Indigenous worlds and Callicott's land ethic

Environmental Ethics

Volumn 22, Issue 3, 2000, Pages 273-290

  Hester, Lee ^a,e   McPherson, Dennis ^b,f   Booth, Annie ^c   Cheney, Jim ^d  

^a OKLAHOMA CITY UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b LAKEHEAD UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

^c UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN BRITISH COLUMBIA   (Canada)

^d University of Wisconsin Milwaukee at Waukesha   (United States)

^e OK Choctaw Tribal Alliance   (United States)

^f Couchiching First Nation ^*  (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 4143111524     PISSN: 01634275     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5840/enviroethics200022318     Document Type: Review

References (32)

1. J. Baird Callicott, Earth's Insights: A Survey of Ecological Ethics from the Mediterranean Basin to the Australian Outback (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), p. 186 (emphasis added).
2. Ibid., p. 12.
3. Ibid., p. 186. This passage might leave some readers wondering whether Callicott's concern is with ethical pluralism or, rather, with cultural pluralism. Other passages, and Callicott's work in general, make it clear that his concern is with ethical or moral pluralism. The ethnic conflict (or the dimension of ethnic conflict) that concerns Callicott is that which stems from differences in ethical belief. Although we trace in this paper what we take to be a widespread thread of agreement in practice at the very heart of indigenous ethical practices, we also acknowledge the ethical pluralism that is a dimension of indigenous cultural pluralism.
4. Ibid., pp. 189, 186.
5. J. Baird Callicott, "The Case Against Moral Pluralism," Environmental Ethics 12 (1990): 114-15
6. See, for example, J. Baird Callicott, "Do Deconstructive Ecology and Sociobiology Undermine Leopold's Land Ethic?" Environmental Ethics 18 (1996): 353-72.
7. Callicott, Earth's Insights, p. 192.
8. Ibid., pp. 199, 200, 206.
9. Ibid., pp. 193, 197.
10. Ibid., p. 189. This argument, it goes without saying, does not defeat the charge of imperialism. Indeed, many would argue that such "inoculation" is far more effective than military or biological assault as a strategy of imperialism. Cultural vaccination vs. spreading the smallpox virus with blankets: "It's for their own good" vs. "The only good Indian is a dead Indian."
11. Ibid., pp. 190-91.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid., pp. 191-92. The phrase "areas that we may have failed to see as important" is quoted from Val Plumwood.
14. Ibid., p. 12 (emphasis added).
15. A universalist or monolithic view such as Callicott's is unwise in any case, since it easily ignores or minimizes relevant regional, historical, and other differences.
16. On "universal consideration" in environmental ethics, see Thomas H. Birch, "Moral Considerability and Universal Consideration," Environmental Ethics 15 (1993): 313-32.
17. Carol Geddes, panel discussion by Yukon First Nations people on the topic of "What is a good way to teach children and young adults to respect the land?" Transcript in Bob Jickling, ed., A Colloquium on Environment, Ethics, and Education (Whitehorse: Yukon College, 1996), p. 46.
18. Ibid., pp. 32-33.
19. For a compelling argument for the view that the origins of pragmatism are to be found, at least in part, in the philosophical perspective of indigenous peoples of North America, see Scott L. Pratt, "Native American Thought and the Origins of Pragmatism," Ayaangwaamizin: The International Journal of Indigenous Philosophy 1 (Spring 1997): 55-80.
20. One referee makes the following comment: "[T]he authors seem to imply that Callicott has misappropriated Leopold as well as indigenous views. Arguably, Callicott imposes on Leopold a reading of him as 'environmental philosopher' when, in fact, (especially in his latest writings), he was talking about 'respect as presence.' I would be sympathetic to this view." We would indeed be pleased if the referee's suggestion about Leopold is correct.
21. It isn't that it is always and everywhere wrong to have ethical, political, economic, and scientific agendas - these, too, may have their place in life. And it isn't wrong to do science - the stories science tells also have their place.
22. Jack Turner, "Wildness and the Defense of Nature," in Turner, The Abstract Wild (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1996), p. 114. See also Thomas H. Birch, "The Incarceration of Wildness: Wilderness Areas as Prisons," Environmental Ethics 12 (1990): 3-26.
23. Jack Turner, "Wildness and the Defense of Nature," in Turner, The Abstract Wild (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1996), p. 114. See also Thomas H. Birch, "The Incarceration of Wildness: Wilderness Areas as Prisons," Environmental Ethics 12 (1990): 3-26.
24. This has been a recurring theme in the writing of Wendell Berry. See his The Unsettling of America (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1977).
25. John Rodman, "The Liberation of Nature?" Inquiry 20 (1977): 98 and 103.
26. Callicott, Earth's Insights, p. 186.
27. Ibid., p. 130.
28. Our use of the term gap in this paragraph may seem contradictory and, worse, seemingly contradicts the use of that same term in our disclaimer near the end of the authors' note, above. The careful thinker will see that this is not so. In a comment on this matter, one indigenous co-author wrote [in his White mode]: "Yep, have to remember about those darn 'contradictions.' If only people would realize that there are different phases of the world, different parts. Though it may seem unlikely that the physical world is ever contradictory, that a chair both is and isn't on the porch, say, it turns out that for things like human beings and their understanding there really are many 'contradictions.' Interestingly, because of the academic enterprise, including the need to publish, non-Indian philosophers are much more likely to say that there both is and isn't a chair while at the same time saying that their reasoning and beliefs don't contain contradictions. You see, they know they're right, but they can't get published if they say there is a chair there. Since they know that rightness consists in part of being 'rational' and rationality means 'non-contradictory' among other things, they know they must be non-contradictory. It follows from their rightness. An Indian would just sit in the chair, unless some fool philosopher said it wasn't there. Then he might be polite and refrain from sitting so as not to befuddle the philosopher. He might even think it was an interesting story, this no-chair story, but kinda silly after a long day. Actually, it is my Western philosophy training that most helps me swallow the whoppers. There are a lot of them in the literature. The problem is when they tell whoppers about things they really shouldn't. I can swallow the chair not being there and still sit in it. Unfortunately, the Western philosopher is about as likely to remain standing, not out of politeness, but out of principle. He has swallowed the biggest whopper of them all, his own 'rationality.' They seem to have forgotten the delphic imperative. They'd rather believe a fictional account of themselves. Luckily, this fictional account fits in nicely with domination and its concomitant subjugation. This is why folks like Hume are not at the forefront of Western philosophy. He told some of the truth, and it included some 'irrationality' on the part of humans. . . . So the gap, in my story at least, comes from Callicott and others swallowing the whopper of their own rationality. . . . Changing the disclaimer to something that has absolutely no tension with the [paragraph to which this note is appended] would mean we really are writing one of their stories."
29. Emory Sekaquaptewa, "Hopi Indian Ceremonies," in Walter Holden Capps, ed., Seeing with a Native Eye (New York: Harper and Row, 1976), pp. 42-43.
30. Paul Shepard, Nature and Madness (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1982), p. 123.
31. Walter Bresette, speaking at the Ecological Resistance Movements: Religion, Politics, and Ethics Conference, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 10-11 November 1995.
32. For another critique of Callicott from an indigenous perspective, see V. F. Cordova, "Eco-Indian: A Response to J. Baird Callicott," Ayaangwaamizin: The International Journal of Indigenous Philosophy 1 (Spring 1997): 31-44.