Deep ecology and the irrelevance of morality

Environmental Ethics

Volumn 18, Issue 4, 1996, Pages 411-423

  Reitan, Eric H ^a  

^a PACIFIC LUTHERAN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARISTOTELIA; CANIDAE;

EID: 0000758204     PISSN: 01634275     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5840/enviroethics19961846     Document Type: Article

References (35)

1. The expression deep ecology has come to be used in at least two ways in recent years. First, it has been used to refer to the kind of environmental philosophy (ecosophy) developed by Arne Naess - what Naess calls ecosophy T and Warwick Fox calls transpersonal ecology. Second, it has come to be used to refer to an ecological movement unified by a set of platform principles (which, while supported by Naess's philosophy, can also be supported on different grounds). To this list should be added Naess's use of the term to refer to any set of views about the environment arrived at through a process of "deep questioning," whether or not these views correspond to the platform principles. Since my focus in this article is on the kind of environmental philosophy developed by Naess and expanded on by Warwick Fox and others, I use deep ecology as a synonym for ecosophy T and transpersonal ecology. The reader should, however, remain conscious of the fact that not all those who call themselves deep ecologists share the views of Naess and Fox.
2. Naess's substantive views on Self-realization are concisely encapsulated in the essay "Self-Realization: An Ecological Approach to Being in the World," in John Seed, Joanna Macy, Pat Fleming, and Arne Naess, ed., Thinking Like a Mountain: Towards a Council of All Beings (Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1988), pp. 19-30. Other sources for his views on Self-realization include "Self-realization in Mixed Communities of Humans, Bears, Sheep, and Wolves," Inquiry 22 (1979): 231-41; "Identification as a Source of Deep Ecological Attitudes," in Michael Tobias, ed., Deep Ecology (San Diego: Avant Books, 1985); "Spinoza and Ecology," Philosophia 7 (1977): 45-54; and "Notes on the Methodology of Normative Systems," Methodology and Science 10 (1977): 64-79.
3. Naess's substantive views on Self-realization are concisely encapsulated in the essay "Self-Realization: An Ecological Approach to Being in the World," in John Seed, Joanna Macy, Pat Fleming, and Arne Naess, ed., Thinking Like a Mountain: Towards a Council of All Beings (Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1988), pp. 19-30. Other sources for his views on Self-realization include "Self-realization in Mixed Communities of Humans, Bears, Sheep, and Wolves," Inquiry 22 (1979): 231-41; "Identification as a Source of Deep Ecological Attitudes," in Michael Tobias, ed., Deep Ecology (San Diego: Avant Books, 1985); "Spinoza and Ecology," Philosophia 7 (1977): 45-54; and "Notes on the Methodology of Normative Systems," Methodology and Science 10 (1977): 64-79.
4. Naess's substantive views on Self-realization are concisely encapsulated in the essay "Self-Realization: An Ecological Approach to Being in the World," in John Seed, Joanna Macy, Pat Fleming, and Arne Naess, ed., Thinking Like a Mountain: Towards a Council of All Beings (Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1988), pp. 19-30. Other sources for his views on Self-realization include "Self-realization in Mixed Communities of Humans, Bears, Sheep, and Wolves," Inquiry 22 (1979): 231-41; "Identification as a Source of Deep Ecological Attitudes," in Michael Tobias, ed., Deep Ecology (San Diego: Avant Books, 1985); "Spinoza and Ecology," Philosophia 7 (1977): 45-54; and "Notes on the Methodology of Normative Systems," Methodology and Science 10 (1977): 64-79.
5. Naess's substantive views on Self-realization are concisely encapsulated in the essay "Self-Realization: An Ecological Approach to Being in the World," in John Seed, Joanna Macy, Pat Fleming, and Arne Naess, ed., Thinking Like a Mountain: Towards a Council of All Beings (Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1988), pp. 19-30. Other sources for his views on Self-realization include "Self-realization in Mixed Communities of Humans, Bears, Sheep, and Wolves," Inquiry 22 (1979): 231-41; "Identification as a Source of Deep Ecological Attitudes," in Michael Tobias, ed., Deep Ecology (San Diego: Avant Books, 1985); "Spinoza and Ecology," Philosophia 7 (1977): 45-54; and "Notes on the Methodology of Normative Systems," Methodology and Science 10 (1977): 64-79.
6. Naess's substantive views on Self-realization are concisely encapsulated in the essay "Self-Realization: An Ecological Approach to Being in the World," in John Seed, Joanna Macy, Pat Fleming, and Arne Naess, ed., Thinking Like a Mountain: Towards a Council of All Beings (Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1988), pp. 19-30. Other sources for his views on Self-realization include "Self-realization in Mixed Communities of Humans, Bears, Sheep, and Wolves," Inquiry 22 (1979): 231-41; "Identification as a Source of Deep Ecological Attitudes," in Michael Tobias, ed., Deep Ecology (San Diego: Avant Books, 1985); "Spinoza and Ecology," Philosophia 7 (1977): 45-54; and "Notes on the Methodology of Normative Systems," Methodology and Science 10 (1977): 64-79.
7. Warwick Fox, Approaching Deep Ecology: A Response to Richard Sylvan 's Critique of Deep Ecology (Hobart: Board of Environmental Sudies, University of Tasmania, 1986), pp. 70-71.
8. Warwick Fox, Towards a Transpersonal Ecology: Developing New Foundations for Environmentalism (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1990), p. 217.
9. Ibid., pp. 215-17.
10. This criticism may say more about the current state of environmental ethics than it does about Fox. Indeed, it may be that current trends in environmental ethics fail to do justice to the richness of our moral heritage. The aim of this paper is to show that deep ecology has succeeded (perhaps unintentionally) in recapturing that heritage; it may be that the environmental ethics which Fox distances himself from is more opposed to morality, properly conceived, than is deep ecology.
11. Naess, "Self-Realization," p. 28.
12. Ibid., p. 20.
13. Ibid., p. 22; see also Naess, "Identification as a Source," p. 261.
14. Ibid., p. 22; see also Naess, "Identification as a Source," p. 261.
15. Naess, "Self-Realization," p. 22.
16. Ibid., p. 20; see also Naess, "Notes on the Methodology of Normative Systems," p. 71, and Fox, Approaching Deep Ecology, p. 56.
17. Ibid., p. 20; see also Naess, "Notes on the Methodology of Normative Systems," p. 71, and Fox, Approaching Deep Ecology, p. 56.
18. Ibid., p. 20; see also Naess, "Notes on the Methodology of Normative Systems," p. 71, and Fox, Approaching Deep Ecology, p. 56.
19. Naess, "Self-Realization," p. 20.
20. Ibid., p. 28.
21. Ibid.
22. Fox, Approaching Deep Ecology, p. 70.
23. Ibid. Fox is loosely quoting John Rodman here.
24. What I call the "narrow reading" of Kant's ethics has become so standard that it is presented as authoritative in most introductory philosophy texts and moral philosophy texts. See, for example, Lawrence M. Hinman, Ethics: A Pluralistic Approach to Moral Theory (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1994), pp. 194-95; see also Robert C. Solomon, Introducing Philosophy: A Text with Integrated Readings, 4th ed. (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989), p. 580.
25. What I call the "narrow reading" of Kant's ethics has become so standard that it is presented as authoritative in most introductory philosophy texts and moral philosophy texts. See, for example, Lawrence M. Hinman, Ethics: A Pluralistic Approach to Moral Theory (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1994), pp. 194-95; see also Robert C. Solomon, Introducing Philosophy: A Text with Integrated Readings, 4th ed. (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989), p. 580.
26. Fox, Towards a Transpersonal Ecology, p. 213.
27. Ibid., p. 216.
28. Ibid.
29. Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness (New York: New American Library, 1964), p. 3.
30. See Immanuel Kant, The Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1949), p. 38.
31. Ronald Green, Religious Reason (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), p. 293.
32. Ronald Green, Religion and Moral Reason (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 6.
33. Kant, Fundamental Principles, pp. 45-46.
34. Simone Weil seems to have this understanding of respect. See, for example, "Forms of the Implicit Love of God," in Waiting for God (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), pp. 146-47.
35. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, esp. bk. 2.