Examining ecosystem integrity as a primary mode of recognizing the autonomy of nature

Environmental Ethics

Volumn 21, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 59-73

  Morito, Bruce ^a  

^a ATHABASCA UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0042547881     PISSN: 01634275     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5840/enviroethics199921141     Document Type: Review

References (33)

1. Robert Rosen, Life Itself: A Comprehensive Inquiry into the Nature, Origins and Fabrication of Life (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), p. 116.
2. See David Rapport, "Ecosystem Health: Exploring the Territory," Ecosystem Health 1 (1995): 5-13.
3. The initial draft of this paper was presented at the Canadian Society for the Study of Practical Ethics, Learned Society Meetings, St. John's, 5 June 1997. Leo Groarke, in his commentary, challenged the assumption of the paper and indeed of all approaches that rely on the concept of autonomy, that it is problematically ascribed to ecosystems. Autonomy is a moral concept, while the notion of ecosystem autonomy is principally a scientific, descriptive one. The slide from human to ecosystem autonomy is, then, suspect from the beginning. I agree with Groarke on this matter, and his influence is reflected in this version. There remains, however, a sense in which ecosystem autonomy as captured in the scientific description of the whole-part dependency relation that needs to be explored. My attempt at drawing ethical implications utilizes this description, not through an extensionist program, as Groarke identifies, but in redefining the ethical enterprise in light of the metaphysical implications for the status of the moral valuing agent within an ecological context.
4. Laura Westra, An Environmental Proposal For Ethics: The Principle of Integrity (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1994).
5. Henry Regier, "The Notion of Natural and Cultural Integrity," in Stephen Woodley, James Kay, and George Francis, eds., Ecological Integrity and the Management of Ecosystems (Delray Beach, Fla: St. Lucie Press, 1993), p. 26.
6. James Kay, "On the Nature of Ecological Integrity: Some Closing Comments," in Woodley, Kay, and Francis, Ecological Integrity and the Management of Ecosystems, p. 206.
7. Reed Noss, "Wilderness Recovery: Thinking Big in Restoration Ecology," The Environmental Professional 13 (1991): 225-34.
8. Westra, An Environmental Proposal for Ethics, p. 93.
9. Ibid., p. 37.
10. Ibid., p. 9.
11. I wish to thank a referee of a previous draft of this paper for pointing out a number of controversies with my interpretation of Westra's work. The criticism has led me to clarify some sections and the precise target of my critique. Laura Westra has since sent me several chapters of her new manuscript, Living In Integrity: A Global Ethic to Restore a Fragmented Earth, which takes up unfinished business in An Environmental Proposal for Ethics. This new material has given me reason to refine points, although I believe the original critique remains intact.
12. See, for example, Westra, An Environmental Proposal for Ethics, p. 64.
13. Ibid., p. 65.
14. Ibid., p. 47.
15. Ibid., p. 66.
16. Ibid., p. 79.
17. Ibid., p. 110.
18. Ibid., p. 111.
19. Ibid., p. 105.
20. Tom Regan, "The Case For Animal Rights," in James Rachels, ed., The Right Thing To Do (New York: Random House, 1989), pp. 211-25; Peter Singer, "All Animals Are Equal," in Peter Singer, ed., Applied Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 227; Kenneth Goodpaster, "On Being Morally Considerable," Journal of Philosophy 78 (1978): 308-25.
21. Tom Regan, "The Case For Animal Rights," in James Rachels, ed., The Right Thing To Do (New York: Random House, 1989), pp. 211-25; Peter Singer, "All Animals Are Equal," in Peter Singer, ed., Applied Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 227; Kenneth Goodpaster, "On Being Morally Considerable," Journal of Philosophy 78 (1978): 308-25.
22. Tom Regan, "The Case For Animal Rights," in James Rachels, ed., The Right Thing To Do (New York: Random House, 1989), pp. 211-25; Peter Singer, "All Animals Are Equal," in Peter Singer, ed., Applied Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 227; Kenneth Goodpaster, "On Being Morally Considerable," Journal of Philosophy 78 (1978): 308-25.
23. This is the project that Immanuel Kant takes up in the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Robert Paul Wolff (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969), esp. sec. 2.
24. Kristin Shrader-Frechette, book review of An Environmental Proposal for Ethics," in Environmental Ethics 17 (1995): 433-35.
25. Westra, An Environmental Proposal for Ethics, p. 177. She reinforces this view in Living In Integrity, albeit in a highly qualified manner. In chap. 9, p. 3 (manuscript version), for example, Westra draws a distinction between human and nonhuman sorts of disturbances, the latter of which is proscribed by the ethics of integrity. Then, on p. 4, she is prepared to divorce human evolution from that of nonhuman evolution on the grounds that human existence is not crucial to the maintenance of "nature's services" (Westra's quotation marks). Hence, strict zoning becomes necessary. Living in integrity, then, turns out to be "living as in a buffer" (p. 28), where our activity as human beings is very close to being, by definition, divorced from other forms of ecosystemic life.
26. Westra, An Environmental Proposal for Ethics, p. 177. She reinforces this view in Living In Integrity, albeit in a highly qualified manner. In chap. 9, p. 3 (manuscript version), for example, Westra draws a distinction between human and nonhuman sorts of disturbances, the latter of which is proscribed by the ethics of integrity. Then, on p. 4, she is prepared to divorce human evolution from that of nonhuman evolution on the grounds that human existence is not crucial to the maintenance of "nature's services" (Westra's quotation marks). Hence, strict zoning becomes necessary. Living in integrity, then, turns out to be "living as in a buffer" (p. 28), where our activity as human beings is very close to being, by definition, divorced from other forms of ecosystemic life.
27. Westra, An Environmental Proposal for Ethics, p. 128.
28. Ibid., p. 158.
29. Westra acknowledges this point at ibid., p. 67.
30. Ibid., 91.
31. Bruce Morito, "Holism, Interest-Identity, and Value," Journal of Value Inquiry 27 (1993): 49-62.
32. Ibid., p. 54.
33. Timothy F. Allen, Bruce L. Bandurski, and Anthony W. King, Report to the Great Lakes Science Advisory Board, "The Ecosystem Approach: Theory and Ecosystem Integrity," initial report of a multi-year project of the ecological committee, p. 9.