Refocusing ecocentrism: De-emphasizing stability and defending wildness

Environmental Ethics

Volumn 21, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 3-20

  Hettinger, Ned ^a   Throop, Bill ^b  

^a School of Business   (United States)

^b GREEN MOUNTAIN COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0002397909     PISSN: 01634275     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5840/enviroethics199921138     Document Type: Article

References (68)

1. Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (New York: Oxford University Press, 1949), p. ix.
2. Holmes Rolston, III, "Biology and Philosophy in Yellowstone," Biology and Philosophy 5 (1990): 242.
3. David Mech, "Returning the Wolf to Yellowstone," in Robert Keiter and Mark Boyce, eds., The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), p. 309.
4. The following account comes from Alston Chase, Playing God in Yellowstone (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987), pp. 19-30, 382.
5. For an overview of this emphasis in ecology, see Donald Worster, "The Ecology of Order and Chaos," Environmental History Review 14 (1990): 1-18.
6. K. S. Shrader-Frechette and E. D. McCoy, Method in Ecology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 65-67.
7. Compare Gordon Orians, "Diversity, Stability and Maturity in Natural Ecosystems," W. H. van Dobben and R. H. Lowe-McConnell, eds., Unifying Concepts in Ecology (The Hague: Dr. W. Junk B. V. Publishers, 1975), pp. 139-50.
8. See Worster, "The Ecology of Order," p. 41, quoting Odum.
9. A number of U.S. environmental laws use concepts like balance and stability to define the goals they set for public policy. See Mark Sagoff, "Fact and Value in Ecological Science," Environmental Ethics 7 (1985): 101.
10. Leopold, Sand County Almanac, p. 240.
11. J. Baird Callicott, In Defense of the Land Ethic (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989).
12. Holmes Rolston, III, Conserving Natural Value (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), p. 78.
13. In arguing that the most important natural value is the "systemic value" of ecosystems, that is, their ability to create value, Rolston says: "the stability, integrity, and beauty of biotic communities is what is most fundamentally to be conserved" (ibid., p. 177). Rolston is well aware of ecologists' ambivalence toward ecosystem stability and integrity. He ties his discussion of ecosystem stability to a discussion of historical change. At one point, he calls the notion that ecosystems tend toward equilibrium "a half-truth."
14. For one development of this argument, see Kristin Shrader-Frechette "Ecological Theories and Ethical Imperatives," in William Shea and Beat Sitter, eds., Scientists and Their Responsibility (Canton, Mass.: Watson Publishing International, 1989).
15. See Daniel Botkin, Discordant Harmonies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). In "Nonequilibrium Determinants of Biological Community Structure," American Scientist 82 (1994): 427, Seth Reice contends that "equilibrium is an unusual state for natural ecosystems. . . . the normal state of communities and ecosystems is to be recovering from the last disturbance. Natural systems are so frequently disturbed that equilibrium is rarely achieved."
16. See Daniel Botkin, Discordant Harmonies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). In "Nonequilibrium Determinants of Biological Community Structure," American Scientist 82 (1994): 427, Seth Reice contends that "equilibrium is an unusual state for natural ecosystems. . . . the normal state of communities and ecosystems is to be recovering from the last disturbance. Natural systems are so frequently disturbed that equilibrium is rarely achieved."
17. See the articles in S. T. A. Pickett and P. S. White, eds., The Ecology of Natural Disturbance and Patch Dynamics (Orlando: Academic Press, 1985), for examples of research in this area.
18. Botkin, Discordant Harmonies, chap. 3.
19. Ibid. For research documenting chaotic behavior of populations independent of perturbations, see Alan Hastings and Kevin Higgins, "Persistence of Transients in Spatially Structured Ecological Models," Science 263 (1994): 1133-36.
20. Ibid. For research documenting chaotic behavior of populations independent of perturbations, see Alan Hastings and Kevin Higgins, "Persistence of Transients in Spatially Structured Ecological Models," Science 263 (1994): 1133-36.
21. See Reice, "Nonequilibrium Determinants," p. 428.
22. Michael Soulé, "The Social Siege of Nature," in Michael Soulé and Gary Lease, eds., Reinventing Nature? (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1995), p. 143.
23. Looking at the fossil record of the last 50,000 years, David Jablonski says, "The most important message . . . is that ecological communities do not respond as units to environmental change. . . . Species are highly individualistic in their behavior, so that few, if any, modern terrestrial communities existed in their present form 10,000 years ago." See Jablonski's "Extinction: A Paleontological Perspective," Science 253 (1991): 756. In a similar vein, Michael Soulé suggests that historical "studies are undermining typological concepts of community composition, structure, dynamics, and organization by showing that existing species once constituted quite different groupings or 'communities.'" See Soulé's, "The Onslaught of Alien Species, and Other Challenges in the Coming Decades," Conservation Biology 4 (1990): 234.
24. Looking at the fossil record of the last 50,000 years, David Jablonski says, "The most important message . . . is that ecological communities do not respond as units to environmental change. . . . Species are highly individualistic in their behavior, so that few, if any, modern terrestrial communities existed in their present form 10,000 years ago." See Jablonski's "Extinction: A Paleontological Perspective," Science 253 (1991): 756. In a similar vein, Michael Soulé suggests that historical "studies are undermining typological concepts of community composition, structure, dynamics, and organization by showing that existing species once constituted quite different groupings or 'communities.'" See Soulé's, "The Onslaught of Alien Species, and Other Challenges in the Coming Decades," Conservation Biology 4 (1990): 234.
25. J. Baird Callicott,"Do Deconstructive Ecology and Sociobiology Undermine Leopold's Land Ethic?" Environmental Ethics 18 (1996): 353-72.
26. This fact does not show that there are no biotic communities, for properties essential to human community may not be necessary for biotic ones. Perhaps some communities need not be intentional ones. Or perhaps humans can see themselves as parts of biotic communities and provide the requisite intentionality. In any case, Callicott's insightful analogy between human and biotic communities is insufficient to make the case that biotic communities are robust enough to engender moral obligations to them.
27. Callicott, "Deconstructive Ecology," p. 372.
28. See Stuart Pimm, The Balance of Nature? (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991) and Monica G. Turner et al., "A Revised Concept of Landscape Equilibrium: Disturbance and Stability on Scaled Landscapes," Landscape Ecology 8 (1993): 213-27. Frank Golley's informative A History of the Ecosystem Concept in Ecology (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994) traces the development of ecosystem ecology and responds to some of the important challenges to it.
29. See Stuart Pimm, The Balance of Nature? (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991) and Monica G. Turner et al., "A Revised Concept of Landscape Equilibrium: Disturbance and Stability on Scaled Landscapes," Landscape Ecology 8 (1993): 213-27. Frank Golley's informative A History of the Ecosystem Concept in Ecology (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994) traces the development of ecosystem ecology and responds to some of the important challenges to it.
30. See Stuart Pimm, The Balance of Nature? (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991) and Monica G. Turner et al., "A Revised Concept of Landscape Equilibrium: Disturbance and Stability on Scaled Landscapes," Landscape Ecology 8 (1993): 213-27. Frank Golley's informative A History of the Ecosystem Concept in Ecology (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994) traces the development of ecosystem ecology and responds to some of the important challenges to it.
31. See Elizabeth Culotta, "Exploring Biodiversity's Benefits," Science 273 (1996): 1045-46.
32. Charles Goodnight, "Experimental Studies of Community Evolution I: The Response at the Community Level," Evolution 44 (1990): 1614-24.
33. David Ehrenfeld calls this emphasis a "fad." See "Ecosystem Health and Ecological Theories," in Robert Costanza, Bryan Norton, and Benjamin Haskell, eds., Ecosystem Health (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1992), p. 140. For another suggestion that the focus on instability is due to sociological factors, see P. Koetsier et al., "Rejecting Equilibrium Theory - A Cautionary Note," Bulletin of the Ecology Society of America 71 (1990): 229-30.
34. David Ehrenfeld calls this emphasis a "fad." See "Ecosystem Health and Ecological Theories," in Robert Costanza, Bryan Norton, and Benjamin Haskell, eds., Ecosystem Health (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1992), p. 140. For another suggestion that the focus on instability is due to sociological factors, see P. Koetsier et al., "Rejecting Equilibrium Theory - A Cautionary Note," Bulletin of the Ecology Society of America 71 (1990): 229-30.
35. See Soulé, "The Social Siege of Nature," p. 160.
36. Although a number of philosophers have appealed to wildness and the related notion of naturalness, there is no uniform agreement on its meaning or justification. See Robert Elliot, "Extinction, Restoration, Naturalness," Environmental Ethics 16 (1994): 135-44, and "Faking Nature," Inquiry 25 (1982): 81-93; Eric Katz "The Big Lie: The Human Restoration of Nature," Research in Philosophy and Technology 12 (1992): 231-41, and "The Call of the Wild," Environmental Ethics 14 (1992): 265-73; and Holmes Rolston, III, Environmental Ethics (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), pp. 32-44, and Conserving Natural Value, pp. 1-9, 12-16, 72-73, 102, 184-92, 197-202, 223-28. Some philosophers interpret integrity in a way that seems to include wildness. See Laura Westra, An Environmental Proposal for Ethics: The Principle of Integrity (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1994). Mark Woods, "Rethinking Wilderness" (Ph.D. diss., Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1997), chap. 6, draws useful distinctions between kinds of wildness.
37. Although a number of philosophers have appealed to wildness and the related notion of naturalness, there is no uniform agreement on its meaning or justification. See Robert Elliot, "Extinction, Restoration, Naturalness," Environmental Ethics 16 (1994): 135-44, and "Faking Nature," Inquiry 25 (1982): 81-93; Eric Katz "The Big Lie: The Human Restoration of Nature," Research in Philosophy and Technology 12 (1992): 231-41, and "The Call of the Wild," Environmental Ethics 14 (1992): 265-73; and Holmes Rolston, III, Environmental Ethics (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), pp. 32-44, and Conserving Natural Value, pp. 1-9, 12-16, 72-73, 102, 184-92, 197-202, 223-28. Some philosophers interpret integrity in a way that seems to include wildness. See Laura Westra, An Environmental Proposal for Ethics: The Principle of Integrity (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1994). Mark Woods, "Rethinking Wilderness" (Ph.D. diss., Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1997), chap. 6, draws useful distinctions between kinds of wildness.
38. Although a number of philosophers have appealed to wildness and the related notion of naturalness, there is no uniform agreement on its meaning or justification. See Robert Elliot, "Extinction, Restoration, Naturalness," Environmental Ethics 16 (1994): 135-44, and "Faking Nature," Inquiry 25 (1982): 81-93; Eric Katz "The Big Lie: The Human Restoration of Nature," Research in Philosophy and Technology 12 (1992): 231-41, and "The Call of the Wild," Environmental Ethics 14 (1992): 265-73; and Holmes Rolston, III, Environmental Ethics (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), pp. 32-44, and Conserving Natural Value, pp. 1-9, 12-16, 72-73, 102, 184-92, 197-202, 223-28. Some philosophers interpret integrity in a way that seems to include wildness. See Laura Westra, An Environmental Proposal for Ethics: The Principle of Integrity (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1994). Mark Woods, "Rethinking Wilderness" (Ph.D. diss., Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1997), chap. 6, draws useful distinctions between kinds of wildness.
39. Although a number of philosophers have appealed to wildness and the related notion of naturalness, there is no uniform agreement on its meaning or justification. See Robert Elliot, "Extinction, Restoration, Naturalness," Environmental Ethics 16 (1994): 135-44, and "Faking Nature," Inquiry 25 (1982): 81-93; Eric Katz "The Big Lie: The Human Restoration of Nature," Research in Philosophy and Technology 12 (1992): 231-41, and "The Call of the Wild," Environmental Ethics 14 (1992): 265-73; and Holmes Rolston, III, Environmental Ethics (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), pp. 32-44, and Conserving Natural Value, pp. 1-9, 12-16, 72-73, 102, 184-92, 197-202, 223-28. Some philosophers interpret integrity in a way that seems to include wildness. See Laura Westra, An Environmental Proposal for Ethics: The Principle of Integrity (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1994). Mark Woods, "Rethinking Wilderness" (Ph.D. diss., Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1997), chap. 6, draws useful distinctions between kinds of wildness.
40. Although a number of philosophers have appealed to wildness and the related notion of naturalness, there is no uniform agreement on its meaning or justification. See Robert Elliot, "Extinction, Restoration, Naturalness," Environmental Ethics 16 (1994): 135-44, and "Faking Nature," Inquiry 25 (1982): 81-93; Eric Katz "The Big Lie: The Human Restoration of Nature," Research in Philosophy and Technology 12 (1992): 231-41, and "The Call of the Wild," Environmental Ethics 14 (1992): 265-73; and Holmes Rolston, III, Environmental Ethics (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), pp. 32-44, and Conserving Natural Value, pp. 1-9, 12-16, 72-73, 102, 184-92, 197-202, 223-28. Some philosophers interpret integrity in a way that seems to include wildness. See Laura Westra, An Environmental Proposal for Ethics: The Principle of Integrity (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1994). Mark Woods, "Rethinking Wilderness" (Ph.D. diss., Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1997), chap. 6, draws useful distinctions between kinds of wildness.
41. Although a number of philosophers have appealed to wildness and the related notion of naturalness, there is no uniform agreement on its meaning or justification. See Robert Elliot, "Extinction, Restoration, Naturalness," Environmental Ethics 16 (1994): 135-44, and "Faking Nature," Inquiry 25 (1982): 81-93; Eric Katz "The Big Lie: The Human Restoration of Nature," Research in Philosophy and Technology 12 (1992): 231-41, and "The Call of the Wild," Environmental Ethics 14 (1992): 265-73; and Holmes Rolston, III, Environmental Ethics (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), pp. 32-44, and Conserving Natural Value, pp. 1-9, 12-16, 72-73, 102, 184-92, 197-202, 223-28. Some philosophers interpret integrity in a way that seems to include wildness. See Laura Westra, An Environmental Proposal for Ethics: The Principle of Integrity (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1994). Mark Woods, "Rethinking Wilderness" (Ph.D. diss., Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1997), chap. 6, draws useful distinctions between kinds of wildness.
42. Although a number of philosophers have appealed to wildness and the related notion of naturalness, there is no uniform agreement on its meaning or justification. See Robert Elliot, "Extinction, Restoration, Naturalness," Environmental Ethics 16 (1994): 135-44, and "Faking Nature," Inquiry 25 (1982): 81-93; Eric Katz "The Big Lie: The Human Restoration of Nature," Research in Philosophy and Technology 12 (1992): 231-41, and "The Call of the Wild," Environmental Ethics 14 (1992): 265-73; and Holmes Rolston, III, Environmental Ethics (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), pp. 32-44, and Conserving Natural Value, pp. 1-9, 12-16, 72-73, 102, 184-92, 197-202, 223-28. Some philosophers interpret integrity in a way that seems to include wildness. See Laura Westra, An Environmental Proposal for Ethics: The Principle of Integrity (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1994). Mark Woods, "Rethinking Wilderness" (Ph.D. diss., Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1997), chap. 6, draws useful distinctions between kinds of wildness.
43. Although a number of philosophers have appealed to wildness and the related notion of naturalness, there is no uniform agreement on its meaning or justification. See Robert Elliot, "Extinction, Restoration, Naturalness," Environmental Ethics 16 (1994): 135-44, and "Faking Nature," Inquiry 25 (1982): 81-93; Eric Katz "The Big Lie: The Human Restoration of Nature," Research in Philosophy and Technology 12 (1992): 231-41, and "The Call of the Wild," Environmental Ethics 14 (1992): 265-73; and Holmes Rolston, III, Environmental Ethics (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), pp. 32-44, and Conserving Natural Value, pp. 1-9, 12-16, 72-73, 102, 184-92, 197-202, 223-28. Some philosophers interpret integrity in a way that seems to include wildness. See Laura Westra, An Environmental Proposal for Ethics: The Principle of Integrity (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1994). Mark Woods, "Rethinking Wilderness" (Ph.D. diss., Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1997), chap. 6, draws useful distinctions between kinds of wildness.
44. For a powerful treatment of this topic, see Rolston, Conserving Natural Value, pp. 223-28.
45. Tom Birch discusses wildness as "otherness" in "The Incarceration of Wildness: Wilderness Areas as Prisons," Environmental Ethics 12 (1990): 3-26.
46. See Edward O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992), p. 272.
47. Richard Monastersky, "Earthmovers: Humans Take Their Place alongside Wind, Water, and Ice," Science News 146 (1994): 432.
48. Donald Worster, "The Nature We Have Lost," in The Wealth of Nature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 6.
49. According to Robert Elliot, "Extinction, Restoration, Naturalness," p. 138, "intensification of value occurs when the co-instantiation of value-adding properties yields more value than the sum of the values of the properties would if they were instantiated singly."
50. Eugene Hargrove, "The Paradox of Humanity: Two Views of Biodiversity and Landscapes," in Ke Chung Kim and Robert D. Weaver, eds., Biodiversity and Landscapes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 183.
51. We thank Baird Callicott for forcefully drawing our attention to this criticism.
52. David Orr, Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment and the Human Prospect (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1994), p. 131.
53. We presume that one's warranted value judgments may be some distance from one's initial judgments, as in ideal observer accounts of value. See Tom Carson, The Status of Morality (Boston: D. Reidel Publishing, 1984).
54. For the charge that wildness value is ethnocentric, see Ramachandra Guha, "Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness Preservation: A Third World Critique," Environmental Ethics 11 (1989): 71-83.
55. See, for example, Anthony Weston, Back to Earth (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994), pp. 130-32.
56. See William Cronon's, "The Trouble with Wilderness," in William Cronon, ed., Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1995), p. 85.
57. Both Guha and Cronon worry that "wilderness environmentalism" results in native peoples being forced off their land to create wilderness areas. By distinguishing between wildness and wilderness, by recognizing wildness in humans, by valuing intermediate degrees of wildness, and by allowing that anthropocentric concerns - as well as ecocentric ones - play a large role in sustainability, we believe that we have significantly diminished the potential that wildness value could be used to justify such activities.
58. J. Baird Callicott, "The Wilderness Idea Revisited: The Sustainable Development Alternative," Environmental Professional 13 (1991): 241.
59. Ibid., p. 240.
60. For a discussion of how wildness in humans can be valuable, see Bill Throop, "Humans and the Value of the Wild," Human Ecology Review 3 (1996): 3-7.
61. Henry David Thoreau, "Walking," from The Natural History Essays. Reprinted in Susan Armstrong and Richard Botzler, eds., Environmental Ethics: Divergence and Convergence (New York: McGravv-Hill, 1993), p. 114.
62. Henry David Thoreau, "Walking," from The Natural History Essays. Reprinted in Susan Armstrong and Richard Botzler, eds., Environmental Ethics: Divergence and Convergence (New York: McGravv-Hill, 1993), p. 114.
63. In "The Paradox of Humanity," Eugene Hargrove points out the need for a more sophisticated view of the human/nature relationship than the simplistic views that either humans are, or are not, a part of nature.
64. Holmes Rolston, III, "The Wilderness Idea Reaffirmed," The Environmental Professional 13 (1991): 370-71.
65. Robin Attfield, "Rehabilitating Nature and Making Nature Habitable," in Robin Attfield and Andrew Belsey, eds., Philosophy and the Natural Environment (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 45.
66. See Elliot's "Faking Nature" and Katz's "The Big Lie."
67. See Elliot's "Faking Nature" and Katz's "The Big Lie."
68. See, for example, Richard Sylvan's "Mucking with Nature," in Sylvan, Against the Main Stream, Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy, no. 21 (Canberra: Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1994).