, property and wealth
that is alleged to be achieved by State enforcement of redistribution.
As all
too many people are aware, a major function of the State is to maintain and
police inequitable distribution. 5? This then is the main classical argument
for anarchism.
The argument has however been challenged, both by historical
and more recent objections, which are designed to show that people cannot
act in their collective interest without coercion.
I
3.
THE CASE AGAINST REPLACEMENT FROM PRISONERS' DILEMMA SITUATIONS AND THE
LIKE.
The main arguments designed to rebut the replacement argument for
anarchism and to buttress the State status quo, are based on variants of the
Prisoners' Dilemma, to the effect that there are important cases where
individuals will not agree or cooperate to provide themselves with (or to
maintain) collective goods without coercion, such as only the State can
furnish.In such "dilemma" situations each individual will hope to gain
advantage, without contributing (or exercising restraint), from others’
contributions (or restraint), by freeloading on others (or profiting from
others' restraint).
The claim is that only the State with its backing
of force can resolve such situations: anarchistic replacement cannot succeed.
A basic ingredient of a considerable variety of arguments of this type,
Including Hobbes' and Hume's arguments for the State, the "Tragedy of the
Commons" argument, and recent economic arguments for State intervention to
secure collective goods, is the single Prisoners' Dilemma game with just two
players.Two prisoners, 1 and 2, taken to be accomplices in a crime, have
been separately imprisoned.
A State representative makes the following offers
separately to each: if the prisoner confesses and becomes a State's witness while
his or her accomplice remains silent, he or she will be released at once while
the accomplice gets 8 years.
It so happens that if both prisoners remain
silent the State has only enough evidence to impose a 1 year sentence.
if both confess they would each receive 4 years.
But
The "game" can be summarised
in the following "payoff" matrix:Prisoner 1
S(ilence)
C(onfess)
S
-1, -1
-8, 0
C
0, -8
S t rategies
-4, -4
The game is not intended to present a moral dilemma, that each can only go free
at the cost of the others' freedom, but the following dilemma:- It is in
each prisoner's private interest to choose strategy C no matter what the other
does : strategy C is, in the jargon, each players' "dominant" strategy (and also
in fact a minimax strategy).
For if 2, for example, remains silent, then 1 goes
free by confessing, while if 2 confesses, then 1 halves his or her sentence by
confessing.
But if both prisoners choose their dominant strategy they obtain
an inferior outcome to that which would have resulted by what is tendentiously
called "cooperating", by their both remaining silent.
5
4. FOILING THE PRISONERS'
DILEMMA ARGUMENT.
It is bizarre that a dilemma
alleged to show the necessity of the State - which is supposed to intervene,
forcibly if required, to ensure that the prisoners "cooperate" to obtain an
optimal outcome - should be set up by the State's own operative.Of course
the State's presence in arranging (or accentuating) some such dilemmas is
inessential, as is much else from the example.
But some features of the
prisoner's relations are essential, in particular the separability assumption
that the prisoners are isolated, and so have no opportunity to communicate
or really cooperate.
Similarly, in the more general argument, a privatisation
assumption is smuggled in in the way the dilemma is formulated, that we are
dealing with self contained individuals who, like the prisoners, act only in
their own narrowly construed private interests and whose interests are opposed.
The applicability of the dilemma to the human condition is accordingly
seriously limited.?
A cursory aside is often added to the Prisoners' Dilemma to the effect
that the segregation of the prisoners makes no real difference.
It is claimed
that even if the prisoners could meet and discuss and even agreed to cooperate,
that would make no difference, since neither could trust (the sincerity) of
the other (Abrams, p. 193), 'neither has an incentive to keep the agreement'
(Taylor, p. 5).
Experimental and historical evidence indicates that this is
very often not so - and in a more cooperative social setting than the currently
encouraged privatisation
of life, the
extent of cooperation and trust would
o
undoubtedly be much higher.
The argument has to depend crucially then on
substantially mistaken assumptions about human propensities in various settings,
e.g. that purely egoistic interests are always pursued, backed up by a large
measure of scepticism about the reliability of other people (but if people
were that unreliable and devious,tate arrangements involved in providing
public goods/-oueh as—taxatioa-y would not succeed either) .
That such assumptions
are operating can be seen by elaborating the situation; e.g., to bring out the
first.suppose the prisoners have a common bond, e.g., they are friends or they
are political prisoners with a shared social commitment, or they are neighbours
and face a future in the same community; to bring out the philosophical
scepticism,
involved, suppose the prisoner with a tarnished record offers the
other security against default, and so on.
The question of the character of human interests and preferences
and the
extent of their determination by the social context in which they occur is
fundamental to the whole question of social and economic arrangements, and
also accordingly to arguments for the State on the basis of human propensities.
A major assumption underlying prevailing (non-Marxist) economics and associated
political theory, is that the interests and preferences, as summed up in a
preference ranking or utility function, of each human that is taken to count
is an independent parameter, which depends neither on the preference rankings
of others nor on the social context in which that human operates.
While the
individuals and firms of mainstream economic theory do, by definition, satisfy
the independence requirements, and while there is very substantial cultural
pressure on consumers to conform (through advertising, education, popular
media), very many humans do not conform, and the extent of cultural pressure
towards privatisation itself belies the naturalness of this independence,
And, sufficiently many interest-interdependent people in a small community
A
(which is not thoroughly impoverished) is normally enough, given their social
influence, to avoid or resolve, by cooperation, the types of Prisoners'
Dilemma situations that appear to count in favour of the State.
5.
WHY THE DILEMMA ARGUMENTS CANNOT SUCCEED.
What the Dilemma-based case
for the State has to show - what never has been shown - is that there are
outs tanding Dilemma situations, which are relevant and important, and also
o’wt foot
damaging if unresolved, lint ypsoHved by State intervention, and only so
g-
fa
(optimally) resolved, ami Finallythat in the course of so resolving these
Dilemma situations, worse situations than those that are resolved are not
thereby induced.
These complex conditions cannot be satisfied, if they can be
satisfied at all, in a way that is not question begging.
For several of the
conditions are value dependent (e.g. what is important, damaging, optional,
worse) and involve considerations about whichf reasonable parties can differ.
/W/’
chuck
The selection of Dilemmas,provides an example: after all there are many such
A
A
Dilemmas (e.g. as to environmental degradation, of overexploitation, of
.—t>n Vi o!-c h
family -fs*tds) which are considered beyond the sphere of the State or not
worthy of State attention.
There are now grounds for concluding that the conditions cannot be
satisfied at all.
For many of the arguments using Prisoners' Dilemma games,
Hobbes' and Hume's arguments for the State and Hardin's "Tragedy of the
Commons" for instance, turn out when properly formalised to consist not just
of a single game but of a sequence of such games, to be more adequately
represented by what is called a supergame.
But in many such sequential
Prisoners' Dilemma games, rational "cooperation" can occur, even assuming
separated players with purely egoistic interests/^ For what sequential
games permit that isolated games exclude, is that players' actions may be
dependent upon past performance of other players.
This dependence effectively
removes one extremely unrealistic self-containment assumption from Dilemma
situations, that individuals act in totally isolated ways, not learning from
past social interaction.
In such supergames then, no intervention is required.
7
Undoubtedly some Dilemmas are resolved by "intervention", e.g. by allowing
the prisoners to get in touch so that they find they are neighbours or that
they can really cooperate.
Equally important, and equally independent of the
State, is the matter of breaking down the adversary, or game, situation so
the prisoners do not act as competitors but are prepared to cooperate J'1
Informational input may also be important, e.g. news that each prisoner has
a good record of adhering, or if not is prepared to stake collateral, etc.
A
Nor
is force or threat of force required as an incentive to guarantee optimal
strategies : a range of other inducements and incentives
they be required in recalcitrant cases), and
is known (should
is used even by the State, e.g.
But at no stage is the State
gifts, deprivation, social pressure, etc.
required to make these arrangements: much as some real Prisoners' Dilemmas
are resolved by work of Amnesty International, so voluntary organisations
can be formed to detect and deal with Prisoners' Dilemma situations where they
are not already catered for.
And in fact communal and cooperative organisation
did resolve Prisoners' Dilemma-type situations historically, for example in
the case of the Commons.
In sum, here also replacement works.
There are no important Dilemma
situations, it seems, where the State is essential.
The State has been thought
to be essential because of certain influential false dichotomies; for example,
that all behaviour that is not egoistic is altruistic (but altruistic behaviour
is uncommon, and "irrational"), that the only way of allocating goods, apart
from profit-directed markets - which tend to deal abysmally with collective
goods - is through State control.But it is quite evident that there are
other methods of allocation, both economic (e.g. exchange, through traditional
markets, based on supply costs) and social (e.g. by cooperatives, clubs).
Lastly, introduction of the State to resolve some Dilemma situations
/J
has very extensive effects, many of them negative, so that the gains made, if
any, in so resolving Dilemma^ situations, appear to be substantially outweighed
by the costs involved.
For there are the many evil aspects of the typical State
to put in the balance.
As regards Dilemma situations, entry of the State with
ty showing may not help but may worsen some situations, and more
,
new Dilemmas may be initiated by State activity, as/
/A
t * /<»
the working
differently with the State as a further player (since the State
may engage in whaling, have access to a commons, etc.).
also to further arguments against the State.
These points lead
9
to accept.
(Toleration of such a tamed democracy then brings benefits to
those who hold power, especially the cover of legitimation).
But institutional
checks which operate only insofar as a ^system*^ acceptable to the powerholders
is not seriously challenged, and which depend ultimately upon the toleration
of those checked,^ are not really checks at all.
£
gand preventing
The problem of controlling the power of the State, 'ur
IA
the State once established from usurping further power and exceeding its
mandate, is only satisfactorily solved by not ceding power to the State in the
first place.
The best way of avoiding the evils of accumulated power is the
anarchist way, of blocking its accumulation.
8.
THE FOURTH WAY : THE ARGUMENT FROM FREEDOM AND AUTONOMY.
responsible for actions deliberately undertaken.
A person is
This premiss can be derived,
if need be, from the notion of a person as a moral agent,
Taking responsibility
for one's actions implies, among other things, making the final decision about
what to do on each occasion oneself; not acting simply on direction from outside,A
4
determining how to act, what ought to be done, oneself; not handing that decision
over to someone or something else. , It implies, that is, moral autonomy,
Autonomy in turn implies, what responsibility requires, freedom.
For the
autonomous being, endorsing its own decisions and principles, is not subject
to the will of another.
another so directs.
Even if it does what another directs, it is not because
In being free, not of constraints (both physical and
self-determined), but of the constraints and will of others, an autonomous
being is morally free.
A necessary feature of the State is authority over those in its territory
(under its de facto jurisdiction), the right to rule and impose its will upon
them.
Such authority backed by force is incompatible with moral autonomy and
with freedom.
An autonomous being, though it may act in accordance with some
imperatives of the State, those it independently endorses, is bound to reject
such (a claim to) authority, and therewith the State.
7
s
In sum, being a person,
as also being autonomous and being free, implies rejecting the authority
of the State, and so not acknowledging the State; that is, each condition on
, ika.
/J
18
personhiood implies^anarchism.
V
It is possible to combine autonomy with an extremely attenuated "State",
one based on on-going unanimous direct democracy.
But such a "State", with no
independent authority, is not really a state, since any participant can dissolve
it at any time, and so constitutes no threat to anarchism,
On the contrary,
such direct democratic methods are part of the very stuff of anarchistic
organisation.
10
9.
The replacement
THE FIFTH WAY : THE ARGUMENT FROM ANARCHIST EXPERIENCE.
argument enables construction of a model of a society functioning without the
State, of a practically possible Stateless world; which shows that the State
is not necessary.
But it can always be claimed - even if the claim can seldom
or ever be made good - that the modelling leaves out some crucial feature of
real world circumstances, rendering it inapplicable.
The gap may be closed by
appeal to the independently valuable argument from experience, that at various
times and places anarchism has been tested and has worked.
Examples of such
Stateless organisation suffice to show that crucial real world features have
not been omitted.
There are many examples of nonindustrialised societies which were, or are,
19
anarchistic, there is the rich experience of the Spanish collectives,
and
there is much localised experience of self-management and small-scale anarchistic
20
arrangements within the State structure.
10. THE EMERGING CHARACTER OF ANARCHISM AND ITS ORGANISATION.
The arguments
outlined, predominantly theoretical, inform the practical, revealing the
options open for anarchism, courses of action in superannuating the State
and for transition to a stateless Society, and so on.
For example, spontaneous
anarchism — according to which organisation is unnecessary and social arrange
ments will arise spontaneously, and will be ushered in during the revolution
without any prior organisation — is a position which is not viable and could
not endure, because it makes none of the requisite replacements upon which
durable supersession of the State depends.
which these theoretical arguments.
A
The sort of anarchist society
will certainly be organised, but the
organisation will not be compulsory, and will eschew authoritarian measures
(and, by the overshoot argument, will reject transition by any strengthening
of the centralised State), relying heavily on voluntary cooperation and direct
democracy.
The society which emerges will be much as Bakunin and Kropotkin
sometimes pictured it.
It will be based on smaller-scale decentralised
communities, for otherwise such arrangements as community replacement of
State welfare arrangements, control of their environment, removal of
Prisoners' Dilemmas, and participatory democracy, will work less satisfactorily.
Communities will be federated and control will be bottom-up, not merely by
representation and subject to a downward system of command.
Within each
community there will not be great discrepancies in the distribution of wealth
and property, and no highly concentrated economic
power.
community will be a rather equalitarian group, sharing in much that is
communally owned or not owned at all.
A
11
While theoretical arguments help outline the general shape of social and
also economic arrangements they do not determine them completely, they offer
no detailed blueprint.
Accordingly what emerges is not a particular form of
anarchism, for instance anarchist communism, but a more experimental and
pluralistic anarchism, such as was instituted in the Spanish collectives.
11. STRATEGIES FOR TRANSITION TO ANARCHIST SOCIETY ; THE FOREST SUCCESSION
MODEL OF REPLACEMENT BY AN ALTERNATIVE STRUCTURE.
The main strategy, emerging
from the First Way, is that of replacement : transition to a new anarchist
social order proceeds by replacement or addption of the more satisfactory State
organisations and structures by organisations and structures of a more
anarchistic cast, and by removal or phasing out of remaining no longer
necessary or unsatisfactory State arrangements.
Replacement and supersession suggest a biological model, of such change
and succession as occurs where one forest type succeeds another; and such
a model is in turn very suggestive.
To make the model more definite, and
to give it some local colour, consider forest succession where a sub-tropical
rainforest replaces a eucalypt forest, as analogous to the case where anarchism
replaces a Statist society.
There is certainly a marked change in structure,
typically from a tall forest with a fairly open canopy to a more compact
closed forest with more layers of vegetation, much more local diversity and
a richer variety of life forms, especially floral forms.
A forest is not
merely a set of trees, but trees in structural arrangement and interdependence,
not merely on one another but on other life forms such as pollinating insects,
seed-carrying birds and animals, and so on; and the changes in structure
include changes in microclimate, in soil moisture levels and humus and
bacterial content.
The change of forest type may be by evolution, by hastened or induced
evolution, or by catastrophe (revolution) as when a eucalypt forest is
clearfelled and artificially succeeded by planted rainforest.
(Strictly,
there is a spectrum of practices and replacement strategies between evolutionary
and revolutionary, and various different revolutionary strategies; and the
standard evolutionary-revolutionary contrast presents a false dichotomy.)
Even reliance on predominantly evolutionary methods, which tend to be
very slow by human time scales may require some (management) practices, else
evolution towards rainforest will not begin or continue.
For example, seeds
for rainforest species may not be available if adjoining areas have been
stripped of suitable seed trees, e.g. by clearing or eucalypt conversion,
in which case it will be necessary to introduce seeds (of anarchist ideas,
methods, arrangements, etc.).
And rainforest evolution may not be able to
13
12. APPLYING THE FOREST SUCCESSION MODEL.
How to apply the model is not
difficult to see in broad outline, and many of the further details have
been filled out by work, that can be described as indicating how allegiance
can be shifted in practice from where we mostly are to alternative social
22.
arrangements and life-styles built on self-management and mutual aid.
The seeds of anarchism should be broadcast or planted, anarchist (nonStatist)
arrangements instituted or strengthened, and efforts made to replace or
vulnerable Statist arrangements.^ Some of the practices are familiar :
'anarchist groups, clubs, pamphlets, broadcasts, newsletters, etc.; (anarchist)
cooperatives, exchanges, neighbourhood groups, rural communities, etc.
Others
are slightly less familiar: avoidance of State influence by arrangements beyond
State reach such as costless (or alternative currency) interchanges of
goods and services, action directed at removing decision-making from State
departments, such as forest services, and into citizen hands, and ultimately, to
decentralized local communities.
In this sort of way worthwhile State arrangements
can be replaced, and power can be progressively transferred from the State, and
returned to the community and to people more directly involved.
"V-
ht)
FOOTNOTES
1.
Bakunin on Anarchy (edited S. Dolgoff), Allen & Unwin, London,
especially p. 139.
1973,
Much else in this paper, e.g. the distinction
between the State and Society, also derives from Bakunin.
2.
That is, proper elaboration of this argument takes each facet of
generally beneficial state activity - there is only a
(relatively small) finite number to consider - and shows how it
can be replaced in one way or another.
course uniquely determined.
Replacement is not of
Lines such replacements can take are
indicated in much anarchist (and self-management) literature,
consider especially, but not uncritically, P. Kropotkin, Mutual Aid.
New York University Press,
1972, and also his Fields, Factories and
Workshops, second edition, Nelson, London, 1913, and The Conquest
of Bread, Chapman and Hall, London, 1913.
3.
On these points see, e.g. Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets (edited
S. Baldwin), Dover Publications, New York,
1970, p. 206 ff. ; also
P.J. Proudhon, Confessions of a Revolutionary .
For recent discussion
of, and practical examples of, replacements for arbitration and law
court procedures (but for right-leaning anarchism), see C.D. Stone,
'Some reflections on arbitrating our way to anarchy', A
Nomos / XIX^New York University Press, 1978, pp. 213-4.
V
4.
J-
Arguments of this type are sometimes said to represent 'the strongest
case that can be made for the desirability of the State'
Anarchy and Cooperation, Wiley, London, 1976, p. 9).
(M. Taylor,
To cover all
arguments of the type, and to avoid repetition of the phrase 'variants
of' and disputes as to whether certain arguments such as those of
Hume and of Olson involve Prisoners' Dilemma situations,
'Prisoner's
Dilemma' is used in a wide sense to include not merely single n-person
Prisoners' Dilemma games, but for example, games where the payoffs are
X
not merely e^gjistic (as with both Hobbes and Hume) and where such
games are iterated.
As the bracketed clauses in the text indicate,
there are two types of case, not sharply separated and both of
the same logical form - those where people do not contribute to
supply themselves with, or with "optimum" quantities of, a
"collective good" (e.g. security, order, sewage), and those where
people do not restrain themselves to maintain, or maintain "optimum"
quantities of, some already available "collective good" (e.g. commons,
2
unpolluted streams, whales, wilderness).
That received arguments
of all these types involves Prisoners' Dilemma situations (in the
wide sense) is argued, in effect, in Taylor, op. cit. and elsewhere.
An easier introduction to the material covered by Taylor, which also
surveys other important literature, is given in the final chapter
of R. Abrams, Foundations of Political Analysis, Columbia University
Press, New York,
5.
1980.
An important matter the two player game does not illustrate is the relevance
of population size in the arguments for the State.
But size is not
decisive (see, e.g., Taylor, chapter 2), and the issue can be avoided
(or relocated) by organisation info
The figures
smaller communities.
given in the matrix are illustrative only; for inequalities which
suffice for a Dilemma situation, see Taylor, p. 5.
6.
It is similarly bizarre that there should be outcomes that the State
alone is said to be able to arrange, but not mere social cooperation,
when the State is (as on many theories) the result or reflection of
social cooperation.
7.
This important point is much elaborated in V. and R. Routley,
Theories, Self Management, and
'Social
Environmental Problems' in
Environmental Philosophy (edited D. Mannison and others), RSSS,
Australian National University, 1980.
8.
As a result of G. Hardin's "Travesty of the Commons", historical evidence
has been assembled which reveals how far Hardin's "Commons" diverges
from historic commons; see, in particular, A. Roberts, The Self-
Managing Environment, Allison & BUfsby, London, 1979, chapter 10,
but also Routley, op. cit., p. 285 and pp. 329-332.
Similar points
apply as regards many other Dilemma situations.
'In the. experimental studies of the prisoner's dilemma game
approximately half of the participants choose a cooperative strategy
even when they know for certain that the other player will cooperate'.
Abrams, op. cit., p. 308.
9.
Cf.
the discussion in Taylor, op. cit., p. 93.
3
10. This important result is established in Taylor, op. cit., for a number of
critical cases, though not generally; see, e.g. p. 32 but especially
chapter 5.
11. Such moves have proved valuable in reducing the State's role in legal
prosecution, and in eliminating courtroom procedures, including
cases where the State is one of the "adversaries".
12. Both the false dichotomies cited are commonplace, not to say rife,
in modem economic and political theorising.
Both are to be
found in Abram's final chapter, for example, and the firstJ^(with an
attempt to plaster over the gap with a definition^/
op. cit., p. 250 ff.
13. For instance, a certain social escapism : one escapes
one's social roles
erf
and is enabled to concentrate on private affairs or just to laze.
Or so it may appear : for in reality anyone who works, works long and
often alienated hours to pay for this apparent escapism and to cover
the high costs of frequently inadequate State activity.
cit., chapter 7.
A related argument, also in Bakunin, is from the way
o/icA
14. The argument, to be found in Bakunin, is elaborated a little in Taylor, op.
in which emergence of the State compromises and even closes off
regions.
15. The question is in effect Plato's question, and the regress is reminiscent
of his Third Man argument.
16. K.R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. II.
Fourth edition
(revised), Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1962, p. 129 and p. 127.
The (overshoot) problem is, according to Popper 'the most fundamental
problem of all politics: the control of the controller, of the
dangerous accumulation of power represented in the State1, 'upon which'
Marxists never had 'any well-considered view'
(p. 129).
17. V. Lauber, 'Ecology, politics and liberal democracy', Government and
Opposition 13 (1978), 199-217: see p. 209 and p.(^25jTP
18. The argument, outlined by Bakunin, is much elaborated in R.P. l/olff,
In Defense of Anarchism, Harper & Row, New York, 1970.
No argument
is however without assumptions, which are open to dispute.
argument, for example^is disputed by G. Wall, 'Philosophical
anarchism revised' Nomos XIX, op. cit., p. 273 ff.
Wolff's
i
nonstate solutions to problems of social organisation in adjoining
THE IRREFUTABILITY OF ANARCHISM
1.
GOD, THE CHURCH, AND THE STATE.
The State is like God:
the
anarchist is like the atheist in disbelief and nonrecognition of what is
commonly assumed, mostly as a matter of faith, to be needed.
The parallel,
drawn by Bakunin, has its weaknesses as well as its strengths.
While
the atheist believes that God does not exist, the anarchist does not believe
that there are no states:
none are legitimate.
on the contrary, there are all too many, though
The important parallel is as to arguments.
The
agnostic does not believe that the arguments for the existence of God succeed,
and so adopts a "neutral" stance; similarly the State-agnostic does not believe
that the arguments for the State work, and likewise tries to adopt a fence
Soundly based atheism goes further than agnosticism, not
sit-ting position.
only faulting the arguments for, but taking it for granted that there are
arguments, or at least solid considerations, against.
So it is with soundly
,
nene.
based anarchism^ which can both faults arguments for the State^and
(ncisi'je.
X case against the State.
A more obvious comparison, appreciated from Reformation on and again
emphasised by Bakunin^- is that of State and Church.Clx This institutional
comparison enables several relevant features of the State to be emphasised;
for example, how, as the Church used to, the State assigns to itself many
very extensive powers, such as a monopoly on the production and control of
the main medium of exchange, currency, and an ultimate monopoly an
organised violence, all other internal security arrangements being eventually
answerable to its police and military; how it is of the same category as
A
business organisations such as multinationals, which now to some extent
threaten it but by and large collaborate with it; how, as again the Church
used to, it has nominal support of most of its "subjects", though many of
them are little better than Sunday believers, and an increasing number have
come to see the State as in many respects evil and inevitably corrupt, but
as a necessary evil
Whether the State is inevitably evil or not, it is unnecessary, so it will
be argued, in a way parallelling the famous Five Ways of Aquinas designed to prove
that God exists.
Since the State is unnecessary, as well as
costly
and
typically at least evil in many of its practices and undesirable in other
respects, it should be superseded.
social arrangements.,^
And it can be succeeded, by alternative
2. THE FIRST WAY OF SHOWING THAT THE STATE IS NOT REQUIRED : THE REPLACEMENT
ARGUMENT.
The core of the argument is simple and persuasive: everything in the
collective interest accomplished by the State can equally be accomplished by
alternative arrangements such as voluntary cooperation, the remainder of State
activity being dispensed with.
The argument is not a straight substitution
argument, for it is not as if a rational person would want to have everything
accomplished by the State replicated by alternative arrangements.
There is much
the State does or supports that is at best rather indifferent, e.g. sponsorship
of pomp and ceremony and of junkets by VIPs; and a great deal of typical State
activity is positively evil and not in the collective interest, e.g. graft,
corruption, brutality, maintenance of inequitable distribution of wealth, land
and other resources, and encouragement or protection of polluting or
environmentally destructive industries (e.g. without state sponsorship we should
not be well embarked on a nuclear future, without state assistance and
subsidization Australia would not be burdened with its extensive forest
destructive pine planting and woodchip projects).
The modern State has however many other functions than repressive or
damaging ones, functions of community welfare or of otherwise beneficial J$ind.
This does not upset the replacement argument for anarchism.
The argumertf:, implicit
in the works of the classical anarchists, goes like this:- The functions of
the State can be divided into two types, those that are in the collective interest
and generally beneficial such as community welfare and organisational functions,
and those that are not (but are, presumably, in the interests of some of the
powerful groups the State tends to serve).
But as regards functions of the first type, the generally beneficial functions
which are in the collective interest, no coercion is required.
For why should
people have to be coerced into carrying out functions which are in their
collective interest?
Such functions can be performed, and performed better,
without the coercion which is the hallmark of of the State, and without the
accompanying tendency of the State to pervert such functions to the maintenance
of privilege and inequality of power, and to remove power from those it "serves".
The detailed argument that such functions can be performed takes a case by case
2
form, considering each function in turn.
In each case the function is carried
out through alternative arrangements, such as voluntary cooperation by the
people directly concerned, which replace State arrangements.
Consider, for
example, the operation of mutual aid or self help medical services or building
programs, or self managed welfare, housing or environment services, or community
access communications (e.g. radio)^ most of which are presently either starved
of infrastructure or hindered by the State.
Such beneficial services would in
general be reorganised so that all the relevant infrastructure became communally
3
held, and those wishing to arrange or use the service would manage the
operation themselves, taking the operation into their own hands instead of
being the passive recipients of favours meted out to them by professionals
and powerful agencies.
Coercion is unnecessary because, in more communal
types of anarchism, the basic infrastructure and many resources (other than
individual labour) are already held by the community, so there is no need to
apply coercion to individuals to extract these resources needed for community
welfare projects, as there is in the situation where wealth and resources are
privatised and coercion is required to wrest resources from unwilling private
individuals.
As for the second type of functions, those which are not in the
collective interest, coercion will normally be required for the performance of
those functions, and is thus an essential part of the State's operation.
But
those functions are better dispensed with, since they are not in the collective
interest.
In this way, while the good part of the State's operation is
retained and improved upon, the bad part - especially the evils of brutality,
corruption and other abuses invariably associated with the coercive apparatus is detached.
State services that are concerned with order, in the general sense, may
be similarly removed or replaced.
These services, which include reduction of
violence to persons and redress for such violence, quarantine services,
security, orderly operation of traffic, and so on, have often been said to
make for especial difficulties for anarchism, or even to refute it.
do not.
They
Firstly, disputes can be settled and offences dealt with directly by
communities themselves without intervention by the State.
Secondly, a great
many of these problems are created or enhanced by the State, e.g. violence
of which the State is the main purveyor and which is often the outcome of
ol
3
the State's propping up of gross inequities.
A community which seriously
limits (or dispenses with) the institution of private property and removes
a//
gross inequities in the distribution of wealth thereby removes the need for
many "welfare" services and the basis for a great many offences involving
violence: virtually all those involving violence to private property and
many of those involving personal violence.
Such a left-leaning anarchism is
also quite invulnerable to further familiar, but ludicrous, arguments for the
State, such as those from the fairer distribution of land, property and wealth
that is alleged to be achieved by State enforcement of redistribution.
As all
too many people are aware, a major function of the State is to maintain and
police inequitable distributionThis then is the main classical argument
for anarchism.
The argument has however been challenged, both by historical
and more recent objections, which are designed to show that people cannot
act in their collective interest without coercion.
3.
THE CASE AGAINST REPLACEMENT FROM PRISONERS' DILEMMA SITUATIONS AND THE
LIKE.
The main arguments designed to rebut the replacement argument for
anarchism and to buttress the State status quo, are based on variants of the
Prisoners' Dilemma, to the effect that there are important cases where
---------
(?)
individuals will not agree“or cooperate to provide themselves with (or to
maintain) collective goods without coercion, such as only the State can
4
furnish.
In such "dilemma" situations each individual will hope to gain
advantage, without contributing (or exercising restraint), from others'
contributions (or restraint), by freeloading on others (or profiting from
others' restraint).
The claim is that only the State with its backing
of force can resolve such situations: anarchistic replacement cannot succeed. (6J
A basic ingredient of a considerable variety of arguments of this type,
including Hobbes' and Hume's arguments for the State, the "Tragedy of the
Commons" argument, and recent economic arguments for State intervention to
secure collective goods, is the single Prisoners' Dilemma game with just two
players.Two prisoners, 1 and 2, taken to be accomplices in a crime, have
been separately imprisoned.
A State representative makes the following offers
separately to each: if the prisoner confesses and becomes a State's witness while
his or her accomplice remains silent, he or she will be released at once while
the accomplice gets 8 years.
It so happens that if both prisoners remain
silent the State has only enough evidence to impose a 1 year sentence.
if both confess they would each receive 4 years.
But
The "game" can be summarised
in the following "payoff" matrix:-
Prisoner 2
The game is not intended to present a moral dilemma, that each can only go free
at the cost of the others' freedom, but the following dilemma:- It is in
each prisoner's private interest to choose strategy C no matter what the other
does : strategy C is, in the jargon, each players' "dominant" strategy (and also
in fact a minimax strategy).
For if 2, for example, remains silent, then 1 goes
free by confessing, while if 2 confesses, then 1 halves his or her sentence by
confessing.
But if both prisoners choose their dominant strategy they obtain
an inferior outcome to that which would have resulted by what is tendentiously
called "cooperating", by their both remaining silent.
5
4. FOILING THE PRISONERS'
DILEMMA ARGUMENT.
It is bizarre that a dilemma
alleged to show the necessity of the State - which is supposed to intervene,
forcibly if required, to ensure that the prisoners "cooperate" to obtain an
optimal outcome - should be set up by the State's own operative.Of course
the State's presence in arranging (or accentuating) some such dilemma£is
inessential, as is much else from the example.
But some features of the
prisoner's relations are essential, in particular the separability assumption
that the prisoners are isolated, and so have no opportunity to communicate
or really cooperate.
Similarly, in the more general argument, a privatisation
assumption is smuggled in in the way the dilemma is formulated, that we are
dealing with self contained individuals who, like the prisoners, act only in
their own narrowly construed private interests and whose interests are opposed.
The applicability of the dilemma to the human condition is accordingly
seriously limited.?
A cursory aside is often added to the Prisoners' Dilemma to the effect
that the segregation of the prisoners makes no real difference.
It is claimed
that even if the prisoners could meet and discuss and even agreed to cooperate,
that would make no difference, since neither could trust (the sincerity) of
the other (Abrams, p. 193), 'neither has an incentive to keep the agreement'
(Taylor, p. 5).
Experimental and historical evidence indicates that this is
very often not so - and in a more cooperative social setting than the currently
encouraged privatisation
of life, the
extent of cooperation and trust would
o
undoubtedly be much higher.
The argument has to depend crucially then on
substantially mistaken assumptions about human propensities in various settings,
e.g. that purely egoistic interests are always pursued, backed up by a large
measure of scepticism about the reliability of other people (but if people
were that unreliable and deviousState arrangements involved in providing
public goodsy such as taxation', would not succeed either).
That such assumptions
are operating can be seen by elaborating the situation; e.g., to bring out the
first,suppose the prisoners have a common bond, e.g., they are friends or they
are political prisoners with a shared social commitment, or they are neighbours
and face a future in the same community; to bring out the philosophical
scepticism,
involved, suppose the prisoner with a tarnished record offers the
other security against default, and so on.
The question of the character of human interests and preferences
and the
extent of their determination by the social context in which they occur is
fundamental to the whole question of social and economic arrangements, and
also accordingly to arguments for the State on the basis of human propensities.
A major assumption underlying prevailing (non-Marxist) economics and associated
political theory, is that the interests and preferences, as summed up in a
preference ranking or utility function, of each human that is taken to count
is an independent parameter, which depends neither on the preference rankings
of others nor on the social context in which that human operates.
While the
individuals and firms of mainstream economic theory do, by definition, satisfy
the independence requirements, and while there is very substantial cultural
pressure on consumers to conform (through advertising, education, popular
media), very many humans do not conform, and the extent of cultural pressure
towards privatisation itself belies the naturalness of this independence.
And^sufficiently many interest-interdependent people in a small community
(which is not thoroughly impoverished) is normally enough, given their social
influence, to avoid or resolve, by cooperation, the types of Prisoners'
Dilemma situations that appear to count in favour of the State.
5. WHY THE DILEMMA ARGUMENTS CANNOT SUCCEED.'
What the Dilemma-based case
for the State has to show - what never has been shown - is that there are
outstanding Dilemma situations, which are relevant and important, and also
qaA'-fkc-l'
oft
damaging if unresolved,\but resolve^/by State intervention, and only so
A A- jZAz-zv
(optimally) resolved, and finally.that in the course of so resolving these
Dilemma situations, worse situation than those that are resolved are not
thereby induced.
These complex conditions cannot be satisfied, if they can be
satisfied at all, in a way that is not question begging.
For several of the
conditions are value dependent (e.g. what is important, damaging, optional,
worse) and involve considerations about which reasonable parties can differ.
The selection of Dilemmas^provides an example^: after all there are many such
Dilemmas (e.g. as to environmental degradation, of overexploitation, of
l/«o|on<c or
family, feuds) which are considered beyond the sphere of the State or not
worthy of State attention.
There are now grounds for concluding that the conditions cannot be
satisfied at all.
For many of the arguments using Prisoners' Dilemma games,
Hobbes' and Hume's arguments for the State and Hardin's "Tragedy of the
Commons" for instance, turn out when properly formalised to consist not just
of a single game but of a sequence of such games, to be more adequately
represented by what is called a supergame.
But in many such sequential
Prisoners' Dilemma games, rational "cooperation" can occur, even assuming
separated players with purely egoistic interests?^ For what sequential
games permit that isolated games exclude, is that players' actions may be
dependent upon past performance of other players.
This dependence effectively
removes one extremely unrealistic self-containment assumption from Dilemma
situations, that individuals act in totally isolated ways, not learning from
past social interaction.
In such supergames then, no intervention is required.
7
Undoubtedly some Dilemmas are resolved by "intervention", e.g. by allowing
the prisoners to get in touch so that they find they are neighbours or that
they can really cooperate.
Equally important, and equally independent of the
State, is the matter of breaking down the adversary, or game, situation so
the prisoners do not act as competitors but are prepared to cooperate.
Informational input may also be important, e.g. news that each prisoner has
a good record of adhering, or if not is prepared to stake collateral, etc.
A
Nor
is force or threat of force required as an incentive to guarantee optimal
strategies : a range of other inducements and incentives
they be required in recalcitrant cases), and
is known (should
is used even by the State, e.g.
But at no stage is the State
gifts, deprivation, social pressure, etc.
required to make these arrangements: much as some real Prisoners’ Dilemmas
are resolved by work of Amnesty International, so voluntary organisations
can be formed to detect and deal with Prisoners' Dilemma situations where they
are not already catered for.
And in fact communal and cooperative organisation
did resolve Prisoners' Dilemma-type situations historically, for example in
the case of the Commons.
In sum, here also replacement works.
There are no important Dilemma
situations, it seems, where the State is essential.
The State has been thought
to be essential because of certain influential false dichotomies; for example,
that all behaviour that is not egoistic is altruistic (but altruistic behaviour
is uncommon, and "irrational"), that the only way of allocating goods, apart
from profit-directed markets - which tend to deal abysmally with collective
goods - is through State control.1-
But it is quite evident that there are
other methods of allocation, both economic (e.g. exchange, through traditional
markets, based on supply costs) and social (e.g. by cooperatives, clubs).
Lastly, introduction of the State to resolve some Dilemma situations
has very extensive effects', many of them negative, so that the gains made, if
any, in so resolving Dilemma1
situations, appear to be substantially outweighed
by the costs involved.
For there are the many evil aspects of the typical State
to put in the balance.
As regards Dilemma situations, entry of the State with
its authority showing may not help but may worsen some situations, and more
/A
of
important, new Dilemmas may be initiated by State activity, as with the working
example, or differently with the State as a further player (since the State
may engage in whaling, have access to a commons, etc.).
also to further arguments against the State.
These points lead
8
6.
THE SECOND WAY : THE ARGUMENT FROM PROBLEM RECURRENCE^/
The solution
by the State to problems of social organisation repeats or generates in more
dangerous form the very problems introduction of the State was designed to
solve, including new Dilemmas.
Suppose, for instance, the secular State really
were introduced in order to solve Prisoners' Dilemmas - introduced as opposed
to inherited from the religious State and the Church, and maintained to prop
up privilege and foster objectives that are not in its communities' interests -
then the array of States generates new Prisoners' Dilemmas, which there is no
Super-State to resolve by coercion.
Suppose, as the myth has it, the State
really were introduced in the interest of order and stability and to curb
violence; then the arrays of States resulting more than negates these advantages,
with instability, disorder and violence on a grander scale than before the
14
emergence of modem secular States.
7.
THE THIRD WAY : THE OVERSHOOT ARGUMENT,FROM THE INADEQUACY OF
INSTITUTIONAL CONTROLS ON STATE POWER.
Having ceded a monopoly on power to
the State, in order to resolve some dilemmas, some of them arising from an
oontrols or balances the power of the
inequitable distribution of power, what
State?
A Super-State.
And its power?
There is a
vicious infinite regress
if the reply to the question "What controls the controller?" is "a further
controller".^ The only promising way of avoiding this problem - other routes
lead (even more) directly to totalitarianism - is by having the first of these
controllers, the State, answer back to those in whose interests it is allegedly
established,
those of the society or group of communities it controls.
implies democratic methods of some kind.
Others go further:
This
'democracy Lis]
the only known means to achieve this control, the only known device by which
, 16
we can try to protect ourselves against the misuse of political power .
In this event, control has mostly failed.
Democracy is extremely attenuated,
even in those states that claim to practice it.
The exercise of power in modern
"democratic" states - much increased power reaching deep into peoples' lives,
power which has passed to certain political elites and is directed at the
attainment of such objectives as economic growth and material "progress" - is
often channelled through 'non-elected authority' and 'is not democratic in the
traditional meaning of the term'.In any case, indirect democratic and other
institutional checks are tenuous in as much as
they depend ultimately on the
toleration of those who have direct control of the forces of the State.
Experience seems to show that such toleration will only be shown so long as
democratic procedures deliver results that are not too disagreeable, that are
broadly in accord with what those who control the coercive power are prepared
9
to accept.
(Toleration of such a tamed democracy then brings benefits to
those who hold power, especially the cover of legitimation).
But institutional
/I
checks which operate only insofar as a "system" acceptable to the powerholders
is not seriously challenged, and which depend ultimately upon the toleration
of those checked, are not really checks at all.
n.
? ’■
The problem of controlling the power of the State, u/surping and preventing
the State once established from usurping further power and exceeding its
mandate, is only satisfactorily solved by not ceding power to the State in the
first place.
The best way of avoiding the evils of accumulated power is the
anarchist way, of blocking its accumulation.
8. THE FOURTH WAY : THE ARGUMENT FROM FREEDOM AND AUTONOMY.
responsible for actions deliberately undertaken.
A person is
This premiss can be derived,
if need be, from the notion of a person as a moral agent.
Taking responsibility
for one's actions implies, among other things, making the final decision about
what to do on each occasion oneself; not acting simply on direction from outside,£»/
A
determining how to act, what ought to be done, oneself; not handing that decision
over to someone or something else.
It implies, that is, moral autonomy.
Autonomy in turn implies, what responsibility requires, freedom.
For the
autonomous being, endorsing its own decisions and principles, is not subject
to the will of another.
another so directs.
Even if it does what another directs, it is not because
In being free, not of constraints (both physical and
self-determined), but of the constraints and will of others, an autonomous
being is morally free.
A necessary feature of the State is authority over those in its territory
(under its de facto jurisdiction), the right to rule and impose its will upon
them.
Such authority backed by force is incompatible with moral autonomy and
with freedom.
An autonomous being, though it may act in accordance with some
imperatives of the State, those it independently endorses, is bound to reject
such (a claim to) authority, and therewith the State.
In sum, being a person,
as also being autonomous and being free, implies rejecting the authority
of the State, and so not acknowledging the State; that is, each condition on
ike.
a
>18
personhood implies anarchism.
It is possible to combine autonomy with an extremely attenuated "State",
one based on on-going unanimous direct democracy.
But such a "State", with no
independent authority, is not really a state, since any participant can dissolve
it at any time, and so constitutes no threat to anarchism.
On the contrary,
such direct democratic methods are part of the very stuff of anarchistic
organisation.
10
9.
THE FIFTH WAY : THE ARGUMENT FROM ANARCHIST EXPERIENCE.
The replacement
argument enables construction of a model of a society functioning without the
State, of a practically possible Stateless world; which shows that the State
is not necessary.
But it can always be claimed - even if the claim can seldom
or ever be made good - that the modelling leaves out some crucial feature of
real world circumstances, rendering it inapplicable.
The gap may be closed by
appeal to the independently valuable argument from experience, that at various
times and places anarchism has been tested and has worked.
Examples of such
Stateless organisation suffice to show that crucial real world features have
not been omitted.
There are many examples of nonindustrialised societies which were, or are,
19
anarchistic, there is the rich experience of the Spanish collectives,
and
there is much localised experience of self-management and small-scale anarchistic
20
arrangements within the State structure.
10. THE EMERGING CHARACTER OF ANARCHISM AND ITS ORGANISATION.
The arguments
outlined, predominantly theoretical, inform the practical, revealing the
options open for anarchism, courses of action in superannuating the State
and for transition to a stateless Society, and so on.
For example, spontaneous
anarchism — according to which organisation is unnecessary and social arrange
ments will arise spontaneously, and will be ushered in during the revolution
without any prior organisation — is a position which is not viable and could
not endure, because it makes none of the requisite replacements upon which
durable supersession of the State depends. The sort of anarchist society
deJintafe.
which these theoretical arguments
will certainly be organised, but the
A
organisation will not be compulsory, and will eschew authoritarian measures
(and, by the overshoot argument, will reject transition by any strengthening
of the centralised State), relying heavily on voluntary cooperation and direct
democracy.
The society which emerges will be much as Bakunin and Kropotkin
sometimes pictured it.
It will be based on smaller-scale decentralised
communities, for otherwise such arrangements as community replacement of
State welfare arrangements, control of their environment, removal of
Prisoners' Dilemmas, and participatory democracy, will work less satisfactorily.
Communities will be federated and control will be bottom-up, not merely by
representation and subject to a downward system of command.
Within each
community there will not be great discrepancies in the distribution of wealth
Zand property, and no highly concentrated economic
power. A
community will be a rather equalitarian group, sharing in much that is
communally owned or not owned at all.
FOOTNOTES
1.
Bakunin on Anarchy (edited S. Dolgoff), Allen & Unwin, London, 1973,
especially p. 139.
Much else in this paper, e.g. the distinction
between the State and Society, also derives from Bakunin.
2.
That is, proper elaboration of this argument takes each facet of
generally beneficial state activity - there is only a
(relatively small) finite number to consider - and shows how it
can be replaced in one way or another.
course uniquely determined.
Replacement is not of
Lines such replacements can take are
indicated in much anarchist (and self-management) literature,
consider especially, but not uncritically, P. Kropotkin, Mutual Aid.
New York University Press,
1972, and also his Fields, Factories and
Workshops, second edition, Nelson, London, 1913, and The Conquest
of Bread, Chapman and Hall, London, 1913.
3.
On these points see, e.g. Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets (edited
S. Baldwin), Dover Publications, New York, 1970, p. 206 ff.; also
P.O. Proudhon, Confessions of a Revolutionary.
For recent discussion
of, and practical examples of, replacements for arbitration and law
court procedures (but for right-leaning anarchism), see C.D. Stone,
'Some reflections on arbitrating our way to anarchy', Anarchism(<y>»~7
Nomos, XIX), New York University Press, 1978, pp. 213-4.
4.
Arguments of this type are sometimes said to represent 'the strongest
case that can be made for the desirability of the State'
Anarchy and Cooperation, Wiley, London, 1976, p. 9).
(M. Taylor,
To cover all
arguments of the type, and to avoid repetition of the phrase 'variants
of' and disputes as to whether certain arguments such as those of
Hume and of Olson involve Prisoners' Dilemma situations,
'Prisoner's
Dilemma' is used in a wide sense to include not merely single n-person
Prisoners' Dilemma games, but for example, games where the payoffs are
not merely eristic (as with both Hobbes and Hume) and where such
games are iterated.
As the bracketed clauses in the text indicate,
there are two types of case, not sharply separated and both of
che same logical form - those where people do not contribute to
supply themselves with, or with "optimum" quantities of, a
"collective good" (e.g. security, order, sewage), and those where
people do not restrain themselves to maintain, or maintain "optimum
quantities of, some already available "collective good" (e.g. commons,
2
unpolluted streams, whales, wilderness).
That received arguments
of all these types involves Prisoners' Dilemma situations (in the
wide sense) is argued, in effect, in Taylor, op. cit. and elsewhere.
An easier introduction to the material covered by Taylor, which also
surveys other important literature, is given in the final chapter
of R. Abrams, Foundations of Political Analysis, Columbia University
Press, New York,
5.
1980.
An important matter the two player game does not illustrate is the relevance
of population size in the arguments for the State.
But size is not
decisive (see, e.g., Taylor, chapter 2), and the issue can be avoided
(or relocated) by organisation into
smaller communities.
The figures
given in the matrix are illustrative only; for inequalities which
suffice for a Dilemma situation, see Taylor, p. 5.
6.
It is similarly bizarre that there should be outcomes that the State
alone is said to be able to arrange, but not mere social cooperation,
when the State is (as on many theories) the result or reflection of
social cooperation.
7.
This important point is much elaborated in V. and R. Routley, 'Social
Theories, Self Management, and
Environmental Problems' in
Environmental Philosophy (edited D. Mannison and others), RSSS,
Australian National University, 1980.
8.
As a result of G. Hardin's "Travesty of the Commons", historical evidence
has been assembled which reveals how far Hardin's "Commons" diverges
from historic commons; see, in particular, A. Roberts, The Self-
Managing Environment, Allison & Ba<sby, London, 1979, chapter 10,
<A./
but also Routley, op. cit., p. 285 and pp. 329-332.
Similar points
apply as regards many other Dilemma situations.
(
'
'In the experimental studies of the prisoner's dilemma game
.
>
approximately half of the participants choose a cooperative strategy
even when they know for certain that the other player will cooperate'.
Abrams, op. cit., p. 308.
).
Cf.
the discussion in Taylor, op. cit., p. 93.
10. This important result is established in Taylor, op. cit., for a number of
critical cases, though not generally; see, e.g. p. 32 but especially
chapter 5.
11. Such moves have proved valuable in reducing the State's role in legal
prosecution, and in eliminating courtroom procedures, including
cases where the State is one of the "adversaries".
12. Both the false dichotomies cited are commonplace, not to say rife,
in modern economic and political theorising.
Both are to be
found in Abram's final chapter, for example, and the first (with an
attempt to plaster over the gap with a definition)
in Taylor.
For a
further criticism of such false dichotomies, see Routley, op.cit.,pp.250
13. For instance, a certain social escapism : one escapes
one's social roles
and is enabled to concentrate on private affairs or just to laze.
Or so it may appear : for in reality anyone who works, works long and
often alienated hours to pay for this apparent escapism and to cover
the high costs of frequently inadequate State activity.
14. The argument, to be found in Bakunin, is elaborated a little in Taylor, op.
cit., chapter 7.
A related argument, also in Bakunin, is from the way
in which emergence of the State compromises and even closes off
nonstate solutions to problems of social organisation in adjoining
regions.
X
15. The question is in effect Plato's question, and the regress is reminiscent
of his Third Man argument.
16. K.R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. II.
Fourth edition
(revised), Routledge and Regan Paul, London, 1962, p.
129 and p.
127.
The (overshoot) problem is, according to Popper 'the most fundamental
problem of all politics: the control of the controller, of the
dangerous accumulation of power represented in the State1,
Marxists never had 'any well-considered view'
'upon which'
(p. 129).
17. V. Lauber, 'Ecology, politics and liberal democracy', Government and
Opposition 13 ( 1978), 199-2 17: see p. 209 and p. 211 .
18. The argument, outlined by Bakunin, is much elaborated in R.P. Wolff,
In Defense of Anarchism, Harper & Row, New York, 1970.
No argument
is however without assumptions, which are open to dispute.
Wolff's
argument, for example, is disputed by G. Wall, 'Philosophical
anarchism revised' Nomos XIX, op. cit., p. 273 ff.
While theoretical arguments help outline the general shape of social and
also economic arrangements they do not determine them completely,
no detailed blueprint.
they offer
Accordingly what emerges is not a particular form of
anarchism, for instance anarchist communism, but a more experimental and
pluralistic anarchism, such as was instituted in the Spanish collectives.
19. Documented in The Anarchist Collectives (edited S. Dolgoff), Free Life Editions,
New York, 1974.
20. As B. Martin boldly asserts,
'The advantages of self-management and
alternative lifestyles are many and significant.
And these
alternatives are entirely feasible: there is plenty of evidence and
experience to support
operates.
their superiority over the present way society
The obstacles to self-management and alternative life
styles are powerful vested interests and institutional resistance to
change', Changing the Cogs, Friends of the Earth, Canberra, 1979,
p- 6.
21. As sketched in some of the material already cited, for example, Routley,
284 ff.
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Two copies of paper (typescript), with handwritten emendations and annotations. Paper published, Routley R and Routley V (1982) 'The irrefutability of anarchism', Social alternatives, 2(3): 23-29.
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