Natural and artifactual: Restored nature as subject

Environmental Ethics

Volumn 21, Issue 3, 1999, Pages 247-266

  Lo, Yeuk Sze ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA   (Australia)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0006220531     PISSN: 01634275     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5840/enviroethics199921316     Document Type: Article

References (62)

1. Andrew Brennan, "The Moral Standing of Natural Objects," Environmental Ethics 6 (1984): 35-56.
2. The lack of intrinsic function is not the same as the intrinsic lack of function. Brennan uses "intrinsic functionlessness" to refer to the former, not the latter.
3. All page numbers for Katz's work are from articles reprinted in Nature As Subject: Human Obligation and Natural Community (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997) unless otherwise stated.
4. Nature restoration, as understood here, is not the same as ecological restoration. The latter is restoration of ecosystems whether they be natural or not, whereas the former is restoration of natural entities whether they be ecosystems or not.
5. Katz, "Artifacts and Functions: A Note on the Value of Nature," p. 122.
6. Katz, "The Big Lie: Human Restoration of Nature," p. 98.
7. Ibid., p. 101.
8. Katz, "Artifacts and Functions," p. 122.
9. Katz, "The Call of the Wild: The Struggle against Domination and the Technological Fix of Nature," p. 114; "Artifacts and Functions," pp. 122-23, 129-30.
10. Katz, "The Call of the Wild: The Struggle against Domination and the Technological Fix of Nature," p. 114; "Artifacts and Functions," pp. 122-23, 129-30.
11. Katz, "Restoration and Redesign: The Ethical Significance of Human Intervention in Nature," Restoration and Management Notes 9 (1991): 92; "The Big Lie," pp. 98, 101; "The Call of the Wild," p.114; "Artifacts and Functions," pp. 121-22.
12. Katz, "Restoration and Redesign: The Ethical Significance of Human Intervention in Nature," Restoration and Management Notes 9 (1991): 92; "The Big Lie," pp. 98, 101; "The Call of the Wild," p.114; "Artifacts and Functions," pp. 121-22.
13. Katz, "Restoration and Redesign: The Ethical Significance of Human Intervention in Nature," Restoration and Management Notes 9 (1991): 92; "The Big Lie," pp. 98, 101; "The Call of the Wild," p.114; "Artifacts and Functions," pp. 121-22.
14. Katz, "Restoration and Redesign: The Ethical Significance of Human Intervention in Nature," Restoration and Management Notes 9 (1991): 92; "The Big Lie," pp. 98, 101; "The Call of the Wild," p.114; "Artifacts and Functions," pp. 121-22.
15. Katz, "Nature's Presence: Reflections on Healing and Domination," p. 197 (emphasis added).
16. Katz, "The Big Lie," p. 97; "Restoration and Redesign," p. 92.
17. Katz, "The Big Lie," p. 97; "Restoration and Redesign," p. 92.
18. Katz, "Artifacts and Functions," p. 122.
19. Andrew Brennan, Thinking about Nature: An Investigation of Nature, Value, and Ecology (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1988), pp. 88-91.
20. Katz, "The Big Lie," p. 104.
21. Ibid.
22. Katz, "Artifacts and Functions," pp. 122-23.
23. Katz, "The Big Lie," p. 101.
24. Katz, "Artifacts and Functions," p. 128.
25. Katz, "The Big Lie," p. 105; "Restoration and Redesign," p. 91.
26. Katz, "The Big Lie," p. 105; "Restoration and Redesign," p. 91.
27. Katz, "The Call of the Wild," p. 111.
28. Ibid., p. 114.
29. Katz, "The Big Lie," p. 98.
30. See Katz, "The Problem of Ecological Restoration," Environmental Ethics 18 (1996): 222-24.
31. Katz, "Artifacts and Functions," p. 126.
32. Katz, "The Big Lie," p. 100.
33. Eric Katz and Lauren Oechsi, "Moving beyond Anthropocentrism: Environmental Ethics, Development, and the Amazon," pp. 150, 155; Katz, "Biodiversity and Ecological Justice," p. 166; "Nature's Presence: Reflections on Healing and Domination," p. 195.
34. Eric Katz and Lauren Oechsi, "Moving beyond Anthropocentrism: Environmental Ethics, Development, and the Amazon," pp. 150, 155; Katz, "Biodiversity and Ecological Justice," p. 166; "Nature's Presence: Reflections on Healing and Domination," p. 195.
35. Eric Katz and Lauren Oechsi, "Moving beyond Anthropocentrism: Environmental Ethics, Development, and the Amazon," pp. 150, 155; Katz, "Biodiversity and Ecological Justice," p. 166; "Nature's Presence: Reflections on Healing and Domination," p. 195.
36. Katz, "Moving beyond Anthropocentrism," pp. 150, 157-58; "Biodiversity and Ecological Justice," p. 166.
37. Katz, "Moving beyond Anthropocentrism," pp. 150, 157-58; "Biodiversity and Ecological Justice," p. 166.
38. See Val Plumwood, "Androcentrism and Anthrocentrism: Parallels and Politics," Ethics and the Environment 1 (1996): 119-52.
39. Paul W. Taylor, Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), p. 192.
40. See John Rodman, "Ecological Sensibility," in Donald Scherer and Tom Attig , eds., Ethics and the Environment (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall), pp. 88-92; Taylor, Respect for Nature, pp. 108-09.
41. See John Rodman, "Ecological Sensibility," in Donald Scherer and Tom Attig , eds., Ethics and the Environment (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall), pp. 88-92; Taylor, Respect for Nature, pp. 108-09.
42. Taylor, Respect for Nature, pp. 121-22.
43. Katz, "The Big Lie," p. 98; "The Call of the Wild," p. 114; "Restoration and Redesign," p. 92.
44. Katz, "The Big Lie," p. 98; "The Call of the Wild," p. 114; "Restoration and Redesign," p. 92.
45. Katz, "The Big Lie," p. 98; "The Call of the Wild," p. 114; "Restoration and Redesign," p. 92.
46. In "On the Imitation of Nature," Restoration and Management Notes 3 (1985): 2-3, William R. Jordan describes ecological restoration in terms of the imitation of nature. He also distinguishes the imitation of nature in its purest, most concrete form (e.g., species-by-species restoration of plant and animal communities) and in more abstract ways (e.g., preventive medicine and organic architecture). In this paper, I focus on restoration as the imitation of nature in the former sense.
47. The limit of something's resemblance to another thing, as understood here, is the absolute sameness of their non-relational properties. However, it seems rather difficult to understand the limit of something's novelty in an absolute sense. For instance, the novelty of x as a new member of type T must not exclude x's possession of the defining properties of T. That is, even x with novelty at its limit still shares some properties possessed by the old members of T, which means that x is not absolutely novel. As a result of the above consideration, the limit of something's novelty may be better understood in terms of its properties other than those that define the type(s) it belongs to. Hence, to say that something has novelty at its limit is no more than to say that none of its properties other than those that define the type(s) it belongs to is shared by any old member of the type(s).
48. In Faking Nature: The Ethics of Environmental Restoration (London: Routledge, 1997), Robert Elliot argues that even a perfectly restored natural entity would necessarily lack some relational properties of the formerly undamaged natural entity, including the properties of being naturally evolved and of having a natural continuity with a remote past. While I think that Elliot is insightful in pointing out the conceptual impossibility of humans reproducing those two relational properties, I am not persuaded by his argument for a further claim that those two properties are intrinsic-value adding.
49. In "The Restoration of Species and Natural Environment," Environmental Ethics 13 (1991): 291-309, Alastair S. Gunn maintains that a restored entity is not a copy, but an original because the restored entity is physically continuous with the original through time - the original is only partially destroyed before its restoration - so that the restored entity cannot coexist with the original, whereas a copy can coexist with the original. There are four comments that I want to make. First, the restored state of an entity is definitely a copy of its originally undamaged state (the reference state). Therefore, restoration can still be understood as a kind of copying process. Second, physical continuity between two entities with very similar non-relational properties may not be a sufficient condition for their numerical identity. Suppose a painting is severely damaged in a fire and only a corner of it remained. Even a perfect restoration of the original painting would be largely a copy because a large part of it is constituted by new physical materials. Whether the entity is still the original seems to be partly a function of the degree of physical continuity between them. Third, it is not obvious that the modal property of being possibly coexistent with the original is a necessary property of a copy. Imagine a photocopying machine with a scanner which is so powerful that the printing on an original document would be destroyed during the scanning process. Given the nature of the machine in question, although the photocopies produced by such machine cannot coexist with the originals, they are nonetheless copies. Finally, and most importantly, even if Gunn's argument is sound, it should not undermine my principal conclusion that restored natural entities are not designed by humans, for, as I have already argued, a restored natural entity is intended to share the same set of non-relational properties with an originally (or formerly) undamaged natural entity, which is itself not designed by humans. Therefore, whether considered as a copy or an original, a restored natural entity is after all not designed by humans.
50. It follows that if x is not the result of an intention, then x is not an artifact. If the term intention in the preceding statement is interpreted as referring to the intention to bring about x, then x as an accidental by-product is not an artifact. However, if the content of the intention in question is unspecified, then x as a by-product and is after all the result of an intention, namely the intention to bring about another entity y.
51. Katz, "Artifacts and Functions," p. 129 (emphasis added).
52. Katz, "The Call of the Wild," p. 111.
53. Katz, "Imperialism and Environmentalism," p. 141.
54. Brennan, "The Moral Standing of Natural Objects," p. 47.
55. Ibid., pp. 41-44.
56. Katz, Nature as Subject, pp. xxiv-xxv; "Artifacts and Functions," pp. 129-31.
57. Katz, Nature as Subject, pp. xxiv-xxv; "Artifacts and Functions," pp. 129-31.
58. Katz, "Artifacts and Functions," pp. 130-31.
59. Katz, "The Big Lie" (emphasis added), p. 104
60. Such mislocated focus has also conveniently enabled Katz and some other ecocentric environmental philosophers to overlook the autonomy or potential of nonhuman slaves (e.g., farm and laboratory animals) to lead lives that better serve their own goods. See Katz, "Defending the Use of Animals by Business: Animal Liberation and Environmental Ethics," pp. 79-90; J. Baird Callicott, "Animal Liberation: A Triangular Affair," Environmental Ethics 2 (1980): 311-38.
61. Such mislocated focus has also conveniently enabled Katz and some other ecocentric environmental philosophers to overlook the autonomy or potential of nonhuman slaves (e.g., farm and laboratory animals) to lead lives that better serve their own goods. See Katz, "Defending the Use of Animals by Business: Animal Liberation and Environmental Ethics," pp. 79-90; J. Baird Callicott, "Animal Liberation: A Triangular Affair," Environmental Ethics 2 (1980): 311-38.
62. See Taylor, Respect for Nature, pp. 94, 186-98. Taylor maintains that "some interference with or manipulation of the natural world by humans is compatible with respect for nature and may actually constitute an expression of that attitude."